Cauliflower Manchurian

Hi Friends,

I am back again with a new recipe that I tried today.  It was Cauliflower Manchurian and it turned out nicely!!  I tried this recipe from a different site this time.  It was from http://showmethecurry.com/appetizers/gobi-cauliflower-manchurian-dry.html.  I had heard about this site from a friend and thought of looking for the Manchurian recipe here since they also have video recordings of the recipe.  Luckily I found and tried it out.  Here is a snap of how it turned out :).

Cauliflower Manchurian

Ingredients:
Vegetables:
- Cauliflower (1/2), Onion (1 medium size), Garlic (3-4 cloves), Green chillies (1-2), Green onions (2)

Spices:
- Black pepper, Salt

Other:
- Oil, Water, All purpose flour (maida), corn starch (rice flour as substitute), tomato ketchup, red chilli sauce, soy sauce

Preparation:
- Chop cauliflower into bite size pieces
- Finely chop onion
- Finely chop green chillies, garlic cloves, and green onions
 

Process:
In the process, it is advised to first make the sauce and then cook the cauliflower so that way the sauce can be re-heated and then cauliflower can be mixed with the sauce right away.

1) For gravy:
- In a pan, heat oil
- Add chopped onions, garlic, and green chillies
- Saute everything until oil starts to separate and onions are slightly brown
- Add tomato ketchup (about 3-4 big spoons), red chili sauce (about 3-4 big spoons), and cook for little while
- Then add soy sauce (about 2 spoons), and mix everything
- Add little water and let it cook for while
- Add 1 spoon of corn starch for thickness to the gravy (I didn't have corn starch, so I used rice flour which worked fine)
- Let it all cook for little while and once the gravy is bit thick, switch off the heat.

2) For cauliflower
- In a separate utensil, mix all purpose flour, corn starch (1 spoon), black pepper, and salt
- Add water in it and keep mixing everything to make it a batter (not too thick and not too thin) and make sure there are no lumps in it
- In a separate pan, heat oil to deep fry the cauliflower
- Once the oil is hot, dip the bite size cauliflower pieces into the batter and fry them into the oil
- Once the cauliflower turns slightly brown, you can take them out and keep them aside

3) Mix
- Re-heat the sauce and add the cooked cauliflower pieces
- Mix it with the sauce properly so that each cauliflower piece is coated with the sauce
- Garnish with green onions

This recipe was bit time consuming and hectic since it involved frying the cauliflower which took most of the time.  I had help from my mom who did the frying while I was making the sauce.  I had always wanted to try this recipe out and I finally did, so it certainly feels like mission accomplished :)...hehe.  Hope you enjoy the dish if you decide to make it.

Have a great week ahead :).  See ya!!

Partition Wizard

Hey Friends,

Recently I got a good deal on an external hard drive during Thanksgiving Black Friday sale.  I got a 2TB Seagate backup plus desktop drive (external hard drive) which was on sale for $79.99 at Staples.  The drive is formatted in NTFS but it can also connect to MAC, at least that's what it says in the description of the drive.  Another purpose to buy this drive was to be used by my brother with his PS3.  Unfortunately, PS3 only recognizes FAT32 drive, so if he wants to use the new external drive, he would have to format it to FAT32.  The good news is that I found out that I don't have to format the entire drive to FAT32.  I can create partitions in the drive to have half of it served as NTFS and the other half can be FAT32.

Now, the disk management program of windows only lets you format in NTFS and not FAT32.  So I had to find another way to do that.  Thanks to one of my colleagues who introduced me to Partition Wizard software.  Partition Wizard provides with a free Home Edition version that can be downloaded from their site http://www.partitionwizard.com/.  It took just few minutes to be downloaded and installed and using it was very easy as well.

In order to keep NTFS and create FAT32, I had to first re-size the current partition to half of the original size.  Once the re-size was done, I applied the changes.  When you re-size the partition, it leaves unallocated space on the drive which can be used to create new partitions.  Next, I created a new FAT32 partition using the unallocated space of the drive.  And done!! It took less than 30 seconds to perform both the operations!!  To test the newly created partition, I copied one video over to it.  If you want to use the drive for PS3, you have to create the folders in this partition how they are created in PS3, for example, create a folder named VIDEO (that contains your movies), MUSIC (that contains your music), etc.  My brother connected the drive to his PS3 and his PS3 recognized the drive and listed the movies under the video category!!! Yay!! Partition Wizard worked like a charm and solved our PS3 problem with new drive in minutes :).

Hope this helps you!!

Windows 7 - Preparing your desktop problem

Hey Friends,

I came across this problem "Preparing your desktop" on my Windows 7 desktop about a month and half ago.  It was annoying and of course it gives you a shock for a second because your personal user profile is not loaded so you don't see any of your desktop settings or your documents where they should be.  What happens is that when you log in, a temporary profile is created due to some problem with user's original profile, so that's why you don't see any of your settings.

I searched around on Google and it seems that other people with Windows 7 have experienced a similar problem and some have been able to resolve it easily and some have had hard time fixing it at all.  I was one of the users who have had hard time fixing it!!  You don't loose any of your data, and it's still intact in the user's folder (C://users/Admin, for example), but the temporary profile creates a temporary folder each time you log in such as TEMP or TEMP.COMPNAME, etc.

In order to get rid of this temporary profile, here is the first thing you should try.
1. Shutdown your PC and start it in SAFE MODE (press F8 couple of times when the computer starts)
2. Login to your Admin account (or whatever account is affected)
3. Go to C://users/ and remove any temporary folders that starts with TEMP
4. Now you will also have to update the the registry entry, so for that, you will need to follow the steps below:
     - Start -> search for regedit
     - Select the regedit program from the list
     - Select My Computer -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft ->
        Windows NT -> Current Version -> ProfileList
     - This lists profiles of all the users listed on your computer
     - Since your computer created the temporary profile, you should see a profile that ends with .bak
     -  That is the correct user profile!!! Because the temporary profile was loaded, the correct and original profile was listed with .bak extension and the temporary profile would have the same number as the original one, but without any .bak extension
     - If you click on the .bak profile, you will see that the ProfileImagePath points to your correct Admin user folder and the other profile points to the temporary folder
     - What you want to do now is, rename the temporary profile by adding a "_new" extension at the end.
     - And rename the correct profile by removing the ".bak" extension from the profile name!!
5. Once the registry changes are made, shutdown the computer and restart as normal
6. Login as Admin (or whatever user that was creating the temporary profile) and check if the problem still exists or not.
7. If you are successfully able to log in, try logging in couple of times because I have had this happened to me where it will work the first time but fail the consecutive times.
8. If you are still getting the temporary profile (aka Preparing your desktop), then it means that your user profile is corrupted.

Here is a second approach to correct the user profile if the first approach above didn't work.  You will have to remove the current user profile from registry and remove the user folder (after backing it up or renaming the current one) along with any temp user profiles and temp folders in order to create a new user profile fresh.  To do this, you need to have another account that has Admin privileges so it can remove the registry entry and rename/remove the troubling folder (Again, after backing it up!! Don't just remove the folder, first back it up completely, or  rename the folder so it's there at least!!).  To remove the registry, you need to go into the regedit same way as described above, remove any user profiles that point to the TEMP folders and mainly remove the user profile that points to the correct user folder.

