Friday and Sunday just gone were social days; basically, days given over to seeing friends I have in the area. So far, it has involved meeting at some fast food place that's easy for us to get to, or a compromise. Friday was at a Carl's Junior in Anaheim and I met up with my friends Ernie and Nick. We ended up sitting in the fast food place for five hours just chatting away about stuff - apart from his impression artistry, Ernie's a mathematician and we were discussing that as well as a whole heap of stuff. Nick, in the meantime, doodled a lot in my sketchbook, often on a tangent from what we were all discussing. He has a very off-the-wall style of humour and is a great cartoonist. Sunday, I met up with Stephanie at a Starbucks (one of about ten of them) in a place called Temecula; a compromise between us being up in the hills east of LA and her being down San Diego way. She's a really good artist, but she doesn't give herself enough credit. We chatted and reminisced about the olden days and our mutual friends whom she hasn't seen for a while. On the way down, Rob and I went through what passes for countryside around here - seems to be mainly hills and quarries with the occasional ranch or fishing hole thrown in, and isolated housing developments.
Saturday, meanwhile, involved seeing more of Orange County. We had lunch at a Mexican joint in Tustin called Jalapeños; but thankfully, the stuff they served was very mild. I had a chicken quesadilla, which is...uh...kinda like a pizza, except not, involving melted cheese. Very nice. We then drove through more of eastern Tustin and I saw Rob's school, and then made our way down through Irvine towards the University of California campus there. Along the way the road we were on went beside the railway, and I noticed there was no fencing along it like they do in Brisbane - I guess this is due to the fact that there's no electric gantries, but I still found it very odd. I also managed to snag some pictures of the old Tustin blimp hangars when we went past. We drove around and through the university - it's set up as a series of concentric rings - and then on to the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach. Which was closed. Rob was perplexed, and put it down to "funding cuts".
So, we drove on a bit further, down the coast to Laguna Beach. The place reminds me of a cross between Noosa and Coolum, in that it's a trendy kind of place with people living right up the hilltops with a nice beach and a road to it that goes right along the very coast. I noticed a big difference between their beaches and ours: as their lifeguard system is different to our own surf lifesaver system and they don't set up swimming areas, everyone positions themselves all along the beach instead of having clusters of people in front of the swimming areas followed by expanses of emptiness. So, there's people up and down the beach.
We left via the inland route, which weaves you through Laguna Canyon - I can see why everything gets called canyon around here, because the hills are so steep and they come right together at these narrow points where a road can get through. So, you drive along Route 133 from Laguna Beach through the wilderness, until you crest a hill and suddenly you're in downtown Irvine. You can catch glimpses of suburbia through the gaps in the hills, but it's a very odd change. We kept going past Irvine and joined the 241, which is the toll road through the hills to the east of Orange County - it goes so high in places that my ears popped, especially when we were on the last long downhill stretch to the 91 and Gypsum Canyon; this is what helps to create the traffic bottleneck through to Corona of any given afternoon. That night we had Applebee's, which is a sort of Sizzler-esque place but all table service. I had Fiesta Lime Chicken and some mozarella sticks - they ought to bring those things out to Australia at some time, because they are good.
Monday was, again, given over to exploring Orange County - Rob is a proud native of the OC, hence our going into that part of the world on multiple occasions. As we headed off around lunchtime, filling our bellies was our first port of call and we went to the South Coast Plaza shopping centre. Rob calls it a "luxury shopping mall", and I can see his point as there are all assortments of high-end international fashion names inside, such as Tiffany's, Cartier, Montblanc...so on and so forth. Fortunately, there is a moderately-priced carvery there, and I had a turkey sandwich. They put avocado on it, and apparently that's a very California thing to do - tastes good, too! We explored the place a bit, taking in all of the big name small shops and the McDonald's menu. It seems like they have only a couple of burgers the same as we do; they seemed to have a lot of Angus burgers as well, so either it was due to its location or else it's fairly standard that they have high-end Angus beef burgers as compared to the standard patties. I've yet to actually go into a McDonald's here; I'm having things like Applebee's and IHOP and In-n-Out Burger and all sorts of American delicacies instead of the standard one, so far.
One of the big video game companies, Blizzard, has its headquarters in the research park at the university, and, if the pictures are correct, they have a big 12-foot statue in their courtyard of an orc riding a wolf - virtual art becomes sculptural art. So, we went on the hunt for the company headquarters, and we drove around and around the non-descript office park until we gave up, orcless. The buildings there all seem to have the same numbers - there was more than one 131 for the same office park, which drove us mad. So, we went on to try the art museum in Newport Beach again, but they were still closed. At least this time there were people in the carpark, but it seems that they're closed until Sunday to set up for their next lot of exhibitions. Maybe we'll get there yet.
Two defeats under our belt, we drove back across Orange County to the Irvine Park. It's an area set aside for basically that purpose, and includes a miniature steam train ride and gentle hiking and the Orange County Zoo which seems to be mostly given over to horses for riding through the park, and a family of peacocks. We trekked out to the back portion of the park which has been kept in a more natural state - Rob said that this is what everything looked like before it all got paved over. Basically, dry hills covered in low scraggly vegetation with yellow wildflowers in the spring and dry wash creeks. Far more dry than around Brisbane. We then headed for home over the Anaheim Hills, and Rob talked about the fire that happened last November. Once we ran alongside the 91, you could see the scorch marks where the fire had just climbed the sides of the hills and into suburbia; there were also burnt out patches of median and other isolated spotfire places just from the blowing embers.
Somewhere in the middle of that, Sunday night, I think, we had IHOP. It stands for "International House of Pancakes" and, despite being there for dinner later in the evening, they still serve breakfast-style food; Rob's brother, Edward, basically had something that could pass for a typical hot breakfast. I had a chicken and mushroom crepe while Rob had something involving French toast - something I've yet to try over here.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Some Thursday some time ago...
The days are flying by and everything is all turning into one incoherent mush. Before that happens totally, I'll update stuff.
Thursday was the downtown LA and Hollywood day. It was a real pity that clouds had rolled in off the ocean so there was this layer of grey hovering just above everything - so much so, that when I was in Hollywood I couldn't see the famous sign. We started the day in Orange and drove up the I-5 into town. Along the way there was this old tire factory that's been converted into a shopping centre ('cos that's what you do here), but they've kept the rather unusual decor from when it was built: Babylonian friezes. Quite odd.
