Back to the Giant Golfball - EPCOT (Part 2)

GERMANY 

Ich bin da! There was apparently no ride or attractions in Germany. We just went into the shop and Vivia tried a sample of ham, cheese, and bratwurst for a small, snack-like portion, for only $5.00. The meal wash't a part of the festival though, but still, $5.00 for an authentic German dish was worth it. 

Back to the Giant Golfball - EPCOT (Part 1)

Hey there, it's been a while since I posted the last time. I've been pretty busy these days, with me moving to Melbourne (the one in Florida, not in Australia) for internship for 4 months. Settling down is never easy but I got it over with soon. I'll talk further about Melbourne in my next posts but now, let's get on to something more exciting! 

It's been approximately two years since I transferred to Art Center. A year before, I was still in De Anza, and one of the most magnificent vacations I've ever had in my entire period in US happened as I went to Orlando and New York in one winter occasion. Living in Melbourne gives me a chance to revisit Walt Disney World, whom I got to spend quite some time there three years ago with Elda, Aymee, and Ardy, since Melbourne is only an hour away from the so-called theme park capital of US. 

This very weekend, I had a blast revisiting one of Walt Disney World parks, and that was EPCOT. Vivia, my current roommate and colleague, and I had been planning to go to EPCOT since last week, but the weather had always been in the way. It had been raining for the past couple of weeks here in Florida and being drenched in the outdoors is the last thing we would ever want to be. However, we finally got to go this week. 

Magic Happens - Pt 04

The night was getting colder. I started to shiver since I already got soaked from the previous ride, and my soaked shirts weren't dry yet, so Tiffany lent me her comfy, warm sweater. All of a sudden, our boat was halted by a boat ahead of us that also stopped. We thought we were just lining up to plunge down the first waterfall, because of course, only one boat at a time could plunge down the drop. The drop was just one boat away from us, but we waited and waited.
We all kept on saying how bad the boat's position was in front of us, because they were at the tip of the waterfall and the boat sort of tilted.
The gates didn't even open to allow the boat right next to us to plunge down. Then an announcement echoed, remarking that the ride was broken. I heard chorus of groans from my friends as well as people from other boats. The people in the boat before us started singing along to Backstreet Boys, which we followed.

Magic Happens - Pt 03

Before we got onto rides here in California Adventure, we stopped for a second to see a captivating street jazz show on Buena Vista Street. The group was called 5 Dime or something like that, and the singer truly had a jazzy voice that hypnotized all the visitors to stop by to spend some time seeing the show. She surprisingly has the charisma of Tiana from Princess and the Frog! Once in a while, she would invite one person to three children to come up and sing with her (at this moment, my friends and I just moved back a little bit so she wouldn't notice us).
The first guy was just normally dancing with her as she was playing her scarf with him. Then she pulled another one - a woman - to dance with the guy. It turns out the woman was the guy's wife. That was the sweetest thing ever.

Magic Happens - Pt 02

When we were done meeting Merida, the four of us hung out in Fantasyland.

We got on to Mad Tea Party, just for the heck of it. Well it was fun though! We managed to spin the cup as strong as we could only to find out that no matter how strong we spin it, the speed would remain the same.

Magic Happens - Pt 01

You might be familiar with the so-called “Dreams come true” term popularized by Disney has apparently proven itself on me. A week after Sherin, Tiffany, and I met, and after Vinny came to the States, Tiffany came up with the idea of going to Disneyland. Even better, she has a friend who works there and can give us discounted tickets. Then it was decided and confirmed that we would go there on June 29.

So June 29, 2013 was probably the most memorable date in my whole 3 years of living in US, well, at least for a fan of Disney like me. You know that I traveled for a week or so to Orlando to visit Walt Disney World roughly two years ago. Ironically, despite having lived in California for 3 years as a student, I have never visited Disneyland nor California Adventure. I did visit it twice though, first when I was seven and the latest one was back in 2009 when I had to make up an excuse to ditch school by saying I was sick.

SP 13: Back to the Studios - Pt 2

Previously: When Eunyoung agreed she'd like to go to Universal, this ride was the first thing that came to mind, especially the night before, Aymee told me how awesome the ride was (she went there on Christmas break). On the way to where the Transformers ride was, we bumped into the directory board where it says that the wait time for Transformerswould take up until an hour.

