Spacetruckin'

Too much ukelele

jeannaxtian — Sun, 6 Jan 2008 17:10:00 GMT

Aloha from beautiful Hawaii!

Has been a fun past couple of days, let us start from our last day in LA...

After finishing off the last mammoth blog entry, we jumped on a bus that we thought was taking us to Hollywood Blvd. Wrong! Well, he got us kinda close, but we had a bit of a walk to get to the Capitol Records building which is where we were headed for a coupla pics. Next we caught another bus over to Beverly Hills. Wasn't quite as eventful as we had imagine (ie. I didn't see Britney doing any shopping - probably because she was having a standoff with the cops, but I'm sure you guys had the same news coverage as over here, all 4 hours of it!!). Anyway, was nice to see how the other half shop - nothing that appealed to us though. We finished our 'window shopping' and jumped on a bus back to downtown. Got some photos of the wicked rooftop bar at our hotel and had another martini before it was bedtime.

On the 4th we had an early flight to Hawaii, we got in at around 12pm local time. The bumpiest flight either of us have had, the plane was throwing us around for a good couple of hours, horrible. Anyways, we landed safe and sound, and even flew over a couple of the islands and got to have a good aerial look. Got to our hotel after about an hour and a half in the shuttle bus, seems Waikiki/Honolulu area is full of one way streets, making it difficult for the driver to get us all to our hotels efficiently. Anyways, we got here in the end, and after dumping our super heavy backpacks, headed for a walk down to check out the beach. Our hotel is only 1 minute walk from the beach, which is great :) Most hotels are though. So, we checked out some shops and had a burger around 5pmish and watched the sun set out on Waikiki beach. So beautiful. Bit jetlagged with the time change so we had an early night.

Yesterday we had a sleep in, then headed down for some brunch at a place on the corner called Tiki's. It's a 2nd story place that looks over the ocean, so cool. After a bite to eat we chucked on our bikini/shorts and went to do some sunbaking down at the beach. Went for abit of a swim too. Water was loverly!! There's a big concrete wall blocking off an area of water that little ones (and people who are scared of the big ocean like me!) can swim! Once we had enough, we went for a walk to the local mall and played some 3D, glow in the dark mini golf!! Lots of fun, Xtian kicked my ass, but we managed a hole in one each. Dinner last night was order in pizza, and we relaxed in our room watching telly.

And now todays update! First up we picked up a couple of mopeds and hooned out to Diamond Head. We did the big walk all the way to the summit (took us about 45 minutes to get up the top, and it was probably around 28 degrees! Eek!) and got some amazing views of Oahu from up there. Took some photos, then hiked all the way down and jumped back on our mopeds. We decided to take my bike back because it didn't seem to be going over 30 miles and I couldn't keep up with Xtian (let alone the traffic I was holding up, haha!). Got a gruntier bike, and luckily I did, because next we headed out to Pearl Harbour - VIA THE FREEWAY!!! I swear it must have looked like the most hillarious thing, two obvious foreigners, cruising down the freeway on mopeds! Haha! It was one of the scariest moments of my life trying to cross all those lanes and balance the stupid thing at the same time! Anyways, we made it to Pearl Harbour and checked out some of the memorials out there, all the time working up the courage to jump back on the bikes and go back on the freeway! On the way back, we took a wrong turn, but it worked out better for us because we got to Honolulu city without having to jump on the big scary freeway. Phew! So, we rode along the coastline, all the way to Waikiki and parked up at the hotel to head down for another spot of sunbathing. I think by that stage we had missed most of the sun, so after abit of relaxing at the beach, we jumped back on the bikes and headed out to the mall. We bought ourselves a couple of ipods which we had planned to do, and now we're back at the hotel, thinking about where to go for dinner! We have the bikes for 24 hours, so will go for another ride tomorrow morning. So much fun cruising around on those things! Rod, you would have been so proud of me - terrified at first, but now all I can think about is buying motorbike when we get back home! Something with abit more grunt than a moped though, haha!

Well, we're getting hungry so I think it's time to venture back out to find some dinner. Tomorrow is our last day on holiday, then we fly back home at 12pm local time on the 8th, so will see/talk to you all shortly!!

J & X

Vegas baby!!

jeannaxtian — Fri, 4 Jan 2008 06:17:00 GMT

Hey friends and family :) It's been a little while since our last blog, but if you check out all the photos we uploaded last night, you may see why... They're all down the right hand column of the main page, listed by city.

