Bad Water Basin is the heart of Death Valley National Park. It is 83 meters below sea level, which is the lowest point in North America. During the summer, its temperature can be as high as 47 degrees Celsius. Thus this place is known as the Death Valley, where there is really not much that survives down here. During the winter season, it does attract tourist to visit this place to see the salt flat and the wondrous landscape.
The Bad Water Basin is simply off the Bad Water Basin Road. We got there around 9AM in the morning. When we stepped off the car, we could see lot of white salt on the ground. There was a ton of them! Salt was everywhere! Right above the parking lot on the cliff wall, there was a sign indicating where the sea level is.
We stepped onto the board walk and there were board signs with information showing that there were water around this area all year long and created a small ecosystem down here. The water all came from the melted snow in the mountains nearby. However, due to the rise in temperature and decrease in precipitation of 2 inches a year, the pond has shrunk quite a bit. The wooden board walk is to prevent people from stepping onto the fragile ecosystem.
Once we stepped off the board walk, we walked towards the salt flat. There was so much white salt! We continued down the path and reached the salt flat. We were surprised that there were large amount of water on the salt flat. Since the salt underneath the water is clear white crystal, it created a perfect reflecting mirror. It was just beautiful!
We were very lucky to encounter the water here at Bad Water Basin as the precipitation is very low. The downside is that in exchange of seeing water here, the sky was cloudy and we would not be able to see the milky way at night.
While we were taking photos on the salt flat reflecting surface, we also saw an Instagram celebrities taking selfies and doing live broadcast. It was quite interesting to see her doing model like dancing moves on the salt flat.
Overall, we were quite excited and had a lot of fun at Bad Water Basin. Seeing the water on the salt flat was definitely an awesome experience to see a huge reflection of the mountains nearby! This is definitely a must visit place at Death Valley National Park.
Mesquite Sand Dunes is located within Death Valley National Park and it is the only place that has sand dunes within the park. It is about 30 minutes North of Furnace Creek visitor center and easily accessible. The sand at Mesquite Sand Dunes is very thin and thus attracts tourists to come visit.
We got to Mesquite Sand Dunes around noon and there was already a lot of people. It did not have a large parking lot, but we were lucky to find a parking space very quickly. Mesquite Sand Dunes occupied a much larger area than we thought. It took us a long time to hike all the way to the center of the sand dunes.
It was also quite difficult to hike on the sand. Especially when hiking uphill on the sand dunes, our feet would sink in and slip down a little. By walking on side ways, it made going uphill a bit easier.
On the information board, it indicated the reason why this was the only place with sand dunes. In order to create sand dunes, the wind must carry the sand to here and also need to have conditions to trap the sand here. Mesquite Sand Dunes was located in the middle of the valley surrounded by mountains, and thus trapped the sand here.
We hiked for a while and still couldn't reach a place where there was no other foot print. We were close by did not go any further. The East side of the sand dunes had much less crowd and it was a good place to go to take great photos.
While we were there, there were also people carrying slides to slide down the sand dunes.
In general, Mesquite Sand Dunes was a very interesting place to visit. It was rare for us to see sand dunes and thus we were very excited. One thing to note is to carry as much water as possible since it can get very hot at the sand dunes. In addition, there could be rattle snakes around the area and visitors need to be very careful. Next time when we visit, we might try to do a night hike at the sand dunes under the moon light.
Zabriskie Point is a popular tourist attraction located in Death Valley National Park. It is located near Furnace Creek and has a great view of badlands in the Death Valley. Due to the location of Zabriskie Point and its land form, it shows wonderful colors during the sunrise hour. Thus many tourists and photographer come visit this place to have an opportunity to take a perfect shot. As we are visiting Death Valley National Park this weekend, we would definitely not miss the opportunity to visit Zabriskie Point.
It took us about an hours to get to Zabriskie Point from Pahrump and we got there around 6:20AM and the sunrise is at 6:50AM. We were about 30 minutes early, but we could start to see the twilight from the East. We got our cameras and tripod out to get ready to take some awesome photos.
There were already quite a lot of people at Zabriskie Point. From the parking lot, there was a path that leads to the view point. The path was about 0.2 miles long. When we got to the view point, there were already many cameras with tripod set up. We recommend to use tripod here since it was still dark and needs long exposure to capture all the necessary colors.
As the time approaches the sunrise hour, we started to see the golden ribbon and the beautiful pink colored cloud on the East side. It was breath taking. We were only able to see due to the cloud and the overcast weather at Death Valley National Park during the weekend.
As the sun rose, we walked down the view point platform onto the rock beneath it to have a better view on the West side. Then we moved the cameras to face the West over the badlands. The sun light shone on the wavy land form with beautifully brushed color was just amazing. The tip of the rock was exactly where the sun light was spotted on and gave a beautiful color on the rock formation.
