Monday, September 18, 2006
To be spent at Universal Studios! I chose this over disneyland cos, oh well I'll go to disney when I visit Florida. Hee!
Universal Studios Hollywood
chicken for me and beef for pb
got cheesecake one. We also bought 6 donuts from a lil shop, for only $2.50! To be eaten at universal studios so that can save money.. but later found out that the horrigible pple at universal studios don't allow food to be brought in.. Have to eat at their expensive cafes! so evil!
during the shrek 4d show. Got tapped on the shoulder for takin this photo.. boo they said no flash photography allowed never say no non-flash photography allowed loh. Anyway, if you're wondering like me, how come can have 4d, i think the 4th d was some spraying of water when the characters sneezed, rocking of the chair when the characters were riding in a carriage and tufts of wind blowing up your hair.. hurhur.
We then went for the highlight of the day, the universal studios tour! We sat on a tram that brought us to many sets used for filming various movies.
They normally just add some decorations, lots of extras, some snow/sun, proper lighting, special camera effects and it looks like a real normal street pple live in! This was used in bruce almighty, jim carrey stayed here! Apparently many many many movies are shot at these locations, just that we don't ever realise it.
their biggest star, king kong..
can recognise this? it's a scene from king kong! I felt so cheated when I saw this, cos it's so freaking small, like one of those archi projects? when i watched the movie I was wondering how the hell they built that huge village.. hai yuan lai so small only, they just digitised the actors/actresses onto this small set! even the ship not real, bloody hell.
scene from war of the worlds
The tram was an exciting ride cos it also brought us into certain rooms where there were special effects, such as a room called 'The Mummy' where the walls looked like they were turning, making it seem like it was our tram which was turning round and round! it was super cool. I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't the tram turning or if not we would have dropped out of the carriage!
There was also a room which looked like a subway station and us the train, and there started to be water, explosions and fire everywhere and stuff were swinging towards us [but always stopped in time], even the tram would rock.
I also enjoyed a presentation on 2 tokyo drift cars dancing to some music and moving in all directions in the air, showing how they could be very well controlled via computers!
i luv curious george he's so sweet and cute! had to wait for quite some time for all the toddlers to take photo with him until i had a chance haha. luckily i grabbed him b4 he had to leave..
We next went to the lower level where there were a few rides, all of which were very fun! We first took a Jurassic Park ride on water, and it was a nice ride through many er, fake dinosaurs squirting water. I found it hilarious when we saw another carriage like ours overturned at the side, apparently attacked by dinos.. haha damn cute! It was smooth and we thought it was not gonna be scary, until the very end when it entered a dark place and suddenly plunged down! pretty cool.
Next we went on The Mummy ride.. The waiting area was pretty eerie, and very dark.. It was fantastic, it went forward.. and even went backwards for some time! first time i rode a ride backwards. Coupled with many illusions and projected screens displaying i dunno, egyptian thingies. It was fun, but too short a ride. Luckily we went on a monday [thanks to my good planning!] so there weren't long queues, the most we waited for an attraction was probably 10 minutes!
Then it was to some presentation on screen effects.. Nothing too special, unlike the first time i saw the blue screen effect for superman in australia warner brothers when i was 8, we've been so accustomed to computer graphics and animations that such things don't surprise us anymore. Just lots of lame jokes..
After which we went for a pyrotechnic exhibition.. it was cool stuff! it was a scene in a warehouse, with barrels and stuff, something you would see in those Gen Y cop movies with stephen feng [ahh he v cute]. And the fire started burning and burning and burning.. explosions, stuff falling off.. and it was so near us! luved it. The most amazing thing was when the show ended, the fire just, disappeared on its own, and the stuff that fell off automatically moved back to their original positions. Wah rao. I kinda expected people to come out and extinguish the fires and place the stuff back.. haha.
Trekking back to the upper platforms, (thank god for many escalators), we caught one last ride 'back to the future' before the closing time. it was a little simulator ride with 8 pple in a lil cart in a lil room. fun!
that concludes our very fun day at universal studios. two irritating fat pink people spoiling our otherwise very nice photo.
pb was craving for crab, he says the alaskan king crab legs are damn good.. so we started to search for it. our trusted ol gps recommended 'Crab Pit' somewhere near our hotel, so we set off.. So happy to find it, only to realise that it was kinda dilapidated and didn't look open. Sian. So we were hungry and desperate and settled for 'Buggy Whip', another restaurant. Now the gps doesn't exactly tell you how pricey the restaurant is.. So we had to take our chances.
There wasn't any menu outside the door, neither was there any waiter. We went through the double door to see a dark lit restaurant-pub, with football playing. Pretty nice place i guess. So we set down and i prayed that the prices weren't too steep.
This was one of the most scary/weird meals we've eaten. Hmm.. It tasted very good actually. It's just that, the menu wrote that the entrees each served 2 guests, together with soup and clamchowder. Damn weird right? Then if one person come and eat how? So although pb was eyeing the crabs (40+, dunno whether serve 2 pple), i saw the steak+lobster tail deal (~40, shld be serving 2) and we thought we'd better make sure that they served 2.
So we got the guy over and asked if the steak+lobster serves 2. He looked at it and said 'Can be done'. (??) He next asked us what soup/side we wanted. I ordered a baked potato with everything they could put on it, and he didn't ask pb what he wanted. Ok. whatever.
When the food came, there was one serving for each of us. One juicy steak and one yummy lobster tail for each of us. quite a lot of food! Ok. erm, let's just eat then. As we ate we started wondering if, when he said 'can be done', it meant it served only one, but he's just gonna double the portions and charge us twice the price? That would be an extremely expensive dinner! fwah, easily 100 usd, plus tips 120 usd.. almost sgd200 leh. So pathetic.. so we were extremely worried the whole dinner and couldn't enjoy it in its entirety. =(
at last, it was time for the bill. guess how we were billed? thank goodness we weren't charged 2x40 for the meal! It was only 1x40. The weirdest part was, there was a charge of a few dollars, dunno for what. we asked the waiter and he told us, that was for separating the portions and giving an extra soup and side.
damn weird right? why their entrees serve 2 one? if they serve 2, why must pay extra for soup and side? if they serve 2, why the waiter say 'can be done' instead of a simple clear 'yes' when we asked if the entrees serve 2? if must pay extra for soup and side, why they never ask pb what soup and side they want? arghhh! *tears hair out*
Although we were VERY relieved that we were only charged 1x40, this is still our most puzzlin meal ever. ahh.. we'll never understand the weird ways of the americans!
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