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Screw it. I could barely sleep last night because of the high anticipation of Transformers.

The directory board never lies, and when I said it, I mean it, because the line really took almost an hour. The line went through endless rooms, before we finally came to a narrow basement where the loading station was. YEEAYY!!

OMG, I'm not kidding, the ride was FUDGING AWESOME!! It wasn't as short as I expected so the long wait really pays off. It was totally unexpected. I thought it would be like a normal motion simulator ride where the cart just stayed there and the technical arms did the job. But no, it was a dark ride, like the one you commonly see in Disneyland, unless there were no traditional animatronics, but instead, we were taken to rooms full of giant screens and each screen has its own narrative. And of course, everything was in 3D...no, 4D! Considering there were some special effects happening, stuff like warm heat, water effects, wind blowing sort of thing. But I was completely left speechless. I've never seen such technology in any theme park rides before. The idea was not as complicated, but combining the idea of 4D motion simulator and dark ride is just GENIUS.

SP 13: Back to the Studios - pt 1

So I mentioned that I did some trips during my 3 week spring break, right? I did go to San Francisco, then Davis as well as Cupertino. The last and the latest trip actually didn't take miles away to go to. Yep, Universal Studios is just ten miles away and approximately 20 minutes of drive, and I went there over the weekend with my friend, Eunyoung.

For those of you who follow my blog, you might ask, why Universal again? Well, I explained the reasons in my previous post, so I hope that answers your curiosity. The distance and the affordable price are definitely the two main reasons why I never get tired of going here.

The plan to Universal Studios was considered to be quite sudden. It appeared literally out of nowhere. It all started when I just got back from Davis and as I have mentioned in my previous post, I was literally alone for four consecutive days. My roommates are going back to their hometowns, my close friends had their own personal plans...so that basically leaves me alone in Pasadena. So as a way to escape from “centuries” of boredom and loneliness, I tried to contact whoever in my major that's available to hang out. Turns out one of my closest friends in my major, Eunyoung, is available during the break. I first initiated that we go to Disneyland (my childish instinct just had to kick in, sorry) or Universal Studios.

"Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright..."

Note: Han told me she didn't want to reveal her face on social media, so I replaced it with a Pikachu. Hope I pretty nailed it :D
Hey guys! It's been a while since I last posted in my blog. Feel so ashamed now for abandoning this blog for too long. The thing is, I have now transferred to an art school, after finishing my GE and major prep in De Anza College. Many things have occurred for these past few months since I first settled here, in Southern California. I will cover about what's been going on in my daily life later. Anyway, for now, I'd like to share a little experience slipped in the middle of my ever-so-busy-and-monotone art student's life. My new roommate, Han, whose craziness reminds me of Elda's at some points, happens to like horror/thriller genre. She first told me about this event in Universal Studios Hollywood called Halloween Horror Night. Sounds big, doesn't it? Basically this event has run from September 7 until Halloween itself, which is going to be on October 31.

ORLANDO for winter. pt 8: walk the dinosaur

We didn't know such a fun ride would take up time. It was 2.15 pm when we suddenly remembered of the fast pass appointment we had earlier with the Indonesian cast member. Elda and I skipped another chance of getting into Expedition Everest, much to my regret. But this time, while the others scrammed towards the ride, Elda and I went to DINOSAUR ride to get fast pass to everyone. So basically Aymee, Ardy, Lina, Nia, Wendelin, and Melissa gave all their Disney park tickets to Elda and I so we could get them fast pass tickets for DINOSAUR.

DINOLAND USA

Welcome to the land where the powerful ancient creatures once ruled the earth! Animal Kingdom gave another distinct vibe when we entered this territory. Elda and I went straight to DINOSAUR ride's fastpass booth and quickly purchased the fastpass tickets for everyone.

ORLANDO for winter. pt 7: harambe jambo!

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*jambo: means "hello" in Swahili


Previously: Anyway, we took our meal to the hotel room and munched it while watching TV. To conclude the day, all the soaked clothes were sent to the dryer in the laundry room. Then we went to bed, saving energy for tomorrow's adventure in Disney's Animal Kingdom.

