Stayed one night at LA

Flew straight from Singapore to Los Angeles. It was only 15 hours flight cos of how smooth it was. Initially, I was expecting watching the same set of movies on board since it was still in the month of November when I went back and left Singapore. But I was pleasantly surprised that they changed the movies!

The plane was decorated nicely with Christmas ornaments at the sides of plane. Very nice. Throughout the flight, I watched Charlie and the Choc Factory, Four Brothers, Skeleton Key, Hustle and Flow, and Sky High They also had shows like Wallace and Gromit, Dukes of Hazzard, Polar Express etc.

I enjoy watching "Sky High" because I love action hero shows and this show is about a school made up of kids with superpowers. So, it is quite cool. I also love "Skeleton Key". I watched that first as Esther recommended it was nice. It is a thriller with a great twist. Very exciting. "Charlie and the Choc Factory" is also a nice show with family values-very colourful. "Four Brothers" is a show about 4 brothers all adopted by this woman. She was killed in a convenience store and her murder was more than meets the eye. She is a very well liked lady but was killed with an intention. So, the 4 brothers (of different race) united together to investigate. "Hustle and Flow" is about a guy, a hustler becoming a good rapper. The only part I like about this show is the rap songs he sang. I have learnt to appreciate rap as they expresses the rapper's emotions through the song and lyrics. Of course, some raps are quite vulgar but like I said, it is an expression of the rapper.

On a side point, there is this song by Eminem called "Mockingbird" and strangely, I kind of felt the emotions from this song and felt sad. Many people see rap as a whole lot of rubbish as they can never make out the lyrics..but aside from the noise and repetition of the beat, if you look into the lyrics, sometimes, it makes sense and tells a story.

In the plane, we also had "Ben & Jerry" ice cream that came in an ice cream stick. Kind of messy but tasted so good with chocolate covering. I did not use eat ice cream but I have learnt after many months in US..and the only ice cream I eat is Ben & Jerry's. So in US, it is s cheap. One tub costs only about US$2.50, as compared to singapore which is S$11.

Stayed one night in Los Angeles. The first day when we arrived, we reached about 3 plus pm and by the time we settled in the hotel room with the view of the plane since the hotel is at the airport, we went out and took a subway to Chinatown for dinner. Sunset was at about 4:30-5pm and so, it was very dark by 5 plus pm.

Chinatown was quite a dead town with few chinese restaurants opened only. One guy in a big family approached me and asked me where was chinatown and I answered, "This is it!" I found it amusing cos he thinks I am a local. Haha..

We entered a Chinese restaurant and ordered "Black Bean beef hor fun", "House special fried rice" and "Claypot chicken"...and when the food arrived, we got a shock!! The hor fun and rice appeared as mountains on the plate! It was good enough for at least 4 people!! And when the claypot came out, it was a huge claypot good enough for 4-6 people! We almost fainted. Haha..

We didnt expect the huge amount as we forgot how huge US portions were after spending few weeks in Singapore. We tried our best to eat and we managed to finish the horfun. We da bao the fried rice and chicken. Went back to hotel after one and a half hour ride back, put the food in a drawer to keep it secure and the next day, we took the food out and had it for breakfast.

We stayed in Radisson Hotel, which is an expensive hotel but it had no microwave or fridge. So frustrating. So, we took out the food after a night and just ate it straight. It was cold but we were hungry..so just ate.

The next day, our flight back to Mobile was late at night..about 11 plus pm. So, we went sightseeing during the day after checking out and leaving our luggage in the hotel.

Actually, I would love to post pictures but my computer hard disk crash and I seem to lost my LA photos.

Anyway, we took the free transport from hotel to Manhatten beach. It was a beautiful place with small shops. People were surfing in the waters..very nice scenery. We also took the transpot to a shopping place with many stores. We had lunch at "California Pizza Kitchen". We figured eating this in California would be more authentic than in Singapore. We did not buy anything, just did window shopping as we do not want to repack our luggage.

After a day's walking, we took the transport and sat in the bus for one whole round and I fell asleep in the bus. After one round of free ride, we stopped back at our hotel and decided to go Long Beach as it was still early...only about 4 plus pm. So, we still had about 5 hours. Took the free airport bus from hotel and from the airport, took the free airport transfer to subway station (Metro). Bought the day's pass for only US$ 3 and ride the metro for an hour to Long Beach.

After that, we were at the station looking at the map to see where to explore. Someone came by and asked us where were we going. We said we were looking for dinner and some place nice to see. He told us where to go with a nice harbourfront. So, we walked there and really enjoyed the scenery. There were wonderful colourful lights, with nice ships.

We did not have much time..so we quickly walked to find food but ended up buying Macs at Walmart cos we were rush for time. We did not want to miss our flight. So, we took the subway back to airport and reached there at 10 plus pm. We already checked in our bags before we went Long Beach so we just straight to our gate. Enjoyed time in LA very much.