Ditto Day

28th Dec 2013 Sat

Catherine was so keen on Cirque, she came out to Tix4 to queue with me for more shows.  WT and I were already out and about, so we met Catherine at the box office.  Having bought tickets the day before, we were considered VIPs.  So straight to the front without having to queue.  

This is going to be a quick purchase or so I thought.  After the agent zapped Catherine's credit card for Cirque Kar and took my cash for Penn and Teller, someone in the back office plugged in the heater, blew the fuse and turned off the computer.

So the poor agents had to ring their IT help desk to cancel our transactions, redo payments, and issue the tickets.  Meanwhile the long queue behind us were getting really pissed off with these VIP queue jumpers taking their sweet time interrogating the ticket agent on the merits of row K vs row J.  Luckily the help desk for Tix4 was not in North Korea, and the parties on both ends were native English speakers.  

Both shows were excellent and I won't spoil things by writing a review.  Penn and Teller is a magic show full of surprises and done in a very humorous way.  Penn Juliet goes to great length to explain how the magic is done, but not all the way.  At the end of the show, they do a meet and greet with the audience as we stream out of the theater.  Catherine and Melissa said the CDS Kar show had a storyline, plenty of fighting action and good music.

We had another Hooters dinner before the show which was another enjoyable casual meal.

 

I had a couple request from back home for some Hooters tops.  The requesters were M sized, so I bought XXS for them.  WT said these were 3 sizes smalller, I replied with a big grin.

29th Dec 2013 Sun

If you recall the dinner at Treasure Island buffet we did not have, well we decided that we would use the coupon for brunch this morning.  We planned a 10 am start but didn't get there till 11.  So the buffet was $19 each, with bottomless champagne included.  I don't drink bubbles, so I paid an extra $12.50 for all you can drink beer and wine. 

There were many cuisines to choose from, not to mention the very efficient waitress who kept bringing me more beer and wine.  She got a big tip from WT for her attentiveness.

Wow 100% off!

We then went over to the shopping mall next to TI, the Fashion Show mall where Top Shop was over-run by the 4 shopping bunnies in our party. Then the near-unanimous vote after that was to go to the LV South Outlet mall, which is where 4 out of 5 of us are at this very moment.

I'd planned for us to visit the Fremont Street but the girls spent too much time at the mall.  And we have to pack for our flight to New York tomorrow.  So it is farewell to Hooters.

Shopping and Showtime

26th Dec 2013 Thurs

The Las Vegas North Permium Outlet mall opens at 7 am on Boxing Day.  Tessa and Meilssa were keen to get going, so they were awake and ready for a 7 am drive to the mall.  The ladies while very keen, were not as committed, preferring to sleep in.  We got there at 7.30 am.  There was already a couple walking past us with some big bags of shopping to their car.  7.30 am and they were done and dusted.

The girls OMG'ed all morning because of the name brand stores, the variety of choices and prices.  Being a long term VIP member of this mall, I went to information to pick up a discount booklet which offers further discounts for a minimum spend at each store. 

At 9 am or so, I got a text from Wang Theng indicating that they were ready to go shopping too.  So I left the girls and drove back to the hotel with the first batch of shopping to deposit in our room, and picked up Catherine and Wang Theng.

You can only ignore the need for breakfast for so long, and by 10 am we were eating some of the worst food on offer in Vegas.  My burger was rather good because it came from a diner truck not associated with the mall.

I had to leave at 12 noon to return the rental MPV at the airport depot.  It has served us well over the last 6 days.  Tessa and Melissa by this time had been shopping a solid 4.5 hours, so they wanted to return to the hotel.  I dropped them off at the hotel with shopping batch #2.  Wang Theng was in two minds about returning with us or, to continue shopping and put in the effort to find her own way back.  She appeared to have a case of severe cognitive dissonance over this because she changed her mind 3 times over the two options.  In the end shopping prevailed, and damn the transportation logistics.