Before we tell you about Vegas, I don't think we wrote about our last couple of days in New York. We got up early on the 28th and headed down to jump on the 'downtown' tour bus. First stop was Empire State building. We were really glad we went so early, on the way down, the line went down the whole block! So, we didn't have to wait too long before jumping in the first elevator that takes you up 80 floors in about 8 seconds! Our ears were popping the whole way, kinda freaky. Then, there's another elevator that takes you up the final 16 floors and you can walk right outside onto the deck. Pretty amazing view from up there (obviously!) and we were lucky to have picked a really clear morning to go up :) We didn't stay up for too long because it was freezing and started to get quite packed. After heading back down, we jumped back on the bus and drove to our next destination which was Ground Zero. There isn't too much there now as they are doing construction to make a five building conglomeration (of which one of the buildings is going to be bigger and taller than the two towers!). They've taken down all the memorials and now all that's left is a massive plaque listing all the peoples names who died. It was still pretty eerie being down there, especially to see how tall the buildings around the site were, only to be told that the towers were double their size! Incredible!! We had to climb up onto construction fences to see inside, which is basically just two big holes in the ground. After this, we walked down to see about going over on the ferry to ellis island/statue of liberty. The line went the whole way around the paths at Battery Park and we were told the wait time was 4 hours!! We weren't too keen on wasting the day waiting in line, so we took a couple of pictures from the bay where you can see lady liberty and kept walking! Next was another short bus ride over to the East Village which was easily our favourite part of Manhattan. First stop was Pete Wentz's bar (just for you Courtney!) then a walk over to St Marks Street which felt really similar to a Brunswick kinda place. Really arty and full of punks and poets. We fit right in!! We had the best coffee that we've had in our entire time in the US, beause all the rest have been CRAP!!! Then we walked over to a special stop for Jude - Joey Ramone place!! Very unassuming, a small sign on an already signposted street! It was actually called 2nd street, but I guess they gave Joey the 2nd honour of a signpost. We took some photos, then walked up broadway, over to another famous punk landmark - the Chelsea Hotel! Another quite unassuming hotel, could have missed it if we weren't looking up. This is where Sid Vicious killed Nancy Spungeon (or if you're listening to Sid, this is where Nancy repeatedly rolled over onto his knife. Hhmmmm). More photo ops, then back up to the hostel to get changed and out to dinner at the Hard Rock Hotel. Seemed like this Hard Rock had the best collection of memorabilia, so we took a bunch of photos here too.

So! Bring us to the 29th! This day we went for a walk up 5th avenue, past all the super rich shops (without stopping!) and over to Central Park. Walked through central park for a while, checking out squirrels and ice skaters in the rink over there, then we came back and went to see Sweeny Todd on Broadway! Sounds more exotic than it actually was, we went to the movies, haha! Basically, we only had another hour or so before we had to be at the airport, so we had a couple of drinks at a bar then took our bags to the bus depot and headed down the Jersey turnpike to the Newark airport.

We arrived in Vegas at about midnight on the 29th which was fantastic. The airport is right next to the strip, so flying over we could see all the hotels and the big city lights of Vegas. We hit the sack as soon as we arrived at our hotel, so we could get an early start the next day.

30th we went to grab some breakfast then walked pretty much the entire strip. Took pretty much the whole day to walk up and down, checking out the enormous hotels and their lures to bring you in and gamble your savings away. The MGM was my favourite, with a lion enclosure just inside the doors. They had two young males in there and about 3 trainers playing with them and feeding them etc. Was incredible to see! Also saw the Bellagio fountains which were amazing! The lake out the front of the hotel is huge and every 15 mintutes there is a water jet display in time to music. The jets shoot the water up 10 stories into the air! Also caught the volcano outside the Mirage 'eurupting' which is a fire and water display, and the 'Sirens of TI' which is a pirate show featuring two lifesize pirate ships outside Treasure Island (one of them sinks at the end!!). We were planning to head out that night, but after all the walking, we crashed out when we got back to the hotel. New Years eve we took another stroll down the strip and all the way to the 'Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas' sign. We stopped off at New York New York hotel on the way back and got ourselves some oversized frozen drinks (which can be seen in our photos). Every second person walking down the strip has one of these giant vessels and every other person is drinking beer. Crazy to see drinking allowed just out on the street, and even through the malls etc! We checked out the Bellagio fountains again and filmed the whole thing this time (will chuck it up online soon for all who want to see). Then headed back to the hotel to get ready to head to Hard Rock Hotel. We walked down to Hard Rock at 7pm-ish and had dinner at AJ's Steakhouse, which was unreal. Best food we've eaten since being in the states. We had to leave AJ's at around 9 for Richard Cheese to set up, so we had a drink at another bar, then went back to queue up for the Cheese show. The band played for around 2 hours and this is where we were for the countdown. After the show, we got to meet Richard cheese and got a photo with him and then were on our way back to the Imperial Palace. We were both kinda tired and couldn't be bothered dealing with the masses on the strip, so we hung out in the casino of our own hotel and had another couple of nightcaps and talked to locals. I tried my hand at a game of blackjack with one of the 'dealertainers' (dealers dressed up as famous people) and Roy Orbison was my lucky man - won $80 from $10! Walked away while I was up though :)

