Monday, December 19, 2005

Seattle Pics





Key Arena and the Sonics game










The Dunking Ushers!!!


Qwest Field and Safeco Stadium


Store in Pike Place Market


Seattle Space Needle


The Gum Wall - Pike Place Market

Sunday, December 18, 2005

San Francisco + Los Angeles Part II

hey all how's it going?

wow it's only 9am in the morning over here but that's considered late since i've been waking up no later than 7:30am every morning!

im gonna shortcut a few things and give u guys the brief version. i've also managed to upload some pics since we've got a computer to use now! been staying with bruce and maggie in manhattan beach and they've been so nice!

as pictures tell 1000 words, i'm just gonna dump a few pics from SF and LA but rest assured there are PLENTY more i'll upload later

Manhattan Beach, LA




LA coast


SF Union Square


Golden Gate Bridge




Houses in SF's Haight-Ashbury district


Alcatraz








SF Palace of Fine Arts




SF's Bush Man




SF Cable Car


Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills




Universal Studios, Hollywood




Santa Monica Beach, LA


Venice Beach, LA

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Seattle

Okay so I skipped Vegas. Sorry dudes but hard to find access to the net without paying extortionist prices! It's actually about 11:15pm on Saturday night here and popped down to the hotel lobby where we have free net!

Sorry I haven't posted any pics up! I don't know if I'll be able to post any until I get back to Melb since Anna didn't bring her camera cable. Another option is for me to get a digi camera of my own but not sure when I'll do that. Drew's informed me we can try for a memory card reader.

Seattle is great! Coldest city we've been to so far, average of about 2 degrees! But it's cool, the weather is a perfect complement to the pretty lights decorating the city. The true Christmasy feel! We're staying in a really great locale, in the financial district! It's nice and quiet with so many conveniences nearby! It's only two blocks from Key Arena, the home of the Seattle Supersonics! And two blocks in Seattle is not like two blocks in LA or Vegas (about 500m each block!), but probably about 150m a block.

Managed to catch an NBA game with the Sonics game on Friday night, first night here! That was awesome!!! They played Cleveland Cavaliers and as such, got to see big LeBron James in action. It was a good match up, lead changed a few times and James scored 34 points but it wasn't enough as the hometown Sonics managed to pull off a 7-point win in the end! Because of that, the crowd atmosphere was great! Some of the half-time entertainment was really cool, there were these guys called the "Dunking Ushers" who were basically guys dressed up as ushers and did awesome dunks off a trampoline! Haha I took some photos. Even the mascot, the Supersonics Wookie had a huge dunk! There was also this funny bit when they did "Kiss The Girl", I've seen it before when I watched NBA a few times and it's basically where the big scoreboard thing in the middle of the stadium finds couples in the audience and gets them to kiss. Anyway they found this one couple and the guy, through munching on his food looks up and sees himself on the screen profusely refuses mouthing "No! No!" waving his hands. The girl looks up and she starts doing the same thing and then the guy clearly mouths "She's my sister!" Haha ohh that was quality comedy!

Other things I've come to notice about America. Contrary to what some of you may have got from Nhan's email, Americans are pretty nice we've experienced. (Haha I dunno what you guys were up to Nhan!) I remember the morning we walked around LA and did the massive walk to La Brea Tar Pits, the people were so friendly, almost every walker we passed wished us a good morning. At one stage we also briefly stopped at a corner and pulled out our map to determine how far the Tar Pits were and a guy just came up to us, asked if we were lost and stopped to give us directions. Other little things also like when we left Vegas on a shuttle bus, we dropped off a guy and a few of the other passengers wished him a safe trip on his way out.

They also have some really addictive shows over here, this morning alone Anna and I wasted almost 2 hrs just procrastinating and not leaving our room to watch this show called "Make That Band" which is P. Diddy's version of "The Apprentice". So the Diddy is making a girl band and pushing the girls really hard and it's kinda entertaining watching some girls cry and some girls sing absolutely horribly yet still come up with "I didn't think I sounded that bad!"

Anyway, gonna finish up here and go upstairs to the rooftop. The reviews on TripAdvisor.com said there are really awesome views of the city from there. Then get ready for bed and watch some TV. Laters yo!