We came in from the eastern side of town after negotiating the big maze where four or five freeways all come together, and drove around the northern end of town, which is predominantly given over to their civic and cultural buildings. I thought our city hall was fairly grandiose until I saw LA's - its tower is still one of the tallest buildings in downtown, and the entire building is very imposing. We also went past the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which reminds me of stacks of papers being blown about by the wind; pictures are in the Flickr stream. LA's downtown doesn't have as high a concentration of skyscrapers as Brisbane does, and I found that to be quite odd as I would have expected that sort of thing for a city of LA's size, but then I remembered that there's all of these other centres scattered across the landscape; sometimes there's multi-storey buildings where there seems to be nothing else around them, particularly in Newport Beach and Irvine.
After doing a circuit of Union Station, we managed to score free parking at a place called Philippe's, a sandwich bar that's been operating for over 100 years. We went in there at first, saw the size of the lines, and decided to come back later (it was lunchtime, after all). Firstly, we walked through El Pueblo, which is the historical core of Los Angeles. They've set it up these days as a sort of tourist trap, especially as you have to walk practically single-file between the trinket stalls, but you come out the top at a park which seemed to be gearing up towards the Blessing of the Animals soon ("Bring Your Pets!" said a banner). There's also a bandstand where usually there's some sort of band playing, but there wasn't while we were there.
Next, we walked through Union Station. Rob calls it an Art Deco "temple to the train", and I have to agree with him. I'll be taking more photos of it when I leave LA in a few weeks, but it's got wonderful architecture and furnishings that make me drool - I love my Art Deco. We walked the entire length of the place and came out the back in the bus plaza, which is definitely more modern but has been done sensitively with the rest of Union Station in mind. Looming above the bus plaza is the LA transportation authority; an incredibly appropriate place to put it. It's a pity that the Metropolitan Water Board, when their building was built a few decades ago right next to the older part of the station, decided to just go with a typical modernist approach and it looks entirely out of place.
Then, we braved the LA Metro. It's a fairly recent innovation in LA and as such, is not as extensive nor as comprehensive as the London Underground, but it seems to do its job valiantly. We made our way down past the closed ticket booths to a vending machine - $5 for a day pass. Apparently, as I read on the screens while we waited for the train, unless you have a day pass or some other sort of ticket it's one ticket, one line; most odd. A train pulled up at the platform and we hopped on, only to be told a moment later by someone that the train had terminated and everyone needed to hop back off for a minute, and then we could get back on. I found out on our return to Union Station from the onboard PA system that the trains get a security check when they terminate. Foibles overcome, we caught the train two stops to Pershing Square, the heart of the downtown district.
We emerged from the station and I totally lost my sense of direction. My internal compass relies on shadows, and the problem with the northern hemisphere is that the sun goes around to the south in the middle of the day. Added to that was the fact that the buildings were obscuring the sun. I had no idea where I was - this is why I'm thankful for a local. We headed up towards Bunker Hill and the skyscrapers up there, notably the US Bank Tower (formerly the Central Library Tower), which is the tall sort of star-shaped/circular building you usually see in skyline shots of Los Angeles. I was very surprised to find this reasonably steep hill in the downtown, complete with alpine cablecar (not running due to refurbishment); I was under the impression that the whole area was all flat, but I suppose that's what helps those skyscrapers to stand out. Inside the building they had a sort of frieze which gave the full name of Los Angeles; unfortunately, I didn't have the presence of mind to record it, but it goes on and on and on and on in typical Spanish style. We did a loop around back to Pershing Square after climbing the Bunker Hill Steps next door to the US Bank Building - surprisingly steep for a short set of stairs - and going past the Biltmore Hotel. I found Pershing Square to be quite odd; I suppose it's sort of like Anzac Square back home in that it has various statues and the like, but there's all of these benches everywhere with umbrellas for people to sit down and eat under, but nowhere selling food that I could see.
We then ducked back down into the subway after I finally realised that the entrance of the station pointed south, and caught a Red Line train to Hollywood/Highland. They name a lot of their stations here after the intersections they're on, so it's actually the station on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue - in other words, central Hollywood. Fortunately, I remember reading about Hollywood in my Lonely Planet and I knew that Hollywood Boulevard goes east-west, so my compass was fine. The Metro station is part of a shopping centre that's absorbed some of the big name attractions, most notably the Chinese Theatre. This is where the movie stars go to have their footprints and handprints cast in cement for all time...er, well, at least the past 75 years as I did see Shirley Temple and the Marx Brothers. My shoes are bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger's loafers, and I did note Rex Harrison's green cement block. On top of this, there is the Walk of Fame, the pink stars on the Boulevard. We walked up to one end, crossed, went back down but only to about the halfway point, and then back up the other side to the Metro station - it must go on for two miles or so. Lots of famous names there, and the bigger, more famous (at least recently) people seem to congregate outside the theatres. Unfortunately, they didn't have my mother's hero, Nigel Bruce, but they did have Basil Rathbone. I didn't take any pictures in Hollywood, though if there were no clouds and I could have seen the sign I probably would have, but I figure these people have had enough photography in their lives. Also, across the road from the Chinese Theatre at the El Capitan, they were setting up for a movie premiere that night - real pity it was the Hannah Montana movie, so therefore Di$ney rubbish, but they had one half of the road closed and the rolls of red carpet were being set up, and people were already lining up mid-afternoon just to catch a glimpse of the cavalcade that evening. It's hard not to get caught up in the starglow there - we passed one man who goes around on crutches knelt down and cleaning the pink star of his favourite celebrity.
We returned to downtown via Metro and finally went into Philippe's for a late lunch: I had a french-dipped lamb sandwich and a lemonade. It was juicy and really satisfying; so much so that I don't think I had dinner that night.
And then we braved the traffic. Instead of going home via Orange County and the 91 Freeway through the bottleneck at Gypsum Canyon, we took a slightly longer route and took the I-10 east out of town, and then cannonballed down the Chino Hills on the 71. It took us about an hour and a half to go around 50 miles.
There's Thursday for you, after nearly a week. Let's see how long it takes to do the next couple of days...
Thursday was the downtown LA and Hollywood day. It was a real pity that clouds had rolled in off the ocean so there was this layer of grey hovering just above everything - so much so, that when I was in Hollywood I couldn't see the famous sign. We started the day in Orange and drove up the I-5 into town. Along the way there was this old tire factory that's been converted into a shopping centre ('cos that's what you do here), but they've kept the rather unusual decor from when it was built: Babylonian friezes. Quite odd.
