6 Jan- Move-in day

Finally got to move into my apartment. The place where I'll have to stay for the next 5months.
It was a relief, cos we were getting sick of travelling all around with our luggage.
Was expecting to see housemates but they were all out.

Living room
















Corridor. You'll notice the vent at the right side, thats the heater. It's very good at heating up, however, it only heats up that area -.-
The heat doesn't spread to other parts of the house.



















Messy room that greeted me. Everything you see here belongs to the roomie.





























Well, she recently explained that it was cos she threw a NYE party, so ok, understandable!

Walk-in closet















Anw, after putting all our stuff down, we went off to Target to shop for necessities like pillows and stuff. I wouldn't say its frigging cheap, but its sort of the cheapest already.
So I plan to keep my room very minimalist and basic. It's just a place for me to sleep.


Dinner at Denny's, Fish N Chips.















Not that its very yummy or what, but the portion was super huge.
Those American portions are the reason why I can easily survive on 2 meals a day.

5 Jan- San Diego Zoo

Been a long time since we visited the zoo.
My only memories of Mandai Zoo was bad smell, humid weather, and lots of mosquitoes.
This time round, it was almost no smell (except at some smelly animals enclosures), cool weather and ZERO mosquitoes.






























































So basically, we saw a whole bunch of animals.
Then came my favourite animal of all!


































































Pandas were effing cute! One was sleeping, so could only capture its butt. This one above was just happily eating and being really camera-friendly!! I like!!
There was along queue to see the pandas, cos they are like 'fragile' animals, cant have too many people there at one go, and all had to speak softly. But me dont mind.
My first live panda sighting! Worth it!



















Camel with uneven humps















Grizzly bear. Would be cute if it had been fatter.
















Then came my favourite part of the day.
Dinnertime!!
Went to some obscure place to eat some fusion Japanese food.
I ordered Lobster Fried Rice. Totally not what I imagined it to be.






































Yes I have no idea what the weird foam at the top is, but it tasted decent.
lightly salted. The rest were saying that its the foam that the lobster breathed out underwater, but....I have my doubts.
Fried rice is always yum!!





















Random photo of the day

4 Jan- San Diego

So Santa Monica got too boring.
Headed down to San Diego!!
This was an impromptu trip that was planned only a couple of days before.
Couldn't stand the un-liveable Santa Monica hostel anymore.
Please dont ever stay in hostels. It's not worth it.
Just rent a hotel room and share.

Anw, during the drive, we stopped by scenic places again.
This place was special, cos there were many seagulls.
These birds weren't flying in the air, but standing around on the ground.
Totally not scared of humans.






























Trying to take a photo with a seagull. That was the closest I could get.
















Upon reaching San Diego, we visited a beach. Again!!
Can't help it. These places are famous for their beaches.
But this beach was special!




It was populated by seals!!











Those brown things are seals! They were very lazy, just lying there, suntanning.. And all very fat and cute.

























































After that was dinner, at a pretty classy Italian restaurant.It's not like we had alot of money to burn, but we were starving, and there weren't many other restaurants open. It was around 4++pm, and the rest all closed at 3pm. No choice but to settle for a slightly upper class one.
















Pasta was great though. What did I order?
















SHRIMPS AGAIN!!! It's like I'm always eating the same thing, due to my weird dislike for land animals. Well, shrimps suit me just fine! Plus they were very generous with their serving of shrimps.

3 Jan- Hollywood!

Drove to Hollywood!!















But this place is seriously overrated.
There isn't much to do around.
Did the Walk of Fame, took a couple of photos.

























































Yes, there's actually a Godzilla :////

And a Spongebob, who really really sounded like the REAL Spongebob


































Dinner was Japanese curry. Surprisingly good! Very thick curry.
Shrimp and curry and rice.
I swear I've been eating alot of shrimp here.
They just seem to have more shrimp dishes than fish dishes.

2 Jan- Getty Museum

2nd day of Santa Monica.
Quite a boring day cos we finished exploring the area the day before already.
So nothing left to do.
Plus it was quite a rainy day.
Decided to head to the Getty Museum.
Frankly, as we were driving there, we had no idea what the museum was all about.
Turns out that its an art museum.
Well, at least entrance is free!

Some weird sculpture. Looks aneroxic.



















Garden in the museum
















Oil painting that looks freakishly like a photograph. Very lifelike, very well done.



















Poor injured hand of mine.



















Knuckle area was wounded, by a very strong force, called the wind.
The wind makes the skin really dry, and I didnt moisturise, so somehow, the knuckles started to have cuts. Seriously, there were small slits.
Moral of the story: Always moisturise any exposed part of your body. Wind can kill!

1 Jan-New Year

New Year!
We ushered in 2011 in a very nondescript way.
By sleeping.
After another road trip, we reached Santa Monica in time to countdown to 2011.
Stayed in a terrible hostel.
Cant believe they were rated best hostel on websites but anw, it sucked.
Cos they put us in an 8 bedded dorm, with 2 other strangers.
There was one stranger who was constantly asleep, and seemed to be sick.
Coughed, sneezed and snored throughout the night.
Plus it was really squeezy, and there was NO HEATING.
Can you believe it?? NO HEATING!!!!
I had to get 3 blankets to keep warm. Doesnt help that their towels are miserable too.
But enough about the complaining, let's move on the the fun part.

First thing the next day, checked out the beaches.
Santa Monica has many pretty beaches.
And with beachers, come seafood!!















The place we ate at, really really good and fresh seafood.
I get hungry just thinking about it.
Cocktail shrimp!!



















Super huge onion rings






































You can actually see and taste the onion inside, which is so different from the other onions rings I've ever tried. It's really ONION rings. Wow.

After eating, it was time to explore the beaches!
Fine, so we only explored a few.
After awhile, they all look the same.
Sun, sand, sea.
Luckily the weather was perfect that day.
Perfect= no rain!