Thursday, March 30, 2006


I had a good 11 day vacation. in true fact it actually was 9 days. lets see....

Day 1
Journey Mercies
Woke up really early at like 5am to get ready to head off for changi airport. Glenn, Christine and marcus were on firm tickets but i was on standby, it was quite worrying to know that the three could fly and i could be left behind but by god's grace i managed to get a seat.

Day 2
After a long 15hr flight with a stop in tokyo we landed at los angeles international airport at 30mins past 10am on friday(gotta love the gmt-16). was greeted by mom and dad who arrived from sanfrancisco two hours earlier. Went to pick up the car at alamo, can't believe we missed the first bus shuttle to the rental building!. the guy drove right past us. We had tons of lugguge.. and this was like at the start of the trip. We got ourselves a 7 Seater Minibus/minishuttle. 5 pax and 2 pax extra for the extra luggage. spent about over an hour finding our hotel best western inns & suites buena park. actually i'm not even sure it was a hotel, maybe more of a motel because it was a two storey complex. After checking in we cooled down and settled for abit before heading to anaheim to get our tickets the various attractions. all i can say its woooo. it sure is expensive. by the time we finished, the sun had already set. this time of the year the sun rises at 5am+ and sets at 5pm+... after leaving the place we drove for yonks to some mall called southwest plaza. woah, it really redefined the meaning of BIG. i think maybe 5-6 times the size of suntec city?? had dinner at rainforest cafe. it was a good experience, celebrated christine's birthday there too. =) finished dinner and headed back to the hotel. by then we were beat. really. hit the beds and zzzzzz.

Day 3
Knotts Berry Farm
We got to knotts berry farm around 10am. christine and i took this suspended roller coaster - the silver bullet. I psychoed her into taking the first row *eyes rolling*. believe me or not i litterally had to carry her out of the carriage after the ride had come to a stop. she could not stand straight niether walk. the moment she got off the seat she fell to the ground... But don't be fooled by her bad start, later on in the trip she was the one dragging me to the coasters. After that we headed to the game stalls and tried playing some of the games. glenn won two large plush dogs. note* shaun sux at games. had lunch and continued to ride more stuff. mom and dad split from us halfway through the day to *put stuff back in the car*. that gave us more freedom to roam around. spent the rest of the day rushing from coaster to coaster and ride to ride to make sure we got the best buck for our dollar... before we knew it it was 10pm. left the park and had Mrs Knotts famous chicken, i really can't tell y amercans call it america's favorite chicken. IMHO really CMI. but oh well, ate and went to bed,

Day 4
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Christine and myself went to six flags while the rest went shopping. Of all the times i visited the US i had always wanted to visit six flags, but was quite unlucky. closed/blahblah. Arrived at six flags around 10am+ after a 1hr drive from the hotel. it was already quite crowded. For anybody who doesnt know what six flags is- six flags known for its parks to have the largest/tallest/longest/scariest rollercoasters in the world. And magic mountain was the flagship/mother of its six parks. in short, one whole day of rollercoasters and fun. The weather was quite erratic that day. It rained, then stopped, then rained, then stopped. Because of that it was SUPER cold. even when riding the coaster the feeling of the cold air whizzing past your face when you're travelling at 60mph is just exilarating. Before we knew it, it was 8pm and they were announcing that the park was closing. bought two t-shirts and a cap from there. after going to sixflags and riding those monster coasters, it made disneylands and knotts rides look like kids... got back to the hotel like 9+. can't remember what we ate that night. maybe it was cup noodles. haha.

