We drove out to Cape Canaveral to visit the Kennedy Space Center, the primary launch site for human spaceflight missions in the United States. It’s one of the major attractions that doesn’t center around amusement parks. Visitors are welcomed by the Rocket Garden that showcases a diverse range of rockets used for past achievements that serve at a tribute to the achievements of space exploration.

One of the key attractions there is a the tour that takes visitors around the space center, and one of the key attractions along the tour is the Vehicle Assembly Building, a colossal structure where NASA assembles and prepares its largest rockets for space missions, including the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. It stands as an iconic symbol of human space exploration and engineering prowess and is one of the largest buildings in the world. It played a pivotal role in assembling rockets and preparing space shuttles for their missions.

Another cool attraction was the mission control room. It’s no longer in use, and has since been repurposed as a simulation of a rocket launch. As the launch clock continues counting down, different systems of the rocket come online and their statuses are reflected on the screens and dashboards around the room. Until finally, when the countdown goes to zero, rocket launch noises fill the room and the screens show the rocket launching. The windows behind also glow bright orange to show the burn of the thrust.

The tour concludes with an exhibit of the Saturn V rocket, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built – the one that carried astronauts to the moon. It was difficult to grasp the scale of the rocket until I saw it in person. Each section is separated, showing each of the stages of the rocket launch. The Saturn V rocket launches by igniting its powerful engines, generating millions of pounds of thrust, and lifting off from the launch pad. As each section of the rocket runs of fuel, it separates from the rest, and propels the spacecraft and astronauts into space (most of the fuel is spend leaving Earth’s gravity). Attached to the end are the modules for the lunar lander and the craft for returning back to Earth.

It was also cool to see the lunar lander up close. It was a spacecraft designed to land astronauts on the moon during NASA’s Apollo missions. It consisted of two parts: the descent stage, which landed on the moon’s surface, and the ascent stage, which launched the astronauts back into lunar orbit.

In 1981, the space shuttle program was launched with the aim of creating a reusable spacecraft capable of launching payloads into space, deploying satellites, conducting scientific research, and safely returning to Earth. The exhibit also featured a simulator that simulates the experience of a rocket launch aboard a space shuttle – essentially a motion simulator that mimicked the G-forces and movements of a shuttle launch. Supposedly it’s a high fidelity simulation of a rocket launch, but surprisingly the G-forces only went up to what I vaguely recall to be 3.5Gs and felt actually quite mild (even children went on the ride and were completely okay).

A visit to the Kennedy Space Center adds a unique and educational dimension to the Orlando experience. From the awe-inspiring Rocket Garden to the monumental Vehicle Assembly Building, the center embodies the triumphs of human space exploration. It was cool to experience the simulated rocket and shuttle launch and getting up close to the lunar lander and Saturn V rocket.

More photos here

Beef noodles: a soup noodle with big chunks of half fatty and half lean beef in a beef broth. One of the quintessential parts of Taiwanese food culture.

Hot pot: it’s the idea of taking a pot of boiling water or soup and cooking meat and vegetables in it. Pretty much anything goes here: any kind of meat, vegetable, mushroom, etc.

Stir fried morning glory: not a vegetable that’s common in Canada/USA, but can be found in Asian supermarkets. It looks and feels like green onion with a slightly thicker skin, but tastes like spinach and has a nice crunch.

Szechuan style spicy wontons: the wonton is very similar to other kinds of wontons (ground pork and shrimp in a dough wrapper). In this case, it’s got a spicy, yet savoury sauce that slightly numbs the tongue.

Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings): similar to a wonton as far as its filling goes (it can be pure pork, pure shrimp, or mixed) with a key difference in that it contains hot soup. They originated from Shanghai, but it’s made its way into mainstream Taiwanese cuisine.

Shaoxing drunken chicken: it’s essentially chicken that has been steamed and marinated in a brine of shaoxing wine and chicken broth.

Bubble tea: yet another famous part of Taiwanese cuisine. The original variant was a milk tea with tapioca pearls, but now it’s evolved and comes in many flavours, from any kind of tea to a fruit slushie, with either tapioca pearls or fruit jellies (or even ice cream!)

