Jade’s Mom’s days…

Happy Chinese New Year!

In January we traveled to USA, mainly Los Angeles, just the 3 of us. We took the Singapore-Los Angeles direct flight, almost 16 hours on the plane. It wasn’t bad at all, Jade slept for almost 10 hours and she didn’t bother us too much. There’s a movie/game system on board and that kept her occupied and quiet. Heh heh.

We rented a van and stayed at my uncle Ferdinand’s house. Jade has lots of fun playing around the house. It has 2 stairs and she loves to play hide-and-seek with Dana (Auntie Lenny’s niece) and trying to run away from us when it’s bath time or bed time (grrr) … Breakfast time is her favorite, she likes to sit at the kitchen island and have cereal or toast with warm milk.

Food is a difficult issue there. She doesn’t like fancy restaurant and prefers In-N-Out all the time. Which isn’t so bad, but extremely boring for us. Shabu Shabu House is another one of her favorite, we went there 5 times for lunch! The old guy (Yoshi-san) still remember us! That was surprising! He took a look at Jeff and say "How are you? How is Jakarta? Wah, now you have a daughter, how nice!" … He was very nice to Jade and pats her head. On the very last day we went there very late (2.15pm) and they were closed and turned down many people (when we walk up there they warned us "it’s closed already" but we still went anyway) … so we went in and sat down inside. The oji-san looked and us and sadly said "we’re closed already" but Jeff gave "but it’s our last day here, we leave to Jakarta tonight" excuse and he lets us stay. YAY!

Our trip to Big Bear Lake was fun for Jade and Jeff. I thought it was a waste of 3 days, but Jeff really enjoyed the trip, he went skiing 2 times. The snow was really thick because it rained heavily for a few days before we got there. I never saw snow covering the road up to Big Bear before, it’s the first time I see that much snow up there. It was almost comparable to Mammoth.

I didn’t do much shopping as most of the clothes are winter items, so we mostly do window shopping. We went to The Grove twice and Jade likes it because it has trolley service running up and down the strip mall (from Farmer’s Market to The Grove) and she likes American Girl store. I bought her an Ivy doll. I thought the thing costs around $30-$40 because I saw lots of girls carry 1-2 boxes of dolls. I was surprised when the cashier ring up the total after tax to $97!

We went to Disneyland 3 times! We bought a 3-day Pass on-line and went there on the 2nd. It was CROWDED, luckily we used the Fast-Pass, spent the extra time for sight-seeing and eating and got on a few rides with minimal waiting time. The second time we came we went to California Adventure Park and had a blast. They have great rides and Jade’s favorite is "Hollywood Tower of Terror" where they load you up in an old elevator and fling you up and down, it was fun. We get to meet and take pictures with characters, we didn’t have autograph book at that time (I regret that, on the 3rd trip we bought a book and had a lot of fun hunting autographs). She loved the High School Musical Parade and had a blast dancing with the cast members. On our 3rd trip we went with Tanny (our friend’s daughter). She and Jade got lots of signatures from the Princesses and other characters. Tanny wanted to ride with me all the time (her dad’s divorced and her mom lives in Taiwan, maybe she misses her mom) … Jade’s a good sport, she lets Tanny ride with me as she sticks with Jeff.

Seaworld San Diego … We tried to discourage Jade and told her we can go the The Grove and ride the trolley instead, but she insisted "I WANT TO SEE SHAMU!" …. so off we went … She wanted to get splashed, but it was cold! and we didn’t bring any change, so I insisted we sit to the side and a bit further up. It was a lot of fun for Jade … After that we tried to have dinner at Phil’s BBQ, but Phil’s on vacation … We ended up eating at Yoshinoya, which was good because apparently Jade likes it.

Las Vegas has changed, big time! It’s amazing how they keep revamping the strip. We went there with Tanny and her dad and stayed at a double suite in Mirage, the kids loved it! Mostly Jade loved the big bathtub. We went to the Secret Garden where they keep dolphins and tigers and lions. Then we went to Circus Circus where the kids had LOADS of fun winning stuff, we had a BIG haul. We saw the Blueman Group. It was ok … it’s like a concert with comedy skits … The kids like it … I would much rather see a Cirque Du Soleil act though (ie: O, Ka, Love, Mystere), but it might be too much for a young child like Jade. I got sick due to very dry weather and loads of second hand smoke. That’s what I hate about Vegas, indoor smokers. Blech.

Overall the trip was a lot of fun for Jade, Jeff got to ski, I got sick … nevertheless, it was great and I would love to go again in summer time.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.