Thursday, December 31, 2009

Long Wait @ LAX

We are now @ LAX...waiting for our 11 pm Continental flight to Newark. It's only 8.50 pm and we were here at the airport at 7.30 pm after returning our rental car. So early!! And I was happily shopping at Michaels (art/craft store that also stocks scrapbooking materials), and H kept hurrying me. He thought that the queues at the airport would be long (due to heightened security measures) but instead there was practically NO queue. Also, he thought we could have a shower at the lounge. Unfortunately, no showers in the lounge. Luckily there's Wi-Fi...otherwise will be bored to my bones waiting for our flight.

Anyway, what have we done since my last post?

Christmas Eve
This morning, we went to pick-up our rental car from Hertz....Other than going to the Fisherman's Wharf for about an hour, we didn't really go anywhere with the car. We drove it back to the hotel carpark (had to pick the car up on Christmas Eve as Christmas Day was closed), and because it was cheaper to walk to wherever we want to go than take the car. Parking in San Francisco is pretty expensive! Even parking at the hotel costs USD 25/- per day....and this was considered cheap. The other rates that I saw was upwards of USD 29/- plus tax! GILA!!!!
Anyway, we had lunch at a Korean restaurant as I was craving for some noodle soup. H had the Pork Bulgogi. Gosh! Not only their portions were huge, the side dishes that were provided were more than what we were used to.
After lunch, we went to Union Square for some shopping. Errr...bought another winter jacket (as if I live in temperate countries and not tropics!) from Macy's. H bought some i-Tunes cards from the Apple store. We hung around near the Ice-Rink at Union Square till early evening before going back to the hotel for a rest before dinner. Instead of a traditional Xmas Dinner, we opted to go to a Jazz Club. We ended up at Yoshi's San Francisco for Christmas jazz performance. Can't remember the performer's name....

Christmas Day
We checked-out pretty early on Christmas Day....and headed out to Monterey/Carmel. But we did stop at the Cliff House on the Pacific Coast for breakfast first. H and I shared a Eggs San Francisco, which is kinda like Eggs Benedict except that it had Dungeness Crab and some brandy added. It was quite yummy..but expensive. I supposed one has to pay for the views out to the Pacific Ocean. Took some pictures of the coast....will post them when I get back home.

After breakfast, we headed out onto the Freeways for Monterey. Somehow, our drive was longer than anticipated....perhaps because we salah-jalan. I was the navigator utilising the maps on H's i-Phone. Our rental car did not have a GPS. On arrival at Monterey, we went to have a late lunch. Not many places were open (since Christmas Day), and we ended up at The Fish Hopper. H insisted that I have the Monterey Bay Abalone/Scallop dish as I like abalone. But I have to say that nothing beats the Chinese-style of cooking abalone! H had a mussels/clam dish which was not so tasty. The clam chowder was pretty good though. We also had a free fried calamari dish which we had to Ta-pau (too much!!!!). After the heavy-meal, we took a drive down Ocean Blvd....but H was just too sleepy to continue (Still jet-lagged!). So we parked the car near Lover's Point, and I went down to have a stroll while he napped in the car!

We continued on to Carmel after he has his 10-minute battery recharged. We gave 17-mile Drive in Pebble Beach a miss this time round (we did this last October already, and I didn't fancy paying the tolls again...). I have to say that Carmel is a really quaint little village that is really really UNLIKE the rest of the US cities. It's nice, and I do like it. Clint Eastwood was the mayor once.... Anyway, we stayed at the Carmel Mission Inn for the night. The next morning, we went to the Cottage Restaurant for breakfast..... What did we have? Eggs Benedict, of course. Somehow, I think Eggs Benedict is THE breakfast for Carmel. Most restaurants here have different variants of Eggs Benedict.

Boxing Day
After breakfast, we were on our way for our looooooooong drive to LA. We arrived at our hotel near LAX at about 2.30 pm. Why stay at a hotel near LAX???
It's cheap, and it's close to all major Freeways.
We stayed at the La Quinta Inn & Suites LAX. It's alright. Rooms are decent and clean. Best of all, there's free WI-FI. There's also free breakfast but we didn't eat though. After check-in, guess where we headed out to???
Shopping, of course!!!
And where did I go?
A Joann store..... to get Scrapbooking Stuff! I was like a little kid in a toy store. There was a sale on DCWV premium papers, and I almost went berserk. The only thing that stopped me was the WEIGHT!!!! And then there were the albums and stickers!!
I have to say that I was a little exhausted after all this. Hehehehehhehe.
We had dinner at Benihana Restaurant... by mistake.

Okay. Got to go.... to board our flight!!

4 comments:

wenn said...

nice! happy new year!

slavemom said...

Happy New Year! How was the countdown?

bp said...

i was watching AC+Griffin's countdown (the part at 12mn) at Times Sq n thinking about u, wondering if i might catch a glimpse of u!

i hope you had a cool NY's eve yesterday. now have a happy, blessed new year, and safe travels back after your trip!

NomadicMom said...

Wenn - Happy new YEar!

Slavemom - Will post about it soon!

bp - Happy New Year!
Aiya..me not IN there, In There lah... Tell you about it in my post. Okay?

Lilypie 6th to 18th Ticker
Lilypie 6th to 18th Ticker