Grilled giant prawns: Prawns a pretty regular thing in a lot of places, but at the local Shilin nightmarket, they are fished out and cooked only when ordered – so they are guaranteed fresh. These prawns are also HUGE. The three in the photo were around half a pound in total.

Oyster pancake: a popular food at the night markets, it’s essentially an omelette (with added starch for thickness) with oysters inside, with a savoury sauce poured on top.

Popcorn chicken: can be summarized as Taiwan’s take on fried chicken. It’s got Chinese style seasonings such as five-spice, and Thai basil. It can be found at many street vendors and night markets.

Kaoliang wine: this wine is made from fermented sorghum. It’s got a nice strong kick, and not so much a wide flavour profile. This alcohol is a big export of the Taiwanese island of Kinmen

Three cup chicken: named after the three key ingredients for the sauce: rice wine, soy sauce, and sesame oil. The chicken is cooked in the skillet.

Mango shaved ice: mango chunks with mango ice cream on top of mango flavoured shaved ice. It tastes exactly like what one would imagine. The little purple and orange balls are made of taro and potato/sweet potato flour and are nice and chewy.

Of all the food I miss, I’d say it’s the beef noodles. That’s the one thing I have the strongest craving for and unfortunately for me, there aren’t any that I like where I live. To see other parts of my trip to Taipei, click here.

The Christmas market going on at the time sold a lot of knick knacks aimed at tourists.

This old town reminded me a lot of the old towns in other cities in Europe. It’s one of the things that a lot of European cities have in common.

Nearby the town square, was a picturesque alley known as St. Catherine’s Passage. It looks like it come straight out of a movie.

The whole town is quite picturesque.

Following the stereotypes of a typical European old town, there’s also a grand cathedral, but since this is eastern Europe, this cathedral belongs to the Orthodox church.

Across from it is the parliament of Estonia. It almost looks like something from a Wes Anderson movie.

There are some nice lookout points too.

Aside from the old town historical sites, Estonia has also had to deal with its Soviet past. Tallinn, at least, decided to remove the old Soviet monuments, but understood their historical significance. So they put some of these statues in a sort of statue graveyard. Perhaps the United States can adopt this strategy as a compromise in their debate on whether or not to remove the old Confederate statues. A big difference is that it seems Estonia seems quite unified in their rejection of the Soviet ideology. They even have a museum about their occupation by the Soviet Union.

Tallinn also has some hipster areas too. They’ve sprung up all over the place! It’s not *all* historical sites.

Photos here

This was the weather on the night I got there… Very pleasant…

The next morning we went on a nice scenic drive through the mountains to chill at the sulphur hot springs.

We spent a good couple hours just sitting in the outdoor hot springs. The water temperature was like hot tub temperature while it was lightly snowing outside.

We stayed overnight in a nearby town.

The next day we ate at a very hilariously named restaurant…

Went on a scenic drive and a light hike around some frozen lakes.

Then at night, because I like South Park so much, we went to Casa Bonita. South Park’s depiction of Casa Bonita was quite accurate.

The cliff divers are real!!

We even ate at the so-called “South Park table”, the same table that Cartman eats at when he is dreaming about going to Casa Bonita.

Classic American breakfast. 16 oz Steak and eggs.

Our last day in Denver is when we actually spent time IN Denver. Strolling down 16th street mall.

Then we wandered into the state capitol. One of the hallways had photos of every president of the United States. All but one. Since each portrait is funded by donation, it might be a while before the current asshat president will get his picture put up.

Managed to get a peek at an actual discussion between politicians. I saw a guy defending a climate bill while nobody listened. And then I wondered if that’s what it was like at the federal level too…

In the afternoon, we rented a GTR and zoomed around the mountains. My friend and I took turns driving this supercar.

I had trouble keeping the camera still in the turn. At one point, the car readout showed that we were pulling 0.5G’s of acceleration!

The rental company has a guy that drives a lead car while guests renting different super cars follow them on their route. Their route was quite well planned and took us on a nice windy mountain road that led up to a lake. Along with us for the ride was a Lamborghini.

The rental company’s garage has even more amazing cars.

Denver was quite a relaxing trip, which is quite different from my usual trips where I’m walking for the entire day. In a blink of an eye I was back on the plane headed back home.

