Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
My New Year’s Eve fireworks viewing tradition
Happy 2011! I am spending Christmas break at home in Los Angeles. Life here is good. The weather isn’t the only reason; in fact, we had a miserable freak week before Christmas of record-setting, non-stop rain. But the sun’s out now, and every time I go outside jogging in shorts in the heart of winter, I feel like I’m cheating Mother Nature and can’t help but grin. The killer combo of the weather, the food, and the lifestyle here are why I love L.A. so much!
Today I want to share a New Year’s Eve (NYE) fireworks viewing tradition that I started a few years ago. I am perpetually annoyed by how at midnight the Los Angeles TV networks show nothing but recordings of the New York City Times Square countdown. How about some love for the live West Coast celebrations? Or acknowledging the rest of the world?
So after 2008 New Year’s Eve, I decided to do something about it. I scoured the Internet for high quality videos of NYE fireworks from around the world. Although HD recordings of TV coverage were ideal, they were hard to find so I also looked through amateur live recordings on Youtube/Vimeo, some of which were quite excellent. I downloaded my favorites and then held a viewing party, playing the videos on a 60″ HDTV using my PlayStation 3 as a phenomenal media player.
The viewing was a success and I’ve been doing it every year since. This year was the biggest viewing yet with 8 cities in total. I’m sharing my 2011 playlist below for all the other fireworks enthusiasts around the world!
Marina Bay Sands – Singapore
In yesterday’s episode of Top Chef, the host announced that this season’s finale will be held internationally for the first time. Destination? Singapore. While it is no doubt a great foodie city, there are many worldwide cities with greater culinary significance. So why would Top Chef pick Singapore of all places?
I’m predicting that the finale episodes will feature Marina Bay Sands heavily in some form or another. Marina Bay Sands opened in June 2010 and is one of the most notable Asian construction projects in years. At $5.7 billion, it is the 2nd most expensive casino property, beaten only by the massive CityCenter project in Las Vegas. Considering how brazenly Top Chef has been highlighting their sponsors this season, I expect countless gratuitous shots of the property.
Not that I’m complaining, of course. Its unusual design would fit right in with Dubai’s skyline, but I am most enamored with the absolutely gorgeous infinity pool at the top of the hotel. What an incredible view. The desire to swim in this pool instantly rocketed Singapore up my list of future travel destinations.
Julian Serrano – Las Vegas, NV
Ever since Las Vegas firmly established itself as a powerhouse city in the restaurant world, every new casino opening has proudly boasted a line-up of marquee chefs. Julian Serrano is the eponymous tapas restaurant by the chef who created Bellagio’s Picasso, one of the groundbreaking restaurants in Vegas dining. Although I do not have much experience with Spanish food, I was eager to visit Serrano, hyped by accounts that this was the highlight of the whole Aria casino. I found the food adequate but not especially impressive. Unfortunately, the experience was marred by new restaurant opening woes that left us displeased.
Las Vegas 2009 trip – Photo wrapup
My last visit to Las Vegas was in December 2007. Besides CityCenter, there have been two major grand openings on the Strip since then: Palazzo and Encore. Although both are gigantic luxury hotel and casino resorts in their own right, functionally they are expansions of pre-existing properties (Venetian and Wynn Las Vegas, respectively). They don’t carry the same level of intrigue as a brand new resort like CityCenter, but nevertheless I had fun wandering around and checking everything out.
This photoset will wrap up my coverage of the trip. I want to take a quick moment to thank WET Design, the company that developed the Fountains of Bellagio and the CityCenter water features, for publishing my blog on the press section of their website. I’m assuming they liked my photos of their CityCenter projects, and I’m giddy that my post is listed in the company of articles from The New Yorker and Los Angeles Times. Probably the coolest moment for this blog since I started it!
Las Vegas 2009 trip – Vdara
Vdara was the first property to open in the Las Vegas megacomplex of CityCenter. Although Vdara was originally designed to be a condo-hotel with residential suites for sale, the downturn of the economy forced it to be converted into a standard hotel. I stayed 2 nights at Vdara for my Vegas trip last month. Contrary to negative testimonials I’ve read, I had a mostly pleasant experience with Vdara.
Don’t expect your typical extravagant Vegas hotel/casino here. In fact, there is no casino anywhere in the building. Vdara has a professional, business-hotel atmosphere. Its contemporary feel matches well with the entire CityCenter project, but is that really what the typical Vegas visitor wants?
Las Vegas 2009 trip – CityCenter
Las Vegas is an easy vacation destination for Los Angeles residents, a brisk 3.5 hour drive away. As a L.A. native, I’ve been to Vegas every 1-2 years ever since I was a kid. Even though I couldn’t gamble, there were always new shows to see and new resort-casinos to visit. The trend in recent years has been a shift from theme casinos (Mirage, New York New York, Venetian, etc.) to modern sophistication and luxury like Wynn. Nowhere is this more evident than the tragedy of Treasure Island, which lost its pirate theme and became rebranded as TI.
CityCenter recently opened in December 2009 as the most ambitious project in Las Vegas yet. The largest privately funded construction project in U.S. history, it represents a paradigm shift in Vegas resort design. Like Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills and other similar urban complexes, CityCenter is meant to be a city within a city where residents can live, dine, shop, work and play without leaving the complex. While CityCenter doesn’t have any office spaces, it features thousands of condominium residences and hotel rooms spread across multiple high-rises along with a large shopping-entertainment district that will house a future grocery store.
Visiting CityCenter was to be my highlight of this trip, and while the scope and design of the facility are impressive, I was unfortunately underwhelmed.
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Eating from SoCal to Paris
While cleaning out my hard drive after all the hardcore photo sorting I’ve been doing lately, I came across this series of food photos that I had designated for a separate post. Paris is one of the great food cities of the world, but we didn’t indulge in any fine dining because we had so much sight-seeing to do. Besides, when you’ve been walking around all day, you’re not in the right state of mind to properly appreciate exquisite meals like that. So most of our meals consisted of eating at whatever random restaurants or delis we would run across. What follows is a selection of edible goodies from the past month or so, starting the night before the trip and ending at Boston, MA where we went to help my brother move into his new apartment.
