Discovering Another Mad Dash (Oct 14): Heading Home and Finally finishing this TR #1523 (05/03)

[shushh]

Ok, here's my obligatory commentary post...not that I wouldn't have written one if you didn't ask for it!

I LOVE airports, yes its sadistic. So I loved reading about your day in Melbourne and Sydney airports...

 

[Imzadi]

BLIMEY! English scones and cream! YUM!

I was also pleasantly surprised to find one of my Favourite Foods on offer…

Yes…this is fresh lychees.

I guess no one else knew how to eat this fruit as there was a whole big fruit bowl of them. I helped myself to a plate or two; and DH and I enjoyed the unexpected treat.

Oooo! I love clotted/Devonshire cream & scones.

I prefer my lychees canned. They are a lot moister that way, and no peeling involved.

 

[usnuzuloose]

Oooo! I love clotted/Devonshire cream & scones.

I prefer my lychees canned. They are a lot moister that way, and no peeling involved.

What do lychees taste like? They look like they are sweet.

 

[Imzadi]

What do lychees taste like? They look like they are sweet.

They are. They have the consistency of green grapes, but not the sour tang of grapes. I think there is a pit in the middle of the fresh ones, like shown in the picture. I get the canned ones and they are hollow inside and come in a syrup like canned peaches. I get them at an Asian grocery store.

 

[franandaj]

Sushi sounds pretty good right now...but alas I am off to one of the best restaurants in Las Vegas...a cross I will have to bear.

Thanks for the report, I can't wait until the part when we meet!

 

[Imzadi]

Sushi sounds pretty good right now...but alas I am off to one of the best restaurants in Las Vegas...a cross I will have to bear.

You sound like you are really suffering.

 

[usnuzuloose]

You sound like you are really suffering.

Must be I posted on her TR and still have not heard where they went to eat.

 

[Imzadi]

Must be I posted on her TR and still have not heard where they went to eat.

They're still gorging themselves?

 

[PrincessInOz]

Looks like the first day was good!

The first day Part 1 in Oz was good. The first day Part 2 in LAX - well, wait and see.

Ok, here's my obligatory commentary post...not that I wouldn't have written one if you didn't ask for it!

I LOVE airports, yes its sadistic. So I loved reading about your day in Melbourne and Sydney airports...

Hi Shushh! It's not SADistic....it's SICK!

You know....I'm sure you can get medications for your condition.

Oooo! I love clotted/Devonshire cream & scones.

I prefer my lychees canned. They are a lot moister that way, and no peeling involved.

Canned lychees, just like Canned Cream Corn, is something that seems better than the fresh stuff. But when you get a good batch of fresh lychees (or free corn), there is nothing like it...peeling or no peeling.
The batch that was in the airport lounge was THE BEST! When I piled my plates up with it, I got rather filthy looks from the servers/attendants in the lounge. I guess I was "cutting their lunch" by scoffing my face.

What do lychees taste like? They look like they are sweet.

They are. They have the consistency of green grapes, but not the sour tang of grapes. I think there is a pit in the middle of the fresh ones, like shown in the picture. I get the canned ones and they are hollow inside and come in a syrup like canned peaches. I get them at an Asian grocery store.

Asked....and answered. What she said!

Sushi sounds pretty good right now...but alas I am off to one of the best restaurants in Las Vegas...a cross I will have to bear.

Thanks for the report, I can't wait until the part when we meet!

I thought we agreed that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas....unless you decide to share on the Boards. So...what restaurant was it and where is the food porn?

Our meet happens early; so not long now...

You sound like you are really suffering.

Must be I posted on her TR and still have not heard where they went to eat.

They're still gorging themselves?

I think she's deliberately leaving us hanging so that we mosey on over to her PTR!!

 

[franandaj]

Must be I posted on her TR and still have not heard where they went to eat.

They're still gorging themselves?

I think she's deliberately leaving us hanging so that we mosey on over to her PTR!!