The first was unfortunately spend mostly horizontal. Not much to report here apart from praying to the porcelin god....hhmmmm..... not pretty.

Finally, we're up to yesterday!! We picked up our car around 9am and started the drive down to LA. Most of the scenery consisted of desert, but that was to be expected. We stopped at a truck stop along the way for some lunch (along with the other 150 truckies that belonged to the trucks parked outside!!), then back onto route 66 for the final leg of the trip. Arrived at the Standard hotel (another one to check out online: www.standardhotels.com) at around 3pm and went up to the spectacular rooftop for a martini :) We had dinner down in the restaurant last night and crashed pretty early again (but not before we spend a couple hours uploading all those photos!!)

Today, so far we've been for a walk around downtown, but haven't found much to our interest. The Walt Disney concert hall was pretty rad though, got some photos of that. Next we're heading over to Beverly Hills and then? who knows? I guess you'll find out next time we write!!

Off to Hawaii tomorrow morning for 4 days in the sun (hopefully!) so will write more then.

Phew! Super long update this time. Fingers are sore - off to Rodeo Drive!!

J & X

Gallery: San Diego Zoo

jeannaxtian — Thu, 3 Jan 2008 17:02:00 GMT

Gallery: Tijuana

jeannaxtian — Thu, 3 Jan 2008 17:02:00 GMT

Gallery: Disneyland!!

jeannaxtian — Thu, 3 Jan 2008 17:02:00 GMT

Gallery: Las Vegas

jeannaxtian — Thu, 3 Jan 2008 12:41:00 GMT

Gallery: New York

jeannaxtian — Thu, 3 Jan 2008 12:41:00 GMT

Gallery: LA

jeannaxtian — Thu, 3 Jan 2008 12:41:00 GMT

Gallery: Monterey

jeannaxtian — Thu, 3 Jan 2008 12:41:00 GMT

New York!! New York!!

jeannaxtian — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 10:18:00 GMT

Hey again, just got some more interweb credits so back to update on the NYC leg of our trip....

We arrived here at 6am Xmas eve on a beautiful clear day. Was definately alot colder than sunny California, but not as cold as we had expected. We caught the bus into the city and walked a few blocks to find our hotel. Turns out we were booked right next to Times Square! The Night Hotel was incredible, we both loved the decor - check it out if you get a chance (www.nighthotelnyc.com). We dumped our bags and had a nap to catch up on the time difference after our flight, then ventured out to check out Times Square. We had breakfast at the Rockefeller centre, overlooking the ice skating rink and the massive Xmas tree which was pretty neat. After that we checked out was Toys-r-us - what a freakout that was! Xmas eve, so I think half the population of New York was in there doing their last minute xmas shopping. We literally couldn't move once we got in. Had to take baby steps to check out the whole store. Was wicked though, there's a big ferris wheel in the middle and they have a moving dinosaur and a lifesize barbie house inside!! Also checked out the three level Virgin megastore which was awesome and some other shops. The TV screens all down Times Square are unbelieveable. I swear you can almost feel the heat off them when you're walking down the street. Unreal. We checked out Planet Hollywood for dinner that night, then went back to the hotel to chill and sleep.

