Day 6 - Hello Canada

Alan is writing the blog today with Sarah's comments in red.

 

We were up bright and early this morning to ensure that we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare to catch our plane to Vancouver. We chose to give breakfast a miss partly due to us still being full from the previous evenings feast and partly because Sarah was paranoid about missing our flight and wanting to get there as early as possible. As if we would ever miss a flight! We checked out of our Marina del Rey hotel just after 7am and made our way toward the rental car return place. The traffic at that time of morning was very light so it didn't take us long to get there at all. We dropped off the car and luckily a courtesy shuttle came along almost straight away and we were on our way to the airport. After arriving at the United Airlines terminal, we joined what we hoped was the correct queue to check in. After speaking to a United customer service rep, we were relieved to know that we were indeed in the right place. After a fairly short wait we made our way to the counter, checked our bags and printed out our boarding passes. Next up was the security check. The queue for this was very long and it took us ages to make it through. Lucky I gave ourselves so much spare time. Yes, it was lucky that I was prepared to get us to the airport in plenty of time.

 

So we made our way to the gate to wait for our flight. We went to a cafe and bought a sandwich while waiting and noticed an unattended suitcase in the cafe. That's a huge no-no in airports these days so we told the woman at the counter but when we came by again about 10 minutes later the bag was still sitting there. We boarded our plane, a CRJ-700 on which most of the 66 seats were full. The flight took almost 3 hours, but we slept through most of it since we had not slept much last night. We did manage to see Lake Tahoe as we flew over it, but we missed Crater Lake, Seattle and Mount St Helens. Not because we were sleeping but because it was on the other side of the plane.

 

After landing in Vancouver we made our way through the airport. There was a display of native animals made of wood in the terminal, although there were actually real birds nesting in there too. Strange. It didn't take long to get through immigration as it was very quiet at the airport, although the officer did ask us a heck of a lot of questions before clearing us. We left the terminal, found the Hertz rental car section and were given our Toyota Corolla. It's not as new as the car we had in Los Angeles, but it will do I suppose.  The car is registered in Alberta so we are taking it home.  We should have gotten a discount for returning it. 

 

By this time at was about 1.30pm, but we couldn't check into our hotel until 3pm, so we decided to check out a few Vancouver sights in the mean time. After driving through downtown Vancouver, we crossed the Lions Gate bridge and made our way out to Lynn Valley. Without too much trouble we found our way to Lynn Canyon and parked the car. It was starting to get a bit cold by this time but we wanted to see the suspension bridge. After a short walk we came to it. The bridge is a popular tourist attraction and there were plenty of other people around, many of whom had bought their dogs with them oddly enough. We ventured out onto the suspension bridge which was built in 1912, is 48m long, 50m above the canyon below and quite unstable. It really wouldn't be too hard to fall over, given that the rails are only waist height and the thing sways quite a bit. Not surprisingly there are warning signs telling people to be very careful as a lot of people have died there over the years. We decided against the 20 minute hike over rough terrain to see Twin Falls and made our way back to the car instead.

 

Back on the road and we drove to Cleveland Dam. The dam is at the end of Capilano Lake, Vancouver's main drinking water supply. It's surrounded by snow-capped mountains, most of which were covered by cloud. It was starting to get really cold by this time so we quickly wandered around the dam area, stopping for a few brief photos.

 

The rain was just starting as we got back to the car and as we drove to the hotel it got quite heavy. The drive was quite a slow one, especially trying to get back across Lions Gate bridge since 4 lanes of very heavy traffic had to merge into 1. We found our hotel and checked in. We've been upgraded to a king room on the 18th floor. We supposedly have views of the mountains, but we'll have to confirm this tomorrow as the cloud has completely obscured them this afternoon. Actually, as it starts to get darker, they are coming more into view.

 

We were really hungry so we left the hotel to look for something edible. Right across the street was a Mexican restaurant so we thought we'd give it a try. Not the best food in the world, but it was cheap. Unfortunately the dimwit of a waitress mixed up our orders, which meant that my food was smothered with sour cream, while Sarah's had none. Yuk!  It really wasn't that bad.  Alan scraped off the sour cream and gave it to me and it came with a good portion of his cheese as well.