I still have yesterday to post (which was pretty porn worthy), but OMG after dinner tonight I am barely able to type after the best Grand Mariner Souffle EVER, I've learned the difference between cakey souffles and cloudy souffles, this was heavenly and after the Grand Mariner shot, well this Old Fogie can barely type. I'm lucky I (hope) I didn't make any typos!

BTW we ate at Andre's at the Monte Carlo....Full on food porn to come on the PTR

 

[PrincessInOz]

I still have yesterday to post (which was pretty porn worthy), but OMG after dinner tonight I am barely able to type after the best Grand Mariner Souffle EVER, I've learned the difference between cakey souffles and cloudy souffles, this was heavenly and after the Grand Mariner shot, well this Old Fogie can barely type. I'm lucky I (hope) I didn't make any typos!

BTW we ate at Andre's at the Monte Carlo....Full on food porn to come on the PTR

Sounds delish! I hope that you managed to stumble into bed gently before hitting the comatose button....and I count two typos in the above (same word).

 

[PrincessInOz]

Bad Line Karma

Getting out of LAX turned out to be an interesting experience today. We kept experiencing Bad Line Karma. Have any of you ever had the pleasure?

Firstly, our line out of the plane took twice as long as the other side to clear. There must have been some slow old fogies on our side. Best I could figure out was that someone must have opened a tin of Canned Cream Corn! Sadly, it was all gone by the time I passed by; and the other side of the plane had totally cleared out!

Secondly, the immigration queues at LAX was just ridiculous! I’ve never seen them as busy. I figured that because we were late leaving Sydney, we’d gotten in at the same time as flights from India, China, Guatemala and Singapore. Aside from English, I speak a bit of Cantonese, Spanish and Malay/Indonesian…but no luck with Tamil. So, I don’t know how the Immigration officers were coping; but communication seemed to be a bit of an issue this morning….Aside from me being able to swear (softly under my breath) in 4 different languages, that is…

We’d picked lucky No 8 because DH decided it was going to be a fast queue. I wanted No 9 … which turned out to be a much faster and quicker line being processed than No 8. Yup….all the Chinese travelers had picked No 8 (Chinese lucky number) and I suspect that being asked to look directly into a camera and putting first their four fingers and then their thumb on the scanner was turning out to be much more of a linguistic challenge than anyone could have anticipated. We ended up jumping out of line and into the waaaay back of No 9, which moved much faster. Seems like the Immigration officers had much better luck communicating in Spanish.

Thirdly, when we finally cleared immigration and picked up our bags to clear customs, we ended up in the wrong queue again. This time, I picked the wrong queue. The customs officer in the queue seemed to be much more diligent at working than the customs officer in the other queue.

I sure hoped that this was not a sign of things to come! In actual fact, it turns out that we got our hit of bad line karma in one big dose and never had any other line issues to deal with after this. I figured it was a good trade-off.

By the time we got out of the airport, it was way past midday. It took us over 2.5 hours to get out!

Not quite the start I’d envisaged as I had always thought that we would have been out and at the Farmer’s Market by this time. And we still had to pick up the hire car. Any plans we had for heading to the Farmer’s Market or anywhere else were well and truly shelved. It seemed easiest to get the car and head for the hotel rather than having to deal with peak hour on the 4 or 5 freeway on the way back.

We had booked with Hertz because DH hadn’t quite been quick enough to jump on an Alamo deal. Just.as.well.that.he.booked.when.he.did!

Turns out that Hertz had no spare cars available on a Wednesday either. The courtesy bus driver was telling anyone who got on that there were only cars available if you had pre-booked.

We ended up with a very smelly Nissan hatchback. The previous renters were obviously smokers…

…and with our luggage, I was glad that we hadn’t been allocated the smart car.

Settling into Anaheim over a late lunch

Our hotel of choice in Anaheim for this trip was the Residence Inn Maingate. We had previously stayed there before and were pleased to head back there again.


Our room..

