...and had a Weekend Trip: San Diego!

Thank you, Martin Luther King Jr., for the long weekend in your memory.

The Ride

The Radio Station: Sophie 103.7 playing the same songs over and over and over again. Heard Sara Bareille's Love Song, The Fray's How to Save a Life, Ingrid Michaelson's The Way I Am, Linkin' Park's Leave Out All the Rest, Pink's So What and a few other songs for about 8 times each over the past 3 days. Why? Songs worth playing are worth playing over and over. That's what they say.

We started on our journey at approximately 10am and sleepily made our way to Carlsbad Premium Outlets to shop and have lunch. Everything was on sale! 30%! 40%! 50%! 60%! 70%! I got stuff from Gap like a new hat!! Which can be seen in use at the Wild Animal Park, Day 3.

People from the Dog Rescue Society set up this area in the centre of everything to get people to adopt the dogs. So cute.

On the way to San Diego! Another Flores road.

Like it says.

Panda Express! Chow Mein with various things like hot and sour soup, eggplant and tofu etc.

Cute Panda drinking.

We had lunch at Panda Express! Real chinese food. Just really oily. Loved the peach green tea! Barely shopped for half an hour after that at Banana Republic and just glanced at Guess before had to leave to catch the sunset at La Jolla [lah hoya].

UC San Diego at La Jolla.

La Jolla beach!
Took this photo cos the scene reminded me of God and how He watches over us like a father watches over his son. And He made sunsets like these to wow us. Indescribable.

Why don't the East Coast sunsets look like the ones here?? We played at the ice-cold water, dug our feet in the sand, watched the surfers (of all ages, including tiny kids) coming in, and tried to steal heat from the bonfires/bbq fires that other people set up on the beach. The stars and airplanes in the sky were amazing. When we couldn't take the cold anymore we hobbled (cos our feet were so numb there was no feeling) back to the car while listening to Little Wonders, which is the theme song of this entire exchange, by the way.

Dumping our stuff. Girl at the bottom was one of our roommates, Stephy from Germany.

Attached sink, bathroom and lockers.

We checked in at the Ocean Beach International Hostel, the photo of which I can't find. It reminded me of hall - old and creaky but surprisingly clean and modern. I got a top bunk above an English girl whom we never spoke to cos she was either sleeping or out. Dinner was at the Ocean Beach Noodle House. What did we order? Pho of course!!!

Lovely lovely lovely Vietnamese Beef Noodles!!
Look at how happy we were! Posing with a REAL Vietnamese prince. Really!

We went to check out the nightlife at downtown San Diego after that, at fourth and fifth streets especially. It was so cool, with all the live jazz bands and live rock bands and live pop bands. But we couldn't go in cos we had under-21 kids with us :( I really wanted to hang out at Croce's Jazz Bar (Jim Croce's wife started it) cos they were playing WATERMELON MAN but we ended up in Hard Rock Cafe instead.

My Vodka Cocktail.
Ka Ho being weird after ordering the worst drink in the place - Platinum Bloody Mary.

The next morning we had a buffet breakfast early at the hostel before setting off for the Zoo!It was fun riding the various contraptions of transport they had, like the cable car. But all the animals just kept showing their butts or sleeping in some shaded area of their enclosures. By 3pm I was tired and wanted to go off. Mexican food for lunch was gooood.

Breakfast: Toast, Scrambled Eggs, Oatmeal with Cinnamon and Honey

Kitchen and dining area. Hostel guests get to stay for free if they work for 3 hours.

Zoo!

Watching an animal show! Check out our bodyguards behind.

Sloppy Panda drawing by a kid, in the Panda enclosure walls.

Panda...eating bamboo...!!

Guess what!! The bird in the show flew away!! Keepers had to scale mountains to get it back.

To Little Italy!

Another Indescribable sunset, outside the restuarant.

Amanda checked her guidebook and recommended Filippi's in Little Italy. So we went to check it out. It's so famous that people queue more than half an hour to get in cos reservations aren't allowed on weekends. Look at the photos of the real food!!

The deli right in front of the resturant. Italian baked goods! Torture queueing in front of these for half and hour.

Real lasagne!!
(Bad lighting, sorry.)Real clams with white wine linguine!!
Real pizza!

We ordered so much that we had a whole pizza left! Tried to play the number game to finish the rest but we gave up after finishing the lasagne. Packed it up and gave it to Xian Cong to give his friend. For free entertainment, we went back to the hostel for Guitar Hero!! Out on the back patio, the smoke was suffocating, but the xbox was too mesmerizing.

The patio.

Guitar Hero!

The next morning, I drove us to the Wild Animal Park, picking Xian Cong up on the way. It was so fun cos everyone's so nice. Rarely do you hear honking on the roads here. Especially when I made two wrong turns haha. GPS is really needed here man.

Woohoo!

I LOVED this park!! It was like being on safari, even though I've never been to Africa before, I would imagine this was what it would look like. Giraffes! Condors! Gorillas! More birds! We watched two shows, one of birds, one a game-show-like thingy that was funny. Unfortunately, there was not that much drama cos all the animals went back into captivity willingly.

Ain't we cool?

Spongebob! You're here too?!

Munch.

"Mommy, I'm hot!"

At Condor Ridge, way above the rest of the Park. Hot air balloon ride in the background!

Scientific name of Gorilla: Gorilla gorilla gorilla.

Another Indescribable moment. Blurred cos in the car.

We drove back to Irvine and reality (SOBS) for 2 hours, dozing off in the backseat with the same songs blasting surround-sound-like. But not before stopping at an International Buffet at Garden Grove near Luanh's place. There was a filipino family there. And everyone else spoke either vietnamese or chinese. So american, eh?

Food! More food!

Our last stop was WalMart, but my camera and phone had run out of battery by then so no photos. Bought a vacuum cleaner and groceries to last the week. Yay! Clean floors!

Only two days of school this next week, whee!