DAY 14 - LA to San Jose to Fremont - 14th Dec

• got up very early - 4:30am
• left very late, almost 6am
• got to the airport at 6:30am
• tried the self service check-in, screen said Megan's dad couldn't check in
• lined up at manual check-in
• made it through with about 5 min to spare.

US airport security is insane, shoes, belt, everything off. If you have water in your bag, you can't touch your bag, you have to let someone with blue gloves ask you if you have anything sharp in your bag first and then take it out for you. If you take your passport pack etc off and put it through the x-ray then forget to take your boarding pass out, you will have some security guard on your ass check it for you. I was smart enough to not take water but alas I wasn't smart enough to take off my belt.

This is a 45min domestic flight from LA to San Jose. Seriously.

Aunt was late due to issues with fedex and work. So I went to megan's relatives house, we had lunch then played basketball in the backyard with an unfenced pool and spa. I nearly stepped into the pool a couple of times and managed to break a pot. But man did I miss basketball. I'm in the land of basketball and that's the first time I've played since I got here.

Aunt picked me up and had a tour of Fremont. Went to Costco again and was made to try all the taste testing thingies. I felt pretty sick. Got to Aunts house and had a pretty laid back evening. It was awesome that they have a piano. Now all I need is a printer and I can break out some Jacky Cheung sheet music, yah!.

Anyhoo, I was stuck with 9 year old cousin since Aunt went out to work at night. He "accidently" dialed 911, and then hung up. 911 then dialed back and my very confused and scared cousin handed me the phone. I went,

Me: hello?
911: Is there an emergency in that household?
Me: um wtf, no
911: Well someone must have dialed 911 from your household, because that's how I got the address.
Me: WHAT?
911: Was the child playing with the phone?
Me: OMFG, I'm so sorry.
911: Please tell the child not to play with the phone because we will send a unit out.
Me: I'm really sorry, I'll tell him off now, there's no emergency, I'm so sorry.

Then I asked my cousin to please not scare the living daylights out of me ever again.

Fun times

DAY 13 - LA - Santa Monica - 13th Dec

Last day in LA before I fly to San Jose and meet up with my aunt in the San Francisco bay area. Spent the morning shopping at Norstrum Rack. Bought a pair of CK corduroy pants and Polo Jeans jumper. Not as cheap as I'd like but they were quite nice.

Megan's aunt (one of many, I just got their names down pat and now I'm leaving) took us to Santa Monica. It was a bit dirty and a bit smelly, but we were all glad about been at the beach. The chili cheese fries were kinda scary but the sunset was extremely pretty. And there's something about the beach, you just can't help taking weird wanky artistic album covers.



Looking forward to San Francisco. LA has been great, and although my first impressions weren't glowing I think I'm beginning to like this city more and more. Except for the traffic. Peak hour here is nuts, 12 lanes of chock-a-block automobiles. I think Arnie really needs to invest in some public transport infrastructure for this city.

Speaking about things been big in this country, because everything is. Even the seagullls here are majorly obese. Megan tried chasing 2 but they ran away from her...ahahahha

DAY 12 - LA & Walking - 12th Dec

Late start, got up at 10am and watched some ER, had a ham sandwich and then Since there was no one to drive us anywhere today and another day of Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency was a little too much to bear, we decided to walk to the nearest Shopping Centre (aka Mall). We checked up google maps and it was 4 miles (6.4km). We thought, oh well might as well work off all the crap we've eaten.

Walking in LA is weird because no one walks in this city. Therefore we got stared at a lot. 3 bogan asian females walking around the suburbia of LA with their jumpers tied their waists because they horribly misjudged the sunniness of the walk. Hispanics sat on roadside corners near petrol stations and leared at our insanity. We crossed bridged over manmade creek-bed thingys like in Grease and Terminator 2.

So we got to the mall and guess what? It was a Westfield. AHAHAHA halfway across the world and Frank Lowy has made it like home. Except of Myer however you get Macy's, and H & M. But we did find a Target, although it sold more than just clothes and electronics, it also had cereal and frozen goods. WTF??? when did Target ever have frozen goods?

