We took a trip to the west coast of our favorite country, America. We visited Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle . From Los Angeles to San Francisco to Seattle, we took two train trips on AmTrack.
I was especially moved by the memorable scenes of the ocean on our left right after leaving Los Angeles and by the forest and the mountain range in Oregon lit by early sun light in the next morning after leaving San Francisco, and my heart was beating faster for a long time.
I will show you our trip with a series of pictures that I took. Enjoy yourselves!
We arrived at Las Vegas via San Jose. Las Vegas stood right in the middle of the desert. It's the world's most famous town of casino and entertainment. Many hotels are theme parks, and without going anywhere, you can indulge in fancy entertainment and gambling. It was always very busy all day even in the early morning although around mid night, there were less people. It is needless to say that we got excited very much and that we felt like we were possessed. We lost a little bit, but we entertained our soul. We chose the hotel Luxor. It was an attractive hotel with the Egyptian theme.
We flied from Las Vegas to Grand Canyon with a small airplane which had only 19 seats. It was blown so up and down in the teeth of the wind along on the Colorado River that we felt more dead than alive. It was impossible to take pictures from the rolling airplane. We found out the lodge where we had made a reservation and thrown our baggages into the room. We have enjoyed a Sunset tour. The cool was hanging in the air in spite of hot summer there, and the Sunset from South Rim made Grand Canyon shine and that was exceedingly impressive for all of us.
In Los Angeles, we stayed in Santa Monica, and we enjoyed the Queen Merry (a luxury liner) at Long Beach, the night view of Los Angeles downtown, George C Page Museum that is famous for the remains of the American elephants, the Universal Studio and so on.
We drove to Hollywood area many times, and it was like playing a game to look for the spots where we could see the famous big sign, "Hollywood". We explored Beverly Hills, and its luxury impressed us once again. We got excited like a couple of kids by the entertainments at the Universal Studio theme park. The building that was used in Hitchcock's famous film, Psyco was still there. We happened to see the movie on TV the other day, and it was like enjoying it twice.
We are heading to San Francisco. The ocean and the mountain ranges are coming into our view. We enjoyed the one day trip to San Francisco in the first class's compartment of AmTrack. The view out of the window, chatting, wine tasting party held in the dinning car, everything was wonderful and exciting. We arrived at the hotel in San Francisco late in the evening. The hotel located near the Union Square was very nice. We were looking forward to take a walk around the town.
Our dream city, San Francisco was continual surprises and excitements as anticipated. We stayed only for a few days. Here, we didn't rent a car, and explored many places by cable car, subway, bus, boat and especially on foot! Lombard St, the Alcatraz, the cable car museum, the science museum, the fisherman's wharf, the city hall, the golden gate bridge, China town, etc. filled us with wonderful excitement.
We took the cable car a few dozen times, and we enjoyed exchanging greetings with the local people and the tourists like ourselves. The Grace Cathedral where Monroe had her wedding, is said to be the concrete version of Notredame Cathedral. We felt simple spirituality of Americans.
From the financial district, we walked through the famous Transamerica Pyramid, and then we climbed the Coit Tower. The golden gate, Alcatraz, the Bay Bridge were seen in one view from the tower.The crocked Lombard Street was seen in distance very clearly. We were very impressed.
It was summer in San Francisco, but it was much colder than we had thought. There were many people who were in shorts and sweaters. One of us had to buy a wind-breaker, and he used the cold weather to his advantage. This wind-breaker came in very handy at the next city, Seattle.
Our trip is now heading to Seattle via Oregon. When the train entered the station in Seattle, we were very surprised to find that it was very plain. The baseball stadium where Sasaki, the famous baseball player (his nickname is the big devil, DAIMAMJIN) plays. Like Yokohama Bay Stars, I think that Seattle Mariners is a good name. The idea of Seattle being a port town comes to our mind.
While enjoying a brief conversation with a friendly taxi driver, we arrived to a small hotel in downtown.We witnessed many tourists gathered in the lobby, we felt premonition of the excitement of exploring Seattle. Here we go.
Space Needle is said to be the most famous place of Seattle. In the first evening, we had went there by the Monorail which runs south to north in the downtown. It is proud of the sharpness with all of a tremble. We enjoyed the beautiful night view from the Needle. The down town and the jetblack seas were mixed like in a mosaic, it looked like a fantastic drawing. We felt as if we had walked in the town of San Francisco on the way back to the hotel. We made a plan to visit Pioneer Square, the cradle of Seattle in the next morning.
A place is memorised as the Pioneer Square, where the first pioneers had colonized in about the middle of the 19th century. There is a Pioneer Building in the center of the square. People are ploud of the building as the memorial place of the colonization, I agree with. It was built after the conflagration in 1889. The front design is likely to manifest the dream in the people at that time.
At the time of 1889's big fire (conflagration), 32 blocks were burned down and destroyed, they says. The 1st level of this area was buried under the ground during the restruction work, so the present level of roads is as high as the 2nd floor of the old town. The old 1st floor has been exhibited under the ground. We are able to enjoy a underground tour. We enjoyed the exciting tour for one and half hour with many american tourists. We could image their hardship and glory as touring the under ground. Underground tour is intersting.
While I am writing this page,an earthquake of the intensity of 6.8 at Seattle is informed on TV. It says that the damage would be large, but not so serious as the activities of Seattle are effected, so we have felt relieved. How is Rock Building necked at the bottom now? There was nothing serious in the news from Seattle afterwards. That's a great building.
