Leaving Los Angeles

The last few days have been a strange combination of quiet and busy.  We have our rental car so we haven’t been abusing Ian’s services as taxi driver, and of course Jo has been back at work (as has Ian of course, but he can be more flexible than a theatre nurse can).  We spent Monday recovering from our busy time in San Diego, and planning our routes and accommodation for Wednesday through to Sunday this week.  It is amazing how much time can be wasted doing internet searches for accommodation – especially somewhere like San Francisco where there are so many options.  Thank goodness for Wotif, solved the issue quickly.

In the afternoon we went down to the boat with Ian to see how wet things had become after that rain on Sunday.  The dinghy cover had kept most of the rain out, and only a little had made it through the hatches on the boat.  We then met up with Jo and went to Nelson’s at Palos Verdes.  It is right on top of a cliff overlooking the sea and the early evening was stunning.  We sat in the sun outside and had a couple of beers while watching a pod of 5 grey whales meander by.  We know that they were grey whales as on the way back, we stopped at the whale counting spot where a team of volunteers sit all day long counting the whales that pass.  They said that they only count the grey whales, but their whiteboard showed that a blue whale had been past too.  They were slightly strange.  Not the whales.

On Tuesday we went to Santa Monica, to see the famous pier and the Third Street Promenade shopping centre. The pier is pretty cool, and we even saw dolphins swimming close by.  They were beautiful.  It is so much better to see them in their natural world like that than at Seaworld, even if we can’t get good pictures!  We had a fun few hours in the area before heading ‘home’ for our last evening with Jo and Ian.

The four of us went out for a drink at Brewco (Grant added to his list of things he would drink again) before having a delicious Italian meal at Mama D’s.  Thanks to Chloe for the recommendation.  We had to say goodbye to Jo at bedtime, as the odds of us being awake at 5.30am were worse than slim. 

This morning Ian took us to The Pancake House in Manhattan Beach for breakfast, which was a lovely way to end our time there.  Jo and Ian, thank you both so much for your wonderful hospitality.  We promise we will be back!!

Our quick departure from LA was slightly hindered by a very long wait at the Post Office to send on a parcel to Kate, but we finally got underway.  Luckily with two of us in the car we are eligible for the car pool lane (equally luckily we had to keep left for many miles so the lane was worth it!!).  Our first stop was a place called Camarillo, which among its hundreds of outlet stores has a Merrell outlet.  I finally have the warm Merrell boots I have wanted for a long time.  Thank you Grant for letting me stop and look.  And thank you too to Trip Advisor, which directed us to a café where we got lattes that were really truly like Kiwi ones.  The (American) barista even put little ferns in the foam.  Yum.

It was Grant’s turn to drive now, and we headed to Morro Bay.  Both Charlie (in San Diego) and Ian told us how very beautiful this part of the coast is so we were really looking forward to seeing it.  Sadly, when we arrived a good sea-fog was rolling in, and while this was beautiful in its own way, it did hide the special sea views.  Where is that Wellington wind when you need it, hey?  

Still, we headed up the coast and it wasn’t long before the fog lifted and there were some stunning views.  About 10 miles past Cambria, there was an elephant seal colony and place that you could pull over to see them.  The beach was littered with these guys, sunning themselves on the sand.  And while there were signs all along the area telling people not to feed the wildlife, some of the children could not resist feeding the squirrels that clearly were lying in wait for the next tranche of tourists.

 

After that we headed north again along a road that reminded me a lot of the Turangi-Taupo road, wiggly-windy road with a steep drop down to the water.  Annoyingly, we got about 10 miles further on to find that the road was closed.  As in completely closed and turn around and go back the way you came.  The GPS started getting annoyed with us now as we couldn’t work out how to tell it that the road was closed.  It wanted us to turn around.  Even more frustrating was the lack of a signal for our phones too.  Luckily I had had a map up on my phone and I got a brief look at it before my phone decided that there was no signal to be had.  So instead of driving up the coast, we have to drive back about 20 miles, head inland, and then drive north inside the coastal mountain range.  So, we had set out at just before 10am and we finally arrived at our accommodation about 7.45pm.  It has been a long day, but the scenery has been great.  When we arrived at Carmel (also on the coast), the sea-fog had descended again, drifting in amongst the trees.  Despite the fog’s best attempts, we still found our way into town for dinner.  It looks like Carmel will be a very beautiful little town if we get to see it in daylight without the mist.