Overall, the view at Zabriskie Point did not disappoint and it was just so beautiful. Although it was freezing cold in the early morning at this time of the year, we still highly recommend to wake up super early just to enjoy this sun rise view.
I Am Thai Cuisine is a restaurant the specializes in Thai dishes as its name suggests. It is located near Las Vegas airport and it is a rather large restaurant that can hold a lot of people. We chose to come to here for lunch after spending a day at Valley of Fire because the restaurant is very close to the Car Rental Center. In the same plaza, there is also a gas station to allow us to fuel up the car before returning the car.
By the time we got to I Am Thai Cuisine restaurant, it was already 3PM. It was a tiring day at Valley of Fire and were were very hungry. We ordered the dishes immediately as we sat down, and got a Beef Pad Thai and a Chicken Pad See Ew.
We actually waited for a while to get our food delivered to our table. The Beef Pad Thai came first. It was a rather large portion and smelled really good. However, we thought that the noodle was a bit overcooked and had became very soft and squishy. In addition, the sauce of Pad Thai was quite sweet and a bit too sweet. We had to add additional spiciness to it to soften the sweetness.
The Pad See Ew was good. It came with large sized noodle with lot of chunky green Chinese broccoli. We liked it a lot. The sauce was sweet, but not as sweet as the one for Pad Thai. The sweetness of the sauce had a good balance to it. The noodle was perfectly cooked and pan fried as well. It was soft but not squishy.
When we got our bill, we were offered mint candy, which is nice to freshen the taste.
Overall, I Am Thai Cuisine was not bad, but not very spectacular either. The reason we picked this place is because it is located close to the car rental place so that we could return the car right away. We would probably try a different restaurant next time.
Romero's is a classic Mexican restaurant located at Pahrump, above an hour West of Las Vegas. It offers authentic Mexican dining experience and offers a wide variety of Tequila. The menu actually states that it offers the most variety of Tequila drinks within Pahrump. We were exhausted from the activities during the day at Death Valley and wanted to have some Mexican food for dinner.
We went to Romero's around 5PM as the restaurant closes at 8PM. When we got there with our car parked, we saw another fine dining Italian restaurant beside it but seemed to have not opened yet.
As we sat down at the table, the server brought us the water immediately. The server was also very accommodating for providing vegetarian options and allowed us to switch side dishes around such as replacing beans with salad. She every let us to switching ingredients used in burrito.
We ordered the 3 taco meal and a Chimichanga. The 3 tacos comes with shredded beef, ground beef, and chicken. We ordered it to have 1 of each. The taco came with hard and warm tortilla shell with lettuce and tomato in it. The taco was very tasty with crunchy texture of the taco. The dish also came with Spanish rice which was also very tasty.
The Chimichanga is a fried burrito. We were thinking that the sauce would be place on top of the Chimichanga, but the sour cream and guacamole were placed on the side. The Chimichanga was large and filled with beans, cheese, and meat. The dish also came with Spanish rice and salad.
Other than the main meal, we were also offered tortilla chips with salsa. We really like the home made salsa. It was not too spicy and still had great taste to it. We loved it so much and kept on asking the server to bring more to us.
Overall, our dining experience at Romero's was outstanding. We loved the food and the service exceeded our expectation. We would definitely come back here again when we visit this region in the future.
Yi Mei Champion Taiwan Deli is a popular Taiwanese cousin restaurant that offers authentic Taiwanese breakfast experience. It has restaurants located in California and Las Vegas. The restaurant is generally pretty busy in the morning during the breakfast hour and gets less crowded in the afternoon. As we were flying to Las Vegas in the morning, we wanted to give this a try after we land at Las Vegas.
We wanted to get to Yi Mei Champion Taiwan Deli around noon right after we landed at Las Vegas airport. However, we waited for so long at the Budget car rental center because the service was extremely slow. We finally got to Yi Mei Champion by 1:30PM and the restaurant was quiet and only had about 4 tables.
After we entered the restaurant, the server greeted us politely and offered us a table. We sat down and looked at the menu and immediately knew what we wanted. At that time, we were not sure whether we were supposed to order at the counter or wait for the server to come. As we walked towards the counter to ask, the server apologized right away and said he would swing by in a minute.
We ordered a bowl of Spicy Beef Noodle, Egg Pancake, Rice Ball, Zong Zi, and Radish Pancake. The server were surprised with the amount of food that we ordered and attempted to stop us to order more.
The Rice Ball was delivered to us right away. This Rice Ball is a classic Taiwanese breakfast and we got the sweet one with peanut butter. The Rice Ball was splitter into 2 from the middle to better serve people to eat. Egg Pancake came next and it was perfectly cooked, The down side was that it was not served with sweet and hot sauce that usually comes with the dish in Taiwan.
