Around the Block

Right, so I didn't blog for the past two days because there were too little happenings for a good post, so I'll just combine all of them into one post, including today's.

Back on Friday, it was quite a slow day and there was nothing much to do. My aunt was working from home so she was a little free to bring me around the area. We had to return to the bank to settle my account before heading off to Pavilions for grocery shopping. Note, the Pavilions here is like a grocery store, not the Pavilion back in KL with all the barang-barang jenama. Just so you know, the seafood here is also super cheap ._. Everything back home in Malaysia is so freaking expensive.

All the fish. Just look at that fat salmon

Soon after that, we went to pick up my cousin who is already preparing for her SAT exams and the two of us were dropped off at the mall area near our place so that I may just walk around and see what there is. Honestly speaking, nothing much. If I were to give a reference to you guys, it would be something like Center Point in Bandar Utama, but with even less people and its smaller in size. Other than Abercrombie & Fitch outlet (its a clothes store) I don't see anything else worth looking around. We went to Red Bricks pizza for lunch where I ate a whole medium pizza before leaving the place. I was taken to the local library to have a look in case I have books I wanted to read. The library has 2 floors, and the ground floor contains everything (including movies and music) EXCEPT fiction. Why? Its because the 2nd floor is ALL fiction. Unfortunately for me there were only 2 columns for science fiction so yeah T_T

Its rather quiet in the area sometimes - nothing much going on

That was more or less it for Friday. On Saturday however, my aunt dragged me and my cousin out for a voluntary work conducted by her company. It was at the Sea Lab in Redondo Beach and our jobs were just to paint some tanks, paint some fences and put them in place. I haven't painted anything for quite a long time, and lets be honest, the only paint we use nowadays is the one in the computer. I stained my shoes from this >.> We also had a tour around the touch tanks area after the work, and by touch tank I mean tanks that you can reach in to touch the animals there. Have you guys ever touched a bat ray before? Try it, they're soft and slimy and it feels nice. They also have the Horned sharks (named after the horns on their dorsal fins for defensive purposes) there for you to pet, and just like any other shark their skin is rough.

These are the egg cases of the Horned sharks and they take about 6-9 months to hatch. 

As for today, I went to Venice Beach! Again, if you did not come here to join in the activities or play at the seaside, the only thing you can do is take pictures. I was definitely not going there to play. For them, its normal to go cycling around the beach, suntanning, playing volleyball and having fun on the beach at freaking one o clock in the afternoon. Yes, the beach is windy and winds are quite strong there but the sun is intense. Over here, the skies are usually very clear and its all blue - you hardly see clouds here, so the sunlight is very intense and there's nothing shading you from it. 

Unlike most other beaches, Venice beach is one of the tourist attractions and hence it has A LOT of shops nearby. There are even stalls open on the beach like what you would expect at a carnival - they have food, games and there was even a booth promoting and selling Samsung Galaxy SIII - ON THE BEACH !!! Venice beach is also a place where people gather to do sports such as street basketball (there were a few courts there), skateboarding, rock climbing, and last but not least not forgetting - the muscle beach, named so because of the body builders there that exercise and do their stuff in plain sight (yes, they work out under the sun). I just had about an hour's walk around the place before I went back. And now I'm here still waiting for dinner later - I heard that we're gonna have steak.

Oh yes, before I forget. I finally tried In and Out burgers that you can only get in California! And I'll say this - they are delicious. They only have three types of burgers on the menu - Cheese burger, Hamburger, and double cheese burger. That's it! You just need to tell them whether you want onions with it or not, plus the fries and the soft drinks and you're all set. Ordering there is super easy too, they labeled the three most ordered sets as 1, 2 and 3 so all I literally did was just "I'd like a number one with onions please". 

Yep I guess that's it. If dinner is good, then I'll update this post with pictures too :D

Hollywood

Who wouldn't go to Hollywood when in Los Angeles right? In all honesty, I had never planned nor expected that I would be going there, but was urged to go there since I had ample free time for now. I was told by many people that the only thing you can do in Hollywood was take pictures, and that was exactly it. You'll find out more as you read on.

