crystal's capers

one girl's international adventures

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Our Grand Californian Adventure

Two Wednesdays ago I decided to meet my dear sisters and brother-in-law in California. I bought the flight on Thursday and departed at 6:20am on Saturday. Talk about last-minute!

Our holiday started out immediately upon arrival; we picked up our rental car, and proceeded on a city-tour, courtesy Kelsey. She MapQuested all the places of interest: Venice Beach, the Santa Monica Pier, Rodeo Drive, Hollywood Blvd, Sunset Blvd, the Hollywood Hills... It was strange and fabulous to see all these places that are so glorified on TV and in films - actually, they are just beaches, streets and buildings. Well, the beach stretching through Santa Monica and beyond was quiet impressive and I imagine would be amazing on a hot summers day.


Next stop: The Grand Californian Disneyland Hotel. Rebecca won several nights there through her work, otherwise we would never have been able to afford the $600+/night price-tag. Staying right at Disneyland was FANTASTIC - we could go back and forth the hotel as we chose, especially considering the wettest ride, the River Rafting thingy, was directly next to the gates for the hotel. Awesome.

We spent two days at Disneyland and in California Adventure. My first time to the American version, and though it was slightly disappointing not to see everyone maxed out in Disney paraphernalia, I didn't miss the hordes of Japanese biblets in their stilettos. I have to say, I think my favorite ride might have been the abovementioned Rafting. Especially because it was quite balmy out. But then, you don't go to Disneyland for the fear-factor rides, do you? We went because we wanted to be children; and that we did. We even booked in for two character-meals: one a Minnie Mouse Breakfast and another a Princess Dinner. We got to have photos with all our favourite characters, and the food was really good. Definitely recommend it, for any age.

Did I mention I haven't really watched TV in three years? So I'm not that familiar with the game show Deal or No Deal, but that did not mean I couldn't play along. We pre-booked tickets to a taping of the syndicated day-time version of the show and showed up promptly at 2:00. Upon arrival we were told that they were running behind from the earlier taping, and that we should return in about an hour and a half. We went for lunch and came back only to stand in line for another hour and a half. They didn't get us loaded into the audience sections until after 5:00. Some more waiting, and finally Howie Mandell came out and we got started, but not before a producer came up to us all and informed that we were seated in the most-filmed seats in the studio: directly behind the contestant. We were told to sit straight, play along, look pretty and not pick our noses; this producer would watch us on-screen and let us know between tapings if we weren't fitting the bill. No pressure. Anyhow, we got into the cheesiness of it, and I'm pretty sure we ended up being the best audience Deal or No Deal ever had. Tune in yourself: I'm not sure exactly when we're airing, but it'll be sometime in late October/early November - you can search it online: episodes 26 - 28. Yeah, I'm famous.

Day five in CA: Six Flags. My sisters have, apparently, been dreaming of visiting Six Flags since adolescence - being roller-coaster enthusiasts; I had heard of it, but never had the itch. Well, if you're into roller-coasters, it's the place to be, with something like 17 major ones. The have done the most insane things with roller-coasters I've ever seen! Nothing will ever compare. I fancy myself somewhat fearless, but after careening at speeds of 85 miles/hour, upside-down and backwards, chair-spinning me around outside the course itself, blasting past fireballs, I nearly wet myself. Literal hyperventilation. Yeah, so not getting on that thing again.

By this point we transferred to a Holiday Inn about 5 minutes away from Universal Studios, so we returned there and were relatively shocked to find the in-hotel restaurant to be fabulous. Go Tula's. Early to bed, early to rise: on our final day in CA day we were off to Universal. This Universal didn't seem to have the same WOW-factor as Universal Studios Osaka, but maybe it was just first-time-charm. The best part though, that Osaka didn't have, was the Studio Tour. They take you through the actual working studio. So cool. The best part for me was definitely Wisteria Lane, from Desperate Housewives - looks exactly like on TV (well, in my case, on rental DVD)! I heard that a lot of what we saw burned down the next day. Kind of sad, considering many of those have been there for decades; but good timing for us.

And that wrapped up our California trip. Somehow, one week just didn't seem long enough; we were running to cram in everything, and there was so much outside the amusement park realm that would have been worth seeing. Ah, next time. Huge thanks to Rebecca (and Mike) for making the trip possible and another belated Happy Birthday to Kelsey, who turned 21 at Disneyland! Very exciting.

1 Comments:

    • At 5:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

      lol you said biblet, the first time rob heard me say that he thought I was on crack, he'd never heard it befor.

      Looks and sounds like you had a blast

      Tauna

       
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