Its been a while, since I got back from California on July 3, 2011. After going through all the photos from several cameras I am finally able to upload the photos. Great place in California, a bit too hot for my liking though, especially when the sun is scorching you nonstop. After this trip, my arms got "burnt", my dad was even mistaken for a Mexican. Lol. Read on for links to photo galleries and a summary of the vacation.Summary:
Very good trip, lots of new things to see, my cousin's son, "Nathan" was alot of fun. We played games together, goofed off together, lots of laughs every moment. Maybe I do act like a kid. Meh.
When I got there, I found out that in California, it was a law that all restaurant and fast foods show the calories of each food on the menu. Atleast thats what a cashier at a McDonald in Walmart said. She also said that not everyone obeys it though. But to me, it was interesting to see in big numbers, the calorie for say... a big mac.
It was alot of walking though, more than what I would have liked. But since it was with other people, I couldn't exactly just complain. Since my daily routine would be, play, sleep, eat, play. LOL ! Also, my GPS on my iPhone 3GS refused to work... had to read a map like a pro @_@. Sucks, but exciting. Getting lost can sometimes bring you to neat, unforeseen places !Next trip will be where I wonder... I can't wait ! ^_^
Galleries and Description:
June 24 - Once we got off the plane at Los Angeles, we went to Thrifty to rent our car, then drove for 2 hours until we got to San Diego where my cousin and his wife and son lived. Together, we visited the Old Town of San Diego and ate Mexican food. We stayed at Motel 6, probably the worst hotel of this trip. NO FREE WIFI... WHAT THE H*LL ! D8
June 25 - We started off by going to a district by the beach with houses in the millions because of its location and not size. We had some interesting sweet cookies because we haven't seen them before. Everyone complained it was too sweet, I loved it. We went to another beach afterwards and that was when my cousin had to leave us to pick up her wife. So it was just my dad, mom, big aunt (whos the cousin's mother), Nathan, and myself. Since we were with a child, we went to Legoland ! OMFG LEGO !! Its amazing, all the things that could be built with lego.
June 26 - Breakfast was at a pancake restaurant, they serve many different types of pancakes. Some were big, others not so big. I had the apple pancake, it was huge. I couldn't finish it. After our filling breadfast, we went to Balboa park. There, because Nathan really wanted to go to the science center while everyone else had something different in mind. I was chosen to go to the science center with him to make sure nothing bad would happen. The science center was an interesting experience. I always enjoyed those more than museums or sight seeing (what my parents had in mind) since science centers had interactive yet educational games. While we were there, my parents went to some cactus garden taking photos of cactus. Ew. When we met up, there was a weird parade. Music and dancing with people dressed up as things I couldn't recognize. HOWEVER ! I saw someone dressed as Naruto, but with all the people and chaos, I couldn't get a picture of him. We parted ways after with me and my dad going alone and my mom, and the cousin's family together. They went to outlets to shop and sight see while we went to the Midway Museum. What is that you ask? What about USS Midway Museum? Thats right! Its a warship. An aircraft carrier at that. While the ship wasn't left in an original state (it is probably rendered inoperable), there were still many fighter planes (which may be working or not) to take pictures of. Some even let you ride inside it (of course it doesn't move or work). We also went into the control tower with a guide explaining the roles of the different crew. Lots to learn about.
June 27 - We started the day with Seaworld. Another amusement part. This one had shows with sea animals such as dolphins, whales, and sea otters performing. Oh, there were people actors too of course. We stayed there basically the whole day from 9am to 6:30pm. We went through basically every exhibit. The last few pictures were me chasing a pigeon with my camera, kind of pointless. I just realized how pigeons don't like to fly.
June 28 - Today, we leave San Diego, so my cousin, his wife, and Nathan did not follow us. Only my family and my big aunt continued towards San Francisco. Most of the day was spent traveling. Afterall, it was around 6-8 hours road trip to get from San Diego to San Francisco. We did stop by Google Inc along the way and I got to hug the cute android. (^_^)V We had dinner at the Japan town eating Japanese cuisine. The hotel we lived at was Presidio Inn, they finally had free wifi and I started all my torrents of ANIME ! This place had the fastest wifi connection of all 3 hotels we lived at.
