Los Angeles Revisited – The Americana Life!

Posted on by Edmund

After the Bug Free Mastermind and a week in Vegas, Isabel, Adrian and I went back to Los Angeles and this was to be the second part of our trip.

This was to be more of a leisure trip and we started our LA chapter with a BMW 6-series rented from Sixt.

3.0L twin-turbo engine.. gotta love the sound of the engine screaming when you hit the Sports+ mode!

Car is wide and because almost everything was inverted, it took more than a day to get used to driving here (gotta say, drivers in LA are worse than in Malaysia!)

We visited Winter and Anastasia first and checked out the Griffith Observatory. Huey swung by later.

The following day we met up with Huey again in Hollywood…

LACMA at night

Revisited the Universal Studios. This time I got to see more of it as we had almost the whole day here!

Posing with the 6-series…

Concluded the LA trip with a visit to Paul Hoffman‘s place in Marina del Rey.

So glad to see more of LA this time!

It was time for Isabel and Adrian to fly back to Singapore. But for me, I still have one more place to go – Dallas…

Las Vegas – Bug Free Mastermind

Posted on by Edmund

Checked into The Palms Spring here in Vegas and here for a week!

I was here chiefly for the Annual Bug Free Mastermind and since we arrived early, we visited the Grand Canyon via the Sundance heli tour. (something that I didn’t get to do on my first time here 6 years ago)

View was breathtaking – literally!

Also got to go to the shooting range at Battlefield Las Vegas, to shoot my dream gun – the MG42!

Some shopping at North Premium Outlet (and wow the prices were premium too)

One day before the Annual Bug Free Mastermind began, we were treated to a Zappos HQ tour.

Followed by the main event for the next five days – packed with Conference Hall presentations, parties and dinners…

I didn’t attend all of them; I was sick on the first two days of the event and because I don’t drink that means you won’t find me at the pubs and bars. Still got out some good connections from the event nonetheless.

We ended the Vegas trip with a visit to the Old Strip, Fermont Street and watched the Penn and Teller live performance (second time for me!)

Next stop: Los Angeles revisited…

The Start Of Our US Trip 2017

Posted on by Edmund

The longest Friday.

I left Malaysia on 5th May and after more than 21 hours of flight I arrived in Los Angeles… on the same day!

I took Cathay Pacific and transited via Hong Kong.

Because I miscalculated the dates, we arrived a day earlier than intended before heading to Las Vegas.

Good thing Isabel and Adrian booked a hotel in downtown Santa Monica for the night! My bad.

This was just the beginning of the 3 week long US trip for me this round!

To Phnom Penh!

Posted on by Edmund

After spending two days in Siam Reap, I took a 30 minute flight to Phnom Penh to meet Kelly Ch’ng. Kelly has been working here for the last 7 months, and seeing a familiar face here is a relief for me.

As said earlier, I am a terrible negotiator so following her around helped me save a bit as she’s terrific at bargaining with the locals!

I spent a full day in PP before going back the next afternoon but we covered many places – the Cambodian Museum, Killing Fields, did a full body massage, and hopped a few bars including FCC (Foreign Correspondence Club).

Vibes here are totally different from Siam Reap – whereas in SR life is a slower and places seem to be quite apart, here in PP it’s livelier, there are more variety of cars on the streets, and more hip and urban.

We wrapped up the PP trip with a visit to the Central Market to buy some souvenirs back home.

It was a good weekend getaway overall and that’s Country #21 visited for me!

Visiting Temples In Siam Reap!

Posted on by Edmund

I had always wanted to visit Cambodia chiefly for its main attraction, the historically famed Angkor Wat. After putting this off for a couple of years hoping I could find someone or a group of people to join me, I decided I waited enough… and just flew over on my own!

I started the tour at 5:00 in the morning to catch sunrise at the temple. And for the next five hours, not only did I cover Angkor Wat, I had also toured six other surrounding temples. One of the temple sites, Ta Phrom, was used to filmed the 2001 movie Tomb Raider.

Cambodia recognizes the US Dollar currency – and things here are not exactly cheap! For example, a can of coke goes for $1.50 – $2.00 here. I hired the same taxi driver from the airport to do both the small and big tour for $80 – the tuk-tuk tour would’ve been half that price. And left on my own, I am a shitty negotiator. Haha!

Cambodia trip continues in Phnom Penh…