Travel Yoda Map

Finally an update to my greatly neglected but not forgotten Blog.

So if you've ever traveled with me it's likely that you've seen my Travel Yoda. For the uninitiated whenever I travel I carry around a little metal Yoda and take pictures of him at the place I'm at. Sorta like a travel gnome but even cooler.




So far I've managed to bring Yoda to nearly everyplace I've been. Unfortunately the pictures don't always turn out and Yoda is often a blur, but the effect is there.

The point is I finally got around to whipping up a map of all my Travel Yoda pictures. For the most part the specific locations on the map are accurate to where the picture was taken but sometime I just had to guess.

In theory the map should show up underneath this text. However if it doesn't work you can see the map and all it's glory at:
http://www.panoramio.com/map/?user=2124143#lt=30.6111245&ln=8.167262&z=16

Enjoy!

Montana and Seattle Road Trips

So far this year I’ve done a good job keeping my travel blog up to date. With that in mind I’ve got some catching up to do for the month of August.

Last August I did two road trips into the United States. The first one was Aug. 3-6 on a road trip to Montana. On that trip it was me, Warren, Travis and Richard. There we saw Glacier National Park and went to White Fish and Missoula.

The second trip took place Aug. 25-26. Dave, Brad and I did an intense all night drive to Seattle to check out the PAX convention.

Here’s a bunch of quick thoughts on my trip. This one’s pretty short but I really wanted to get something on the ol’blog.

The United States of America

Considering how close we are and how much culture we share, it was surprising how different the USA is from Canada. Not that the differences were large ones, it was more a ton tiny little ones that sort of added up.

Some obvious differences were the availability /cheapness of booze, miles per hour instead of km per hour and availability of new products (such as the infamous Dr. Pibb).

Perhaps more striking though is how different each state was from each other. Sure I only went to Washington State and Montana, but they both one had completely different characters. More than you expect for States that border each other in the same country.

One thing that always got me about the States are the huge civil structures that make up the road systems. The overpasses and bridges are mystifying in their size and ambitiousness. It would have not been fun to be around when they were first being built but now they make driving a much more pleasant experience.

Montana

It doesn’t take you very long to realize that Montana is a Red State. The billboards displaying the Ten Commandments and ease of access to guns tip you off pretty quickly.

That being said it’s still a pretty cool place. Glacier National Park is pretty awesome/treacherous drive that everyone should do sometime.

White Fish also introduced me to Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. At the bar it cost $1.50 a pint. That’s a sign that it’s going to be good quality. However, as bad as the stuff is, the tap which we bought it from must have had special powers because it hit Travis and I like a rock. All it took was one to go from being happy-go-lucky hiding from Richard and Warren so I could stay out later to falling on rocks and using all my will power to make it to the bathroom.

The whole justification of our Montana trip was so Travis could get some turn tables cheaper in Missoula. We succeeded in this task and I am now gifted with hearing Travis mixing pretty much every night. Good times.

Seattle

The drive to Seattle was a hardcore one. Seattle is 15 hours away and in order to avoid taking vacation time Brad, Dave and I took turns driving (though an extremely caffeined Brad some how managed to drive nearly the whole way going to Seattle).

Seattle is a pretty chill city. It’s like Vancouver but smaller and American. Another nice bonus is the fact we were able to walk around and see all the major sites in a day. Seattle also contains a bar filled with pin ball machines making the city 100 times cooler.

The reason that we went to Seattle was to attend the Penny Arcade Exposition or PAX. For those of you not in the know, Penny Arcade is a video game themed webcomic and the convention was good times. When I first walked in I got so over stimulated that I must have had some kind of a seizure running about seeing all the cool things scattered about.

The USA is pretty cool place to do a road trip in. With the ridiculously strong Canada dollar I’ll probably be making my way down there very soon.

Los Angeles, USA

So far our long trip has been off to a great start. We arrived in Los Angeles the afternoon of April 30 and we're leaving late night of May 3rd. The flight from Calgary to LA took 3 hours.