After you remove the folders (TEMP and the user folder, for example Admin), restart your computer and log in as Admin (or as the user which has problem).  This time you will see "Preparing your desktop" since there is profile to start with.  Once it does that, you can easily copy all your stuff back to the newly created Admin folder under C://users/ and use the computer how you used to before :).

I have tried to explain this problem as much as possible, but if you have any questions, I will try to help you out based on what I had experienced.  Hope you never get this error, because it's a pain, but you never know who runs into it!!

Pasta - desi style

After I made Chilli Paneer, we had some pasta and pasta sauce at home, so I gave it a try at making desi (Indian) style pasta with same kind of recipe I made for Chilli Paneer.  What this means is that I used the same recipe of Chilli Paneer with few variations and additions.  First thing first, look how delicious the pasta turned out to be :D.

Pasta - Indian style

Ingredients:
Vegetables:
1 Green/Red/Yellow bell peppers (these are to add color to your dish, you don't need all 3 of them, I just used green and yellow in my dish), Onions (2-3 medium or 1 to 1.5 big), Green onions (2-3 pieces), Cilantro, Green chillies (1 big one or 2 small)

Spices:
Red chilli powder, Coriander powder, Chilli sauce (Yeo's, but you can get any chilli sauce), Soy sauce (Kikoman, again, you can get any soy sauce), Pasta sauce (any pasta sauce would do, but I got the sauce with roasted garlic and herb flavor), Ginger garlic paste (in my case, garlic paste), Cumin seeds

Other:
Oil, Water, Paneer (250 grams), Pasta (Penne Regate Macroni)

Preparation:
- Cut paneer into cubes
- Cut green/red/yellow bell peppers into cubes
- Cut 1 medium sized onion into cubes
- Finely chop onion (1/2 to 1 medium)
- Chop green chillies (1 big one)
- Finely chop cilantro
- Finely chop green onions

Process:
Pasta:
- In a separate utensil, boil water
- Once the water is boiled, add pasta
- Once the pasta is cooked, remove the water from it and keep the pasta aside

Paneer:
- In a nonstick pan, heat oil
- Fry/cook paneer on medium heat until they turn light brown
- Keep cooked paneer on side

Main gravy:
- In a nonstick pan, add 3-4 spoons of oil
- Add cumin seeds and let it warm up
- Add chopped garlic & finely chopped onions and saute them
- Add 1 spoon of garlic paste and mix it well
- Cook everything until the raw flavor of garlic paste is gone
- Add green chillies, coriander powder (1spoon), and red chilli powder (1 spoon) and mix everything well
- Let the mixture cook for a minute or so.
- Add 3 spoons of chilli sauce and 3 spoons of soy sauce and mix everything well
- Once the oil starts to separate and the gravy is bit thick, add about 1/2 glass water (you can add more water if you want Chilli Paneer to have little bit of gravy, but add little at a time instead of pouring it all in at once)
- Add pasta sauce to this.  Now, I added about half a bottle of pasta sauce since I was going to add pasta in this at the end so needed a lot of gray for it.
- Once the gravy is cooked properly, add cube onions, green/red/yellow bell peppers, and mix everything with the gravy
- Add salt (to taste) to the gravy
- After letting the onions, and bell peppers cook for about 5-7 minutes, add cooked paneer to this
- Taste the gravy and add anything that feels like missing
- Add your cooked pasta in this mixture and mix it well with everything and let it cook for about 4-5 minutes
- Finally add chopped green onions, and cilantro and turn off the heat and let it sit on stove for few minutes
- And it's  ready to serve!!!!!

Since I made the chilli paneer 2 days ago, I knew exactly what was needed to make the gravy and I made this pasta so quickly that it took me just half an hour to make it instead of 1 hour.  The pasta was spicy but also super delicious that we all over ate it I think :P...haha.  Give it a try and let me know how it turns out for you.

Until then, take care!!

Chilli Paneer

Friends,
I am back with another delicious recipe.  It is none other than Chilli Paneer.  I got the recipe from http://www.vahrehvah.com/Chilli+Paneer:4397 but I changed it around and didn't follow exactly as the Vah chef had done it.  What I love about vahrevah.com is that it contains recipes with videos.  I am more of a visual person and once I see it, it helps me make it better when I am cooking to see if the vegetables are cooked properly or if the gravy is turning out how it should be, etc.  Anyways, here is my take on the recipe but before I do that, I have got to show you how the Chilli Paneer turned out :).  It was so delicious!!!

Chilli Paneer

Ingredients:
Vegetables:
1 Green/Red/Yellow bell peppers (these are to add color to your dish, you don't need all 3 of them, I just used green and yellow in my dish), Onions (2-3 medium or 1 to 1.5 big), Green onions (2-3 pieces), Cilantro, Green chillies (1 big one or 2 small), Garlic (2-3 branches)

Spices:
Red chilli powder, Coriander powder, Chilli sauce (Yeo's, but you can get any chilli sauce), Soy sauce (Kikoman, again, you can get any soy sauce), Ginger garlic paste (in my case, garlic paste), Cumin seeds

Other:
Oil, Water, Paneer (250 grams)

Preparation:
- Cut paneer into cubes
- Cut green/red/yellow bell peppers into cubes
- Cut 1 medium sized onion into cubes
- Finely chop garlic & onion (1/2 to 1 medium)
- Chop green chillies (1 big one)
- Finely chop cilantro and curry leaves (optional)
- Finely chop green onions

Process:
Paneer:
- In a nonstick pan, heat oil
- Fry/cook paneer on medium heat until they turn light brown
- Keep cooked paneer on side

Main gravy:
- In a nonstick pan, add 3-4 spoons of oil
- Add cumin seeds and let it warm up
- Add chopped garlic & finely chopped onions and saute them
- Add 1 spoon of garlic paste and mix it well
- Cook everything until the raw flavor of garlic paste is gone
- Add green chillies, coriander powder (1spoon), and red chilli powder (1 spoon) and mix everything well
- Let the mixture cook for a minute or so.
- Add 3 spoons of chilli sauce and 3 spoons of soy sauce and mix everything well
- Once the oil starts to separate and the gravy is bit thick, add about 1/2 glass water (you can add more water if you want Chilli Paneer to have little bit of gravy, but add little at a time instead of pouring it all in at once)
- Once the gravy is cooked properly, add cube onions, green/red/yellow bell peppers, and mix everything with the gravy
- Add salt (to taste) to the gravy
- After letting the onions, and bell peppers cook for about 5-7 minutes, add cooked paneer to this
- If the gray feels little dry, add little more water and also taste the gravy and add anything that feels like missing
- Finally add chopped green onions, and cilantro and turn off the heat and let it sit on stove for few minutes
- I had forgotten to do this in my dish, but you can also add lime juice to the dish if you want
- And it's  ready to serve!!!!!

I tell you, this was actually not that hard to make at all and it was prepared in an hour as well from preparing everything to cooking it :).  I was really happy with the outcome and so was my family!!!

After I tried this dish, I cooked pasta desi style (similar to described above) and it turned out to be super delicious and mouth watering...but I will brag about it in the next post when I share the recipe with you guys. 

Until then, happy cooking!!