Don't take your camera on a brewery tour...

After a day of socialising with animals at the Zoo, we had a day of socialising with the locals on Saturday.  We met up with Jo & Ian who had come down to San Diego to visit a couple of breweries.  We met them about 10.30 and drove over to Coronado Island.  We wanted to see the Hotel del Coronado, which is the largest wooden building in the US.  While the Old Government Building in Wellington that the Law School is curently using is a big wooden building, the Hotel del Coronado is massive.  And beautiful.  Siobhan took a panorama photo where the camera stitches together 3 photos to get an idea of the scale of this.

While the stitching together isn't perfect, it shows the character of the Hotel.  It is huge and grand.  It was where they filmed Some Like it Hot with Marilyn Monroe.  The inside was amazing too.  Beautiful dark woodwork which made it too dark to get a decent photo, but the one we got of the chandelier turned out ok.

After that brief distraction we got back to the task at hand.  Beer.  We stopped at the Coronado Brewing Company, where "brewing" is their middle name.  They had a number of other great sayings on their walls too - "Great food takes time, yours will be ready in a few minutes" and "Don't cry over spilled milk, it could have been beer".  The beer and food was good and I particularly liked their Mermaid's Red Ale (which we've had in Wellington) and a coffee porter that they had.  They also had a cool vintage car with the Coronado logo on.  The photo of that is on FB.

After that we went on to the Ballast Point brewery.  It is a bit strange as it is in the middle of an industrial park.  Makes sense as a brewery, but not so much with the associated tasting room.  We met up with Mark, a friend of Ian's, and took the tour.  While there were about 50 people in the tasting room, only the 5 of us went on the actual tour.  Chris from Ballast Point took us around and it was really interesting.  Ballast Point is now doing spirits too, but the demand for their beer sees them in a nearly constant state of expansion.  Chris took a great photo of us all in front of the still at the end of the tour.

Me, Siobhan, Ian, Jo and Mark

The beers were all good there too.  They taste at least as good straight from the brewery.  The Black Marlin porter was my favourite as they didn't have any Victory at Sea.  They sold the last cases from the brewery the previous week so it is still apparently in the stores here.  I will track some down.

After that, we went (at Mark's suggestion) to the Regal Beagle.  That's right, there is a pub named after the pub in Three's Company - the knock-off of Man About the House.  However, the Regal Beagle was dedicated to craft beers and had 25 different ones on tap.  It was good.  I finished off (or was finished off) with the Sea Monster from Ballast Point.  An Imperial stout at 10% slowed me down considerably.  We then drove back to the condo and had gelato on the way.  We also had a discussion about canoeing or canoodling, which was apparently very funny but the details of which are sketchy.

Sunday morning dawned and we had to pack up and leave the condo.  On packing up our stuff, we couldn't find the camera that I had been entrusted with the previous day.  We searched everywhere and turned up nothing.  We tried retracing our steps, but without success.  What was more annoying was that we still hadn't taken the Zoo photos off it.  After driving back to LA in frustration, and planning where we were going to go to get a new camera, I turned my man-bag out one last time and found that in my inebriated state I must have secured the camera in a safe place so that it wouldn't get lost.  I am no longer camera monitor, and I'm not sure that this is entirely self-imposed.  Nevermind.  It was a great day at the breweries and we didn't lose anything.  Not even a camera. 

Anyway, here's thanks to Rick (a friend of Ian's that we never met for letting us stay in his condo in San Diego), and thanks to Charlie as well for his hospitality and putting up with us.  We really appreciated it.  Here's a photo of Siobhan and Charlie outside the condo.

