"Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen. Protest and patriotism all rolled into one..now that is first rate song writing.
Or in the words of Nathan Explosion from Metalocalypse.."Brutal". ok, inappropriate use but i just HAD to use it cos the Dethklok is fuckin hilarious and i tend to pick up on stupid catchphrases. so sue me.
i was unprepared for the trip. i hadnt read up properly or wiki-ed enough and the stupid guide books i borrowed were so dull. All the Lonely Planet guides were gone..and those're the best. even though this wasn't exactly a 3rd-world *ahem* i mean, developing country, Lonely Planet has perfected the art of the guide book. San Francisco for Dummies was good too and had plenty of really good suggestion..but the tour itinerary was annoyingly rigid, particularly in SF. have i mentioned how much i hate going on tour packages? they're stifling, there're chokehold-deserving tour group people and the food you get is so bad, its not funny.
can you tell i didn't enjoy myself fully?
i'll tell you why. by the time we got to fisherman's wharf, it was too dark to take the Bay Area Cruise to Alcatraz. frickin Alcatraz ok. Winter..when its pitch black by 6pm -__- *long face* when we went to the lookout point for the Golden Gate bridge the next morning, the fog was so damn thick all i saw was the beginning of the bridge and bits of its trademark red/orange colour. I couldnt even make out the scale of the bridge..how messed up is that.
A couple of days later while we were staying at the Grand Canyon, it snowed the morning we were supposed to go watch the sunrise at the Canyon. the night before, the dude at the IMAX theatre who worked for Nat Geo mentioned that it only snowed a couple of times a year in the area. can you believe the suayness! yay snow and all, but the snowfall cancelled out any possibility of seeing sunrise at all (its a natural phenomenon) heck, i couldnt even see more than 10m out into the canyon even though the snowfall wasnt that thick. My day was ruined..the paradox of nature and how aarghifying it is sometimes. My dad had taken a roadtrip to the canyon during his uni days and he said the sunrise over the canyon was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. Maybe i set myself up too much..especially after the IMAX movie about the canyon and the sheer beauty and majesty that it portrayed, i expected so much. i even imagined Sigur Ros' Hoppipolla would start playing in my head as i looked out over the canyon ok! aargh.
universal studios and disneyland in Florida DO pwn the ones in California. the rides..only a handful of good ones. i would've rather gone to Six Flags Magic Mountain and gotten roller coaster happy. The most thrilling ride i was on was the Big Shot at the top of the Stratosphere in Vegas. the highesh thrill ride in the world its called. Click on the link..best review of the ride i found. Also in Vegas, the pirate ship POTC-based show at Treasure Island was closed for maintainence WTF. The Beatles LOVE by Cirque Du Soleil at The Mirage was sold out :( :(. The hotel we stayed at was possibly the oldest and dodgiest on the strip (stupid bloody tour agency)
but at the same time, there was some glorious things that happened too.
hawaii..the purity of the air and the warmth of the people. like NZ all over again..these polynesian people are darlings lah. i got lei'd.. YAY :D one night while in Waikiki we had dinner at this place called Senor Frogs which was SUCH a fun party place and i remember how i wished so bad that su, ven, pre, rak, kenn, jags, vin, navan were there with me to partayyy. there was even this ice cream place called Cold Stone where i OD-ed on chocolate..best ice cream experience i ever remember in my 18 years on this planet. get this: i had chocolate ice cream with brownie bits, choc chips, peanut butter AND Reese's peanut butter cups mashed in. Speaking of Reese's, aka my favourite chocolate in the world after Krackel by Hershey's went AWOL, i had so many manifestations of Reese's it was a hallelujah moment for me every time i found a variation. (it was friggin winter..you HAVE to eat more to supply your body heat. and no i'm not getting all defensive about ridiculous chocolate consmuption habit picked up in the states)Have i mentioned The Cheesecake Factory? click here for a full list of the types of cheesecake offered there. Do i hear you singing "Joyful Joyful"? Speaking of that song..my favourite version of it in Sister Act, here. (kenn, i know i said the food was crap. but the dessert was mindblowingly awesome most of the time *Wink*)
It was at pier 39 in SF where the NFL shop from which my dad bought his San Francisco 49-ers tshirt back in '84 still stood..full circle moment, no? (accurate term?). It was in SF that i stepped into my first Neiman Marcus and Macy's and girls, Bobbi Brown and MAC is waaaaaay cheaper in the states.
