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2008 Nashville Trip Part 7 Parthenon, Mambu

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:26:48 GMT

2008 Nashville Trip Part 6 Jack's BBQ, Waterfront Buffet

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:09:23 GMT

2008 Nashville Trip Part 5 B.B. King's

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:58:28 GMT

B.B. King's Nashville
152 2nd Ave N
Nashville, TN 37201
(615) 256-2727

Tonight's entertainment...

Inside

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES - Graham cracker & cornmeal crusted layered with caramelized onion marmalade, herb cream cheese with strawberry jelly.

THE SOUL SAMPLER - A sampling of the BB King classics Fried Pickles, wings (hot or BBQ), loaded potato skins & our Lip Smacking Ribs.

I like Fried Pickles!!!

GUMBO YA YA - Smoked chicken, andouille sausage, craw fish, peppers, onions, diced tomatoes, & dark roux with white rice

CAROLINA BBQ SALMON - A grilled salmon fillet brushed with our Carolina BBQ glaze & served on top of a low country shrimp, andouille sausage & cream corn sauce. Topped with crispy tobacco onions

BBQ CHICKEN & RIBS COMBO - A half rotisserie chicken basted with our sweet & smoky BBQ sauce, with BB's lip smacking ribs, fries & cole slaw

CHICKEN FRIED CHICKEN - Fried chicken breast, served with white cheddar mac n' cheese & caramelized onion pan gravy

FULL / LIP SMACKING RIBS - Half rack...Full rack...BBQ hickory smoked lion back ribs, basted with our sweet and smoky BBQ sauce & served with backed beans and sweet coleslaw

2008 Nashville Trip Part 4 Downtown Nashville

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:48:09 GMT

Saw in the Grand Ole Opry store...now THIS is a country hat.

Got this from Wasabi in Opryland...the stuff that passes for Japanese...well at least they made a decent California roll.

Walking around downtown Nashville on the way to dinner...

Lots of stars got their start playing in these honky tonks.

...or on the street in front of the honky tonks.

Oooo...what a steal!

So many different shoes to choose from...

I liked this pair...but decided that I didn't like them enough to lug 2 pairs home.

....but oh was I tempted...

haha cool

The Japanese display food is supposed to entice you to come inside and eat...look at the condition of the display!

Is that supposed to be Uni????????

No comment.

2008 Nashville Trip Part 3 Grand Ole Opry, Aquarium

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:21:17 GMT

This is the Grand Ole Opry House where country performers aspire to perform at someday.

There's an outlet mall next door.

It has a Stingray tank.

I loved the look of this Key Lime Pie.

Pretty cool restaurant huh? Much better than Rainforest Cafe.

One of my favorite shots...

2008 Nashville Trip Part 2 Cascades Seafood, Water's Edge Buffet

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:07:02 GMT

Oh man, I'm about a year behind in posts...:-(

@ Cascades Seafood Restaurant...again inside of Opryland.

I can't turn down chowders...

Delicious looking scallops

@ Water's Edge Marketplace Buffet Restaurant, again inside of Opryland

The brisket was AWESOME...they don't have it everynight but I must have gone back like 5-6 times for more.

At night, you can watch a water fountain show right next to the buffet.

2008 Nashville Trip Part 1 Gaylord Opryland, Ristorante Volare, Jack Daniel's Saloon, Wasabi's, Stax

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:27:42 GMT

I spent a week or so in Nashville last spring...here's the first set of the Nashville pictures! We stayed at the Gaylord Opryland. You can read more about it here. It is the largest non-casino hotel in the world and the largest hotel in the United States outside Las Vegas. It's actually a pretty neat place but being there for so many hours...we ended up going to downtown Nashville a few times just to get away.

Here's the Italian restaurant inside of Opryland...Ristorante Volare.

Beef Stew Soup...nice bowls!

...and a nice pork chop with a demi-glace and artichokes.

Nighttime inside Opryland. There are quite a few of these huge atriums scattered throughout the complex. This is the Cascades area.

Another restaurant in the complex...Jack Daniel's Saloon.

Ready to dig in...

With a generous helping of Jack Daniel's BBQ sauce...anything'll taste good.

Oooh...back to Ristorante Volare...honestly, it wasn't THAT bad...and this restaurant was probably the most affordable one there so you really couldn't expect too much.

Hey...with the right amount of wine, everything is great!

Neat dessert!