Xmas day we got some breakfast, went for a walk, then met Xtian's friend Steve and his wife Fee in the hotel lobby. We jumped on the subway and went to Wall Street first. Got a bunch of photos, then walked along the waters edge down to the bottom of Brooklyn Bridge. Got a great close up shot of a very friendly squirrel down in the park. He came right up and grabbed an acorn from a girls hand! So cute! We did the big walk accross Brooklyn Bridge just as the sun was coming down which was really beautiful, the city skyline looked amazing!! Walked around Brooklyn for a little while and had a drink at a great little bar. Being Xmas day, alot of other bars were closed, so we caught the subway back over to Manhattan and walked through little Italy and Chinatown until we found a bar to have another couple at. Steve and Fee left, but Xtian and I decided to stay for a few too many more. Waking up on Wednesday, both with killer hangovers, we were reminded of our last big night in LA and how we said we wouldn't go too crazy again because we end up wasting a day. Damn. So, most of yesterday was spent in our hotel. We did venture out in the afternoon though and had a snack over on Broadway and took a nice stroll to see all the lights. So all was not lost!

This morning we woke up and had to check out of the Night hotel :( Such a bumber, but it was just to expensive to have another two nights there. Fortunately for us, there is a hostel just accross the road! They had one spare private room for the next two nights so we were very lucky. We checked in, dropped our bags and went to the tour company we had chosen to book our tours for the next couple of days. Today we took the uptown and Harlem tour. It was a two hour bus trip around the top half of Manhattan. Harlem was pretty cool to see, especially places like the Apollo Theatre and rad statues like Duke Ellington. We jumped off at 'Museum Mile' and went to check out the Museum of the history of NYC. It wasn't actually the greatest so we didn't spend too long there. Next up was Guggenheim which was very impressive in structure inside. The exhibition they had on was of an artist we weren't to familiar with, but they have some Picasso in there which was neat to see in person. We didn't have time to do the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art or the Museum of Natural History unfortunately. Maybe we'll get to those in the next couple of days.... We ended our bus ride back up here in Times Square and just finished our classy restaurant dinner (Wendys, hehe). Were going to check out Hard Rock Cafe but the wait to be seated was 2 hours!!

Tomorrow we are heading up the Empire State, over to the Statue of Liberty and also taking another 2 hour tour of the down side of Manhattan. Probably jump off at the World Trade site also. Busy busy day!!

That's it! Next stop is Vegas after NYC, yeehar!!

J & X

San Diego & Tijuana

jeannaxtian — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 03:32:00 GMT

Merry Xmas everyone! Hope y'all had a great day, bet it was warmer than ours! Ha! Updating from NYC today, but haven't written about San Diego and Tijuana, so I guess we'll start from there...

We went with a group from the hostel we were staying at to Tijuana on the 22nd, what a mad place! Crossing over the border to get into Mexico is easy, there's just a big gate that you walk though, getting out was harder, the line we waited in was massive, stood in line for almost an hour. And they check your passport to come back in to America, such a contrast to crossing over the other way! As soon as we walk over the border, it's obvious that we're in a very different country. There are taxi's on the street all lined up and the drivers come up to you asking if you're 'ready to go' and 'where do you want to go, I take you' etc. They wouldn't really take no for an answer either, they just keep hounding you! Next are the people trying to get you into their restaurants. Some of the places had 5 or 6 guys lined up outside begging you to come in and eat/drink! Some places were tempting too - beer for 99c??!!! We had an initial plan to take off by ourselves and check out the city, but after going in, we decided to stick with the group. Every street corner in the main street had a donkey painted like a zebra with guys charging a dollar for a photo on the donkey with a sombrero, the poor animals looked so sad, we felt really bad for them. We had dinner and a couple of maghirtas and beers then left with the tour group back to San Diego. It was a very interesting day. Glad we went over, but we decided that we wouldn't have stayed any longer than a day down there. It was a pretty scary place.

The next day we took the bus out to San Diego zoo and spent the day out there. They had some pretty wicked animals, and it's a HUGE zoo! Saw some pandas and even a polar bear :) It was good fun. After we finished, we headed straight to the airport for our 9pm flight to NYC.

I'm going to have to do the NYC update later on today, or maybe tomorrow because my internet card is just about to run out. Have also been trying to find somewhere to add photos, but all the internet cafes here have the computers in a box, so no memory stick input or cable input! It's frustrating! Will keep looking for somewhere to upload though.

Write more soon.....

J & X

The happiest place on earth...

jeannaxtian — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:52:00 GMT

Hola amigos! Sitting in a dark room in our San Deigo hostel for this update. Has been a few days, but they've gone by real fast!

