Visiting Uncle Sam - 13 - LA - Dazzling Disney and Captivating Universal Studios - Part 2

The next day we got up early and with full enthu we checked out of the hotel and I was given the responsibility to drive to Hollywood's Walk of fame first by 8 am so that we can spend an hour there , have our breakfast and then head to Universal Studios where the shows start by 10 am



Since it was early morning, the traffic was very less and it was easy drive on I 5 again. As soon as we turned right , we could see the Hollywood sign. It was like a dream. I was enjoying the sign and jumped traffic ;) but thankfully no picture was taken of mine.. since it was early morning they left it free I think :). I really wanted to stop somewhere and take a picture of the Hollywood sign. But these people who were with me forbade me to stop anywhere and head straight to Walk of Fame... Unwillingly I drove there and we had a tough time finding a parking lot or a spot. Finally after too much roaming around the streets near hte walk of fame, we finally managed to get a spot at the end of the walk. We went out the Walk of Fame finding our favorite stars. It was fun. But we had to keep up with time too to enable us to go to Universal Studios. We had our breakfast there in a coffee shop and started to Universal Studios. I was upset that I couldnt find the one for Julia Roberts and George Clooney. Otherwise I saw Jack Sparrow :D and my favorite 007 Agent and other well known directors and stars. Its not a not-to-be-missed place honestly, but if you like movies and would want to just see your stars name where they really work from , then its just fun. There is also some tours which takes you to famous personalities houses (obviously to show it from outside and all), but I am not interested in those things and thankfully we didnt have time. Otherwise I know that one of the person in my group wanted to do that if that was possible, because he really wanted to see Katherine Heigl's house :D... Guys can really be crazy at times.

Then we drove to Universal Studios by exactly 10 am and this time we chose to take a privileged parking which enabled us to park near the Studios and also decided on taking the Fast Track pass if that was possible. I really wasnt sure what it had, except for the small piece of info that we shouldnt miss the Terminator and the 4D shows. I had no idea on what they really meant.. Coz Disney was full of rides and beautiful places. And this is a pucca movie domain and I wanted to not have great expectations from it. Somehow that day we had the red carpet on :D . Among the Manager husband and wife who had been with us, the manager had been there already twice so we appointed him as our guide this time :D And I should say that he did it well. First we were dragged to fun rides which was almost 4 storeys downstairs. Since we had the escalator it was good to go down :D. And guess what was the first ride they took me to !!! The Mummy !! I didnt know what to expect from this..when they asked us to keep our belongings in a locker, I became a little apprehensive.. because the reason was that during the ride you might drop them if u had it. Ok.. When I got that reason I told them I ain't joining them. But they literally dragged me along.. This is again part of the movie sets , so its like you are part of the movie as the ride goes on. But this one lasted for only a few minutes but it was scary as hell. My goodness... U shud have seen my face after the ride... Since the locker was locked using one of our finger print and I had locked one. But after the ride, my hands were shaking so badly that it wasnt recognizing my finger print correctly and we had to call upon the guards to unlock it for us. Sari paravaaillai yedho onnoda mudinjirumnu nambhi adutha ride ku poanean.. it was Jurrasic park.. Idhu adhukumela.. here they let us take our handbags but told us that we would get a little wet. This was fun coz you get to see the different dinosaurs that u saw in the movie there and it would try to scare you too.. but the finale was yet to come..adhu ennaku theriyala..and when it started ascending a bigger height , I realised that it is going to be a free fall..My stomach came to my heart and my heart was in my mouth (same old expression, because same old feeling of fright). Oh my God.. how much shud I endure now!! If Mummy was scary in one way, Jurassic Park was scary in another. These people were enjoying it so much that they wanted a second round and because we had the fast track pass we were in front everywhere.. I was really tired by the time these two rides were done and was feeling damn hungry. We were having something or the other inbetween the rides. After that we came up again and as usual went in for the other set of rides. Like the Simpsons Ride (mainly for kids, but everyone will be a little scared in one particular place.. in this ride you never move anywhere from your place..but the effect it gives is amazing), The Terminator (This is not a ride, but an experience, where you are experiencing the Terminator fight in real.. u have real actors there.. its sort of 5 D ... was really good) Shrek 4D (My fav character.. 4D experience of having the Donkey, Shrek, Fiona etc) , Waterworld (Where you see live actors acting out the movie screenplay in real with all the action in water ... it was amazing) ..



