Panda

For a guy who lives only a few hours' drive from Chengdu, home of Giant Panda, I've never thought that my first encounter with panda would be in the US, more specific, in Zoo Atlanta. And guess what, these four pandas in the zoo are from Chengdu, just a few hundred miles from my hometown. It always brings excitement to see the familiar in an unfamiliar environment, especially for the first time. That's why Americans would be excited to see Starbucks in China, and Chinese would be very excited to see Dragon dance in the US.

Visitors love to see pandas, they could stay there for a long time just to watch the baby panda climbing, they are the most lovely creature in the world. Unfortunately there are only a couple thousand panda remaining both in the wild and in conservation areas, they are endangered by low birthrate and loss of habitat.

Bill Baggs Cape

Gorgeous view from the light house

Busch Gardens

Having heard about the world renowned roller coasters at Busch Gardens in Tampa Bay for a long time, but I never had the gut to take a ride. Then on this cloudy Sunday, just because friends insisted, I finally took all of the four major roller coasters in the park, Gwazi, Kumba, Montu and Sheikra.

Sheikra, the first dive machine roller coaster in US, is at the core of all the rides in the park. It starts by climbing at a 45 degree hill, make a U turn, then hold for 2 seconds at the very edge of the dropping point. So basically the riders in the first two rows of the train would face the ground from about 200 foot above for 2 seconds, knowing that they'll be dropped vertically any moment at a very high speed. I was in the third row, so didn't feel a thing. It is at this point, people would start to scream and cry. Then it makes its first 90-degree dive, make a loop and proceeds with its second near-vertical dive, 81-degree, into a small cave, and down to splashdown area. The whole ride lasts about 2 minutes, the first row is always in high demand, definitely recommended.

San Diego

Last day in California was quite of a rush, we needed to drive from LA to SD in the morning, take some time off there and drive back to LA in the afternoon just not to miss the flights home from LAX, though some of us did miss after all.

Traffic in LA is terrible, if not worse than NYC. Every hour is virtually rush hour, and since it's so big a city, no matter where you go, you might want to consider a 10 to 30 mins' delay depending on where your destination is. We were clever enough to pull traffic layer out on Google Maps so as to avoid those sections marked yellow and red. Once you are out of LA, road is all yours!

First time to set my feet on a real air carrier in San Diego. The carrier is so huge, we spent 2 hours in the lower decks and when we finally made it to the top deck, only to find a long long line waiting to board the carrier bridge. So had to quit and rush to airport.

Also the first time to get involved in a rear-end collision, not by my fault. Miraculously, though the sound when the collision happened makes me think it's gonna leave a huge dent and scratches on the bump, the rental car survived without even a scratch! Gelievable!

Malibu State Beach

We've made a very wise decision to drive to Santa Barbara via US1 road, it's built along the coastline so as you are driving, you get to appreciate the beauty of the ocean, the Pacific. Malibu State Beach is just one of the places one must stop by along the way.

Lots of rich people live there, so on one side is the great ocean, on the other side on the hill, it's luxurious houses and villas. This is exactly when one would wish to work very hard and make a fortune!

Santa Barbara

Photos by 360 Panorama on iPhone from Superior Court

Zion National Park

Breathtaking scenery with water falls, mountains, ice, fog and bushes in Zion National Park. It's about three hours drive from Las Vegas crossing Arizona and into Utah. Though it's a short drive inside the border of Arizona, it's not an easy drive. There's this 10 miles' zigzag shaped highway that gives me goose bumps even now I'm thinking about it. It's completely in the mountain, so a lot of frequent sharp turns while on high speed, especially dangerous in the night.

As it gets closer to Zion, you'll start to appreciate the grandeur of nature, be thrilled by the scene and completely forget about all the adventures along the highway.

Las Vegas

Having heard so much about the city on desert, about its gambling business, strip clubs, and how every new couple gets married there, it has never occurred to me that my first visit to this city is primarily for a concert of a super Hong Kong star, Eason Chan.

Typically, anyone who visits Las Vegas would choose to stay in one of these luxurious hotels along Las Vegas Boulevard, spend hours in line waiting for a spot in one of these fancy restaurants for lunch buffet, and then play slot machine in one of splendid casinos, having a foot massage or a spa possibly along the way, and enjoy in one of these gorgeous show arenas one or several strip shows in the night. None of these happened to me in Las Vegas.

So I stayed in a Holiday Inn far off the strip, went to one state park and one national park during the day, and had every meal in Chinatown, spent the night wandering around the strip, watched a Chinese concert in a seat where even the screen looks blurry, took a bold step to the top of Stratosphere tower for three insane rides, which scared the hell out of me and some other kids going with me!

Being special feels so extraordinary!

Valley of Fire

Valley of fire is Nevada's oldest state park just one and a half hours drive to the north of Las Vegas. It gets its name from red sandstone formations. So you are driving and driving, bored by those normal treeless grey hills along I15, but all of a sudden, the the stones and rocks turn red, it's just going from one world to another, except that the other world makes you so exciting.