San Diego Zoo

Friday was San Diego Zoo day – I had been looking forward to this as they are supposed to be world leaders in zoo habitats and such like.  They certainly are world-renowned for their conservation work.  We made an early start and got there not long after the opening time of 9a.m.  Unfortunately so did quite a few bus-loads of school children (more on that shortly).  On entering, Grant read the board with notices about the day, which sadly said that the polar bears were off-exhibit.  We were a bit disappointed as we had really hoped to see these.

The reptile house was pretty cool – so huge and with some amazing snakes including an anaconda.  We can see why horror films get made about these!  I also think horror films should get made about American grade-school children – the enclosed nature of the reptile house did mean the acoustics were more pub-like than zoo-like but these children were so loud.  Never mind, the rest of the zoo was outside.

The panda bears were the other big draw-card for us.  Because the pandas don’t like big crowds and lots of noise, the zoo controls entry to this so there are only a few people at a time.  This was lovely as it meant we got really good views of the two adult bears.  They do have young ones there too but these were not out.  The bears themselves are a bit smaller than the name ‘Giant Panda’ suggests, and their white fur is not really as white as photographs suggest, but they are very gorgeous.

The zoo itself is like a giant version of Wellington Zoo – built on the side of a hill, so the trails meander up and down and around.  We found the map itself very hard to follow, but did find all the exhibits we wanted to.  The gorillas were lovely, but I prefer the habitat at the Safari Park.  The tigers were awesome – they have Sumatran tigers and we arrived at the exhibit in time for the keeper talk.  It was great to see them up close.

Of course, many of the wild animals in a zoo are nocturnal by nature, especially the big cats, so quite a few of these were asleep.  The ones that were awake seemed zoned out or terribly bored – it was impossible to tell which.  Of course they could have been cat-napping.

The zoo has a ‘Skyfari’ gondola which runs from one end to the other giving an aerial view.  We had decided that since the polar bears were off-exhibit we would catch this back to the beginning instead of going past the bears.  Unfortunately the queue was ridiculous.  Not being the most patient of people, we walked after all – only to find that not only were the polar bears on-exhibit after all, they were out playing in the water seemingly having a wonderful time.  We stayed and watched for ages, they are so graceful in the water.  Nearby they also had the most beautiful Arctic fox.

It was great to see the rhino up close, as we had only had distant views at the Safari Park.  Sadly the bears were mostly asleep so we only had glimpses of the grizzlies. 

One of the most interesting things was an exhibit where they have either cheetahs or Arctic wolves – it was a cheetah while we were there.  This fellow was in the enclosure with a domestic dog – this was his buddy, and stops him from becoming agitated.  Basically, if the dog is happy, the cat is happy.  So the dog was off in the corner snoozing, and the cheetah came right up to the fence to show off.

All-in-all, while it is a pretty amazing place I think that Wellington Zoo is doing a better job of providing habitats as close to natural for the animals as possible.  Wellington Zoo is doing away with a lot of the smaller exhibits which characterised San Diego Zoo in favour of getting biiger, more natural habitats for the animals.  Of course, Wellington is much smaller and have a fraction of the species and so maybe that means they have more time to spend on getting it right.

We spent over six hours at the zoo, so it was time to head to Old Town and hunt some dinner of our own.  Old Town is very much set up for tourists, lots of quaint shops selling old-timey stuff and souvenirs.  We arrived too late for the museum-type places but we still found some pretty interesting things to read about the early days of San Diego.

We went to Pizza Bella for dinner – apparently one of Old town’s best-kept secrets.  They have America’s best pizza (title won in a nation-wide televised competition so it must be true).  We tried it and it was certainly delicious.

By the time we got home we were exhausted; that’s why this blog entry is late.

