5-day Yellowstone bus trip.

Well, actually we only got to visit Yellowstone for one day. The other four days were spent mainly on the road. It's cheaper to go on a bus tour (as opposed to taking the plane), but it's also way time consuming...

There's so much to talk about, I'm not going to write them all out. I'll upload the photos, along with the ones my brother took, to Picasa later and just post the link.

For now, some brief thoughts and miscellaneous stuff not captured in the photos:

- The group consisted of 30 people including the three of us. Most were young families with little kids. Yeah, I'm not the most patient when it comes to kids, but I managed. Only 6 out of 30 spoke Mandarin, so the tour guide was in Cantonese mode a lot of the time.

- The tour guide spoke Cantonese and translated in heavy accented Mandarin from time to time. Mum can understand some Cantonese and asked the people across from us if she really wanted to know what the guy was talking about. Bro just ignored him most of the time. I strained so much trying to understand/guess what he was saying, I'm still hearing Cantonese in my head. Not good. Must watch more anime or Japanese drama to rid the problem.

- The whole thing felt kind of rushed, which is understandable considering the long distance covered each day and the number of people in the group. But the trip would have been better if we didn't have to waste time on shopping and get to stay in Yellowstone longer. A lot of the people in the group would probably disagree, though. The trip was supposed to be a Yellowstone tour, but in fact we were only there for less than a day. Disappointing. :(

- The sun was bright and the weather dry and hot, making it difficult for my camera to take pictures of things on the other side of the bus windows due to reflections. It's really a shame. I wanted to take picture of the bisons and the landscape. But I think the shutter time of my 2+ years camera is still too long to really capture the moments on the moving bus. Orz

- Mum and many other people have lamented on the loss of Yellowstone's charm due to the 1988 fire. I'm actually not too concerned about that. For me, Yellowstone's beauty lies in its geology and geography. Vegetation is a necessity for the animals, not an attraction. Forest will grow back, but the geology and geography won't return once altered.

- Got a chance to drop by BestBuy during the 'shopping time' and the anime section just blew me away. Look at all those box sets! That's cheating, man! Why do they get twice as much selection and options!? I really regretted not bringing my card with me down there. Orz

- I'm usually pretty tolerant when it comes to food, but I think I ate better when I worked at Staples (regular diets of Tim Horton's and McDonald's) than during most of the trip. I don't want to see another Arby's or some lame buffet...

- Movies shown on the bus: Night at the Museum, The Battle of Red Cliff (赤壁), a documentary about the 1988 Yellowstone fires, a documentary drama Supervolcano, Eight Below (2nd time viewing for me, but I still teared up)

- I brought along the first volume of Saiunkoku Monogatari, but Mum scolded me every time I pulled it out from my bag on the bus. I only managed to finish two chapters. Since the title and author's name are in kanji, I don't think anyone realized that the book is in Japanese.