Larry the Kid and Jenny the Brave

Tuesday 30 Oct 2018

Up at a reasonable time for breakfast of self made waffles for something different. The staff behind the desk at the hotel helped us out with a few tips for Universal Studios including pre purchasing tickets and what train to catch.

Straight forward as the subway station was near the hotel and we only had to go to the next stop. Once we popped up to ground level there was a short walk to a shuttle that took us directly to Universal Studios. We walked straight in with our tickets and started the adventure.

To quote Molly Meldrum “Do Yourself A Favour” if ever visiting the west cost of USA, go to this place. We had a great day which included themed rides and shows and the famous studio tour on the bus type shuttle.

The tour is interactive whilst sitting in the open bus.  As well as the old favourites of the flooded roadway in the Mexican village and the plasticky Jaws leaping out of the water, we stopped in a couple of buildings which were part of a 3D show on either side. One was Peter Jackson’s Skull Island with King Kong and dinosaurs fighting around the bus and the other was from Fast and Furious where it felt like we were hurtling along a freeway with cars and helicopters screaming around us. The bus moves up and down and side to side in relation to what’s happening on the screens and occasionally you get splashed by the water.  A great way to start the day.

After that we headed down to the bottom lot via numerous escaltors to the Transformers and The Mummy rides. The Mummy was the first and Larry enjoyed it a lot and Jenny was not so enthusiastic (although she screamed most enthusiastically) . All but one of the rides we went on, are on a roller coaster type carriage moving into areas surrounding by screens. Transformers was next and we both thought of Ash and how much he would love it. This one was 4D as at one point a missile was fired at us and as it exploded we could feel the heat.

We felt the need for lunch by then in Jurassic Park World (the cafe is open but unfortunately the ride is being upgraded and is closed until 2019) so we took care of that and headed back up to the main area of the studios by the various escalators (it would be a very steep climb without them!) and headed off to a special effects show. Another great show and we learnt a few things we never knew about sound effects.

We headed straight from there to the next show – Waterworld.  It is a big arena with a large pool set and surrounded by a large seating area with a number of seats painted green saying ‘Splash Zone’.  They made it clear over and over that if you sat in these seats that you would get wet but some people still seem surprised when they did.  The actors and stunt guys (a number of whom were introduced at the end as being in TV shows like ‘911’) took great pleasure in picking out the really stupid people and dumping buckets of water over them.  We smirked from halfway up and stayed completely dry.  Well it was a great show with little speed boats, jet skis and plenty of explosions and splashes.  We were off to one side so weren’t completely freaked out as a small sea plane came crashing over the buildings and into the pool but plenty of others screamed appreciatively.

Once that was finished we headed over to the Harry Potter area and past Owl and Wand shops and through the entrance to the ride. They cater for huge crowds as there is are almost never ending corridors and sheep runs with Harry Potter displays and screens showing various things from the series. We really didn’t have to line up (all day we went straight to the front of the queue runs) and we boarded the carriage( 4 people next to each other) and off we went. Once again it was fantastic and we both enjoyed it and Larry went for another go whilst Jenny perused the gift shops.  Ridiculous prices – sorry kids. This time it broke down half way, the carriage stopped and the screens went blank. Luckily the carriage was leaning back so we were not left dangling. About a minute later it started to move and Larry thought it was in fail mode and we were going back to the drop off area but around a corner and the screens came back to life and we were off.

Probably the next ride was the best, The Simpsons. We had to wait about 5 minutes outside the building and then we were split up into groups of 8 and ushered into room that had the Simpsons on a screen advising the ride instructions in typical comedic fashion. We boarded with 4 in the front (2 being us) and 4 in the row behind. Once the door opened we went up instead of forwards and the ride began. The area in front was a giant screen in a dome and it was awesome. As we were moving in every direction and your senses are overloaded and you feel immersed in what is happening including getting ‘sucked’ by a giant Maggie!

We wandered around for a little while and stopped in a street filled with fake French shops for a coffee and chocolate croissant.  We checked the map to see what we hadn’t yet done and then off again.

Another ride was in the Dreamworks building and was Kung Foo Panda.   A more sedate experience where everyone goes into a cinema type set up but the seats move and water sprays on you in relation to what’s happening on the big Imax screen.

We finished up at the Working with Animals at Universal Studios stage show and once again they nailed it. A highly informative, funny and interesting display with cooperative animals ranging from rats and racoons to a dog who refused to play dead until given his treat.