Seaworld and Balboa Park

It has been an interesting couple of days.  On Wednesday we got up and went exploring around where we are staying.  We went for a wander and found a nice cafe for breakfast and had yet another pretty good coffee.  Not Astoria quality, but better than Starbucks fare.  We then went to Seaworld, which was quite good.  The shows were fantastic, but we've seen better acquariums (acquaria?) back in NZ.  After a while a fish has to be a pretty special fish otherwise it just looks like another fish.

Shamu and his fellow Orca were pretty spectacular though.  They were entertaining, elegant, immense, and capable of transporting huge quantites of water from the pool onto the spectators as the first 15 rows found out.  We were in about the 16th row and grateful for that.  The dolphin show was also amazing.  There were dolphins, pilot whales and various birds like macaws in the show.  What really made it though were the people doing acrobatics, trapeze and high diving interspersed with the dolphins. 

The final show we went to see was the sea lions show.  This was probably the highlight of the day, for all of the wrong reasons.  When you go to Seaworld, you go to see the the sea animals.  However, the funniest thing was this guy who was part of the sea lions show.  He started out as the bumbling stage crew, setting up the stage and mis-directing people to their seats.  This then progressed into him doing various impersonations of famous singers and dancers to well-known songs.  He did the mandatory Elvis, and had a bit of fun with the theme from Dirty Dancing, did a reasonable Fred Astaire "Singing in the Rain" but the highlight had to be "You're the one that I want" from Grease.  As an aid to visualisation, you need to imagine a white guy who is about 110kgs.  And a ginga.  He put on a wig that had two sides to it - a black styled up do like John Travolta, and the other side long blonde locks like Olivia Newton-John.  He then proceeded to sing and dance both parts of the duet by turning around and facing the other way.  He had the crowd in stitches.  This was all before the incredible performing sealions came out - and they were really good too.


After that, we went and saw the peguins, the beluga whales (they are white whales) and the polar bears.  They were really good too.

We came back to where we are staying and Charlie cooked dinner for us and Monique (a friend of his).  Dinner was great and we had a nice evening.  We then made the foolish mistake of being really tired and trying to sort out our finances on internet banking.  We managed to lock ourselves out and so need to call NZ to get back in.  Annoying when we're on US simcards now with plans where we can't make international calls.  We left that to sort today.

This morning we headed into San Diego intending to explore Balboa Park.  This is a very big central city park (think Central Park) with lots of really beautiful green spaces and heaps of different museums and galleries, all in lovely Spanish and hacienda-style buildings.  We went in to two art galleries - one endowed by a prominent San Diego family of the early 20th century, the other was the San Diego Museum of Art.  These were lovely; the Museum of Art had an amazing exhibition of beautiful hand-dyed Japanese silk kimonos and obis which I loved.  Among the museums we didn't go to were the San Diego Natural History Museum, the Museum of Man and the Reuben H. Fleet Science and Technology Centre.  The art galleries took up the morning, after which we grabbed sandwiches from a deli for lunch. 

We came back to the outskirts of the park to eat these and had great fun watching all the squirrels!  They didn't come very close but they were so cute.  Locals laugh at us as they think squirrels are pests!!

After this we walked around some more parts of the park admiring the beautiful buildings.  We looked down into the Japanese Friendship Garden and had delicious cups of tea at the Japanese Tea Garden.  By this stage we were pretty tired, so we came back to the condo.

I managed to put some money onto my Vodafone account and called the National Bank to sort out our travelcard issues.  It took about seven minutes to chew through my $20 top-up - luckily when the call died the lovely man from National Bank called me back.  So tonight we can go to sleep without worrying about the money.  Thank you National Bank :)

We thought it was time to explore our surroundings a little more so we went down to the private beach.  This is very beautiful and rugged - there are signs everywhere warning you not to go too close to the bluffs and to stay out of caves.  We are quite glad that the condo we are in is quite well back from the cliff!

To cap off a lovely day, we went out with Charlie to his local bar (The Brigantine) to meet some of his friends and watch some March Madness college basketball.  The bar was very loud but the company was great and the food was delicious.  Tomorrow we go to the world-famous San Diego Zoo.

