What a day it was. Just a shout out to all the kiwi's out there suffering after the catastrophic earthquake. Our hearts and prayers go out to you. Our transport to the Universal Studio Theme and Tour was one of those Big Black Utility Vehicles that you see the FBI get around in when there gonna do a drug bust. It was pretty big inside and comfy. This is Steve's dream car he would love to have if he could get one back home. We got there nice and early and its F**ken cold. This cold weather is coming off the snow capped mountains they reckon. The place before you enter the studio tour is setup like a outdoor mall. There are a shit load of shops. We took a quick walk thru the shops. i managed to grab myself a $5 beanie to keep my head warm. Then we made our way to the gates of universal studio. We got some photos of the big spinning globe and the welcome gate. Just a tip for anybody planning on coming here in the future, make sure you at least get a front of the line pass. The amount of time it saved us waiting in lines is amazing and that was on a slow day there.
The first show/tour we did was the actual studio tour. There are some quite amazing sets on this tour. They take you through an old western set and a Mexican town set. Then they show you how they simulate a raining day and even a flood on the set. The most amazing part of the tour was the 3d King Kong set. The graphics and the way they simulated the fight between King Kong and a couple of t-rex's were amazing. I probably should'nt say anymore but for the people out there who might not get to see it, basically you drive into a dark set thats surrounded by 3D screens. It simulates a trip out to King Kong island. T-rex's start to attack the tour bus which is simulated by the tour bus being shakin violently. Then King Kong brings on his Donkey Kong to those T-rex's and they shake the bus and spray water to simulate your in the middle of the fight. Now maybe im a twisted freak but i was laughing as the girls were getting freaked out by the whole thing. It was easily the best part of the tour and the best use of 3D i have seen so far.
We continued on the tour and we saw the set "Wisteria Lane" famous for Desperate Housewives. We also saw the crashed 747 set of War of the World, the set of Jaws, the lake they fill up to film various water scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean to Apollo 13. The tour was quite informative and its a headspin to see where they filmed all of the famous scenes. After the tour we decided to try the new The Simpsons Ride. I had read some really good reviews on this ride so i was pumping it up. When we got in, thanks to our fast pass we went into a room with a single Roller coaster cart in it. I didnt quite know what to expect. The ride is basically another 3D setup. The cart goes up into the ceiling and a hatch opens. next you see the simpsons go on a roller coaster at Krusty's theme park and sideshow bob is trying to kill them. The ride simulates that you are on the same roller coaster as the simpsons. This ride is pretty much in the same vane as the King Kong. The use of 3D in this ride is great and when the cart moves you feel like you are apart of the show.
When we finished the ride we headed off to The Mummy's revenge ride and the Jurassic Park ride in the lower part of the park. The mummy's revenge ride was nearly abit of a worry because of the seat restrictions. Luckily everybody fitted into the seats. The ride itself was short and intense. One second you are catapulted from the start point and next you feel like you are dropping 30 foot. All i could hear was the girls screaming and laughing and myself constantly laughing and yelling SHIT!!! It was all over pretty quick like less then 2 mins. I loved it
Jurassic park the ride was pretty cool. Its a roller-coaster boat setup and you get to go through the Jurassic park set with robot dinosaurs moving around and spitting water at you. The Drop at the end was pretty breathtaking. You end up getting wet from the splash at the end. It was a pretty good ride and its getting abit old now but its still good.
After the ride we tried the hotdogs there. They were pretty good. We then continued around the park. We did the haunted house tour, which i thought was quite funny because i was behind everybody as they were all getting scared by the actors in the room. I couldnt stop laughing as K&K kept getting scared. We safely made it through the house and then had some lunch . Next we did the terminator 2 3D show. The show started off with a little presentation from cyberdyne.Then some live actors posing as John and Sarah Connor crash the presentation and then liquid terminator tries to kill them. You wouldnt guess who comes to rescue them. Yes Arnie comes and saves John and then they go into the future in a 3D movie. The effects were pretty cool. After the show we headed to the Shrek 4D show. This was probably the most disappointing of all shows but it was probably because of where we sat on the back row.
The final show we did was the special effects show. This show ran through all the types of effects that are commonly used in movies. Its pretty trippy when you see the old optical effects they used to simulate somebody on top of a building or the little models they used for cities and vehicles. Also it was interesting to see CGI in action.
