Happy Chinese New Year!

Last year at this time I was on the other side of the world in Melbourne, would not have guessed being in USA this year. But now I am and it's equally nice and warm here, no beaches in Arizona though. But no matter where you are, there are always Chinese people celebrating the Chinese new year by eating dumplings at midnight, setting of some fireworks and watching the famous new years gala from Beijing. We made some dumplings with different fillings but no fireworks...Now it's the year of the horse, best of luck to all of those who were born as a horse :)

The Ahwatukee neighbourhood

 Going to Fry's to pick up all groceries for the dumplings

 Almost all cars are huge and have engines of a minimum 3.0 liters here, they are using up SO much gas in USA....

 A small blue-cheese beef batty burger snack before eating the dumplings at midnight....

Time to start making dumpligs

 Vegetarian filling

 The dumplings I made looked kinda lazy and deformed

 Ready in hundreds !

Bryce Canyon - Utah

Sleeping over in a little town in Utah called Kanob. There is pretty much only 1 street that passes through the town and that's it. Can't imagine how people in this town spend their town, brew moonshine and watch TV? The nature is amazing though and Bryce Canyon is much more beautiful than Gran Canyon! 

No matter small or big town, there is always a McDonald's & Chinese restaurant

Airport wasn't the most modern...

 There were many viewpoints BUT the Inspiration Point was by FAR the best, it's 8100 feet above sea level

 This place was called "The Amphitheatre" because it's suppose to resemble a round council

 Driving home was beautiful, but it also looked like no matter how long you drive, you will never arrive...

Zion National Park - Utah

After a long night at Hakkasan in Vegas we head to north east Utah! Drive is around 300 km.
This will already be my fifth state during this "visit". Utah is supposedly one of the most conservative states but has one of the most beautiful landscapes. Drove through Zion National park and it was an amazing 20 km drive! High mountains all around, rock formed like waves. On the pictures it does not look very impressive but the mountains are up to 2 km high and formed really amazingly. The colours also vary from brown to red to white. Take a look :)

By the park entrance, 25 USD / car

All motels look like this in US, it's not only in movies...

 The valley was massive, the camera can't really catch the moment THAT well....Also, could not really stop at all time with the car in the park. Much like a "drive-through"

 Pitch black tunnel under the mountains, they must have used a massive drill to make this because the stone has drill traces on it the whole way, can't really be seen on the picture though.

There was one small "window" in the tunnel

 Wavy mountains

 Mountain-climbing on this kinda surface was easy :) and there was rally amazing sand, more soft than in Thailand!