Link to photos: here

The United Nations Command, the United States of America, and the Republic of Korea cannot guarantee the safety of visitors and may not be held accountable in the event of a hostile enemy act.

There’s even a section about not interacting with the soldiers on the other side too.

Fraternization, including speaking, making gestures or associating with personnel from the Korea People’s Army/Chinese People’s Volunteers (KPA/CPV) side, is strictly prohibited

Anyway, the full text is here for people who are curious

Fun fact: Hawaii is not part of North America, but rather Oceania.  Already on the flight in, Hawaii already looks beautiful.

On the North Shore of the island, sea turtles sometimes just chill out on shore.  They are endangered because people wanted to eat them and use their shells for superstitious medicine.  It is illegal to touch them and there is a fine for it if caught.

Here’s a picture of our nice rental car – a BMW 535i.  Notice how there isn’t a front license plate (not legal)

Parts of Oahu’s coastline has lots of these oddly shaped rocks (possibly some volcanic rock?)

There’s also cool rock formations like this one at Laie Point.  We saw people here fishing, and jumping into the water from the cliff side – looks dangerous, but super fun.

For hikes, not many people know about the Puu O Mahuka State Monument, where there is a semi-hidden path that leads to a really good view of Waimea.

There’s also the Pillbox Hike near Lanikai beach, which is a bit more touristy, but the view up there is really nice too.

Another well-known hike is the Diamond Head hike, which starts at the base of a crater all the way up to the top edge of it.  From there, there is a good view of Waikiki and the surrounding area.

Another hike, called the Makapuu Point Lighthouse Trail is another hike to see Oahu’s natural beauty.  At some parts of the hike, the mountain blocks the wind completely, so on a hot day, there is no breeze for cooling down, which makes this hike a little less enjoyable.

For a night view of Honolulu, we headed up to Roundtop Drive

This is the best food in Hawaii.  It’s called Poke.  It’s essentially raw fish with spices on it – absolutely delicious when it is fresh.  The ones here are from a place called Fresh Catch.

Of course, there is also Pearl Harbor, the site where the Japanese attacked the United States in 1942.

The USS Arizona Memorial is built on a sunken battleship, the USS Arizona.  Even now, pockets of oil still bubble to the surface.

At the Polynesian Cultural Center, people can learn about the Polynesians and experience their culture through stuff like dance performances.  Too bad I couldn’t get a picture of their actual theater performance, where they did crazy tricks with sticks lit on fire.

There is the stereotypical Luau, which is a buffet with a dinner performance (with more fire involved).  There’s good food like kalua pig, poke, salmon, chicken, etc.

One thing that really surprised me about Hawaii is the amount of wild chickens everywhere.  I even got woken up in the morning by a rooster’s call in the morning.

Other things to do in Hawaii that I recommend:

• Trying garlic shrimp from a food truck (like Fumi’s)
• Drinking out of a coconut (really stereotypical, but I’ve always wanted to try this!)
• Drinking an Otai (coconut and mango drink)

Things that I do not recommend:

• Driving too fast.  Police are EVERYWHERE and it is impossible to get away with breaking traffic rules.  I learned this the hard way.

Link to photo album: here

The most interesting thing I experienced here would have to be the ridiculous portions of food that is served – it really fulfills the American stereotype. For example, this is what we got at the restaurant at the Star Hotel:

Now a standard fork is probably about 7 inches in length, so using the fork as a scale in that picture, the steak is probably about 9 inches long and about 2.5 inches wide. I was expecting a steak of half the size. Not to mention it came with spaghetti, beans, fries, soup, salad, and bread on the side. I ate all of that over two meals.

Naturally, we also explored the town. The road we mostly travelled through was Idaho Street and we really saw how small the town was. When we were there, the temperature was about 30°C and not very humid, making it very unpleasant to walk outside.

According to Wikipedia, Elko had a population of 18,297 people in 2010 – that’s pretty small compared to what I’m used to. The primary industry in Elko is gold mining – hence the reason to hold a tradeshow. The tradeshow lasted two days and after that we drove to Salt Lake City to catch a plane back to Vancouver.

Link to more photos

They took us around Markham, the so-called Asian part of Toronto. Pretty much like Richmond in Vancouver. Felt quite at home there. Eating Chinese food again was quite a welcome change from eating random fast food while in the states. I guess I also didn’t think of taking any pictures there since it seemed to me that things were “quite ordinary”. And people generally don’t take pictures of things they find ordinary.

