AirAsia, pay for only what you want

It's the first time I've encountered an airline fee structure so detailed as AirAsia's. For Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur... (AUD (though slightly stronger) = approx. 1 USD)

Baggage fees depending on weight of luggage,
e.g. 15 kg = 17 AUD, 20 kg = 25 AUD, etc.

Select a [standard] seat (vs having them assigned during check in) ("hot seats" cost more)
= 15 AUD (per person per seat)

Check-in at airport counter (vs online)
= 3 AUD (per person)

Pay with credit or debit card (vs directly from bank through PayPal)
= 8 AUD (per person per leg)

(And other fees, but those are probably the ones that affect us two the most.)

As indicated above, the fees are charged *per* xyz and they give you quite a bit of flexibility in only paying for what you deem important. For baggage fees, it's per leg per person, so if you have one connection, i.e. two flights, you pay fees for each leg. For selecting a seat, it's per seat. For two people traveling on two legs, you would pay for each of the four seats if you were to select four seats. But, you may choose to only select one seat, or two, or three, etc. Checking in at the airport is charged per person. I don't know why two people traveling together would decide to have one person check in online and the other check in at the airport, but they do give you that flexibility.

I've quoted the fees in Australian dollars above, but the fees actually differ according to the actual flight. The fees are less when, for example, flying from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok: baggage 35 RM (~11 USD), 40 RM (~13 USD), seat 6 RM (~2 USD), check-in 10 RM (~3 USD), and credit card 8 RM (~2.5 USD), respectively. At first, I thought the fees were based on point of origin, but analytically-minded K noted that it would, for example, make more sense if seats were charged based on the duration of the flight. After checking out the fee schedule on AirAsia's site a bit more, it seems he may indeed be right!

It also costs drastically more to add the baggage at the airport vs doing it online ahead of time. Jetstar actually takes this one step further, with a 3-tier fee structure: while booking the flight, online after booking the flight (slightly more $), and at the airport (much much more $$$). Also, these baggage fees are non-refundable, so if your bag ends up weighing less than you paid, tough luck. Can you just have carry-on luggage and skip the baggage fees? That's what I do in the U.S., but supposedly AirAsia can be quite strict about following their carry-on weight (7kg = ~15.4 lbs) and size (56cm X 36cm X 23cm = ~22in x 14in x 9in) limits. Our one suitcase is carry-on size but it would definitely go over the 7kg weight limit. (I haven't paid much attention to it in the past, but I think it's usually between 15 and 20kg.)

We take a lot of the costs of flying for granted. I certainly didn't expect to pay "extra" for selecting a seat, paying by credit card, and checking in at the airport (a new fee since this September). But, beyond getting a traveler from point A to point B, there's a lot more that's "hidden" in the fares we pay. The fares that we're used in seeing do include all these other factors; it's just that we're all paying for everything. AirAsia simply splits out each "additional luxury" from its base fare. It was a little shocking at first as I discovered each little fee, but now that I've had some time to digest it, it [somewhat] makes sense.

It'll take some getting used to and it certainly makes comparing airfares a little more difficult. I guess something we'll have to think about while traveling now is the cost of internet (in terms of both time & money) to check in online vs the fee for checking in at the airport...

2011 trip?

(I thought I was going to write about travel-related stuff in the previous post, but apparently I had a jumble of other thoughts.)

I'm planning our next trip.

I haven't posted much about our travels from last year. I want to. See, it would have been fine if not for a mishap during our final night in the Pantanal region (actually back in Cuiaba), which was about halfway through our trip (that's nearly a month). I accidentally deleted my journal entries. It's ironic (and I think this actually would be a correct usage of "ironic"). My intention that night was actually 1. backup, 2. copy into drafts on blog. Unfortunately, I never did get to 2. I lost them while trying to back them up, the details of which I won't go into. I used to write my thoughts on paper and then type them up later. During the Europe trip two years ago, I started just directly typing them up and foregoing the paper >_< So, "digitally lost" really is lost. I did try recovery software to no avail. I knew my best bet was to re-write them right away while everything was still somewhat fresh in my mind, but I had lost my motivation for writing. (I think it's a general personal weakness I need to work on, getting over emotional baggage humps.)

Anyways, so here I am now, planning our next trip while only having written a little about the previous trip. I really should have just timeboxed it. <sigh>

This next trip is, well, I hope I can make it happen. Time to get back to work ^-^

nomad

It *does* feel good to be home. But, at the same time, I could have definitely gone on for even longer. K says he wasn't quite at his limit either. Those months passed by quicker than we ever thought they would!