Mutter Paneer

Alright friends....I am back with the cooking recipe!! I know, I know, I had said in my last post that I will post the Mutter Paneer recipe soon, but that was like over a month ago and I had been busy so couldn't post it.  But now here it is!!  I got the recipe from http://www.vahrehvah.com/Mattar+paneer:3257 where they also provided video of how to make it, which always helps!!  I made the mutter paneer almost similar to how it was shown in the video with minor changes.  Before I go on to the recipe, here is the picture of the Mutter Paneer that I made :).

Mutter Paneer

Ingredients:
Vegetables:
Tomatoes (3-4 medium sized), Onion (1/2 big one or 1 small), Green Chillies (1 to 2 jalapenos), Cilantro, Green Peas (1 cup)

Spices:
Red chili powder, Coriander powder, Cumin powder, Turmeric, Salt, Garam masala (whole garam masala if you have them), Cumin Seeds, Sugar (if needed), ginger garlic paste (I had garlic paste and shredded ginger)

Other:
Paneer, Cooking oil, Cashew nuts (6-8 pieces broken), Cream/Yogurt (optional), Kasturi methi (I didn't use it)

Preparation:
- Chop onions, tomatoes, cilantro, and green chillies
- Shred Ginger
- Boil green peas (to be used later in the recipe)
- Cut Paneer into cubes
- Cook Paneer in a separate pan (with oil or butter) and keep them aside for later use

Process:
For Gravy:
1) In a pan, add oil and add broken cashew nuts and saute them
2) Once they become light brown, add chopped onions and add little bit of salt
3) Cook onions until they are slightly brown in color
4) Once they are slightly brown, add turmeric, ginger garlic paste (or in my case, garlic paste & shredded ginger) and mix it all up
5) Once the ginger garlic paste leaves the raw flavor, add chopped tomatoes and mix everything well.
6) Let it all cook for few minutes until tomatoes are slightly soft
7) Once everything is cooked, blend the mixture and make a paste out of it (gravy) and keep it aside.
8) Let the mixture cool off

Main:
1) In a separate pan, add oil and cumin seeds (and whole garam masala if you have them)
2) Saute the cumin seeds and then add the blended puree
3) Add some water (depends on how much gravy you want, but usually 1 - 2 cups)
4) Add chopped green chillies
5) Add coriander powder, cumin powder, and red chilli powder (according to taste)
6) Bring the mixture to boil (let it boil for 15 minutes on medium heat)
7) If you have Kasturi methi, this is the step where you add it in the gravy
8) When the gravy is kind of thick, add green peas and garam masala powder (if you didn't use the whole garam masala at the beginning of the recipe)
9) At this point, taste the gravy and if you feel it's bit sour due to the tomatoes or whatever, you can add little bit of sugar so that it will take away the sourness in the gravy.
10) Let it cook for another 5 minutes
11) Add the cooked paneer to the gravy and simmer it for few minutes
12) Turn of the heat and add chopped cilantro
13) Let it sit on the stove for few minutes and then serve!!

This took me about 2 hours to make it from preparation to the final touches of cilantro and the good thing is that it turned out great!!  I will definitely try this recipe again!  One thing that I tried for first time in this recipe is the gravy process.  Normally what I do is make the puree of tomatoes, onions and green chillies and then cook that with the spices, but this time I followed the video and cooked the tomatoes, onions, salt, turmeric, cumin seeds, and garlic paste and then made the puree out of it.  I don't know what difference it made, but I guess the tomatoes, onions, and mainly garlic paste were properly cooked before making its paste so the mixture has good taste.  Anyways, it was a different approach and it worked...so no complains :).

Hope you have fun making mutter paneer just as much as I did!!!

Las Vegas & California Trip - Part 7 (Heading back home)

From a great time in Vegas and California, it was time to go back home.  It's so true, whoever has said this that "time flies when you are having fun" .... and that's exactly what had  happened.  I didn't even realize where my week went by :).

We got up at 6 am and got ready by 6:30 am.  We headed to the lobby of Travelodge to get some breakfast before we start the long drive.  I checked out of the hotel, we wrapped up everything and then started the drive around 7 am.  The drive was not bad and we kept it steady.  This time, we only stopped twice in between, once for restroom break and then for lunch break.  After that my dad drove all the way to Colorado with no stops which was around 300 miles or so.  I don't know how he does it but I don't think I will be able to drive straight like that.

On the way to home, we encountered some beautiful scenery and fall colors!!  Check it out!!

We finally got home around 8 pm and it was great to be back home!!! Home Sweet Home :).  One thing is for sure....no matter wherever you go, for however long you go, there is nothing like home!!

Well, with this post, I conclude my marathon of vacation-posts and hope you enjoy each one of them as much as I enjoyed writing them.  I don't think I am going on another vacation any time soon...so until then, I will find something else to write about and to entertain you with.  I have started back the cooking experiments and already had a successful run at making Mutter Paneer, so I will be posting the recipe soon.

Have a nice day, everyone!!

Travelodge Las Vegas Hotel (next to Circus Circus)

I had booked Bally's hotel for my 2 night stay and since we had to stay another night at Vegas on Friday, coming back from LA, I booked Travelodge hotel (next to circus circus) which had reasonable charge for a Friday night stay ($80/night w/ tax) unlike other hotels which were super expensive.  I had seen some reviews online and based on that decided on this hotel since there weren't that many options for me and plus we just needed the place to stay the night since the next morning we were going to head out earlier.  Anyways, with that here goes my review!

Room & Lobby:
We pulled into the parking lot of the Travelodge hotel and the lobby is right there at the entrance (we missed it actually and went inside a bit before finding out that it was right at the entrance).  We walked to the lobby...or should I say lobby "slash" breakfast area.  It was very small and I can see it get crowded instantly if 4 or more people came to check in at the same time.  The check in was quick and I requested for a room on the main floor which ended up being a room at the very back of the hotel, but that's ok since we had a car and weren't going to walk to that room anyways!!

We got to the room and there was a big surprise!! The size of the room was much much smaller than what we had expected and also smaller from what I had seen in the pictures of the hotel.  This was basically 1/3rd size of the Bally's room and not suitable for 4 people.  There was hardly any room to walk around and 4 of us kept running into each other while trying to get around bed or while going to the bathroom.  My mom was a bit disappointed seeing the room, and honestly, I was disappointed too!  After staying at Bally's spacious room, who would want to stay here!!  Well, I managed to convince myself and my parents that we are just staying here for one night and leaving early next morning, so we can adjust for a short time..(I guess).  We checked the bedsheets and both the beds had some stains on the sheets so we called the front desk and they sent someone out right away.  Also the table lamp bulb wasn't working so that was fixed too.  Apart from this, the bathroom was very small as well and the stand-up shower wasn't that spacious either :(.  The bathroom window wasn't closing properly and since we were on the first floor, I wasn't comfortable leaving it that way, so we called the front desk again and got it closed properly and told the maintenance guy to just lock it completely since we didn't want it open.

Maintenance & Customer Service:
Their staff was friendly and customer service was quick.  Our check-in and check-out was quick as well.  We needed to have our bed sheets changed along with the lamp bulb, so the maintenance lady came pretty fast within 5-10 minutes.  No complaints there.

Breakfast:
Travelodge does provide a morning complimentary breakfast but it doesn't have much to offer.  It had bagels, bread, grape jelly, cream cheese, hot water, tea bags, muffins (I think), and I can't really remember anything else.

