SF -first encounter with GGB

arrived in SF, and while we still had the car, we headed down to the Golden Gate Bridge. also we managed to see the Bay Bridge, and drive past fisherman's wharf. it was very cloudy that day, thus the visibility was kinda low. will return to the place again.

Los Angeles - Universal again

we realised that we had to go back to Universal Studios again. and so we did. i think it was quite cool, going to like behind the scenes for pyrotechnics and like SFX. got a picture of the foley box too. after LA, we headed straight up to SF and along the way, this is what we saw. wind mills. modern wind mills actually. winds were blowing as tremendous speeds that while driving we could feel the car shifted laterally. woo. tough. luckily we were driving a toyota sienna thats heavy duty, if we were driving a, say daihatsu coper or picanto, the car might have flipped! phew!

hoover dam

we left vegas and detoured slightly to hoover dam. a pretty impressive man-made structure featured in a few films. off hand i can only remember michael bay's transformers. the place where megatron was kept frozen.

Vegas

Vegas. Sin City. that s what james calls it. but i think i like that place. cheap and high quality hotels. lots of entertainment. lots of food. lots of casinos. haha. a friend told me that none of her friends won any money from vegas before. here, i am a living proof against her claim. haha. i won a bit from the jackpot machines. slightly less than 10 bucks. quite little, but considering that i only began with 3 bucks i think that pretty gd already. 300% returns! haha. better than losing.

we hired a limo for a night. it was cool. living the vegas life. champagne. city lights. although when we went to the vegas signboard that night some of the lights were malfunctioning, i still think that vegas was great. :)

and one last thing. we got a convert! haha james has officially become a HRC pin collector, but only bear pins. =/ haha.

cheers.

grand canyon

from LA we headed north/east but more towards the east towards grand canyon. it was everyone's first road trip/overnight stay in the car. we arrived at our destination, grand canyon a bit closer to midday and when everyone saw the canyon, we were like WOW. it is indeed... GRAND and massive. it seems like there is no end to it, and u just feel small standing in front of it. i wonder if the size of the entire canyon is as big as the country we are from. only after the trip did i realise that there is a skywalk at the canyon, which is pretty awesome cus you can walk on a glass panel that stretches over the cliff. however, it is really expensive to just set foot on the glass, and it was about another hour away from where we went. so hmmm. yup still it was GRAND. :)

Los Angeles

Hollywood, Los Angeles - home of movies, stars and directors... the famous Walk of Fame, and Chinese Grauman Theatre where Oscars were initially held at when it moved to LA.

Met up with Cheryl, Amanda, James and Danielle here.

Universal Studios was nice. the rides were not very thrilling, but all the rides kinda revolved around the theme of their movies, and definitely very well thought out and gd execution. i enjoyed the studio tour, getting to see the actual set for Gossip Girl, War of the Worlds, Jaws. well to be honest, i am not exactly that possible if it is the actual set (since tourists go into these sets everyday), but nonetheless, it could still be the actual props brought over from the actual set. what was really impressive were the explosions, and the rainmaker and the 'floodgates'. with the lack of that kind of gadgets and that scale of production/budget, i now understand why local films mainly revolve around art house films and not venture into Hollywood style films. =/

during our stay in LA, we went for an America's Got Talent audition. kinda not the best TV show but its the one that fits our schedule. lots of funny performances, like aerobics tap dancing and pony dance. at the end of the day, i think we only saw 2 that successfully went through to the next round.

and we got a parking ticket, for parking next to the curb that was painted in red. kao. none of us knew about it. and there wasnt a double yellow line or zigzag white line. moreover the sign that says that 'we can park' is like just behind our car. apparently, we can only do that behind the sign. sway. contested, but didnt work. =/