Golden Gate Bridge & Half Moon Bay

Mar 8th - I managed to pass my driving test at DMV Santa Clara and obtained my California Driver's License. However, I carelessly collided James gor's car rear bumper with a wall resulting in some scatches the very next day. Fortunately, James gor still allows me to drive.

Mar 10th - We went for a movie marathon at AMC with Zhaoning and his wife. It only cost us USD6 each to watch a movie. You can choose to walk into another movie after your first, everyone does that. We watched the awesome 300 and so-so Ghost Rider. I get to exchange for a free ticket from AMC after collecting a handful of movie stubs from my colleagues, who heard from us about 300.

Mar 11th - I joined James gor in Karate (Satsuma Dojo) lessons twice a week at the Columbia Community near our home. I hope to obtain a coloured belt before leaving California. After each of my first few lessons, both of us were aching all over for the next few days.

Mar 25th - Spring has arrived, the flowers, bushes, and trees are all blooming. We went to the Golden Gate Bridge at SF and drove along the coast to Half Moon Bay where we has fish grande taco for lunch. We stopped by parks, coasts and a French Museum along the way. The day was foggy, however we still managed to a few good shots. The fog sometimes enhance the picture too. We rented many movies like Wong Fei Hong and Shawshank Redemption at Moutain View Library on the way home.

Hoover Dam

Mar 16th - We took a 45 minutes ride to Hoover Dam from Vegas. Though it was a Tuesday, there were many people at the dam and most are Americans, they do know where to go for sightseeing. After visiting the exhibition centre, we headed back towards Nevada and stopped at a rest point a little further back where we had a great view of Lake Mead. On the ride back home, I was given a chance to drive across the desert in our korean van. I drove up to a speed of 80 miles per hour (130km/h) which was the fastest I can handle, Ding usually drive an average of 80mph and up to 90mph. To make it worse, at one point, there were construction blocks along one side of my lane and the other had many large container trucks, a truck or two even went across the divider line of the 2 lane road. I had to hand the wheel over to Ding at the next exit as I, we, felt that it was too dangerous for me.

Las Vegas Strip

Mar 4th-5th - We stayed at the Imperial Palace for 2 nights which is right at the middle of Las Vegas Strip. After checking in, we immediately set off to explore the night life. We only managed to cover the 2 surrounding hotels before it was way past midnight. Though the Strip is just a stretch of road, each hotel is so huge and has its own theme and attractions that we could only cover the more fun events of some hotels before it was close to midnight on the second day. We managed to catch the famous Xtreme Magic by Dirk Authur at Tropicana, where he used rare white tigers, white lions, train engine, helicopter and beautiful ladies for his illusions. I travelled the strip myself during the second night till I felt too tired to walk. I find that it's much safer to walk in Vegas than in San Francisco. My favourite attraction is the fountain outside Bellagio, every 15mins there will be a different awesome musical display which the fountain dances beautifully to the brilliantly selected music. We checked out early the next morning and headed for Hoover Dam at the border of Arizona and Nevada.

Along the Way to Las Vegas

Mar 4th - I left for Las Vegas at the state of Nevada, with my colleague, Ding, and his family. Along the way, we saw changes to the surrounding terrains, from snowy mountains and lush greenland to the bare desert, and caught many breath-taking sceneries along the way. It took us 10 hours to reach Vegas.