Home Time! By Marc

Hallelujah! We are headed home! Finally! It's not that it's been a bad trip, it's been fantastic! I just think that it's time to head home.

This morning was going to be a slow morning but instead it ended up being fast. We woke up at 7 to go to breakfast after showering and dressing. Once at breakfast, I asked why it was so busy there. The guy replied "It's because the park opens at 9 this morning." That was a surprise!

We got back to the room and packed up really quickly and ended up being at the park at 9:05! Today was going to be a The Best of Disneyland Day! We were going to go to all the rides we thought were cool and do them again.

First, we went into the Disneyland part of Disneyland. (lol) we decided to go to the buzz lightyear laser game. This was awesome and I scored rank 3 space pilot. We then went to space mountain because it was awesome! Only mum and I went on that though. We then met up with dad and Ryan at the Matterhorn Bobsled roller coaster. This was definitely one of the most enjoyed rides of the park.

After that, we went to the area that we hadn't been to before. We went there because there was a roller coaster there that we hadn't tried. It ended up being awful. It went pretty fast but there were no really exciting bit and it was really short. Then got on the train which took us all the way around Disneyland.

After this we went to the Indiana Jones ride which we really enjoyed from yesterday. We ended up doing it twice more which made it our most visited ride of the trip. After that we went to the Big Thunder roller coaster because we enjoyed that one from yesterday as well. We thought about doing it twice but we didn't end up doing that.

The last thing we did in Disneyland proper was a shooting range. I did this twice and by the end of it I got pretty good. (btw, this was a shotgun shooting range from the wild west. Not archery) we then left the Disneyland area and went into the California adventure area.

The first thing we did in California adventure was a drawing lesson. This was to fill time but in the end was really awesome. One of the Disney artists came into a big room and showed about 40 people how to draw Minnie Mouse! It was all pretty cool.

Finally! The time you've all been waiting for! The Aladdin musical! This was absolutely amazing! The actors were fantastic, especially the genie! They even managed to write the whole play without Aboo! (Y'know, Aladdin's monkey?)

Finally, we went to the Toy Story cannon game. This was awesome but the lines were too long to do it twice. We thought about doing the big roller coaster again but decided against it. We left Disneyland for the last time and went back to the hotel. We had ice-creams and packed the car.

We got to the airport, checked on our baggage, had dinner and said goodbye to dad as he was leaving to San Francisco. We got through security with no problems and are now waiting at the gate for our boarding time in 1 hour.

I'll see you all soon! Cya!!!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:LAX Airport

Colours and Legoland

Hello people that I will be reconnected with soon! Today was our second last day over seas. I think that this is a good thing because even though we have had a blast, I think that it's time to go home.

Last night was pretty awesome. We went to a water lights show. This was at Disneyland and used fountains, lights and projectors to make an awesome lights show that depicted many famous scenes from Disney movies. It was very cool because of how they did it. The colours were very vibrant and used the colours used were very relevant to the music playing.

After breakfast, we left the resort to go to Legoland! We sat in the car for about 1 and a half hours but that was ok since I had my DS. Once we got there, we waited in line for a while before it opened and had a look at the map.

We spent the full day there at Lego land. There were a couple of really awesome rides and attraction there even though the whole park was aimed at a lower age group. In no particular order, these are the rides and attractions that I thought were awesome!

There was the Knights Tournament. This was a really epic ride that put you in a claw type thing that whirls and chucks you around when you went in. There were 5 levels of intensity. The ones I did were levels 3, 4 and 5. I think this ride was the best of the day.

Another couple of rides that I thought were cool - A roller coaster called "The Dragon", a driving school type thing where you get to drive a mini car and a the game room that they had set up. This was a MMO game called LEGO Universe and it was awesome.

We spent some time doing some LEGO Mindstorm and looking at the mini sets that they had built around the place. We then drove home and I am now looking forward to going back to Disneyland tomorrow.

DISNEYLAND!!!