Monday we jumped on a tour bus which took us out to Universal Studios. We spent a full day out there, but we probably could have done it in half the time! Started the day with a tour of the studio backlot (even down Wisteria lane mum!! I video'd it just for you :) No desparate housewives to be seen though, well, none that are in the show anyway) and were disappointed to hear that the Jaws shark that is supposed to jump out of the water (and scare me sitting on the side of the tram we were in) was broken. Nevermind, still got to see some really cool things like the minature island that they used for King Kong and the Bates Motel & Psycho house! So rad. After the studios, we headed back to the hostel and went out to the Rainbow again. We had a few drinks, then headed up Sunset to the Key Club to see Metal Skool (parody glam metal band). They played a bunch of covers and I made a total idiot of myself by not realising that John Corabi (former Motley Crue vocalist) was standing right next to me. That's another story though, for those of you who care! Hehe. David Draiman from Disturbed was in the house, so got up to sing a few songs with the band. Was a fun night, but again we had a big Tuesday so didn't stay out too late.

So, Tuesday morning we picked up our car and drove out to Anaheim for our first day of Disneyland madness. We dropped our gear at the hotel and took the shuttle to the 'happiest place in the world'. It's such a mad place once you get in the gates, and because it's Xmas time, it's even more OTT! Christmas carols blare over the loud speakers the whole time we walked around and of course there are a million kids, but in saying that, we had a really great time. The first day we covered most of Disneyland Park and stayed till around 6pm, so got to see the park all lit up. They even had fake snow falling everywhere! It was pretty magical. We left just as it started raining, so they had cancelled the parade and we didn't want to wait to see if the fireworks would still go ahead. Wednesday we got up lateish (it had been a big day on Tuesday!!) and headed back over to Disneyland. We finished off the rides/worlds that we hadn't got to on Tuesday before the rain came, and then went over to Disneyland's California Park. This is a kinda smaller park right next to the big Disneyland. We didn't spend too long here as I was way too terrified to go on the big rollercoaster (it was making me feel sick just looking at it!!), and the other rides were going to give Xtian motion sickness or get us soaking wet!! So, we had some dinner at the House of Blues at Disney Downtown and headed home with full bellys and empty pockets.

Which brings us to Thursday. We didn't have too much to do yesterday, so we drove around Anaheim abit, looking at shops and counting fast food chains. Last night we caught a cab over to the Honda Centre for VAN HALEN!! Woo!! Walking in was incredible. So much bigger than any stadium either of us have ever been in in our lives! There must have been at least 20,000 people in there! It would have been a sold out show, it was completely packed. Xtian and I looked at each other when we walked in, totally shocked at how loud it was just with the crowd roaring! So, Van Halen played all the hits as per expected, for a full 2 and half hour set with Jump as the finaly (complete with disco ball in the middle of the arena and glitter falling from the roof!). Such an amazing night, fingers crossed the tour makes it down under!

This morning we drove from Anaheim down to San Diego, stopping along the way at Laguna Beach which was interesting. So many massive houses, no wonder they film all the reality series here, it all seems so fake just looking at it!! We arrived in San Diego a couple hours ago and had a beer down the road. Our hosetl here is right in the middle of the 'Gaslamp' district which is where all the restaurants and shops are. Seems really nice. Tonight we'll head over to the North Island (I forget what it's called right now!) for some dinner and tomorrow we're taking a tour with the hostel down to Tijuana, Mexico.

Almost Christmas time, and there's definately no hiding from it over here. We've seen so many elaborate xmas displays on houses, some of the are ridiculous! They must cost the owners a fortune in electricity bills!! Haha! Hope everyone is well and looking forward to holidays :)

Next stop New York on Dec 24th....

J & X

Lifestyles of the rich and famous in LA

jeannaxtian — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:10:00 GMT

Hey guys, checking in from LA today. And another mad couple of days! We left Santa Barbara pretty early and started our drive south to Santa Monica. Thank god we had the sat nav unit in our car - we would have been lost without it (literally!). Found Santa Monica and checked into a hotel right by the beach. We went for a walk down the pier where there are rollercoasters and ferris wheels right by the ocean. All pretty tacky and dirty though. The beach goes for as far as you can see, yet there's no one in the water because it's so polluted. Ironic. Little baywatch surf lifesaving thingies all the way along which were kinda cool to see though :)