The one way these theme parks sting ur wallet is by offering souvenir photos of urself on or during the ride. The photo's are sometimes good and they actually do capture the moment but..... The photo's cost at least $25 for 2. being the suckers we are we have got at least 4 of these photo's on various rides around the place. the price we pay for memories
After the theme park we jumped a taxi to the Beverly centre and did some shopping in the big Macys outlet here. The girls were looking for clothes and steve was looking shoes. We didnt find anything so we decided to try our luck with the Citadel Outlet. The girls got some clothes from Torrid ,Steve got some clothes from Casual Male XL and i got Motion sickness.$400 later we got back to the hotel and got some dominos for diner. So ends day 4
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Day 3 Everything is bigger in HOLLYWOOD!!!
Sorry i didn't write this blog last night people so tonight im burning the midnight oil to bring u 2 chapters.
The day started off pretty much the same as every other morning we've been here. Apparently there was a car alarm going off at all hours of the morning which kept poor Kara and Steve awake. Good thing for me i was dead to the world. So after breaky we organized a taxi to take us back to Kodak theater. We got there nice and early and decided to take some pics of the celeb imprints on concrete in front of the famous Chinese theater. We also stocked on some drinks and snacks for our limo tour of the movie star home around Hollywood/Beverly hills. While we were waiting for our limo, one of the Starline tour vendors told us that our driver was part famous because she had recently made a guest appearance on the Lopez Tonight. Its a popular late night talk show for the locals here. When our driver arrived the first thing we spotted was how rough the limo was. It had a few dings and scratches and the limo was badly polished. I don't think this company really cares about there limo and buses if what ive seen is anything to go by.
So we begin the tour and the driver takes us up to Mulholland drive to a vantage spot where we can take pictures of the city and the Hollywood sign.Karisse wasnt game enough to climb the set of stairs that go up to the point. Its a pretty fair way down. While we were there you wouldn't guess what celeb was there doing some shots for his show? Conan O'Brien. So anyway i got some nice pics of the city of LA and the famous Hollywood sign on the hill. Now if ur wondering where are all my pics, the net here at the Comfort Inn is free but its not super fast. I think karisse tried to up load 600+ pics and the net nearly went into shock trying to upload. After taking the pics we continued on our tour for the famous celeb houses around the place. I was actually surprised by some of the houses the celebs lived in. Our guide was pretty knowledgeable about the celeb homes. Karaisse got to see Lady GaGa's current rental house.Can you believe some one like Gaga would be renting?? Cheapskates. Kara got to see a little bit of the Playboy Mansion. She was soo excited she was speaking to a rock. Apparently the rock speaks back sometimes. But not this time for Kara, even after she proclaimed her love for Hef(Hugh Hefner Playboy Founder/owner/ Legend).Even Steve got to see his idol Justin Bieber rental home(JOKES!!!! Steve would love to sing with him sometime, NO not really he would just kill the annoying little shit!!). The one home that spun me out was old Steven Spielbergs house way up on the hill. They have used his house to most recently shoot Iron Man 2 as Tony Starks home.
Once we were done with the tour we decided to do the Ripleys Believe or Not Museum Tour. This place had some the funniest and weirdest things i have ever seen. They had a Real Chastity belt from medievil years and they even had exhibit based on the different types of torture used throughout time. Ripley the guy who started the museum actually had a pretty interesting life. He did a shit load of traveling around the world even before planes started flying commercially.
We finished up at museum and went got some souvenirs from one of the shops. We then jumped on another tour bus so we could go to the farmers market/The Grove. Now this is where our day sorta when to shit because we waited around for our bus and we got on it thinking it was running on time. The driver seemed nice and he even let us eat on the bus. But he waited nearly 30mins over the original departure time because he had to wait for the other bus to arrive. It was a pretty bad day cause the traffic was jammed and i was feeling sick( i get bad motion sickness thx mum:-( )also everybody else was busting to go to the toilet. The poor bus driver did his best to try and get us back on time. He nearly got in the shit cause as he was letting off one passenger at a stop, two other passenger tried sneaking off as well. As the last passanger got off he closed the door on her thinking nobody else was getting off. She got stuck pretty good and he drove a little bit with her still hanging off the door. She got out in the end but she looked pissed.
So we finally get to Markets and we went straight into the nearest restaurant to use the toilets. We were also starving so we grabbed a table and had a good feed. The one i have noticed with American food and service is the serving sizes are big, the price is not expensive and the staff are usually very attentive to your needs. Why cant Australia be more like this???