This morning we got up and had our complimentary breakfast which was pretty good. We went back to our room and left for Disneyland at about 9:30.

First, we decided to go to the newest theme park out of the two. We first went and got a fastpass ticket to the night show that we are about to go and see. We then went to a jungle gym type thing that Ryan really enjoyed. We then went to Toy Story. This was really awesome. No more comment needed. It was just awesome.

THe next thing I enjoyed was an awesome roller coaster that had 1 loop-de-loop and heaps of turns and ups and downs. It was epic.

We then went to the other theme park in the resort and this was the better one. The first good thing we did was the Indiana Jones Adventure. It was an awesome roller-coaster type thing that we ended up doing twice.

We did 3 more roller-coasters - Space Mountain being the best. It was epic! There were extreme turns, motion deceiving lights and extreme speed! Finally we did the Buzz lightyear thingy. THis was sort of like laser tag except that you were in a car on a track and you shot at targets. It was awesome! SO AWESOME! ZEEERRRRG! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE! We are eternally grateful!

CYA!

To California and shopping.

Good Morning! At 5:00!!! We had to get to the airport this morning at 6:15 so we had to get in a cab at 5:30. We got to the airport and checked on our bags. After much stress as Mum didn't have a seat until 5 minutes before boarding, we got on the plane to LA.

Our plane had to make a brief stop at St Louis on the way so we had about an hour there to add to our flight time. Overall, our flight time was about 8 hours from DC to LA.

Once at the airport in LA, we got a car with a GPS and drove to our hotel. It has a great location. It's just across the road from Disneyland! How awesome is that!!??! We decided to go to the Mall for some shopping.

Once at the mall we went into two game shops and many clothes shops. I got heaps of shirts but no pants. We even found that in one of the game shops that we could get a Shiny Entei through and event! EPIC!

Spies and TRON

Sorry guys. This is just gonna be a lay-down of what we did today since the previous post got post got lost in the process of posting.

First, we got up, had breakfast and were out of the house by 9:15. We decided to go to the Spy Museum. Once there, Ryan and I went into a one hour activity called Operation: Spy. This was a hands-on, interactive experience that simulated what a real spy did. It was really cool. The next thing we did was go into the actual Museum. This was pretty interesting as it had heaps of information on everything to do with spies around the world.

After the museum, we went to have lunch and smoothies. We then walked down to the capitol to look around. It was pretty cool but we couldn't go in because it was Sunday and of course it was closed on Sunday.

Finally, we split up. Mum and Ryan went back to the Air and Space Museum while Dad and I went to go see the movie TRON. It was a pretty good movie and I enjoyed quite a bit. We went downstairs for dinner but none of us were hungry so I had a soup and Mum and Ryan shared a Fish N Chips.

Memorial and Space

This morning was strangely similar to last morning. I woke up, had a shower, got dressed and went down and had breakfast. This morning though, we found out how to make hot chocolates! I had a hot chocolate, froot loops, scrambled eggs, potatoes and some cranberry juice. It was yummy!

The first thing we did today was walk down to the Lincoln Memorial. We did, however, walk past the White House on the way. It was so surreal. It felt sort of like seeing the Mona Lisa. (See blog on the Louvre) There was a security guard standing on the roof so that was pretty funny. We walked down the streets throwing snowballs at one another on the way to the Memorial.

Once there, we went inside this Parthenon type thing which had a massive statue of Abe sitting in a chair. We had a look at the speeches which were engraved into the walls. That was all pretty cool. We then walked towards the Air and Space Smithsonian. We walked past a Korean War Memorial and the Washington Monument on the way.

Once inside, we first went into the Air section. This held heaps of cool models or actual planes and was pouring out with information. We got to design a war-plane, played on flight simulators and and an all-round ball. I then went on an ok but not fantastic flight simulation. We flew in the Wright Brothers plane on a sort of Questacon roller-coaster type thing. It was not that good.