The other thing about Valley of Fire is petroglyphs just as the one in the photo. It's said that some sort of ancient people used to farm here, and they communicate by these kind of symbols. Well, of course now it's considered rock art open to all tourists.

East US Roadtrip

10 days road-trip through east US, or a "glance of US universities" as we call it since a handful of famous US universities, some are in Ivy, is in route of our schedule.

4th of July Firework Show in St Augustine

Silver Springs Nature Park

Just in case you haven't heard about it, other than sunshine, Florida is also a state of gators. So in the Silver Springs Nature Park in Ocala, FL, you would see ordinary gators, gators with sharp head, albino gators, mini gators, gators parking by waterside, fat gators, gators with special patterns, cartoon gators, gator statues, well, you name it.

Other than gators, there's pretty much nothing else to see, just kidding! Plenty more animals waiting for your patronization. Like this bathing bear, that curious giraffe, those two making-love cougar, that god-knows-how-old turtle, and that famous Llama to the very right corner. It is so famous that in China almost every young individual knows it. In Chinese, its name is "Cao Ni Ma", which phonetically translated to English is "F*ck your mother". Since many of the dirty words have been "harmonized", this animal has been worshiped and treated as a symbolic figure of "harmony". We even have a song for it, "the song of Cao Ni Ma"

Marion County Park

Marion County Park is a little island in Marion County Lake, right on I24. It seems people like to bring their family in RVs and camp there. Everything you see is green and blue, green mountain, green grass, green trees, blue sky and blue water. It all seems so harmonious, bring you so close to mother nature. What a scene!

Climbing at Foster Falls

Foster Falls is said to be a climbing heaven in Southeast. It's got all sorts of routes there, great camp sites, and nice view of the falls (as can be seen below). I didn't know it's such a popular sport until I saw dozens of climbers on site with us, middle-aged, young; male, female, all geared up and climbed as they were walking. It all looks so simple and easy, but I was so wrong.

A friend set up a simplest route for me, the first climber, and taught me all the safety instructions, I thought, "well, that's easy, just get hold of some holes with my hands, move up a little bit with my feet, and grab some other holes and move up still, keep doing that, I should be on top nice and easy in no more than 5 minutes." But after 5 minutes, I was only 1 meter higher than where I started and couldn't move up any further, besides, I felt no energy in my arms and hands, that's when I realized the difficulty of climbing.

Later they told me that the point in climbing is do NOT use your hands to hold your body on the wall, use your feet, otherwise you could easily be exhausted. Relax your hands every now and then when you are able to stand on your feet. Following that, I managed to finish another route, though with the help of my shoulder, back and face, anything I could think of to keep myself on that rock. It feels so good to conquer something difficult to you. I think that's one of the reasons why so many people love climbing

Our tents

Tubing in Ichetucknee State Park

Ichetucknee Springs State Park is located about 40 miles northeast of Gainesville, an awesome place for tubing. 6 dollars entrance fee per vehicle, and tubes rental varies from 5 dollars to 15 dollars depending on the size. There are three tubing options: 3 hours from north entrance to south entrance; 1.5 hours from midpoint to south entrance and 45 mins from Dampier's Landing to south entrance. We took the 1.5-hour one, wonderful tubing experience. You can swim in the water, you can also climb on to the branches along the bank and make an impressive diving into the water, or you could just stay in your tube, go with the flow and relax.

Shuttle Launch at Kennedy Space Center

Spring Break II - Tampa

When it's spring break, you would expect an influx of students from northern states to Florida, it's either Miami beach, or Disney World in Orlando, or the southernmost point in Key West. So when you plan your trip during that period, try avoid going to those hot students spots, because you know, traffic would be bad, and students would be everywhere. So we decided we go to Dali Museum, a place students definitely would not consider for spring break. This is taken outside Dali Museum.

We got to Clearwater beach at 4pm, hardly found a parking lot. The sand is so white, but the water stinks. West Palm Beach is way better.

Spring Break I - Savannah

It's a 4 hours' drive from Gainesville FL to Savannah GA, a great place senior people to live. There is this Savannah College of Art and Design, it has buildings all over the town, and students there have quite different tastes in appearance, unlike the students I see at UF, whose styles are more or less the same. This is the famous Forsyth Park Fountain.

Miami Beach

We stayed in a hostel right on the Miami Beach for three nights, but only got 2 hours to actually see the beach in day time. Why is that? Because we headed out early to other places and headed back at night. So on the last day in Miami Beach, we decided why not give it a couple of hours to the beach only 5 mins walking distance away. That turned out to be one of the best decisions ever made.

I proudly present you "MIAMI"

what a scene!

Hop on, I'll give you a ride to deep blue!

Key West

Key West is a city in the very south of Florida, also of USA. Anything there is labeled as the "Southernmost something". e.g. the southernmost christmas tree, the southernmost buoy. You cannot miss the sunset in Key West, Mallory Square is said to be the best place to see it.

Sunset in Key West

on Mallory Square

People make big fusses about the end of US 1 road in Key West, you would see this "Mile 0" thing on many of postcards there. Probably that's the best proof of being in Key West, moreover, the southernmost place of America.