In between the rides we took the Studio Tour where they take you to see the studios which hosted the shooting of the serials, sops and movies, to see various sets that have been set up for various reasons (some regular, like the New York set, Desperate Housewives set where the actual shooting takes place, War of the Worlds plane crash set, King Kong miniature set etc), to see how they create the lightning and flood effects, the earthquake effect, the various houses which is used by the directors and script writers to finalize on a movie, how a small piece of land is reused for various shots with blue background etc .. Its really very interesting to see the movie making process and the various assets used in it. Its really very very interesting. I enjoyed it very much. The highlight of this was the King Kong 4D show which was like being among King Kong and the Dinosaur during their fight in the movie.. It is as if the Dinosaur is trying to capture the mini van you are riding and King Kong is protecting you from it.. it was so so so amazing... no words to explain , you have to feel it..



The other humorous one was the House of Horrors. It was like the Horror House in Innovative film city except that we had real people coming in between to scare you. I guess these things happen in the Scary House in Garuda Mall in Bangalore. But this was really scary.. People kept pushing others in front to avoid being scared.. And the most funny thing that happened was how this manager friend behaved in one incident... I was in line walking 2nd coz others didnt want to go before.. Even though I was a little scared I managed to push through. When we were almost to the end, there was this Frankeinstein character sitting.. and as soon as the other guy and myself went past it.. there was a huge scream.. and when we turned around we saw that this scary character was very close to this manager and his wife and guess what this manager did.. he just jumped off and ran away leaving his wife there with this scary person.... and she was screaming to the character not to touch her and to leave her alone.. my god.. it was so funny... we felt bad in a way but honestly it was very funny too.. Finally we all managed to come out of it and saw the manager standing outside...we sat there and laughed our stomachs out for almost 10 mins... The wifey was so angry that her husband left her with the scary character..that she was scolding him till the end of the day :D telling him that he was supposed to be protecting her in danger..and he ran away :D ...oh man..it was a Horror House ...but it became a Humour House for us.. We kept reminding that manager about it for the rest of the trip :D



The other important show that should be mentioned was the Special Effect show, where they asked the audience to take part in it , to show them how the special effects were made on screen with hi-tech camera. It was very good.. To really see how they make those special scenes.. wow.. This show is really special.. We really enjoyed it very much..



We had earlier planned to start back by 4 pm so that we can be in our hotel a little earlier and take some rest before we plunge on the weeks work. But with all these interesting shows and rides, we eventually started by 6.30 pm....and It was a day which ended very well..except for one thing.. I DID NOT GET MY PICTURE OF THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN.. and I was scolding these guys on my way back ... They ditched me from not taking this picture in my camera.. I was really so pissed off on that part.. .I told them that I would never forgive them for that..coz I cannot come back again for that picture. They said that they would get me a picture from Google.. Big deal...Dont I know that.. I wanted that picture in my camera.. :( ... Its ok.. Later I took the driving in I5 and guess what, I raced and drove in 120 m/h too :D.. but got a little scared when we were almost out of petrol and we cudnt find one nearby.. That was the only worrying part..otherwise it was good drive.. we came in about midnight and had a very good sleep ... All in all it was a worth while trip ... I dont know if I would ever come back again..but this trip had been good to me and I really visited all important places to be seen.

Visiting Uncle Sam - 13 - LA - Dazzling Disney and Captivating Universal Studios - Part 1

Continuing with my travel records :)

I ended with my trip to Monterey , Mystery Spot and 17 mile drive. The next weekend, it wasnt much except that we went to a Shiva Vishnu temple in Liverpool, the day being Diwali for us, and had lunch in Saravana Bhavan in Sunnyvale and went to watch the movie "The Due Date" [Very Average....]... The next day we decided to go to Muir Woods, but the weather was really very very crazy. It was raining by the time we started @ around 9 am and I wouldnt have driven even 10 miles, it started pouring heavily and I wasnt able to see a thing in the road. And no marks for guessing that I panicked and the other guy had to take over and we ended up going to Pier 39 after too much of deliberation. We were just three of us and the other two hadnt been to Pier 39 and Golden Gate Bridge. So I became their guide. It was raining and by the time we were in SFO, it stopped a little and began to drizzle. We had to buy a Poncho and cover ourselves. And one thing we saw there , out of the ordinary was the plumbing issue right in the middle of the Pier 39 road and water gushing out of the drains due to excessive rains.... Wow it isnt a very perfect place afterall isnt ?



