California, Part 5

Considering that a month ago, we were actually in California, I had better start wrapping things up! I'm about finished making my photo books, now I just need the money to have them printed! Anyway, it's time for part 5 of our trip report!

Monday, September 21st
So, we checked into our hotel (Hyatt Regency Newport Beach on Jamboree Road) late Sunday night, and finally had a chance to sleep in on Monday. It was a much needed respite! Around 1 or 2pm we left the hotel to go explore the LA area. We stopped at a large outdoor shopping complex (The District at Tustin Legacy) and had lunch at Red Brick Pizza. Then we made a very important stop at Best Buy for a new camera, as I absolutely could not stand the other one any longer. We also went to Whole Foods and Target. Once our errands were done, we headed west to the Pacific Coast Highway and then drove north towards LA.

We drove along the coast, past Huntington Beach. Eventually we got on the freeway to go to Hollywood.

Traffic wasn’t too bad considering it was rush hour, and we easily found the area thanks to our GPS. We drove up into the hills, and randomly followed a park ranger’s SUV, thinking he could be going somewhere good. It turned out to be a good decision, as he drove to a dog park situated right under the Hollywood sign.

After taking loads of pictures with our new camera, we left the hills and found Hollywood Blvd. Turns out there was a premier that night at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, so they had the red carpets out for the event!

We gawked for a bit, and then went into the Hollywood & Highland Center to find dinner. We found an interesting place called uWink, which had touchscreen monitors in the tables that you order everything from.

After dinner, we walked back to the car, stopping to gawk a bit more. Luckily, the premier was ending and we were able to catch a glimpse of John Hodgman.

So that was cool that we could see a celebrity, even though it was from across the street.

We left Hollywood after that, and drove through Beverly Hills and down Rodeo Drive.

The Beverly Wilshire - the setting for Pretty Woman!

After our tour down Rodeo Drive, we headed back to our hotel, which was much further away than we remembered leaving it! I think it took an hour or so to get back to Newport Beach, and that was with no traffic! We had a good time, even though we only had a few hours to do it in!

California, Part 4

Sunday, September 20th

We got up early to pack and got ready to hit the road. We had a good breakfast with Andra at the Sierra restaurant before we left, and then we were on our way back to civilization!

We had been planning on going to Disneyland for months, and so Ji and Yuliana bought their return tickets to leave from LAX. I had been thinking that their flight left at 8pm, so I figured we would drop them off around 4 or 5 and then Mark and I could go to DL for a few hours. Apparently there was some confusion as to what time their flight actually was supposed to leave, or it got changed, or something, but in the end apparently it was to leave at 11pm, and they wanted to go to DL too. So we left for LA earlier than originally planned, and they arranged for an airport shuttle to pick them up from the park. Unfortunately though, we got stuck in some traffic and didn't get to DL til 3:30, and the shuttle would pick them up at 8, so they decided it wouldn't be worth the ticket price to only go in for a few hours. So they went to Downtown Disney while Mark and I went to the park.

It gave us some real cognitive dissonance actually! Main Street looks very similar to WDW's Main Street, so at some times we would get the feeling we were in Florida!

All we had to do is look at the castle (Sleeping Beauty's house) and we would know that we were DEFINITELY not in Florida! The DL castle is much, much smaller than WDW's, but still very pretty.

Mark and I wandered around for a bit, somewhat in shock that we were actually at DISNEYLAND! Our first ride was the Matterhorn, something unique to DL! It was a lot of fun!

We got fastpasses for Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin and then went on It's a Small World, which is about 10 times better than at WDW.

We went back to Roger Rabbit, and then went on the Alice in Wonderland ride.

I was sooo dehydrated by this point and felt terrible. LA is a desert. We headed back towards Main Street and had a quick dinner at the Carnation Cafe. Great baked potato soup! I drank about half a gallon of water/apple juice, and felt a lot better. We met Ji and Yuliana outside and went back to the car with them so they could get their stuff and meet the shuttle. It took the shuttle a while to figure out where we were, but eventually they got on board and made it to their plane on time.

Meanwhile, Mark and I went back in to DL. We went on Buzz Lightyear (better in FL) and made our way to Main Street to watch the fireworks. The show was called "Magical" and it was great! Dumbo flies around the castle, which is totally awesome. After the fireworks, we went on Pirates of the Caribbean, which is totally AMAZING. So much better than at WDW, and we spent a while trying to figure out why they would make it shorter when there is so much more space in FL. We're not sure.

