Final Stop-Los Angeles..

That evening when we arrived in Tom Bradley's, we took the Enterprise shuttle to the car rental's place. We rented our car and then headed for Marriot which was very close to the airport. After freshening up a little, we grab a map of L.A. from the concierge and drove up north to Hollywood Boulevard. Streets are easy in this country, it is difficult to be like, really, really lost.

The Boulevard was a tad bit yucky to me. Quite dirty and gruesome, with all the homeless people and vehicle fumes. That had me felt rather at home.

We had dinner at Mc Donald's. God knows how many burgers I have ate and how many tacos I have swallowed. Sigh..

Universal Studios was something no one should miss. The place was huge and we took 2 days to really see everything. The studio tour was super. They showed us the mansion and the motel in the movie 'Psycho', the special effects tunnel they used for subway crash scenes, how they make flood in a Mexican village scene and of course, the calm, sweet Wisteria Lane. See the picture up there? That is the house of Gabrielle Solis.

There were a few rides, which we took. I did the Jurassic Park, but was too chicken-hearted to go onto the Mummy. So I was left to mind the bags and stuffs. I regretted it now, for not taking that ride. I mean, how bad can it be? This was not like a Six Flag theme park, right..? So we ate and ride and ate some more and ride some more, all throughout the day.

Later that evening we went to Chinatown near downtown L.A. for dinner at the Foo Chow restaurant, where they shot the movie Rush Hour. The food was expensive, not that tasty, but was definitely better than those burgers and tacos.

We woke up early again the next day for Universal Studios. We watched all the shows and demos today. I especially liked the show at Waterworld (as in the movie, Waterworld). Spectacular show, that was.Since we decided not to do any shopping in L.A., we went to Santa Monica beach which was like, 20 minutes away from Hollywood. I expected the beach to be dirty, like Morib in Selangor. But to my surprise, it was tremendously clean! And because we didn't expect it to be that clean, we didn't bring any swimming gear. Even if we do have, the water was like freezing cold. The houses near the beachfront was something I really admire, words can't describe how I fancy them. They are indeed something for me to daydream about for many, many days ahead.

We can't get enough of the beach, so we drove down to Long Beach on one of the days we were there. But Long Beach upsets me. Unlike Santa Monica, Long Beach was dirty. So there's nothing much to say apart from the gay parade happening on the streets of Long Beach on that day.

Beverly Hills. The place of the rich and famous. No doubt about that. The street malls were such a beaut and you know it once you set foot there, that this is not like any other part of the town. Very pretty. Very, breathtaking.

Overall, L.A. was fine. Maybe not so much of a happy place like Vegas but it was still, wicked. I may not think of revisiting this place very soon, but the next time I happen to be here, I'd like to check out those clubs on Sunset Strip. They seems to be very dandy.

Happy Vegas

If there is one place on earth that could make me happy, it would be Vegas. I could go through hundreds of painful breakups and thousands of bad, bad days and still be happy upon setting foot here, in this desert city.
We arrived around noon and checked-in at Stratosphere. And once there, we didn't wait. The hotel wasn't less magnificent, though it is located on the far north end of the Strip. We headed for Fremont Street for the evening light show. The street was flashing with neon lights and was indeed very pretty. The overhead light show was amazing and left us with neck pain. I know I should have followed Pearl's advice and lied down on the street.
Flyers of many strip clubs were scattered along the pavements. That second night, we took the opportunity to check out Little Darlings and lucky enough, each one of us had a lap dance performed onto us for a mere dollar! Cameras aren't allowed in the strip clubs, of course, and too bad for that.
Our daytime period was filled with 'jalan-jalan', browsing all the hotels with abundantly different themes. My favourite? Sigh..., I can't decide. I like Luxor's building structure, the landscaping and the fountain of Bellagio and the interiors of Planet Hollywood Aladdin.
Vegas has plentiful of shows and parades. Both paid and free. We went to Rio to try out the slot machines, and hey, beginners' luck! We won some. Not much, but worth the 2 dollars spent on our bets. We didn't come here to gamble in the first place. Maybe next time alright, Pearl? Then we may go pick up some bitches too. Hehehs..And we love the masquerade show here, in Rio.
We also watched that sketch, Sirens of T.I..And tons of people flocked Treasure Island for this. It was a 30 minutes sketch of songs, dances, stunts and pyro actions. And that was, cooool! These showbiz people, they make things all so realistic and so alive that you don't feel like they're acting things out.
Madame Tussaud's was a compulsory thing to do. And above, we were with Julia Roberts. The museum wasn't as big as I expected. And some of the wax figures were good replicas and some were not. But we enjoyed it anyways.
When you are in Vegas, you cannot not see the shows. There are a handful of shows which you can choose from, some are good for family and some requires you to be 18. We, of course, chose the topless show. The show 'Bite' had cost us 45 dollars (approximately RM 180) but believe me, it was worth it.