I think it's partly related to momentum. We were so used to being nomadic, packing up every several days and just living out of our little suitcase. Before we even knew it, we were on our flight home.

A lot of things are simpler on the road. One of the things that struck me after I "got over" the comfort of being home is that we have so much stuff! Do we really need all this?

It doesn't help that I'm a pack rat, keeping every little thing of possibly *any* sentimental value. Those flight tickets to Fuzhou from 8th grade? Check. Movie tickets from high school? Yea, they're faded in that box over there. Any letter that I've ever received since middle school? How sad if those were to die in a fire or flood! I'm happy for the digital world; at least being a digital pack rat takes up much less physical space, though backups, maintaining data integrity, etc, etc. take much more effort. That is, if you care (I do).

On the agenda:
- de-clutter
- plan our next set of travels

travel blog

Well, I just imported out all my travel-related entries to a new blog.

A bunch of people asked to be updated as our trip progressed, but there's something about sharing our trip stories with everyone versus sharing all my other random thoughts with whichever friends find me here. This separate blog thing was a good compromise, I thought. Not sure what the future holds for it, but for this current trip at least, that's where all our entries will go during the trip. And then maybe I'll import them back here when it's all over...

Just like all my other travel entries, the posts will probably be full-day accounts, mostly backposted from my handwritten travel journal (much easier than always having a computer), and hopefully will make their way on the blog before the year end...
http://melkaitravels.blogspot.com

JL suggested we maybe try out Twitter. I never really understood Twitter, but maybe for something like the trip, it might make sense to randomly share your random thoughts and day details. Of course, we'll only be able to post when we actually encounter free wifi...
http://twitter.com/melkaitravels

trip tours part 2: cost

(Wow, am I writing *again*? It's almost like when I first started this blog!)

When compared with other tour companies, there were very few that could satisfy the small group requirement. And even if they could, keeping the cost low turned out to be a tough requirement as well. Intrepid's tours looked really nice when matched up against other companies. But still, we questioned whether it would end up being less expensive than if we were to do it on our own. Of course, it's hard to make the comparison unless we were to do the exact itinerary as one of their trips.

An exact comparison is tough, but a ballpark comparison should be a bit easier. From their tours, Japan was a good match up... their 14-day trip against our 18-day trip. And I was a bit disappointed (I guess I was expecting the tour to be cheaper). Their 14-day Japan 'Intrepid Original' tour comes out to $2460 + 30000 yen (~$300) local payment + $400 recommended budget for food... for a total of $3160. But that's a per person cost. So the total for K and me would be $6320, not counting airfare. That's more than double what we actually spent on our own (on our longer 18-day trip)! Am I calculating correctly? Hmmmm...

I guess after this trip, I can compare our costs from the Central Europe portion of our trip against their tour and get another sample point. A sample of one hardly seems fair.

Though we like reading his guidebooks, we won't be taking a Rick Steves' tour any time soon. The group size of 24 to 28 is too big. And well, cost... they have an 8-day Helsinki, Tallinn, St. Petersburg tour for $3995 per person... that's $8k for both of us (not including lunch and half the dinners). At least $1k *per day*! Now, I know from all that I've read that Scandinavia is expensive, but that's just... crazy.

trip tours

A while back, K and I decided that we would try an organized tour at some point. After looking around, we decided it would be by Intrepid Travel, one of the very few tour companies out there that fulfills our requirements: relatively inexpensive, small group size (12-16 max), mostly guaranteed departures, seemingly enough time in each location with some free time to explore on your own, and decent company history (not like GAP adventures, eek!).

I had a good enough impression of Intrepid (without having taken a trip with them) that I even recommended them to R&S when we were discussing travel last spring (and let them borrow my brochures). R took it to heart and committed to an Egypt/Jordan tour for December. I was actually a bit worried when he did because the reviews I read were either really good or so-so to poor. The really good ones came from travelers seemingly similar to K and me. The so-so to poor ones came from seemingly more pampered travelers... and well, I was slightly worried about R =P But, he came back from his trip absolutely having loved it ^o^

Our $$ and smaller group size tour requirements were essential. Back then, we picked out one of their Eastern Europe (really, Central Europe) tours as a good future candidate.

Here we are now. At the start of our planning stages, we really were going with the Intrepid tour for a bit of our trip. But as our planning has progressed, we realized that we want to visit Prague, Krakow, and Budapest on our own. It's seemingly easy enough and we'd like to spend more than two days (tour itinerary) in Krakow.

