New York, New York!!!

A big hello!

So after hitting DC, we had a short (and by short, I mean a SHORT 30mins). During that flight, Daniel and I met some Aussie girls also on holidays and we chatted to them during the flight. Once we arrived in New York, we collected our bags and while doing so, some shuttle guy kept trying to get our business, but he was really shady and so we were really iffy about him. We ended up going with a reputable company, but it did not set a very good impression on our first day. We checked into our hotel in Manhatta - Midtown East. Then once we were settled, we were able to go and get something to eat before going out and doing a bit of sightseeing. Our first day was spend going down along 5th Avenue and hitting Rockerfeller Centre where the ice skating rink is. We then also continued to Time Square as it wasn't too far away from there. The girls were a bit tired and so they headed back while us boys continued on towards Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. That first night we were in NY, we had tickets to the Spice Girls concert so we had to go back to the hotel to get ready and head over to catch the train to Newark, NY. The concert was at the Prudential centre there. While it was pretty cheesy, it was all the hits of our teenage years. At the bottom of this post, I'll embbed some of the videos for all your enjoyment hahaha.

The next day, Daniel and I caught the ferry over to Ellis Island, not realising that the island that the statue of liberty is on Liberty Island hahaha. We did still get a good view of the statue but since we had time difference, that was enough for us and so we continued on to Wall Street and the World Trade Centre site. By the time we were done there, we had to head up to midtown as we had tickets to the Late Show with David Letterman. We had to arrive about an hour and a bit before the taping so that we could collect tickets and had a little bit of time for us to have lunch before lining up to get in to the show. On the show, it was Evangeline Lily (Kate from Lost), Marissa Miller (Sports Illustated Swimsuit Cover model) and also some country music singer (Paisley or something like that). After the show, Daniel and I got dinner in Little Italy before exploring it and Chinatown.

On the last day that Daniel was to be in the US with us, we went over to Central park after the now the day before and it looked absolutely amazing with the snow, mist and bridges along all the walkways. We walked around a little before going along down along 5th Ave (doing a little bit more shopping, including going into the AMAZING Apple store there). It was all we had time for an I headed off to the airport with Daniel so that he could catch his flight home.

The first last two days in New York was spent going to MoMA and also having a look outside of all the other museums (Guggenheim, MET etc). I then just walked all the way down from Upper East Side to SoHo. Before night fall, I had a tour of the UN building and it was really interesting to see how everything is all set and how it works. The chamber looks just like it does in the movies/news as does the ear pieces where translations are spoken through (only English, French, Spanish, Russin, Chinese and Arabic are translated in the UN). That night, I had dinner with my New York Relatives and English Cousin (Sophie) - all on my dad's side, in Chinatown. It was kinda like a bit family reunion as we rarely get to see each other they are always so far away!

The last day I explored Brooklyn (walking along the Brookly bridge, which is pretty cool) and also heading through the NYU area. I did a little bit of last minute shopping for souvenirs and such around the Time Square area before going back and getting ready to see the Lion King. The whole production was so spectacular with intricate details on the costumes and the music/singing was fantastic too. I was very glad that we got (almost) front row tickets, although we were a little too much to the right.

Anyways, that is all for NY. Next stop, Boston, MA - New England!

Till next time...
Alex

New York, Feb 08

Its D to the C, Washington DC...

Hello!

Wow, so it has been quite a bit since my first update on my US trip!

So I'll start from the beginning:

After doing 6 theme parks in 3 days, we needed to slow things down a little, but not TOO much as we headed up the east coast to Washington DC, the US capitol. After arriving in DC around lunchtime, we checked into our hotels and dropped off all our bags before heading over into the city. As Daniel was on a different flight from Orlando (he was orignally connecting through Newark, NJ), he had missed check in for his first flight by about 10mins and so was put on the later one, but because of bad weather in Newark, his new flight was cancelled and so was then re-routed through Cleveland, OH. He didn't arrive in DC until 4pm so I went to collect him from the airport and we went into the city. As the others had already started sightseeing, Dan and I ended up joining a night tour of DC to see all the main sights in the short amount of time that we had. We actually missed our first tour, so had too book a later one with a different company. Washington DC was absolutely freezing, with temperatures about -10c at night, because of the wind chill, it felt much MUCH colder.

In the end, we were lucky that we got to see all the sights such as Capitol Hill, White House, Washington Monument, the statue of Lincoln, The war memorials, Iwo Jima and all the other main attractions of Washignton DC. We didnt realise that DC would have so much to do, so it would have been good to spend a little more time in the city.

The next morning, we had to leave the hotel fairly early because we were going to hit NYC!!!

Washington DC

Can you have too much happiness in one place?!

Hello all!