Seeing as it was Matt's last day with us, we decided to go on a guided tour of LA in a little bus. The driver was crazy, laughing at the most inappropriate times with an infectious cackle. Funny man. We did a big tour of all the spots you hear about. Started at Marina Del Rey, then on to Venice beach. We got about a half hour in each place to get off the bus and look around. Venice beach was pretty cool. Was such a beautiful day, but still not heaps and heaps of people. Saw muscle beach but there were't alot of guys working out, so it wasn't quite like you see on TV/in movies. After Venice, we drove over to Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Drove up Rodeo drive which was really pretty. The street lights down there are chandalliers in glass boxes!! Next we drove down Sunset strip. This was totally the highlight for me (no surprise there right? Hehe). Driving past places like the Rainbow, Whiskey a Go-Go, Viper Room, Red Rocks etc etc was so awesome!! We went up on to Hollywood Blvd next, and got out to see the hollywood sign and Chinese Theatre. The theatre was really impressive. Looks great all lit up. Will Smith had been there the night before for his new movie's premier so his handprints were fresh in the concrete and roped off. Neat to see all the stars out the front and some of the impersonators were really well done. I got a photo with a Jack Sparrow (pirates of the caribbean) guy that looked amazing!!

After the tour, we went back to Santa Monica and out to dinner down the prominade which is a great little pedestrian street with shops and restaurants. We had a few drinks after dinner in a british pub, then it was home to bed.

Friday Matt left us at 11am, and Xtian and I took a walk down the beach to Venice again. We had some brunch, then headed back up to the prominade for another look at the shops. Had a nana nap back at the hotel then went out to Hooters for dinner!!! Haha, it's exactly like you'd expect too, girls in teeny tiny shorts and busting out of their singlets, pretty funny. We had some disgustingly fat soaked chicken wings, (which Hooters are supposedly famous for) and some awesome cocktails. That was pretty much it for Friday!! I think we were feeling pretty exhausted from the past week.

Yesterday we drove in to West Hollywood to check in to our hostel and drop off the rental car. We checked in and went for a walk, thinking Sunset would be relatively close so that we could go check out the Rainbow up close. Ended up walking for close to two hours before we realised we were going in the opposite direction down sunset! Still, by chance we managed to stumble across guitar centre, which has all the great musician hand & footprints out side. Checked out the guitar store too, it's massive - you would have loved it Carl! The guitars were all pretty cheap too. And Sunset tattoo is just accross the road! Tiny little place, not what we expected at all!! So, once we realised we were going in the wrong direction, we grabbed a cab and got up to the Rainbow, only to find it doesn't open for lunch. Should have known really. We went to Red Rocks instead, then back up to Hollywood blvd to do a spot of shopping at Hot Topic :)

Last night we caught a cab with a couple of other guys who are staying here at the hostel, out to Rainbow. We had the greatest time, it's such a wicked bar! Lemmy was supposed to be there, according to one of the guys that we went with (who told us he knew him), but he must have had something better to do because he was nowhere to be seen. We stayed until closing (2am? Wtf isn't this supposed to be LA? City of partying?) and came back to the hostel for some more drinking with our new friends.

Needless to say, we were feeling a little worse for wear today, so took the day to rest and relax and tomorrow we have universal studios!

So! Once again all up to date. Will write more soon!

J & X

San Fran to Monterey to Santa Barbara and beyond...

jeannaxtian — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:08:00 GMT

Hey guys. Another stop, another chance to update on the past couple of days.

Last time I wrote, we were getting ready to head to 'Slims' in San Fran for the Between the Buried & Me gig. We actually wanted to see the support bands too, but got there too late and missed Behold the Arctopus (so pissed!). We did get to see August Burns Red though, they were ok. They were nothing compared to BTBAM though, oh man, they were sooooooo amazing. (Minz - if you're reading this, I'm sorry). Every single song was absolutely album perfect and they played a mixture of tracks from Colours & Alaska. Even played a cover of Sepultura's 'War for Territory'. Got right up the front and took some really mean photos and video. After the show, Dan the bassist came to the front of the stage to sign some stuff for people so I grabbed him to say hello. Let him know I was from Stomp and he was really cool and chatted for a while. He took us backstage to meet the rest of the guys and we got a big group photo and had a beer with them. Such friendly guys and they're all real keen to come to Aus which was great to hear. So - a totally incredible night had overall, and we walked back to the hotel buzzing. Unfortunately, we did have to head straight to bed because we had an early start on Tuesday, so no boozing with the other fans this night :(