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- DAY 4: DECEMBER 21, 2011 -

Another theme park day in Orlando! But I was sad as it was going to be our last one. The visit to Disney's Animal Kingdom would officially conclude our crazy theme park explorations in Orlando. We heard a good deal of opinions remarking that Animal Kingdom was probably the most unique park of all Disney Parks in Orlando. That's also probably the reason why we save it for our last attraction of our holiday. So I was really looking forward to seeing it!

ORLANDO for winter. pt 6: rolling in the deep

Previously: But we luckily got to hop on our scheduled shuttle and went back home to the hotel. Before going straight back to the hotel, we stopped by at McD (it became like our daily ritual) to have ourselves meal for breakfast.

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- DAY 3: DECEMBER 20, 2011 -

Okay, fourth day! It's time to get off a little bit from our Disney frenzy and move to aquatic life. Seaworld Orlando visit is TODAY!!! Although I've been to aquariums before, like Seaworld in Indonesia, Underwater World in Sentosa Island, Singapore, Downtown Aquarium at Denver, and Monterey Bay Aquarium, I have never been to an official Seaworld theme park, which obviously provided wider range of aquatic exhibits. So you wouldn't imagine how exhilarated I was that day.

By the way, the Seaworld visit that day was a bit sudden, as we actually planned to go there after we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom. But due to some specific reasons, there had been a change in plan that all of us had to book and print out the ticket a night before the visit...pronto.

ORLANDO for winter. pt 5: it's a high-tech world after all

Previously: Seriously, I didn't feel in a Disney park. This whole vibe didn't convince me I was in one, at least.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

- Morocco:

The whole setting transported us all back to the times of Arabian nights! I was blown away with again, a different atmosphere it offers. The jasmine-accented shops sold various Arabian-related attributes, from carpet to furnitures and decorations, like they were all out straight from the movie Aladdin. The exit of the shops led to an entry to the marketplace, where more Arabian attributes and items were offered to the tourists.

ORLANDO for winter. pt 4: around the world in 10 hours

Previously: It was a disbelief, considering it was one of the places I'd always been dying to go to. The day really left me with a distinct impression and I somehow hoped I would be able to experience the same thing all over again :)

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- DAY 4: DECEMBER 20, 2011 -

Our days onwards would be continued with Aymee and Ardy, who just arrived last night at around 3 am. We were originally planning to go to Seaworld, but the only shuttle to go there would take off from the hotel at 7.20 am – that's very early especially considering Aymee and Ardy only had small portions of sleep. So change of schedule, Epcot was chosen! The earliest and only shuttle would be ready by 11am so we all could have a chance to wake up late.

Unlike the day before, we woke up at 9 am, took a shower, and got ready to go to the second out of four Disney parks in Orlando. The shuttle took us at 11.00 am and we reached there at around 11.30 am. Much unexpectedly as yesterday's visit to Magic Kingdom, there were lots more people packed outside the entrance in order to go in. I guess going to a theme park a little late was taking its toll, but anyway.

ORLANDO for winter. pt 3: when you wish upon a star

Previously: It was very brief. We stayed inside the plane while looking out to the still-dark, Kansas landscape before the plane took off for Boston...and this time for real.

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- DAY 3: DECEMBER 19, 2011 -

Wakey wakey! It's day 3! The wait is over! Two people's dreams are about to come true (mine particularly, haha, I sound biased enough, don't I? ^^). The exhilaration of going to Magic Kingdom was so overwhelming that I even picked out my best outfit I brought and dressed up, considering I'd go to the most awaited site I'd ever always dreamed of going.

Shortly after munching on our breakfast we brought the night before, we got on the 9.05 am shuttle to Animal Kingdom. You ask, why Animal Kingdom? When we're actually scheduled to go to Magic Kingdom today? It's simply because there was no morning shuttle to Magic Kingdom, so we needed to drop by at Animal Kingdom before transferring by Disney parks transportation to the ultimate destination.

cooling our heads

Okay, this story is a bit out of date, but I decided to just post it here since it's too hard to forget.
On late August (don't remember the exact date) I was invited by a friend of mine who comes from China, to attend a fellowship event. Elda and I also joined in the trip, with a little confidence and was quite assured that the whole event would be conducted in Chinese, since most of the participants come from Chinese speaking countries.