Back in the Cascades area...waiting in line for...

...sushi at Wasabi's Sushi. Pretty much supermarket quality. Maybe slightly better.

Another restaurant inside Opryland (there are tons)...Stax Burgers. Lol...funny pose!

Stay away from it at all costs unless you REALLY REALLY need a burger...be prepared to sauce it up like crazy.

Here are a few daytime shots of the Delta area...probably the biggest of the areas inside of Opryland.

There's even a boat ride inside. The "Delta" river had water from every recorded river in the world added in. There's a plaque listing all the rivers that they took samples from...it's a really really long list.

Kind of like Disneyland right? Definitely not as fun...and the whole indoors/outdoors thing was odd. I seriously didn't step outside of the hotel for the first couple days.

2008 Caverns and Yosemite Trip Part 3 Yosemite

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 23:29:45 GMT

Creek in Yosemite Valley

Next to Bridalveil Fall (620 ft)

I've been on this bridge so many times...but it never gets old...and the water is still clear. Hope I can share this with the kids one day.

Awww...

Oooo a fellow photographer!

She must have a ton of pics of her kids.

Look at that!

Pushing through the snow.

Lower Yosemite Falls

Some woman injured herself climbing around on the rocks...probably broke her leg or something.

Took a long time to do this shot without HDR...I wanted to make sure I could get the falls and not overexpose the sky TOO much. Found a kind of middle ground I guess.

Sauces for our sandwiches

That sure is a lotta layers!

Hehe...dig in!

Lots of wildlife around...

Zoom zoom zoom

This model of the valley was pretty neat.

Some mule deer closeup

Awwww so cute...one of them had a bum leg though...sad to see but at least they're protected here.

I dunno how people climb El Capitan...those are some sheer granite cliffs. I'd have fun rappelling off of it though.

Abandoned gas station on the way back home...nature had really begun to take over.

2008 Caverns and Yosemite Trip Part 2 California Mammoth and Moaning Cavern, Don Pedro Reservoir

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:31:32 GMT

Awesome looking moth

Outside of the California Mammoth Cavern...it was found when a guy was shooting targets when he noticed that the targets would waver. He discovered air blowing out of a hole in the ground...

Used the external flash with this one...it's actually pretty dark...very Indiana Jones ride-like.

The bottom levels of the caves were flooded when we went...during the summer, tours can actually go into them. Guess you can't tell where the water starts since it's so clear...well it's pretty much the dark green section.

One of the largest rooms in the cavern.

People started carved their initials in the rock in the 1850s. Look! Chinese characters...

Look at all those names...

I'm not sure if this is a naturally occurring hole but apparently one of the tours goes through there...

Emily demonstrates just how small that hole is...it's too bad i didn't use the external flash for these...that black shadow you see at the bottom wouldn't happen if I'd used it.

A naturally occurring sound board. You'd thump it and get a good vibration tone out of it.

This is at the top of Moaning Cavern...it's so big that it could fit the whole Statue of LIberty! This cavern is especially cool because they allow people to rappel from the top to almost the very bottom. It's a good 100+ ft.

You can't see it but there's a little room at the bottom of this stage...where you move over to the real hole which drops 200 ft down. The Statue of Liberty is 151 ft from feet to torch. Yeah freaky I know. My heart did stop when I saw just how long of a drop it was. Placing my feet through the hole and letting go of the walls was pretty tough.

Those ladders are not to scale.

"In this part of the cave scientific excavations have revealed the remains of more than 100 humans bodies. About 13,000 years ago, the prehistoric men fell or were thrown into the blackness of this huge cavern. The bones, preserved to present time by the deposits of mineral-bearing waters, are the oldest human remains yet found in America." from www.showcaves.com/english/usa/showcaves/Moaning.html

The New Don Pedro Reservoir...we saw this place on the way to Yosemite. That's the James E Roberts Memorial Bridge. The Reservoir is the 5th largest artificial lake in California.

2008 Caverns and Yosemite Trip Part 1 Black Chasm Caverns

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 09:01:29 GMT

Outside of Black Chasm Caverns in Calaveras County, a few hours east of the Bay Area...they had a mining sluice going on here.

I guess during the summer, they let kids pan for gold out here.

Descending into the Black Chasm Caverns

The formations on the left are known as "Angel Wings"

Like pipe organs!

Black Chasm is at least initially a very vertical tour...you keep descending further in...stopping at several different landings to look around...and look down at the darkness below.