Very tired by 5:30pm so we headed out of the area to the shuttle bus back to the train station, on the train and had a quick bite to eat at Johnny Rocket’s (“original burgers”!)  and back to our room for a rest up.

Surfing USA

Monday 29 October 2018

A leisurely start to the day which included finishing up all the breakfast supplies and packing everything into our cases.  We caught an Uber down to the train station which took a while as “Good Morning San Diego” had reported a couple of crashes on the freeway.  Still we had allowed plenty of time to get there and check in our cases so we sat in the station and had a coffee while we waited and helped a lady who had lost all her ‘amigo’ contacts on Facebook retrieve them on her new phone. 

Our Good Samaritan deed done for the day we boarded the Pacific Surfliner and headed upstairs to find a window facing west for the ocean views and settled in.  Soon after departure the train guys brought through boxes of snacks and drinks so we munched along while the train trundled up the coast.  The snack box included turkey jerky – the first jerky I have had that I’ve actually liked!

As we got past Oceanside we were literally there.  At times there was barely 3 feet between the tracks and the rocks on the side of the beach.  There is very little to stop the line falling into the sea with a few years worth of erosion or a very good storm.  Unfortunately the day had started foggy in San Diego and remained overcast and foggy/smoggy so that you couldn’t help but feel the various groups of surfers were taking a bit of risk – what we would call good ’shark weather’ in Perth!

Eventually the train swung inland towards LA and the day got murkier and murkier as LA sis under a huge smog haze.  I knew LA had a smog issue but hadn’t realised it was this bad – almost Beijing quality! 

Hopped off the train at Union station and eventually located baggage claim behind a Subway (as opposed to in the Subway as we had thought the train announcer had meant!)  Then Ubered it to our hotel whilst our drive chatted away happily about how he had hacked the computer system in his car to get rid of all the annoying alarms.  I stupidly asked about the rules regarding handling cell phones whilst driving as I had noticed some of our Uber drivers holding their phones with Google maps in one hand whilst driving the other and then the driver proceeded to lecture us about how many buttons he was allowed to push on his displays at once whilst driving in peak hour traffic and not watching the road at all!

Made it safely to our hotel which is a lovely art deco place (thanks for the recommendation Margaret!) and dumped our stuff and then immediately set off through the Hollywood and Highland Centre (sorry can’t force myself to type Center) and onto Hollywood Boulevard.  We walked about a kilometre east along the road looking at all the famous cafes and nightclubs before heading back down the other side of the road past numerous costume shops which were all doing a roaring trade with Halloween upon us.  We went into one giant shop and it had every costume, wig, hat and decoration you could possibly imagine.  We had quite a giggle in there and managed to take a couple of photos although there were a few signs telling us not to. 

Continued on and back to the Hollywood Footprints outside TCL Chinese Theatre.  We noticed that the El Capitan Theatre across the road had the footpath barricaded off and signs stating “Premiere” and lots of people with big guest tags milling about and thought we might get to see some stars.  So we went off and had early dinner in a nice Japanese place nearby and then headed back to see if any red carpet had been rolled out.  Didn’t look any different other than all the pretty lights down the road were now on and lots of little girls in pretty white dresses were heading into the theatre, obviously for a special screening as release date is later this week.  Googled it later and discovered the Hollywood premiere had been last night so missed out on seeing Keira Knightly, Helen Mirren etc (if they were there?!)

Even though we didn’t have a particularly tiring day, Larry’s cold is still taking its toll so we made ourselves a cup of tea in the hotel’s breakfast area and retired to our room for telly, facebook and google.

Are We In Mexico

Sunday 28 October 2018

On our 3 week itinerary today was headed CHILL DAY.  We have learned from experience that after travelling for about 2 weeks straight we need to factor in one day where we don’t have to be anywhere or do anything in particular.  Last year we did 3 weeks around UK and Scotland without a rest day and Jenny spent the entire time with the ‘flu having no time to properly fight it.  This time, our down day coincided nicely with Larry’s cold not getting any better so this morning Jenny made use of our host’s washing machine/dryer whilst Larry Ubered to a nearby medical centre.  

