A Short Trip to… Where?

In case you haven’t heard, Daddy’s Summer vacation has ended last week.  He returned to work this week, and life without him in the morning is especially tough!  Because, you know, my voice is not being heard in the house when the boys to girls ratio is 1 to 2.  I missed seeing Daddy’s face when I open my eyes every morning. 

When Mommy told me this morning that we are leaving, and she grabbed that small suitcase, I thought I was never going to see Daddy again!  But my only question was… “Do we have to bring Alicia?”

It turned out that Mommy is taking us to meet Daddy at work.  I knew something was up when Mommy stayed up late last night packing.  I just thought she was just packing up to send Alicia away. 

So Mommy put Alicia and Myself in the car, and off we went.  Where are we going?  The Disneyland Resort!

Noticed that I said ‘Resort’, and not just Disneyland?  This is because we got to stay at the brand new expansion of the Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel for a night!  How/Why?  Well, what we didn’t know was that prior to Daddy taking his Summer vacation, he was busy working on the opening of the Disney’s Vacation Club at the Grand Californian Hotel.  The first Vacation Club from Disney on the West Coast!  Along with this Vacation Club, it also came with an additional 200 rooms expansion to the Grand Californian Hotel.  (You can read more about it here and here.)  Now that the hotels are ready to be opened in a week, Daddy received an invitation for a complimentary preview stay! 

Here’s a video of the room that we stayed in.  This is an upgraded park-view room, overlooking Disney’s California Adventure.  Daddy said we are the very first people who stayed in this room.  Nobody has ever stayed in this room before us!  However, I have to say I wasn’t that impressed by this room at all.  Especially when I compared this room against THEhotel and Bellagio that I had previously stayed.  The size of the room, the view, the bathroom, TV, etc. are all, in my opinion, sub-par to the aforementioned hotels.  Judge it for yourself!

Here’s a day-time view of the room.  Listen to the noise coming from the Mulholland Madness ride.

Here’s a night-time view of the room.  The machinery noise is still there!  Thankfully, the sound insulation is very well-done for our room.  All I could hear is Alicia’s crying at night.

But enough on the rooms.  Let’s hit the park!

First up, King Arthur Carousel.  Unfortunately, the King wasn’t there when I arrived.  All I saw were his horses, just like last time.

Next up, the Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride!  And if you watch the entire movie clip, you’ll get a glimpse of what Alicia is doing while I’m having so much fun!

Hey, it’s not my fault that Alicia didn’t pass the height requirement!  More importantly, it wasn’t me who dragged her along either!

Believe it or not, the Dumbo ride pretty much concluded Day 1 of Disneyland.  Because right after this Dumbo video was taken, Daddy realized that my pants is all wet because Mommy and Daddy have totally forgotten to change my diaper.  And right after the diaper change, it was time to feed Alicia.  Although we did swing by Toontown, we didn’t take any pictures, nor videos.  The good news is, we still have tomorrow!

Guess who did I get to meet first thing the following day?

Yup, that’s Daddy’s Boss.  You’ll notice that I wasn’t particularly interested in him because if he’s the reason why Daddy had to end his Summer Vacation so soon, I just didn’t want to be near him!

After we met with the rat-head, we walked down Main Street, USA, and I saw horses.  Two of them!

My final ride of the day/weekend is the Autopia ride.  I was so looking forward to this ride because this is the ride that I would really get to drive a car!

Before I conclude this long post, here are some pictures taken mostly from Day 1.  In fact all of them are from Day 1.

A Short Day Trip

Where did we go today?  Daddy and Mommy took me to a short day trip today!  We drove for about 20 minutes and arrived at this City called Rancho Palos Verdes.  What's so special about it?  There's a Starbucks there and Daddy ordered a cappuccino. What's so special about this City and the Starbucks?  Take a look at the view yourself.

And here are some pictures taken while we were there.