So after hitting Miami, we had a riddiculously early morning getting up and going to the airport so that we could fly to Orlando. By riddiculous, I mean waking up at 4.30am in the morning and checking out of the hotel at 5am to drive to the airport in the rental car. When we arrived in Orlando there, we were met by Raf's Uncle (Gilbert) and his friend Alex. As it was only about 8am in the morning, we headed back to Gilbert's house to drop off our luggage and to get some breakfast to eat. as soon as we were all done, it was straight away to the Theme parks with the first day being Animal Kingdom and EPCOT. Animal Kingdom was fantastic, with the safari attraction by far the best. It was almost like being in the Savannah except that the commentry and acting was a little over the top - in true Disney style. EPCOT was pretty boring as we were not exactly wanting to go to somewhere educational on our trip.

The second day was a gain all theme parks, but we mixed it up a little and decided to go to the Universal Studio ones, being Islands of Adventure and also the main Universal Studio one. Islands of Adventure was absolutely awesome with some of the best rides i have been on - namely The Hulk and The Dragon. Universal was alright, but the main rides were experiencing 'technical difficulties' so it was pretty disappointing.

On our third and final day in Orlando, we went back to Disney world and hit Magical Kingdom which was almost exactly the same as Disneyland save for a couple of extra rides here and there. As we had already done it before, we went to a WalMart here and had a look around. I found it funny to find that WalMart sells Magnavox TVs, just like Kmart at work lol. We only spend a couple of hours in the Magical Kingdom as we also wanted to go to Disney Hollywood Park. There were two main rides there and also the end of night show Fantasmic which makes you want to be a kid again and watch ALL the disney movies lol. While at the Hollywood park, Dan and i also got some photos with a group of Cheerleaders as there was a cheer competition being held in the park i believe.

Well thats it for Orlando and the scrumtious IHOP restaurants (i would die happy if i just ate at an IHOP for the rest of my life....).

Till Next Time,
Alex

Orlando Feb 08

Welcome to Miami!

Hello all!

So after a bit of a rest couple of days in Houston, TX, we continued our trip and flew over to Miami, Florida. It was one of our longer flights but we were very happy to be back in warm weather. The temperature in miami was in the mid 20's (celsius, not silly fahrenheight hahaha).

So on our first day, we got settled into our hotel and also the surrounding area, sussing out Miami Dadeland Shopping Centre. Our second day was also pretty laid back. We picked up the Rental Car (a Mazda6) and headed to Miami Beach for the day. We also saw where they film Miami Ink, but it was a really small store and quite dissapointing really. The good thing about the day though was we found a healthy food store and had a really good lunch, not any fast food!

The third day we were in South Florida, we headed down to Key West in the Rental car. It took about 3 hours or so to get there, and the girls were less than impressed with the fact that there werent any 'proper' beaches for them to go swimming. We ended up just having lunch and walking around briefly before Raf and I tried the world famous Key Lime Pies. It is really sweet, but also has a strange tangy sensation. We headed back along the famous bridges and along the everglades during sunset and took some pretty good photos. I was happy that we actually got to Key West in the end and did find it pretty interesting as it was a quaint little town that had a lot of character.

Orlando is next on the list...
Alex

Miami Feb 08

Houston, we have a problem...

Howdy Y'all!

So after hitting Vegas, we headed over to Houston, Texas for two days. We arrived a little late to do anything the first day so just ended up having a really late lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and walking around the mall 'The Galleria'. I was feeling a little crook from all the shitty food as we have been eating out EVERY meal, so i went back to have a early night. The next day, Raf and I rented a car and drove down to the Houston Space Museum. It was a little boring, except for the Tram tour which took us to Mission Control and also the Training Facility.

Once we were done at the Space Museum, we drove over to Kemah which was pretty cool. It's a little small town just on the outskirts of Houston on the Bay and it has an amusement park on it's boardwalk along the bay. We rode the Roller Coast before heading back into the city thinking to catch the Superbowl, but had the times wrong (that was my fault lol) so we had missed the first half. Gird Iron is a really boring sport...lol so we left to go to dinner at Chili's.

That was pretty much all we did in Houston, as it was a little bit of a boring town. But I am glad i got to see Kemah and its still good to go and have a look. I'm sure if we went to the Smithsonian museums and others it would have been good too.

Florida Next!
Alex

Houston Feb 08

Viva Las Vegas!

Hey guys!

So its been a little while since I've updated this, as we have been a bit busy haha. Anyways, so while we were in Las Vegas, we hit all the casinos - Bellagio, Caesars, MGM Grand, New York, Stratosphere, Treasure Island and the Mirage. There was way too much to see in the short 3 days that we were there, especially since we spent one of them going to the Grand Canyon, even though it was well worth it.

