Mick Lerlop Photography » Travel

Hua Hin and Rest Detail Hotel

Mick — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:30:51 +0000

We also went to Hua Hin twice while we were in Thailand. The first time we stayed at Dusit Thani Hotel. Dusit Thani is a fairly big resort with lots of room. The second trip we stayed at Rest Detail Hotel, which is a much smaller boutique hotel. The photos of Rest Detail Hotel starts from picture #5. The room we had was really good with a bay window sofa/guest bed. The pool-side balcony allows you to jump into the water right from you room. We didn’t try the food there but everything else seemed great. However, the only thing that kinda bothered me was that the hotel didn’t have a real beach. They have a man-made beach that isn’t so big. They have access steps to the sea but because the sea level is always so high at this particular location, you’ll never seen sandy beach during the day.

Khao Yai and Kirimaya Resort

Mick — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:30:53 +0000

In addition to Sisaket and Ubon Ratchathani, we also spent a few nights in Khao Yai at Kirimaya Resort. It was my first time in Khao Yai in more than 10 years. It’s certainly a lot more developed that the past around the national parks with lots of small boutique hotels. Kirimaya isn’t new but pretty well maintained and still has that nature reserves sort of feel to it. I particularly loved the huge balcony with a queen-sized couch. The resort has excellent service and the staff members are well trained and very friendly. The food at the Thai restaurant is quite good if you don’t feel like going out to eat.

Adobe Digital Marketing Summit 2012

Mick — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:30:41 +0000

Adobe held the Digital Marketing Summit 2012 conference (formerly known as Omniture Summit) earlier this month in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Salt Palace Convention Center. This year it was twice as big than the previous year with twice number of attendees exceeding 4000+ customers, partners and industry press/analysts.

I got a chance to photograph the event for Summit team documenting the week from various perspectives. The event had quite a number of high profile tech celebrities/speakers including Arianna Huffington, the President & Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post, and Biz Stone, Co-Founder of Twitter. The Summit Bash party on the first night featured a bunch of entertainment including a concert performed by Foster the People. Friday is a tradition, The Ski day. All attendees are invited to hit the slopes at one of the nearby resorts (this year at the Canyons). Adobe organized door-to-door transportation from the hotel to the resort. It’s definitely a fun week to work/play hard.

Bangkok, Sisaket and Pha Taem

Mick — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 11:30:25 +0000

Last November, my family and I went to Thailand again. It was around the time Thailand was facing the worst flooding in 50 years. And because of that, we were debating whether to postpone the trip. Although, we’d bought tickets way months ago, United Airlines posted a notice stating that it would allow passengers ticketed Thailand to make changes to their reservations one time free of charge. We, however, didn’t postpone the trip. When landed, we found that the situation had got much better since we took off and the areas were planning to spend most of our time there were no longer in the flood warning zones. (FYI – it usually takes about 20 hours of flying + a few hours of layover + a 12-hour ahead time change.) If you weren’t aware of the flood situation, The Atlantic has a very good photo article on it. I also have a few photos below that were taken from an elevated express way in Bangkok.

The most famous thing about Thailand is probably the food. When somebody finds out that I’m from Thailand, they always tell me that they love Thai food. Yes, I love Thai food too. This dish below is sticky rice and grilled pork. I had it a few times for breakfast when I was there this time. It’s definitely not a common breakfast diet but for some reason I felt that it gave me an awesome energy boost.

Here is a view from the condo we stayed at in Bangkok. It’s located in Lat Phrao near Central Plaza. I’d say it’s right at the border of the Bangkok inner city. It may be difficult to spot in this picture, but if you look closely the roads are almost empty. That’s because the outer city is still flooded making the traffic on normal roads very light. Most people that still had to go into the city for work used elevated expressways.

These two photos below were taken from an elevated expressway about 10 minutes north of the condo. The flooding was so bad that people who couldn’t park their cars at home parked them on expressways. Unlucky some got theirs ruined because of traffic accidents. Don Muang Airport (DMK) serving domestic flights had to halt operation because planes were grounded and the runways were unusable.

We didn’t stay in Bangkok the hold time. We got a chance to visit Sisaket (my second visit). While in Sisaket, we did a day trip to Ubon Ratchathani stopping at Hat Khu Duea (หาดคูเดื่อ), where we had lunch on a floating raft, and hiking through Pha Taem (ผาแต้ม). The hike I did was close to two miles but doing it with flip-flops made it 5 times more difficult. I also had to do it really fast because it was close baby’s nap time.

Adobe MAX 2011

Mick — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:30:57 +0000

I got a chance to attend Adobe MAX in October last year as a lab teaching assistant. MAX is Adobe’s annual conference aimed to educate developers and designers with its latest technologies. Since 2008(?), it’s always been held at in the LA Convention Center/LA LIVE area. Anyway, here are a few photos from that week. I didn’t actually count, but was told that there were more than 16 most popular LA food trucks serving at MAX BASH, which is the biggest party held on the last night of the conference. Weezer was playing there as well.