So, maybe we'll wait until South America to do a tour =P

let me count the days...

I thought about counting down the days. But I quickly dismissed the idea; it would probably just freak me out.

We were going to try living abroad [in a single spot] for 1 to 1.5 years and then travel for a few months more immediately afterward. But that is not to be. After months of having the expectation of planning the moving logistics after our KJ return, it was a difficult choice to make in the end (it's always the expectation that kills you).

E once commented about me not telling people our plans. He said I was being 'coy' when I responded "not much" to "anything new with you?". It was hard. On one hand, I was so excited and wanted to share that excitement with all my friends. But on the other hand, I had to contain that excitement. When K and I made our decisions last April/May regarding the next 2-3 years, I knew that this April was still far off and there was no guarantee that even something pretty certainly guaranteed wouldn't become less of a guarantee. And so, I'm glad I didn't talk about it with too many people. It's nice to not have the repeated "I thought you guys were going to..." and then me needing to explain "yea, blah blah blah".

Not that our reduced alternative plans aren't exciting. Actually, K even said, we could just spend the time in one location instead of traveling all over. But, to me, it doesn't work that way.

The experience of 'living somewhere' takes at least 8 months, at least the way I think about it. (8 months is a fairly arbitrary number... I just mean close to a year or so.) When did I call Cali home? When did I no longer notice that they sold different brands of bottled water and the streets are wider here? When did I almost start to take for granted the ubiquitous Asian supermarkets and well-funded libraries? And that's within the same country, the same culture, the same language.

I haven't done it (another country), so it's all from imagination really. The way I imagine it: arrival, time to be excited about everything new, time to really settle in, time to start getting used to the new area, and since it's a different country and culture, time to really learn about that country and culture, time to be first be amused and then perhaps annoyed by the quirks and feel homesick, and time to get over all that... and basically get the point of when you almost feel comfortable, when it 'feels like home'. And that is probably at least a year. Of course, by the time it 'feels like home', I would be at least at or beyond everyday survival language (which is, of course, beyond minimal traveler's survival language =P).

So no, you can't condense it down. It all takes time.

Rather than skimp on *that* experience, we're going to be doing our usual traveling thing, just that it's not going to be usual. It's much longer than anything we've done before! Perhaps one day (though I hate that phrase), we'll be counting the few days until a 'live in another country' experience. But until then, I consider us very lucky to be able to explore the world as much as we have been doing and hope that we'll be able to keep exploring.

Of course, despite all that I said in the first half of this post, I'm excited! Excited that we'll be out seeing the world again, interacting with other cultures, learning from experiences ^o^

I'm sorry, KJ

It was during lunch with RV last week that I realized, yes, I really loved KJ... random KJ-trip-related stuff came up several times during our conversations. Short aside: I wonder if RV and I would have become friends if we had met randomly. He is, well, different from all my other friends. An example helps. Only he would say something like 'I'm just saying you shouldn't discount shrooms if you should ever feel like you really need a fresh and different perspective on things'. (Where would I get 'shrooms'??) All those sorts of differences aside, he has a good heart and that's probably how we became friends.

Anyways, KJ. KJ came as a three-part experience. Part 1: pre-experiences during the detailed planning (and massive pre-trip culture and language absorption). Part 2: the trip itself and all the little things that make you love being there, experiencing the world. Part 3: re-experiences through the pictures and memories.

The problem is part3-pictures was supposed to go hand-in-hand with part3-writing-out-memories. But it didn't. I figured out a more efficient pictures workflow and I finished, 2.6 weeks later than my intended schedule, but finished, *without* writing really anything about J. And there's so much to say.

So much to write, but my heart's already moving on, ready and running towards our next set of travels. My hope is that I'll write at least a bit more about J before I'm too far along into the next chapter.

maine + short ohio stopover

Probably the most laid-back weekend of a fairly eventful weekend I've ever had. Part of it was due to the fact I didn't have much to worry about aside from getting on a non-crazy-early flight (11:42am at SFO) across country; H picked me up from the airport, took care of making the hotel reservation, and brought me back to the airport at the end. The other part of being laid-back was just semi-forced... one *should* take a laid-back approach to coordinating 15-some odd people to spend a day together before the wedding. Oh, and I was chauffeured around for the whole weekend, so it didn't matter where I was going because I had no control over it anyways.

Rundown of the "events"...

