We only managed to spent a full day (yesterday) with Sherine as this morning, we are driving down to Las Vegas which is about 4 hours from here. In between, we intend to drop by Barstow for outlet shopping again!!!! Darn excited or what?

A group photo we took outside Sherine in-law’s house.

From left: Hmmm….lady in red sweater looks familiar, Mrs Kokaido, Amelia, Amelia’s relative, Amelia’s niece, Sherine and John. Too bad John’s dad went for a game of golf cos I’m curious to know how does a American-Japanese looks like as Mrs Kokaido has all the typical Japanese look in her.

As we was busy loading luggages into John’s truck, Mrs Kokaido came to me with a box of California strawberries. That’s so kawai!

I was still shock of surprise and I know nuts what Mrs Kokaido is mumbling in Japanese. I reach out to that box of strawberries, bend 90 degree and the only words I know is, “Arigato! Arigato! Kawasaki, Suzuki, Honda, Ninja. Haiiiiiiiiiii.” (:lol: pardon the siaoness) I look at Sherine blankly and she helped me to translate, “She say don’t bring out of California.” Aiyah, she don’t have to remind us that. We finished the whole 1kg of Strawberries in the car.

Those are huge strawberries! How come everything in America is huge? Their fruits, their onion, calla lilies… bla bla. No wonder they are so huge in sizes. I’m not trying to be anal. Just something to babble *ngek.

What’s for breakfast?

IHOP – International House of Pancakes

American had an attitude.

“How do you like your egg? Scramble? Over easy? Over medium? Hard fried? Omelette? Sunny side up?”

I have to look at them with a drop jawwwwwwwwwwwww. Goodness gracious me! Just cook whatever way you like. I don’t even know what is over easy or over medium. I’ll just settle with sunny side up cos the bright colour stand up in photograph 🙂

I ordered tea. Instead of a tea bag, cream & sugar, it came additional with 2 slices of lemon, honey and “half and half”. So what I do is, semua pun I hantam. Don’t want to waste any of them. I over look on “half and half”. I thought it is milk as what it is in Malaysia. After I pour the “half and half” into my tea, it started to form tiny curd. Like baby’s puke. Aiyoh, “half and half” is actually milk and egg. No wonder my tea looks like tau foo fah now. But still taste the same! Won’t die!

Even their pancakes have a choice of dry or wet. The one in the picture is wet. I would prefer the dry round type cos it goes great with their buttermilk syrup *slurrppp*

And why do I mentioned all this? I was told American are very fussy with food. Instead of serving what the cook cook, customer was given a choice. I think too many choices. They are so spoilt with choices!

After breakfast, we went for car shopping!

They called this minivan. But in Malaysia this is called a MPV. I’m worried for Hubby as he has never driven a left-hand-drive car before. I’m worry if he handle the big bulky giant. Even their road direction was totally opposit from ours. We wanted to rent a GPS system which cost us additional $35 but the sales person keep on insist that driving from LA to LV is like eating peanut. We’ll take her words. Let’s see how true is it.

What we need is another briefing from John and off we go to Barstow for shopping!Oh, why a MPV? There’s currently 4 adult (Amelia, relative, Hubby and me) and a child with 8 big and medium luggages!!! We even have to sacrifice one of the seat for a big luggage that couldn’t fit in the boot cos the rest of the luggages almost block the driver’s back view. *sigh…

John lead us onto the highway before he has to turn back again. We hope the next time we are in US, we have more time visiting friends – 2 days in Texas, 2 days in Ohio, 2 days in Seattle, 2 days in Alaska… wow! didn’t know I have so many friends in US.

Scenery along the highway was beautiful.

We wonder why the icy-top mountain keep on following us.

From icy-top mountain, suddenly we are on the dessert!

Still, it was a beautiful landscape. Makes me thinks that Almighty God’s creation is marvellous.

If I’m not mistaken, this is part of the Route 66. See the newly tarred road by Lightning McQueen 😉 ? They have only one road sign on Historic Route 66 and I missed that 🙁 and I never bump into another one again 🙁 🙁 .

Barstow!!!

Hubby bought 2 pieces of working shirt from Van Hausen after much pastering from me cos it is wrinkle free. It’s not easy to get wrinkle free shirt in KayEl or Peejay. Other than hubby, I did not get anything for myself. Yet! Nothing much to hoo-haa of what I bought here.

We continue our journey to LV after 3 hours of shopping and caught up in a stand-still on the highway.

Who say such a scene only happen in Malaysia? Since we are caught in the stand-still, let me bitch to you what we have on our highway that Amalika don’t.

1. They doesn’t have nice flush toilet. Their toilet is only a small moveable cubicle placed at the curbside and we don’t even see any of them while driving from LA to LV. So make sure you don’t drink too much of water. *ahem.
2. They doesn’t have nice rest area for makan (eat) like the one in Ayer Keroh. We spotted a few fast food kiosk on the opposit side of the highway. Which means, if we can find our exit to the opposit, we can’t get our butt back on our direction. Go figure. Anyway, we are not taking risk. So make sure you have something to munch in the car.
3. They don’t have lamp post on the highway.

Other than the above, what you will like about their highway is…. from LA to LV, there is not a single toll we have to pay. It’s FREEEEEEEEEEEE!

I’m done bitching. The vehicles is still on a stand-still. What can we do?

Aiyah, take photo la. The next time when you are caught in a stand-still, don’t have to bitch, “Ini Malaysia Boleh la. Amalika mana ada macam ni”. Nah! Show you liao. Can keep your mouth shut now.

And so we drive and drive and drive till about 5pm and the sky started to turn dark.

We know we are almost there. It’s really easy driving from LA to LV. It’s a straight highway all the way.

Many people doesn’t know that Las Vegas is on a piece of dessert land. So do I, till the day I stepped foot here. And I know I’m in Las Vegas when I see lots of casino and hotel, billboards with lots of flickering neon lights. It is such a happening place.

Welcome to Las Vegas – The City that Never Sleep.

p/s: It’s Friday night. Do I have to bitch to you how freaking jam is this area?

… go back to read Day 5 here

… proceed to read Day 7 here