San Diego Safari Park

Today with the much-appreciated assistance of a Garmin GPS we braved the freeways of Southern California and drove to San Diego.  We went directly from Jo and Ian’s to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, which is still somewhat north of San Diego city.  We didn’t crash, get lost or end up in the wrong lane at any time (we also did not pass Go and collect $200 but never mind).

The Safari Park is superb.  They are world leaders in the conservation work that goes on in zoos these days, and have so much space that creating nearly natural habitats is possible.  They don’t go to the extremes of putting predators in with prey of course, but the African plains are well-represented.  It is very hard to choose a favourite exhibit, although I did particularly like the flamingos.  They are such an amazing colour.

The mountain gorillas are awe-inspiring.  It is heart-breaking to think that while places like this are working so hard to preserve the species, their native habitat is still steadily shrinking and they are in so much danger from poachers.  The group here includes a baby who is very endearing.  The silverback leader of the troupe is just massive.  Our photos struggle to capture just how big he was.

We stopped briefly at a show involving different birds.  The owl that they had was really big and tawny (just like owls should be), and the juvenile Andean Condor was huge.  They have massive wingspans.  The African grey parrot was a very good mimic and that part of the show was pretty funny.

Next stop was the African Safari trail where we wound through a number of different animals including warthogs, bat-eared foxes, an okapi, and a variety of deer things.  The variety of animals was only surpassed by the variety of flora – the whole place is beautifully planted and landscaped. After lunch, we boarded the Africa Tram which took us around the huge area where they have a huge collection of African herbivores.  We saw about 5 rhinos, dozens of giraffes, water buffalo, gazelles, wildebeest, wild Somali asses and other deer things.  They have an amazing set up here.  The reason that you have to take the tram is that it would probably take you two hours to walk around the same path.

Next was the lions who were just lion around.  The male was basking in the sun on the roof of an old Jeep while Sarabi was sunning her tummy nearby.  The male was so funny, he stood up, had a big stretch, turned around and just flopped back down as if that had been really hard work!  We were delighted to have been there at just the right time.

The tiger trail was slightly disappointing.  They have two Sumatran tigers who were out in the enclosure but they wandered off out of view pretty much as soon as we got there.  Luckily the elephant exhibit more than made up for it.  They have at least five babies as well as their many adults.  These are such wonderful creatures, somehow managing to be ungainly and graceful at the same time.

After that, we headed up to the top of the park where we got to see a bald eagle and two condors.  The top of the park was also amazing for the variety of different plant life that they have.  One of the park attendants I talked to was saying that despite the number of animals that the park has, its plants were now more valuable in terms of the number that they have and the rare nature of some of them.  They had some great succulents and a well-appointed garden of bonsai trees – not what you’d expect in a safari park, but very interesting.

As if we couldn’t get any luckier on this trip to date, one of Ian’s friends owns a condo on the beach near Del Mar (just north of San Diego).  A guy Charlie is currently living here and he has welcomed us in to stay here while we are in San Diego.  It is lovely – in a gated community.  We have just been out for beer and pizza at some flash place overlooking the ocean and watching the sunset.  Reality is sure going to hit us hard when it arrives – let’s hope that it is still a way off.

Loose in LA with a car...

Well, we finally did the deed and hired a car.  We have decided that we are driving from here up to Seattle.  While we could have fooled around renting cars for short periods of time, we have just hired one for the next three weeks.  I decided that we'd pay for one of those satnav things and it is really useful.

After getting the car, a new gold Toyota Corolla (only done 335 miles), we headed up to the Getty Villa for the morning.  This is a recreation by J Paul Getty of the Villa dei Papiri, a first-century Roman country house.  It is very well done, and it houses a treasure trove of various Greek, Etruscan and Roman artifacts.  We saw all sorts of pots, vases, busts, and statues.  Siobhan was particularly interested in the amazing glass work.  Some of the stuff there was amazing by today's standards, yet it was made over 2000 years ago.  The structure of the villa was also quite spectacular with mosaic floors, gardens and fountains.  They had a couple of particularly attractive features in the East garden:



















We then headed back to Gladstones which is a popular seafood restaurant, right on the beach.  It has amazing views out to sea, and pretty tasty food.  Alas, we didn't spot any "stars" who apparently frequent this place - either that or we didn't recognise them.