Like frosting on a cake...ok maybe little icicles.

Love these formations...so different from what I've seen before.

Helictite Formations

Ooooooh a moth!

Nami Nami

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 18:30:14 GMT

These were taken at Nami Nami in Mountain View...probably one of my favorite Japanese restaurants next to Tanto. I'd come here more often if it was less expensive! Expect to pay $30-40 pp easily if you want a few dishes and aren't into sharing. There's an omakase here that I'd like to try sometime.

Nami Nami
240 Castro Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
(650) 964-6990

Ochazuke (rice ball in soup)...we got the grilled salmon version (Sake cha)...to this day, Emily still talks about this dish in adoring tones.

One of their most popular items - the Black Cod Saikyo yaki...sweet white miso marinated black cod grilled slowly in salamander oven.

Love their dinner ware...

We didn't get the Beef tongue stew which was heavily recommended however the Chicken cream-ni - Stewed organic chicken and cauliflower in white sauce...was amazing. That white sauce...well we drank it. hahahaha

Hot Import Nights Pleasanton Part 8

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:22:01 GMT

I went to Hot Import Nights in Pleasanton a few months ago real-time...the following series are the pics I took there...obviously if you know anything about Hot Import NIghts then you know that the pics that can be taken there are usually Not Safe For Work (NSFW). Be forewarned...I don't want to be responsible for anything...and I'm assuming that I don't have little children reading my blog. If you're not 13...leave now...read some of my other posts...this is definitely PG-13.

Putting on their street clothes.

I had no idea strings were an acceptable substitute for pantyhose.

That's a pretty seductive pose.

BFF?

Mullet Alert!

Hot Import Nights Pleasanton Part 7

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:31:27 GMT

Jenny Chu gives her all when dancing.

Jenny Chu gets watered down.

This was right before Jenny Chu made out to the "I Kissed A GIrl" song.

Hot Import Nights Pleasanton Part 6

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:21:12 GMT

Riding the Wire... I got a bit closer to take some pictures of the second Freestyle MX event. Awesome.

I got a bit closer to take some pictures of the second Freestyle MX event. Awesome.

Adam and Aki

The Aggressive Latina obviously chooses her rides carefully.

Couldn't get her info but this was her first show and said she wasn't quite sure what she was doing...me neither but thanks anyways for being nice enough to put up with us! She actually smiled/laughed when she recognized us.

Hot Import Nights Pleasanton Part 5

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:25:10 GMT

What's better than 1 woman posing on a bike? Answer:

"I better not see this on your Myspace page!" Actually, they did make out, but I was too slow. I did hear the *Clack Clack Clack* sounds though. Photogs know what I mean...:-P

Group photo...we're all car enthusiasts!

Every time I see that TWC, I think "The Weather Channel" for some reason...

Elly decides the Bimmer needs some polishing

Ms. Shee looks around for some car cleaning products.

I did end up being able to use the Fong Lightsphere for some of the shots particular as it got later and later.

Yeah yeah...I cut off a hand...

This and the other picture of Elly are my favorite pics of the show

Of course I still took a picture of the BMW...

Elly was very accommodating in allowing us all to take pictures with her. Very professional!

Hot Import Nights Pleasanton Part 4

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:57:30 GMT

"Dude...show me the picture" "Hold up! I'm pushing the buttons as fast as I can!!"

"Ted got the shot!!!"

"Andy! Get over here! You HAVE to see this!" "Andy!!!!" And so, Ted got the shot that all us had had bad luck in obtaining...too many photo-blockers as opposed to the other kind...hahaha Good job Ted...now show me those pictures.

This model looked like someone you did not want to mess with.

Perennial HIN favorite...Jenny Chu

Whoa, there she is again...looking agressive as ever.

Hey! Alright she flashed a smile! How genuine? No idea...but hey at least it wasn't like that other girl who REALLY didn't seem like she wanted to be there. I'm not putting any of those pictures up...

Baby Jill cut her hair! Why??? Guess she wanted a new look...here's her picture from last time.

Always an awesome smile.

Baby Jill's booth was in a bad place for lighting reasons...sun was right behind her but if you had the right angle it actually somewhat works.

But when Baby Jill get's on her table, I don't think any of the guys cared about the bad lighting...you make do right? I actually see a girl in the crowd with a camera too. Adam is in the middle making an odd facial expression. Like he can't believe this is for real.