Dragon Bishop: Visit This Place

All the followings come after TravelMuse . Yahoo Trip Planner - http://travel.yahoo.com/trip RealTravel - http://realtravel.com TravelPost - http://www.travelpost.com Drfitr - http://www.driftr.com

Last weekend we went to Clear Lake for a quick tour. I, Shusmita and our 1 year old son Ahyan was joined by our friend Nitol and Liju. Our friend Muthu Prakash joined us in our resort WorldMark for Wyndham the following night. As I always say that the best part of living in America is the long drives like this. We started around 8:30 PM Friday night (30th Nov) and came back Sunday evening (2nd Dec). The first night we reached very late so next day morning we went out to sight seeing (circling around the whole lake) just a little earlier than noon. At night we made barbequee and Prakash reached around 10:30 PM at night. More of our friends from Fremont were supposed to join us but they had to cancel the program at the last moment due to their other involvements. Sunday while returning, we went to Napa Premium Outlet first and did shopping for our upcoming New York visit this month. While coming Liju drove the car and while going back Prakash took Nitol in his car and Liju again drove

We six engineers from Milpitas Philips R&D team went to visit Philips Lifeline in an official tour. Our flight for San Francisco to Boston airport was 6th August Monday noon. The flight was only of five hours and we reached at Crown Plaza Natick at 10:30 PM despite the 3 hours time difference. I had a steak with french fries in dinner very late at night in Uno Chicago Grill which was quite tasty! The next whole day (Tuesday) went so busy in Framingham (Lifeline) that I seldom got time to take a breath. In the evening, we came back in hotel for 15 minutes. Ron (Dutch) joined me, Brian, Dan and Jade in our visit to Cambridge and Boston. First we went to MIT campus and then to Harvard which is close by. It was an amazing experience to visit these 2 places. We had dinner at Grandel Den's and again I picked a steak with mash potato. This teak was even tastier than last night's! Before coming back to hotel, we had ice cream from a famous shop there. Wednesday we presented PTS and

http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/roadinfo/hi.htm

I am very happy to know that according to the latest Places Rated Almanac , San Francisco is the second best metropolitan area in USA following Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as the best. Also I noted that San Jose/Sunnyvale area is in the eighth position followed closely by Boston. The areas were ranked by their ambience (the cultural offerings in the city), housing, economy, transportation, education, health care, crime, recreation, and climate. Here’s a look at the areas that made the top ten. 1. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 2. San Francisco, California 3. Seattle, Washington 4. Portland, Oregon 5. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 6. Rochester, New York 7. Washington, D.C.

Today I found a very useful serfvice for me - WikiTravel . By name you can guess what lind of service it provides. For example, if you are planning to visit San Francisco, I suggest you to have a read of their topic on this - http://wikitravel.org/en/San_Francisco

When you go for a vacation or travel, which sites do you use most for finding good deals on air, hotel and rental car deals? I search the followings in order. www.southwest.com www.jetblue.com www.hotwire.com www.expedia.com www.travelocity.com www.kayak.com/ www.priceline.com Update: And now a whole bunch of other sites are there - www.travelmuse.com www.smartertravel.com www.cheapair.com www.onetravel.com farecast.live.com www.sidestep.com/book/flight www.cheaptickets.com For car rentals, www.carrentals.com looked good to me.

I love to roam around San Francisco Bay Area, its an amazing place to do so. Here is a shortened list among many thousands of great places to go here. Fisherman's Wharf , Pier 39 and Ghirardelli Square , covering about half a dozen blocks along the waterfront, constitute much of the stereotypical San Francisco image and together are perhaps the most popular things to do in San Francisco. Tourists walking here are entertained by street performers and tempted by souvenir shops and restaurants. The Golden Gate Bridge is an engineering marvel. Not only is it one of the city's most enjoyable things to do, but it's also one of the most-photographed sights in the world. A walk on it is a must. Alcatraz , the former prison, wasn't always a place people wanted to go, but today it's one of the city's most popular sights. Reserve your tickets in advance to avoid disappointment. Union Square , one of the city's three original parks, is now a public space atop a multi

This memorial day long weekend was the last weekend before summer and was a perfect candidate for a vacation. I, Shusmita and Ahyan were joined by Nitol and Liju for a Lake Tahoe trip with one night stay in Cal Neva Resort near King's Beach which is in the border of California and Nevada. We started for Lake Tahoe just before noon Saturday. I expected cold as more than a year earlier I came in a winter here with my friend Prakash and it was ice and ice everywhere. But it was warm and green now. We enjoyed the stay in hotel and roaming around Lake Tahoe. At night we went to Reno which is a very small version of Las Vegas. The next morning we checked out at noon and rounded the whole circle of Lake Tahoe stopping in several vista points. Its beautiful... very beautiful... The whole trip Ahyan was very happy but he didn't eat cereals. From our hotel we could see the lake and hills very closely. It was a good driving experience and wonderful vacation!

Here are few I plan to visit in future or have already visited. I will constantly update this list so expect this post as a dynamic one instead of static. San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge Alcatrza Island Napa Valley Monterey Bay Aquarium Las Vegas Reno Lake Tahoe Yosemite Los Angeles Universal Studio Muir Wood, San Francisco Mount Hood, Oregon Grand Canion, Arizona Painted Desert, Arizona Miami Beach, Florida Empire State Building, New York Staue of Libert, new York Ground Zero (Former Twin Towers), New York Georgia Bay Aquarium, Atlanta White House, Washington Sea World, San Diego Mount Rushmore, South Dakota

Morning today I, Shusmita, Ahyan and Prakash started for Nappa Valley, a place of scenic beauty and famous for producing good wine. The visitor center was a 70 miles drive from my house and we caught the Silverado trail which was another 20 miles. Bliss, the default Windows XP wallpaper is actually the the photograph of one of the hills in Napa Valley. We had lunch in an Italian resturant which was huge in size but not-so-good in taste. Shusmita got some chane to do shopping. The place that we plan to come back again and again is Sterling. We returned home by 8 at night.