So here goes the event. It started with a visit to Santa Cruz. We carpooled from DeAnza college to Los Gatos first, stopping by a decent house to have a glass of orange juice, then went straight to Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz might not sound that strange to me, but the thing is, I had exactly no idea where that was, whether it was close or not to Cupertino.
Anyway, it was a good place though. In fact, a fascinating one. I've never been to any beaches in America not until that visit. Obviously it look different from Indonesian beaches, especially minus the seaside-counters-and-sellers part.

I met some new friends! Terri, my Japanese-born friend, and Sierra, who comes from Hong Kong

We had a group picture together. Can you spot me there?

Then we had a beach walk on our own. I felt like wearing the wrong dress-code (gah, there's no dress code by the way) since I attended the outing wearing a semi-formal checkered outfit, jeans, and sneakers, without knowing that we were actually going to the beach ><. If only I had found out, then I would probably wear shorts, Tshirt, and a pair of sandals.
The water was freakishly cold! In contrast of the hot weather and burning sand! So you can imagine me running confidently into the water then practically flinched when the water met my feet.













By seeing the pictures above, at least you get the picture of referred beach I'm talking about.
Right after a beach walk, we happened to spot that the beach itself was connected to a nearby small theme park called Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Before entering the theme park from the beach, we had to pass like rows of shop. Nothing interested me though, so I just kept on moving.

Anyway, I thought this theme park required every of its visitor to pay for the admission fee, but turned the entrance didn't have any ticket boxes so visitors could roam freely inside the theme park. BUT there was actually one ticket box in the middle of the theme park. So it turned out that we did have to pay for $3.00 or $4.00 per ride. We didn't need to ride all of rides though, but if we wished too, just go to the ticket box and requested your desired ride. The lady would hand you the ticket after you pay.

Piece of cake huh?







Doris was ecstatic about riding on some rides, but maybe one ride is enough since our time being in the theme park was obviously limited. Actually Doris was excited about riding on this pendulum-like ride, but she hesitated to go on her own (since all of us had this gut to ride the ride along with her). So we switched to another not-so-gentler ride which is Speed bump (boom boom car)



After spending quality yet fun time at Santa Cruz, we headed back to Los Gatos for barbecue time. Anyway before having dinner, we had some games to break the ice. The game was a bit hilarious but it kind of challenged the heck out of our memories to memorize everyone's name there.



After the game, we had a dinner. The host was kind enough to provide food ranging from spaghetti, chicken, to sushi. What a comforting yet warm food in the contrary of the cold weather and the blowing wind. The rest of the night was spent with some more games but this time, it was conducted fully in Chinese, so there was no way I could join in.







Spent the rest of the night watching religious videos in the living room and the goals of the organization. The host also thanked for us all for coming to her house though



An impressive night indeed. Got to make some new friends and joined in the game. The valuable lesson that I got to learn is that that language isn't the barrier of communication. I can hardly speak Chinese but some of those games don't really require language as two-way communication, only with gestures and laughter.

Phiew, that was one quite long post. Have a great day!

Trip to Taiwan - Part 8 (Special Theme Park!)

Taking off from Taichung again, and now we were heading towards Sun Moon Lake. The journey took less than 3 hours, unexpectedly. Guess the place wasn't that far, eh?

Our first destination of the day would be...*drumroll* wait for it *drumroll*... SUN MOON LAKE ROPEWAY! In case you don't know what kind of place it is, it's an aboriginal village and the best part is, it has a theme park! Yay! We finally got to visit a theme park in Taiwan!

It was still a long way though, and some of us decided to sleep (including me), as the fu dao yuans played a movie, IP Man 2 on the TV bus. The beginning of the climax was a bit too noisy that I was instantly woken up during the fight scene. Therefore I couldn't sleep anymore and decided to catch up on the movie.
Just as the climax ended, everyone seemed to be woken up and paid attention a lot to the movie. Yeah, the climax of the movie - no matter you caught on the story from the beginning or not - was a bit thrilling. But at the same time, we'd reached the destination without even finishing the movie.

The place was freaking hot and crowded. I wonder why because it was Monday and I thought the place would be a little quieter than it should be. But then reality hit me: it was holiday season! Duh.
To get to the aboriginal village and theme park, we must ride on cable car that would take us to sort of the top of the hill. Kinda reminds me of Genting though

Scenic panorama taken from the cable car


Rows of colorful cable car.