The last time I was in Toronto, I was eight years old. I don’t remember much from that trip, sightseeing here was quite a new experience for me. We visited Niagara Falls for the second time.  There are people crazy enough to go up close to the falls too.

There’s also a bridge to the United States that lets people see the falls from the American side. No point to go there because the Canadian side of the falls is way more scenic.

If you’re rich, you can even stay in one of these hotels that look straight toward the falls.

Then to the world famous CN Tower.

Gorgeous view from the top.

This time, I’m not afraid of the glass floor.  I figure, what the hell? The engineers who designed it must have made it safe, otherwise it wouldn’t have been built in Canada and it’s lasted so long already without any accidents, so it must be safe.

Those two places are just about the only tourist sites we visited in Toronto. We spent the rest of the time with catching up with cousins and walking around the different Asian malls in Markham. I even got to drive my cousin’s GTI. That was cool too. After two and a half days in Toronto, we flew back to Vancouver, thus ending our two-week trip to eastern North America.

Photos here

We only spent about half a day in this city and most of the sightseeing was done on a prearranged city tour. The first stop was The Philadelphia Bourse. It was founded in 1891 and functioned as a center for commodities exchange up until the 60’s.

Further along was Elfreth’s Alley, one of the oldest residential streets in the country.

And then the Betsy Ross House, where Betsy Ross may have lived when she made the first American flag.

Here’s a bust of William Penn, the founder of Philadelphia.

We also passed by the cemetery where Benjamin Franklin is buried at.

Next, the historic Chinatown.

And now, the Masonic Library and Museum. Built in 1873, but it looks a lot older than that.

Directly across the street is the Philadelphia City Hall. It reminded me a little bit of the Hamburg Rathaus. It took 30 years to build and was only finished in 1901. It looks a lot older than that given its style of construction.

Further along was the Eastern State Penitentiary, a former prison where notorious criminals such as Al Capone once stayed at.

And then the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The staircase in the front is known as the Rocky Steps, the staircase that Rocky was shown to be training at in the movie.

Passed by a lot of historic looking neighbourhoods on our way back to the beginning of the tour.

Here is a picture of clouds as we were driving away from Philadelphia after the tour.

After the city tour, our sightseeing in the states was essentially over. We spent the entirety of the next day shopping at Woodbury Outlets and driving back to Montreal.

More photos here

First stop, Lincoln Memorial.

“In this temple as in the harts of the people for whom he saved the union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln” is enshrined forever”. Powerful words. His two most famous speeches are also written on the inside walls in his remembrance. “This nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

Directly in front of the monument, is the reflecting pool.  Too bad there was construction at the time, otherwise it’d looks way nicer.

On the south side of the memorial, there is the Korean War Memorial.

This phrase beside it is probably one of the most well said quotes.

Freedom is definitely not free.

On the north side of Lincoln Memorial, there is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The names etched into the memorial are everyone who was killed or missing in action.

This is where politics happens. The Capitol, where Obama pwns his political opponents and passes bills through congress.

Next stop, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Definitely lots of interesting things here!

To show off the history of aviation, naturally there is a model of the Wright Brother’s plane.

Eventually, we built fixed wing aircraft.

Fast forward a few decades, and there is a lunar lander.

In the present day, we are now blowing people up from afar using Predator drones…

Too bad there wasn’t enough time to visit other museums in the Smithsonian. Would have liked to see the natural history exhibits too. But at least I got to briefly see the Smithsonian Castle.

We then took a nice and relaxing boat tour on the Potomac River.

Of course there’s also the Washington Monument.

Then there is the White House, where the boss aka Barack Obama lives. There’s even three guys on the roof to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary.

Then while leaving the city, the tour bus driver had the great idea of driving into the Pentagon parking lot.

And here is a nice picture of sun rays passing through clouds that I managed to capture while we were on the road to the next destination.

We spent the night in Atlantic City, where those interested got the chance to visit the casinos and “try” to win money. I on the other hand, was pretty tired. I pretty much went to sleep right away when we got to the hotel. Needed some good rest for the trip to Philadelphia the next day.

More photos here