I had to fill up the gas before returning the MPV or else a refill fee would be incurred.  The gas stations here are slightly different, the green hose is for diesel and the black one for petrol.  Furthermore, there are 3 varieties of petrol: low octane, high octane and bio.  All 3 comes out of the black hose depending on which button you push.  Also pumps don't work unless you use a credit card.   Wanting to pay cash, I had to go inside and leave a deposit of over $100 to get them to activate the pump.

Returning the Alamo rental MPV was a simple affair.  They scanned to car bar code, entered mileage and checked the fuel gauge.  I was issued a receipt for the money they'd extracted from my credit card and we were done.

The airport was a 45 mins walk to the hotel, passing through Town Square shops.  So I decided to walk home.  I did stop at Fry's to see if they had any new electronic toys (none).  Dropped into Miller's Las Vegas Ale House to ensure that I was properly hydrated for this 45 mins walk in the desert.  You have to treat the desert with a lot of respect.  On the way, passed the welcome to Vegas sign, and people queueing to take photos.

When I got back to the hotel, Tessa and Melissa had gone exploring the Strip on their own.  Having some quiet time to myself, I grabbed the iPad and keyboard, went downstairs to Pete and Shorty's bar to do some blogging for the 24th and 25th Dec.  You can probably tell Batch 19 IPA had significant influence on the writing style for those two days.

By 6 pm Tessa and Melissa were back and hungry.  I don't recall if I'd mentioned this.  We are staying in the Hooters Casino Hotel.  So we went to Hooters Restaurant and ordered our dinner.  Wang Theng and Catherine were on the bus home, but we ate first anyway, and they can order some more when they get here.

Hooter's has very interesting philosophies when it comes to food and employment.  The food appears to cater to people who are vegan, nutrient and fibre intolerant.  A stark contrast to the "green" food culture which we observed in LA.  

They also appear to have a very progressive employment policy, picking youth, gender and sex appeal over everything else.  Not many employers would offer these youthful but well trained employees these opportunities.  Their employment website has criteria such as "socially acceptable female sex appeal" to ensure a high standard of performance.  Very impressive.

Tessa and Melissa at a Hooters job interview.

27th Dec 2013 Friday

It is showntime day today.  I went to Tix4 tonight to queue for our discounted tickets.  It is a bit of a pot luck what gets offered.  For today, I got Mystere Cirque du Soliel for $80 each.  I also purchased a discounted meal for us at Treasure Island (TI) buffet, where the show was.

The show was not on till 9.30 pm.  So to pass the time, the default activity was....... shopping!  I led the girls to Marshall's which is like a shop that stocks branded stuff which is heavily discounted due to being last seasons, an unpopular style, or size.

Again, many hours were spent in Marshall's fine-combing through every item.  I am begining to think with the quantities purchased, that these places, to save time, shoud just weigh the purchases instead of scanning them.

5 people is an inconvenient travelling number.  1 too many for a taxi.  So I caught the bus to Treasure Island while the girls zipped there in a taxi.  They got there first and demanded to know where I was and why I was taking so long.

I walked past the Treasure Island buffet, and saw the queue was about 90 mins long.  So I went straight to Pho, the Vietnamese restaurant in TI.  We had dinner there and were done by 8 pm.

With a little time to kill, we walked over to Wynn's to look at the pretty gardens they'd built indoors and then a quick look around the Fashion Show mall.

Mystere, like all Cirque de Soleil shows, is a combination of music, acrobatics, humour and dance.  The performance was good and we all enjoyed the show.

We had a quick look into Gilleys, a cowboy bar in TI which features line-dancing and a mechanical bull.  We watched the bull operator have a bit of fun with a couple of patrons, tossing then off after a 30 second ride.  

Then it was a 2 hour walk back to the hotel,though with a lengthy stop at Ceaser's Forum shops and a look into Bellagio's Conservatory.

