My Travels

If you had asked me before the summer started if I was going to be in the Bay area, I would have said I can't imagine why I would need to be. Now that summer is winding down, I did happen to go quite often! I flew up on United Airlines and was in the city relatively quickly. Probably an all time record from SFO via Bart to the Financial District. I checked into the Hilton San Francisco Financial District . I've always liked the location of this hotel due to its proximity to most of the city attractions - Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, and Embacadero. Personally, I would say that the hotel is in Chinatown but I can see why that naming would not make it attractive to the general public. I was hoping to get a double bed room but this particular weekend seemed very popular. Double bed rooms were a hot commodity but the front desk did send up a rollaway to compensate. I will say that hotel rooms are generally small in this city and I was wondering how a rollaway would fit o...

Made this trek a road trip and overnighted in Sin City. I arrived early enough in Las Vegas to check out the Costco in hopes of snagging some good gift card options. I was not able to find anything interesting unless I wanted to turn around and visit San Diego. :s Master Bedroom Living Room   Second Bedroom Checked into the Hilton Grand Vacations Club Las Vegas. I intially booked two studios but merged them into a two bedroom suite once I checked in. The front desk was nice enough to uprgrade me for a small nominal fee. As any timeshare hotel, it was a typical two bedroom apartment style layout. Luckily, I was planning on leaving early the next day because check out is at 10 am.  Afterwards, headed to Bacchi Burger . There are two locations and I visited the one near the airport. The restaurant opens at noon and I was suprrised to find there was already a wait. This place gets busy quick! I ordered the spicy miso burger and shared orders of t...

So my brief stay last time in San Francisco compelled me back to the Bay area for the weekend. Okay, not really but it sounded nice to say that. I grabbed a last minute fare up to San Francisco Airport on United Airlines and joined my siblings. I came too early for them to properly wake up and check out of the Holiday Inn San Mateo hotel. So I napped a bit before heading up to the city. I can't recall if I've ever stayed at one but it seemed a nice enough location/facility. At least the suite was spacious and comfortable. On a side note, there are several Holiday Inns around SFO so be sure you are looking for the right location before jumping onto the shuttle. Ready for some donut noshing! Rustled up part of the group and left the hotel to downtown San Francisco. On the way to downtown, stopped at Dynamo Donut in Mission. The group tried the maple bacon, coconut, strawberry earl grey, and fleur de sel doughnuts. All the flavors were represented w...

So I haven't been to Sin City in awhile. The strip is now all proprietary hotels, there isn't much of an incentive for me to go being the every loyal hotel chain brand person that I am. The Hilton Las Vegas offered such great rates and was an easy place to stay but the hotel has fallen on hard times and is now the Las Vegas Hotel & Casino . I wonder if the name change will confuse people or not. It seems Hilton's new strategy is timeshare hotels on the strip with the other Hilton branded hotels around the strip. On this trip, I flew out on JetBlue for this quick weekend trip. I haven't flown the airline for some years. I have to admit, I was not that much of a fan even though I know some die hards. I think it was mostly because Long Beach Airport is under such a construction mess that it was difficult to think of it as a real airport. Also, the $19 per day parking didn't sit well with me. At least with other airport locations, there are alternatives to the on...

Summer fares to China have been rough this year. An economy fare this year was the same price as business fare last year. I don't think United Airlines feels that the Chinese market is retracting. In fact, it seems that business is booming. I opted to do a combination buy a one way fare and use miles for the other one way. Ironically, saver awards were plenty on the one way so I booked a first class ticket and used an upgrade certificate on the purchased segment. United First Class Lounge at LAX The last time I flew first class to Shanghai was last summer. Nothing changed much this year except the toiletry bag was a bit more robust after the United/Continental merger. On this particular trip, I was able to check out the First Class lounge in the United terminal at LAX. I've always seen the signs leading up and wondered why there was a need for two lounges in the same terminal. As expected, it was pretty empty in the lounge. The food offerings had more options than the Uni...

I went to Portland to visit family and pick up tax free merchandise. It has been awhile since I've flown directly to Portland Airport . I flew up on United Airlines and was glad to have been upgraded on the flights. Unfortunately, there were weather delays and I had to jump on an alternate flight on my first leg. My original flight was going to be delayed almost 3 hours and I didn't want to miss my connection. I was able to catch the next flight out by the skin of my teeth (I was the last person to get on the plane) and giving up the upgraded seat on my original flight. :( The fares to the Northwest is really tight, I was surprised at the prices and fares. With that being the case, my trip to Portland amounted to one day given the timing and cheapest fare combination. To make the most of the day, I was able to have lunch with my cousins at Ha VL at Wing Ming Market Centre, 2738 SE 82nd Avenue, Portland , OR 97266 . I hadn't had bun bo hue in a long time and the soup was...

I returned to Chicago to meet up with some colleagues of mine from previous employers. I don't get to see everyone as often as I would like and was invited to a semi-reunion. For some reason, Chicago is really popular in July. Reasonable airfares were not easy to come by and I opted to fly out of Ontario Airport on this particular trip. Like any regional airport, it was quick and easy to navigate. I found a reasonable park and fly rate at the Sheraton Ontario Aiport and stayed the night. It was a nice hotel despite the negative reviews posted online. People were friendly and the shuttle service is on demand to and from the airport. Sheraton Ontario hotel room I don't believe I've ever flown out of Ontario Airport before this trip. I did find it interesting that there isn't much of a concession area inside the airport. It also seemed odd to me that half of them would be open on a Sunday, people fly in and out on Sundays too. I'm actually surprised it wasn...

I headed out to Chicago for my comp exams. Unfortunately, I was not able to convince my work to fund the trip but I was able to work remotely for a day to avoid using vacation time. I flew out on United Airlines on a red eye flight. I checked into the Doubletree O'Hare Airport hotel. They were nice enough to let me check in even though it was 6 am. I grabbed a quick nap before heading into work for the day. I don't usually hang out in the merchandise mart area and found it interesting. It isn't a touristy area but lunch options aren't bad. Switched hotels to the Hampton Inn Chicago O'Hare Airport  hotel the next day. Interestingly, this Hampton Inn uses the Thrifty car rental shuttle to shuttle guests to and from the airport. I guess the arrangement must work well for them. I wonder if there is a Thrifty discount for guests??? In the evening, I went out for happy hour at  Allstars Bar & Grill . I was told the burgers are great here. I was joshing for Porti...

Impromptu trip to NYC because of expiring credit airline vouchers on United Airlines . For this trip, I flew into Newark Airport . I haven't flown to Newark before this year (or have completely forgotten) and I find it funny that I've been to this airport twice this year. Although this time, I'm not laying over and went to NYC via train. The train takes about 40 minutes to get to NY Penn Station. After all these years of flying into NYC, I am not sure why I haven't done so since it is faster than taking the subway from JFK. The downside of the New Jersey train is that it runs on a set schedule and doesn't run as frequently as the NYC subway . Checked into the Conrad New York . This particular hotel is a conversion from an Embassy Suites near the World Trade Center before 9/11. The hotel opened in March of this year. It was interesting to see the bones of the hotel as an Embassy Suites. The hotel conversion was done really well and it isn't obvious that ...