Next, we went into the Planetarium for a show on Black Holes. It was really interesting and even had information on black holes that i did not yet know about. (This is not very often anymore because I watch heaps of videos on Black Holes) We then went to the food court for some lunch.

After the food court we went to the space area. This consisted of stuff on the planets in our Solar System, the Apollo program, the Space Race and much more. We even got to go inside a back-up Skylab! (American Space Station, get with the times!) there were some cool interactive activities and some really interesting facts. Overall, I enjoyed the space area more than the Air area. We left the Museum with 13000 steps under our feet and much more knowledge in our brains. We walked back to the hotel to reeeeelax.

We are now about to leave for dinner. L8R!

Snow and Natural History

Good morning! I woke up at 7am due to jet lag but we stayed in the hotel until about 8. Dad had to go to a meeting today so he left earlier. We had breakfast which was beautiful! It was an all-you-can-eat buffet.

We left at about 8:20 to head towards to Smithsonian Information Centre (or SIC... ...lol) This is also called the castle because it looks like a castle. On the way we found some snow so Ryan and I had a snowball fight. Ryan got some snow down my pants so the fight ended early to clear it out. We spent 20 minutes at the castle getting information from the lady at the desk. The Smithsonians didn't open till 10am so we had an hour to fill.

We first went to the Place where they print money. We took a 20 minute tour on it and it was awesome. There were piles of a million dollars just behind a window in front of me. SOOO COOOOL!

Next we went to the Washington Monument. We bought a ticket and headed up to the base of the obelisk. We went in at 11am and got to the top to look out. We could see all of DC and beyond form up there. Some small facts. The Monument was the highest structure in the world until the Eiffel Tower was built. (Which, btw, dwarfed it. The Eiffel tower is twice the height of the Monument) It is also the highest purely brick structure in the world to this day.

Finally, we went to the National Museum of Natural History. The first thing we did there was head straight to the cafe for morning tea! lol. Next we went to Ancient Mammals! This showed how small camels and horses were earlier. It was so fascinating especially the Ice Age part which had Mammoth skeletons and the like.

We then went into the African exhibit. This was pretty cool as it really opened my eyes to what life in Africa was like and how the people of Africa were taken as property!. I just couldn't believe it.

Next we went into the Ocean Room. This held heaps of cool stuff like Giant Squids, Whales and heaps of types of fish. There was a theatre that showed a deep sea exploration team going down the the bottom of the ocean. There were so many types of fish down there. Dad arrived back to DC from his meeting and met us there in the ocean room.

We then went into the dinosaur exhibit. Here we saw heaps of skeletons and fossils of dinosaurs from different periods facing each other off. There was a T-Rex and a Triceratops facing down and an Allosaurus and Stegosaurus staring daggers at each other. There were many other amazing things inside which was really cool. The T-Rex in there was even the model for the CGI one in "Night at the Museum"! How cool is that!

After the dinosaurs we went into the Ancient Ocean Exhibit. This took us back in time going from penguins and dolphins to ammonites and trilobites. This was cool as well because it showed how some of the early sea creatures would have hunted, eaten, breathed, swum and survived under the water.

Next, we went into the modern mammals room. This had every mammal you could think of. From Polar bears to desert mice. From Chimpanzees to Gazelles. This was interesting and I even got to see my long lost cousins! (I hope you know who I mean)

After that, we went into the human origins hall. This was focused on how early humans lived, survived, hunted and what they ate. It also focused on how scientists work out what roughly what happened in scenes from 1.8 million years before!

We then went upstairs to the 2nd floor. I didn't enjoy this as much as i would have liked to because I was tired. Basically, it involved the Geology and Insect Rooms. The geology one involved rocks, mining, planet formation, geodes, gems, earthquakes, volcanoes and a special exhibition on the Hope Diamond. The insect room included a butterfly house and many display cases full of a massive variety of insects.

We then walked home after a long day of excitement and bitter coldness.