Arrived in Bangor 10pm-ish, which is almost the middle of nowhere. Lots of aspects define 'middle of nowhere' for me, one of which is not having an airport close by, i.e within an hour max (even less is better). Bangor airport had one terminal.

H is extra punctual, i.e. always early if he's to pick you up. We stopped at a nearby Ground Round for dinner. I ordered a Southwest Chicken Salad (which I managed to not finish). As expected anytime I eat out with H, he will order me a drink (or two) regardless of what I say (no). This time it was a Kamikaze, which is supposedly a shot, but I took a while to actually finish. It had a big lime flavor, which was good. He then got me a Sapphire Gin, even though I adamantly told him before he ordered it that I wouldn't drink it. I took a sip of it and didn't like it, and so, it was pretty much wasted like I had warned, which should be sad because it's a top-of-the-line gin. Oh well.

Drove the hour to get to the cabin/house the guys were staying at (their annual Maine vacation). We stopped over at the nearby beach to chat before going to the cabin though. Two things I remember... 1) cold, very cold and 2) absolutely beautiful. The beach was beside the cove, so we could see some of the lights that were still on by crazy late people. The beach, like supposedly all Maine beaches, was a rocky rather than sandy one... something about glaciers melting.

It's too bad I didn't have a tripod, because I would have loved to take pictures of the spot. One would expect to see the stars shining brightly in the middle of nowhere, but not this night. The light of the full moon was nearly as bright as being in the mist of city streetlights. But it was prettier and gave the whole scene... cove... water... rocks... an almost magical feeling.

Back at the house, AJ was already asleep and J and Josh were engaged in finishing a 1000-piece Lord of the Rings puzzle, the artwork of which seemed to be from a time before the movie. (Incidentally, H and AJ had both separately brought 'The Silmarillion' to read that week.) H went to sleep. J and I chatted for a while, then watched Josh battle with the impossible words portion of the puzzle, and then I dropped off to sleep, too.

Saturday...
I woke up to a Josh-who-had-stayed-up-all-night and a beautiful (word will be fully overused by the end of this entry) view out of the house... sunny day with crisp water seen through the trees that just started their fall color...



I met AJ's girlfriend Linda, and then we waited for the tow truck to come get Josh's car, which conked out the previous day. Thankful for H's AAA plus, the tow truck was going to tow Josh's car to an auto shop in Bangor (1 hr away), free of charge. Bangor was, in fact, the closest place with any auto shops answering calls on the weekend; he wouldn't get his car looked at until Monday though.

Noon breakfast at a small mom-n-pop place, which had pretty good blueberry pancakes. The restaurant, called Kathy's, had Kathy in the kitchen making most of the food, and coming into the restaurant, you could see the whole [small-ish] kitchen. Really, a mom-n-pop place. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling to know these places still exist in this day of 'bigger is better' and franchises everywhere. The middle of nowhere does have its perks.

Drove over to Bar Harbor to meet 'everyone else' for a lobster and seal cruise... which we discovered would be at 3:30.

Stopped at the Chocolate Emporium. H got me a lobster-shaped maple candy when he heard I'd never had maple candy before and he threw in a kahlua dark choco truffle, too. (candy, super sweet... truffle, yummy yummy).

Stopped at a bar/restaurant. Most everyone ordered a beer; I ordered a cinnamon pumpkin spice tea... mmmmm.

Bought tickets for the lobster and seal cruise. Waited a while for the boat to finally find out we were sold tickets for a boat that already left. Got our money back.

Went instead to the nearby winery and had some tastings.

Went to a nearby brewery, which was closing their tastings when we got there, so we only got to try one beer.

Played mini-golf at Pirates Cove. Five girls against three guys. Averaged the scores at the end and the girls won.

Dinner at Rupinuni's. H got take-out for himself and Rebecca, who he was to meet at the Searsport bus top (the wedding locale, 45 min or so away).

By the end of the day, I had met nine new people, for whom I somewhat remembered the connection to the people I already knew.

Stayed in a room with Rebecca. I had met her once up in Boston, where we dined at Dali together in a group, but I never had a chance to chat with her before.

After some deliberation, we agreed we would both take showers during the night to avoid a morning rush. She went first... to discover we had no hot water. But she still managed to shave and totally shower, for which I gave her many props. I, on the other hand, did the body part of the shower and then chickened out of washing my hair and crossed my fingers for hot water the next morning.

We stayed up for a bit, watching the end of Harry Potter and then the history channel, which had a show that was 'not appropriate for young children' because it contained 'ancient sexual imagery'... Roman day porn?

