California...

First off, California is HUGE. We've spent the most time in this state and ever minute of it has been packed with stuff to do.

After our quick tour of the Redwood National Forest, we drove to Sacramento to stay with our cousin, Charles. Charles was a great host. Our first night, he took us to "Adalberto's," which is probably my favorite fast food mexican restaurant ever. To call it fast food is actually an injustice because its just as delicious as the mexican food you can get from a sit-down restaurant. Their tacos are amazing!

The next day we drove to San Francisco to do a quick tour of the city. We headed down to Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf where we met up with most of our cousins. We saw the sea lions fighting off of the side of Pier 39, then decided it was time to go. We next drove to Lombard street which is famous because its winds all over the place. Its probably the most curvy street in America. We went there to get some video shots, but apparantly other people had the same idea because the street was packed with cars. After wasting some time at Lombard, we drove to Alamo Park which is where they filmed the opening to "Full House." We took some pictures and video there, so you'll be able to see how things have changed since the tv show stoped airing. After that we went to Haight & Ashbury, which is where the hippie movement started in the 1960's. Today is just a shell of its former self with mainly a bunch of hipster kids and bums hanging around the area. Ryan and I went to the McDonald's next to Amoema Records and saw some bum shooting up heroin in the bathroom stall next the urinal. Needless to say, we didn't linger long there at that McDonald's. After leaving McDonald's we went inside Amoeba Records, which supposedly is the largest independent record store in the country. I don't know if that's true or not, but it IS pretty big. We each bought a $1 cd just to see if we could pick out any hidden gems. Sadly, there were none. They were priced accordingly. After that, we left Haight & Ashbury and drove up to Twin Peaks, which is the highest hill in the city. From there you can usually get a great view of downtown San Francisco, but the night we drove up there, there was a huge cloud over the hill and we really couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of our faces.

The next day we drove to Yoesemite National Park with our cousins. At first we thought we'd do the Half Dome hike which is 17 miles long. After our brief flirtation with insanity, we decided to do a more reasonable 7 mile hike up to the Upper Falls. The first half of those 7 miles was straight up a mountain. By the time we finished our hike we could barely lift our legs. I wouldn't say I regreted making the hike though. At the top of the falls (which had dried up), there were pools of icy mountain water just sitting up there. Most of us decided it might be fun to hop in the water to cool off. Ryan and I both jumped in and while I can say it was refreshing, it wasn't warm enough to just sit in there and relax. After we left Yosemite, we drove home and slept sound and logs.

The following day, we drove back to San Francisco to see the remaining sights. We first drove to the Castro district, which is famous because that is the neighborhood where all of the gay men live in the city. I have to say, a lot of those guys were really friendly. I had an opportunity to interview a guy from Michigan named Trevor and he was very helpful and informative. He told me a lot about the neighborhood and even welcomed me to stay a while. I had to refuse Trevor's kind offer though because we had more of the city to see! After leaving Castro, we drove to the Palace of Fine Arts which is a nice roman-esque structure next to the Exploratorium. There really isn't much to see there, but it was a nice photo opportunity. After leaving there, we drove to the Legion of Honor, which is a museum that houses some fine classical art pieces. We had a great time outside watching the sun set. After that we drove to Union Square which is the nice part of the city. We stayed maybe 30 minutes because we couldn't find any good place to eat without a line. After that we left the city.

The next day we left the Bay area and drove south toward Los Angeles. We decided to take the Pacific Coast Highway because that is the most scenic drive to L.A. We were rewarded with fantastic shots of the ocean, but sadly our video camera died there. We went to Circuit City the following day and purchased a new camera, so fear not loyal readers of this blog... we'll be back with further video updates in the near future!

After driving the PCH, we finally made it to Los Angeles where we met up with my friend Adam Brown. He showed us around Hollywood and took us to a great restaurant, the Saddle Ranch which is famous for their huge portions of steak and their mechanical bull. We had the steak and then rode the bull. The steak was fantastic and the bull-riding was painful. While there we had our first and only celebrity sighting... we saw Flava-Flav! He's just as ugly in person and he is on t.v. Anyway, our trip to L.A. was pretty quick. While we spent two days there, we didn't get to see very much because the city is so spread out. We drove to Venice Beach, where we met Bill, the 60 year old body builder who used to hang out with Arnold in his younger days. Despite what you may have heard, Venice is not all that crazy. It just looks like a shabby beach town. From there we drove to the Santa Monica Pier which was okay. I'm glad we only spent $1 to park because the food was generic and the amusement park rides looked pretty crappy. After that we drove to see UCLA which was a beautiful campus. We went inside the library and I have to say, it looked like a very nice place to study and meet asian people. After that we drove to see our Cousin, Sunanta. Being a full-blooded filipina, she took us to the most asian part of the city to have Boba/Bubble Tea, which is this gross tea that has tapioca balls at the bottom. The drink sucked, but it was great to see our cousin. The next day we drove around and took a studio tour and Warner Bros. Studios. That was my favorite park of the trip because I love movies so much. It was cool to see where movies get made and the process which goes into creating them. We then drove to Westwood to see "Stardust" at the Fox Westwood Village movie theater which is a 1300 seat theater with the best sound and video i've ever experienced. The movie was decent, bu the theater was great. From there we drove to visit USC which was pretty "eh." I didn't like the campus very much compared to UCLA. After that we drove to visit Sunanta one last time at Irvine where she took us to see the "Dollhouse," which supposedly is a place where some lady murdered her two kids and cut them into pieces and placed them in the walls. FUN! See you next time!

Hopefully our posts will start to come more regularly again soon!

-The Guys