We came in from the eastern side of town after negotiating the big maze where four or five freeways all come together, and drove around the northern end of town, which is predominantly given over to their civic and cultural buildings. I thought our city hall was fairly grandiose until I saw LA's - its tower is still one of the tallest buildings in downtown, and the entire building is very imposing. We also went past the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which reminds me of stacks of papers being blown about by the wind; pictures are in the Flickr stream. LA's downtown doesn't have as high a concentration of skyscrapers as Brisbane does, and I found that to be quite odd as I would have expected that sort of thing for a city of LA's size, but then I remembered that there's all of these other centres scattered across the landscape; sometimes there's multi-storey buildings where there seems to be nothing else around them, particularly in Newport Beach and Irvine.
After doing a circuit of Union Station, we managed to score free parking at a place called Philippe's, a sandwich bar that's been operating for over 100 years. We went in there at first, saw the size of the lines, and decided to come back later (it was lunchtime, after all). Firstly, we walked through El Pueblo, which is the historical core of Los Angeles. They've set it up these days as a sort of tourist trap, especially as you have to walk practically single-file between the trinket stalls, but you come out the top at a park which seemed to be gearing up towards the Blessing of the Animals soon ("Bring Your Pets!" said a banner). There's also a bandstand where usually there's some sort of band playing, but there wasn't while we were there.
Next, we walked through Union Station. Rob calls it an Art Deco "temple to the train", and I have to agree with him. I'll be taking more photos of it when I leave LA in a few weeks, but it's got wonderful architecture and furnishings that make me drool - I love my Art Deco. We walked the entire length of the place and came out the back in the bus plaza, which is definitely more modern but has been done sensitively with the rest of Union Station in mind. Looming above the bus plaza is the LA transportation authority; an incredibly appropriate place to put it. It's a pity that the Metropolitan Water Board, when their building was built a few decades ago right next to the older part of the station, decided to just go with a typical modernist approach and it looks entirely out of place.
Then, we braved the LA Metro. It's a fairly recent innovation in LA and as such, is not as extensive nor as comprehensive as the London Underground, but it seems to do its job valiantly. We made our way down past the closed ticket booths to a vending machine - $5 for a day pass. Apparently, as I read on the screens while we waited for the train, unless you have a day pass or some other sort of ticket it's one ticket, one line; most odd. A train pulled up at the platform and we hopped on, only to be told a moment later by someone that the train had terminated and everyone needed to hop back off for a minute, and then we could get back on. I found out on our return to Union Station from the onboard PA system that the trains get a security check when they terminate. Foibles overcome, we caught the train two stops to Pershing Square, the heart of the downtown district.
We emerged from the station and I totally lost my sense of direction. My internal compass relies on shadows, and the problem with the northern hemisphere is that the sun goes around to the south in the middle of the day. Added to that was the fact that the buildings were obscuring the sun. I had no idea where I was - this is why I'm thankful for a local. We headed up towards Bunker Hill and the skyscrapers up there, notably the US Bank Tower (formerly the Central Library Tower), which is the tall sort of star-shaped/circular building you usually see in skyline shots of Los Angeles. I was very surprised to find this reasonably steep hill in the downtown, complete with alpine cablecar (not running due to refurbishment); I was under the impression that the whole area was all flat, but I suppose that's what helps those skyscrapers to stand out. Inside the building they had a sort of frieze which gave the full name of Los Angeles; unfortunately, I didn't have the presence of mind to record it, but it goes on and on and on and on in typical Spanish style. We did a loop around back to Pershing Square after climbing the Bunker Hill Steps next door to the US Bank Building - surprisingly steep for a short set of stairs - and going past the Biltmore Hotel. I found Pershing Square to be quite odd; I suppose it's sort of like Anzac Square back home in that it has various statues and the like, but there's all of these benches everywhere with umbrellas for people to sit down and eat under, but nowhere selling food that I could see.
We then ducked back down into the subway after I finally realised that the entrance of the station pointed south, and caught a Red Line train to Hollywood/Highland. They name a lot of their stations here after the intersections they're on, so it's actually the station on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue - in other words, central Hollywood. Fortunately, I remember reading about Hollywood in my Lonely Planet and I knew that Hollywood Boulevard goes east-west, so my compass was fine. The Metro station is part of a shopping centre that's absorbed some of the big name attractions, most notably the Chinese Theatre. This is where the movie stars go to have their footprints and handprints cast in cement for all time...er, well, at least the past 75 years as I did see Shirley Temple and the Marx Brothers. My shoes are bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger's loafers, and I did note Rex Harrison's green cement block. On top of this, there is the Walk of Fame, the pink stars on the Boulevard. We walked up to one end, crossed, went back down but only to about the halfway point, and then back up the other side to the Metro station - it must go on for two miles or so. Lots of famous names there, and the bigger, more famous (at least recently) people seem to congregate outside the theatres. Unfortunately, they didn't have my mother's hero, Nigel Bruce, but they did have Basil Rathbone. I didn't take any pictures in Hollywood, though if there were no clouds and I could have seen the sign I probably would have, but I figure these people have had enough photography in their lives. Also, across the road from the Chinese Theatre at the El Capitan, they were setting up for a movie premiere that night - real pity it was the Hannah Montana movie, so therefore Di$ney rubbish, but they had one half of the road closed and the rolls of red carpet were being set up, and people were already lining up mid-afternoon just to catch a glimpse of the cavalcade that evening. It's hard not to get caught up in the starglow there - we passed one man who goes around on crutches knelt down and cleaning the pink star of his favourite celebrity.
We returned to downtown via Metro and finally went into Philippe's for a late lunch: I had a french-dipped lamb sandwich and a lemonade. It was juicy and really satisfying; so much so that I don't think I had dinner that night.
And then we braved the traffic. Instead of going home via Orange County and the 91 Freeway through the bottleneck at Gypsum Canyon, we took a slightly longer route and took the I-10 east out of town, and then cannonballed down the Chino Hills on the 71. It took us about an hour and a half to go around 50 miles.
There's Thursday for you, after nearly a week. Let's see how long it takes to do the next couple of days...
Saturday, April 4, 2009
A busy few days...
The danger with falling behind and having a lot to say is that I don't really have the time to say it in. It's taken me about 24 hours to write this, off and on, and this is just for Wednesday - it's now Saturday night! Wednesday was perhaps the biggest of the days I've had so far, and Thursday was pretty sizable, but thankfully Friday and Saturday were relatively quiet. I'll probably combine everything else into my next post - otherwise you'll be reading this one for hours!