A Bit of Beach A Bit of Culture

24 Dec 2013 Tuesday

I felt like a bit of culture today, so we visited the Getty Centre which sits on the hill above interstate 504.  This museum houses a great collection of European paintings from the 13th to 19th centuries.

The building itself is a work of art and science, being made from ceramic coated aluminium.  The views of LA was pretty spectacular from the balcony in the South Pavilion.  There are 4 pavilions with exhibits sorted into their periods.

We did have some issues finding the Centre because everyone looked for the car park on the right when it was on the left.  Parking was $15 for the day, and you can reuse the parking ticket at the Getty Villa (which we did not visit due to time, or more like hunger, constraints).  

Being funded by the J.Paul Getty Trust, the museum is free to visit - which is pretty great considering the quality of art beats many paying museums.  From the basement car park, you take the lift to the tram station which winds its way up the hill to the centre.  You can actually see the slow tram when driving along I-405, and we'd always wondered if that led to IRONMAN's house on the hill.

Wang Theng wanted to visit downtown LA on Xmas eve.  So we went to the Walt Disney Concert Hall and walked around that area for a little bit.  The Concert Hall reminds me of the Guggenheim in Bilbao. The car park I chose was $9, and I was berated by Catherine and Wang Theng in turn when we walked pass a $7 car park and then a $5 one, all of which I should have known about.

Then it was off to shop for dinner which Catherine, our travelling chef, turned into an awesome Xmas eve dinner.  It included scallops, crab claws and turkey.  This time we shopped at Ralphs, who are clearly and unlike Whole Foods, had no ethics, do no recycling, practises scorched-earth techniques in growing their food, put all their plants and animals in cages, has a carbon footprint as large as Russia and performs horrendous animal testing.  Catherine was super impressed that her grocery bill was half that of Whole Foods.  

I must have drunk too much at dinner because I don't remember eating dessert (I was informed very curtly that I didn't because I'd drunk too much).  So I ate my dessert for breakfast, well, the yoghurt part anyway (the kids wanted the ice cream).

25th Dec 2013 Wed/Xmas Day

Another warm morning in Venice.  We had some time before driving to Vegas, so we went for a walk along Venice Beach, about 15 mins away from our apartment.  All the girls took off ........ their shoes to walk in the cool sand to the water.  

The sand is very well groomed and free from artifacts such as glass and poos.  This was an area of much concern to Catherine because she kept asking me about it.  Apparently, this is the first time - ever - that Catherine has walked barefoot on the beach. A trip of firsts for her - theme park rides at Universal Studio was also a first!

It was 10 am but the ganja smell was already permeating the air along the promenade.  Smells like an AC/DC concert.  Tessa and I lost the other girls, so we turned around to find them shopping at the only shop that was open.  More T-shirts were purchased, then it was time to load up and drive to Vegas.

The GPS said it was going to take 5 hours. And it did, traffic was heavy leaving LA.  But everyone made up time by speeding waaay past the limit.  I had to too, or risk being tail-gated by an 18 axle truck trailer towing an aircraft carrier.

I told Catherine that we'd be driving through the desert on the way to LV.  She was very worried that if we broke down, we'd die.  I assured her that yes we would if we ran out of water and no one stopped to help us.  I'd also pointed out the Death Valley sign which didn't do much to calm her nerves.  With 3 or 4 lanes of continuous traffic all the way to Vegas, there is no chance of dying a lonely death.

Stopped at Barstow for our packed lunch.  A few restaurants were open, so they were rather popular, especially the rest rooms.  That took longer than to eat lunch.  We arrived in Vegas at 5 pm and after a missed turn or two, and a huge fight breaking out between myself and the GPS.  We checked into Hooters Hotel and lucky Catherine had a beautiful view of the Strip.  

WT and I faced the airport run-way and risked being deputised as air traffic controllers if the real ones go on strike.

We walked an hour to the Venetian for dinner at Asian Noodles, queued for another 30 mins to get a table.  And ditto back to Hooters, with a quick stop for wine, plasters, shampoo and water at Walgreens.