Hoover Dam, Los Angeles and San Francisco

Mick — Tue, 31 May 2011 11:00:48 +0000

Continuing from the previous post, we rented a car fromÂ Fox Rent A Car before heading East to Hoover Dam. Fox Rent A Car generally has pretty bad reviews all over the Internet. However, I thought I’d give them a shot. The pick up process was not ideal because the price on the reservation in their system didn’t match what I was quoted during the booking process through American Express Travel. Luckily, I was able to convince them to honor mine since I had a printed copy of my reservation with him. The car they gave me was a DodgeÂ Caliber, which was alright throughout the trip. The worst part was the post-rental experience. I had to deal with their claims management company because the end of the trip got rough in downtown San Francisco, the car was broken into, and the thief took stuff from it. Luckily, I had American Express Premium Car Rental Protection. They were able to cover the damage repair cost as well as part of the cost of the stolen laptop. I was very pleased with AMEX customer service. On the other hand, FOX Rent A Car or their claims management company, Khoury Alternative, wasn’t very helpful during the claim process as they weren’t willing to provide fleet utilization logs and administrative fee receipts to AMEX. That basically resulted in an $85.00 unpaid balance that AMEX wasn’t able to cover. To be clear, AMEX would cover if FOX provided the requested info. Anyway, I had to settle with them out of pocket because they threatened to call a collection agency on me. Not cool. I guess the average review 2 starts out of 5 is fair for this rental company.

Now that I’ve finished my rant, I need to finish with the trip info. The rain started coming down as we left Vegas. We walked in drizzling rain at Hoover Dam. Spent like an hour there and didn’t go on the bridge because we had a person in a wheel chair. I took about 5 hours to get to the suburb of LA and then probably another two hours to get to North Hollywood for some dinner in Thai Town. We ate atÂ Sanamluang Cafe. It wasn’t as good as the last time I came but probably because back then I compared it to food in State College instead of DC metro. After dinner, probably 9PM-ish, it still took another 90 minutes to get to the hotel in Pasadena. The next day was just awful in terms of weather. We drove around a ton but never got out of the car other than eating lunch at Hard Rock in Hollywood. It rained heavily non-stop and we left LA just after sunset. Stayed overnight in Ventura. Didn’t stop in Santa Barbara because it was still raining hard. When we got to about midpoint on Highway 1, the rain would stopÂ intermittently giving us short windows to get out of the car for some fresh air, photos and enjoy the view even though the visibility was probably less than a mile.

The rain finally stopped when we got to San Francisco. Had dim sum for dinner :p. The weather was fine for the rest of the trip. I have to say that the car incident was really eye-opening. After that trip, I never again leave stuff visibly in the car. I either lock it away in the trunk or take it with him. Camera gear is with me at all times.

Las Vegas

Mick — Mon, 02 May 2011 11:00:17 +0000

Here are some photos from my trip to Las Vegas from last December. I actually went on to San Francisco but those photos are coming in the next post. I stayed at ARIA Resort & Casino at CityCenter. It was my first time there and I had a mind blow experience. The hotel is relatively new, built within the last few years, so everything is pretty much clean and pristine. Lots of restaurants just like any other prime hotels on the strip. Attached to the hotel is a shopping mall with stuff I can’t afford. The good news is that CVS is just around the corner.

One negative thing about ARIA is that it’s mega huge. It’d take me literally 10 mins to walk from my room to the conference area in the same hotel. That becomes really tiring when you have do a few round trips a day (e.g. get a phone charger, do conference call, etc.).

View of CityCenter from my room at ARIA

My room at ARIA has a touch screen remote at the bedside table thatÂ practicallyÂ controls everything in the room.

Morning view from the room

Couldn’t have asked for a better week in Vegas. 70F and low humidity. Downside – no poolside actions.

Outer Banks Camping

Mick — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:00:55 +0000

Before this trip, we beach-camped once at Assateague island and it was pretty awesome. So we had really high hopes for OBX camping since it was going to be at the KOA Cape Hatteras campground, which is private (i.e. not part of a state or national) and should be less crowded generally speaking. Being the July 4th weekend, we knew traffic was going to be mad crazy so we left at 6AM. Luckily, there wasn’t any traffic at all until we hit the Wright Memorial bridge crossing over to Outer Banks. Didn’t want to miss a World Cup quarterfinals match so we stopped at Hooters, lunched and watched Germany ass-whip Argentina *facepalm*.

Anyway, after the match we went food shopping and headed to the campground. About 30 minutes south of Kitty Hawk Hooters, we got there and my jaw dropped. It looked at a zoo + circus + playland combined. There were so many people that every available piece of land was occupied by either a tent or an RV. Dream shattered … not really, but it was kind of disappointing since I kinda expected to be at least as cool as Assateague. Anyhow, we were assigned this corner lot surrounded by RVs and popup tent trailers. Setting up was easy. When we finished, we just hung out and everybody was probably hoping for the sun to go soon because it was stupid hot.

Despite the crowd and heat, we spent three nights and had a blast everyday. The beach was surprisingly not crowded at all. One thing that was a really annoying though. Everyday, except July 4th, a garbage truck would come around 7AM and practically make you up whether Â you want to or not. Anyway, another great trip this year but will definitely rent a house next time.

Virginia Tech

Mick — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:37:11 +0000

Visited the Virginia Tech main campus in Blacksburg, VA during the last spring break. The drive is about four hours from the DC metro area.

Beach Camping at Assateague State Park, MD

Mick — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:16:46 +0000

For our first camping trip of the year, we went to Assateague State Park. Well, we wanted to do the national park but it was full. The state park next to it was available. Anyway, it is about a 4-5 hour drive from northern Virginia. There was a storm warning when we got there. Quickly setup our tents. By the time we were done, it started coming down really hard. The wind speed was actually 40-45 mph throughout the afternoon and night.

We had a great time even though alcohol was forbidden on the site (the ban started this year, go figure).

Jimmy was trying to get something from his tent during the big storm but couldn’t find the zipper… lol.

Before and after the storm.

Ocean City