Personally, I don't think I would want to stay here again.  There are 2 reasons for it: 1) This hotel is kind of away from the middle of the strip which makes it hard to get to some of the hotels and 2) it wasn't that great stay that I would just come back and stay here.  I would rather pay little more and go somewhere else.  Well, that's my 2 cents!

Las Vegas & California Trip - Part 6

Today was the day when we were leaving LA and heading back to the sin city, Las Vegas :).  I was really excited to go back to Vegas and gamble some more since Vegas was the first place where I actually won some money in gambling!!  Anyways....we packed up and got ready by 10 or so and had really nice lunch around 10:30 or so.  We said goodbyes to my aunt and her friend's family and left for Las Vegas around 11 am.  The weather was hot and the drive wasn't so bad.  We got to Vegas in 4.5 hours.  For a Friday night stay, I had booked Travelodge hotel (next to circus circus) for our stay since all the other hotels were pretty expensive since it was a Friday night.  Before we checked into our hotel, I wanted to stop by the famous "Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas" sign since I had heard so much about it.  I asked about 2 to 3 people on where that sign is located and they just said that it's right across from Mandalay Bay hotel.....well....it's NOT!!! In fact, it's not even in the walking distance from Mandalay bay.  If you are going south on las vegas blvd., you will pass a street called Russel street and then stay on the left most lane and keep your eyes open for the sign and you should be able to see it clear!!  Great thing is that they have decent size parking area for people to park their cars and then take pics by the sign.

Las Vegas sign on Las Vegas Blvd.

We clicked few pictures near the sign and then headed towards the hotel.  Before getting to the hotel, we stopped by a shell gas station to fill up the gas so that we don't have to worry about it in the morning when we drive back home.  Even though Travelodge would have been less than 2 miles away, we got stuck in traffic on las vegas blvd. for about an hour :(....it wasn't fun at all...but the traffic seemed to be cleared up after Treasure Island hotel.  We checked in and got to our room.  Well, the room wasn't as we had expected, but more on that later in my separate post on Travelodge...because I have a lot more to say for that!!  Anyways, we freshened up and then wanted to get something to eat, so my brother and I drove to a Pizza Hut about 1 to 2 miles from the hotel which was right at the intersection of Sahara ave. and Richfield blvd.  We brought it back to the room and ate it together.  After dinner, we walked to the circus circus hotel.  The walk is very short and it's convenient since you don't have to drive your car there.  I feel that this hotel is kind of away from all the action happening in Vegas.  I don't think I would book a hotel in this side of the las vegas blvd. just because there isn't much happening here and it would be a loooong walk to get to any of the big name hotels like Bellagio, or Caesars Palace, Venetian, and many more.

Circus Circus Act

We went straight to the Midway on 2nd floor to see the circus circus acts that were happening every half an hour.  I saw 2 performances and they were both pretty amazing and the performers were from all over the world.  Here is a sneak peak at what we experienced.

We looked around couple of games on the Midway and then headed downstairs to the casino.  My brother found an electric roulette table which was operated by computer so we sat on it to see how it worked for few minutes.  My parents went back to the hotel while we decided to sit and play at the table.

A very important tip for you all first timers, don't get carried away or don't get addicted with any of these games.  You need to stop at some point and get up to make sure that you come out of it happy!! My luck apparently wasn't working tonight since I was loosing.  That wasn't how it was initially...because I won some good amount of money, but then I kept playing and playing and lost all the winning money plus some of my own which I couldn't recover...but then I decided to put a stop right there and not lose any more of my money :).  So, that was a good choice!  Unlike me, my brother had a good luck and he won few $$ which he was happy about.  We both headed back to the hotel to get good sleep before next morning's long drive back to home :).  We called it a night at around 1 am, hoping to wake up early next morning.

Well, before I brief you on my last vacation day, I will post the Travelodge Las Vegas hotel review first...so stay tuned!

Las Vegas & California Trip - DisneyLand

DisneyLand

 After a fun filled day at the Universal Studios, this was going to be another adventurous day at the Disneyland!!  Unlike Universal, disneyland was at least 1 hour drive (that is without traffic).  We kind of made an estimate based on the previous day and thought it would be ok to leave home around 8:15 am but it wasn't very helpful.  Once we got on the Hwy 101, it was chaos!! The scene was completely different from the day before when we had gone to Universal Studios on the same highway.  The traffic was out of control and I kind of assumed that we are not getting to Disney anytime soon.  The 1 hour drive ended up being 2 hour drive :(.  We reached the toy story parking lot around 10:15 am.  The park had already opened at 10 am, and when we pulled into the park, it was hard to find the parking spot which indicated a crowded day indeed!!  The toy story parking lot has buses coming and going which makes the line moving at a steady speed.  We got to the park in less than 5 minutes and while my brother headed to buy the park tickets, I went to rent the electric scooter.  Even though we were half an hour late since the park opened, we were lucky to get the electric scooter with no problem.  In fact, there were at least 10-12 electric scooters parked and available for rent even after the park had been opened for half an hour.  The good thing about Disneyland is that the scooter rental is outside the park and not inside, so you can rent it even without having Disney tickets.  Anyways, without further delay, we went inside Disney to start the day at Disneyland...yay!

Jungle Cruise boat-ride

I wanted to first go to Indiana Jones Ride, but it turns out that the ride has been closed long ago, many months ago.  So, the next stop was Jungle Cruise ride, but apparently that ride was closed until noon so we had to come back after noon.  Anywaaaays....we move on to the Pirates of the Caribbean Ride.  Thankfully, this ride was fully functional and open to public...phew!!!  This is a boat ride and Disney has re-created the atmosphere and environment similar to Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  It's a nice ride.Next we head to the Haunted Mansion.  Note, this is not scary ride at all!! In fact, it's very creative how they have done it and you will enjoy it.  It was already noon after finishing these 2 rides, so we went back to Jungle Cruise where they had opened up the ride.  This is a fun river-boat ride where you will encounter several animals....pretty interesting.

It's a small world

After covering the rides in Adventure land and New Orleans Square, we headed to Frontier land to check out the Big thunder mountain railroad.  This is a train ride...it's fast and it has some drops (not that deep) that will make your tummy tickle :).  I think my parents liked it but they wouldn't want to go on it again.  It was already past noon and we were hungry, so sat down to have nice lunch and relax a bit.  After the lunch, my brother went to get fast passes for Space mountain while my parents and I went to Fantasy land to see It's a small world.  Obviously, it took me so much convincing to take my brother onto this ride the first time, I didn't want to force him to come the 2nd time...in fact he refused instantly as I said that we are going to the It's small world ride....haha.  Well, I enjoy this ride and find it cute and thought my parents will like it too, so took them on this ride.  And they enjoyed it.  Here are some snippets of the ride...aren't they cute??

It's a small world

It's a small world

I think everyone should get on this ride at least once and see it for themselves how beautifully Disney has created the interior for this ride.  After this ride, my brother and I went to Matterhorn Bobsleds.  This is one ride which I wasn't very excited about after I got off....it's very fast and it's got a lot of turbulence.  I don't think I will be going on this ride again.  After this ride, we headed to the Tomorrow land to check out some rides there.  We first went to the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.  This is fun ride but the only disappointment is that you don't know what you are shooting at.  Your target shows up in front of you but you don't know if the laser on the target is your or someone else's.  Anyways, go on it once and you will know yourself what I mean.  It was already time for our fast pass, so my brother and I went to the  Space Mountain ride.  I remember this ride from Orlando and being disappointed by it because it wasn't as cool as the one in Disneyland....and I was so right!! Disneyland has the best Space mountain ride ever!! It is fast, and it's got a lot of sudden drops and best of all it's a smooth ride unlike the one in Orlando.  So don't miss this ride if you like roller coaster type rides.