While we were in Vegas, we saw the Love Cirque Du Soleil show in The Mirage and also the American Superstars cabaret show at the Stratosphere. We also went out on two of the nights, one of them being Studio 54 in MGM grand, and the other at the Playboy Club in Palms. The others got into the Playboy club, but I didn't get in because I had sneakers :-(

Our hotel was absolutely amazing - and it helped the cause when we were issued the room keys and it had VIP printed on the front for front of line access at the MGM grand buffet lol.

Take a look a the photos below.
Alex

Las Vegas Feb 08

Its a BIG...BIG...hole in the ground!

Hey y'all!

In Miami at the moment, so I have three posts in backlog waiting to be published. Here is the first of three...

So after arriving in Las Vegas we did all the touristy stuff on the strip for the first day not so much in depth as we would be doing that in the next couple of days...

One of the days we were in Vegas, Raf and I headed out on a tour to the Grand Canyon, Arizona.
It took a couple of hours to get there, but it wasnt too bad as I was able to have a bit of a nap and we did get to see the Hoover Dam (where a couple of scenes in Transformers was filmed, for you playing at home...) and also a small town there which is literally in the middle of no where.

Once at the Grand Canyon, we stopped first at the Skywalk where although it doesnt look so spectacular in photos, even though it only comes out about 10metres or so, it was absolutely AMAZING! It was also pretty scary as I don't do very well with heights haha. After we were done at the Skywalk we continued onto the next stop at the Grand Canyon West Rim Indian reserve. It was here, that we had some traditional American Indian food and sat eating at what has to be one of the best tables in the world, just metres from a cliff face, falling into the Grand Canyon!

Well, you can see the photos for yourself, hopefully, I will post something up tomorrow for Las Vegas and then possibly Houston stuff too.

Speak soon!

Alex

Grand Canyon Jan 08

Hola, Amigos in Mexico!

Hello!!!

So during our first full day in San Diego, Raf and I headed down the boarder to Mexico on a tour. We didn't stop at first in Tijuana, as we were continuing down a bit further to the small resort town of Rosarito. It was pretty dirty and not very exciting, as the town was basically shut down since it is winter down here. The beach was also pretty dirty with lots of rubbish around in the surrounding blocks.

After about half an hour or so walking around, we jumped back onto the bus and continued to keep going down further south into the fishing town of Ensenada. It was here that we had some local lunch, of fish (in my case). Raf and I met some other Aussies on the tour, out of the 9 on our tour, 6 of us were Aussies hahaha. This included a mother with two girls aged 5 and 7, which we thought was really brave considering how dangerous and area such as Tijuana could be. Once we had eaten lunch, we had about 3 hours to ourselves and so walked around the city ourselves and saw all the fishing boats/fish markets before ending up shopping. the cologne and perfume was prety cheap there as were some of the surf clothing stores.

The last stop on the tour was Tijuana and we had half an hour to spend looking at all the tourist stores and liquor stores. The alcohol there was pretty cheap, but as people had told us it was a bad area, we didnt bring much cash and i didnt have anything left to get any tequilla! We did however, have free tasting and the best one we tried was the Peach one, but the coffee was apparently pretty good too.

Overall, our Mexican experience was pretty good, and not at all as bad as we had been told. No tacos or enchiladas either hahaha.

Ciao amigos!
Alex

Amigos head to the boarder

The OC drive and San Diego

Hello all,

So much to see, so much to do! It has been a little while since i updated this, but this will be a bigger update. For our last day in Los Angeles, Raf and I picked up the rental car and headed back to the hotel to pick up the girls and our bags. just as we were about to leave, it so happened that the electricity went out in the block, which ended up in our favour as that gave us an excuse to go out and see Hollywood Boulevard one more time and see the walk of fame again. When we got back to the hotel and packed the car with our luggage, we set of down the coast towards Orange County...THE OC! It took us about 2 hours or so to get to Newport Beach. Newport is a pretty big beach, with long stretches of sand and alot of little boutique shops/cafes. The sand however, probably isnt as white as it is back home.

After Newport, we continued down the coast, crossing the river near Balboa on an Auto Ferry and then drove to Laguna. The town at Laguna was much about that same size as Newport, but didn't have the small town charm.

When we got to San Diego, we checked into the hotel and headed for dinner. The first day, Raf and I went down to the boarder while the girls had a pamper day. More about this in the next post. The second day in San Diego, we went to Sea World and saw all the whales, dolphins, penguins and other animals, capping off the day with the Shamu show 'Believe'. I then headed into the city downtown area by myself, exploring the CBD and also the wharf area.

The last day was a bit of a rest day, staying in till about lunchtime and then going into the city to go shopping at the Westfields there in San Diego. I spent a bit more money in all my favourite shops hahaha.

Till next time,
Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?

Alex

San Diego

Driving down the OC