Random insight: Throughout the roads especially in residential areas, there are STOP words on the road at junctions. A driver is required by law to stop at these junctions for about 3 seconds, even if there are no cars, before they move. If there are multiple cars at the junction, it goes on a first come first serve basis - whoever stops first will go first. Since everyone will stop, there won't be any collision of any sort. However sometimes if there are too many people, they forget who stopped first and who should go, and in these cases drivers will just let others go first. Such courtesy, where can you find this in Malaysia =.= Also, all the exit lanes on residential areas have a row of spikes on the road. These row of spikes are placed in such a way that the tyre of an exiting vehicle will not be pierced - it will just push the spikes into compartments within the ground. Thus, any vehicle who stubbornly enters via the exit lane OR reverses on the exit lane while exiting, will get their tyres pierced.

Hollywood is located in the city area which is about 30-40 minutes drive from where I'm currently staying. I needed more than just toasted croissants this time though, so uncle brought me to Denny's Diner where I had the truly typical American breakfast that most of you would expect- sausages, bacon, scrambled egg with cheddar cheese and hash brown. It was called the All-American Slam on the menu. The portion is rather big for breakfast and it lasted me from 9am till 2pm+ without me feeling hungry. For those of you who know me well enough, you know my eating portions so you get the message.

Another thing that I really like about the US is the systematic road system that they have. I have forgotten to mention this in my previous post, so I'll just go on and explain a little more about it now. Basically, the roads and streets are all squared-shape without any messy turnings. The lanes are also really restrictive, and signs such as "right lane must turn right" are in abundance to remind drivers to stick to their respective lanes which means you need to plan your route correctly. Having all the streets/boulevards/avenues in squares are good in a sense that you won't get lost that easily. Say if you make a wrong turning, you can get back to the same street by turning left three times because its a square (just pray that the street you turn into isn't that long :P). It is also because of this systematic squarish road system that makes it possible to navigate using a map. Not Google maps or GPS, but the traditional paper map. I could actually properly navigate and ascertain our location on the map - there are no confusing winding roads like back home, just straight and occasionally winding/diagonal roads cutting in and out of the freeways.

My ride. Don't be jealous.

Also on the freeway (highway, its just called freeway here) there are usually 4 lanes and sometimes 5. I might have said this on my previous post already - the two (usually two) left lanes are car pool lanes which means that only vehicles having two (three in some states) or more people may use it. The car pool is considerably faster than the usual lane, and to my surprise there aren't any single drivers that use the car pool lane even though the normal lanes are jammed up and the car pool lane has almost no cars on it. This car pool lane will never ever work if it existed in Malaysia >.>

See how effective the car pooling lane is

Oh oh, and halfway through the freeway we came across this amazing networking of freeways that criss-crossed each other. The sight of it is really something to behold.

With the help of the car pool lane, we reached Hollywood, and my god the amount of people there is just... yeah I'll just leave it to the pictures. Today is only a Thursday so the crowd on Saturday/Sunday should be even worse. Parking itself was already a huge hassle, and there were super misleading signboards setup by those people wanting to earn a quick buck. For example, what would you think when you saw a sign saying "5$ pubic parking"? Of course, its a little vague since that's all it said, but you would have to drive in before you finally see '5$ for first 30 minutes and 10$ flat rate afterwards". Its not illegal, but it really gives you that "what the fuck" kind of feeling you know, that feeling of being scammed ._.

Check out the crowd

Other than the famous Hollywood sign there are also wax museums, which I unfortunately never went because the parking fee is a bitch (2$ per hour) and I don't think my uncle would be interested as well. Instead we went walking on the Walk of Fame which stretches like forever and I don't even know 90% of the names on it. Hollywood Boulevard is a long distance to cover, but the main attractions and the biggest crowd is in the center near the Chinese Theater and Dolby Theater. Here, there are people who dress up as famous movie characters and earn tips by letting others take pictures with them. Another thing about Americans, they are not afraid to speak up and will straight away ask for tips before you even agree to snap a picture. A girl wanted to take picture with a Darth Vader and a Storm Trooper when I overheard Vader saying "You know, most people give us 5$, sometimes 20$..." Yeah, I just left the scene after hearing that. After all, I'm the one having a better light saber. I did take a picture with "Mr. Incredible" who apparently knows how to say "selamant datang ke America". There was someone else that stood out in the crowd. Someone with extremely pale, sparkly skin walking around. Yes, its Edward Cullen ._. I wonder why he's so lonely though, people are just walking past him. Where's your Bella now? HEYOOOOOOOOOOOO


So all I did throughout the day was pictures, pictures and more pictures. That's all you can do in Hollywood honestly. You can buy souvenirs somewhere else - prices are sure to be higher at a major tourist attraction like this. Was supposed to go to Rodeo Drive afterwards but decided to go against it and went back via the freeway once again. I also got my handphone number today, and no, I didn't got for any plan that included a smart phone. I'm reusing my Sony Ericsson that I used back in Malaysia, just with the American SIM card. Its a San Francisco number since I'll be there for most of my duration here. 


