Memoirs of a TrailBlazer

Happiest place on Earth, Shamu's land and Land of Blocks!!

Back to California. On a warm friday evening at 7:00 PM I boarded the flight which was bound to SFO. I reached SFO at around 9:40 PM. I was picked at the airport by S, P, A1 and A2. We drove back from SFO to S's house at Cupertino. By the time we reached our home A2 fell asleep and A1 was made to go to bed immediately after reaching home. Once they slept S, P and I started packing our bags for our trip to LA and San Deigo. After sleeping we went to bed dreaming about the happiest place on earth.
Next day we woke up at around 4:30 AM and started getting ready for our road trip. At around 8 AM we left our house singing "Itzy bitzy spider went up the sprout...". But never did I realise that I was going to hear this song for the next full week. After going some distance we realised that wee forgot to take the route print outs from home. So we went back home and collected the route print out and headed towards south of California.
Soon we joined I-5 south to go towards LA. We went on I-5 for nearly 8 hours with a stop at a Indian restaurant near Bakersfield. We were surprised to see an Indian restaurant on an exit. Usually one always sees either a McDonalds or a Burger King in an exit. After having some delicious Saag Panner and roti's we continued to head south on I-5. At around 5:30 PM we reached Anaheim.
We had our hotel accomodation booked at a Comfort Inn at Anaheim. We were not sure if we should take that hotel as it was looking a bit shady. Another disaster that happend was while booking we did not mention non-smoking room. Hence by default we got a smoking room. We had a strong smell of cigarette when we checked in to our room. After some time, I am not sure if the smell went or we got used to the smell, We were'nt so sensitive to it anymore. On reaching the room A1 crashed in to bed after a tiresome gruelling 8 hrs drive. A2 was all fresh on reaching the hotel room. He had his share of sleep in the car itself. He utilized his idle time in car perfectly. A2 was busy with the Phone and chest of drawers that were present in the room. After having dinner we went to bed at 7 PM itself.
Next day we got up early and left the room by 8 AM. On reachng our destination we remembered that we forgot our tickets in the hotel room itself. So we went back again and picked up the tickets and headed back to our destination. This time we went to the happiest place on earth, Disney Land. Every child's dream place. On reaching Disney land, we parked our car and took the tram that takes us to the theme park from the parking lot. Inside Disney land we went to Fantasy land. After going on a few rides such as Peter Pan flight, Casey Junior circus train, Story book land canal boats, we got to see some awesome vintage cars parade that were built in the early 20th century. After enjoying the how we went to a ride called "It's a small world". This ride was very colourful and very nice ride. The people are made to sit in a boat and boat goes through dolls from different places on the world. The whole trip has the same song and song's language changes according to the place that the doll represents. This ride is a sure must see at Disneyland, Anaheim. Later we took a joy ride in the train and after lunch we went for the Snow white and 7 dwarf's stage show.
The snow white and the 7 dwarf's stage performance is surely one of the best performances that I have seen until now in my life. There was so much planning the show which amazed me. The show was for almost 30 mins. After the show we went for a few more rides and later we near a pond to find ourselves place to watch the fireworks and laser show. The show started once it became dark. The light show was teriffic. A story was being depicted and a few scene's were projected on a fountain. The show was really breath taking. Once the show was over there was mind blowing display of fire works. After the show we went back to hotel and immediately crashed into our beds to charge ourselves back for another day of enjoyment.
The next day we woke up early and vacated the hotel by 8:30 AM. After vacating we headed toward California Adventures which is a part of Disney land amusement park. Went took fast pass and completed a couple of rides fast, after lunch we went to "It's a bug's life" section of the park. The first show that we went was a 4D show of insects and bugs. This show too good. You get to see the insect in 3D and also feel the insects and smell them too. Then we went on a few more rides and started heading towards San Diego.
We reached San Deigo in the evening, meanwhile A1 missed our hotel room in Anaheim. On checking in at Quality Inn, A1 changed his mind and started to enjoy his new hotel room by jumping on the bed and encouraging his brother, A2 to also jump. After a long jumping session both A1 and A2 were tired, later we had our dinner at Benihana which was present right next to our hotel. After dinner we went to bed as we knew that it was going to be a long day.
The next day we woke up early again and left the room by 8:00 AM and headed to see Shamu and his fishy friends. We reached Sea World, San Deigo on time and went straight to check the show timings of Shamu the whale. We found that we had to wait for the first show of the day, so tried to go to the sea lion show but on the way we got distracted by the dolphins and missed the sea lion show in a whisker. Later we saw the sea lions which were in a seperate tank. We even fed the sea lions with fish which was sold there. Later we went to Shamu's arena as it was time for the show. We found some awesome seats in the 5 row in the soak zone. At the end of Shamu's show, Shamu splashed water on people, I am sure what vengence it had on us, it stoped in front of us and splashed water with its tail fin for almost 5-6 times and made sure we were all drenched head to toe. Meanwhile A2 and A1 got scared because of the amount of water that was splashed at them, so P had to take them up and enjoyed the remainder of the show. Later we went to the circus, Sea lion show and Dolphin show. In between these shows we had a chance to touch Star fishes and see Sharks, beluga Whales, Walrus and many more fishys. After a tiring day at Seaworld we left back to the hotel.
On the next day, we were a bit relaxed. We left the htel by 9:00 AM and reached Lego Land by 10 AM. Lego land was a the favourite of A1. There were a lot of animals that were made using the Lego blocks. Most of the rides are well suited for kids of ages 5 yr and around. We went on a lot of rides and the best onee I liked was being fire men. We had to pump our fire engine to go to a house on fire and then spray water at the fire until it goes off and return back pumping the fire engine again. It was great fun to do it.
Later we went around the park to see various cities such as Manhattan of NYC(Pic), SFO, New Orleans, Washington D.C, Daytona Speedway, Kenedy Space Center, Melbourne Opera house, Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower etc., that were made out of Lego blocks. Some of the formations were jaw dropping. Later we went to a build and test stall where we were given four wheels and we should come up with our one car using the Lego blocks present there and race our car with the other cars built by others. S, A1 and myself came up with some wacky designs for our cars and raced our cars with other contenders. It was a fun excercise. Later we went for couple more rides and headed back to our room.
On returning ack to the room we watched TV for some time and then went to sleep. Next day we woke up and vacated the room and headed back towards Cupertino on I -5. This time also we found the same Indian restaurant on our way back and had our lunch at the Indian restaurant at Bakersfield. By the time we reached Cupertino, it was 6 PM.
The next 3 days I spent my time in S's house and headed back to Chicago on a hot Sunday after noon. On the flight back, I got some awesom aerial view of Golden gater bride and Lake Tahoe.

Posted by KK on Sunday, July 09, 2006 at 12:19 AM | Permalink