Which brings us to yesterday. We had some breakfast first off, across the road from our hotel in a little diner. I got some french toast while the boys had pancakes. Great way to start the day! We actually had abit of time before checking out so Xtian and I went for a walk to look at some shops while Matt went to a Golf shop he had found down the road. Saw some pretty crazy sights over in that neighbourhood. The homeless there seem to have a little community, and you hear them saying g'day as they pass each other on the street, pushing along their trollys full of belongings. We also had a walk around City Hall and took some great pictures, it's a beautiful big building, I'll upload some photos when we get to an internet cafe (on Matt's laptop right now and he doesn't have the right program to upload). At around 11, we checked out of the hotel and headed down to Fishermans wharf to pick up our hire car. We got a nice bright red Pontiac, pretty swish! Xtian drove around the carpark a couple times to get used to the feel of the left hand drive, and then we ventured out to the road. We all felt a little nervous, especially not knowing exactly where we were going, but we soon found our way and headed north over the Golden Gate bridge. We had decided that we didn't have time to drive up to see the Redwood forest, because the drive south to LA is a long one. So, we pulled over to a Vista point and checked out the view of the bridge and the city. Breathtaking!! Came across and interesting family in the carpark, who were asking for money for gas for their winebago. The mother (a huge african american woman) had a plaster on her eye for some reason. She came right up to our window to ask for money and Matt told her that we didn't have any before she had a chance to ask. He told her that we needed the money for petrol to get our kids home (the same thing she had been yelling out) and she was totally oblivious to the fact we were taking the piss! She let out a huge sigh and was like 'ooohhhh! Me too! I got a big ass winebago that I gotta get my kids home in too!'. Haha, it was hillarious. Possibly just because she had a plaster on her eye, wtf? Maybe you had to be there....

After checking out the view for a while, we began our trek south on highway 1. Took a while to get out of the city, but soon we were heading down with the ocean to our right and wicked big hills and countyside on our left. We pulled into a little restaurant for some lunch, where they were filming a comercial! Asked them if they needed any testimonials from foreigners, but seems that it wasn't quite our time for being discovered. Maybe in LA... After our lunch and a wine on the deckchairs outside that over looked the ocean, we made our way down to the first stop - Monterey. We found a cute little hotel called the 'Sea Otter Inn', so checked in for the night, dumped our bags and went to check out the local area. We found a bar and sat outside by the open fire to eat. Walking back to our hotel after dinner, we could hear the sea lions barking down on the wharf. Was pretty cold out, so we decided to leave the sea lions and head back to the hotel for some sleep.

This bring us to today!! We woke early and had some more hearty American breakfasts at 'Archies', complete with mini Amercian flags on our food. We checked out of the hotel and went down to the famous Monterey Aquarium. Spent a couple of hours checking out the creatures (including the most adorable sea otters, a newly captured great white shark and some freaky electric disco jellyfish). Also got a free ticket to the Aquarium for filling out a survey, so anyone thinking of coming over before Dec 08, let us know!! Haha. Again, was pretty sad to be leaving such a cool little place, but time was ticking and we weren't even 1/3 of the way to LA! The 'Big Sur' was the next mission, but soooo worth every second of winding road. The most amazing scenery I've ever seen in my life - massive cliffs down to the ocean, with the sun setting as our backdrop. I felt bad for Xtian driving, not being able to look out to the ocean, but we did stop a few times for photo ops. The roads were pretty scary - at some points no barriers on very very sharp corners. Made me wonder how many people have driven off the edge... wouldn't be too hard. We made it through though, and came across Hearst Castle, which we could just make out at the top of a hill in the distance. Unfortuantely, the last tour had just ended, so we didn't get a chance to check it out. Instead, we kept driving on and stopped at another diner for a another burger. Eventually, another couple of hours later we made it to Santa Barbara, which is where I sit and type this novel!! We have a cute little apartment for the three of us, and we're planning to do the final part of the journey to LA and hit Venice beach area tomorrow afternoon.

Phew! Sorry for the mammoth read. Has been another busy couple of days!

Write more soon...

Love J & X

Gallery: San Francisco

jeannaxtian — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 14:00:00 GMT

San Francisco

jeannaxtian — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 13:21:00 GMT

Hello from Sunny San Francisco!!