Since we didn't get there until late in the afternoon, it didn't take long before the ocean breeze brought down the temperature.  It was time to leave this beautiful place. 

Up next, dinner time!  Per Mommy's suggestion, we decided to go try this Japanese restaurant that we have never been to before.  It's called Musha.  Here are some videos taken while we were waiting for our food.

  

Oh, and how's the food?  They were so good that you can almost taste them by just looking at these pictures!

It's good to have parents who enjoy good food!

It's Not My Video, nor My Blog. It's Your Computer!

My GMail in-box is flooded with emails asking me why the swimming pool video taken from the Las Vegas trip cannot be played.  Well, when you first bought the computer that you used to watch the video, was Daddy still single, skinny, and good looking?  I thought so!  That's why!

Backed by popular demand, I have re-uploaded the same video to YouTube, instead of Vimeo.  The reason why it went to Vimeo in the first place is because YouTube claimed that I have violated its copyright policy with the used of the song playing in the background.  So what they did was to mute the entire audio track.  Since I thought the background song/music sort of fit into this video, and I don't want it to be removed, I uploaded the same 'MTV' to Vimeo instead.

But now that my Readers are telling me that their computer is so outdated and slow that HD-quality video cannot be played, I guess I'll re-broadcasted it to YouTube, without the song.  Here's the video.  

Or you can jump to my post by clicking here.  The post itself is also updated.

Babymoon? You Bet!

I’m sure that most of my readers will remember this trip.  Yes, this was Mommy and Daddy’s babymoon trip taken shortly before I was born.  Yes, that was me inside Mommy’s tummy.  Can you believe that? 

Anyway, now that I’m around, Mommy and Daddy don’t really qualify for babymoon anymore.  But wait!  What about me?  I think I’m allowed to have a babymoon before ‘the baby’ is born.  In this case, the baby I’m referring to, is my, I’m told, little sister!  Because once she is born, I will no longer get any peace and quiet time alone by myself.  The more I think of it, the more I feel that I deserve a trip before my little sister is born.

So, where shall we go?  I suggested Osaka, Japan because of my fan base, but Daddy said ‘no flying!’  (I guess he didn’t know there are usually 2 pilots in each international flight, and that he doesn’t need to fly the plane himself.)

Mommy suggested Las Vegas.  But Daddy said he doesn’t think I can sit in a car for so many hours.  Hello, Daddy?  Remember?  We’ve been to Las Vegas together once before!?  Daddy paused and think for a moment and agreed to go on a trip to Las Vegas.

So on this past Saturday, we left to spend a night at Grandma’s house in Riverside, before heading to Las Vegas on the following day.  A few hours later, we arrived at Las Vegas!  They look just like the last time when I visited.  The one thing that was different, was the hotel that we stayed this time. 

If you remember, we were very fortunate to have the opportunity to stay at the Bellagio during our last visit.  This time, we stayed at this hotel called THEhotel.  If you have never heard of it before, let me help you with a virtual tour of our room.

Thanks to some secret connections that Daddy has, we were upgraded to an end-unit room with a magnificent view, both at night and during the day.  Let’s start with the day view first!





Now, here comes the night view!





I don’t know about you, but I was very impressed by this hotel and the room so far!  I especially liked the window that goes all the way to the floor.  It fits my height perfectly!





So are you impressed yet?  Wait till I show what is in the bathroom… my private in-room swimming pool!





Yes, I know this is not a swimming pool.  But this bath tub is so deep and long that I can literally do laps in it, had Daddy taught me how to swim!  Speaking of swimming, did I tell you that this hotel has an awesome (real) pool?









With all these activities, of course I had to eat a bit more than usual.  That’s why whenever we're in Las Vegas, we always spent quite some time at the buffet restaurants. 





It’s been a fun trip and before I knew it, it was time to leave town.  I truly wished that we can stayed for a few more days, but I guess there will always be next time… with my little sister!
Before I go, here are some pictures that we took during this trip.