Home Sweet Home

August 17, 2009
So, without really telling anyone (it slipped my mind, really), I headed off to San Diego yesterday afternoon with my family. I was kind of queasy during the ride, but I survived. I took a bunch of naps, so I wasn't all that miserable during the drive. Anyhow, we then finally made it to the hotel, Sheraton. Our room's baloney had a nice view of the nearby cay and faraway city of tall buildings. Yesterday, my sister and I just vegetated around the hotel room. My dad had a meeting--since, after all, the reason why we're here is because he has a business trip and it's not like he needs two large beds--and my mom was snoozing. On my sister's laptop we played The Game of Life (it's like the gameboard). Then night fell and my sister was dragged off by my dad to go to this dinner party. My mom and I had pizza that was being served in a restaurant downstairs. It was a pretty interesting pizza, it had some herbs in the cheese that made it taste really unique. We also had some instant noodles that my mom brought along for the trip. They were good, almost better than the pizza, if I do say so myself (I'm a noodle when it comes to noodles!).
Today my mom, sister, and I went to the San Diego Zoo. Unfortunately a business trip is a business trip up to the very end and my dad was off at meetings almost the entire day. Besides facing some occasional nausea, it was pretty fun. I saw flamingos, pandas, orangutans, lions, elephants, giraffes, koalas, polar bears, and loads of other animals. During our little adventure, we got lost. You'd think with three heads (two that are more intelligent than my own) and a map, we'd do better. But instead, we looped around the same place three times. However, if you've ever been to the San Diego Zoo you have to admit that the place is huge! Do we turn here or do we turn there? It's a maze there. Granted, I suck at reading maps and have a poor sense of direction, but really, it's not a small world after all.
August 18, 2009
show. It was entertaining, even though the sun was crisping the back of my neck. You know, I never did figure out which one of the whales were We went off to the World of the Sea today. Yes, I mean Sea World. And by "we", I meant my sister and I. According to my family, we've been to Sea World several times before, but being the nutcase I am, I have absolutely no recollection of being there. Generally, if I see a place I've been to before, even if it's been a long time since I've been there, a lightbulb shines over my head and I'm like, "Hey, this place looks familiar!" Not with Sea World, though. It was like it was my first time there. Anyhow, so on impulse, I made my sister to buy us churros and we ate our cinnamon-y treat while watching the dolphin show. Since we got there around 10-11AM, my sister decided that we'd have lunch after the show. I ended up dragging us to this Italian place. I had some tomato sauce over penne pasta with chicken and sausages flanked with a breadstick. It was pretty good, ignoring that fact that it was overpriced and the meal overall was small. Well, it was simple pasta (no spices and herbs that some restaurants like to go crazy with), the kind I like best, so it's not like I have any big complaints. Then we went to go watch the ShamuShamu. Is Shamu one of the current whales there? What if Shamu died? I mean, will the show still be called Shamu? Yeah, I had no clue what the deal was with that. Anyhow, after the show, since that one rapids ride was right there (the one just like the Bigfoot Rapids ride at Knott's Berry Farm), my sister and I went for a spin. Since I was feeling adventurous, I wanted to go ride of the Travel to Atlantis ride. Of course, my sister who has a fear of heights and rollercoasters waved me goodbye as I went in line by myself. The ride was fun. What I like about rollercoasters is that they scare the heck out of me. I mean, what's the fun of rollercoasters if there's no thrill in it? It's like watching a horror movie (which is ironic because I just can not watch horror movies, because I'll probably kneel over and die). Some people prefer to cower away and not face the fear. Whereas others go on and be a masochist so they can pee in their pants during the ride and come off saying it was the funniest thing ever. Except there are those people who just aren't afraid of the speed or drop, and they just go crazy during the ride just because. And before I continue on, did I mention there were a lot of Caucasians around? Yeah, well there were. Since I live in a place where there are a bunch of Asians haunting almost every single corner, I thought it was really strange that there were so many of them. Since I was just one person riding and I obviously can't have the entire "boat" to myself, I sat in the back of a group of Caucasian buddies. If you ask me, it was pretty awkward. Not only it was really obvious to outsiders that I was not part of their group, but they kept turning around to look at me. Was it because they splashed water on me on accident while they were messing around amongst themselves (even though it's unsafe to put your hands outside the boat!) or was it because they suddenly realized that a stranger was hitching a ride with them? Regardless of the reason, I felt very self-conscious the rest of the day. My sister met me at the end of the ride and we continued walking around, looking at the animals and such. My sister wanted us to go feed the dolphins or at least the mantarays, but being the bum I am, I complained about being tired and that I have a low endurance for walking (although I suck at running, my legs and muscles are more adjusted to running more than walking). We browsed through some gift shops while waiting for our mom to drive by and pick us up, then we left. My dad's company once again, had some kind of dinner party, but this time, my mom was picked and dragged away to the social gathering. My sister and I had some American-Japanese food. My sister had some caterpillar sushi and I had udon (ah, yes, maybe one of the best noodles of the world). After eating, my sister was gracious enough to let me steal her laptop to play Plants vs. Zombies. Yes, it is a stupid sounding game, and depending on who you are, you'll take one look at the game before saying, "It looks like a stupid game". You have to plant these plants in order to protect your house from the brain-eating zombies and stuff. Personally, I think it's a very amusing game with cute graphics when you ignore the zombies, whose limbs fall off after attacking them a lot.
So that's pretty much all the excitement that has been going on with me. Besides the ride home, but that wasn't all that fun. We drove and drove, I napped, my sister read. My sister just had to order a smoothie from Starbucks before we left the hotel so we had to stop at Jack-in-the-Box to use the bathroom because she didn't pipe up about needing to go to the toliet until after we passed two reststops. Well, since it was near lunchtime, we just ordered food there and then we ate on the rest of the way home. Back to our sweet little home.
Did I mention that I disliked staying at Sheraton? Okay, so here's the deal. It's 4AM, and the fire alarm goes off. To my family, we just heard a really annoying siren and we didn't know it was the fire alarm until my sister went out into the hall to check what was going on. We all rolled out of bed to evacuate the building when the announcer came alive and said it was a false alarm. Earlier that day there was an unpleasant small of cigarette smoke that rolled into our room through the vents. And after the announcement, the disgusting smell visited us once again. I think that our room neighbor was a crazy smoker and his thing set off the alarm or something. It wasn't just that. The next morning I had to get up to buy a stamp for a postcard and send it off on it's merry way when the alarm sounds again. My mom asked the lady at the front desk about what the heck was going on, and according to the lady, their alarms are very sensitive. Burning or small smoke could set the place into chaos. I guess it's better than the alarms not being sensitive at all until the third alarm came. There's only so many "false alarms" a person can handle. I swear that it's our neighbor because my family's always smelling cigarette smoke and I just roll out onto the cold balconey. I have enough trouble breathing without secondhand smoke! I hate smokers, they ruin everyone's life and they are ruining mine. I'm glad that my dad aren't like most smokers. Yeah, he smoked, he smokes. But he only smokes once or twice in China with his old Chinese buddies (peer pressure is bad!). Except what makes him so different is that he doesn't get hooked on it. He could smoke one cigarette and push the rest of the box away. There won't be any mood swings, no need for nicotine, nothing. Even though I really wish my dad wouldn't smoke at all (but in China, almost everyone smokes. I really hate it there, sometimes.) but I can't have the whole package, now can I?