It turns out he has the beginning of a chest infection so just as well to get on the antibiotics now.  Larry said the whole experience was so different from an Australian GP with them whisking him into a mask the moment he walked in the door, the nurse taking him off to a back room and giving him the third degree and asking 100 questions and was annoyed when he didn’t know his weight in pounds!  Eventually he was ushered in to His Highest Honour the Doctor who was a  grumpy bastard and eventually gave him a prescription.   We have travel insurance which should cover the bill.  Larry then Ubered on and  back to the zoo to swap the T shirts he bought yesterday for a larger size.  We had stupidly though that a medium would be a large and large would be super large given the large size of the majority of the population but a medium proved to be too small for Larry and beautifully accentuated his travel curves.

Larry eventually got back to the BnB in time to help fold the washing.  Jenny had enjoyed having a quiet morning (literally quiet as no constant coughing!) and had finished her book as well as tending the laundry but was ready for an outing and some lunch.  We walked back into Downtown and found a pharmacy to fill Larry’s script but of course it wasn’t just a pharmacy but a whole supermarket so we bought some supplies to make our own dinner again tonight and walked on into the Gaslamp district.  Here we found a Thai restaurant which beckoned to us as offering fare other than burgers and chips and we had a very nice lunch of pad thai and also Hawaiian fried rice which was something a bit different (although not very Thai!) with chicken, shrimp, cashew nuts, raisins and roasted pineapple in the rice.  Very tasty.

Continued walking through the town and ended up at the Santa Fe train depot and bought our tickets to Los Angeles for tomorrow.  We decided to spend the extra $19 to go business class as we get food and drinks included and $19 is about what we would normally spend on lunch in any case.  So now we know exactly when and where we need to be tomorrow and won’t have to stress (well Jenny won’t have to!)

We then walked back down to the harbour and, although a couple very kindly offered us one free ticket on a two hour cruise, we politely declined and decided just to catch the much cheaper ferry over to Coronado Island instead.  It is a bit more cloudy and cooler today but it was still very pleasant out on the harbour.  We were interested to see a big cruise ship had come in to harbour since we were down here on Friday and Larry tried to work out when and where it was off to but the San Diego Harbour website was not very user friendly other than to tell us there were currently 300 ships berthed in the harbour!

Jenny had had a vague plan about walking over the famous Coronado Hotel for an afternoon drink but we soon discarded  that idea when we realised it was actually 3 miles away!  Instead we checked out the shops/cafes around the Coronado Ferry landing and, as there was a live jazz band playing under the trees, we opted to sit on the grass with ‘hand scooped’ ice creams to listen and to watch all the different boats on the harbour.  In one square kilometre there was every type of vessel from people on kayaks, dinghys, boats, yachts, a police launch, ferries, ships etc etc.  Lovely just to have a lazy sunny Sunday afternoon watching the world go by.

Eventually we decided to head home and an Uber was there in less than 2 minutes to whisk us up and over the Coronado bridge and back to our little home away from home.  We made Kate’s favourite dinner of packet alfredo but added broccoli and grape tomatoes so we got some veg.  Another cruisy evening watching telly.  Tonight we even found another channel in English!  San Diego sure is heavily influenced by its proximity to Mexico.  At times today we felt like we were already south of the border.  Pretty sure we were about the only people on the Coronado ferry not speaking Spanish!

Zoo Day

28 Oct 2018

A day at the zoo. We casually Ubered our way to the zoo mid morning and fairly straight forward to get in even though the US$54  each was a bit hard to take. We wandered all over the zoo and managed to get lost a few times as the map sometimes didn’t line up with the signs and Jenny is always 180 degrees out in the northern hemisphere in any case. We walked here, we walked there, we walked everywhere except the two times we caught the cable car back up the hill but we did walk to get to it so that still counts.  Oh, and we also took the travelator up the hill too just because there was a inclining travelator in the zoo

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We had a healthy lunch of a salad pack and a wrap which we divided between us. The zoo doesn’t close til 8pm so we had early dinner there too.  At dinner we had over priced burger and chips that was average to say the least.

Larry wasn’t feeling the best as he still suffering from his cold which is causing him to cough constantly so at least Jenny knew where he was when he was close by but he soldiered on throughout the day enjoying the various animals in their areas. Not really cages as the zoo has put in a huge effort to make the enclosures more appealing for the animals so sometimes they are a bit camouflaged and take a while to spot.