Siobhan then drove us into downtown LA.  We went all the way along Sunset Boulevard until we reached Hollywood Boulevard.  We got a park not far from the Kodak Theatre and went for a wander.  We saw the stars on the pavement of all sorts of people - we recognised the names of about half of them.  We saw where the plaque is for Lord of the Rings - Return of the King for getting best picture at the Oscars, all those years ago now.  The Chinese Theatre was closed as it was holding the World Premiere of the next instalment of the American Pie movies.  I'm sure that only the cast and their families will be turning up for that.  Just like Vegas, Hollywood Boulevard is crowded with people, and also has more than its fair share of people trying to foist various brochures and bits of paper (read crap) onto you.  At least in LA it wasn't adverts for hookers.  We quickly grew tired of that and as Siobhan had got us there, it was her job to get us back to Jo & Ian's leaving Hollywood Boulevard at 4.45pm.  We got home just after 6pm through the rush hour traffic which wasn't really that bad.

Off to San Diego tomorrow to see the Zoo, Safari Park and Seaworld, and then meeting up with Jo & Ian at the weekend for some Brewery tours.  I'm hoping we get to Ballast Point, the makers of Victory at Sea!

Weekend at Jo's

We have had a lovely quiet family weekend with Jo and Ian.  It really was a relief to get away from the hustle and frenzy of Las Vegas and to sleep away from the air-conditioning!

Saturday we woke to pouring rain.  After more than two weeks of glorious sunshine it came as something of a shock, and it really turned on a display for us.  The water was racing down the road outside the house.  In the morning, Jo kindly took us to a shopping mall as I wanted a particular pair of Merrell shoes I had seen at home.  I knew they would be way cheaper over here so had waited specially.  Sadly I wasn’t able to find exactly what I wanted, but did try the right style on for size.  This paid off once we returned home as Jo directed me to one of her favourite web-based shopping sites and I found the right pair in bright red. 

We spent the afternoon watching the masters tennis live from Indian Wells in Palm Springs (except the rain did get there too so some of our viewing was replays from the previous day).  Ian’s daughter Chloe and her boyfriend Taijan came over for a roast chicken dinner that evening and we had such a lovely time sitting round the table chatting.

Sunday dawned bright and clear despite a forecast of thunderstorms.  However the reason it was so clear was because the wind was blowing a gale!  This did not stop all of us from gathering up marine glue, old rags and baling twine, donning our grubby clothes (borrowed on our part; we didn’t waste precious suitcase space on working clothes!) and heading to the marina to fix the dinghy dock.  Jo and Ian have a very cunning dock for their dinghy made of pvc piping and big plastic jars.  This floats the dinghy off the water when it is in dock so that it doesn’t get too dirty.  Unfortunately the pvc gets brittle and breaks eventually so the pipes fill with water and get too heavy to float.  So today’s job was to get this out of the water, drain it and fix the cracks.  This was fun in the high winds but we managed it fairly quickly.  The coolest thing was that the strong tides that go with this wind brought heaps of little bait fish into the marina – which in turn brought in lots of seals and pelicans.  They were such fun to watch.

Grant and Ian scored a rare table at Simmzy’s bar on Manhattan Beach Boulevard late this afternoon, so Jo and I walked the dogs then joined the boys at the bar.  We ended up staying there for an early (and delicious) dinner while Grant and Ian enjoyed some specialty beers.

Tomorrow we go to pick up a rental car for the remainder of our USA visit.  We are more than a little anxious about being in charge of a vehicle on the wrong side of the road, but I am sure we will manage just fine.