On Tuesday night, I had my first American culinary experience. It's called In-N-Out Burger. Wow. It's like a burger bar and most places have only a couple of tables, a counter and a drive-thru. What's better is that it's cheap (burger, fries and drink for under $5) and it tastes really good. I had a cheeseburger from there and the cheese was all melted over the meat and it had onion rings and lettuce (peeled from the lettuce by hand, apparently) and a slice of tomato. If I remember correctly, the burger on its own is about $1.70. For a good burger like that, it's really good value. I'll probably have another one tonight. I see myself putting on a kilo or two...
On Wednesday, I got to see more of Orange County. Unfortunately, as it's been a good 48 hours since I travelled its roads and highways, I may not remember everything. And, unfortunately, I didn't have presence of mind to photograph everything - I'm not as quick as my mother in that regard.
Rob and I started the day in Orange, which is perhaps not the main centre of the OC - I believe Santa Ana and Anaheim contend one another for that honour - but it's still one of the big locations as it has some shopping centres and a science museum. After taking care of some business there, we drove past the former Tustin Air Station, where giant concrete dome hangars remain where they used to store blimps back in the 40's and 50's - apparently they were the largest buildings in terms of floorspace in the world at one point. However, the land is getting redeveloped and as people don't want to live near giant concrete monstrosities, they'll probably get knocked down - sad, as I think they're quite majestic. Fortunately, we went past here a few days later and you can appreciate the size of them from the photos.
We then followed Jamboree Boulevard all the way to its end in Newport Beach and hung a left to follow the coastline, past all the yacht clubs to Corona del Mar and its little nature preserve cove. We parked the car near "Inspiration Point" and walked down to the beach - here I took a good number of photos as the place is quite beautiful. I stood on the shore and Rob and I joked that here was where the water ended, and my home was that-a-way. On a clear day, you can apparently see all the way to Catalina Island from there: I only got a line on the horizon. It was really quite nice, especially if, according to Rob, we were able to park in the place an artist usually sets himself up in to paint the view.
We then drove back past the yacht clubs and hung a left to go onto Balboa Island. It's a tourist villagy kind of place, full of shops selling stuff you don't need or have any use for, but it's also retained a bit of that fishing village feel with its narrow streets. Charming would be the word some people describe it by, but as I noticed the gum trees and paperbarks lining the main street, it didn't quite have that feel for me - more like shabby chic. Yes, gum trees - I suppose they were planted because they're exotic. We stood at the edge of one side of the channel and looked across to the other side - there's even a small vehicular ferry of about three cars' worth plying it - and it reminded me somewhat of the Breakfast Creek Wharf back home, but with a ferris wheel. They love their amusements here in the States - seems like any place worth its salt has a wheel or a merry-go-round - er, sorry, carousel.
We then drove lunchwards, which was in nearby Costa Mesa at a Japanese market called Mitsuwa. After driving around for a bit to find a park in one of the extremely narrow spaces for their extremely narrow Japanese cars, we went inside and went to an eatery there where Rob's friend, John, works. We sat at its bar arrangement and kept exchanging witty banter with him and his chef co-worker. I had a cream of mushroom omelette with some sort of rice thing underneath - it was a reddy colour - while Rob had an eggplant one. Apparently he wasn't a fan of the rice, but I cleaned my plate and finished it off with a latte from the attached coffee-and-cake shop - ah! Real coffee!
Lunch finished, we drove back along the 55 towards the north of Orange so that I could do some shopping and I went to that most American of institutions, Walmart. It's a bit like the Hypermarket back home, except far, far, far more ubiquitous - though, apparently, in Southern California you're more likely to find a Target or some other store, seeing as we drove halfway back to Corona just to go to one. I bought a few things that I didn't want to take on the plane with me, and another thing that would be in short supply back home: a Rand McNally road atlas of the whole US. As I write this, I'm doing what my parents have done in the past and coloured in the freeways and roads I've been down on the big Los Angeles map it has here. Los Angeles isn't so much a city, but a megalopolis divided into its various components - it takes up the whole double page of the book and even then I don't think every place at the extremities is covered.
With most of my shopping done save a few items, we went to fill up Rob's car. The system is quite different from back home, where everybody pays for their fuel first, and then fills up. Apparently, the pumps shut off at the amount you've already paid for. Seeing as we've filled up at Arco both times, they also have the type of fuel you want to put in - naturally, the higher the octane, the less fuel you're going to get because you've already paid for it. I don't know how Americans can completely fill their cars, though, without doing rough calculations and all that sort of thing beforehand.
Rob received a call that his tax return had returned, and he had to go to his accountant (seems like H&R Block are multinationals) and pick it up. We drove out into nearby Tustin and went past where Rob used to live when he was a child - not exactly a well-to-do neighbourhood, but not shabby at all, and fairly old as things go in Los Angeles. I guess a fair comparison would be somewhere like the western parts of Ashgrove as it was almost up in the hills.
, we went down to the main shopping centre in Orange which is, funnily enough, called Main Place and, even more funnily, is owned by our own Westfield. It has the standard Westfield fare that all of ours seem to have: ads for gift cards, banners from the ceiling that seem to serve no other purpose than remind you you're in a Westfield shopping centre, and that so-clean-it's-empty feel. It was almost like coming home, except for the fact we were there for one particular item - my phone. It's a Nokia 1680 and it's on a prepaid deal with T-Mobile, which is a really, really good deal as I only pay $1 on the days I use it for the service, 10c a minute to call or text, and I think 5c to pick up or open messages: yes, they charge you here for the privilege of owning a mobile phone, rather than punish the caller, especially as the phones are integrated into the local area codes. T-Mobile is pronounced like the petrol company and I remarked to Rob as we're leaving and he laughed at my pronunciation that it was like the Inter-Continental Ballistic Prayer Books the country has. He then said, as a child, he was confused as to why they kept talking about these dangerous missals, but the term over here for the books now is apparently "missalette" for that very reason.
Speaking of missals, and after going to the Barnes and Noble across the street for an address book and sketchbook, we went to the nearby Crystal Cathedral, but not before taking a detour to go around the Anaheim Angels stadium (I'm sorry, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim). I could see it getting closer as we snaked through the blocks towards it and, for a piece of post-modern religious space, it's quite impressive (except for the 70's office tower right beside it). The whole thing is covered in reflective glass, and its tower (the correct term of which I forget) stands off to one side with a little marble chapel underneath. The photos are in the Flickr stream and it's worth a look. The whole thing seems to be aimed at Christianity in general and is a neutral ground - which, of course, means it's would be evangelical happy-clappy "wave your hands in the air if you love Jesus" Christianity. Also, all around it are plaque-like tiles with a verse of the Bible and somebody's name on it - a benefactor, I should think - and they were getting ready for their big production, as Rob called it, "The Glory of Easter". Apparently they even go as far as having angels fly in on zipwires during it. Christianity is big business in the USA...