After Lunch/Dinner yes we missed lunch cause of the bus, Kara had spotted out her Dream Store if she was a little girl again. American Girl Place is not just an ordinary doll store. it is a friggin doll Mecca. If you were a doll you wish you could come here. It is a 3 Story store dedicated to the creation and maintenance of dolls. What sort of Doll store has a cafeteria,hospital, and salon. Good old GI Joe didn't get no treatment like this. Not even Barbie get this pampered. K&K decided to go into the store to make a doll for Alira. We would hear back from them for a think at least 2 hrs. Steve and I just browsed around the place looking for Cold weather gear to wear in New York. It is actually very hard to get clothes for guys that are tall and large. I never really understood until i tried helping Steve look for clothes that would fit him It was frustrating and i can only imagine how it must feel. I hope one day It wont have to be problem for anybody :-)
The Kmart store we looked in had the same sort of setup as a Kmart store back home. Cheap and Nasty. Funny thing when we were walking the a black women had cut across another driver in her car and because the traffic was banked up she couldnt move any further. She yelled at the other driver she cut off "U can F**ken wait!!" Only in America, I think not...
When we finally catchup with the girls, we decided we wanted to try and go to the big fashion outlet chain across town called Citadel. If only it was that easy. We went to the main road and unsuccessfully tried to hail a cab down off. we also tried calling a cab company but because our sim cards on our phones r crap we couldnt even call one. After roughly 45mins we got a cab and asked the driver if he could take us to the outlet shops. he said it would be too far to make it there before closing.And So we began the long journey back to the hotel. We got back to the hotel and pretty much crashed.
Thats my excuse for not writing my blog yesterday.
My next entry will detail our trip to Universal Studios and Beverly Centre Shopping complex and the Citadel Outlet Stores
The day started off pretty much the same as every other morning we've been here. Apparently there was a car alarm going off at all hours of the morning which kept poor Kara and Steve awake. Good thing for me i was dead to the world. So after breaky we organized a taxi to take us back to Kodak theater. We got there nice and early and decided to take some pics of the celeb imprints on concrete in front of the famous Chinese theater. We also stocked on some drinks and snacks for our limo tour of the movie star home around Hollywood/Beverly hills. While we were waiting for our limo, one of the Starline tour vendors told us that our driver was part famous because she had recently made a guest appearance on the Lopez Tonight. Its a popular late night talk show for the locals here. When our driver arrived the first thing we spotted was how rough the limo was. It had a few dings and scratches and the limo was badly polished. I don't think this company really cares about there limo and buses if what ive seen is anything to go by.
So we begin the tour and the driver takes us up to Mulholland drive to a vantage spot where we can take pictures of the city and the Hollywood sign.Karisse wasnt game enough to climb the set of stairs that go up to the point. Its a pretty fair way down. While we were there you wouldn't guess what celeb was there doing some shots for his show? Conan O'Brien. So anyway i got some nice pics of the city of LA and the famous Hollywood sign on the hill. Now if ur wondering where are all my pics, the net here at the Comfort Inn is free but its not super fast. I think karisse tried to up load 600+ pics and the net nearly went into shock trying to upload. After taking the pics we continued on our tour for the famous celeb houses around the place. I was actually surprised by some of the houses the celebs lived in. Our guide was pretty knowledgeable about the celeb homes. Karaisse got to see Lady GaGa's current rental house.Can you believe some one like Gaga would be renting?? Cheapskates. Kara got to see a little bit of the Playboy Mansion. She was soo excited she was speaking to a rock. Apparently the rock speaks back sometimes. But not this time for Kara, even after she proclaimed her love for Hef(Hugh Hefner Playboy Founder/owner/ Legend).Even Steve got to see his idol Justin Bieber rental home(JOKES!!!! Steve would love to sing with him sometime, NO not really he would just kill the annoying little shit!!). The one home that spun me out was old Steven Spielbergs house way up on the hill. They have used his house to most recently shoot Iron Man 2 as Tony Starks home.
Once we were done with the tour we decided to do the Ripleys Believe or Not Museum Tour. This place had some the funniest and weirdest things i have ever seen. They had a Real Chastity belt from medievil years and they even had exhibit based on the different types of torture used throughout time. Ripley the guy who started the museum actually had a pretty interesting life. He did a shit load of traveling around the world even before planes started flying commercially.