 

It's just after 8pm here now and although it's not yet completely dark here, it's wet and very very cold. Tomorrows forecast is for a 90% chance of rain so we'll see in the morning what sort of things we're going to do. The weather forecast for our time here in Canada is not looking promising but we have our fingers crossed.

Day 5 - LA Tourists

Sarah is writing tonight's blog.  Alan will undoubtedly want to comment on his fluky navigation skills and will do so in red. Fluky? I always know exactly where I'm going.

We had a late night last night as Alan made me watch Marley & Me again. Grrrrr ... I don't need to be that depressed on holidays. The hotel offer free dvds for you to watch in your room and although there were plenty to choose from, there were very few actually worth watching.

Although the hotel is in a lovely location, the walls are pretty thin so as everyone started getting moving this morning, it was hard to sleep in.  We got up around 8.50am and got down to breakfast at about 9.30am.  It wasn't breakfast as we've known down in Anaheim so we settled for just a bowl of cereal each. 

It was a cool but clear morning when we got in the car and started driving, firstly to Venice Beach.  As usual we picked the wrong way to go.  We parked the car and started walking only to discover that the busy part of Venice Beach was a fair distance in the opposite direction so we walked the 15 minutes back to the car. One thing we noticed is that there are large piles of sand streets away from the beach.  We remarked outside one residence how much sand there was up towards the door and how we'd hate to have to live with that. There were also crews with brooms and shovels trying to get all the sand back onto the beach.

Back in the car, we drove down to the main part of Venice and walked around.  There were street vendors, muscle men at Muscle Beach, people riding bikes, people in the skateboard park, people throwing balls for dogs and homeless people.  There was even a guy who was trying to convince people to listen to his CD by thrusting headphones towards your head.

After a walk around there, we got back in the car and drove to Santa Monica Beach and visited the pier.  Unfortunately (or maybe that is fortunately) the rollercoaster wasn't going.  It would appear to have gotten stuck on the lift hill part and they were trying to fix it.  It would have been hysterical to see Alan get stuck up there. Poor me. I'm having rollercoaster withdrawals.

Unsure of what to do next, we started driving and found ourselves on Rodeo Drive and marvelled at the people standing on the side of the road with wine glasses in hand. We then found ourselves in the vicinity of the La Brea Tar Pits, the site for the 1997 movie Volcano.  They are not that interesting and they smell pretty bad so we weren't there long.

We decided to give Hollywood Boulevard a miss and try to find Griffith Observatory.  We had been there in 1999 and knew sort of which direction we wanted to go.  So Alan kept heading east along Santa Monica Boulevard, spending the majority of his time looking left up into the Hollywood Hills to see if he could see it.  How we didn't have an accident is anyone's guess. More awesome skill on my part. Eventually we saw it and thought we were heading in the right direction but instead found ourselves in Little Armenia. A few quick turns out of there and we were on the right road.  By this time the cloud had come over fairly heavy although it was a reasonably clear day, smog wise.  Must have been the tremendously strong winds we had overnight.  I love a place you can drive to and they don't want to charge you for parking.  A quick photo or two were taken and then it was back in the car (and the warmth) and we headed back to our hotel.

Before coming inside we decided to take a small walk around the beach/marina area where our hotel is located. I wished we had gotten here about 5 minutes earlier as just as we arrived, a guy was coming out of the water with his surfboard.  For those who haven't looked at the photos, we are located on a beach at the end of a marina.  There is only a small roped off section for swimming and the water is perfectly flat.  What was he doing on that surfboard?

We made a quick detour by the Cheesecake Factory, the location of our lovely dinner last night, to get ourselves some cheesecake for later.  With 50 cheesecakes and specialty desserts to choose from, I'm surprised we are not still there.  We have bought ourselves a really decadent chocolate cake and a chocolate mousse cheesecake to have later for dessert. One slice of each, not the entire cakes.

After freshening up, we headed to another favourite restaurants of ours, Olive Garden, about 15 miles from where we are staying.  Oh my lord.  It is places like these which is why we have breakfast in the morning and then don't eat anything else until dinner.  There was so much food.  From their bottomless garden salad (topped with cheese), to their bread sticks, the appetizer of melted cheese and then the main dishes, also covered in cheese.  Cheese overload. We ended up bringing part of a pizza back to the room which will probably be our breakfast tomorrow, considering we have cheesecake, chocolate cake and still fudge from yesterday sitting in our fridge. I ate all of my stuffed chicken marsala for dinner. The pizza was Sarah's so obviously her eyes are far too big for her tummy.