Even the food court at Westfield is the same. Chinese, Sushi, Korean, Gelato, fusion Italian, etc etc. Except EVERY and I mean EVERY shop was manned by hispanics and had hispanics cooking the food. I don't know but I'm not entirely comfortable with Chinese food been cooked and served by Mexicans from a franchise Chinese food outlet called Panda Express. There's just something wrong with that. I settled for a foccacia which was quite awesome but possibly full of hydronated trans fats like everything else in this country.

Megan's very old cousin invited us out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with his very secret (hot) girlfriend and daughter. The portions at this place are HUGE, I couldn't even finish my $14.95 chicken fettuccini. People who know me, know that I'm a big eater and if I can't even finish something, it was be bloody big. Megan hardly made a dent in her angel hair spaghetti with chicken and mushrooms. Tracey almost died working her way through her salmon salad. For dessert we had 2 slices of cheesecake between 6 people and still left stuff on the plate. America is crazy. And the entire time we were been obnoxious Aussie bogans and there were like OMFG they're so cute, they are so full of energy, and take pictures of everything and laugh at everything and have really cute accents.. But I swear they didn't understand half of what we said and had no idea where we are coming from.

Lesson of the day. Australia is a really really worldly country. We are hyperaware of world geography, politics, languages and accents. Of course this could just be the fact that we're educated and smart. hehe.

DAY 11 - LA & lots of TV - 11th Dec

Didn't do much today. We watched lots of ER in the morning, John Stamos is hot and I totally don't know which season it was but Neela needs to get together with John Stamos cause they're sooooo cute together.

We also watched way too much, and by that I mean so much like 4 hours worth of the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency show. It's so trashy it's completely fabulous. The woman is a true contradiction, she validates anorexia and botox yet has enough morals to reject 15 year old models like WTF?? but really my mind has been completely and utterly disturbed by her and her show. And the most frustrating thing is that last week when we went down to downtown LA, where were in the same building that her office is in, except of course we didn't know then.

US tv is interesting, if you're rich and lucky enough to get complete cable aka like 700 channels or something, you can spend the entire day watching TV. Because there is just so much on. Trash, movies, more trash and the golden stuff. Endless repeats of Full House, family matters, and of course there's BBCAmerica which is the BBC + ads, wonderful. Funny thing is I haven't managed to catch one primetime show here, perhaps they're on hiatus but other than the random bit of Grey's Anatomy I caught last week I haven't seen anything else. I've ended up watching the Amazing Race on Youtube.

We also went shopping a lot. Discount centres like Marshall's which is where all the department stores dump the crap they can't sell. Last week I got an awesome Burton snowboarding jacket for $50 (originally $190) and in Australia it would have been $300 or something. But the problem with these stores is that there is so much crap you have sift through before you find anything good. So it becomes a highly tiring and time consuming effort. You exchange time for discounts.

from the forthcoming series of photos - LJ in silly hats

Clothes in America are cheap, but only if you know the intricacies of every rewards system, discount outlets, and sale timetables. I'm lucky enough that Megan's aunts know everything otherwise clothes are the same price as Australia. The one major difference is that discount outlets are as ubiquitous as Target and Kmart in Australia and it's kinda both a little hillbilly and cool at the same time. Although if you were a guy and purchased all your clothes from these stores you'd come out a skatey hispanic homie wearing DC shirt, Volcom hoodie, Nike trackie dacks, and Puma shoes.

Ended up at Taco Bell for dinner and it was a very interesting experience. For 5 people the total was about $17. It's insane, and the drink cups they give you for the combos are the size of those jumbo cokes you get at Hoyts if you're looking for a sugar overdose. And you know what? it's free refills too. Although I can't say I'm too much a fan of the pseudo Mexican gunk that comes out of there.

Again tracey's head as a measurement device, this time against a taco bell cup

DAY 8 - The Getty Museum - 8th Dec

Days of shallowness, now finally a proper educational and cultural experience. The Getty museum is madness. It's on top of a hill and you take a tram up from the parking lot. The ENTIRE thing is FREE It's huge, it's on top of a mountain and it's bitterly cold, but it will also be the museum were I finally saw the bridge over the water lily pond by Monet. I nearly cried.

Architectually the museum is beautiful, the off-white facades, tall columns, gardens and open views of L.A are just absolutely spectacular. There's not much to put into words, I'll just picspam.