We finished up at museum and went got some souvenirs from one of the shops. We then jumped on another tour bus so we could go to the farmers market/The Grove. Now this is where our day sorta when to shit because we waited around for our bus and we got on it thinking it was running on time. The driver seemed nice and he even let us eat on the bus. But he waited nearly 30mins over the original departure time because he had to wait for the other bus to arrive. It was a pretty bad day cause the traffic was jammed and i was feeling sick( i get bad motion sickness thx mum:-( )also everybody else was busting to go to the toilet. The poor bus driver did his best to try and get us back on time. He nearly got in the shit cause as he was letting off one passenger at a stop, two other passenger tried sneaking off as well. As the last passanger got off he closed the door on her thinking nobody else was getting off. She got stuck pretty good and he drove a little bit with her still hanging off the door. She got out in the end but she looked pissed.
So we finally get to Markets and we went straight into the nearest restaurant to use the toilets. We were also starving so we grabbed a table and had a good feed. The one i have noticed with American food and service is the serving sizes are big, the price is not expensive and the staff are usually very attentive to your needs. Why cant Australia be more like this???
After Lunch/Dinner yes we missed lunch cause of the bus, Kara had spotted out her Dream Store if she was a little girl again. American Girl Place is not just an ordinary doll store. it is a friggin doll Mecca. If you were a doll you wish you could come here. It is a 3 Story store dedicated to the creation and maintenance of dolls. What sort of Doll store has a cafeteria,hospital, and salon. Good old GI Joe didn't get no treatment like this. Not even Barbie get this pampered. K&K decided to go into the store to make a doll for Alira. We would hear back from them for a think at least 2 hrs. Steve and I just browsed around the place looking for Cold weather gear to wear in New York. It is actually very hard to get clothes for guys that are tall and large. I never really understood until i tried helping Steve look for clothes that would fit him It was frustrating and i can only imagine how it must feel. I hope one day It wont have to be problem for anybody :-)
The Kmart store we looked in had the same sort of setup as a Kmart store back home. Cheap and Nasty. Funny thing when we were walking the a black women had cut across another driver in her car and because the traffic was banked up she couldnt move any further. She yelled at the other driver she cut off "U can F**ken wait!!" Only in America, I think not...
When we finally catchup with the girls, we decided we wanted to try and go to the big fashion outlet chain across town called Citadel. If only it was that easy. We went to the main road and unsuccessfully tried to hail a cab down off. we also tried calling a cab company but because our sim cards on our phones r crap we couldnt even call one. After roughly 45mins we got a cab and asked the driver if he could take us to the outlet shops. he said it would be too far to make it there before closing.And So we began the long journey back to the hotel. We got back to the hotel and pretty much crashed.
Thats my excuse for not writing my blog yesterday.
My next entry will detail our trip to Universal Studios and Beverly Centre Shopping complex and the Citadel Outlet Stores
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Day 2 Starstruck!!!
If somebody told me i was gonna see a celebrity today i probably wouldve said 'yeh its possible' but to see at least 3 or 4 b grade celebs, its left me starstruck.
Our day started off easy enough, i was still awake from finishing my last post earlier this morning. When done the lobby for some breakfast. Had to make my own waffles. i dont think ive ever really had waffles before but they were pretty darn good. We organized a Taxi to take us to the kodak theater. The taxi comes and its some rough looking Hispanic. i guess i could say that's stereotypical. The only thing was his taxi was a Chrysler 300C( Bet u couldnt get that as one of ur taxi's in hedland). Now everybody who has seen me before knows that im Pilbara Special( Half irish/Half Filo) I can understand that i look asian and some asians speak to me in there native language that i cant understand, but for a hispanic to mistake me for one of them and start speaking spanish to me? What nationally do i really look like???
Ok so we finally get to kodak theater and book our tickets for the tour around Hollywood,downtown and Santa Monica/Beverley hills. did i forget to mention the weather here, FYI its f**ken cold, i think it was least 9c or 10c and in the late arvo it bucketed down with cold rain. We had a look around the walk of fame and we even had a quick look at the chinese theater with all the celeb hand prints. Only problem was they had it shut off to the public cause Kobe Bryant was doin his bit today. So we finally started our tour of Hollywood. we seen some of the famous icons according to the tour operator. Well actually it was a cheesy pre recorded Pommy bloke talk jibberish half the time. The tour bus it self left a little bit to be desired. The bus needs to be more comfortable and actually have a physical guide talking about the landmarks.
