Thursday, December 20, 2012

Cali With Far Easterns (Take 3)

So I'm four months late on this post.  Meh.

For the past two years my sister Jolie has been the Disneyland Ambassador.  She basically hooks us up with free tickets because I am family.  It's amazing.
Jolie Hales Disneyland Ambassador, er, my sister.


Every summer I take at least one road trip with friends to Disneyland.  We drive down, stay with my sister, and get free admission to the park.  Thus the trips are quite affordable and a blast, at the same time.

We always take my dad's car.  Here we are stopped in St. George headed south to L.A.!  Nozomi is my best friend here at school.  He is awesome in so many different ways.  He and his cute girl friend Rie always get first dibs on the highly coveted seats in the car of my annual road trip to Cali.

Kei really likes burgers, so we ate lunch here while on the road.  Kei is one of most amazing people I've ever met.

We've decided not to make Vegas part of our trip anymore.  We'll usually stop and eat there though.
We arrived!  Jolie is crazy fun and spunky to say the least.  Her apartment is awesome because of her, her orange and lemons trees, and...
Savvy and Comet!  They are really fun and really sweet.  

My family, including myself, have this thing for mini Italian greyhounds.
Since three of our party are from Japan, we had to hit up Little Tokyo in L.A..
More of Little Tokyo...

My favorite thing about these drinks is opening them.  After opening one I would gladly hand it to someone else for them to drink.

Kei being Kei.  
Now Chinatown!!!
Tian Jia Lin is from mainland China and I love China as well as the people therein, so we had to go to Chinatown too.
There was a piano, so I played it.  There were a lot of people around to hear it.

Jolie working her magic :)

We quickly went straight to Radiator Springs Racers.  It is now Rie's favorite attraction and one of mine as well.

The Asian squat.

Kei and Tian on the Toy Story ride in California Adventure.
I think I won this time around.
We got lucky.  Mickey came out right in front of us, so we didn't have to wait in the monster line.

Since Kei is deaf, Jolie communicated with him by spelling everything out in ASL.  Kei is perhaps the most patient person I've ever met.

This is Tian's first time at Disney.  We got in the habit of telling him to expect a "calm and scenic" experience  whenever we got in line for an intense ride.  Here we are on the Tower of Terror hahaha!!!

On Radiator Springs Racers.
Yoshinoya, with an exception to Sake 2 Me sushi, is probably our favorite place to eat at in California.
How we live while at Jo's.

Went on a nice run with Jo.
Newport beach!!!
Nozomi break dancing in the tide.

Tian's first ocean experience.

Kei.

We buried Kei and turned him into a sea cow.





Six Flags Magic Mountain!

Kei and I riding X-2.  Pretty intense, this ride.

Bumper cars!  My sun glasses fell onto the floor during the intense experience, however Nozomi rescued them :)

The strangest log ride I've ever been on, but I like it a lot.

Lex Luther's Drop of Dume.  I've been on a lot of sudden-drop type rides, but NOTHING matches up to this.  You see the typical roller coaster track, in the picture but on the sides of the tall mach up is a completely vertical  track that goes up and down, nothing more, nothing less.  At the top you sway back and forth because of the wind, a thrill which only adds to the already insane experience.  The fall in so long you have time to think about stuff.  Kei and I loved it with all our hearts.

Standing in front of Tatsu, the awesome orange coatser.  Pay no head to the piece o' crap white coaster,  Revolution.  It is only revolutionary in the way it sucks.

Universal Studios Hollywood!
Universal Studios Hollywood :)
Kei loves Mr. Bean.  
Rie and the bottom of the really fun hill on Jurassic Park the Ride

Love the Simpsons.
Before the hill on Jurassic Park the Ride.

After the hill on Jurassic Park the Ride.
I finally got selected to participate in the special/visual effects show!  


Pretending like that round circle is a big scary dinosaur.

While in California Jolie and I ran a 5K at Orange Country Great Park.  It was a lot of fun!
Our team.  Rene Torrico, the other Disneyland Ambassador joined us.

Stretching.  Later on Jolie used my shirt as a sweat towel.

It was really really hot.  It felt like Utah.
I love Jolie's face of sheer determination.
Poor poor Kei.  I hardly know ASL, but here I am trying to interpret church.  Again, Kei is a very patient man.
After church we hit up our favorite Japanese eatery.
And then we drove home.