It was in Monterey where i stepped on the hallowed ground that hosts the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (PGA event..if you're still clueless i'm talking about a golf course). My dad said that that was what a real golf course and clubhouse is supposed to be like..sikit atas. But in actual fact, the place was SUPER atas lah. But i completely understand how in awe he was cos it truly was a stunning place and i can only imagine how challenging it must be to play on the course with the windiness and how distracting the ocean-side views must be.
Getting to see the fountains of Bellagio and visiting all the famous hotels on the strip in Vegas FINALLY after having watched travel shows about the place since i was a kid was surreal. The kitsch and the pomp of Vegas was absolutely overwhelming and intriguing at the same time. There were slot machines the moment we got out of the flight gate at the LV airport LOL. There were billboards advertising Celine Dion at Caesar's Palace, any one of Cirque's 5 shows, Penn & Teller, The Producers at Paris, Carrot Top at Luxor, Toni Braxton at The Flamingo, Jerry Seinfeld at some other hotel..TRULY entertainment everybloodywhere. We took a roadtrip to Valley of Fire and the Hoover Dam; one natural and one man-made. The vastness of both reminded me how insignificant i am in this world, and honestly, i like bering reminded of that.Later that night while our folks were at an adult revue, the tour leader, a young lady, took us kids out for dinner to a sports bar cum restaurant at Bally's and we watched Monday Night Football between Chicago Cubs and Minnesota Vikings...solid lah; the interceptions were wicked crafty, the play was heart stoppingly exciting and the touchdowns were beautiful.
Watched Apocalypto on cable in the Canyon..its was so John Savage and Malpais yo! I mean, JaguarPaw with blonde hair is how i imagined John Savage from Brave New World would look like. It was in Laughlin that i got a Roxy winter jacket(with fur trimmings round the hood and all) for 30USD..how crazy is that. And to think, i've been bugging my folks for a proper winter jacket for years now cos i hate wearing layers.
Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood..Jean, i got a pic of the HP trio and their hand foot and wandprints :D and a one with Keanu's star on the Walk of Fame: SCOOOOORE. I finally went on my Indiana Jones ride at Disney and boyyy was it worth it..not as exciting as The Revenge of the Mummy at Universal though. A ride that was in complete darkness and that went backwards halfway through HAHA :D. Plus i met Aladdin and only my favouritest disney princess ever, Jasmine! it was surreal ok..and i was the only big kid who queued after the show for their autographs and a photo with them. i even bullied the little girls out of the way cos they cut the line (its a cutthroat world ya'll) but the wait was worth it. Jasmine said i had a beautiful name and i absolutely beamed and walked out of the place with a ridiculous grin plastered on my face. My bros, who didnt come for the show, thought i was raving mad. We then went into the Indiana Jones store where we all tried on the trademark Indy fedora hats, except Vivek..spoiler. "When there's a whip, there's a way". Harrison Ford used to be one sexy sonovagun lah (han solo, i'm secretly in love with you) Indy Jones is the best thing out of Spielberg and Lucas yo.
the weather got from a comfotable 20-something in hawaii, to a chilly 10 degrees in San Fran. it dropped to 4 degrees in Vegas and the rest of Nevada. it was blisteringly cold up in the Grand Canyon at -8. But it was all lovely again back in the OC, at 15-18. yeah you heard me right, the OC :D i felt like Lauren Conrad ya'll.
yanyways some of the photos are on facebook: part 1 and part 2
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