Vegas and the Grand Canyon

A stressful and rushed morning left us with a slim 5 mins window from arriving at the Greyhound bus station to getting on our bus but we made it!! 5 hours later, we arrived in the desert city of Vegas 

We checked into Stratosphere hotel, which we managed to get a really good deal for and this was our view from our room! 

We then got an uber to Vegenation and the food was incredible! 

We shared a mexican jackfruit mole dish, dumplings and a chicken pot pie ! 

We then made the mistake (ok well I made the mistake because it was my idea) of walking back to our hotel because it was blazing hot!!! It was a 25 mins walk under direct sunlight with no shade whatsoever 

Once we got back to the cool hotel, we decided to have a shot at roulette and it was so much fun! The dealers were so professional and there were so many rules that made it just so official - well I'm sure it is the same in all casinos but because this was my very first time in a casino, it was so much to take in and I was just really impressed yet intimidated because everyone else seemed like they knew what they were doing 

Anyway, Topo and I managed to make decent winnings! We consciously made an effort not to be too greedy and learn when to stop and it was a really good experience because I could understand (from my short experience) how addicts become addicts at the casinos. I found it really mind boggling how one could feel so in despair from having lost something that they didn't even own in the first place e.g. winning $40 and losing it the next round and feeling so annoyed without even remembering that the $40 of winnings literally came out of thin air!! 

After that cool experience and really nice chats with some of the dealers, we checked out the pool which had a really nice view of the city and then headed back to our room for dinz 

Another mistake made - we ordered room service 

T'was a mistake because the $6.50 fries became $13 after taxes 

- cries -

We had our extremely overpriced fries with lettuce and mushroom patties and 'cheese'! 

and it turned out to be a really yummy DIY dinner ☺

The next morning, we got up at 5:40 am to start our day trip to the Grand Canyon! 

We were shocked when we entered the lobby of our hotel because there were still people sitting at the slots machines - and no they did not wake up at 5 in the morning to come and play, they've been sitting there the whole night. 

Our first stop on our tour was to the Hoover Dam! It powers the entire state of California, Arizona and Nevada 

Our next stop was the Route 66! Where real-life inspiration for Cars (the disney movie) was drawn from ☺

and we then finally got to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon!!

Can you spot the tiny people

Personally, I preferred Yosemite because we were actually hiking in the park as compared to the Grand Canyon, I felt like I was just a spectator because I was not immersed in the environment 

The vastness of it was still really incredible and I would love to come back and actually hike within the park 

We did the short and sweet Rim Trail to the visitor's centre

and look at this cutie elk drinking water! 

After we reached the visitors centre, we managed to quickly grab dinner to-go at a restaurant there because we knew that In-N-Out didn't have many promising vegan options (which was the planned dinner destination with our bus tour)

We stopped at In-N-Out and ordered fries with fried onions and chilis to go with our dinner, but they were so bland and underwhelming 

The drive back to our hotel was so nice because we got a free night tour of the city! It was perfect because the bus dropped the various guests at their respective hotels and ours was one of the last hotels on the list and so we got such a beautiful tour of the city :) 

The next day, we treated ourselves to a surprisingly good and vegan-friendly brunch buffet at the hotel and spent the entire day at the casino hahaha 

We both started feeling not so great after a couple hours because the air in the casino was really bad - not only was it not circulated well, but people were allowed to smoke indoors and so I quickly developed a headache ☹ But the table we were playing at had such a good energy because the couple we were playing with such friendly and fun people, which made the game so much better! 

Our hotel also had thrill rides at the top of the hotel, which were 100 stories above the Vegas strip! As hotel guests, we had the option of getting an unlimited pass and so we did and managed to make good use out of it before we headed to the Greyhound station to catch our bus to San Diego ☺

I'm so incredibly happy with where I am with life right now.

I am so happy to be my age. 

I am so happy to be born in this century. 

I am so happy with the friends that I have made and keep in touch with. 

I am so happy that I am able to look back at who I was before and say that I am an improved version of myself.

I can't believe I'm approaching my last year of uni and it saddens me to think that I may be leaving the UK and all my friends but at the same time, I am so excited to see where I end up.

I've had two inspiring conversations today that reminded me that I am not obliged to do anything that I don't want to do and this is my life and I've only got one shot at it so I better make it worthwhile and most importantly, spend time doing things that matter to me and make me happy! 

Lesson of the day: 

You're not an interesting person because you've done interesting things. What makes a person interesting is her/his mind. 

