Friday, April 29, 2011

Day 6 in Cali (March 5, 2011) - Canucks at LA


It was a start of an exciting weekend. We were about to head to our first out of two hockey games. It was Canucks vs LA at the Staples Center in LA. It was an hour ride to LA from my sister's place. After we parked, we saw some Canucks fans walking towards the stadium. We knew where they were heading so we just followed them to the stadium. We thought that's cool to see some Canucks fans. When we got to the entrance, there were so many Canucks fans. There must have been about 50 - 100 of them. They were standing at the entrance. I'm not sure if they were waiting for something or just felt like standing there. Then being as patriotic as they are, they started to sing O Canada. There were bus loads of Canucks fans coming to the game. Inside the stadium, there were so many more Canucks fans. I would say there were at least 60% of the fans were Canuck fans.

The highlight of the game wasn't when the Canucks won the game, it was when we realized Cory Monteith was at the game. It was Alex Burrows fault. A LA guy hit Alex Burrows against the board and there was only a glimpse of Cory was on the jumbo tron. Because of that split second, the many Glee fans went wild and tried to get their autographs and pictures during the intermission. It ended up being a few cast members from Glee had front row seats to watch the game. There were six of them. You won't probably guess who this is a picture of. This is the closest picture I can get of them. It is Cory Monteith and 'Brittany' from Glee.


After the excitement of winning the game and seeing cast members of Glee, we did the touristy thing. We went to Mann's Chinese Theatre. It was neat to see the walk of fame and the imprints of their hands and feet.


There was a new mall across the street from the theatre. There were lots of shops and restaurants. And we can also see the Hollywood sign!!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Day 5 in Cali (March 4, 2011) - Disneyland


My yearly trip to Disneyland!! That's what has happened for the last few years. It was Rob's first time to Disneyland. The night before we had a strategy on where to go and what to see. My sister has been to Disneyland a gazillion times and she knows what the kids wants to see and what she wants to see. We were there from about 11 am to about 9 pm. It's a long day there. We had to bring lots of snacks and lots of layers of clothes.


There was so many things to see and do in Disneyland. We went on the Jungle Cruise. It was a slow boat ride thru the jungle. There were elephants, zebras and many other animals. As we were waiting, we saw Alladin! There are some characters who walk around. You have to chase them down to get a picture with them.

We went on It's A Small World. I remember going on this ride was I was younger. They renovated it, modernized it and included more characters which made it more interesting. Then we walked over to ToonTown. I like ToonTown. They have the character's houses. The houses are made as if they were in a cartoon. Everything is large and colourful. Mickey is the most popular so his house is the biggest and the longest lineup. We finally got in and saw Mickey!


My favourite ride was Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. You are seated in a spaceship and there there guns that shoot lazer. As you go along the ride, there are targets and you have to shoot them. The more targets you hit, the more points you get.

We parked ourselves at the edge of New Orleans facing the Rivers of America (see map). My sister strategized this so we will have the best seats to watch fireworks and Fantasia. Fantasia is a water lazer show with many scenes from the movie Fantasia. We just had to turn a bit and we can see the fireworks.

After seeing so many things, everyone was tired. It was time to go home.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Day 4 in Cali (March 3, 2011)




Joshua Tree.

This picture is of me and a Joshua Tree. There are lots of Joshua trees at Joshua Tree park. When I went there, I was looking for this huge beautiful tree named 'Joshua Tree'. We drove all over the park so I can find this tree. It was on our way out that I realized that there wasn't this one tree, it was all over the park. It was a few hour drive from my sister's place. For this long drive, I was expecting something out of the ordinary or spectacular. I was disappointed.

Joshua Tree Park is a very large park. You have to pay an admission fee to go into park. There are many entrances to this park. Each path there are different natural sights to see. One of my highlights was seeing the San Andreas Fault line (http://www.sanandreasfault.org/Information.html). It is the probably the closest I will ever get to is. I knew about it because I watched a show on Earthquakes and it mentioned it. The fault line is the foggy line that looks like it is coming out of my head.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Day 3 in Cali (March 2, 2011)

We headed into Palm Springs. I kinda wanted to do something I haven't done before. We went hiking at Indian Canyons. There were many hiking trails in the Indian Canyons. We went to Palm Canyon and Andreas Canyon. The two hiking trails we went on wasn't really hiking trails. It was very leisure and flat. It was nature walking. We only intended to spend about 2 hours hiking. Palm Canyon had, of course, many palm trees. It had various trails within the canyon. We walked a little bit and decided to go back to the car. The trail was very flat and wasn't very interesting to me.
I was wanting to try the Andreas Canyon. I liked the Andreas Canyon more than the Palm Canyon. There was more vegetation and more scenery. There was a large rock which was the highlight of the trail. When we were close to the rock, we saw another couple walk by us. The man recognized my Canucks t-shirt. It was because they were from Vancouver too. I was so excited because there was nobody on the trail for what seems like miles away. All of the sudden we see another couple and they are from Vancouver. We didn't take a picture with them. I really regret that we didn't. I like to take pictures to capture the moment.

Because we were close to downtown Palm Springs, we decided to walk around downtown. There was the Palm Springs Walk of Stars. It's kinda like the Hollywood walk of stars. There was a star with their name and what they were famous for. I was a bit tired after our nature trail walking. But the Palm Springs Walk of Stars is only a few blocks long. We had lunch at Ruby's Diner. We sat on the patio and did some people watching. I had a turkey pie which was a bit too salty for me. We got back to my sisters place about 8pm. We try our best to get back around that time so we can play with the kids before they head to bed.

Day 2 in Cali (Tues, March 1)

We went outlet shopping at Ontario Mills. It is about 30 - 45 mins away from my sister's place (depending on how fast you drive). I have been to states a few times. I know I always find good deals shopping. My strategy was to bring 'old' clothes to the states and buy new clothes. That way I have more room in my luggage. The 'old' clothes are clothes that don't fit anymore or I don't like anymore. I wore them once and left them at my sister's place. I bought myself a whole new wardrobe including new runners. After spending a few hours at the mall, it was time to head back to my sister's place.

Because we were staying at my sister's place for a few nights, we decided to do something for my sister and her family. We decided to cook dinner for them. We did some grocery shopping. We had an idea of the menu. We didn't look in her fridge to see what food they had or didn't have. We just went out and bought the ingredients we needed. The menu was steak, Thai chicken with pasta and salad. After dinner we just hung out with my sister's family.