Theme Parks

22nd Dec 2013 Sunday

Tessa and Melissa needed bike shorts to wear underneath their dresses.  Luckily there was a Ross departmental store nearby on Lincoln Blv.  As I parked our MPV in the Ross car park, the girls emptied out before I completed putting on the handbrake.   This does not happen on non-shopping destinations, and I sometimes remote lock someone inside because they were slow getting out.

No one could decide where to go next, and we have 2 days left on our Go LA pass.  So I decided we would go to Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, north of LA.  The drive from Venice took 45 mins and we arrived just after noon.  Catherine found out that you could not bring food or beverages into the park (unless you bought one of their special water bottles).  And we'd brought lunch.  It was close enough to lunchtime so we ate in the MPV, and made it to the gates at about 1 pm.

We thought the Go LA pass was supposed to speed things up but with poor customer service at the counter, queuing for park tickets and security meant another 45 mins.

Anyway Tessa and Melissa got their first ride on the Viper roller coaster quickly enough.  

The second one took a bit longer to queue for maybe 45 mins again.  This was the more popular Tatsu twisting and hanging below the rail one.

By this time, the crowds were building up, all the water rides were closed for winter and we were tired of waiting so long for everything.  So a quick walk around the rest of the park and we made our way out the the shuttle bus stop.  There were people handing out free chewing gums, which we gratefully accepted.  The car park is huge and after all that walking we needed to take the shuttle back to the car.  

Cost of car parking for the day $20.  For us, not a great experience, this Six Flag.

Then it was back to Santa Monica to exchange Tessa's Doc Martin boots which had a slight flaw.  And on to Whole Foods on Lincoln, where Catherine picked up some groceries to cook a fab dinner.  She did have reservations about paying $2 per tomato, but these are organic, not tested on animals and from a fair trade farm tomatoes.

23rd Dec 2013 Monday

Another warm day in LA, hitting a high of 23C, what a wonderful climate and this is winter.  I am looking forward to today because we are going to Universal Studio.  I promised the girls it would be their awesomest experience ever.

We made impressive time and was at the studio at 10 am after a 30 min drive.  Paid $15 for general parking and wound our way up to level 4 of the parking building.  This building is connected to the shopping mall (called City Walk).  A quick stop at the group counter to collect tickets and we were in.  

I wanted to do the Transformer ride first, so we went straight to the lower lot and after a 15 min queue we were doing the thrilling 3D ride with water, smoke and heat effects.  Catherine caught some of the water effects with her mouth while screaming.  Tessa says this ride is badass!

Next was the Mummy ride, again just a 15 min wait and we are on a small roller coaster going thru dark tunnels and scary effects.  Wang Theng and Catherine has their eyes shut all through this ride when we inspected the post ride photos.

The Jurassic Park ride was next and not a long wait either being still before 11 am.  Catherine was worried that this ride might be a wet one.  I assured her it was just a little wet.  I forgot to mention, provided we were not in the front row.

The boat had bench seats and the five of us fitted in the front row perfectly.  So you get the usual scary stuff done to you and in addition the boat takes a steep drop at the end and bow wave washes into the front row seats.  

Wang Theng and I were on the outside seats and we absorbed the bulk of the water in our pants and hair.  I almost dried myself on the towels on the racks but then noticed we were in the souvenir shop and the towels were for sale.

The crowds by this time was increasing and the Simpsons ride took 45 mins.  Then it was on to the Waterworld show where stunt people from various TV shows performed the Waterworld story in about 25 min with pyro and other effects.  Pretty cool.

Lunch took a long time.  Wang Theng and Catherine lined up for 60 mins to order and another 30 mins to collect.   By now wait time for most rides were in the 70 to 100 min range, but luckily we had done all the rides.  Shows had no waiting time apart from waiting to go in.  So we did the Animal Actors show where trained animal performed and the Special Effects show on how special effects were created.

