A few days ago my wife and I had dinner at Roy’s, a Hawaiian fusion restaurant. The ambiance was very nice (upscale, quiet, etc) and the food is pretty good. We had their “Prix Fixe” (which is a preset menu, $35 per person) and the Lakanilau roll (Seared Kobe Beef wrapped around Dynamite Crab, Tempura Asparagus & Avocado). We particularly loved the Chocolate Souffle for dessert, which needs to be ordered 20 minutes in advance (because it is made to order).

While we thought the food was top-notch, our best experience with Hawaiian fusion is Alan Wong’s in Honolulu. If you’re ever in Hawaii, don’t miss out on Alan Wong’s. The restaurant is located in a residential neighborhood, and is actually on the top floor of an office building. When the taxi drops you off, you think the driver has messed with you because you just see a sign that says “Alan Wong’s Office” (with no mention of “Restaurant” anywhere). But don’t worry, take the elevator to the top floor, and you’ll be amazed at the outstanding cuisine to be found there.

We went to check out the Grand Canyon Skywalk in early April. Unfortunately I forgot to blog about it until now (when I finally started unloading photos from my digital camera).

For those that are unfamiliar with the Skywalk, it is a horse-shoe shaped “bridge” that goes out over the Grand Canyon. At 4,000 feet from the Canyon floor, the drop is quite severe

There aren’t actually many shots “of” the Skywalk, because it’s apparently built on “sacred ground”. So cameras and cell phones (with cameras) are not permitted near it. Of course, that doesn’t stop an “official” photographer taking a photo of you on the actual Skywalk and charging you $25 for the picture. Oh, those marketing geniuses!

So what did I think of it? Well, having an intense fear of heights, let me say that you definitely get a sense of height on the Skywalk. All I could remember was, telling myself to look out at the horizon, don’t look down, and keep moving. It takes <60 seconds to walk around the horse-shoe Skywalk.

So how do you get there? Well, the Skywalk is on the West Rim of the Grand Canyon. So if you’re trying to get there from Las Vegas, do not follow the “Grand Canyon” signs (they’ll take you to the South Rim). And when you actually get to the Hualapai nation (this Indian tribe owns the land on which the Skywalk is built), you’ll need to go through 24 miles of unpaved road to get to the Tourist Drop Off point. And boy, that 24 miles of unpaved road is rough trekking (SUV recommended, as our poor minivan was rather bumpy and much dustier as a result). From Las Vegas, the trip took about two and a half hours (the bulk of that time going very slowly on the unpaved section).

And how much did this trip cost us? $75 per adult and $40 per child. Well, technically the Skywalk only costs $25 (although I’m thinking $25 for a <1 minute experience on the actual Skywalk seems abit steep to me), you can't buy that ticket because of "over-demand". You have to buy the full priced $75 ticket, which will let you visit 2 other sites plus a "picnic meal". Obviously those marketing geniuses working their magic again!

Would I do it again? Absolutely not.
Would I recommend it to others? Not until they pave the road, and have a non-up-sell ticket pricing system.

On the plus-side, I got this killer panoramic shot

Went to see Celine Dion with my wife last night. It was awesome!

It was a Caesar’s Palace (Las Vegas), in the Colosseum. I’d never driven to Caesar’s before, but there were (at least) two entrances. To get to the Colosseum, go to the Self Parking garage (as that’s the closest point, and shortest walk to the venue).

I was impressed that Celine still had amazing vocals. I guess after performing every night (well that’s not true, I think she only performs 4 night a week), after 4.5 years in Vegas, you would think that the tedium might have gotten to her. But not so!

The venue looked sold-out (no empty seats in my section, and looking throughout the audience I wasn’t able to discern any other empty seats), and the place is huge!

Tickets were a tad expensive. $115 per seat (and that was at the mid-tier-price 1st Mezzanine level), which was about $150 by the time you counted all the tax. Show went on for just under 1.5 hours, but we left feeling that we had our money’s worth. I won’t go into the details, but the vocals, special effects and dance choreography were all top quality.

This is her last year in Vegas (half a year left!), so if you haven’t seen it yet, I’d highly recommend it.

My sister sent me this interesting website, that allows you to map (albeit in a non-scientific way) how much of the world you’ve visited. This is my result, so I’m obviously not very worldly

The obligatory travel videos to go with this post:
Where the Hell is Matt?

Where the Hell is Matt’s Outtakes

Where the Hell WAS Matt? (the original)

Well, later this evening, I’m hopping on a plane for Australia. It’s a long trip and getting a good seat is the secret to traveling well. And believe it or not, all seats are not equal… even in the same class (economy, business or first).

That’s why I use SeatGuru!. You plug in the airline you’re flying (e.g. United) and airplane model (e.g. 747-400) and you get a seat-map.

You’ll see that the map shows the lavatories, exit rows, etc. But I particularly like the details they give down to the seat level (when you move your mouse over any seat, that blue box pops up).

Very cool, and an indispensable tool for any traveler!