With the shrine to the spiritual visited, we went to the shrine of the secular: Disneyland. Despite not going into the park, I say that because Disneyland isn't just the place surrounded by the walls and you pay money to go in - of which there's two parks, and soon to be a third as a waterpark. It takes up lots of city blocks for things like the convention centre (which doubles as an airport in movies), hotels, a shopping district, a parking lot with its own offramp from the I-5, all looking very lush and presentable and so very, very neat. We did the full circuit around the central Disneyland block and I'm partly disappointed because I thought it would be somewhat bigger, and you can't see the Magic Kingdom from the road outside - you can see Matterhorn, though.
I was very surprised, as we drove back down the I-5, to find that all of the places are relatively near one another - Rob pointed them out. They've put the main touristy part of the OC fairly close together, and it is quite convenient, so long as you have a car. I was also surprised by how the whole place is so spread out, yet things seem so close and that's due to the freeways. I was soon eating my words, though, as we ended up in a traffic jam on the way back to Corona. Apparently it's the only way through the hills to the Inland Empire for miles in either direction, so everyone who works in Orange County and lives there uses it. It's so bad that they've set up toll lanes, the amount of toll changing depending on how congested it is, anywhere from around $2.75 up to $10.
I had Chinese for dinner - orange chicken on fried rice. I don't think orange is all that common around Brisbane as you're more likely to get lemon, but I think I prefer it more, now.
Stay tuned for another day...perhaps in a few days...
On Tuesday night, I had my first American culinary experience. It's called In-N-Out Burger. Wow. It's like a burger bar and most places have only a couple of tables, a counter and a drive-thru. What's better is that it's cheap (burger, fries and drink for under $5) and it tastes really good. I had a cheeseburger from there and the cheese was all melted over the meat and it had onion rings and lettuce (peeled from the lettuce by hand, apparently) and a slice of tomato. If I remember correctly, the burger on its own is about $1.70. For a good burger like that, it's really good value. I'll probably have another one tonight. I see myself putting on a kilo or two...
On Wednesday, I got to see more of Orange County. Unfortunately, as it's been a good 48 hours since I travelled its roads and highways, I may not remember everything. And, unfortunately, I didn't have presence of mind to photograph everything - I'm not as quick as my mother in that regard.
Rob and I started the day in Orange, which is perhaps not the main centre of the OC - I believe Santa Ana and Anaheim contend one another for that honour - but it's still one of the big locations as it has some shopping centres and a science museum. After taking care of some business there, we drove past the former Tustin Air Station, where giant concrete dome hangars remain where they used to store blimps back in the 40's and 50's - apparently they were the largest buildings in terms of floorspace in the world at one point. However, the land is getting redeveloped and as people don't want to live near giant concrete monstrosities, they'll probably get knocked down - sad, as I think they're quite majestic. Fortunately, we went past here a few days later and you can appreciate the size of them from the photos.
We then followed Jamboree Boulevard all the way to its end in Newport Beach and hung a left to follow the coastline, past all the yacht clubs to Corona del Mar and its little nature preserve cove. We parked the car near "Inspiration Point" and walked down to the beach - here I took a good number of photos as the place is quite beautiful. I stood on the shore and Rob and I joked that here was where the water ended, and my home was that-a-way. On a clear day, you can apparently see all the way to Catalina Island from there: I only got a line on the horizon. It was really quite nice, especially if, according to Rob, we were able to park in the place an artist usually sets himself up in to paint the view.
We then drove back past the yacht clubs and hung a left to go onto Balboa Island. It's a tourist villagy kind of place, full of shops selling stuff you don't need or have any use for, but it's also retained a bit of that fishing village feel with its narrow streets. Charming would be the word some people describe it by, but as I noticed the gum trees and paperbarks lining the main street, it didn't quite have that feel for me - more like shabby chic. Yes, gum trees - I suppose they were planted because they're exotic. We stood at the edge of one side of the channel and looked across to the other side - there's even a small vehicular ferry of about three cars' worth plying it - and it reminded me somewhat of the Breakfast Creek Wharf back home, but with a ferris wheel. They love their amusements here in the States - seems like any place worth its salt has a wheel or a merry-go-round - er, sorry, carousel.
We then drove lunchwards, which was in nearby Costa Mesa at a Japanese market called Mitsuwa. After driving around for a bit to find a park in one of the extremely narrow spaces for their extremely narrow Japanese cars, we went inside and went to an eatery there where Rob's friend, John, works. We sat at its bar arrangement and kept exchanging witty banter with him and his chef co-worker. I had a cream of mushroom omelette with some sort of rice thing underneath - it was a reddy colour - while Rob had an eggplant one. Apparently he wasn't a fan of the rice, but I cleaned my plate and finished it off with a latte from the attached coffee-and-cake shop - ah! Real coffee!
Lunch finished, we drove back along the 55 towards the north of Orange so that I could do some shopping and I went to that most American of institutions, Walmart. It's a bit like the Hypermarket back home, except far, far, far more ubiquitous - though, apparently, in Southern California you're more likely to find a Target or some other store, seeing as we drove halfway back to Corona just to go to one. I bought a few things that I didn't want to take on the plane with me, and another thing that would be in short supply back home: a Rand McNally road atlas of the whole US. As I write this, I'm doing what my parents have done in the past and coloured in the freeways and roads I've been down on the big Los Angeles map it has here. Los Angeles isn't so much a city, but a megalopolis divided into its various components - it takes up the whole double page of the book and even then I don't think every place at the extremities is covered.
With most of my shopping done save a few items, we went to fill up Rob's car. The system is quite different from back home, where everybody pays for their fuel first, and then fills up. Apparently, the pumps shut off at the amount you've already paid for. Seeing as we've filled up at Arco both times, they also have the type of fuel you want to put in - naturally, the higher the octane, the less fuel you're going to get because you've already paid for it. I don't know how Americans can completely fill their cars, though, without doing rough calculations and all that sort of thing beforehand.
Rob received a call that his tax return had returned, and he had to go to his accountant (seems like H&R Block are multinationals) and pick it up. We drove out into nearby Tustin and went past where Rob used to live when he was a child - not exactly a well-to-do neighbourhood, but not shabby at all, and fairly old as things go in Los Angeles. I guess a fair comparison would be somewhere like the western parts of Ashgrove as it was almost up in the hills.
