Las Vegas 08 - fun time!

Beware of chicken while driving along the strip.. this is one roadkill i wouldnt wanna be responsible for...


Perhaps the best way to snap the MGM Grand Lion using a layman's camera is from within the car. Anywhere else, one would either be blocked by lamp-postss.. or it would be too huge to be captured (i dont have wide angle lens).




Nice place with live band (Mexicans going from table to table crooning). I wanted to dedicate "La Cucaracha" aka "The Cockroach song".. but they didn't come to our table :\


Some more closing pics


And this is where I end my Vegas pic show&tell.. next stop would be Japan!

Las Vegas 08 - Shopping!

Besides conference & work, we also managed to find some time during the evening for shopping!
The Las Vegas outlets are known for selling out season mechanize at a lowered price. There are few outlets within Vegas and we visited 2 of them.

Theses are some pictures of the 1st outlet we visited.


And some pictures of the 2nd outlet we visited.


Since i didn't have a requested shopping list (unlike the rest of guys who're married with brand conscious wife :P ), it meant I only had to spend on myself!!

And the spoils from the trip (one or more pieces not in picture).



We also visited Fry's Electronic, a mega stores selling medias/computers/misc parts/BB guns!/electronic components..etc


But the guys ended up buying nothing but few bottles of manas! I didn't get any, coffee works for me, and i'm too interested in finding out the effects it would have after consumption.

Las Vegas 08 - Atomic Museum

We visited the Atomic Testing Museum on the 2nd part of day 3.
It is located near the Vegas strip, just around the corner of Las Vegas University.

Nevada has been used as a test site for nuclear weapon research (now totally/mostly done underground still within Nevada), and since my peace loving country would never embark on this area of research. I thought it would be cool to learn what the US defense & research industries have done. And whats a better way than visiting the museum?


No pictures within the museum, camera not allowed and i respected that, sorry guys :\

In the same evening, we brought some friends who just landed in Vegas for dinner at a family oriented restaurant outside the strip. While driving to Red Rock Canyon in the morning, we stumbled upon Charleston Boulevard (north of the strip), and found that it has a good collections of shops and restaurants, so we decided to dine at the new found spot.


After the yummy streak dinner, we settled back to the hotel ready for the conference on the next day (I was there for work really) .

Nevada Road Trip - Red Rock Canyon State Park

Started the 3rd day with breakfast and stocking up of lots of food (lesson learnt from the trip to Valley of fire). Then we traveled to Red rock canyon, located north west from Vegas, which we took 1hr to get to.


The road to Red Rock Canyon.


The happy me, proud of the preparation jobs we've done!


Welcome to Red Rock Canyon!


And behold the great outdoors! There are hiking routes in most of the pit stops, but i was too lazy, so most of the pictures were taken near the pit stops :X


The path leads to what used to be lime rock factory.

The lime rocks.


And our wheels, a 5 seater Ford.


We rested in one of the pit stop for lunch (frozen sandwich) and water.
And this is my colleague, the driver through-out the trip, because i do not have a driving licence yet :P
Kudos to him!


Desert survival tips, bring at least 2.5 gallon of water for every person per day, shades, sunscreen, wear jeans, jungle hat ..etc



Pine tress in the desert.


Along the 13+ miles scenic drive.


Rain pouring down, supporting life of many beautiful creatures.

Nevada Road Trip - Valley of fire state park

The long boring ride to Valley of fire state park.

then finally, we arrived!


And we were greeted by an elephant (Elephant rock).


Sand and Rocks everywhere!


and Indian writings ...


Can't remember what these are ..


There are many more to see at Valley of fire along the 10 miles scenic drive (with over 10 pit stops), but i was too hungry so I wasn't motivated to hike around to snap picture. And so we finally left for Vegas around 6pm for our long-awaited lunch (Ok, turned out to be dinner time already).