June 29 - We went to the crooked downhill road, forgot the name. It was like a zig-zag downhill, and there were even houses on either sides. Imagine how hard it would be to get out of the house during busy times (in the afternoon or evening). We went early so there were few people. But when we went back later (passed by on streetcar), it was packed. We drove to China town afterwards, neat buildings. Some looked like ancient China. To my surprise, fake Yugioh cards! Yippe! Now I can distinguish real and fake ones (aside the obvious change in price, maybe I'll make a post later). After that, we went to Pier 39 which is a famous pier with restaurants, shopping, and boat tours. Of course, we didn't miss out and got on a boat tour for the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. After the boat tour, we got on the streetcar, the wait took almost an hour. The streetcar brought us all the way to union square in downtown. They had something similar to our Eaton Center in Toronto, huge mall. From downtown, we walked to Japan town where my mom and myself went there while my dad and my big aunt went to get our car back at the pier 39 parking lot. Of course they went back by bus so it wasn't too time consuming. Lastly at night, we thought we'd get another close up view on the Golden Gate Bridge before our return to Los Angeles early tomorrow, so we went at night to take a few pictures at the closest point that cars were allowed to go.
June 30 - Today, we set off to Los Angeles, another 4-6 hour drive. Our airport was at Los Angeles. We passed by Apple Inc in Cupertino along the way. Unlike Google, there weren't many places to take pictures off and inside any building was out of bounds for visitors. So we only got photos from a car. Their street name is interesting though, "Infinity Loop". Except it was small and the infinity was finite... What a shame. Due to the long drive, we stopped occasionally for my dad to rest, we went to Trader Joe's to buy souvenirs for relatives in Toronto. Apparantely, Trader Joe's was a well known super market in California with its own brand of products. The scenery was nice, there were several pictures of that along the road. The scorching heat however was not nice. The first thing we did when we arrived at Los Angeles was to see the Hollywood walk. I found some famous names and was astonished to see names like "Godzilla" and "Winnie the Pooh". Crazy. There were also many people dressed up to take pictures with, however it was a custom that if we got a photo taken, we'd have to pay. So we juts took pictures of other people who took pictures with them. Or flat out, take picture when hes not looking. Yay for stalking skills !
July 1 - The hotel we stayed at was Guesthouse Inn & Suites. The nicest of all the hotels on this trip, however the free wifi was not very fast, 80kbps was the most I could get out of it from my torrents. It was over 200kbps on Presidio Inn. But thats fine, as I only torrented while we slept. We first went to Beverly Hills, the rich and wealthy area where celebrities are said to live. We got honked by this Infinity 35Z because we wanted to slow down to take pictures. Arg, I don't like them rich people... We also went to the shopping district of Beverly Hills where we saw a very unique car. The Bugatti Veyron (atleast thats what I think it is). Its also the fastest car available at the moment (I might be wrong now, my news is outdated). The spoiler rises automatically when going fast enough, the woman driving it (yes, its a woman) opened the spoiler probably because she knew people would take pictures. Sure enough, it wasn't just me taking pictures, others were too. After Beverly Hills, we returned to the Hollywood Walk because we didn't finish all of it yesterday cause part of it was closed, and it was getting dark, rendering my camera lesser and lesser capable. Lastly, we went to the China town and Japan town for a visit. We ate at China town in a familiar Chinese restaurant as it had all been some foreign food for the past 4 days. When we returned to our hotels, we went to a supermarket to get some water and found very cheap breads, 3 for $0.99 so we bought those along with some of our instant noodles we brought and ate it for dinner. Yummy.
July 2 - Today was our last day. Our flight was at 10pm while my aunt's was at 7:30pm. We already finished basically all of our plans so we decided to go a bit further and went to Manhattan Beach in the morning. It was sunny x_x but the view was nice. Many very nice houses with unique styles unlike the ugly houses I see around my area. We then went to a mall to pass time, my dad was so tired he paid a dollar to those massage chairs to relax for 3 minutes. He said 3 minutes definitely wasn't enough. Afterwards we went to return our car and took a shuttle bus to the airport. We signed in much before the scheduled departure time, at 5:00pm or so. Then waited until my aunt got on the plane. We waited a bit more then we got on our plane. When we arrived back at Toronto, it was 5:00am. So I took a nap on the plane as if I slept from 10:00pm to 5:00am. Currently, I do not feel any jet lag.
So that was my trip. Hope you enjoyed the read and pictures. See you all again soon !
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