Day 5
Disneyland/California Adventure
We overslept that day. so ended up hitting disneyland only around 11+. We took the monorail into tommorowland from downtown disney. had to wait for like two trains before us... grabbed the fastpass for space mountain and crossed over to california adventure. First ride we headed for was Soarin Over California(even though we had rode it like 2 times previously already). It one of those rides of my mums MUST RIDE list. so we queued for like 40mins and got strapped up. it was nice, flying over california and grand canyon and blahblah in the GIGANTIC simulator. then furthermore it was made even more realistic with the gush of air and smell of oranges/pine when flying over the respective trees,orchards. after the ride we somehow managed to pyscho my mum into riding the river rapids ride. and guess wad? we got well. actually it was expected. dried off and headed for lunch. after lunch christine and myself headed back to disneyland re-enter for our spacemountain. after riding the one in paris its definately different. no loops, corkscrews. blahblah. but still it was good. after SM, we queued for like 40mins for matterhorn mountain(was closed on my last trip). there was this part that the yeti screamed in the dark accompanied with those red eyes in the dark. christine totally freaked out!!. i had to calm her down.. lol. yeps. Headed back to california adventure after that. After i entered i realised... I HAD DROPPED MY CAP. poor six flags cap. i RANNNN all the way back to matterhorn mountain and lo-and-behold i found it. THANK GOD. Met up with the rest of the gang and went for the monster's inc ride. i personally find it sucked.. haha... esp with all the sixflags experience. haha. after that went for the muppets 3D vision experience, same as last time. somehow the second time never seems as good as the first. by the time we got back to disneyland it was time for the parade. spent like 15-20mins to find a nice spot. the floats and music were just sooo cool. then headed to ride star tours(for me it was like the 6th-7th time)... after that we tried to head to Its a small world but they had blocked the place in prep for the fireworks. so couldnt do much but wait for the fireworks to start. Found a nice place to sit down without being blocked. at 9.25 it started promptly. the park lights all dimmed. but as usual as it started, people started to get on their feet, so end up we had to start throughout the show. It lasted a good 17mins from the first light till the end. The music paired with the firworks just was OHYEA. it was as they say in hokkien - chio. the feeling was just estatic. really those kind of 'time to kiss my girlfriend/wife during the fireworks and her leg POPs. haha. watch too much princess diaries. but yea, it was awesome. After it ended we headed to the haunted mansion and marcus was so afraid. Taking the ride at night was definately more exciting. haha, i guess riding anything at night just adds to the excitement level. After that i led the kids to thunder mountain, we rode it like twice before heading to the park exit. It was a good/fun day spent at what disney people call 'the happiest place on earth'...

Day 6
This was the day that the group split, christine and myself went back to disneyland while the remaining went shopping. we got dropped off at downtown disney where we went to spend our $10 gift cards at the arcade, the machines were quite cool and hi-tech. then we had some fish and chips for lunch before going shopping. or was it the other way around. after the latter we dumped the things in the lockers($6 a pop) and went on the long walk... we rushed here and there to take whatever rides(alot) we hadnt taken the previous day. so ride this, ride that, then finally had to given chris her fair share of shopping. i think that day i had a little glimpse of what it would be like to wait on your wife, girlfriend when she goes shopping. like ZzZzZzZz... anyway the day blasted by like no other and before we knew it, it was evening. all ready and geared up to catch the fireworks. after we had gotten over it, we left the park and grabbed something to eat at IHOP. http://www.ihop.com. the food there is great. and quite cheap for good food... got picked up and returned to the hotel. then ZzZzZzZz

Day 7
We left the hotel a tad later than normal because it was universal studios day. And universal being on the side of LA meant we had use her conjested network of highways so we figured out leaving early and getting caught in the jam wouldnt be very productive, so might as well sleep in. so thats what we did. Got to universal about 11ish. ah, nothing much had changed since my last visit 3 years ago. we got this all you can eat tag thing. so lets see what we ate. for lunch - chinese. panda express rocks man. actually i believe when you're far away any chinese food tastes nice. later in the afternoon pizza, then more pizza. went to the standard attractions. shrek, jp, vanhelsing, backtothefuture, themummyride, backdraft, 3dfx studio and fear factor live. this was the first one that i hadnt been to. it was rather interesting and entertaining. overall i think we had fun, but i think it would have been more fun going back to sixflags or smth. yea. left there and we went to IHOP. AGAIN. for dinner, this time everybody ate. turned in early that night because of the long journey we had to make the next day to seaworld!.

