Yosemite National Park, California - Yosemite Village

After hanging out few days in the City of San Francisco, time to visit a different side of California, Yosemite is among the most beautiful and a MUST visit national Park in California. From San Fran we rented a car, This time we rented a Toyota, corolla with remote, after the Arizona fiasco we felt it's safer that way. The car rental offered to upgrade our car to Ford Mustang for just additional $15. Rented that before very stylish but it's quite fuel consuming, so we passed. It is a 4 hours drive to the Yosemite from San Fran.

There are few route options to Yosemite, if i remember correctly we took the CA-120W highway.
We stared off early by the time we reached i was already afternoon,

along the highway. does look like the picture of window XP...hehe

picture took with my mobile phone

scene along the way before we reach the Yosemite Village/ Valley visitor center

this was in mid November,

looking down to Merced river

tunnel, hold your breath!

slowly we are approaching the village

stopping over to see Bridal Veil

there are plenty of trail to enjoy, too bad we didn't have much time. Maybe next time

Bridal veil

too bad the waterfall was really really limited but it's still really beautiful

some people just don't know how to enjoy nature :P

some fallen big tree

back to the car

sometimes there are bears....

couldn't resist the amazing scenery

autumn wonderland

everything is huge here, look even the maple leaves are bigger than my face

this is the one and only store at the village, bought a nice cup here :)

currently boon is collecting cups from all the national park. So far he had only one :D hahaha

few minutes walk from the village store is the Visitor Center

we were abit lost at time. There seem to be no way in to the visitor center with the car. We had to parked our car back again at the village store and walked there

as usual they are very informative

getting to know Yosemite

I bet people working in visitor center are happy people, with this kind of view who wouldn't?

this is "Big Tree", Sequoiadendron giganteum, according to the small description on top of my head,

this 9ft section of a giant sequoia was cut 30ft from the base of a tree that fell in the Mariposa Grove in 1919. Annual rings show the tree's to be 996 years old, however the base of the tree, where the diameter was 14ft, the age was found to be 1100years! 

AMAZING!!!

back to the village loop trail

soaking up this World Heritage site's natural beauty

boon and Half moon dome

El Capitan

another dried up waterfall

love this shot...so peaceful

most beautiful things are often free

like this magical place... well it's not actually free. Still need to pay $25 entrance fee/ car

but the annual national park pass can be use here too!

Merced River 

this are the marking of the water level when it was flooded, the most recent one are in 1997 and it's also the worst flood in park history to date

now you see me

now you don't

one of my favorite pic

time to go check in to our lodge, it was November so it gets dark pretty fast

short stop

this is one of the most famous site in Yosemite, where we see in the Internet,

it was getting dark but at least we manage to take a nice picture

luckily we were fast, 1 minute later the place was flooded with a bus load of tourist, not so peaceful anymore.

we then drove about an hour plus to our lodge which was at the other end of Yosemite, nearer to Wawona. The road was winding and have to look out for wild animals. The lodge that we rented was cheap and surprising nice, i think it's called White chief mountain lodge, but there was no restaurant nearby so settle for some crackers and nutrient bars as dinner. So tired after driving the whole day. slept like a baby that night

Our adventure to be continues....

~ adios ~

Autumn in Big Sur,

Last year autumn we visited Big Sur, It was a nice trip and a beautiful drive along the coastal highway stopping at every scenic byway. It's a must visit place if you are even in San Jose, Monterey or Carmel. It's not really a long drive about 1 hour plus away from San Jose.

We were really unlucky with the weather, It's been awhile that there is no rain in California but somehow we brought the rain with us. But the scenery was amazing nonetheless. I bet this place look different during other seasons would love to visit again in summer time.

enjoy!~~~

~ thank you ~

Monterey & Carmel

Monterey, well nothing much to say about this town, it's located not too far from San Jose. After breakfast we drove our rental car from our friend's place in San Jose, takes about 45 minutes, time depends on the traffic. Do avoid rush hour time, but one thing i like about California is that they have carpool lane. There is a very famous Monterey Aquarium, wanted to go at 1st but it's just too crazy expensive, My jaw dropped when i saw the price to the aquarium. Cost about $39.95/ adult and $24.95/ kids. Imagine a trip for 2 adult and 2 kids cost about $130 that doesn't even include meals. Since we have visited few aquarium before so it was an easy decision choice to skip it. The Aquarium at Monaco was FREE and it was amazing too.

we then walked around the town and the beach

there are few cute boutique but that;s about it

some mural art

i think we walked around for less then an hour....wasted our parking money as we pay for 2 hours...but there was nothing much to see

then we drove south to Carmel, i read alot of this place in my novel. I long to see the cute little shops,

some of the shops really were unique and adorable. It's also a really nice place to do some shopping

we also had a nice lunch in a Greek restaurant, price was affordable 

These is also a nice beach to walk but too bad weather was abit too windy and cold.

infos about the Carmel Beach

Next we headed south again to Big Sur (Next Post)

~ bye ~