It was time to go, and walking through the very prettily lit City Walk mall, clothes and handbags were bought.  

Then being late 7pm, we bought take out dinner from Whole Foods.

Los Angeles

20th Dec 2013
We arrived in LAX to a lead free environment.  Quite good for the old nervous system, lead free petrol and lead free airports.

The line through customs was another thing.  It took us 90 mins to get through.  By then, Wang Theng could advise extended Asian families they can go up to the counter together and also after 90 minutes of observing US Homeland Security she would have picked up the following immigration consulting skills.

1.  If you were here in the last 6 months, you only need to show them 4 fingers rather than 10.
2.  People with glasses need to take them off for your US Govt. welcome to USA photo.  I don't think they like nerdy visitors.  (BTW the last Big Bang episode - 16M viewers,  go figure)
3.  Which line is for citizens, diplomats, people with babies, invalids and visitors.
4.  They should sell vending franchises for the captive customers, to earn some extra revenue for ESTA!
5.  Anyone who wants to smuggle or do bad thing has plenty of time to figure out plan B, C, D, E eek I am running out of alphabets.

We picked up a rental people carrier from Alamo rentals and drove to Venice beach in about 30 mins. The apartment we are in is about 20 mins walk to the beach.  It's a nice apartment and our hosts Tiffany and Janin are lovely.

We had a very late lunch at Whole Foods and shopped to cook for dinner.  Our amazing resident chef, aka Catherine whipped up yummy chicken rice, soup, tofu and stirfry bak choy in no time at all.  Looking forward to more delicious home-cooked meals!!

Melissa bought tickets for herself and Tessa to the Lakers vs Timberwolf game that very evening in the Staples Centre in LA City.  Being a Friday night, the drive from Venice to LA was 90 mins.  So I hung around LA City for a couple hours waiting for the girls instead of going home and returning.  There was a Hooters across the from Staples, but I did not want to take on America's second finest.

The drive home that evening was much easier and I got to pick up a bottle of wine and IPA's on the way home.  Happy now.

21st Dec Saturday

We were planning an early start to Universal Studio.  Sadly jet lag, breakfast and ablutions in the single bathroom imposed a slight delay.  Plan B was to go to Santa Monica's aquarium and then Warner Brother's studio tour in Burbank.

[Pretty impressive though, that we were up by 8 a.m and out the door just after 9, considering the jet lag, and that Jit and the girls sat down to dinner at 11.30 pm the night before!  WT]

It took us 45 mins to find the aquarium in Santa Monica, after asking one maid, one concierge, one tourist and one policeman, it was closed till 31st Dec.

Santa Monica's shopping precinct was terrific.  As our reservation for the Warner Bro's studio tour was for 1pm, I had to drag the poor girls away and promised black and blue bring them back, Allah and GPS willing.

Miracles do happen and we found WB in Burbank after only 4 missed turns and one-time driving on the wrong side.  In USA, right turns are free but I still got yelled at for doing so, not faaaair.

[Catherine was co-navigator and her most excellent GPS-reading skills helped keep us on course despite Jit's frequent attempts to second-guess the GPS.]

The Warner Bro's Tour was pretty cool.  You are driven through all the sound stages (30 of them), prop room, museums with Harry Potter stuff and Batman cars, Friends and Big Bang sets. The whole outfit is sited on 110 acres of land.

The WB guide gave us directions to the Hollywood sign, and I am sure the girls got great pics.  Then it was back to Santa Monica where various unnecessary shoes, Victoria Secret and other clothes were procured.

Then on to Whole Foods for calories and alcohol for dinner.  I only missed one Stop Sign and was lucky to receive only a lead-free honk.

[And the Oscar for Most Long-Suffering and Benevolent travelling companion goes to Jit!  For the four and half hours driving and waiting for the girls for their night out, and the two hours waiting for us whilst we shopped in Santa Monica.  No mean feat at all, given that he could not imbibe to while away the time. WT]