Me and Monet

DAY 7 - LA more shopping - 7th Dec

Slow day, lots of ice cream consumed and lots of rubbish TV watched. Went shopping for all of Megan's electronic stuff for the next year.

Fry's electronics is like 3x Bunnings warehouses. And it sells electronics...and water. Megan finally bought a laptop after a year of whining =p, and also a camera and other accessories.



Costco, is like a warehouse supermarket where everything is BIG. We bought groceries and laughed at everything.



In & Out Burger is a Californian Institution, although we didn't have burgers, we had the awesome shakes which tasted like churned neapolitan flavours of icecream. We also had the animal fries which although not listed on the menu is something I read about online. It's fries with 1 slice of melted cheese, relish, chopped grilled onions and thousand island dressing on top. Completely sickening but also FANTASTIC.

DAY 6 - Universal Studios - 6th Dec

Is it predictable that I had more fun here than at Disneyland? I hung on to every cheesy joke and film reference made today. It was brilliant. The only disappointing aspect was that the rides I've been looking forward to all these years, i.e Back to the Future and E.T were closed.

The walk to the entrance of the studio was populated by a street full of referential eateries and mid-upmarket clothing stored. The coolest restaurant I spied was Bubba Gump Shrimp...oh yeha from Forrest Gump.



We first went into Shrek 4D cinema event which was pretty cool, but then the most awesome part came. The studio backlot tour. To get down to the trams you have to take the escalators down the cliff. In fact the entire studio complex is built on a cliff side and an intricate web of escalators work to transport you from the upper and lower lots of the theme park.



The backlot tour was cheesy and probably using the same jokes and footage as 15 years ago but I couldn't care less. I've seen it on TV for so long and finally I'm experiencing it. Although some parts of the tour were clearly choreographed ride bits, we went through actual studios and production offices, saw sets been built and a student film been shot. The coolest bits were undoubtedly the tour of Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives, which only happened on a weekday due to the current writer's strike in the US. The other highlight was the plane crash set of Spielberg's War of the worlds. Which was awesome because he moved an entire 747 onto the lot.



There was a definite lack of moving rides at Universal Studios. I counted 2, the Mummy Indoor Rollercoaster which was awesome but far too short. And the much famed Jurassic Park ride which got my entire left leg soaked The ride was very cool but dated. Other things at Universal were all about the movie experience, SFX and sound stage demonstrations, a VERY outdated Backdraft demonstration but overall everything was gloriously fun, but I'm a gloriously sad movie buff.



We screamed our way through the haunted house, which was a walk through thing where out of work actors leap at you from corners of the room dressed in scary characters. At one stage I had Megan hiding behind one arm and Tracey on the other. They figured if I screamed at everything first then it'll be okay for them. Little did they know that they'll end up getting chased by the characters anyway...ahahah.



The Waterworld show was just as cheesy and bad as the move and it was populated by walk on roles from shows like CSY:NY, ER and Mission Impossible 3. However the effects were awesome, at one point an entire seaplane leapt over a 5 storey wall, like wtf??? and it wasn't even held on by cables or something, it was just launched over.



The best was to come last though. We waited for the Terminator 2 3D experience to start and the fake Cyberdyne video played and it's uber craziness foreshadows many a things. From the look of Linda Hamilton and Edward Furlong in the actual video I'd put the ride at somewhere around 96-97, which means the ride (experience) is probably more than a decade old, but that Cyberdyne video was scary. It describes a world where Skynet controls the Star Wars type missile system that George Bush wanted to build. The entire video was like the current terrorism scare campaign. It was so eerie, I'm not sure if the majority of the US audience got all the irony but I certainly did and James Cameron I salute you.



The actual experience is a cross between a live action show and a 3D cinematic experience. It was so absolutely awesome because both Tracey and I WORSHIP Arnie. And he happened to be in it. So the majority of the time whenever he uttered any of his catchphrases we cheered emphatically. I seriously almost had the ultimate geekgasm in this thing. It just embodied everything I wished for at Universal, cinematic in-jokes, irony, science fiction, total coolness and a bit of Arnie. This was heaven and I didn't do anything afterwards because this was the last thing I wanted to savour from Universal Studios.