I took them around, had snacks in Hard Rock Cafe (I wanted to do that for a long time, Did you know that the Aadiye Kolludhe song from Vaaranam Aayiram was taken there ???.. I took a snap there :) ) and then we went around in that cold weather and later decided to take a cruise. By the time the cruise started, in a godlike effect, the Sun shone.... Oh the Sun God gave his blessings to me all through my trips there. You have no idea how much helpful he had been. You cannot imagine that there will be Sun with the kind of weather that was prevelant there. And it was amazing during the cruise. More than me, the other two enjoyed a lot, coz they havent been in that and it was really exciting for them. They in general are fighter cocks and chatter boxes, but during that cruise, they were friends (only during that cruise) and were calm too !!!



After that it was my turn to drive, as the rain wasnt bad, it was more of drizzling and not pouring. So we started off to Golden Gate Bridge @ around 4 pm after our cruise. We kept going inside and outside the actual city of SFO and ended up in a Park and then finally got our way around to the Bridge view point. It was as usual a very very nice walk in the bridge. And @ around 6.30 pm we started back and took the way inside the city and via El Camino Real came to the hotel. Even though it started on a highly scary note for me, it ended up well. I was in the bridge during a sunny day, a cloudy day too :)



The next week, there was this plan of going to Los Angeles. Myself, the other guy, his manager and his wife. The girl who was with me on most of the trip was scheduled to leave on Sunday. But she couldnt resist visiting LA with us, that she postponed the trip to Tuesday :D



So it was decided that the 5 of us will be travelling on Friday evening and we also pre booked the Motel 6 near Disney Land for the stay and managed to get a discount of 10$ for Universal Studio's ticket via AAA membership. I completed my work on Friday ( I had only two more weekends which ended up in the demo!!!) and started by 4.30 pm and finally we left Belmont @ 6 pm on our way to Disney and I took the charge of driving first and that was a very bad decision, coz I had to cover the Santa Cruz mountains (Thankfully it was dark and I couldnt see a thing) and as usual I was slowing down in the curves and taking my time a little bit more to be careful. After hitting I-5 , approximately after driving for almost 3 hrs I gave the control, because I was already running some fever and my eyes were watering very badly that I wasnt able to concentrate well enough for the trip. When I sat @ the behind then only I realized how much I was shivering with fever. I had very severe cold and cough but didnt expect a temperature rise. But luckily I was able to manage it well. I-5 was a nice drive, just one straight road for almost 4 hrs.. it was cool. I decided that I will drive in that while returning back.



We ended up in LA @ around 1 am and checked in and had a quick sleep. At 7 am we got ready and made our way by walk (just 10 mins walk) to Disney Land Park (not the California Adventure). On the way grabbed a bite in iHop and entered in to the Disneyland. I should be perfectly honest here. I wasnt much of a fan to go to Disneyland as I was sure that I wouldnt enjoy the rides there ( I am not a ride person , remember my scare of heights !!! yes, that is the reason I never go for rides) So I was a little hesistant to take this chance. When I went inside the park and went to get our tickets, I felt that there might be some surprise for me or rather I might enjoy this more than I even thought of. It was such an amazing place. It was such a HAPPY-TO-BE place. You get the feeling that all things in this world are so fairy and nice and cute. If you like fairy tales, if you like good rides, if you like being a kid for sometime, dont miss Disneyland. If you want to see very amazing laser shows and fire works, dont miss Disneyland... in general Dont Miss DisneyLand.. Its a place you have to visit once. Everyone would have loved the Mickey, Minnie and their series atleast at one part of their life. And this place is much more than them. Oh my God... I was so so much enjoying myself there.



The place was so well made up for the Christmas & Thanksgiving, that it just blew my breadth away. Its like being in a fairy land among the fairies. And all those cute little kids playing around.... OMG.. its really a very very happy place (Definitely not so happy for the parents to keep up to the expectations and demands of the kids :D , but all in all , its a very peaceful place, inspite of the chaos)



The castle you would see in the Walt Disney Pictures Logo was there.. it was so cute :) and I was having so much fun seeing it in person. The first place inside the Fairyland that we visited was the Sleeping beauty's castle. Very well made up. After that we saw that there was a huge crowd waiting in the Peter Pan ride. We werent sure what it was, but it was mentioned as the "Not to Miss" feature in the map that they give in the gate when you get the ticket. So we stood in the Q for almost 45 mins and finally went for the ride.. It was awesome. It was like being a Peter Pan, how he travelled in the space, visited the places, fought the pirates all of that.. I cannot do any justice to the pleasure and the feeling of these rides in Disneyland. You have to experience it to feel it. And coming from a person who hasnt gone in any rides (like Tora tora, Giant wheel etc) all of her life, this is surely a big thing I would say. It was amazing.



