First stop: San Diego.
The original plan was to meet Shaz in San Diego. However both of our flights were delayed/diverted. My plane was diverted to a place called Ontario (in California! not Canada) where we had to sit on the plane on the tarmac for 1 hour. Shaz & I ended up meeting at Las Vegas airport where we took our connecting flight to San Diego and finally arrived at our destination at 3am!
We decided to take a day trip and cross the border to Tijuana, Mexico. After talking to some of the San Diego locals, we quickly got up to speed with the lingo - Tijuana is known as 'TJ'. Going to TJ is similar to crossing the border from Singapore to Malaysia or crossing the border from Hong Kong to Shen Zhen. TJ was touristy as expected - all the Mexican locals spoke English, all the prices were in US dollars instead of Mexican Pesos and we were heckled at virtually every store. Shaz & I had a great feed of Tacos accompanied with a Pina Colada.
I've been in Canada for 6 months now and this was my first real holiday after busy season. I decided to embrace Canadian culture by reading a book called 'How to be a Canadian'.
A pic of me reading my book in the San Deigo airport
2nd stop: Las Vegas.
Vegas was the highlight of the trip. It exceeded our expectations on so many levels. We stayed in the MGM Grand hotel, where our room was upgraded to a suite. On our first night in Vegas, we went to Studio 54 for a bit of dancing, played a few hands of black jack on the way home before retiring at 4am...only to get up 2 hours later for our day tour to the Grand Canyon.
On the way to the Grand Canyon, we saw a drive thru wedding chapel, stopped at the Hoover Dam and drove along the historic route 66. The Canyon itself was quite spectacular and greener than I expected, considering it was in the desert. Strangely enough, we also saw snow in the desert!
At the South Rim of the Grand Canyon
The partying continued when we returned to Las Vegas after a day at the Canyon. After a relaxing cocktail in our suite, we headed for the Coyote Ugly Bar (in the New York New York hotel). It was to be expected...a seedy bar with girls dancing on the bar. Later on that night, we went to the Wynn (a really nice hotel on the Las Vegas Strip) and had a few drinks at the Blush lounge. The cover charge at Blush was high enough to keep the bogans/chavs out.
3rd Stop: San Francisco.
For our final leg of the trip, it was back to Sunny California. We started our day with clam chowder served in a massive sourdough bread roll, then visited Lombard St (known as Crooked St) and took a cable car ride to Union Square, Downtown. Shaz & I met up with Devika (another Brit) where we did what girls do best...shopping! We discovered Nordstroms and all of us gave the credit card a bashing. On our second day in SF, we met up with Marion (another Brit) for lunch at Pier 39. After a few happy snaps of the sea lions, we all rented bicycles and biked across the Golden Gate Bridge and into the quaint little town of Sausalito. When we started biking, it was nice and sunny, but by the time we got to the bridge, the fog had rolled in and we could hardly even see the bridge.
Where the bloody hell is the Golden Gate bridge?
For our last supper in San Fran, we (Maz, Shaz, Dee & I - 3 Brits & 1 Aussie) had a girls dinner to celebrate Devika's birthday. We had a lovely dinner at Fishermans Wharf which was followed by some karaoke and dancing at the 'Dirty Martini' Bar. We managed to pull off a birthday surprise for Devika. When she popped off to the loo, we whipped out 4 cup cakes, lit the candles and had the DJ announce that it was her Birthday. It was brilliant! We finished the night with singing 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA.
It was a fanstastic trip...and I would go back to Vegas in a flash. Would anybody care to join me?