Kiran, Richard and I have been getting along good. Of course this is only the low stress part of our trip. The real test will take place soon in India.

The City of Angles

The one thing we've discovered is that describing Los Angeles as a city is a bit of a misnomer. While there is a Los Angeles proper, it's more a collections of cities that have grown so big that there is no real border between each other. For example, to get to the "cities of Orange County" one never seem to cross any real borders.

We learned this really quickly trying to get to our hostel. We were instructed to get off our bus at 11th street of Hermosa beach. Us not knowing that that there were going to be several 11th streets got off at 11th street of Manhattan Beach. Luckily it was only a 20 minute walk to the next "city".

Our hostel in Hermosa is perhaps one of the most conveniently located places I've stayed due to the close proximity. There is are bars, supermarkets, beaches and anything else you could possibly need all within a block of our hostel.

One of the first things we noticed about LA is that there is definitely a smog problem. The whole city is covered in a permanently smog. This will be visible in some of the pictures.

The metro system is actually pretty good all things considered. Considering to get around in LA, you literally have to transverse the length of Southern California, it does a descent job. However, it still takes forever.

When travelling the metro one quickly realizes how ethnic most parts of LA is. It is not unusual to be surrounded with people from Latin and African decent. It is also not unusual for sign/announcements or ads to be both in English and Spanish, or just Spanish.

Hermosa Beach

We spent the first night exploring Hermosa beach. There we saw some pretty awesome houses, some awesome fishing and children's swings. We learned pretty quickly through wet shoes that the waves can get pretty damn high. We also couldn't help but notice how ridiculously close an oil refinery was to the beautiful beach. That smog is starting to make sense now...

Universal Studios

The next day we woke up early and headed to Universal Studios. It required a bus and 2 metro line changes. A one way trip took about 2 hours. Not bad considering the distance.

Universal Studios was pretty cool. The rides such as Jurassic Park and The Mummy were good but a bit tame. The highlight of the amusement park is definitely the rides that involve 3D effects such as Shrek 4D and Terminator 2 3D. Terminator 2 was especially impressive since actors interacted with the 3D effects.

The Waterworld show was cool, especially considering it's source material.

The studio tour was also surprisingly entertaining. It was cool to see some of the huge outdoor sets. One also gains much respect for filmography after seeing how those sets look in the movies.

Hollywood

After Universal Studios we headed to Hollywood Blvd. to see the famous walk of the stars. I tell you, there were a lot more stars than I was expecting. Since they give stars to people in film, tv, radio, music and theater, the blvd stretches a long way.

Outside Grauman's Chinese Theater one can find the stars hands and feet in concrete. Turns our Frank Sinatra had surprisingly small hands/feet. My favorite were the foot prints of C3PO, R2D2 and Darth Vader.

May 2nd, we head out to Disney Land. Since Disney Land is located with Orange County, we had to spend 2.5 hours each way on the metro. It was totally worth.

Disneyland

The thing that amazing about Disney Land is that once you enter the park, every single thing has been Disneyfied. The line ups to the rides are a sight in themselves. It's like entering some some crazy reality were everything is squeaky clean and there's a mouse on everything.

My favorite ride was differently the India Jone ride since so many crazy things were happening at all times. Though the animatronics on the Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion were out of this world.

Space Mountain was also pretty cool in a retro sci-fi kind of way. It was also incredibly trippy.

It's a Small World ride lived up to the hype. However, if I ever hear the phrase "It's a small world after all" again, they're going to have to send me to an insane asylum.

However, for the "happiest place on earth", we sure saw a lot of crying kids. My favorite was when I was in a store flanked by two groups of kids crying because their parents wouldn't buy them a stuffed Mickey.

Today we're spending our last days in a western country resting up for the madness to come. It was a good idea to stop in LA, but now it's time for the exotic. Check back later for more of our hijinks.