I so want to be there again.

Garden Of The Gods

After shopping at Castlerock yesterday, we ate Cold Stone ice cream. Honestly, this is the best ice-cream I've ever had and everyone else agreed too. This is no regular ice-cream, dawg...both Haagen Dazs and Baskin Robbins (which I once liked) are nothing compared to Cold Stone. The presentation is no doubt, simple, but they aren't just scoop-garnish-and-serve ice-cream. There are more than 15 concoctions of ice-cream at Cold Stone. I ordered the Breathless Boston Cream Pie which consists of French vanilla ice-cream, yellow cake, fudge and whipped topping. All these ingredients were folded in by the server right in front of me on a frozen granite stone. I found that very impressive and the final product was just, wow!



Quoting Fid aka Baby's comment on Krispy Kreme doughnuts, I shall now say that if you haven't had Cold Stone, you have not had ice-cream. And true enough, according to a slogan I saw on a Cold Stone tee, friends won't let friends eat grocery store ice-creams.



This morning, a crazy babe came in from laundry looking like above. She had too many baskets to carry with only two hands. Poor thing...!



Later in the afternoon, we packed our lunch and headed for Colorado Springs. We had our lunch at Garden of the Gods. And as usual, we had Jambang with us.



The garden was a fine place to be, it has numerous, unique rock formations just like Red Rocks, only more. We had lots of fun trying to figure out which name goes for which formation. The one in the above picture for example, is called the Balanced Rock.



After meal, which was nasik and some lauk, heheh.., we did the jumping in the air game again. Tomorrow, the four of us will leave for Vegas. Which means I'll be away from Pearl's desktop. Thus, I may not be able to post in any entry from tomorrow onwards. So, until time permits..

Shopaholic Sister

The graduation day. It was sunny,but ain't that hot.

When you have a shopaholic by your side, your days will never be less than busy.

The graduate.

Pearl graduated yesterday.

We rented a Chrysler.

The night before, I coloured my hair back to black. There was this one incident not many months ago that my hair was raped by a certain party and since then I have been wearing a 'karat-hair' look. It explains why I didn't upload any images prior to a couple of nights ago. I would like to elaborate more on the 'hair-raping' incident but maybe later when I'm back in KL.

Simply doughnuts.

When I'm away from home, my aim is to consume food that I can't probably get in Malaysia. Yes, doughnuts memang ade kat Malaysia, but not Krispy Kreme doughnuts. These doughnuts, they're really simple. Nothing fancy about the decorations, but they tasted like heaven. Well, at least that's what I think.

The American, Fresh Strawberry Shortcake.

I remembered Sarah telling me about eating Strawberry Shortcake in London. Here, I tasted the American version at the Cheesecake Factory. Nice presentation, tapi rase macam biase je..Rase macam kek.

Jumping in mid-air shot.Saty lambat lompat.Jambang did a David Blaine.

Zamri (brother in law) insisted that we go sightseeing, so we detached ourselves from those boring malls and headed for Red Rocks. Formerly known as 'Garden of the Angels' and then 'Garden of the Titans', this place is a mountain park which is well-known for its very large, red sandstone boulders. Pearl's friend, Jambang tagged along with us.

At the Cheesecake Factory...again.

Last night, after Pearl's graduation ceremony, we had barbecued dinner held by the students. It was a night for Pearl, and we decided not to steal the limelight away from her. Hehe..

Night of the barbecue and the barbecued.

Today we'll be going to Castlerock. It's 8 am now and I was up since sunrise which occured somewhere around 5:30 am. The days are longer here during spring and sunset happens at 8:30 pm. But my fellow kins are still in bed. I should go and wake them up now. Ta!

Deja Vu

9:00 a.m. 68 F/20 C. Thursday morning in Golden.

I woke up in this strange land again. Still dazed from the 26 hours journey.

I slept deep last night, and I snored, excuse me, according to Pearl. This time I didn't wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning.

Saty, Zamri and I are all waiting for Pearl to bring in the car now. Today's destination is Flatiron which I didn't go to the last time I was here. Next, maybe we shall proceed to Belmar or perhaps the Mills again. I'm gonna be visiting the same places again, only this time with different company.

Am looking forward to Vegas and Hollywood next week.