Now me and steve being the top blokes we are Let the ladies have a wonder around the world famous Rodeo Drive. For simple guys like me and steve there wasnt really much for us to enjoy down this street but For Karisse and Kara (K&K) i think it was like walking down a dream street of world fashion outlets that u would never see in Australia. They were drawn straight away to the store Juicy Couture. i think they must ve spotted the 40% off sign in the doorway. Well they left us for dust and some and steve did some car spotting to kill the time. 30mins later K&K had found the clothes they wanted and so i handed over $140 for a knitted jumper and knitted hat. It wasnt too bad considering what the normal price was for the jumper before the sale.
Now that the girls had got that out of there system we continued to walk down Rodeo drive until we arrived at the Louis Vuitton outlet. There was a heap of random people just hanging around the front of the store, a heap of photographers and a heap of door greeters/drivers. We figured there must be some celebs in the area ready to do some shopping in the store. I was thinking maybe the Kardashians or sumthin. Ends up there was a whole heap of celebs going there to attend some charity do upstairs in the store. The famous people that we got pictures of were - Brandy, Amber Rose(Kanye west ex), Shaqs ex and some other famous rapper that drives a Bugatti veyron. There were other people but i didnt catch who they were so i just took photos when the paparazzi did. I did notice alot of bolt on chests amongst the invited guests. We must of hung around for a least an hour waitin for more celebs to turn up but in the end we needed to move back onto the tour.
Now before i jumped back onto the tour i made the fatal mistake of buying a stupid energy shot drink that supposedly gives you a 5 hour energy boost. The only thing it gave me was a crook stomach all day. U have been warned!!!!
We took the tour bus all the way to the santa monica pier on the famous route 66. We had Bubba gumps for lunch.Bubba gumps is a seafood based restaurant on the movie forrest gump. i could hardly eat any of my fried shrimp cause of crook gut. The rest of the gang enjoyed there meals. We actually had to wait 15mins to get in cause it was packed in there. As we left to walk around the pier it started to rain a little. There was an elmo in a suit running round the pier scarring all the asian kids( Racist Monster) K&K thought it would be a nice idea to ride the ferris wheel that hangs over the pier and is like 40ft tall. They both mustve forgotten they are scared of heights and when we finally got onto the ride the both started to panic and laugh. I do have video evidence of this event if anybody is interested. Finished up at the pier then headed back to downtown Hollywood. the rain was bucketing down by this time. Steve nearly went ass up cause his thongs were dead flat. This gave K&K the chance to go shoe shopping. Steve ended up being the shoe hoarder with 4 pairs of assorted footware. Karisse got the deal of the day with 70% off her shoes and Kara rounded it off with 2 pairs of shoes. I did end up gettin a pair of shoes myself but from a different store.
We had a look at Madame Tussuad's wax museum. Something off putting about real look alike wax figures.its like they can stare straight through your very being... Rain kept pouring down, had to resort to Macca's for dinner. I think its safe to say that an aussie big mac and USA big mac are the same. Got another taxi back to hotel and had a nice big shit and shower
Tommorow is another day and a few more dollars to spend. We have got a private limo to take us around to all the celeb homes around the place. Karisse NEEDS to go to outlet shopping at the Citadel. She has no more clean cold weather gear and so do i. I really hope this rain goes away...
PEACE OUT PEOPLE!!!
Our day started off easy enough, i was still awake from finishing my last post earlier this morning. When done the lobby for some breakfast. Had to make my own waffles. i dont think ive ever really had waffles before but they were pretty darn good. We organized a Taxi to take us to the kodak theater. The taxi comes and its some rough looking Hispanic. i guess i could say that's stereotypical. The only thing was his taxi was a Chrysler 300C( Bet u couldnt get that as one of ur taxi's in hedland). Now everybody who has seen me before knows that im Pilbara Special( Half irish/Half Filo) I can understand that i look asian and some asians speak to me in there native language that i cant understand, but for a hispanic to mistake me for one of them and start speaking spanish to me? What nationally do i really look like???
