life: Cali. pt. 2 L.A.

we decided on going to:

1. san diego
2. l.a.
3. grand canyon
4. vegas
5. san fran
i was in charge of hotels, flights, attractions, ect. but none of that worked out (Jim's dad ended up doing all of it while ignoring the research i got), except he relied on me to see what attractions there were. heavily. when we got there, it was all--"YukYuu, where do you want to go?" "Well, YukYuu said she wanted to go,"

we also decided that we would miss out on the first two days the rest of the family would spend in san diego and we would only have a 7-day vacation (as usual) instead of 9 days like everyone else. (my grandma is a work-a-holic!)

we would spend abut 2 days in every place expt. grand canyon--only 1 afternoon. i totally thought it was too much--how the hell can you relax if half the time is spent on the road, and packing and repacking every 2 days??? so stressful!!! but noooo... we HAD to go to those places. all of them... i at least wanted to cut out grand canyon--it's only good for pictures (and since we all have only average cameras, it would be crappy pictures, to which was true), and we knew we weren't nature-freaks.

but we went anyway. stupid.

san diego was the place w/ most attractions, but we missed out on it. but... apparently, they spent about 5 hrs. walking around, so i saved my feet from misery.

VACATION '09. START.
so. L.A. the night before, i actually had a pretty good night's sleep. i woke up early the day before to print out boarding passes (OH MY GOD! PRINTING BOARDING PASSES OUT BEFORE HAND IS SO AWESOME!!! we skipped EVERYTHING and just boarded the plane. my parents ran into some old friends which were eerily goint to the same places we were, just on different dates.)

so. i woke up, we got out on time, and we needed go to MIDWAY (which is farther then o'hare because SOMEONE *cough *cough was being a cheap-ass!! *cough *jim's dad *cough *cough)

but we also reserved parking before hand (IT'S CHEAPER THEN A TAXI!!! JUST RENT A PARKING SPACE BY THE AIRPORT!!!) and we got there--the service was really good (very exceptional), and we had a free instand shuttle!!! it was amazing! and it was cheap. the others got their parking from somewhere else, and it was a lot more expensive. YES! HA!!! but maybe cause they had 2 more days of parking... i dunno....

the shuttle driver scared us by saying that we were running late, though we were on time--probably cause we already checked in online. it's amazing!!! so we boarded, and we landed.

L.A. DAY 1
we picked up our car (rented from a company i didn't know, therefore i really hoped wasn't a rip-off, but as more ppl got into the airport shuttle bus, i felt calmer that we weren't in for a rip-off), which was a van with 8 passenger seating. @ no extra cost. (the others had to pay an extra $20 for a van--HA HA! they got ripped off. even though we both rented from the same company)

we had a GPS (keni's uncle's), i printed a map from yahoo! to see what attractions there were in LA. but the thing is that there were no names on there. only adresses, so we were supposed to head towards UNIVERSAL STUDIOS, but we ended up in downtown L.A. instead. they were already there waiting. so we rerouted, and we got there. universal studios was disappointing. i thought it would be a theme park, but it wasn't. there were only about 4 rides on there that were also disappointing.

we got parking (free) and we went. but then we realized that the tickets (ordered online, already printed--we are SO IN w/ technology cause of me) were still in the car. i went back w/ my da. then afterwards: 1st stop--a water show. while going up the bleachers, a f*cker behind me stepped on my ALDO flip-flops that i adored but were technically my ma's, and broke them! the front strap came out, and i was like:

"WHAT THE HELL???"
i was initially in shock. i caught up to the rest of the family, and i told my ma,
"無了...mom, my flip-flip broke!"
they didn't know that to do either. so we were going to find a shop in universal that sold flip-flops--they were popular, and there were a couple of clothing stores there. but it didn't sell flip-flops and i had thought to bring my TOMMY HILFIGERS--they were REALLY comfy (though foam) flip-flops.

so after the show, we got more wet then the ppl sitting in the 'soak zone' did, we went back to the car. trip #2.

when we walked back (mind you, this is a long walk), my dad didn't have his ticket--it was in the car! even though we had a stamp for re-entry, he needed his ticket.

back to the car. trip #3.

we finally got back in, and we found them--my cuzins already went to another attraction (the haunted house that was 'REALLY scary' and even scared the sh*t out of them. and mind you, they were teens. but then, so am i.

we got to the hotel after spending an entire day there.

... can't say i remember much about it... (the hotel)

L.A. DAY 2
today, we had dim-sum in a chinese restaurant (no duh.), had some cheap dim-sum ("how can they sell THIS dish (assorted cow organs) for the same price as all the other dim sum without loosing money?!")

we (my cuzins, me, my sis, my da, and keni's uncle) went onwards to LA's japanese town. it was disappointing. the place was only featuring a mall that was remotely interesting. (outdoors) the things were... eh. i had to buy something, so i found a Hello-Kitty towel cover-up. they had pink, red, and black.

me: "how much is the hello-kitty cover-up out in the front?"
sales-lady that was japanese: "$26" now, i know my ma had a cover up she bought for about $20 that looked pretty pathetic, but this hello-kitty was pretty, so $6 more dollars wasn't a lot more to pay.
me: "do you have it in other colors?"
sales lady shows me them. i couldn't choose which color. i ask my female cousins + my sis, and they were no help.
me: "which color should i get?"
sales: "black is slimming."
female cuzin: "yea, black makes you look thinner"
me: "yea, but i'd be out in the sun, and black is hot."

so i decided on the pink. they only had one, that was an XL. (mind you, i was trying this on on-top of my clothes (no changing room) and i was like,

"size doens't matter when it comes to this stuff. it's like a 1-size-fits-all-thing." so i didn't care about the size of it. i took the pink in XL, when i was a M. my, i was going to regret that. though it made a great throw for in the car, since the guys liked the AC on high, and i had bad circulation, so i basically froze.

after japan town, we decided that we wanted to go the the world record museum (to which we first went to by accident). but we were on our own, using our own money, and when the guy told us that it was $14/person, we decided to not go. we went shopping instead. but i was broke. i decided to only bring $30 with me for the whole trip ($10 spending money for everyplace we went), and i had already spent all of that for the hello-kitty throw. so i was window-shopping. they went to XXI, & AE. no body bought a lot of things.

we ate @ nite @ a chinese place where jim's dad had a friend there. the food was wierd. californian-chinese food was different from chicago-chinese food. eck.

so then. we set out onto grand canyon.