We checked out most of the rest of the park, and tried to go on Splash Mountain, but it was shut down. We did the Winnie the Pooh ride, which had a really random ending, and then watched Fantasmic around the Rivers of America. I liked it more than the one at MGM. It was really cool!

After Fantasmic, we had time for one last ride on Pirates of the Caribbean. On the way out we stopped in a store that was about 75% Nightmare Before Christmas and 25% Haunted Mansion. Mark freaked out! The cashier said that Tim Burton had been in there a few weeks prior. Too bad we don't have a store like that in FL!

We made our way back to the car and drove to our hotel in Newport Beach. We were exhausted and ready for our "free day" on Monday!

Part 5 tomorrow!

California, Part 3

Saturday, September 19th

I woke up ridiculously early so that I could do laundry and homework. So exciting on a vacation! I had a map of the hotel and the laundry room looked easy enough to find, so I grabbed our bag of dirty clothes and trekked out of our room. Unfortunately, the map LIED. I ended up trapped over in the indoor-pool area, and at one point took an elevator into the spa reception office. I finally went back the way I came and went down to the main lobby and had to go outside and then back in to actually get to the laundry room. By the time I got back to the room, I had been gone for 40 minutes!

I sat down to do some homework and managed to get quite a bit done. And luckily one teacher had posted on Blackboard the night before that if we needed more time to just let her know. Thank god!! So when I woke up that morning I saw she had responded and said I could take a few extra days, which made all the difference in the world! While I was working I had Mark finish the laundry. Finally I had done enough and it was time to get ready for the wedding!

Honestly, I was not looking too forward to driving another hour back up the mountains, as the roads were a little treacherous. Then I realized that at least on the way there, I would be on the inside lane! So that made it a bit better! Mark said he would drive to get us there faster, and I said no way! Faster is not an option when I'm afraid of falling off a cliff!

I put on my red dress and miraculously we left on time - 2 hours early! The wedding site was at Glacier Point, about an hour from the hotel. Andra said we may run into lots of traffic since it was Saturday, and she left even earlier than we did! It wasn't necessary to leave quite so early and we made it to Glacier Point with about 50 minutes to spare. 6 miles of the road was unpaved and covered in lots of loose gravel which made for a pretty bumpy ride, but it really wasn't too bad. When we got to the parking lot, we wondered how we would find everyone, but it turned out to not be an issue.

Wedding tailgate!

The bride was rather easy to spot standing in the parking lot. We parked our Altima and joined the group. Apparently driving 6 miles on an unpaved road adds lots of dust to cars, and soon that dust transferred itself to our dresses. No problem, it brushed off easily.

Eventually we decided to vacate the parking lot and made our way to the overlook.

It was hideous.

We took some pictures while we waited for the rest of the people to arrive.

And finally it was time for Andra to get married!

As I was the MOH I had to give up my camera to Mark so that I could stand next to Andra during the wedding. This drove me nuts, especially when I could see that the batteries died AGAIN right before the end of the ceremony (he took them out and started shaking them to try and get a little more life out of them!). Of course the extra batteries I had weren't accessible during the ceremony. We had a ton of issues with this camera during the few days we used it (borrowed from my dad), and I have a lot of regret that I did not buy a DSLR before the trip as I had been planning all along. After the ceremony, we took a lot more pictures, and the camera was sucking down batteries like a vacuum, and took forever to "process" between shots. Eventually when I went to review some pictures I realized that it had been dropping them. I estimate that it did not save approximately 200 or 300 pictures from the wedding alone, and of course we lost pictures from our other days too. I was somewhat heartbroken as I saw how many of the pictures weren't on the memory card, and which ones I lost - some of the very best ones, of course.

Major disappointment aside, it was a beautiful wedding. The location could not have been more gorgeous, and the weather was brilliant. I still managed some good pictures at least.

Eventually it was time to head back to the lodge for dinner. I braved the "bathroom" on the mountain - essentially a room containing a toilet over a deep hole in the ground. Not the best smelling of places!

On the drive back to the lodge we stopped to take pictures of a lovely deer who decided to have dinner on the side of the road! He tried to eat a whole apple, and it looked really weird when he spit it out!

We got back to the lodge and Ji and I decided to change out of our uncomfortable dresses. We went down to dinner and it was beautiful!

The dinner was great. It was a beautiful wedding from start to end. We only cried a little bit! Everyone looked great, the bride was beautiful and we are so happy for her!

Part 4 coming soon!I think this will be a 6 part series! :)