, we went down to the main shopping centre in Orange which is, funnily enough, called Main Place and, even more funnily, is owned by our own Westfield. It has the standard Westfield fare that all of ours seem to have: ads for gift cards, banners from the ceiling that seem to serve no other purpose than remind you you're in a Westfield shopping centre, and that so-clean-it's-empty feel. It was almost like coming home, except for the fact we were there for one particular item - my phone. It's a Nokia 1680 and it's on a prepaid deal with T-Mobile, which is a really, really good deal as I only pay $1 on the days I use it for the service, 10c a minute to call or text, and I think 5c to pick up or open messages: yes, they charge you here for the privilege of owning a mobile phone, rather than punish the caller, especially as the phones are integrated into the local area codes. T-Mobile is pronounced like the petrol company and I remarked to Rob as we're leaving and he laughed at my pronunciation that it was like the Inter-Continental Ballistic Prayer Books the country has. He then said, as a child, he was confused as to why they kept talking about these dangerous missals, but the term over here for the books now is apparently "missalette" for that very reason.
Speaking of missals, and after going to the Barnes and Noble across the street for an address book and sketchbook, we went to the nearby Crystal Cathedral, but not before taking a detour to go around the Anaheim Angels stadium (I'm sorry, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim). I could see it getting closer as we snaked through the blocks towards it and, for a piece of post-modern religious space, it's quite impressive (except for the 70's office tower right beside it). The whole thing is covered in reflective glass, and its tower (the correct term of which I forget) stands off to one side with a little marble chapel underneath. The photos are in the Flickr stream and it's worth a look. The whole thing seems to be aimed at Christianity in general and is a neutral ground - which, of course, means it's would be evangelical happy-clappy "wave your hands in the air if you love Jesus" Christianity. Also, all around it are plaque-like tiles with a verse of the Bible and somebody's name on it - a benefactor, I should think - and they were getting ready for their big production, as Rob called it, "The Glory of Easter". Apparently they even go as far as having angels fly in on zipwires during it. Christianity is big business in the USA...
With the shrine to the spiritual visited, we went to the shrine of the secular: Disneyland. Despite not going into the park, I say that because Disneyland isn't just the place surrounded by the walls and you pay money to go in - of which there's two parks, and soon to be a third as a waterpark. It takes up lots of city blocks for things like the convention centre (which doubles as an airport in movies), hotels, a shopping district, a parking lot with its own offramp from the I-5, all looking very lush and presentable and so very, very neat. We did the full circuit around the central Disneyland block and I'm partly disappointed because I thought it would be somewhat bigger, and you can't see the Magic Kingdom from the road outside - you can see Matterhorn, though.
I was very surprised, as we drove back down the I-5, to find that all of the places are relatively near one another - Rob pointed them out. They've put the main touristy part of the OC fairly close together, and it is quite convenient, so long as you have a car. I was also surprised by how the whole place is so spread out, yet things seem so close and that's due to the freeways. I was soon eating my words, though, as we ended up in a traffic jam on the way back to Corona. Apparently it's the only way through the hills to the Inland Empire for miles in either direction, so everyone who works in Orange County and lives there uses it. It's so bad that they've set up toll lanes, the amount of toll changing depending on how congested it is, anywhere from around $2.75 up to $10.
I had Chinese for dinner - orange chicken on fried rice. I don't think orange is all that common around Brisbane as you're more likely to get lemon, but I think I prefer it more, now.
Stay tuned for another day...perhaps in a few days...
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
So, here I am in sunny South California, after many years of working things out and a long, stressful flight. Good number of things to talk about.
I believe it was Confucius who said that all journeys begin with the first step, and that first step was the short taxi ride to Eagle Junction. Pity about the rain, though. Luckily, my ride timed itself really well as I went and bought my ticket and the Airtrain arrived a minute later. The train goes through the construction site for the airport tunnel, so it will be interesting to see what happens there in eight months' time upon my return.
I arrived at the airport and checked in...fortunately my bag was a few hundred grammes under the 23kg limit...past that I think it's $50 per kilo if what I heard from a nearby passenger in-flight is true. Anyway, I hung out in the upstairs part of the airport for a little bit since I had three hours to kill, and decided to try the airport wi-fi to let my American friends know I was at the airport and have a chat. It would have cost me $13.20 to use the wi-fi! That's a bit steep...but then again, everything that involves the Brisbane Airport Corporation is expensive. I tried using a kiosk later on, but I don't think it worked properly.
So, wi-fi plans scuttled, I then went downstairs and through customs - they've changed the layout since I went to Europe over a decade ago. But the customs staff were all very friendly - even one of the security guards jokes about the lack of lights. They came on just before I sent my stuff through the X-ray scanner, so I'm not sure what happened there. With customs cleared, I hung out in the departure lounge and began my pre-flight preparations: an orange juice from the newsagent-type place, sitting down, walking around exploring, going down each arm of the terminal to look at the planes (Eva, Etihad, Niugini and I think there was a Singapore as well), drinking peppermint tea from The Coffee Club (note for my American readers: The Coffee Club is the Brisbane version of Starbucks), and then buying my flight supplies including, surprise surprise, orange juice. The problem with that last purchase, having bought my taxi ride with my $20 note, is that I needed to eftpos it, but they had a minimum purchase of $10 to do that. So, on top of my mints and orange juice, I bought two packets of snakes. Yes, I had snakes on a plane.
Now that I think of it, I was going to eftpos the taxi to the airport and pay for the one home...ah well, I think I'll do it in reverse.
When I had my peppermint tea, I put on these anti-motion sickness bands I got with my neck pillow and eyemask. They have these beads on them you're supposed to put in a specific location on your wrist...I got the right wrist fine, but I don't think I got the left, and I think I paid for it later.
I then went down to my gate and went through the security checkpoint they had set up there (after totally forgetting that my snakes on a plane could be suspicious given the attention the security guard gave them...). I went and took my seat, and then we were told that our flight would be delayed due to "industrial action" from the baggage handlers. Apparently they just simply walked off the job. Luckily we had checked in before they went on strike, but you can see the skeleton crew loading the bags. I had heard another flight get delayed by a number of hours due to the snap strike, so I was worried that I would be leaving many hours later and since I was past security and didn't trust the internet kiosks and did not want to spend $13.20 on wi-fi, I waited until they made their second announcement half an hour later. Fortunately it was good news, and we were right to board. So, we were only going to be half an hour late, not too much trouble since I told Rob, my friend picking me up in LA, to arrive half an hour later than my intended arrival anyway.
So, we boarded and took off, and I felt the finest I have ever been before a take-off. We wheeled around the city - I was on the port side of the plane and, due to the cloud, I didn't get to see much until we were over the northern suburbs. And we flew on towards the night, over New Caledonia and what I suspect is part of Vanuatu. You can see the photos I took from the plane here. I was also quite lucky that the seats beside me weren't occupied, though one of the three travelers in the row behind me moved forward, and we kinda shared the seat between us.