Day 8
yi lu xiang bei - today we headed north to san diego. ohh wait. it was south... slightly under two hours drive down to seaworld, was so tempted to crash in tijuana mexico. haha. reached seaworld @ around 11am+ missed the first shamu show. shamu is that famous killer whale in the movie free willy. caught his show much later in the afternoon. the whole family went on a rapid ride that made us drenched. the rapid literally goes through a waterfall... get the picture?? yeps. so we walked and walked to dry off. went for the dolphin, seal and some 3D show. after watching all those shows i really question man's intelligence, the way they(the sea creatures) listen to instructions really made us look dumb. haha. but towards the end of the day we headed towards 'atlantis the lost empire'. it was the water coaster. and oh well, we got wet as usual. the temperatures were dropping too, so was not very comfortable being wet and tired. by then it was park closing time. upon leaving the park i encountered one angmoh which gave me a bad impression. we(the AM and i) asked one of the foodcart vendors if there were any hotdogs left. and she checked and said there were two left. and you know what this AM said.!!! i'll take TWO. you know you normally say i'll take two if there are more than two left. sheesh, i got so pissed inside. he jolly well knew that i wanted one. he should have just said i'll take ALL. but, i'm nice. so i walked away hungry... grrrr...

Day 9
TIME TO GO HOME. wAiT... or NOT.?
we checked early and reached the airport about 10am. flight sq 11 was supposed to depart at 1.30. if u read above i mentioned my ticket was a stand-by ticket. we were all supposed to fly back on sq 29 at 8.30 that night but it being full and my chances wern't good we said we'd try the morning flight. but in short, i couldnt get on. so were tried for the afternoon flight. a direct flight back home, but couldnt get on. so hoped to get on the sq 29. BUT. couldnt get on... sheesh, the rest had a seat and i was stranded all alone in LA city. furthermore i had to miss one more day of work. meaning i burnt one day of annual leave in the airport. wasted... so we had like 5mins to say bye and pass money etc. so they flew off.... i called on my aunt(whom we tried to call earlier that week but to no avail) who lived in LA with my cousin. and she picked up. praise god. so arranged to get picked up and bunked at her place. had a short chat in the car. reach the place and slept.

Day 10
I woke up ard 9+ and had my cousins friend give me a lift to the airport. got my bags scanned and checked in. but they could only confirm my seat 30mins prior to departure. so i had my fingers crossed. then came the time. i rushed to the counter and they told me i had gotten on. hallelujah. i arrived to the plane very late. they were already paging for me over the intercomm system. and the worst is they can't pronounce my name properly. it really sounded weird. so i got on board and oh boy. every seat was taken. 11 hrs later we landed at tokyo. and guess WAD... i got offloaded. means i had no seat back to singapore. the feeling was real sucky. the ground staff helped me look for a hotel and i took the shuttle there. changed some money and called home. zzz. by then it was already 8pm. narita town was like deserted. so i took a walk to find dinner. there was not one english sign in the town, japan is not fun if you don't know how to read or speak japanese. so i ended up eating at this yakitori place which had a sticker on the door titled. ENGLISH OK. that was comforting. the yakitori was nice, but expensive. after dinner took a little(narita is small) walk before heading back to my room to turn in.

Day 11
woke up early. about 6am. i was supposed to reach the airport about 9.30 but decided since i was up early i would grab breakfast. i walked to the macdonalds around the corner. i queued up behind some angmohs. for some reason, none of the japanese wanted to queue up behind then. weird. i saw that they were viewing the english menu. when it was my turn. the staff flipped it over to the japanese menu!!!!. she thought i was japanese. so i just pointed to the meal that i wanted and just. yes yes yes all the way pretending to be jap. was quite comical. finished breakfast and went back to prep for my flight. i was told there was a slight chance i wouldnt get on the next mornings flight. but upon getting to the airport i was told i had a confirmed seat. i think they must have showed me some pity knowing i got bump off 3 flights and offloaded 1. board the plane and 7 hours later i was back home. HOME SWEET HOME...

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