Tomorrow morning we are off early to the airport and then on to Vancouver.  I wonder what the weather will be like there. It's been particularly cold down here, so no doubt Canada will be lovely and warm.

All photos are now uploaded.

Day 4 - Magic Mountain

Today was Alan's day of indulgence, so he'll be blogging today with Sarah's comments in red.

 

We started our last morning in Anaheim with our free breakfast again. They had pancakes on offer today. Yum! After checking out of our hotel, we hit the road north to Los Angeles in search of our next destination. I had taken special care to check the route online and as a result we had no problems finding our way here. After about an hour driving we arrived at Marina del Rey and found our hotel. We knew we wouldn't be able to check in this early, so had already planned to go to Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park for the day. The sky looked menacing but we decided to risk it anyway, as it had to be either today or tomorrow that we went there. Another hour heading north and we arrived at the park without any sign of a wrong turn along the way. Those who followed our blog back in 2007 may remember that we had all sorts of problems finding Magic Mountain after Sarah's directions landed us about 48 miles off course.  <sigh> It was your directions.  I had the correct directions printed out but you choose to ignore them and me, but you believed the Police Officer when he told you that you had gone the wrong way.

 

Anyway we pulled into the parking lot which once again was only maybe 10% full and walked to the entrance. I have to mention that it was almost midday, but we were absolutely freezing. I hoped that rain holds off for a few more hours. For those who don't know, Magic Mountain is a thrill junkies playground, containing some of the most extreme rollercoasters on the planet. The following are the rides I went on....

 

X2 - A massive floorless coaster which sends you down the first drop backwards.

Viper - A steel coaster with 7 loops.

Tatsu - The world's tallest, fastest and longest flying coaster. You spend the entrie ride on your stomach as though you're flying.

Terminator Salvation - A brand new wooden coaster.

Riddlers Revenge - The world's tallest and fastest stand-up coaster.

Batman The Ride - An intense speed looping coaster with nothing but air beneath your feet.

Scream - Very high floorless coaster with 7 loops.

Colossus - The big old wooden coaster built back when the park opened in 1971.

Goliath - Monster coaster with a 255 foot first drop into a 120 foot underground tunnel, reaching a speed of 138kmh.

 

Needless to say that Sarah did not join me on any of these rides.

 

Deja Vu and Ninja were closed today but luckily I rode both of those last time so that was ok that I didn't do them this time around. There are also 4 water rides at Magic Mountain, 2 of which were operating today, but it was far too cold to even contemplate getting wet today. Something else that we didn't get to do last time was go up in the observation tower. It doesn't seem all that high from the ground but once you get up there 38 storeys in the air, you sure get a fantastic view. And no, that does not count as a ride that Sarah went on.  Yes it does.  I queued up, got in, went up and then went down again.  That's a ride.

 

All afternoon we were watching the clouds get darker and darker and by the time I had ridden the last coaster it was just starting to drizzle. We made our way back toward the exit and just had time to stop off for a photo and to buy a magnet. After spending some quality time with Bugs and Daffy.  We were lucky enough to exit just as the people mover was coming around to take us back to the carpark. Bye bye Magic Mountain. I had a fun day. And I love the fact that there was no waiting time for almost all the rides.

 

Alan managed to buy some pretty funny one liner t-shirts for $5 and a funny jumper.  I hope he can fit all of this stuff in his suitcase.

 

5 minutes into our trip down the freeway back to our new hotel and the rain came pouring down. We got out just in time. We checked into our hotel. Our room has a nice view out over the beach and the marina. It's far too cold to be out on our balcony tonight enjoying it though.

