My Trip: Day 4 - July 21

I have not updated my blog lately because I was extremely busy. Finally I can take some rest ...



On the 4th day of our trip my brother and I went to Universal Studios. What a great place to go!! There was much more fun there than Disneyland. The theme park has two levels: the upper lot and the lower lot. We first visited two attractions in the upper lot: the House of Horrors (a ghost almost touched my body!) and the Shrek 3D movie (lots of water spraying on my face). Next, we took the famous Studio Tour. It was an enjoyable tour. We saw the flash flood, the shark from Jaws, the crashed plane from War of the Worlds, special effects on train collision and flying cars, sets from old Westerns, the house from Psycho, sets from Desperate Housewives, Mummy tunnel, the Back to the Future car, etc. Unfortunately, the King Kong set and the Back to the Future courthouse were destroyed by the backlot fire. They were rebuilding that site now.


We enjoyed our experience in the upper lot so much, but the lower lot was even more fun! We visited two "behind-the-stage" attractions showing how to apply special effects on movies and how to create fire scenes, but the most exciting attractions for us were the two rides: Jurassic Park and the Mummy. I have to say the Jurassic Park ride was my most memorable experience in this trip. We need to wait almost an hour to take this water-based ride, but it's worth. The final drop, which was nearly vertical, was so scary and my whole body was wet afterwards, haha! The Mummy ride was also exciting, in which the car kept making sudden turns and rotations in a completely dark environment. My brother complained that the ride was a bit too short though (around 2 minutes), but it's okay with me because it made me dizzy afterwards.



We knew from the very beginning that the theme park was too big and we were not going to be able to play all games in just one day; we would come back the next day.

My Trip: Day 3 - July 20

My little brother's flight arrived at LAX at around 9:30am, but I didn't arrive at the airport until 11am. Yes, I was lazy; I didn't want to get out of bed. I had past experience in navigating LAX, but it still took me more than 15 minutes to find him.

We didn't do much on that day, because I wanted to give him some time to rest to counter the jet lag. We took our lunch in a Japanese fast food restaurant, then went straight back to the motel to rest. In the evening we headed off to Downtown Disney. Yes, I had been there the day before, but I wanted to bring him there for a nice dinner and to have a feel of Disneyland. He told me well in advance that he didn't want to go to Disneyland because he was pi**ed off by Hong Kong Disneyland. Fine, that saved me 60+ bucks. I parked my car in the parking area of Downtown Disney that cost us nothing if we had a validated ticket.


We went to a souvenir store in Downtown Disney to buy a dress for my newborn niece (my cousin's baby). Yes, I am becoming an uncle! We then walked around the Disneyland entrance to take photos and around Downtown Disney to find a place for dinner. There were many decent restaurants there serving foods of different styles. We finally picked a restaurant that served traditional Western food. I ordered fish; my brother ordered steak. Very very delicious, but of course very costly (around $80?). I certainly won't pay that much for a meal if I eat myself, but this was a VACATION after all! Plus we were able to see the firework show as well because we were sitting on the second floor!



After dinner, we passed by ESPN zone, so we went inside and played games there. I beat my brother in all games except throwing basketballs. It really reminded me of my brother's last visit five years ago during which we played exactly the same games in the MIT student center. I missed the old days.

We finally went home. There was a serious problem. The parking area was toooooooo big! We spent 20 minutes and still couldn't find our car. We were desperate, but thank God a security guard riding a bike passed by. He came to us and asked us if we need help. I gave him information about my rental car, and he found our car for us. Thank you so much!