Disneyland Parade

From space mountain, we went to Star Tours 3D ride which was just next door.  This is a 3D simulation ride like Simpsons ride (from Universal studios) but not as great as Simpsons but definitely better than the star tours in Orlando's Hollywood Studios.  We still had good time on hands, so my parents and I went back to the Fantasy land to try out some of the kiddie rides :).  First, we went to the Alice in wonderland, followed by Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and then next door to Peter Pan's Flight.  It was actually fun to get on these kid's rides.  Finally, we headed back to the Tomorrow land because my brother had gotten another space mountain fast pass, so enjoyed the ride again.  There was still time before the parade, maybe 2 hours, so I took my parents to one last stop which was the Tiki Room.  I don't think they really liked it that much...but we kind of got out before it ended.  There was another reason for that...my brother had called to tell us to hurry up because he had saved a spot for us for the parade and it was getting pretty crowded an hour before the parade, so we decided to ditch Tiki room and head to the parade spot.  This is the first time that I have seen the parade at night.  It was different since you get to see the parade in colorful lights, but before the parade started, an Australian dance group presented a dance to give a head start to the parade :).  Check out some parade pics to see how great it was :D.

After the parade ended, we headed straight to the toy story bus stop and luckily we got on the bus in maybe 10 minutes and got to the toy story parking lot.  From there, straight back to my aunt's place.  It was about 9:30 pm by the time we got home and had a really nice dinner.  Next day, we were going to leave from LA and heading back to Vegas.  It was great day but bit tiring so I called it a night earlier and went to bed by 10:30 pm.

Stay tuned for some more Vegas fun coming up....see ya :).

Las Vegas & California Trip - Universal Studios Hollywood

Universal Studios Entrance

Since summer had already passed and now the park wouldn't be too crowded, Universal Studio hours were not that long.  The hours were from 10 am to 6 pm which is still sufficient to cover the entire park and plus it gave us good time in the morning to get ready instead of rushing to come to the park.  The Universal Studios was only supposed to be like 20-25 minutes from my aunt's place but we were warned that we should give double time in traffice if we want to get there before 10.  In fact, we wanted to get there much before 10 so that we can be ahead in the line.  Luckily, we got to the park in like 20-25 mins and there wasn't much crowd either around 9:25 am.  We headed straight to the line (since we already had passes) and they opened the gates 10 minutes before 10.  We were the first customer at the stroller/wheelchair rental, so we picked up the electric scooter for my dad (paperwork was quick too) and then headed straight to the Simpson's ride first!!  My brother and I went on this ride in Universal Studios Orlando and we loved it, so we wanted to take my parents on this ride as well.  This is a simulation ride and I think there is nothing to be scared about, so I think everyone will really enjoy it!! I still feel this is one of the best simulation rides Universal has created.

Set from War of the Worlds (On Studio Tour)

After Simpson's ride, we headed for the Studio tour.  Since my dad had the scooter, we had to wait in a separate line and they made us sit in the first compartment of the tram.  For those of you who haven't been on this tour, if you want to get good view of some of the sites, sit on the 3rd or 4th compartment.  Sometimes, I felt that the view wasn't that great in the first compartment.  This is the 3rd time I have visited Universal in LA, and what was different was the 3D King Kong adventure in the studio tour.  It was amazing!! You actually feel part of the King Kong movie!!  So don't miss the Studio tour if you want to experience this.

After the Studio tour, it was time for Special Effects Stages show.  Remember that this is a timed show and they have fixed timings throughout the day, so plan your day accordingly so you can cover all the shows.  This show was completely different from the last time when I visited in 2007.  Before they used to have entry every half an hour but now they have timings, and before the show used to take place in 3 different rooms where they show you how they build the sound, special effects, and something else...but it used to be in 3 different rooms.  Now, they have everything in one big auditorium like room so you don't have to go from room to room.  Anyways, even this was a lot of fun and very entertaining.  Note, if you want to participate and be part of the show, get in the line for the show much before the start time because they choose volunteers ahead of time to make them part of the show.

Set of Water World Show

After this, our next stop was the Water World show.  This is the best show at Universal Studios.  It has comedy and action combined.  Note that this show has very limited viewing in the day, maybe 2 or 3 shows only, so catch the first one if possible as it tends to get crowded towards the end of the day.  Also, arrive at least 20-25 minutes early to get a head start on the line because this show has packed crowd.  Even if you can't catch the first show, just make sure to catch at least one of the timings .....trust me...you don't want to miss seeing this one!!!  It has some great water stunts by the actors as well.  Ohh...and if you don't want to get wet....DO NOT sit in the splash zone, because the actors purposely throw buckets of water in the splash zone!!  I was not sitting in the splash zone but it was fun to see others getting wet :P.

Transformers 3D Ride - Amazing!!

It was about 1:30 pm by the time we got out and we were hungry, so we decided to take a break and have lunch.  We had a quick bite and then the next show we caught was Terminator 2 3D show.  Unfortunately we got there late for 2 pm show, so we had to wait until 2:20 to get in.  This show runs continuously every 25-30 minutes.  Please be aware that this is the loudest show ever!! But if you haven't seen it before, it's worth watching once (however I have seen it every time I have come to Universal :P....haha)!!  Next, we decided to go on the lower level and check out the new Transformers 3D Ride.  This was another new ride which we had not been on.  If you have been to Islands of Adventure in Orlando, then this ride comes in the same category as the Spiderman 3D ride, but I thought this was much better.  It's a 3D simulation ride which does not stay in one place like Simpson's ride...but the ride actually moves...which makes it a lot of fun.  My parents really liked it.  For those who have wheelchairs and scooters, in order to go to the lower level, we had to take a shuttle van since it's not possible to go on escalator with either of the vehicles.  This kind of took time for us to get to the ride because we had to wait for the van and then again coming back, same thing.

After coming back from the lower level, we went straight to the Shrek 4-D Show.  This is another one of my favorite show because it's 4-D and it's fun!! Instantly from the beginning of the show, you feel part of it when the chairs move you like if you are sitting in a horse carriage....you get water on you when the donkey sneezes and bunch of other effects!!  Don't miss it!  This show also runs continuously, so you can catch it anytime in between your other shows.  The last on the agenda for today was to cover the Universal's Animal Actors.  This show contains bunch of animal actors from famous movies and it's cute :).  Kids would love it and adults would enjoy it too.  With that, our day is wrapped up at Universal Studios Hollywood!! It was not tiring at all and we covered all the things we wanted to.  We did not go on the Jurassic park ride or the Return of the Mummy ride because my brother and I had been to both rides before and it wasn't something that our parents wanted to do...so we skipped it.  But ....if you haven't been on these rides and don't have fear of fast ride or deep falls, then don't miss them!!  Especially Jurassic Park ride has a 35 feet fall at the end but it's pretty smooth so you don't feel much....and you get wet!!  But don't worry about getting wet because it's so hot there that you will dry up by the time you come back to the upper lot.

Alright folks, next post will be on the day at DisneyLand.  Until then, have a great time!!