..and DS made himself at home. I know that we are from DownUnder..but even I have to admit that THIS is ridiculous! I think he had a bit of trouble acclimatizing.

The bathroom arrangements…..

..and after I grabbed a quick shower, we headed out for lunch here.

For me, this is such a typically Americana place to eat.

Even this neon shaped as a baseball cap just screams Americana to me. Although…I’m pretty sure that there isn’t a baseball team out there called Budweiser…

I’d ordered a Shrimp Po Boy.

Gotta love that cajun remoulade!

DH got a Caeser salad…

..and DS ordered Fish and Chips (BLIMEY!).

The boys decided that they wanted to head back to the hotel and check out the pool.

Me? I was struggling to stay awake and it was only 4.30 pm. So I decided to head to DownTown Disney to tough it out till proper American bedtime.


Up Next: Downtown Disney at night rounds off our long Day 1

 

[usnuzuloose]

Well I guess it could be worse and have the smart car and be cramped.
At least you can hang a car freshner. I need to find a can of lychees and give them a try. I would eat that before vegemite. Maybe I should do my own trip report as it just got interesting long before we leave in june.

 

[franandaj]

I see where this is going now with the Scavenger Hunt photos cleverly worked in...don't think I forgot our little discussion about Po Boys...I may be old but I haven't lost THAT much of my memory!

 

[Imzadi]

I've never eaten at Bubba Gumps even though there is one close by.

I would never get into a Smart Car. They are so tiny & low to the ground. I hear they are very popular in Europe. But, here, where the high, high off the ground SUV is king, I would NOT want to be driving in a low to the ground Smart Car and have an SUV or truck not see me.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Well I guess it could be worse and have the smart car and be cramped.
At least you can hang a car freshner. I need to find a can of lychees and give them a try. I would eat that before vegemite. Maybe I should do my own trip report as it just got interesting long before we leave in june.

Hmmm....perhaps we could try lychees with vegemite.....never.mind.

Someday, vegemite will RULE the world!

We never got round to getting a car freshner. We kept thinking of when we were returning it and somehow, the countdown just flew by. At the end, it was really obvious that we should have gotten that freshner instead of ignoring the smell.

I see where this is going now with the Scavenger Hunt photos cleverly worked in...don't think I forgot our little discussion about Po Boys...I may be old but I haven't lost THAT much of my memory!

I have no idea what you mean!...

Actually, it was quite amazing how many of the scavenger hunt items just jumped out at me during this trip.

I've never eaten at Bubba Gumps even though there is one close by.

I would never get into a Smart Car. They are so tiny & low to the ground. I hear they are very popular in Europe. But, here, where the high, high off the ground SUV is king, I would NOT want to be driving in a low to the ground Smart Car and have an SUV or truck not see me.

I'm guessing that you're thinking about the one at Times Square??
Usually full of tourists!

Smart Cars are also here in Oz. At least we see them on the road...we still could drive over them, though...

 

[PrincessInOz]

Day 1 - Downtown Disney

It was a dark and gloomy night…err…day in Anaheim and I did care! Because…I was hoping to catch a shot of the San Gabriel Mountains, supposedly covered with snow. As franandaj had suggested, we had driven down the 91 to the 5 in the hopes of catching a picture of a top of snowy mountain (with real snow). But it was so gloomy that you could have sworn that there were no mountains in “them there hills”.

But it was still warmer in the Anaheim winter than when we left in Melbourne summer and the boys had decided that a dip in the hotel pool was in order.

I didn’t feel like getting wet and so consoled myself with the fact that I was here!

I eagerly walked down to the main entrance past the bus pick up point...

..and made it past security and into the promenade area between Disneyland and California Adventure…where I soaked in the ambience of being back on a Disney property.

The reminders for World of Colour were everywhere! I know that its sad to admit this…but I was excited just to see the reminders of exactly where I was and why I had come to DLR.

