It is located on the South Side (located in the Armour Square community area), centered on Cermak and Wentworth Avenues. It is history that brought Chinese in this part of the United States of America.

Looking to escape the anti-Chinese violence that had broken out on the west coast, the first Chinese arrived in Chicago after 1869 when the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed. By the late 1800s, 25% of Chicago's approximately 600 Chinese residents settled along Clark Street between Van Buren and Harrison Avenues in Chicago's Loop.[3] In 1889, 16 Chinese-owned businesses were located along the two-block stretch, including eight grocery stores, two butcher shops and a restaurant. Faced with increasing rent prices, the Chinese living in this area began moving south to Armour Square in 1912. more here

What do you think once you visit Chicago? What do you expect if you have the chance to visit there? For sure you will think about the idea of the skycraper, the blues and the truth of jazz and most of all comedy. Chicago is the largest city of the state if Illinois in the United States. It is considered to be one of the world's great cities, famous for its shopping, luxuries of theater and fine dining.

Some of its famous skycrapers include, the Sears Tower (Willis Tower), The Trump Tower, Aon Center, AT&T Corporate Center, John Hancock Center, 900 N Michigan and some other more.

This is so far a very interesting architecture in Chicago. Others call it the giant mirror ball but it is actually called the Cloud Gate with a nickname "The Bean" due to its shape. It is located in the Millenium Park and the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza. It was created by Anish Kapoor, an Indian-born British artist. Cloud Gate was formally dedicated on May 15, 2006, and has since gained considerable popularity, both domestically and internationally.


The Cloud Gate's has a 12-foot (3.7 m) high arch. You can walk around and under it. It is 33 by 66 by 42 feet (10 by 20 by 13 m), and weighs 110 short tons (100 t; 98 long tons).

I wish to visit this monument when I visit Chicago in the future. The big question is when?? Goodnight folks!

During my sightseeing with friend Ritz in Nuremberg, we happened to meet this guy from New York City. He said that he was stopping Nuremberg for a connecting travel to Prague, Czech Republic to attend his friend's wedding day. He was also the best man of that said wedding. After some conversation we parted because we have to catch the train in going back home.

Don't you know that New York is the most populous city in the United States. There are a lot of skycrapers in New York. It has 5,538 highrise buildings, with 50 completed skyscrapers taller than 656 feet (200 m). The Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower which is a metal building was once the tallest building in the world when it was completed in 1974.

Some of the tallest buildings in New York City are Equitable Life Building (Destroyed by fire in 1912), New York World Building (Demolished in 1955), Manhattan Life Insurance Building (Demolished in 1930), Met Life Tower, 40 Wall Street, Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, World Trade Center (North tower,destroyed in 2001) and some other more.

This is the United Center, an indoor sports arena Near West Side community area of Chicago. It is so far the largest arena in the United States talking about its physical size and not its capacity. The United Center is home to both the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League and the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association. The United Center is currently owned by Rocky Wirtz and Reinsdorf.

Some events that were held here include Cirque du Soleil, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Disney on Ice, University of Illinois basketball, the Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament and some other more.

The Iowa State Capitol is the state capitol building of the U.S. state of Iowa. It was constructed between 1871 and 1886. It is located in the state capital of Des Moines at East 9th Street and Grand Avenue and houses the Iowa General Assembly.


The present capitol is on the same grounds as the old, and is the only five-domed state capitol in the country. The building is brick with limestone from Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Ohio, and Illinois. Iowa stone is the foundation for the many porticoes of the building. Both front and back porticoes have pediments supported by six Corinthian columns each. The dome of the capitol is gilded with tissue-paper thin sheets of pure 23-karat gold, with a protective layer sealing the gold from the weather, and the top of its finial peak is 275 feet (84 m) above the ground. From its opening during 1884 until 1924 it was the tallest building in Des Moines, and probably the tallest in Iowa. credit

Luxor Las Vegas is a hotel and casino located in Las Vegas Strip, Paradise, Nevada. It is named after the city of Luxor in Egypt. It is said to be the second largest hotel in Las Vegas, next to MGM Grand and the third largest in the world.

Are you familiar with the Great Sphinx of Giza? It is commonly called as Sphinx, a mythical creature which resembles lion's body and a human head. In Egypt, it is located on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza.