Sunday...
Still no hot water (>_<). Not only that, but the cold water was warmer than the hot water! H got 50% off our bill, which meant I only paid $21 for the night, but I think I would have preferred a place with hot water for more $$. Breakfast at a nearby place, where AJ was fascinated by my order of ham, egg, and tomato on top a blueberry bagel. Drove to the inn (15 min away), a victorian style place with a *HUGE* backyard that went right up next to the water.


After a bit of exploring, I jumped into the shower at one of the rooms in the inn (H, Rebecca, and I shared one since I would be leaving at 3am). A warm shower never felt better!

Had issues trying to get the wrinkles out of my dress. Two non-working steamer thingys and one semi-working iron on a wet ironing board later, my dress was almost wrinkle-free.

Never had a chance to help J & K write their last minute table assignment cards.

Rebecca and I rush out to the ceremony just as the bride is preparing to go. Good thing the guy in the little golf cart there offered to help us down to the water.

Pretty ceremony. I was asked semi-last-minute (a few days before) to do a reading (got my reading an hour beforehand). Same thing with Liz, who did the other reading. Happy I didn't mess up.

Rebecca, being a pro photographer, took cool pictures with J's new camera (Canon Rebel XTi) during the wedding. One of my favs, probably partially because it's my hand in the picture ^-^'...


She had brought all her 'equipment' with her on the trip, too (few thousand $ of camera equipment on a 5 hour bus ride up to Maine... that's passion), but didn't end up using it the day of because of J's new camera.

The bride (I love the wind's effect on the veil)...


Many pictures. Reception with dinner and dancing (useful when the whole wedding party will actually dance!). Autumn as the theme.

One picture I didn't get during the whole thing was one with all four... AJ, H, Josh, and J. I did, however, end up with a picture of me being held upside down by H and J, which somehow inevitably happens whenever I see the two of them together... dresses and tuxes were not a deterrent. They were careful to not let my dress flop, of which I was thankful.

The rest of the night was spent chatting (random peeps, J's mom, etc) and partially with H trying to convince Rebecca and me to frolic in the fountain (?!??!). We, of course, held our ground.

3am... chauffeured by H to Bangor airport for my 5:45am flight to Cincinnati.

Monday...
Mellow day at my cousin's house. Got to finally see my little niece Felicity, who is just too cute! (And very messy, but I guess all babies are.) I got to feed and play with her ^o^ Dinner was hotpot with him and J.

Tuesday...
Fly and back to work.

Overall: short, fun weekend. Lots of socializing and such. And now having somewhat intimately seen some of the 'behind the scenes' for another wedding, I give J huge props for her fantastic planning and organization during hers.

disney part 2

The final day was set aside for the 'other' Disney park and any leftover Disneyland stuff we might have missed the first day.

Made it to the park entrance right at opening time 10am. (Oh well for being sure to use our one day of 'early entry'.)

Headed immediately to the only real rollercoaster of the weekend... California Screamin'. The wait time was '5' minutes, which meant the amount of time it took to walk to the front of the line and wait for the next car.


Of course, we rode it again after getting off. Because of the non-line, K said he would have probably ridden it 7 times sitting in the front until he was bored. But he made the comment after we had already moved on.

Sun Wheel... a funky ferris wheel where most of the seats rock back and forth, though it did also have some normal ferris wheel seats. JC went on one of the latter whereas K and I picked a rocky one. It's almost like sitting on one of those back-n-forth ship mini rides, except you're suspended in the air at the same time, especially during the loading and unloading phase. Kind of freaky at first, but I got used to it by the end.


Some smaller rides...
...a round-and-round-in-swings ride... but inside an orange
...a rocket you up / drop ride (I still refuse to go on any drop rides),
...a kiddie 'drop' (more like float) jellyfish-shaped ride (which K refused to go on because it was too kiddie-cute),
...a one car 'rollercoaster'... which had several bends and turns that made you feel like the car was going to come off the tracks
...and a slow and steady round-and-round-in-a-small-ship ride

J and I changed into water-ride-friendly clothes before we got in line for the water raft ride. Unfortunately they had closed the ride while we were changing and the ETO was undetermined. So we headed over to the next 'ride', Soarin' Over California... watching an IMAX film while hanging in the air with a breeze blowing towards you.

Lunch at "Taste Pilots' Grill", where we got to place our own orders on these colorful touchscreens. J's happy face potatoes were quite happy to be eaten...