It was really odd that our menu consisted of lunch followed by breakfast, but perhaps that is how the trouble began. I was really all well and fine until I tried to sleep. It wasn't so much the fact that I could not get to sleep because of timezones and everything, but because of everything going on around me. The people sitting behind me were stewing in alcohol and the woman directly behind me had broken volume control set somewhere around the loud range, there were some kids who could not get to sleep and, of course, I could hear them especially when they started fighting, and there was a toddler who would cry at the slightest shake of the plane from the turbulence, which was often. So, with this lack of sleep, and the chicken parmigiana I had for lunch-dinner, and maybe the hot chocolate I had before I went to sleep (should have gone the peppermint tea, but it came out of a Cadbury Purple™ jug, so I could not resist), I was ill.
Violently ill.
I was fine while I tried to sleep, but once I woke up properly - maybe it was the smell of the eggs in the hot breakfast option that started it - it all began. I took one look at the continental breakfast option as it sat before me and that did it for me as well. Could not even bear to open the orange juice. Could not even think about food. So, it sat uneaten for a while, before I handed it back, rather sadly.
We landed and then, because I had to do some taking-care-of-myself, I ended up near the back of the queue. A queue full of passengers from the same 747. But, they managed to process us reasonably quickly - fortunate, as I thought I would have to sit down before I could get through and thus attract undue attention and leave the queue entirely. I was really worried about this part of the trip as it was the gatekeepers who would make or break my plans. To be honest, I'm really surprised by how quickly they sped me through; the customs official looked at my form and went, "Yep" and waved me through. The border security guy took a little longer, of course, and gave me the six month stamp on my I-94 form. I was expecting this to happen and I will have to get in touch with the immigration office to extend it, but that will have to happen somewhat closer to the time.
Once through and out the door, I looked around for Rob, but could not see him. So I waited a little while. Then, I went and asked the lady at the traveller's aid desk if there was a change machine around so I could change a bill for the phone as I couldn't see any vending machines around. To my surprise and delight, she gets out her purse and gives me four of her quarters. With much thanks, I call Rob...and get his messagebank. So I leave a message and wait around a little longer. I then open my laptop and try out the wi-fi there - $5.99 US for all day access. Much better deal than Brisbane, so I took it on my debit card (even with the currency exchange fee I won't be charged $13.20), and tried to see if something had happened and he left me an e-mail. No e-mail. Tried to get on the instant messenger he uses, but it would not connect - guess there's some mutual disagreement going on there between the messenger service and the wi-fi provider. So I waited a little longer, still feeling ill, and then I start to feel okay enough to walk around a bit. So I do a few times, sit, walk around some more, sit some more, and then finally Rob shows up with a trolley in tow for my luggage about an hour and a half after I came out of customs - didn't feel that long, though, my sense of time was completely warped. Apparently Qantas also lands at some other terminal and he went there by mistake and had the whole terminal looking for me. Oh my.
So, I went off with Rob, and threw my bag on the back seat of his Honda Accord coupe. I kinda regret that decision now because my camera was in there, locked up, and since Rob did as I asked him a few weeks before to keep me out in the sunshine for a bit so my body clock could adjust, we went and saw some sights. I was feeling too unwell to truly appreciate everything I saw, and too unwell to fight with my bag in the back seat. Which is a pity, because I saw:
- The Queen Mary
- Downtown Long Beach
- Huntington Beach (it's longer than Long Beach and the road runs right beside it all the way)
- Newport Beach (a ritzy kinda place)
- Rob's work (he had to call in to drop something off, but the first time we tried they were all at lunch)
- Irvine and its Spectrum Mall.
When we first pulled off the freeway into Irvine, I noted how everything looked pretty. "Keeping up appearances", I said, and Rob replied with "Half the city budget goes into doing that here". We went to the Spectrum Mall, which is basically an outdoor shopping centre, the first of its kind in the world (apparently...), which, when I noted some extensions, Rob said was "Yep, an excuse for more beige". I was still feeling quite out of it, but after sitting down for a little while there, I worked out what that smell was that had been following me around: the chicken parmiagana. I don't think it was cooked properly and it was just sitting there in my stomach.
Fortunately, we headed to Rob's place after he dropped in at work (with me thinking for a little while I'd need to use my travel insurance already and go to a hospital - fortunately this has not happened) and I crashed for a few hours. I felt a bit better after I woke up - I think it was sleep I really needed more than anything. I then met the rest of his family who are staying here - his brother and his father - watched some TV, uploaded my photos to Flickr, chatted, and then went to bed. This morning I felt a lot better, but I haven't really done anything today. It's for the better as I'm still recovering, even now as I type this up.
And that's it so far. It's taken me nearly all day to write this, on and off. I think it'll be easier for me to update later on as I'll probably be only doing one day at a time instead of three.
I believe it was Confucius who said that all journeys begin with the first step, and that first step was the short taxi ride to Eagle Junction. Pity about the rain, though. Luckily, my ride timed itself really well as I went and bought my ticket and the Airtrain arrived a minute later. The train goes through the construction site for the airport tunnel, so it will be interesting to see what happens there in eight months' time upon my return.
I arrived at the airport and checked in...fortunately my bag was a few hundred grammes under the 23kg limit...past that I think it's $50 per kilo if what I heard from a nearby passenger in-flight is true. Anyway, I hung out in the upstairs part of the airport for a little bit since I had three hours to kill, and decided to try the airport wi-fi to let my American friends know I was at the airport and have a chat. It would have cost me $13.20 to use the wi-fi! That's a bit steep...but then again, everything that involves the Brisbane Airport Corporation is expensive. I tried using a kiosk later on, but I don't think it worked properly.
So, wi-fi plans scuttled, I then went downstairs and through customs - they've changed the layout since I went to Europe over a decade ago. But the customs staff were all very friendly - even one of the security guards jokes about the lack of lights. They came on just before I sent my stuff through the X-ray scanner, so I'm not sure what happened there. With customs cleared, I hung out in the departure lounge and began my pre-flight preparations: an orange juice from the newsagent-type place, sitting down, walking around exploring, going down each arm of the terminal to look at the planes (Eva, Etihad, Niugini and I think there was a Singapore as well), drinking peppermint tea from The Coffee Club (note for my American readers: The Coffee Club is the Brisbane version of Starbucks), and then buying my flight supplies including, surprise surprise, orange juice. The problem with that last purchase, having bought my taxi ride with my $20 note, is that I needed to eftpos it, but they had a minimum purchase of $10 to do that. So, on top of my mints and orange juice, I bought two packets of snakes. Yes, I had snakes on a plane.