Zong Zi and Radish Pancake came at the same time. Zong Zi was wrapped with bamboo leafs with sticky rice and meet in it. It was steamed perfectly to have everything cooked with great taste. Taiwanese Radish Pancake is very different from Cantonese ones. Taiwanese Radish Pancake is fried on the pan instead of steamed. It has crispy crust with great texture.
The Beef Noodle came last and it was a bit spicy than we thought. The noodle used in the Beef Noodle was a bit too soft. We preferred to have harder noodle to make it more chewy.
Overall, We enjoyed our dining experience at Yi Mei Champion Taiwanese Deli. The food was great and authentic. The service was great as well where the server greeted us with great manner through out. We would definitely come again next time.
Village Square Cafe is a popular brunch place in Washington state and has multiple locations across the state. It opens early in the morning and remains fully occupied until it closes in the early afternoon. The restaurant offers variety of breakfast meals such as sandwiches, omelet, and French toast. As we were visiting Seattle this weekend, our friend suggested to have brunch together at Village Square Cafe and catch up.
We got to Village Square Cafe Redmond location by 9:15AM and there was already a line at the front of the restaurant. We put our name down and was told the wait is about 25 minutes, which was not bad. At the front of the restaurant, there was a breakfast bar with about 15 seats. This allowed people to just sit down whenever a seat is available.
Once we sat down at our table, the waitress brought cups of coffee for us. We ordered egg Benedict, French toast, omelet, and veggie sandwich.
The Egg Benedict came with 3 pieces of house made pancakes. The egg yolk was silky smooth with amazing spice on top of it. The Veggie Sandwich came with fruit platter that had strawberry and banana. The omelet came with toast which we could choose to be white or brown. We were also given jams and butter for the toast. The omelet had ham, onion, and pepper in it. The omelet was cooked perfectly and soft. The omelet also came with hash brown. The hash brown was good, but seemed to fall apart as we tried to pick it up to eat it. The French Toast was one of the best we have ever had. It came with 6 pieces with fruits and whipped cream on top. The toast was very soft and tender and sweet.
Overall, Village Square Care did not disappoint. It was one of the best brunch place we have been to. The wait time was not bad either as people tend to finish breakfast quite fast. Unfortunately the restaurant is only available in Washington state and not in Oregon.
Kkiko Korean BBQ is a Korean restaurant specializes in table top barbecue as its name suggests. The restaurant is located in Beaverton where a lot of Korean restaurants are at. The restaurant also had outdoor sitting area to enjoy the breeze of wind at night. The review of this restaurant has been spectacular and shows that the restaurant is extremely busy during the dinner hour and towards the late night. We took our car to the dealership for annual maintenance and had to wait for 2.5 hours. Thus we decided to try Kkiko Korean BBQ since it was within the walking distance from the dealer.
We got to Kkiko Korean BBQ by 1PM and there weren't many people in the restaurant. Not even 10 tables were occupied. However, we still had to stand at the door for 10 minutes along with 2 other groups of people. This was because there was only 1 person working on the floor and she was so busy and couldn't get us to sit at a table even though there were many other tables available.
We finally sat down at the table with a barbecue cook top. We were given menus and cup of water, but waited for a very long time before the waitress came by to take order. By the time we made our order, it was 15 minutes later.
Instead of choosing the 2 persons barbecue combo, we opted for short ribs and slices of Angus beef. Soon after we placed our order, side dishes and rice bowl were soon delivered to us rather quickly. The side dishes were the usual Korean restaurant side dishes together with a big bowl of green garlic. Short ribs and a place of Angus beef were soon delivered to us as well. On top of the Angus beef, there were slices of onion, 2 sticky rice cakes, and a butter to wipe the grill with.
We placed the Angus beef and onion on top of the grill right away, but we felt that the grill was not hot enough yet. It was cooking very slowly and did not make sizzling sound. Thus we turned up the strength of the fire a little to heat it faster.
The Angus beef were sliced with 5mm of thickness. It was very easy to barbecue these and it was very juicy. We liked it a lot. Mixing the Angus beef together with green garlic was a delight. The green garlic was a great help to soften the taste of grease.
There were 4 pieces of large short ribs on the plate and these short ribs cook quite fast. We loved the short ribs a lot. It had both the fatty part and the lean part of the pork. Mixing it with rice and green garlic was the best choice.
The barbecue sticky rice cake was an interesting addition here. It was soft after cooking on the grill and taste just like S'mores.
Overall, Kkiko Korean BBQ offers authentic Korean barbecue experience. The downside is that it was expensive. It would cost around $60 for 2 people. Also, we hoped that the owner of the restaurant could try to improve its service by hiring more people so that people don't have to wait for so long to get the food.
