California Part Deux

I had written this huge long post, was nearly finished and had to save it to finish later. When I come back, what's happened? Apparently it never saved. OMGeez, really?

Ok, here's round two of part deux!

The next day we were going to Universal Studios, and we were excited 'cause there were some new rides there that weren't there when I was there before and Jordan had never been there before.

The park opened at ten, but we decided to not stress about getting there right at ten. Our GPS said that it would take about an hour and a half to get there "with traffic". So, we left around tenish. Of course "with traffic" was a nice way to plan to be safe, we should have planned for getting lost, ridiculously lost. We lost faith in our GPS and decided to not follow it, and that was our downfall. In our defense Universal Studios is already impossible to find. I don't know why they don't make it easier, but they sure tuck it away into the most hidden away spot of land they could. Granted the lot was there before they built the park onto it, and I'm sure they weren't concerned about tourists at that time, but really- when they build the park they could have maybe put some signs on the road telling you where it was. I dunno- maybe we're just retarded.

So, we're driving around downtown LA and we kept getting stuck on one way streets, and couldn't make our way back to the freeway where we were supposed to be. We were sitting at a red light and I notice that there was a sign above a business written in Chinese. I thought that was weird, and then I was looking around and I was noticing that all of the signs were in Chinese! And we started to see that everyone out on the streets were all Chinese as well. I felt like everyone knew a secret that we didn't, and that I was in some Twilight Zone. Then we realized what I'm sure you had already figured out- we were in china town! It was like we had stepped into a whole different world.

It was about 1:30 by they time we made our merry little way to the park. Phew. Because the park closed at 6:00 (lame) we were majorly pressed for time. Right when we got there we instantly saw a ride that didn't have a line, which was exactly what we needed. We then found out it didn't have a line because they were closed. The guy standing in front suggested that Water World was about to start, and they would be back up and running when Water World got out.

Water World was awesome, I remembered a little bit about it from when I was a kid, and it was cool to see it again. After that we snagged some lunch, and was anxious to get back to the line-less ride before a line formed.

This ride was called "House of Horror" I believe. That should have been a red flag, but I think we both had in mind a ride like Haunted Mansion, or maybe it was a really scary indoor roller coaster. As we sauntered up to the door of the ride there was fog pouring out of the entrance, and as we got closer there was the world's creepiest man standing in the entrance in a very realistic mask, and a tux with white gloves and cape. He looked like that man from Texas Chainsaw Massacre decked out for the opera, and he was beckoning us to follow him. That should have also been a red flag, and while everything inside me was screaming not to follow this man, we plodded on.

Once we go inside there still was no line. You know how rides have the inside themed for whatever the ride was going to be? We thought that's what we were in; really creepy tight corridors fit for the theme of "House of Horrors". We kept expecting to hit the end of the line, when suddenly this evil man jumped out at us and scared the poo right out of me. It finally dawned on us, this was no ride. We were in a haunted house that you have to walk through. Talk about going into it blind. I don't want to go into major detail, I did that on the previous draft and it brought up terrible memories and I broke out in a cold sweat. Let's just say it's was the scariest haunted house I've ever been in. The blessed no line that attracted us was the worst part because we didn't have anyone in front of us screaming to warn us what was coming up, and there was no one behind us to give us a protected from behind feeling, and the idea that there could be some creepy man following us was horrible. And heaven knows I was too scared to look behind and check, afraid of what I might find. At one point I saw a guy about to jump out and I yelled "No!" and he jumped out and I yelled at him saying, "I said NO! You're mean!" It was traumatizing.

We made it out alive, but just barely. I was ready to blow off the rest of the rides and just sit on the steps in front of the ride and tell people NOT to go in!

Fast forward: The park closed, and as it was only six, we decided to explore the City Walk, which is basically a strip mall outside the park. We walked around, and perused the shops, got Jordan some sunglasses, and decided that we should go to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, but had some time to kill until we were actually hungry. We had already been all over City Walk, and there wasn't anything else to keep us busy for another hour or two, so I suggested a movie. Jordan's wasn't a huge fan of the idea, as a movie is something that you can do anytime, and we were in Cali! But, my argument was a pretty good one, considering there really wasn't anything else for us to do, but see a movie. We saw Star Trek, which was good, and by the time we were out, we were very much ready for dinner.

Hard Rock Cafe was awesome. I have been to Hard Rocks in Salt Lake City, Orlando, Nassau Bahamas, Nashville TN, and I think Hollywood was my favorite. The atmosphere is always great, the food fantastic, and I got a souvenir glass, and we both got some souvenir clothes.

What a long fun and frustrating day! We got lost, loved ourselves some Universal Studios (minus the House of Horror) enjoyed the City Walk and we were exhausted, and ready to get back to the hotel and crash.