Yay! Grizzly raft ride opened back up ^o^ (K skipped the ride because he didn't want to get wet.) A couple of women coming out of the ride offered us clear ponchos that C and me took up... of course, we were the only people in the ride with any 'water protection', and I still got soaked anyways. We tried to hand them back off to other people afterwards, but no one seemed to want them =(

Monsters Inc 'ride'... I loved the movie, so the ride was happy for me.

Muppets 3D/4D show. Pretty fun and entertaining if you're a Muppets fan.

KJC went on the Tower of Terror ride, which I opted to skip. While waiting, I saw Hercules and Mr. and Mrs. Incredible and took pictures with Goofy.

Final stop: A bug's land, where we watched the very crawly Bug's Life 3D show.

JC worked on a sudoku puzzle while K and I watched the 'block party' parade. I deeply regret not stripping off my introvert shell to boogy with Mr. Potato Head...


End Disney Cali Adventure Park. Return to Disneyland.

Hopped on the Disneyland railroad to make our way to Toontown (missed it entirely on Friday). Explored houses of... Chip n Dale, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy.

Went on the Roger Rabbit Cartoon Spin... the longest pre-ride trek ever (even with no waiting in line). Funfun, if you take advantage of the 'steering' wheel.

Leisurely rode on the Storybook Canal boat.

JC went on Pirates of the Caribbean while K and I sought out the Winnie the Pooh ride.

Short stopover at the World of Disney store... spent forever looking in the store and picked out a souvenir mug ^-^

C went home. J, K, and I went to a Korean restaurant to eat.

Back to J's house. J and I chatted for a bit and then watched the dance movie 'Honey'.

Sleep.

Probably just about theme-parked-out by the end, but it was a marvelously fun (and tiring) four days!

universal fun

Day 3... Finally got out a while after 9 and drove up to C's apartment. Hung out there for a bit and then drove to Universal Studios. By then it was lunch so we walked around Citywalk looking for food. JC got some pizza while K and I got some slightly overpriced Panda Express.

1pm. Walk into Universal Studios.

First stop... Van Helsing castle. I should have known that it was probably too freaky for me, but I hadn't thought much of it. The worst was the stop and go people traffic and hearing every other person ahead scream as the traffic moved... makes you wonder what it is they're screaming at... then when you reach the spot, you know to expect something but don't know what... and you still get freaked out. Reminder to self: skip all haunted house walk-throughs.

Shrek 4-D. J later said this was probably her favorite 3D of the weekend.

Studio Tour. Very cool. K's favorite part of Universal. I liked seeing the different building sets that are used over and over again in different movies... a single set posing as an apartment for New York, Chicago, and many other cities, depending on the movie. Interesting fact: the building facades are closed with corrugated metal in the back, which ensures no backlight shows through to the front.



War of the Worlds plane crash site... they destroyed a real plane for it...


From the Grinch...


Waterworld show. Very action packed and very wet! We sat outside the 'soak zone', but we still got soaked.


Stopped for pictures with Shrek and the penguins from Madagascar.

Jurassic park ride. Random wetness during the ride and the final drop was better than Splash Mountain at Disneyland ^o^ K and I sat next to this 'big' woman and her maybe 10-year-old son. K, not realizing the woman's size kept our safety bar from going down much, made an untackful comment to the ride inspector-person, indicating the bar was messed up and didn't go down. Only later did he realize it was because of the woman ^-^''.

Backdraft fires. Hot!

Back up the escalator to the top lot and watched the rest of the Animal Actors show, the best part being the chimp (seemingly much easier to train than dogs).

Back to the Future ride... we sat with these quite noisy middle-school-age girls. Other than that, it was a cool ride.

The park closes. As we were leaving we walked by an outdoor pay-per-song karaoke machine...


Dinner at a place near C's, El Torito. K and I ordered the pretty yummy chicken and shrimp taquitos.

Sleep at a not too unreasonable hour (i.e. midnight-ish).

animals, land and sea

The plan was to meet at 9... but we were late... finally got out at 9:30-ish.

I brought 4 days worth of oatmeal and fruit cups for my breakfast and some granola bars for K. J made a stop at McDonalds to grab a breakfast burrito after meeting C.

Off to San Diego Zoo.

J had discovered sudoku recently... and K and C were both new to it... and thus, today was the start of a short addiction. With one puzzle from J's soduko book copied onto a pad, we were ready for the day.

I guess I was the only one really excited about the zoo. SD is supposed to be the coolest zoo in the U.S., but we were trying to fit both zoo and Sea World into the same day (as well as make the final 2:30 Shamu show), so our zoo trip was to be a short one.