Ok so we finally get to kodak theater and book our tickets for the tour around Hollywood,downtown and Santa Monica/Beverley hills. did i forget to mention the weather here, FYI its f**ken cold, i think it was least 9c or 10c and in the late arvo it bucketed down with cold rain. We had a look around the walk of fame and we even had a quick look at the chinese theater with all the celeb hand prints. Only problem was they had it shut off to the public cause Kobe Bryant was doin his bit today. So we finally started our tour of Hollywood. we seen some of the famous icons according to the tour operator. Well actually it was a cheesy pre recorded Pommy bloke talk jibberish half the time. The tour bus it self left a little bit to be desired. The bus needs to be more comfortable and actually have a physical guide talking about the landmarks.
Now me and steve being the top blokes we are Let the ladies have a wonder around the world famous Rodeo Drive. For simple guys like me and steve there wasnt really much for us to enjoy down this street but For Karisse and Kara (K&K) i think it was like walking down a dream street of world fashion outlets that u would never see in Australia. They were drawn straight away to the store Juicy Couture. i think they must ve spotted the 40% off sign in the doorway. Well they left us for dust and some and steve did some car spotting to kill the time. 30mins later K&K had found the clothes they wanted and so i handed over $140 for a knitted jumper and knitted hat. It wasnt too bad considering what the normal price was for the jumper before the sale.
Now that the girls had got that out of there system we continued to walk down Rodeo drive until we arrived at the Louis Vuitton outlet. There was a heap of random people just hanging around the front of the store, a heap of photographers and a heap of door greeters/drivers. We figured there must be some celebs in the area ready to do some shopping in the store. I was thinking maybe the Kardashians or sumthin. Ends up there was a whole heap of celebs going there to attend some charity do upstairs in the store. The famous people that we got pictures of were - Brandy, Amber Rose(Kanye west ex), Shaqs ex and some other famous rapper that drives a Bugatti veyron. There were other people but i didnt catch who they were so i just took photos when the paparazzi did. I did notice alot of bolt on chests amongst the invited guests. We must of hung around for a least an hour waitin for more celebs to turn up but in the end we needed to move back onto the tour.
Now before i jumped back onto the tour i made the fatal mistake of buying a stupid energy shot drink that supposedly gives you a 5 hour energy boost. The only thing it gave me was a crook stomach all day. U have been warned!!!!
We took the tour bus all the way to the santa monica pier on the famous route 66. We had Bubba gumps for lunch.Bubba gumps is a seafood based restaurant on the movie forrest gump. i could hardly eat any of my fried shrimp cause of crook gut. The rest of the gang enjoyed there meals. We actually had to wait 15mins to get in cause it was packed in there. As we left to walk around the pier it started to rain a little. There was an elmo in a suit running round the pier scarring all the asian kids( Racist Monster) K&K thought it would be a nice idea to ride the ferris wheel that hangs over the pier and is like 40ft tall. They both mustve forgotten they are scared of heights and when we finally got onto the ride the both started to panic and laugh. I do have video evidence of this event if anybody is interested. Finished up at the pier then headed back to downtown Hollywood. the rain was bucketing down by this time. Steve nearly went ass up cause his thongs were dead flat. This gave K&K the chance to go shoe shopping. Steve ended up being the shoe hoarder with 4 pairs of assorted footware. Karisse got the deal of the day with 70% off her shoes and Kara rounded it off with 2 pairs of shoes. I did end up gettin a pair of shoes myself but from a different store.
We had a look at Madame Tussuad's wax museum. Something off putting about real look alike wax figures.its like they can stare straight through your very being... Rain kept pouring down, had to resort to Macca's for dinner. I think its safe to say that an aussie big mac and USA big mac are the same. Got another taxi back to hotel and had a nice big shit and shower
Tommorow is another day and a few more dollars to spend. We have got a private limo to take us around to all the celeb homes around the place. Karisse NEEDS to go to outlet shopping at the Citadel. She has no more clean cold weather gear and so do i. I really hope this rain goes away...
PEACE OUT PEOPLE!!!
Day 1 The Longest wait is over
I never thought i would end up goin to the US while i was still young.Being a simple Pilbara boy that loves to roll around in the red dust(Iron ore) i thought that we would go one day in the distant future with my young family once the kids were old enough. Well here i am writing a blog, its feburary 19th 2011 4am American Western time, in my cozy hotel room in LA cause i cant sleep. I can still remember when we were planning for this trip. It was really a spur of the moment thing because me and karisse were still planning our Bali wedding for 2012. We blame/thank our best friends Steve and Kara for influencing us into goin on this trip of life time.