This is the first chance we've had to get near a computer, the last few days have been jam packed! Arrived in a muggy Hawaii after a lonely plane ride - Xtian managed to sleep almost the entire 10 hours while I only got a couple hours in!! Got to San Fran another 5 hours later and dropped our gear at the hotel. We took a walk that night to get our bearings and find some food. Only thing we could find within the block was Jack in the Box - curly fries anyone? We weren't sure what to say when the guy asked if we 'wanted buttermilk with that'... hhhmmmm, no thanks.

Saturday we got up to a sunny but chilly day, about 10 degrees. Walked for about an hour to look around and got a coffee before heading back to pick up our bags and make our way out to Andrews on the BART (the transport system that gets you accross bays). We caught up for abit at his place in Berkeley then started making our way back to San Fran for our cruise to Alctraz. The cruise took almost an hour with wicked views of the city and golden gate bridge, then we had an audio tour of the prison which went for just over 2 hours. Such an incredible exprience, including some really creepy parts, like being in the hospital ward which was lit up only by a small lantern. Something about the stainless steel operating table which was rusting in the middle of a massive echoing room sent shivers up our spines! Great to hear all the excape attempt stories - only 1 man was ever charged with escaping Alcatraz, while around 32 had attempts!! And crazy to walk in the footsteps of Al Capone, really creepy. The cruise back was a definate highlight. The city skyline all lit up looked so beautiful. After getting back on the mainland, we took a walk down the famous pier 39 at Fishermans Wharf. We found a nice restaurant that overlooked the bay and had the best clam chowder (was thinking of you Don, you would have LOVED it!!) ever!

Sunday we headed into the city after leaving Andrews and met up with Matty V at union square. Did a spot of shopping at Maceys (the boys took over the mens building while I got lost in the 7 levels of the womans building) then headed to the top of the building to the Cheesecake Factory and some awesome views of Union Square. Matt and Xtian got some Cheesecake which we ate in the square then we made tracks to Haight. This is easily both mine and Xtian's favourite place in all of San Fran. Such an excellent little hippy community with lots of neat little shops. Also found the biggest music store I've ever seen in my life - Amoeba Records. We didn't know where to start!! Found a Manson picture disc, but left after that because it was getting too dangerous... my money would disolve in that place!! And aparently the LA one is even bigger!! Eek! We stayed in Haight till around 8ish, drinking in a sweet little bar and checking out the shops. Definately will visit that place again one day!!

So, that brings us to today! We took a walk with Andrew over in Berkeley this morning. Went to the Berkeley university campus where Andrew studies/teaches. Such beautiful grounds. We had breakfast then walked through this litte forest on the edge of the campus. This is where we saw our first squirrels!! OMG, they're the cutest things in the whole world, I wanted to grab one and put it in my bag! They were relatively friendly, let us get close to take a bunch of photos and video. So skittery too, they look so funny the way they dart around the trees and ground, burying their nuts, hehe. So after the facination of the squirrels, not much could compare, but alas, we said goodbye to Andrew and took our packs over to Matt's hotel in Civic Centre. We jumped on the cable car (just like full house! You can even hang off the side of them, crazy!!) and headed over to Lombard St - the crookest street in the world (?? could have that wrong, but it was pretty damn crooked!!). Amazing views of the city from up there too. The steepest streets I've ever walked up in my life are here. I can't get over how hilly this city is, you get over one hill, and there's an even steeper one just over the rise!! Anyways, after getting to the top, we walked all the way back down again to Fishermans Wharf. This time we walked the whole way down the whalf to pier 39 again, and checked out the sea lions that hang out in the harbour down there. They smell pretty bad, but they're so cute. We had some more clam chowder at the Sea Lion cafe, watching over them, then made our way over to Chinatown. Some neat buildings, but by that stage we were getting sore feet so Xtian and I left Matt to do the rest of his shopping at Chinatown and went back to the hotel. Which is where we are right now! Matt just arrived home and we're having a few drinks here, before we head out to see Between the Buried & Me in an hour or so.

So! Now you're up to date! We've had such an awesome time here, and are really bumbed to be leaving. The past 3 days have gone by so fast. We're really surprised at how friendly everyone has been. Kinda sounds bad, but we weren't sure what to expect.

Tomorrow we pick up a car and drive over the golden gate to Muirwood. We decided it was worth it to make the extra 45 minute trip up there to see the redwood forest. Then we're gunna head down the coast and hopefully we'll get to Monterey not too late and crash there for the night.

Anyway, almost time to head off to see one of our favourite bands in one of our new favourite cities! Life doesn't get too much better....

Will write more when we get a chance....

Hope you're all doing well!

Love J & X