 

For anyone who has ever watched the tv show Big Bang Theory, you will know that Penny works at The Cheesecake Factory and the boys eat there once a week. Given that there is a Cheesecake Factory right next door to our hotel, we thought we should really give it a try. On tv it is portrayed as a cheap burger/cheesecake joint. It is anything but that. The decor is really nice, the staff are lovely and the food is amazing. The menu was 11 pages long, featuring all sorts of different foods. We both had a combination shrimp scampi/steak diane with mashed potato. Although I did choose it first and then Sarah copied me as usual. I pointed out the combinations first and THEN he decided he would have what I was having. We could go there every night for a year and still not try everything. Well worthwhile. The servings were so big that we had no room left for any of their dozens of different cheesecakes, although they're open for another hour and three quarters yet so we may walk the 30 seconds from our room back there if we get hungry later.  It's about 8 degrees out there.  I doubt it.  However, we do have fudge that we bought at Magic Mountain to eat.

 

Tomorrow will be a free day, doing whatever touristy type things we feel like doing around Los Angeles.

Day 3 - Disneyland

Alan's writing this short blog for today and Sarah's comments will be in red.

 

We began the day once again with our free hotel breakfast. We probably shouldn't mention the fact that Sarah had 3 donuts.  That's because I only had 2 and a bit.

 

After breakfast it was time to cross the road into Disneyland. We've been to this Disneyland and Disneyworld in Florida numerous times before, but it's always been during scorching hot weather with massive crowds to deal with. So the fact that today was much cooler than usual was something of a bonus for us. It's not unusual for the waiting time to get on rides at Disneyland to be well over an hour, but today it ranged between no waiting up to about 20 minutes which was just awesome.

 

We started off by going on the Indiana Jones ride twice in succession, simply because it's such a fun ride and also because it's so far to walk out and back in again. After that, we did the Haunted Mansion followed by Splash Mountain. Splash Mountain is one of our favourites and we would have ridden it once or twice more had it been a slightly warmer day.

 

I rode the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad while Sarah sat and watched. Unfortunately I was behind a family in the queue with 2 very annoying children who had made up a song about Disneyland and proceeded to sing it over and over and over. Sarah then convinced me to go on It's A Small World with her for the first time. Yes, it's pretty much as sad as I had imagined. When we were here back in 2007, the Finding Nemo submarine ride had only just opened and as such the queues to get on it back then were just ridiculously long. It was only a 20 minute wait today so we went on it. I have to say I'm darn glad we decided not to queue for hours to go on it 3 years ago, because it wasn't an exciting ride by any means. Add screaming kids sitting next to you in an enclosed space and needless to say we were ready to blow a hole in the side of the submarine to escape.  Unfortunately the Matterhorn wasn't operational today.  We like that ride.

 

That was about enough Disneyland fun for one day, so we headed over to California Adventure to see if it had added any rides in the last 2 and a half years, because there isn't a huge amount to do there. First up was the Grizzly River Rapids which is one of the best water rides we've ever been on. Once again, being a cool day meant that we only rode it once. I went on the California Screamin rollercoaster next, which is a pretty good coaster compared to some of the ricketty deathtraps I've ridden in years gone by. They have changed some of the scenery, not for the better unfortunately.  I wanted to go on the Tower of Terror as I hadn't done it before. Despite trying our hardest to avoid finding our way to the entrance by ending up in dead-ends in the park, we got there eventually. I told Alan he was heading for a deadend but he chose not to listen.  We'd done that the last time we were there. Not a bad experience I have to say. It's a 13 storey haunted hotel, with Twilight Zone style theming. You're taken up in the building in an old faulty elevator which then proceeds to drop you from great heights in the darkness, raising up again and again and dropping you. A couple of times the elevator doors actually open while you're way up in the air, giving you a view of the park before you suddenly drop. We'd had enough fun for one day by this time so we returned to our hotel for some rest. Was a good choice actually as it rained after we got back.

 

We took a drive to Target this evening to pick up a few bits and pieces that we needed, (like a mouse pad as even though Alan packed the laptop bag, he blames me for leaving it at home) after which we returned to our favourite Dennys for dinner at the request of Sarah's dad. Not that our arms needed twisting though; it's next to our hotel and we really love the food there.

 

So tomorrow morning we leave Anaheim and make our way to our next hotel in Los Angeles. It will probably be a fair few years before we're back here again.

 

Not sure what the weather holds tomorrow.  It is supposed to be rainy and cold.  Not sure whether we will go to Magic Mountain or save that until Thursday.