11:45am - arrive at zoo. The guided bus tour and skyfari were both included in our tickets (yay for fun citypass tickets!). Since we wanted the quick view of the zoo, we promptly got on the guided bus tour. Most of the animals we saw in the zoo, we saw on this tour.

Polar bears staring out into the crowd...


Giraffes being fed by eager tourists...


Tired grizzly...


Automated water jets keeping a pampered rhino cool...


And of course, we rushed to the 'skyfari' after getting off the bus tour...


I don't know why, but the flamingos were quite captivating for me...


Quick stop at gift shop... I couldn't help myself and bought a cute panda shirt.

1:15-ish... leave for lunch and Sea World.

After arriving at Sea World, we discover that their website show times for the day were off. The 2:30 Shamu show we were rushing to meet was not the last show! In fact, a 2:30 show didn't even exist. The good result of it was that we got a leisurely [over-priced] lunch.

Shipwreck Cafe. Chicken tenders served in a Shamu 'box', turkey club, carrot cake, strawberries and cream. JC got some chicken with jambalaya dish, salmon, salad, cheesecake, and chocolate cake.


Rather than rushing to see this or that, we sat for a while working on... sudoku... and finished the puzzle so that there was no more sudoku to charm.


There were only really two rides at Sea World... a raft one and a roller-coastery one. Controllable water cannons were strategically placed along both rides. Pay 25c and you can soak the riders. Amusing to watch.

Sea turtle under the water...


There were flamingos here, too...


4:30 dolphin show. 3+1 dolphins and a whale.

5:00 Shamu show... it was supposed to be the highlight for me, but I ended up liking the dolphins better, tricks and humor. The Shamu one was just too mushy. However, the picture I took at the show was probably the highlight for the day...


5:30 dolphin show take 2.

Walk by some seals, sea lions, and kids feeding sardines to dolphins.

For all the shows, the first several rows was the "soak zone", which J was quite excited sit in after missing it the first show.


J and I ate funnel cake while K went to the 4-D haunted lighthouse show.

JC went off to ride the roller-coastery ride, Atlantis, while K and I went to the sea lion show... more of a comedy than anything, but fun. Oh, and those lucky enough to sit in the front center got spit on by a walrus.

Waited for JC at Atlantis. The wait for this ride was by far the longest out of any of the days. K didn't want to get wet, so we didn't go on, but he was amply prepared with quarters for the water cannon.

Drove back up and stepped into a supposedly bee infested area...


Dinner at Maki Maki, a chic-ish Japanese restaurant at Irvine Spectrum. A new sudoku puzzle while waiting for food. Yummy udon and crayfish roll...


Home by midnight. This was by far the most leisurely day of them all.

the happiest place on earth

10pm Thursday - finally got home, ate dinner, showered, packed
3am Friday - sleep
5am - wake up for flight
8:30am-ish - land in SNA, waited for our baggage (no fluids/gels allowed on planes), picked up by J, headed straight to Disneyland
almost 10am - after the driving and parking and figuring out what to bring with us vs what to leave in the car and the applying of sunscreen and the riding on the tram and the waiting in line, we finally make it through the Disneyland entrance.

They self-promote it as the "happiest place on Earth"... I wonder what that makes Disney World... perhaps the happiest place in the Universe?

I had borrowed a very mini guidebook from the library that I skimmed through on the plane (plus there was the map I picked up on Wednesday), so I had a more than general idea of the things we *had* to do. Our first stop was all the big rides, and then the smaller rides and exploration of the rest.

Adventureland: Indiana Jones ride (wait time = practically non-existent). We sat in the front of the car and yay for K sitting on the side and being surprised by the huge cobra that unexpectedly hissed. Poor kid in the seat behind us got really freaked out... he was crying afterwards on the way out.

New Orleans Sq: Pirates of the Caribbean ride. K kept complaining that it was too slow though both J and I really enjoyed all the scenes.

New Orleans Sq: Huanted Mansion was closed.

Grabbed some overpriced McDonalds fries as a snack before we headed to the next ride.

Critter Country: Splash Mountain. The final drop looked much longer from afar than when we actually rode it.