Now that I think of it, I was going to eftpos the taxi to the airport and pay for the one home...ah well, I think I'll do it in reverse.
When I had my peppermint tea, I put on these anti-motion sickness bands I got with my neck pillow and eyemask. They have these beads on them you're supposed to put in a specific location on your wrist...I got the right wrist fine, but I don't think I got the left, and I think I paid for it later.
I then went down to my gate and went through the security checkpoint they had set up there (after totally forgetting that my snakes on a plane could be suspicious given the attention the security guard gave them...). I went and took my seat, and then we were told that our flight would be delayed due to "industrial action" from the baggage handlers. Apparently they just simply walked off the job. Luckily we had checked in before they went on strike, but you can see the skeleton crew loading the bags. I had heard another flight get delayed by a number of hours due to the snap strike, so I was worried that I would be leaving many hours later and since I was past security and didn't trust the internet kiosks and did not want to spend $13.20 on wi-fi, I waited until they made their second announcement half an hour later. Fortunately it was good news, and we were right to board. So, we were only going to be half an hour late, not too much trouble since I told Rob, my friend picking me up in LA, to arrive half an hour later than my intended arrival anyway.
So, we boarded and took off, and I felt the finest I have ever been before a take-off. We wheeled around the city - I was on the port side of the plane and, due to the cloud, I didn't get to see much until we were over the northern suburbs. And we flew on towards the night, over New Caledonia and what I suspect is part of Vanuatu. You can see the photos I took from the plane here. I was also quite lucky that the seats beside me weren't occupied, though one of the three travelers in the row behind me moved forward, and we kinda shared the seat between us.
It was really odd that our menu consisted of lunch followed by breakfast, but perhaps that is how the trouble began. I was really all well and fine until I tried to sleep. It wasn't so much the fact that I could not get to sleep because of timezones and everything, but because of everything going on around me. The people sitting behind me were stewing in alcohol and the woman directly behind me had broken volume control set somewhere around the loud range, there were some kids who could not get to sleep and, of course, I could hear them especially when they started fighting, and there was a toddler who would cry at the slightest shake of the plane from the turbulence, which was often. So, with this lack of sleep, and the chicken parmigiana I had for lunch-dinner, and maybe the hot chocolate I had before I went to sleep (should have gone the peppermint tea, but it came out of a Cadbury Purple™ jug, so I could not resist), I was ill.
Violently ill.
I was fine while I tried to sleep, but once I woke up properly - maybe it was the smell of the eggs in the hot breakfast option that started it - it all began. I took one look at the continental breakfast option as it sat before me and that did it for me as well. Could not even bear to open the orange juice. Could not even think about food. So, it sat uneaten for a while, before I handed it back, rather sadly.
We landed and then, because I had to do some taking-care-of-myself, I ended up near the back of the queue. A queue full of passengers from the same 747. But, they managed to process us reasonably quickly - fortunate, as I thought I would have to sit down before I could get through and thus attract undue attention and leave the queue entirely. I was really worried about this part of the trip as it was the gatekeepers who would make or break my plans. To be honest, I'm really surprised by how quickly they sped me through; the customs official looked at my form and went, "Yep" and waved me through. The border security guy took a little longer, of course, and gave me the six month stamp on my I-94 form. I was expecting this to happen and I will have to get in touch with the immigration office to extend it, but that will have to happen somewhat closer to the time.
Once through and out the door, I looked around for Rob, but could not see him. So I waited a little while. Then, I went and asked the lady at the traveller's aid desk if there was a change machine around so I could change a bill for the phone as I couldn't see any vending machines around. To my surprise and delight, she gets out her purse and gives me four of her quarters. With much thanks, I call Rob...and get his messagebank. So I leave a message and wait around a little longer. I then open my laptop and try out the wi-fi there - $5.99 US for all day access. Much better deal than Brisbane, so I took it on my debit card (even with the currency exchange fee I won't be charged $13.20), and tried to see if something had happened and he left me an e-mail. No e-mail. Tried to get on the instant messenger he uses, but it would not connect - guess there's some mutual disagreement going on there between the messenger service and the wi-fi provider. So I waited a little longer, still feeling ill, and then I start to feel okay enough to walk around a bit. So I do a few times, sit, walk around some more, sit some more, and then finally Rob shows up with a trolley in tow for my luggage about an hour and a half after I came out of customs - didn't feel that long, though, my sense of time was completely warped. Apparently Qantas also lands at some other terminal and he went there by mistake and had the whole terminal looking for me. Oh my.
So, I went off with Rob, and threw my bag on the back seat of his Honda Accord coupe. I kinda regret that decision now because my camera was in there, locked up, and since Rob did as I asked him a few weeks before to keep me out in the sunshine for a bit so my body clock could adjust, we went and saw some sights. I was feeling too unwell to truly appreciate everything I saw, and too unwell to fight with my bag in the back seat. Which is a pity, because I saw:
- The Queen Mary
- Downtown Long Beach
- Huntington Beach (it's longer than Long Beach and the road runs right beside it all the way)
- Newport Beach (a ritzy kinda place)
- Rob's work (he had to call in to drop something off, but the first time we tried they were all at lunch)
- Irvine and its Spectrum Mall.
When we first pulled off the freeway into Irvine, I noted how everything looked pretty. "Keeping up appearances", I said, and Rob replied with "Half the city budget goes into doing that here". We went to the Spectrum Mall, which is basically an outdoor shopping centre, the first of its kind in the world (apparently...), which, when I noted some extensions, Rob said was "Yep, an excuse for more beige". I was still feeling quite out of it, but after sitting down for a little while there, I worked out what that smell was that had been following me around: the chicken parmiagana. I don't think it was cooked properly and it was just sitting there in my stomach.
Fortunately, we headed to Rob's place after he dropped in at work (with me thinking for a little while I'd need to use my travel insurance already and go to a hospital - fortunately this has not happened) and I crashed for a few hours. I felt a bit better after I woke up - I think it was sleep I really needed more than anything. I then met the rest of his family who are staying here - his brother and his father - watched some TV, uploaded my photos to Flickr, chatted, and then went to bed. This morning I felt a lot better, but I haven't really done anything today. It's for the better as I'm still recovering, even now as I type this up.
And that's it so far. It's taken me nearly all day to write this, on and off. I think it'll be easier for me to update later on as I'll probably be only doing one day at a time instead of three.
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