 

One last thing before signing off, I forgot to mention the large scrape on my arm that I got yesterday.  Anyone who has ever followed Alan up or down stairs, knows that he walks funny. (Let's just make sure people realise that it's not my fault. It's a result of a broken ankle years back.) Yesterday I made the mistake of walking next to him.  Reaching the bottom step, he seemed to throw his arm out to steady himself, pushing me into a concrete wall.  Gummy ankle boy! Whatever! You're just clumsy.

Days 1 and 2

This blog entry is started by Sarah while Alan sleeps.

He will fill you in on his ride tales later in red.

Sunday afternoon we bid a sad farewell to our little kitties and left them in the very
capable hands of our housesitters Mark & Vivien.  Dad took us to the airport and dropped us off
at our gate before doing battle with very bad traffic for his trip home, sorry Dad!

Even though check-in had only just opened, there were already about 40 people ahead of

us.  However, 20 minutes later we were checked in and quickly through immigration, the security check and then the secondary security check which seems to always be conducted for US flights.

The V Australia flight was on a 777-300 plane, high ceilings, the luggage bins above
the seats angle up so you have a feeling of space above you.  Also, being V Australia, we had various
lighting patterns which, I believe, is to make you feel like you’re a rockstar.  The only thing I didn’t like
is that you don’t have individual airflows but I was sitting on the aisle and
had a plane air vent over me so I was well and truly cooled. I’m naturally cool of course, so it didn’t worry me at all.

The individual entertainment units were great (I watched Mad Max before bedtime), the food was so-so and the plane seats were very hard.  On the return trip we are both going to try and score an extra pillow to sit on.  Not much sleep was had by me.  Alan, on the other hand, could sleep standing up.

We arrived in LA 40 minutes ahead of schedule.  Immigration here has changed since 2007 and there were many many queues to choose from (unlike the 1 we faced in 2007) and it only took 5 minutes from
the time we joined the queue, until we were outside with our bags, waiting for the shuttle to take us to the car hire place.

We got to choose any car we wanted from Section 1.  There was a Ford Focus, a Kia, Chrysler PT Cruiser  and several others but we choose the Chevy Cobalt, black. Has a lot of luggage room and we hope we get something similar to drive around Canada. It's a very nice car to drive and had only 3006 miles on the odometer when we picked it up.

We were quickly on our way to Anaheim with the streets becoming more familiar as we drove.

The accommodation we had in 2007 is just next door but I chose this one so Alan didn’t have as far to walk to Denny’s and also, to see whether the free breakfast was any better.  We weren’t disappointed, but more about that later.

We checked into the room and decided before showering we’d hit Denny’s for dinner.  I had a feeling that as soon as we’d showered we wouldn’t feel like going out.

First thing ordered at Denny’s was the Minute Maid Lemonade.  Hello my old friend.  I so wish we could get that stuff in Australia. Maybe when Costco opens we might get lucky.

For all those food lovers who always like to know what we are eating, here we go:

Sarah:  The Super Bird:  thinly sliced turkey, bacon, tomato and melted swiss cheese on a toasted sourdough bread served with fries and ranch dressing.

Alan:

Grilled chicken breasts smothered in Sweet & Tangy BBQ sauce served with smoked Cheddar mashed potatoes, fiesta corn and dinner bread.

Unfortunately there was no room for dessert although Alan did say he would come down during

the night while I was sleeping.  That didn’t happen of course.

So we turned in for an early night.

This morning we got up at about 8am and hit the free breakfast.  It was a vast improvement on the next door

hotel from 2007 which only served cereal and hard boiled eggs.  This morning we could have had cereal, eggs, sausages, bacon, waffles, toast, French toast, bagels and donuts.  There was also a variety of fruit, different juices, chocolate milk and of course coffee and tea for those inclined.

Then it was time to go to Knotts Berry Farm.  We had discovered we could get the bus for $1.25 each but we couldn’t work out from the website which side of the road we needed to be on to pick up the bus.  When we asked the hotel’s reception, she told us we would need to get one bus and change to another. That wasn’t right but instead of arguing with her, we decided to just drive and pay the $12 parking.  We are glad that we did, just for the convenience.

