Tag Archives: USA

usa redux

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Whilst cleaning up some old papers this evening, in preparation for junior pixels, I found a bag of memorabilia from the USA that Kitty had set aside for me. Rather than keep the various brochures, I thought I would take some photos and keep them on here to refer back to.

take a jumbo, across the water, like to see america

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So we are in the USA. The flight was long and the V Australia service was pretty crap, I guess you get what you pay for.

We’ve been in San Francisco for a couple of days now. It’s nice, but not what I expected. It’s quite dirty and there is a huge homeless population that you really notice.

chinatown-san-francisco

We’ve had trouble finding somewhere nice yet affordable to eat. American food is weird to us. We found a nice Shanghai place called the ‘House of Nanking’ near Chinatown which was enjoyable.

house-of-nanking

The bill came to USD$52 including tax (9.5%) and tip (15%). Nowhere near as cheap as Australia!

We’re planning on doing some more full on sightseeing over the next few days including Alcatraz. Should be fun.

a few hours in LA

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I flew to LAX last night and I had a few hours to spare in Los Angeles this afternoon so I caught a local ‘big blue’ bus (line 3) to Santa Monica.

It’s my first time in America so here are my first hand observtions, some expected, others not:

  • The weather is weird, it was warm and sunny today although it’s winter; I wore a t-shirt but could see snow on the mountains;
  • The buses are cheap; I caught one from LAX to Santa Monica for 75 cents which took over half an hour;
  • The food servings are massive, my burger was huge and they keep filling up your soft drink glass for free;
  • I saw a place that advertised ‘organic dry cleaning’, but I have no idea what that actually meant;
  • I saw a restaurant advertising nightly turtle races (weird);
  • It’s weird seeing the sun set over the Pacific ocean, it’s usually the other way round;  and
  • The local people who I have met have been really nice, especially the bus drivers who go out of their way to assist with directions. The waitress at the diner made me a free milkshake because it was my first time ever in an American diner.

Finally, here’s some photos I took this afternoon. I am off to Austin, Texas tomorrow, yee-haa.

The giant LAX sign right outside my hotel

The giant LAX sign right outside my hotel

The Big Blue Bus Line 3

The Big Blue Bus Line 3

Santa Monica Boulevade Sign

Santa Monica Boulevade Sign

Santa Monica

Santa Monica

coming to america

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Today I managed to get some cheap tickets to the USA to travel for three weeks in May 2009. They were AUD $1250 return including all fees with V Australia from Brisbane direct to LA. Although it’s operated by Virgin Blue, it’s still full service which means we get drinks/food/baggage included in the fare which makes it a really good deal. I got them when they went on sale at 2pm today and just noticed less than 3 hours later they are already sold out.

I can’t wait. I’ve never been to the USA before, so now we have some researching to do on where to go.