I was also intrigued to see the changes to the entrance of DCA and whilst I didn’t take a picture of the Pixie Dust excuses, I missed the colour of the C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A letters out the front.

My destination for the night was fast approaching.

I took some time to take pictures of the DTD shop signages

But I wasn’t aimlessly meandering….I was really aiming for here.

I had decided to go check out the Grand California Resort main lobby as it presented a wonderful photography opportunity.

And I just loved seeing the fireplace with crackling fire in operation.

Whilst I was in the lobby, I got a call from the boys. They had finished their pool fun and had made their way to the DTD zone as well. So we arranged to meet in the lobby.

I’m still wondering if this was a mistake….as I had problems pushing BOTH boys out of the lobby.

So with one last look at the crackling fire…

I bribed the boys to move ….with the promise of food!

I pushed them out towards the bright neon lights of an old favourite of mine…

….and bought a serve of sugary fatness delights! Beignets!

And just so there are no mistakes about it….they were delicious!

Since the Princess and the Frog movie, this treat has become even more highly sort after than ever and I was intrigued to check out the manufacturing process for beignets.

The CM rolled the dough real thin and sliced them with a pizza slicer..

…she picked them up…

…and placed them in the deep fryer!

But at $10 for the mix, I think I might just google a recipe at home and make it myself!

We were well satisfied with this treat. None of us were super hungry but hey! Opportunity knocked.


(Continued in next post)

 

[PrincessInOz]

(Continued from previous post)


After being fueled up, the boys knew exactly where they wanted to hang out…

And they were NOT budging!

So, they went into the Lego shop….

….and I left them after a while to meander the shots…er…shops.

I made my way here…

..and took a look at the person at work making more sweet things.

I always enjoy the smell of this shop…there is nothing that quite fills those nostril hairs of mine than the intoxicating scent of just-starting-to-burn sugar. You know what I mean….that smell that travels into your nose and tickles the senses all the way down to the top of the tonsils and just past the throat. It is *almost* (but not quite) as addictive a thought as thinking about chocolate. So, with my nose firmly leading the way, I walked in and salivated over the delectable delights!!

I looked at the jelly belly candy jars. Did you know that there is no Peppermint flavour JB @ MC?

And after my October trip to the World and spending time in the Kuche Karamel shop, I now have such fond memories about DisneyFirefly’s caramel apple that I couldn’t resist taking this shot either.

My favourite snack to get in MC is the macadamia turtles. So I got one (or six) of them to go, with a marshmallow covered chocolate stick and one of those toffee apples.

With my lovely treats in hand, I headed back in to the Legoshop to see if the boys were ready for a round-up…

Not just yet!

Thankfully for me, there was a great drummer putting his musical instruments in use near the Rainforest Café.

The rat-a-tat-tat drew me closer to listen. I really enjoyed his performance.



(Continued in next post)

 

[PrincessInOz]

(Continued from previous post)


It was still only about 8.00 pm and by this stage, the boys were ready to leave the Legoshop; but still had a bit of energy left in them.

We found something to amuse us not too far away from the drummer. I don’t know what the cast member tending the stall must have thought of us but we sure had fun trying on the different hats on offer.

I spotted a Floyd Turbo or Mad Bomber Hat in the mix..and DS was a willing model for me.

It was nearly 8.30 pm by this stage and we were all fading fast. At this stage, we had hit the 35-hour mark without much sleep and it really was time to head back.

But there was one more stop to make along the way.

DS and I both picked up either a Build a Dino or a Build a Bear ..and this particular model made it home with me.

The boys were getting to that scrappy stage.

And everything just seem a little fuzzy to me…

..We were all seeing Mickey’s everywhere! Some hidden…

Others…out in the open.

We made it safely back to the Inn where we just flaked out!

The end of a long but satisfying first day.



Up Next – Our one and only day at a Disney Park

 

[usnuzuloose]

Its getting better by each post. Cant wait to see pics from inside Disney. All the yummy sugary treats. YUMMY!!