The park opened at 10am and we arrived at 10.30 to find very few cars in the car park.  On approaching the gate we saw a number of school groups but once we got into the park we found that the place was virtually empty.  No waiting times for any rides which is just what you want in an amusement park.  We are hoping Magic Mountain will be like that on Wednesday and we can only hope Disneyland/California Adventure will be like that tomorrow, but I suspect Disney is always busy.

So, now on to Alan to talk about his ride adventures.

It’s always fun to go to an amusement park for the first time. New exciting rides woohoo! I rode 5 coasters and even managed to get the normally wussy Sarah to ride the small steel "Jaguar" coaster with me. We also went on the water rides together; the log flume and the river rapids, as they're much more sedate than the extreme type coasters that Sarah makes me go on alone. Oh and we were all set to go on the "Perilous Plunge" boat ride together when Sarah had to call the attendant over to let her off because her gigantic oversized boobies were too much for the over-shoulder harness to manage.

We did go up the observation tower to have a nice scenic view of the park. It was kind of difficult though, given that the windows obviously hadn't been cleaned since the day the park opened. I was unable to go on the biggest coaster in the park, Xcelerator. Apparently all the staff who know how to operate that ride have quit, so new staff need to be trained. Bummer! We also caught the Wild West stunt show which was short but fun.

With so few people in the park we were out of there by early afternoon. I must try to remember that I'm not in Australia, and as such I must look both ways when entering roads and not turn blindly into oncoming traffic on the wrong side of the road. Lucky there wasn't a semi trailer coming our way. I'm sure Sarah must have been distracting me at the time. No, the problem was that I failed to remind you when you turned on the street.  Scared me and about 10 other cars to death.

Dinner tonight was at Acapulco Mexican restaurant. We've been there on each of our previous visits to California, but we keep coming back as it's awesome food. After returning to our hotel we watched the Disneyland fireworks from our balcony and took some long exposure night shots, followed by a quick dessert trip to Dennys.

Anyway, we should probably get some sleep since we have another big day tomorrow when we wander across the road to Disneyland and California Adventure.

USA / Canada tour 2010

Hang on to your hats folks, Sarah and Alan are off for three weeks to the USA / Canada on 18 April.  Keep glued to this space for our daily blog and photos.

Day 18 - Nara - 11 April 2009

Before I start this let me just tell you that we were idiots. Tonight, we missed our plane home.  No real reason.  Went on memory, Jetstar had changed the flight details on us three times and neither of us were bright enough to double check the details today. So we missed check-in by 10 minutes.  Really pissed because I was all geared up to come home. Now we have had to book into a hotel, although they were nice enough to upgrade us to a suite, wash clothes and now we need to find something to do for 6 hours tomorrow between hotel kick-out time and us getting on the plane.  Don't worry we will be at the airport 3 hours before tomorrow's flight.  Alan would have added his comments in red but he really isn't in the mood.

 

We got up reasonably early this morning and prepared to be out of the hotel by 11am.  We checked out, stored our bags at the hotel and made our way to the train station to catch the express train to Nara, about 45 minutes.  As we got off the train, we ran into the American couple we had met at the Italian restaurant two days before, Sam & Becky.  So the four of us headed off to explore Nara.  It made a nice change having someone else to talk to.  We walked around the Kofukuji Temple and the three and five storey pagodas and came across some deer.  There are 1200 tame deer in the area.  They get pretty hungry and will run to anyone who seems to have food.

 

We then walked to the Todaiji Temple.  It is the largest wooden building in the world. It houses a giant Buddha which is made of 440kg gold and 499mg of copper.  His total height is 30 metres with a sitting height of 14.98 metres and weighs 500 metric tonnes.

 

By this stage we had to think about getting back to our hotel so we could make our plane (ha right) so we bid farewell to Sam & Becky and returned to the train station.  In all we walked over 7 kilometres today.

 

We had everything timed perfectly, or so we thought.  We had a lovely Japanese dinner before returning to our hotel to get our bags and make our way to the station. It wasn't until we got to the airport did we realise what idiots we were.  Thankfully our train tickets are still valid for a few more days so they will get another work out from us tomorrow, if we can find something around here do to. The hotel we're in tonight appears to be in a very dodgy area of town so I don't think we'll be going out for a midnight stroll.

 

Tomorrow night we will be at the airport well and truly in time for our flight.