When we booked this trip it seemed so far away. we planned on things we wanted to do and see. This Country has so much to offer.We were stoked with the price we paid for this trip. It was alot cheaper then what we were expecting. The months after we booked the tickets seem to drag for me. maybe it was work or maybe it was hedland but the big day couldn't come quick enough. The 2 weeks before this trip it didnt really seem real that i was going. I was on call for one of those weeks. I f*^ken hate call it always leaves me on edge cause when u think u can relax u get that damn call. At least im not in town doing there calls......
But enough about the prologue to this trip this blog is going to be about a great trip to the USA. Hopefully i will try and post something everyday.Doing this blog will keep the memory fresh in my mind and it might even inform some of the people out there.
So when it finally comes down to leaving Hedland, there is a scent of doubt in the air as to whether the weather(LOL) was gonna let us leave. Hedland generally doesn't receive much rain throughout the years, but this year has been different. For the last two months hedland has got more rain then it got for the last 3 years i think. all i know is that La Nina effect is definitely making things more wet and its making the stuff on the ground green(SHOCK!!!). Got my man tom to drop us off to airport(thanks bro) then when go to check in our plane is delayed for 2hrs due to mechanical faults or something. It wouldve been nice if Virgin contacted us before hand instead of making us wait at that 3rd rate airport. Once we finally got on the plane,the ride was a little rough. We made it in one piece and we got Fiona to pick us up(thx Fi). We hung around Perth for abit and we gave Alira over to her Nanna and Pop for her holiday( Thanks Tam and Dave Love u heaps). It wasn't as hard as i thought it would be to depart from our daughter maybe cause i know she is in the best pair of hands we have in Perth. Its still early days so we will see how i feel later. A trip like this we couldn't really take alira because she is still to young and there is a lot of traveling we are doin between states. One day when she is older we will go again.
So from Perth we go to Sydney. If u ever have to wait at either of these airports i strongly suggest u join the Qantas club so you can access the lounges. it makes the waiting so much more comfortable. I got a little bit starstruck when we seen Women Surf Legend Layne Beachley. At first i didn't really acknowledge it was her till i looked the second time after she walked past and Kara asked if that was her. true story... Also Karisse Scored a real Guess Handbag in duty free for $70 down from $230
The plane going to LA was the mighty Qantas A380. It is a massive plane and we weren't lucky enough to get a free upgrade but the cattle class weren't full to capacity so we were able to spread out and get some sleep along the way. i think i got a fair bit of sleep, apparently it was pretty turbulent. No i didnt join the Mile high club....
We got into LA at 9:50 Local time . i didnt realise how big LAX is. Its a fair bit of a walk from the plane thru to immigration. I got asked the standard entry questions and the lady quizzed me as to why Ive been to Indonesia so much. I was gonna be a smart ass and say something stupid, cause i reckon i would've ended up in Guantanamo... Try explaining to Americans that its cheaper to travel to Bali then it is to travel to Perth. We got our bags no problems and we even got through customs easy. I soon as we got outside the terminal for our shuttle to the hotel, it was bloody cold. Poor steve and kara were both wearing shorts while me and karisse had our jumpers and long pants. The cold breeze was like the old freo doctor u get in perth. We got on the shuttle and it took us like 30mins to actually drive out of the airport cause of the size of the place and traffic. The road surface of the freeway here is shocking, we were constantly bouncing up and down.
The one thing you notice here is the size of the city. Its friggin huge. Downtown looked pretty interesting. The staples center is all dressed up for NBA all star weekend. Tried getting tickets but we didn't want to pay $1000 for seats in the bleachers. Finally got to the hotel, we are staying at the Comfort inn on West sunset blvd. Its a small hotel but its pretty cozy. We were told our rooms wouldn't be ready till 3pm local so we dropped the bags off and started heading down west sunset blvd. There is a very strong Hispanic/Mexican influence here. The buildings,signs and people here all Mexican. Not a bad thing i guess. we found a little cafe and had a great little lunch. i cant believe how cheap the food here is. The staff were very attentive and they even balanced the wobbly table. Headed back to the hotel got into our rooms and just chilled out and ordered pizza from dominos. and so ends the longest wait....