Las Vegas & California Trip - Part 5

.....Continuing from my previous post (Las Vegas & California Trip - Part 4)

Today was going to be a bit relaxing since we didn't have anything planned in the morning and we were leaving Vegas :(.  Morning was pretty relaxing with getting up and getting ready.  I returned the electric scooter while everyone else was getting ready.  It was quick...I just had to drop it off and one of the bellman took it from me.  We all went downstairs and I checked out which was also quick within 10 minutes.  We got our car from valet parking and then off to LA around 10 am.

The drive was not so bad from Vegas to LA, but it was getting hot in the afternoon with high temperatures.  We reached LA within 4 and half hours, so it didn't seem much of a long drive.  We went to my aunt's place and it was great to see her after 3 years.  She welcomed us all and we relaxed for a bit.  After freshening up, we sat down to have lunch because I was really hungry.  It was a good day not to do anything since we were all still tired from the vegas adventure.

Btw, this week of Sept. 23rd was the week of Ganesh Chaturthi festival and my aunt told us that LA's hindu temple celebrates it big time.  It's a 9 day long festival, I think, and the devotees do puja every day and they have dinner (prasad) afterwards.  So we decided to join the celebration that night and enjoy the festival with everyone.  It was indeed magnificent!! They had decorated Ganpati's murti(sculpture) so beautifully that you don't want to take your eyes off of it.  There was aarti followed by dinner and delicious sweets (my favorite - Jalebies!!!).  I think I filled my tummy by just eating Jalebis only!!  I love them...Jalebi is the best sweet ever...no doubt!!  I was so distracted by jalebis that I don't even remember what else was in the dinner :P...haha.  Anyways, after coming back from the temple, we made a quick stop at a gas station to fill up gas and then headed back to my aunt's place.

Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow was going to involve some good adventure as were were going to Universal Studios and DisneyLand.  Both the days will be fun!!

Note:  We did  not buy Universal tickets online, so we were planning to buy them at the gate anyways.  But my aunt told me that the local (California) costco have good deals sometimes for these kinds of tickets.  Upon inquiring, we found out that they were giving Universal tickets even cheaper than advertised online, so we got the annual passes of Universal Studios for $69/person instead of $80 (as advertised online).  So, if you know someone in LA who has the costco membership, plan to buy the passes from there to save some $$.

Anyways, stay tuned for the next post on Universal Studios Hollywood!!

Bally's Las Vegas Hotel

Accommodation was the first thing I started searching when I was looking into Las Vegas vacation.  It was hard to decide because there were so many options to start with and to decide which one would be good...it's not that easy.  For someone who has been to Vegas once has a pretty good idea on what to expect as opposed to someone who is going for the first time.  I had started looking into hotels from 2 and half months before since someone had told me that the prices go up from 2nd week of July, which was so true.  Couple of sites that I visited to check out the hotels and their prices was www.vegas.com and www.visitlasvegas.com.  Looking at overall hotels list, I shortlisted couple of hotels which were Flamingo, Imperial Palace, and Bally's.  After reading the reviews of all 3 of the hotels, I picked Bally's since that one had less negative reviews and plus the location of Bally's was excellent!!  Even though Bally's had negative reviews such as that their self-parking is too far, their check-in/check-out lines are too long and takes forever, their south tower rooms are horrible (from some ghost movies), etc. etc. I still went ahead and booked the hotel, because I had read some good reviews as well....and the bonus on top of that was that Bally's was right in front of the Bellagio!!

After I finalized I wanted to stay at Bally's, I went directly to Bally's hotel site www.ballyslasvegas.com to check out reservations and prices.  This was basically a Caesars site which contains about 6-7 hotels that don't charge any resort fee and are in the same network.  Anyways, I put in my dates and for 4 people in one room (2 queen beds), Bally's gave me price of $103/night which was not bad at all.  I immediately booked the hotel for 2 nights in the south tower classic room.  Once we got to the hotel, our stay was great and we had good time with no problems at all.  All the reviews about check-in/check-out time and room being terrible were not true at all.

Lobby, Check-in, & Check-out:
Once we got to the lobby, it was big and luckily not crowded at all.  We got to the hotel on Sunday evening at around 5:30 pm.  We got in the check-in line and there were probably 2 agents at the register.  As line started to grow, 3 more agents were added to help out.  We were probably done checking-in withing 15 minutes from the time we got in line to the time we were greeted.  Also the casino is on the same floor so you might feel little bit smoke in the atmosphere but that's because of the casino being right there.  Our check-out was pretty quick too maybe within 10 minutes.

Self/Valet Parking:
Bally's shares the parking with Paris hotel next door, and that is why self-parking is far and if you do end up with self parking, you would also have to walk much.  I was already warned by a lot of online reviews that there will be a lot of walking with self-park, so people suggested for Valet parking.   Valet Parking is free in Bally's (and as a matter of fact in a lot of hotels), so why not use it since it's available and quick.  We valet parked our car twice and both the times it was very convenient and fast.  Just remember to tip the driver who brings your car back.

Room:
I had booked a south tower classic room for 4 people (2 queens).  I knew that if I want a good view, south tower would be the best option even though there were a lot of reviews which said that the rooms are not that great, outdated, dirty, etc. etc.  First, when I checked in, I asked the receptionist if I could get a room facing Eiffel tower and bellagio fountains, and she said that's what we are getting.  And that's exactly what we got!!! The view was fabulous!!! I loved it!! Check it out!

Eiffel tower in day time from our room

View of Bellagio fountains in day time

Eiffel tower at night from our room

Bellagio Fountains view at night from our room

 Isn't it gorgeous!!! We got a room on 11th floor and our room was 6129 which was no where close to the elevators, but it was worth it for the view!!  If you are ever staying in Bally's south tower then ask for a view facing Paris since you will get better view than the other side which has flamingo road and Caesar's palace hotel view.  South tower elevators are kind of away and in corner too where you go through the casino all the way to the side and then take the elevators up to your room.

Once we got in the room, it was BIG.....I mean it was very spacious!!!  The room was clean, and no dirty carpets or anything (as I had read in some other reviews).  The bathroom was fine too except few glitches such as the wallpaper in one corner was bit out but that's just a minor glitch that we didn't care for and the bathroom fan made a lot of noise but that was temporary too.  The furniture was outdated as I had read on some of the other reviews and there was an old style box tv instead of a flat screen.  I would have liked the beds to be little softer but it wasn't too bad either.  Overall, very happy with the room and the view!! No complains there.

Maintenance/Housekeeping:
We had to call the housekeeping in the morning once since there were only 2 towels and we needed 2 more.  I called and nobody came for about 15 minutes so I had to call again to request more towels.  The 2nd call was responded quickly when the housekeeping came within 5 minutes with extra set of towels.  That was the only time we needed anything.  The only other thing I can think of is when they cleaned our room, when we came back to the room after lunch, the room smelled like some sort of cleaning solution that must have been used in the bathroom.  To avoid the smell, we just kept the bathroom door shut and then it was fine for the rest of the day.


I would definitely recommend this hotel to anyone who is considering it.  I would stay here myself mainly because of my experience here, and the location of this hotel is great with Bellagio being right in front of it and Paris being right next to it!!  Hope this review helps you in making your decision for a hotel in Las Vegas!!