You can also find a Sphinx statue in front of Luxor hotel in Las Vegas.
Below are some images I took during my visit last 2008 in Las Vegas

Designed by hotel architect Veldon Simpson and interior designer Charles Silverman, the Luxor has received recognition as being among the most recognizable hotels on the strip because of its unique design. The main portion of the hotel is a 365-foot (111 m)-high, 30-story pyramid encased in 11 acres of dark bronze glass. The guest rooms are situated on the outer walls of the pyramid and are reached by riding in "inclinators" that travel along the inner surface of the pyramid at a 39-degree angle. The hotel also features a 29 million cubic feet (820,000 m³) atrium, which was the largest open atrium in the world when it was built in 1993. The hotel is marked by a 140-foot (43 m)-high obelisk and a 110-foot (34 m)-tall re-creation of the Great Sphinx of Giza.

The light of the Luxor

The tip of the pyramid contains a fixed-position spotlight that points directly upward and is claimed to be the brightest beam in the world at over 42.3 billion candle power. The light is created by 39 Xenon lamps which use computer designed curved mirrors to collect the light and focus it into one intense beam. According to the Luxor website, “engineers say that an astronaut could read a newspaper by Luxor’s Sky Beam from ten miles into space” and “on a clear night, the Sky Beam is visible up to 250 miles away to an airplane at cruising altitude. more here.

This is one of the luxury hotels I had visited in Las Vegas, Nevada. Its architecture looks like the pyramid in Egypt. Actually, it is themed from Thebes, Egypt where the famous Luxor temple is found. It was opened on October 13, 1993 and has 4,407 rooms. Luxor has received recognition as being among the most recognizable hotels on the strip because of its unique design.



Address:
3900 Las Vegas Blvd South.
Las Vegas, Nevada 89119

Th Hoover Dam Bypass, also called as The Mike O'Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge is a concrete steel arch bridge connecting the states of Colorado and Nevada. It runs accross Colorado River and was opened last October 19, 2010.

During our visit in Hoover Dam last May 2008, this bridge was still under construction. This is again another architecture in the United States considering that it is the first concrete-steel composite arch bridge built in this country.

an image taken by my sister during their recent visit. The bridge is already in used now.

The bridge provides a crossing of the Colorado River for U.S. Route 93, linking the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona 1,600 feet (490 m) downstream from the Hoover Dam. It is located approximately 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The bridge is the 2nd highest in the United States, behind Royal Gorge Bridge, at 840 feet (260 m) above the Colorado River. Built as part of the Hoover Dam Bypass Project, which successfully finished within budget at a cost of $240 million, the bridge portion cost $114 million (2010 USD) more here

The tamed Colorado River where the Hoover Dam Bypass crosses. It was still under construction during our visit last May 2008.

Its construction begun in 2003 and construction contract for the arch bridge was awarded in October 2004.
It is truly amazing how such high-tech engineering are happening nowadays. I believed the traffic in Hoover Dam is now very better with this new bridge.

Let's take a little tour in the Unites States. I am sharing some images of one of the major tourist attractions in Nevada. Hoover Dam, previously known as Boulder Dam is located in the Black Canyon of Colorado River on the border between Nevada and Colorado States. It was built from 1931 to 1935 as seen on the last image I have below.

It is considered to be a wonder of human engineering. During our visit last May 2008, there is a new bridge that is being built to make new way for the traffic. It is said that this so-called Hoover Bypass is opened sometime last October of this year.


Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, and is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 25 mi (40 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California.

This is the Willis Tower located in 233 South Wacker Drive, Chicago. It was formerly called Sears Tower. It is 422 meters or 1,451 feet high and is a 108-story skycraper. It was the tallest building in the world at the time of its completion in 1974.

The Willis Tower is the tallest building in the United States and the fifth-tallest freestanding structure in the world, as well as the fifth tallest building in the world to the roof.


Willis Tower remains the tallest building in the Americas. With a pinnacle height of 1730 feet (527 m), it is the second tallest freestanding structure in the Americas, as it is 86 feet (26 m) shorter than Toronto's CN Tower, and is the only other freestanding structure in the Americas to exceed 1500 feet (457.2 m) in height. As of August 2009, Willis Tower is the fifth tallest freestanding structure in the world (by pinnacle height), after the Burj Khalifa, the Canton Tower, the CN Tower and the Ostankino Tower.

At 1,482.6 feet (451.9 m) tall, including decorative spires, the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, laid claim to replacing the Sears Tower as the tallest building in the world in 1998. Not everyone agreed, and in the ensuing controversy four different categories of "tallest building" were created. Of these, Petronas was the tallest in one category (height to top of architectural elements, meaning spires but not antennas). more about Willis Tower here