Escape to Los Angeles

Las Vegas was a real experience, but we admit to heaving sighs of relief on landing safely back in Los Angeles.  Yesterday we had an unplanned day to spend in Vegas; the only thing we had sorted in advance was a dinner show at Excalibur at 6pm.  We didn't bother with breakfast as we had had such a wonderful dinner at Mon Ami Gabi the night before.

Chocolate Fountain

We started by walking back down to Bellagio, as they had an exhibition of paintings by Claude Monet showing in the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art.  While we had successfully found the box office for the gallery on Tuesday night, on our wander back after Cirque du Soleil, the same task eluded us in daylight.  We found the main foyer again, and then found the largest chocolate fountain in the world (conveniently located next to a gelato shop, very nice gelato it was too).  We had seen this place on Tuesday too although at 10.30 pm we thought it was just a beautiful glass sculpture rather than a chocolate fountain.  Eventually though we had to resort to asking directions to the gallery.

The paintings were absolutely beautiful, as expected.  We didn’t bother with a catalogue as the printed pictures just cannot do the real thing justice.  Despite modern printing technology the colours just don’t compare.  After a slow wander round admiring 20 wonderful Monet paintings, we exited the Bellagio near the fountains.  Although it was nearly 1pm, the fountains were having maintenance done so weren’t playing at that time.

Our tiredness from all the walking and trying to avoid people peddling everything from show tickets to hookers was starting to catch up to us.  We spent over half an hour fruitlessly wandering around in the labyrinth that is the Paris and Bally casinos before finding somewhere for lunch.  While we had originally planned to go done to old Las Vegas and see the Mob Museum we had just had enough.  We made our way back to Luxor and spent a quiet afternoon reading and drinking (beer for Grant and tea for me!).

At 5.30 we started our trek to Excalibur.  Even though it is just next door, the route twists and turns on itself (clearly the intention is to lose customers inside the casino so they gamble in despair, having failed to escape).  We stopped at The Dragons Lair gift shop to get dragon t-shirts to wear to the Tournament of Kings feast as we were seated in the Dragon section (the bad guy).  The show was corny and twee – just as we expected so it was great fun.  There were quite a few people there with kids so we tried to play up to it.  The feast itself consisted of ‘dragon blood soup’, and a main course of a small roast chicken (each!), roast potatoes and broccoli.  This was a medieval feast so of course there were no untensils to eat with!  Luckily they were kind enough to provide a moist towel to clean up with.  The arena was divided into countries (France, Ireland, Norway, Russia, Austria, Hungary) plus the Dragon section we were in.  Each country had a king to represent them, and much mock jousting and duelling was enjoyed by all.  And yes, they did ride real horses.  The Dragon knight rode a beautiful black Fresian, what a gorgeous horse!

We had no more plans after this, so we made an early night of it.  We were pretty tired after a very late night on Wednesday.  Also we were finding at a bit hard to sleep well with the dryness of the air-conditioning.

Our flight to LA wasn’t until 1.15pm, so we had a bit of time to kill this morning.  We had some breakfast in the hotel café before exploring some of the hotel that we hadn’t yet managed to see.  We did end up heading out to the airport not long after 11 o’clock and even found a crossword book to keep us entertained.

Ian met us at LAX and we have had a lovely quiet afternoon.  We have booked our train tickets for Canada so that is now definite (very exciting thought) and enjoyed a leisurely home-cooked meal with Jo and Ian while watching some cricket (sad) and some Super 15 rugby (better).

A Grand day for the Grand Canyon

We  woke very early today (typical when in a new place)  to find our room looks directly east. So we had a fabulous start, lying in bed watching a Nevada sunrise. I really hope the photos I took do it some justice.  

After a late breakfast in the Pyramid Cafe here at the Luxor, we meandered over to Mandalay Bay where they have the Shark Reef Aquarium. This was very beautiful with lots of interesting aquatic life. Some of the rays there had fabulous markings.