There was one inicident though which I would like to record out here. 3 out of 5 of us were so tired walking through that we decided to sit for some time while the other two went for the "Its a small world". The place we were sitting was a staircase behind which there was a queue for another ride. At that time there was a very cute girl who came running to the place where we were sitting. Behind her was her mom. I wanted to take her photo coz she looked very cute. So I asked her mom if I can take her photo and she smiled..And obviously I took it for her yes and took her snap. She then left with the kid and after a few mins another lady with the same kid came to me and asked me if I was the one who took the kids photo. I agreed and she asked me if I could delete that photo coz her mom was going crazy on why I wanted the photo of her child and wanted to make sure I did delete it. I was shocked for a sec but then regained my composure and deleted the kids photo before her and showed it to her. She went away. I wasnt sure why or what made her afraid. But guess she must have her own reasons. I left it @ that. But my friend who was witnessing was so scared after that to a level that she forbade to take any photo if a kid was even remotely on sight ;)

After this incident we went to the Toon world and made our way in the Mickey's house and took a picture with Mickey himself :) I was really very happy , dont know why, coz I havent been a very great fan. I used to like Mickey and Donald but didnt have the crazy interest to take a picture with him in person. Of course, Mickey is a fictional character, but somehow when the photo came , I felt happy. And the whole of toon world was so so cute. There was a small ride there which was very funny.



Sparing this incident, I really had a good time in Disneyland. The Space Mountain ride, another mountain ride , go karting like car race etc.. all were fun. Slowly it was becoming dusk and the sky was amazing with beautiful colors. There was to be a Christmas parade by 6.30 pm and it had become slightly darker by that time. And they started making way for the parade and to our astonishment, people already were seated in the pavements and other places possible to get the closer look of the parade. You should see the way they had lighted up the whole of Disney land during Christmas.. God, it looked like Paradise. We watched the Christmas Parade with so much AWE !!! It was so so nice. To watch our own fairy tale creatures come alive and walk before you, it was awesome. We know that they are artists who are made up to look like them.. But we forget that when we see them (atleast I did). They looked like the life sized dolls. It was so so so good.. I was feeling so happy like a child. When that was over, we again went to Pirates of the Carribean and Indiana Jones and enjoyed those rides too. To be really in such a place where you feel a part of it like the Pirates and to watch the fights between Jack Sparrow and others ;) and to watch Indiana Jones in his adventure and to be a part of it including a scary ride which in the first hand looked so harmless.. These are unforgettable memories. And these will always bring a smile to my face when I remember them.



I think I should thank my friends who persuaded me to go to Disney land with them and made me go these rides almost overpowering me :) because without their persuasion I would have skipped it and missed an important place in my life when I had the chance. You never know unless you tried ;)



After the rides we got our dinner and then went to find a place to watch the Fantasmic show @ 9 pm. Seems like people gather around the place (its a small lake sort of thing where the show happens) almost an hour before to find a proper seat. I instantly knew that it would be like the Songs of the Sea show in Sentosa Island, Singapore. But with the Disney Creatures and Mickey against the Snow white's Step Devil mother it was a very very nice show. And at the end you have all the Disney live creatures coming in a big ship :) .... Man!! it was wonderful. We felt so relieved at the end of the day. Even though we had to stand in many shows for a long time say almost 1 hr or so and we were tired of walking it was worth it. We should have got the Fast Track pass which would have enabled us to reduce the waiting time , but we werent sure if the extra dollars would really help. Since it was a Saturday there was enough crowd too. We returned back by walk to our Motel and went to sleep straight away as we had to start early to Universal Studio and Hollywood the next day.



In short, if you are even in California, do take a ride to LA's DisneyLand. I know that there are other Disney's too. I am not sure how they are but any Disney Land will be a very Happy place. So dont think for a sec that its for the kids. Nope, if you ever like fairy tales or just want to be a child for a few hours, be there, even if you are alone, you will enjoy being there.