Las Vegas & California Trip - Part 4

........Continuing from my previous post (Las Vegas & California Trip - Part 3)

Day 2 continues....
After waking up everyone, we all got ready by 6 pm and then headed out again, this time south of bally’s on las vegas blvd.  We just walked on Las vegas blvd. from Bally’s down to Tropicana hotel checking out the hotels and other attractions in between.  Then we crossed the bridge over to Excalibur and went inside the hotel.  This hotel has quite few restaurants and also has a nice Pizza Hut Express place which is a quick grab and go bite kind of thing.  They have small portion size pizzas for $5 bucks (at least cheese pizza was $5) that can be good for one person.  I was kind of feeling hungry, so I grabbed one cheese pizza and it was delicious!!  Excalibur has a inside passage that takes you to the Luxor so you don’t have to go out, so we just followed that path.  We went to Luxor and went to the shopping floor where you can see the entire pyramid from inside.  This is one hotel which has a completely different architecture of how the rooms are situated.  Basically when you go inside, you see the room from anywhere ...it’s kind of hard to describe but it’s fun to see it yourself.  Anyways, from Luxor, we got out and headed back up north on Las vegas blvd.  On the way, we checked out Aria hotel which had a beautiful Chandelier hanging in one of the casinos.

Las Vegas Blvd.

Bellagio's Dancing Fountains!!

Remember that we had been on foot since 6 pm and by this time it was already 9 pm and wanted see the Volcano show by Mirage (which happens every hour on the hour) and Sirens of TI show by Treasure Island (which had fixed timings of 7, 8:30, 10, and 11:30 pm).  At this time, we knew we weren’t going to make it to either of the shows, and we had only reached to Bellagio.  So we just decided to stay at the fountains and enjoy the fountains show first and then head to TI to catch the 10 o’clock show.  Boy!! Am I glad that I stayed for the 9:15 pm fountains show!! It was magnificent!! No words to describe!! There is something in watching the bellagio fountains dance right in front of you :).  It was worth the wait!!  

Sirens of TI

After the show, my parents and I started heading to Treasure Island to catch the 10 o’clock show while my brother decided to just grab dinner and head back to the room.  We all were tired but we wanted to check out the show as well so my mom and I decided, what the hell, we might as well go and watch it.  My brother picked up dinner for all of us and took it to the room while we went for the show.  The sirens of TI is a musical pirate show which lasts for about 20 minutes or so and you want to get there at least half an hour early to get a good location to stand because otherwise it’s hard to see anything if you are in the middle.  That’s kind of what happened with us but we were still able to catch what was going on.  It’s a good one time watch show for those who haven’t seen it.

After the show ended around 10:20/25 pm, we started heading straight to the room.  Believe it or not, it took us over half an hour to get from TI to Bally’s.  It’s a long walk!! And we were already super tired from all the exploring during the day.  We got back to the room, put my dad’s scooter to charge up and eat some chipotle that my brother had gotten for us.  Meanwhile, my brother was sleeping (well, napping) to get some energy back to stay up for gambling, of course!!  While he got some sleep, we had our dinner and then when my parents went to bed, my brother and I went downstairs in Bally’s casino to try our luck :P....again....that too around 11:45 pm when the night was just beginning :).  I was tired but I wasn’t sleepy at all, so I decided to go to casino as well and I didn’t have to walk much either.  Obviously the first $10 I put in the roulette, I lose.  My brother does the same and we both decide to give Bally’s a break and head to Paris casino.  One thing I like about Bally’s is that there is an inside walkway straight to Paris, so you don’t have to go out of the hotel at all to go to Paris.  Anyways, we go to Paris and my luck completely changes.  For the first time in history, I actually win some money!!! Yay!! I was soooooo happy :).  My brother’s luck wasn’t working so much but still he got back everything that he had lost which is not bad either :).  

We were having so much fun on roulette that we didn’t realize what time it was.  Well, it was 3 am that we decided to call it a night and head back to our room.  After all the great adventure today and fun at the casinos, it was a good night sleep!!

Tomorrow we leave Vegas to head to LA to see my aunt and hop on some adventurous rides at Universal and DisneyLand.  But more on that later!!  Before that, I am going to give a brief review on Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel experience!! So stay tuned!!

Las Vegas & California Trip - Part 3

First day in Las Vegas was fun but I was looking forward to the 2nd day since we were going to explore the Las vegas blvd., and a lot of other hotels.

Day 2:
The morning started around 7:30 am and freshening up followed by breakfast in the room.  We all got ready by 9:30 am and headed to the bell desk.  My dad has knee pain so I had reserved an electric scooter for him through Bally's so he could come with us everywhere as well.  We got the electric scooter in 15 minutes and the guy showed how to operate it...piece of cake!  We went out the front door of the Bally's instead of taking the escalator/moving walkway route....the front door option was much better.  We got to the las vegas blvd., and then went over the bridge to bellagio and from there to the bridge over to the Caesars palace.

At the entrance of Forums shops (from the casinos side)

We followed the signs to the forums shop where the Fall of Atlantis show was going to be played.  The show happens every hour on the hour and we missed the 10 o'clock show so we had to wait until 11 am to see it.  It's a show based on roman mythology and involves water and fire effects.  It lasts about 15-20 minutes and it's good to see it once if you haven't seen it before.  Anyways, before the show, we had a lot of time on hand, so we decided to explore the forums shop and I love how they have built the interior of Caesars palace keeping Greek and Roman mythology and architecture in mind.  Here is a snippet of one of the sculptures at the entrance of the Forums shop.

Canal shops at the Venetian

After the show, we headed out of the forums shop to go to Venetian.  Mirage is right next door to Caesars Palace and Harrah's is right across from Caesars.  We went to the Venetian straight to the Canal shops.  After bellagio fountains, I got to say that Venetian's canal shops is my second favorite place!!!  Venetian is basically the mini-Venice and it's beautiful!!  Don't miss this place...it's just magnificent!!  You will feel that you are in Venice...for sure!

It was about 12:30 pm by this time and we were hungry so we decided to eat lunch at an Indian restaurant.  We started heading back to the hotel to get our car.  Believe it or not, it took us about 20 to 25 minutes to head back from Harrah's to Bally's.  Anyways, while my dad got the car from valet, I dropped off the electric scooter in the room to get it charged.  In fact, the scooter ran fine from 9:45 till 1 pm or so.  As for the lunch, we went to this Indian restaurant called Gandhi restaurant which was just a mile from Bally's.  They had very nice buffet with good variety of vegetarian food including naan, rice, aloo mutter, malai paneer, dal makhani, suji halwa, veg. pakoda, savaiya, idli & sambhar.....Yummy!!!  We headed back to hotel after lunch and quick stop at a gas station.  It was pretty heavy lunch and we all were terribly sleepy after getting back to hotel.  It was just matter of minutes before we fell asleep.  I woke up after an hour nap but everyone else had a nice 3 hours nap!! I had to wake them up so we could go out again in the evening.  Ohh...before I forget, let me tell you that the weather was perfect!! It was not hot at all and it was just pleasant to be walking around on the strip without sweating or anything....in fact there was nice cool breeze once in a while which was surprising!!

Anyways...there is a lot more to talk about when we went out in the evening and it'll be too long for this post...so you all will have to wait for the next post :)

Until then, enjoy!!