Critter Country: Pictures with Pooh!! Just K and me though. I felt really bad later about an incident here. The couple behind us in line were discussing who would go first to take a picture and then they would switch off etc, so I offered to take their picture for them. When K and I finally got to the start of the line, they were about to have Pooh switch off (Tigger was coming next), but I managed to rush in and look excited enough that we were the last ones to have Pooh. I was so ecstatic about being able take pictures with Pooh before the switch that I just rushed off right afterwards and forgot about the couple. And... I didn't remember it until many hours later. Eek. I hope they got their picture ok =(

Stopped to admire a petrified tree.


Frontierland: Big Thunder Mtn Railroad. Semi fast... but no real drops.

Fantasyland: Matterhorn was closed >_<

Tomorrowland: Space Mountain. Definitely the fastest ride of the morning.

1:30-ish. Done with the big rides... time for lunch. There was a pizza place in Tomorrowland, but K didn't feel like pizza, so we went back to New Orleans square and ate at the 'French Market'. J got a clam chowder bread bowl and mac n cheese. K and I shared a chicken tenders and a fried chicken with rice and beans dish.


An exciting dessert [though we didn't order it] was fried cheesecake...


Climbed up Tarzan's Treehouse... shaky in parts, but still a cool treehouse.

Went back to the entrance and took the tram back to the parking structure to meet up with C.

Pictures with Mickey inside the entrance. There was no line... and the kids are very aggressive when it came to taking pictures. They all jumped in even though I was there way before them and K got mad that I wasn't asserting myself. I finally got my picture though.

Parade of Dreams. K and I got a good spot and watched it while JC went on Space Mountain. The largest "item" in the whole parade was probably Ursula...


Returned to Critter Country for more pictures... Tigger and Eeyore were both there, but when we almost got to the front of the line, Pooh switched in. So more pictures with Pooh!! (which was my original intention anyways) The people who got to take the final pictures with Eeyore and Tigger were lucky... because they got to take it with all three of them!

The trash receptacles give conflicting messages...


Indiana Jones, again, though this time it was a 20 minute wait.

Time for Fantasyland.

Peter Pan.

Mr Toad's Wild Ride.

Rest for a bit in a tea cup [until we were kicked out by someone wanting to take a picture of their kid sitting in the tea cup].

Got a FastPass for Astro Blasters (why a line?).

1st 3D show of the weekend: Honey I Shrunk the Audience.

Astro Blasters... ah, now we understand the line. Thank goodness for FastPass allowing us to cut to almost the front. J totally creamed us... her score being greater than the sum of the rest of us.

It's a Small World. Really loooong ride and the song is forever stuck in your mind afterwards.

J bought a turkey leg for a 'dinner snack' while I bought a chimichanga.

Astro Blasters again, and a much higher score this time around.

Tried to find a spot in New Orleans square for the Fantasmic show.

JC was too dead for it, but K and I watched it, standing, of course [while I ate my chimichanga]. Awesome show. Water used as a projection screen, water set on fire, varied cast of characters and villians, lasers, pyrotechnics... just *too* cool. Even my dead feet and lower back pain couldn't take away from it.


Shuffle to Main Street for the fireworks.

Pretty fireworks synced to Disney music.


Shuffle down Main Street. Stop in front of candy shop. Sit on window ledge watching people shuffle out of the park.

JC comes to meet us. Ice cream at Main Street shop.

K and I walk around downtown Disney for a bit looking for not-too-overpriced food that he can have for dinner. Failed in doing so... drove back to J's.

Sleep 1:30am-ish.

pre-disney

It was good I finally booked our tickets for Disneyland.
1) Southwest had really cheap tickets... less than $100 (including taxes) for each of us to fly.
2) Between Labor Day and the 2nd week of October is supposedly the least crowded time of the year.
3) We discovered after our arrival there that the 50th anniversary celebrations were ending at the end of the month (tho that last bit could have just been self-promotion from one of the Disneyland peeps?).

My trip semi-began a little bit earlier than I had planned. Our flight down was for Friday morning. A last minute bit at work ended up having me fly down for a conference at Disneyland hotel on Wednesday. I attempted to change K's ticket to a day earlier so that I could just stay down there after the conference, but the change to a one person ticket ended up being more expensive! So I decided not do that. A long Wednesday ended with me flying back up and then going to work on Thursday (which was a good thing considering all the stuff I had piled). I planned on leaving work early on Thursday... of course, I didn't get home until 10-ish.

Though for work and tiring, the Wednesday was a good pre-disney trip...
...got to drive to and from the airport and Disneyland hotel
...picked up a Disneyland park map at the hotel before I left
...got to eat lunch on tableware lined with raised Mickey faces
...used spacious bathrooms playing Disney music like "Be Our Guest"