Lets just say that Hollywood isn't as exciting as it seems, in my opinion of course.

You can find all of the pictures I took at my Facebook album here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151041135972964.450723.643867963&type=3&l=ac71768b69

PS: I had nasi lemak for dinner. I totally haven't left Malaysia at all.

Other Side of the World

So I'm sure some of you got heads up that I might be blogging again soon. Well, here I am with a new one. I've used back the sbox from my previous blog, lazy to recreate one again. Gonna temporarily use a basic theme for now, but I'll find a nicer one tonight when I have more free time. Hopefully uncle isn't gonna hog the line with YouTube again. He totally lagged me last night during the first half of a LoL game - early games, SO important >.>

Anyways as you all might have known, I arrived in Los Angeles a few days ago and I am currently staying with my relatives. I won't be going to San Francisco until mid August so I'm gonna be stuck here for quite a bit. Despite being told about the food here and my eagerness to try some, I actually haven't. I'm still having the good old Malaysian home cooked food like curry, bulut rice and yam cakes. Yeah, I haven't really tried anything else yet. I might get tired of it when I start university though.

 Coming from a different country obviously means a complete cultural shock. It isn't that bad for my case because I have relatives here to help me adjust to local life. Comparing USA and Malaysia, there are of course many differences. Some of these differences are very easy to take notice immediately - such as driving and definitely the weather. The roads here are very wide and they even have a car pool lane, whereby only a car that has 2 passengers (in some states, 3) or more may use it. The weather here is just amazing, much cooler than back in Malaysia even though it still says something like 24 degrees Celcius. Unlike back home where its more humid, the wind here is cooling and dry (I'm surprised I didn't get chaffed lips or anything), rather enjoyable but can be very chilly especially at night.

 The style of houses are slightly different as well. The main entrances are sometimes through the garages where you park your cars - you enter the house through the garage. Other than the kitchen, most of the house is covered in carpet flooring rather than the conventional marble tiles. The place where I stay is also on top of a hill which means the weather is also much cooler. One thing about this place is that the fog can just roll in at any time of the day, like those mosquito fogging back home LOL. Also, there are hardly any streetlights so during the night it is not only dark, it is also very cold and very foggy. Thank god I only have to walk a few seconds to my uncle's house (just opposite). If it isn't too foggy, I can actually get a good view of the city from the dining area. I took this picture this morning and its still fogged up a little but it gives you a good image, sort of.

 After a few days of being here I realized the stuff here is really cheap if you don't convert it, meaning dollar to dollar. Where else can you get branded stuff for like 25 bucks lol. However, as an international student with a budget, how can I NOT convert it. If you do convert it, EVERYTHING will be either the same price, or more expensive. The fruits here are dirt cheap seriously - a small box of about 20 or 30 strawberries is 99cents during sale. NINETY NINE CENTS!!! And all of them are FAT and JUICY. Both my relatives house are jam packed with fruits - bananas, nectarines, apples, oranges, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries - you name it. And no, not the handphone brand blackberry you trolls. I've been eating a lot of strawberries and nectarines at night lately, and toasted butter croissants for every morning. They are just so damn good.

And of course, who can forget this baby right here

Bought the drink cause I'm addicted. Nah, just kidding. I bought it so that I can stay awake for the radio session I always listen to on Wednesday. It used to be 10pm Wednesday nights back in Malaysia, but now that I'm in California which is the same time zone as the DJ, I have to wake up at 7am to tune in. I actually woke up at 5am today because of a little jetlag, but its getting better - I didn't nap this afternoon! Achievement unlocked LOL.

I still need some activity though. Today wasn't really productive day - I just stayed at home the entire day and played some LoL games to rack up my riot points. I need Nocturne >.> And then of course, I started this bloggie. Well its almost dinner time now, so I guess I'll update this post with more pictures later if I remember, and get a better theme. And until then, see ya!