Las Vegas & California Trip - Part 2

.......Continuing from my previous post (Las Vegas & California Trip - Part 1)

We settled down in our room, freshened up by 6:30 pm and relaxed for a bit.  It was time for dinner and we were all hungry.  While my parents stayed back at the room to rest a little bit, my brother and I went to Chipotle (near Casino Royale hotel).  It shows half a mile on the map from bally's but it feels like a long walk, I don't know why but maybe because of the crowd you don't get to move faster than how you had expected.  We came back to the room, had dinner, and then went out to check out Bellagio which was right across the street.  Remember, that even though things seem close in Vegas, they are not!!! We had to get through 4 sets of walkways to get from Bally's front desk to the las vegas blvd.  First you take the escalator from front desk of bally's to the top, then there is a moving walkway that takes you over the valet parking area, then there is another escalator that brings you back down, and another moving walkway that finally gets you to the las vegas blvd. (this walkway was never working unfortunately).

Bellagio Conservatory

We went inside the bellagio to check out the conservatory which was beautiful and unique!!  It's an attraction which you should definitely check out if you are in Vegas.

We also saw the Bellagio fountains that night which was playing every 15 minutes.  I truly feel that bellagio fountains is the best attraction of Vegas and you have to see it up close to experience the feeling :).  It was great!!

Bellagio Fountains

We came back to the hotel hoping to go to Paris through Bally's since it has a inside passage to get to Paris, but of course before you get to the passage, you go through casino and then the rest is history because we never made it past the casino :)...we decided to sit and try our luck!!  Well, as luck had it otherwise, we didn't win and instead lost money which is supposed to be normal in Vegas...haha.  Anyways, we were tired and had a lot planned for the next day, I went to bed around 11:30 pm looking forward to check out Vegas a lot more the next day!!

Las Vegas & California Trip - Part 1

Hello Friends,

I am back with some more vacation updates and info!! I hope you enjoyed my earlier posts on New York and New Jersey vacation and hopefully you will enjoy my Las Vegas and California vacation posts as well.  Just to give you a quick run through of this vacation here is a snippet of what you can expect in the next upcoming posts.

This was again a family vacation and planned in the last week of September from Sept. 23 to 29.  We were going to Vegas by car so it was going to be an interesting drive since it was almost 12 hours drive!!  We stayed in Vegas for 2 nights and then headed to Los Angeles and spent 3 nights in LA and then headed back to Vegas for 1 day and finally headed back home the following day.  Confusing??  Don't worry, I will break it down for you in the next couple of posts.  These 7 days included so much fun and exploring and family time as well!!

Day 1:
So, we started our trip on Sept. 23 early morning.  You know how you plan to start your trip as early as possible (especially since if you are driving) but then it never works according to schedule :P...well, something like that happened.  We had planned to leave at 5 am but instead ended up leaving at 6 am!!! There, we were already hour delayed on our trip.  The drive was indeed beautiful with the passage through mountains and canyons and all but the driver would also have to be careful since there are a lot of turns and narrow paths so you have to watch your speed!  Unfortunately we had to make our first stop right after we drove 72 miles for a restroom stop at around 7:15 am, and then made the 2nd stop at around 9 am for breakfast and also to fill up gas in the car.  After about 30 minutes of stop we kept on going and the next stop was at around noon again for a restroom stop right before we hit the No Services Zone area.  We stopped at Green River at exit 164 which has a Phillips 66 gas station which is supposed to be the last exit where you can get gas/food before you can get it again after about 110 miles.  So all the people driving to Vegas, keep this exit in mind (or the Green River area) so you can get your car filled up and not worry about running out of it during one of those 110 miles!!  There were no services from Green River to Selina but the drive was gorgeous!!

These pictures don't really do justice to the view, but I was too lazy to get my camera out, so just took whatever pics I can with my phone.   Besides, I was too busy enjoying the view as well :).

IMP Note: One thing I would like to tell everyone who is planning to drive to Vegas is that make sure you don't drive behind a truck, and if you have to drive behind a truck stay very far from them.  We witnessed a lot of torn/burned tires on our way which clearly means that due to heat trucks (and maybe even cars) are having difficulty with tires and they are being torn while driving.  From my personal experience...we had a close call with one of the trucks that was in front of us.  My brother was driving behind a truck and he moved over to the next lane to over take the truck and the next thing we know is that one of the truck's tires blasted and flew right behind it!!! Thankfully we had shifted lanes by then but it was still scary and it could have caused an accident if we were right behind it.  So just be careful driving behind trucks.  If possible, stay away from them and overtake them when necessary.
 
We drove through the No Services Zone area and the first exit that came with gas station, we stopped there to have a nice lunch at around 1:30 pm.  After this stop there was one other stop but other than that, it was all the way to Vegas!!  We reached Vegas exactly as our GPS projected which was 5:30 pm PST (which means about 12 hours and 30 minutes drive).  I had booked Bally's hotel for our stay (much more on that later....) so we got off the Flamingo exit and then it was very close from there (maybe less than a mile) to get to the hotel.  Now, Bally's shares a parking lot with Paris hotel which is right next door, so the self parking was going to be really far.  Instead Bally's offers free valet parking, so that's what I had decided to use when we came to the hotel.  We drove up to their valet parking area, got a ticket from them, and that was it!! We got all of our luggage out of the car, handed the driver our car keys, and then headed inside for registration.  It was that quick!!

We went inside the hotel and the first person you get greeted by is the Timeshare agent who tries to get you free show tickets or gambling money in return to attend one of their new hotel presentations.  Well, we were there for only 2 days and didn't really have time for it, so we passed the offer.  It's funny that they have different agents during different hours of the day so every time you come to the hotel, the agent greets you and takes you to the same desk with offers even after you have denied initially :P.

View of Eiffel tower from our room in daytime

Anyways, moving on to the check-in, we got in line for the check-in and got our turn within 15 minutes.  We had booked a south tower classic room which is supposed to be an old tower with rooms not so renovated but the agent at the desk asked us if we would like to upgrade to newer rooms for $20/night.  I rejected!! Why?  Because I knew that if I want to get a nice view, it'll only be within south tower room...so that's why I passed on the upgraded room.

When she was entering our information, I requested if we could get a room with view facing Paris and of Eiffel tower and bellagio fountains, and she said that's what we're getting.   I was excited to see the room, so we got our keys and headed to the south tower.  Our room was on 11th floor (room 6129) which was not close to elevators at all, so we had to walk quite bit to get to the room at the end of the hallways.  When we got to the room at around 6 pm....wow!! What a surprise!! The room was spacious and we actually had really close view of Eiffel tower as well as partial view of the Bellagio fountains.  Take a look!

View of Bellagio fountains from our room at night

View of Eiffel tower at night from our room

Well, the room space and the view was amazing, but before we can settle down, we made a quick run through of everything to make sure it was all good and there were no surprises.  Luckily, there were no surprises and everything seemed fine.  I did read a lot of reviews of how the south tower rooms are old and outdated and all, and to some extent it is true because the furniture seemed old, the curtains weren't that impressive, and the room had an old style box tv instead of a flat screen, but we didn't really care for it.  But what it did have is 2 queen size beds, one dresser, mirror, tv, table, 2 chairs and one desk and lamp besides the beds.....just like any other room should have it.

I think this post is becoming long enough that I better start a new post before it becomes super long and people don't even read the rest of it :P...so see ya in the next post!!