Today we r going to do the big tour around Hollywood, downtown LA and even Beverly Hills. Just for the girls we might even get some shopping done
When we booked this trip it seemed so far away. we planned on things we wanted to do and see. This Country has so much to offer.We were stoked with the price we paid for this trip. It was alot cheaper then what we were expecting. The months after we booked the tickets seem to drag for me. maybe it was work or maybe it was hedland but the big day couldn't come quick enough. The 2 weeks before this trip it didnt really seem real that i was going. I was on call for one of those weeks. I f*^ken hate call it always leaves me on edge cause when u think u can relax u get that damn call. At least im not in town doing there calls......
But enough about the prologue to this trip this blog is going to be about a great trip to the USA. Hopefully i will try and post something everyday.Doing this blog will keep the memory fresh in my mind and it might even inform some of the people out there.
So when it finally comes down to leaving Hedland, there is a scent of doubt in the air as to whether the weather(LOL) was gonna let us leave. Hedland generally doesn't receive much rain throughout the years, but this year has been different. For the last two months hedland has got more rain then it got for the last 3 years i think. all i know is that La Nina effect is definitely making things more wet and its making the stuff on the ground green(SHOCK!!!). Got my man tom to drop us off to airport(thanks bro) then when go to check in our plane is delayed for 2hrs due to mechanical faults or something. It wouldve been nice if Virgin contacted us before hand instead of making us wait at that 3rd rate airport. Once we finally got on the plane,the ride was a little rough. We made it in one piece and we got Fiona to pick us up(thx Fi). We hung around Perth for abit and we gave Alira over to her Nanna and Pop for her holiday( Thanks Tam and Dave Love u heaps). It wasn't as hard as i thought it would be to depart from our daughter maybe cause i know she is in the best pair of hands we have in Perth. Its still early days so we will see how i feel later. A trip like this we couldn't really take alira because she is still to young and there is a lot of traveling we are doin between states. One day when she is older we will go again.
So from Perth we go to Sydney. If u ever have to wait at either of these airports i strongly suggest u join the Qantas club so you can access the lounges. it makes the waiting so much more comfortable. I got a little bit starstruck when we seen Women Surf Legend Layne Beachley. At first i didn't really acknowledge it was her till i looked the second time after she walked past and Kara asked if that was her. true story... Also Karisse Scored a real Guess Handbag in duty free for $70 down from $230
The plane going to LA was the mighty Qantas A380. It is a massive plane and we weren't lucky enough to get a free upgrade but the cattle class weren't full to capacity so we were able to spread out and get some sleep along the way. i think i got a fair bit of sleep, apparently it was pretty turbulent. No i didnt join the Mile high club....
We got into LA at 9:50 Local time . i didnt realise how big LAX is. Its a fair bit of a walk from the plane thru to immigration. I got asked the standard entry questions and the lady quizzed me as to why Ive been to Indonesia so much. I was gonna be a smart ass and say something stupid, cause i reckon i would've ended up in Guantanamo... Try explaining to Americans that its cheaper to travel to Bali then it is to travel to Perth. We got our bags no problems and we even got through customs easy. I soon as we got outside the terminal for our shuttle to the hotel, it was bloody cold. Poor steve and kara were both wearing shorts while me and karisse had our jumpers and long pants. The cold breeze was like the old freo doctor u get in perth. We got on the shuttle and it took us like 30mins to actually drive out of the airport cause of the size of the place and traffic. The road surface of the freeway here is shocking, we were constantly bouncing up and down.
The one thing you notice here is the size of the city. Its friggin huge. Downtown looked pretty interesting. The staples center is all dressed up for NBA all star weekend. Tried getting tickets but we didn't want to pay $1000 for seats in the bleachers. Finally got to the hotel, we are staying at the Comfort inn on West sunset blvd. Its a small hotel but its pretty cozy. We were told our rooms wouldn't be ready till 3pm local so we dropped the bags off and started heading down west sunset blvd. There is a very strong Hispanic/Mexican influence here. The buildings,signs and people here all Mexican. Not a bad thing i guess. we found a little cafe and had a great little lunch. i cant believe how cheap the food here is. The staff were very attentive and they even balanced the wobbly table. Headed back to the hotel got into our rooms and just chilled out and ordered pizza from dominos. and so ends the longest wait....
Today we r going to do the big tour around Hollywood, downtown LA and even Beverly Hills. Just for the girls we might even get some shopping done
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