✧ La La Land ✧

Day 1 in LA 

Our greyhound bus was very much delayed and we arrived in LA at 3:30 in the morning. We then checked in to Little Tokyo hotel, which had such an authentic Japanese vibe with a really old man manning the reception and recording everyone's booking and receipts on paper. Booking this hotel was a last minute decision (we wanted to just rough it out) and I am so thankful that we did, just to be able to get a nice hot shower after hiking in Yosemite and to have a bed to sleep on despite only available to us for a couple of hours. 

We checked out at 11am and as we were walking to the street level from the hotel, we saw a long queue forming outside, found out that it was for a ramen place and decided to join the queue! I mean if there was a queue even before it was open, it had to be good! and it was :) 

After that delicious filling meal, we headed to our air bnb, popped out to Whole Foods where we spent hours trying to decide what to cook for dinner because the vegan options were endless there and then headed back for a chilled out rest of the day! 

We ended up cooking a jackfruit and vegetable stir-fry with teriyaki sauce, which was so yum and had salted caramel So Delicious ice cream after, which was even more yum! 

Day 2 in LA 

The next morning started with Engine-2's granola with fruit and almond milk for breakfast and a lovely but extremely hot and sweaty hike to the Hollywood Sign!

The views were amazing :') 

Ta-da!

We decided to hike up to the back of the sign and also to the front of the sign to get both views :)

After the hike, we headed to Smorgasburg sunday food market and had a Korean sushi burrito, a jackfruit plantain chip platter and I had matcha boba☺

We decided to walk to the Staples centre from the market and unfortunately walked on a 'not-so-nice' street lined with tents of homeless people that smelled like piss and encountered some weird people and even a pair shouting right in each other's faces. It was so shocking to me that with just one wrong turn, you could end up walking down the dodgy side of town. The contrast was so stark!

We ended up in Whole Foods again to stock up on more food and snacks and kombucha (we are obsessed!!) and then headed back home to have our jackfruit stir fry and this time with orange gardein chicken, which was so bomb!!

Day 3 in LA

Had the same granola breakfast before heading out to see the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was really rather underwhelming. In my opinion, it is very much over hyped and even the area that it was in did not even have a fun or exciting atmosphere, it just seemed pretty dull. We got bored rather quickly and decided to head to by Chloe. for lunch 

The food here was phenomenal!!! 

Every bite was bursting with flavor and thinking about this place makes me want to go there now! and luckily for me they have one in London so I'll be sure to be heading there soon ☺

We then decided to get a bus to save money on an uber to get to Santa Monica Beach!

I loved the vibes here but unfortunately, I couldn't remember much of anything else because the day ended with me passing out on the streets and having to be carried into the uber by Topo and heading home :( 

Day 4 in LA

I felt much better after a good night's rest thankfully as we were going to Universal Studios!

I loved it! The vibes here were amazing and thousands of talented people have somehow managed to come together to create this fun atmosphere and world that is like no other. The attention to detail on the buildings, the streets, the costumes, the music was just brilliant. 

and the Harry Potter world was up and running as well!!

The Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride was my favourite ride here!! 

My favourite attraction was the Studio Tour! It was an hour tour around the sets where thousands of huge blockbuster movies and series have been shot. The set of The Good Place was up, which was so cool because Topo and I had watched it just a few months back :) The 3D 'rides' during the tour were amazing as well and the pics below show how could create a controlled flood that looked so incredibly real!! 

Flinstones car!!

They bought an airplane just to make this realistic massive scene of an air plane crash 

I was also first in line to take a pic with Po! hehe

We ended our trip with the Jurassic Park ride, which was so thrilling and also wet! At the last bit of the ride, they made it seem such that upon impact of a steep fall, we'd all get drenched from the pool of water that we'd encounter in front of us, but impressive engineers/physicists designed it such that that wasn't the case hahaha. We then got the train back to union station and took an uber home and made burgers for dinner! 

Day 5 in LA

Had a very chilled out day that started with heading to watch the 11:25am showing of Deadpool 2! Unfortunately, the movie was rather disappointing as we both felt they were trying too hard to be funny and there was not much character development present. We then headed to Sage Vegan bistro for lunch and had an amazing platter of hot wings and a chorizo pizza!  

After walking a short distance to Echo Park Lake, we decided that we had enough of LA and did all that we wanted to do/see and headed back to relax for the rest of the night