From left to right: Monika, Sonya, Didi, Janet

Once we got there, we took like an open vehicle ride passing the aboriginal village straight to the theme park. We'd visit the aboriginal village later, because now, all we wanted to do was to HAVE FUN!

From left to right: Katrin, Sunita, Karin

Before we started the day with thrill rides and stuff, we settled down for a moment to have lunch. Here's our lunch:

Done eating! Now my friends and I - all stick in one group - took off together to seek for rides. Since we just finished eating, possibly we wouldn't do any rides that included extreme spin, twirl, or anything that could mess up our intenstines. =___= Our first ride would be...Space Mountain! If you know what it is, yes, it's an indoor roller coaster, with - thankfully - no upside down spin that I hate. Not bad for "warming up"

After Space Mountain, some of my friends decided to go for a ride which resembled Dufan's Tornado. Me and some of my other friends who had this fear on twisting and twirling just waited while watching our friends screaming as the compartment lifted and twisted them in the air.

The non-thrill-riders

Next rides included splash rides. So, again, we would be all wet today. There were two splash rides at the theme park. One had two small drops and another one had one, short yet backwards drop and lastly, a giant drop. The one with two small drops was called Gold Mine Adventure. To anticipate for being splashed and wet, we sported our yellow raincoats given to us earlier. The water that splashed soon after we were dropped in Gold Mine Adventure didn't give too much wet effect. My hair was just partially wet.

The next splash ride was even more thrilling with 30 meters drop >_<, called Caribbean Splash. I gotta brace on this. After the giant drop and splash, turned out that we got even more wet than before!! Later on, we split into two groups. One group decided to go on for more thrill rides. The other group (me included) decided to go for more chill rides, because practically we had no guts getting on for more thrill rides. Let's just call my group as "The Non-Thrill-Riders" :)

My group stumbled upon a simulator ride and we even found it really exciting, except for the part that too many extreme shakes can hurt your butts. Yeah right.
My group then rode on the cable car to go to Aboriginal Village we passed earlier, to watch a traditional Aboriginal show in Naruwan Theatre. We happened to meet with three fu dao yuans, one of which was our fu dao yuan - Mia - who also wanted to watch the same show.

The show went on and it was really just fascinating! (Well for me it was) No special effects involved, just some Aboriginal people dancing, whose dance eventually symbolized something. Man, I felt like studying Anthropology at that moment. Some after-show event included fortune telling, where this fortune teller would give you a small fruit. You clasped them in your grasp and you sort of made a wish.

We also spotted a traditional game and even took pictures in Aboriginal Traditional houses.

From left to right: Felicia, Sonya, Didi, Karin

From left to right: Karin, Audrey, Sonya, me, Felicia, Tasya, and Jane


Witnessing the traditional game takes place

Now, we took off from Aboriginal Village back to the theme park by the open vehicle (it was 4 pm and the cable car had stopped operating). Once we got there, three of my friends from my non-thrill-riders group decided to ride on a giant drop ride called UFO.
One of my three friends, Felicia, got very scared but succeeded to overcome her fear. Look at her expression while getting off the ride :)

Tense much?


From left to right: Jane, Didi, Felicia

We gathered back in the hall where we had lunch earlier. A group of Aboriginal people we spotted dancing earlier was also there, but now they formed a choir and sang a traditional song, possibly to welcome us all there.

Time to leave Sun Moon Lake Aboriginal Village and theme park, as now we were heading towards the hotel and spent the rest of the night there. The hotel was located on the top of a hill overlooking the lake. After dropping our bags to our rooms, my friends and I gathered in the hotel's balcony to play some games and watched the sun setting in the lake. What a breathtaking panorama.

From left to right: Celine, Didi, Jeje, Audrey, Jesse, Felicia, me


From left to right: Jeje, Audrey, Tasya, Celine, me, Felicia

At 7, my group joined the karaoke session along with the fu dao yuans where they sang some old songs in both Chinese and English. This picture below is low quality since it was taken by my Blackberry. But I feel like posting it. Take a look.

Before going to bed, all of my group gathered in Janet's room (since she was the leader of our group) to plan for the fu dao yuan's surprise approaching the farewell.

So that concludes our night :)

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