Larry enjoyed the various monkey exhibits and especially a family of 4 baboons. The youngest was a ^%&% stirrer who kept teasing a slightly older one until it would retaliate. Then mum or even dad would intervene and the young one would go next to mum or dad the other one would get out of the way of a smack. Like children really.

Jenny enjoyed the polar bears the best. They have an ample swimming pool and two ice machines above the enclosure that drop shaved ice all day.  Jenny can still remember the poor lonely one in its nasty concrete enclosure at Perth zoo many years ago.  These ones seemed much happier even though they are stuck in a warm climate with very little ice.

We also queued up to see the giant pandas which were being quite active.  The keeper said the one who was being a bit of Ned clutz getting stuck in between branches and crashing into things was an adolescent male.  Typical teenager really.

Over all a very good day but tiring especially for Larry as he sick.  We wondered at the endurance of the small children who still seemed to be going strong and not having melt downs at 4pm in the afternoon.  We then worked out that they had only just arrived and were in Halloween costumes to take part in various childrens parties happening in the zoo between 5 and 8pm.  We oldies, who had been there since 10am and were exhausted, left them to it.

Jenny's In Seventh Heaven

Fri 26 October 2018

A lazy morning with a sleep in and leisurely breakfast (Reece Puffs – taste like peanut butter cheerios?) and then out the front door around 10am.  We walked down the hill and into the Downtown area and on wards through the Gas Lamp District.  It was about this time that Larry realised that he had left his wallet back home!

We kept walking until we hit the harbour and then wandered through Seaport Village which is a cute little touristy shopping area on the water’s edge.  We then wandered further along the water’s edge until we got to the USS Midway which is now a museum.  This was something Larry was going to do on his own whilst Jenny went to the zoo but seeing we were there it made sense to visit together.  It was actually very interesting.  I have a vague recollection of going on an American aircraft carrier with Dad back in the 70’s (when they still allowed the public on active ships) but that was a long time ago and the Midway has an interesting history having been in service from WWII through to Operation Desert Storm with its last active service being in 1992.  You can pretty much wander all over it, from your ‘Top Gun’ moments on deck with the jets to exploring below the water line in the engines room.  The Captains cabin had an animatronic captain which was cool.

It’s Fleet Week at the moment so San Diego is crawling with serving and retired navy personnel and a number of the veterans were on the Midway reminiscing about when they served on it so that was like a living history lesson and very interesting.  I don’t really suffer from claustrophobia but I must say that wandering through narrow passageways below deck and seeing the cramped quarters was a bit stressful after a while.  I can’t imagine being down there and rarely seeing daylight and fresh air and with the stress of being sunk and not finding your way out in time.

It is a very well done museum piece and Jenny was happy to let Larry spend hours there.  Jenny thought it was particularly clever that they wafted smells through the ship so that it didn’t just have an old smell of diesel and metal.  Instead the mess area smelt like maple syrup and the laundry area l
ike washing powder.  There were 4500 crew on the ship in operation and there were very few jobs that appealed to me except maybe working in the post office.

 

We eventually left the Midway and walked a little further along the harbour until we came to a barricaded off pier where the Navy band were playing.  You had to show ID with a photo and go through metal detectors to be let in (luckily I had the passports as Larry’s wallet was still MIA).  Once through there were heaps of military proudly brandishing all sorts of weaponry and happily letting the general public get ‘hands on’ with all sorts of lethal looking things.  At the same time there were soldiers on duty packing hand guns and rifles keeping a stern eye on  everyone.  Eek.  They had another big ship at berth that you could go on (an active ship this time) and so there was a little watch boat in the harbour nearby making sure no other boats got too close.   We (read Jenny) couldn’t face going all over it, nor the Coastguard ship also berthed nearby so instead we headed out and a little further down the harbour to an outside bar where we indulged in a margarita each.  Had to be good for Larry’s cold right?

By this time it was about 3.30pm so we decided to walk  on into Little Italy and find an Italian grocery store where we bought pasta, sauce, fresh bread and parmesan cheese and then caught an Uber home as we had walked far enough and knew that the way home was all up hill.  So we made use of the little kitchen in our home and cooked our own pasta for dinner which made a nice change from eating out every night.  We then struggled to find anything worth watching on telly – lots of Mexican channels we couldn’t understand and eventually settled on BBC TV!

Early to bed as ‘We’re all going to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow.  We’re all going to the zoo tomorrow. We can stay all day!”