RALPH MOTOHASHI'S TRIPS TO CALIFORNIA, VEGAS, WASHINGTON and S. AMERICA
PICTURES BELOW....
Ralph Motohashi finishes his trip around the world, visiting Las Vegas and Washington....& S. America and finishing his tour up in California.
CALIFORNIA
Many of our colleagues would remember the Main Street of America or Mother Road of America. We flew from Washington DC to Chicago. Planning to go through Chicago, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and then conclude our 2024 America trip in Los Angeles County. But we did not plan well for this trip. We ended up cancel the original plan at Chicago because the route is too long as 2448 miles from Chicago to California. But we did manage to conclude our 2024 America trip at the end of Route 66 at the beautiful Santa Monica in Los Angeles, California after Las Vegas.
LA is one of the biggest cities at the America's West coast. This city is big. You do need more days to visit all the area. You have Hollywood, Disney, universal studios, Chinese Theater and much much more to see. While in LA, please do not miss the diversity of some very nice Chinese cuisine, Mexica cuisine and Japanese cuisine in many malls or small neighbors around city.
LA's old downtown area near the city hall including Chinatown & Japanese town at the first look is rather boring. Look closely you would find some very old architectures gem all over the area and we had a very enjoyable lunch at the Central Market. Other reason that I visit LA is to watch the game of Shohei Otani at the Dodges stadium. Mr. Otani did not disappoint us. We had a wonderful night out at the Dodges stadium and concluded our happy US trip in 2024. Bye-bye, see you next trip.
LAS VEGAS
Well! Las Vegas is definitely in for a big change after 4 years of Covid 19. One of the biggest icons will be disappeared right in front of your eyes form the strip. The Mirage will be taken over by Hard Rock casino. But not just the strip scenery is changing. The Buffet revolution is also on its way too.
Las Vegas is one of my favorite place to taste cousins from all over the world. But one of the Las Vegas iconic food scene is the famous Buffet at all the major hotels. Unfortunately most hotels in Las Vegas will take the Buffet operation away to make room for food court style eatery. Would these changes improve the survival of Las Vegas in the long run? Nobody knows for sure. Only time will tell. Hopefully the big hotel will continue to introduce some spectacular high quality cuisine from all over the world for visitors to sample and enjoy in the near future.
All these years, I have been visiting Las Vegas yearly. The following restaurants that I would like to recommend to you are Lotus of Siam (Thai), Tofu Hut (Korea), Buldogis (Korean surprise), Orchids Garden Chinese Restaurant (dim sum), P. F. Chang's (Chinese), Shanghai Taste (xiao long bao), Hot & Juicy Crawfish (seafood), The Palace Station Oyster bar (Creole), El Dorado Cantina (Mexican), Brio Italian Grill (Tuscan), Pizza Rock, Wicked Spoon (buffet) and the not so famous In & out burger outlet, how can you visit America without sample the burger restaurant? There are too many high quality eateries in Vegas that you can sample.
WASHINGTON
With so many Museums, art galleries, beautiful monuments show case of real historical events, I felt this clean and beautiful city does deserve a few days to enjoy. Especially the monument scenery, Such as Lincoln monument, Martin Luther King monument and Korea war and Vietnam War monument, you certainly can learn a lot going through these events. On the other side, the powerful government department buildings, the congress building of the United States and the White House should be high up on your visiting list.
On the cuisine scene of Washington D.C., it was a big surprise to me to find out so many international cuisines from all over the world, such as Peruvian cuisine, Indian cuisine, Italian cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Japanese cuisine, Mexican, French, and others. Unfortunately with time constraint as factor to me, I had visited my favorite American restaurant – Cheese Cake Factory for dinner 4 times when I was in Washington. But just the day before I flew for Chicago, I did manage to sample the French lunch and Italian dinner in the capital. By the way the famous Ben’s chili bowl is also not bad at all.
Ralph Motohashi sends us 4 montages with him and his wife Yuki, from his latest trip to South America.
Brazil:
Rio : the 2024 Carnival was spectacular. Most of the parades start around 10 at night. They would keep going until early morning 6 am.
Brazil has some wonderful spots to enjoy. Just to name a few Brasilia, Sao Paulo, Rio beaches, Salvador's Africa culture & Manaus.
If you want to travel, you can not go wrong with Brazil.
Buenos Aries:
Maybe their economy is not on a high note. But most commoners will carry on as best and as happy as they can. The steaks are great and cheap. You can have steak dinner every night and it won't sent you to the bank for a loan to pay for them. Beside the capital you can also enjoy the wonderful Iguazu water fall near by.
Iguazu water fall:
Claimed as one the top three water falls in the world. I only went to Niagara falls before. I would say our own is larger then Iguazu. Does anyone know? Please let me know. But Iguazu Park is quite enjoyable with the beautiful birds flying over you. Monkeys play among the trees, an ant eater is digging the ground just next to your foot and little train running back and forth in the park carrying all the happy tourist looking for some good time.
Santiago, Chile:
It was a surprise to see Santiago' s shopping mall in the middle of the city. It is a huge mall with anything you can imagine to buy. The mall is housed in the newest and tallest building in Santiago. Normally you would see a lot of homeless sleeping in Rio streets and Buenos Aries streets. But I tried very hard to find them without any luck. Maybe because they have copper mine to help them carry on in this economy down time. If you like seafood & burgers please go to Santiago. I guarantee that you will not be disappointed.
CALIFORNIA
LAS VEGAS
WASHINGTON
RIO BRAZIL
BUENOS ARIES ARGENTINA
IQUAZU FALLS
SANTIAGO CHILE