Walking back to the Luxor we had just about the funniest experience we have had so far. Mandalay Bay is hosting the Home Depot Store managers meeting - we were swimming against a tide of about 4000 store managers!!  I might add that they were very bad mannered in taking up the whole width of the walkway!  

Next we just killed a little time browsing before the highlight of today - a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon. We were picked up from our hotel by limousine and taken to the Sundance Helicopter base. There were six of us per chopper and we had the bad luck to be with two honeymooning couples so missed out on front seats. It didn't matter too much though; the chopper had such great windows that we could all see well. And what spectacular sights!  The ride took us over the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead before dropping into the canyon and flying below the rim. We landed near the bottom for a nice picnic lunch and a little wander.

We returned by a slightly different route which included flying along the Las Vegas strip at the finish. The pilot was fantastic and we hope we have some good photos to share once we get back to our computer.     This evening we walked down to Mon Ami Gabi (Jo and Gabi's favourite Vegas restaurant) to have dinner and watch the Bellagio fountains - we had to wait over half an hour for a table outside on the patio but it was so worth it.  We had the most delicious meal and got to watch six different fountain shows.  A perfect end to a grand day.

Viva Las Vegas!

Getting to Vegas wasn't half the fun. The plane was delayed an hour and we had to check in our bag as they still do the crazy check-in stuff - so no toiletries in carry-on baggage. The backpack has now had one of its handles broken by the caring people at Spirit Airlines. Never mind. I'm sure the we will be able to fix it somehow. 

We caught a taxi to the hotel. It is the Luxor. In true Vegas style, it is completely over the top. It is a giant pyramid. While this looks cool from the outside, it is a giant hollow pyramid from the inside. We are on floor 17. 


After checking in, we headed out for a wander down the Strip. It is nice and warm here. T-shirt, shorts and jandals were plenty warm enough at 11pm. The one thing that we learned this afternoon is that the casinos don't make it easy to find your way out. While trying to escape the Luxor, we found ourselves heading next door to the Excalibur. It is a particularly gaudy Arthur-legend themed hotel. Fits in nicely.  After trying in vain to find some lunch in there, we managed to escape onto the street. At 2pm there weren't too many weirdos, but as it is Spring Break, there are lots of college kids around. We managed to find some lunch and wandered through a number of hotels and casinos on our way to Treasure Island to secure tickets for the Cirque du Soleil show Mystere. 

Mission accomplished, we headed back to the Venetian for a wander around the shops, watching the gondoliers make their way around the canals. It was very cool. They project the sky onto the ceiling and somehow make it seem like you are outside when in fact you are inside. 

We then went to the Fashion Show.  It is a massive shopping mall with all sorts of semi-flash shops. No money was parted with but we had a good look around. That filled in time until Mystere started.  Siobhan has been desperate to see one of these Cirque du Soleil shows for ages. I wasn't too fussed. However, it was amazing. The acrobatics and trapeze stuff was incredible. Even that was surpassed though by the costumes and production of the whole thing, with a specially designed stage setting. What really took my breath away though was these two guys who did this act where one of them supported the other doing handstands and incredible balancing stuff. The strength displayed did not seem possible. I'll try and explain the most amazing bit. One guy does a shoulder stand. The other guy does a handstand on the first guy's feet. Pretty cool. The first guy then manages to lie down face first with the second guy all the time remaining in a handstand position on the first guy's feet. That was pretty cool too. Then first guy (lying face down on the ground) lifts his feet up off the floor with the second guy still hand standing away. He eventually gets back up to shoulder stand with the second guy still in place. Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. If you get the chance to see one of these shows they are amazing. 

Our journey back took us through the Bellagio. It is arguably the flashiest hotel in Vegas. Siobhan got a good photo of the amazing glass flowers they have on the ceiling at reception. They also had a huge Dutch themed display with real flowers (mostly tulips) that was also stunning. While everything is just so over the top, it was funny that as we were walking through the Bellagio, they were playing Crowded House's Something so Strong. A little bit of NZ when it really feels a world away.