US Trip Part 3-San Francisco

From Monterey, we drove to San Francisco.In Bay area, my parents have a lot of friends so we stayed with their friends, met up with them and had a lot of fun. Me and my sister went to see Pitch Perfect 2 with my mom's friend. It was an amazing movie.We drove to San Francisco-the main city to see the Exploratorium which had all sorts of cool science exhibits. There was so much to see, we couldn't possibly have seen it all. What we saw includes but is not limited to how a clock works, infrared imaging of ourselves, cool mirrors which made you look all distorted, living organisms through microscopes, optical illusions and so many experiments. Most of it was hands on including exhibitions about stem cell research, social psychology, physics and light and sound.
We also went to the golden gate bridge which was classic. It was very windy though. The next day, we went to Berkeley Lawrence hall of science. My father went there for his post-grad. That was also more stuff about science(obviously). We saw a futuristic exhibition and a film about robots. There was a giant whale made out of fiber-glass so strong, we could climb on it and nothing would happen. They also had a section where everyone could use their imagination to make there own robots should I say with a motor and battery etc.
 Later, we visited the famous Ghirardelli chocolate shop and had-well chocolate. It smelled amazing in there and they even had a display of how chocolate is made from coca beans. It was like heaven on earth. That night we along with my parents friends all stayed in this really cool hotel called Zephyr. It had a cylindrical TT table, a giant connect 4, giant jenga, a dart board and backgammon in the room and loads of cool board games! Next morning we went for a hike to Muir Woods, a redwood forest. It was very nice and calm there.
 Later we went to the Intel museum in their HQ. It was kind of interesting, about the history of computers. One of the days we also went to the Google HQ in Mountain View. It thought it was pretty cool going inside google's silicon valley headquarters. We saw the office and all since one of my parents' friends work there.The last 2 days we shopped. We got a lot of stuff that is not easily available in India. We also saw Stanford University's campus. It was pretty boring to see actually, and hot in the day, but worth seeing once at least. San Francisco was nice.

US Trip Part 2-Monterey

Next, we drove from Los Angeles to Monterey, on the way to San Fransisco. We stopped at a number of small towns on the way. We stopped at Lake Cachuma and saw caravans. We also stopped at a town where there was a house this man had made entirely out of waste he collected as a garbage man and otherwise over the years. The man no more lived there, but it was interesting to see what all inventive stuff he had done. He had used pipes, for example, as railings on the stairs and for some reason, toilet seats as photo frames(seriously?).

We saw this alley called bubblegum alley where thousands of people had stuck there chewed bubblegum.

We also stopped at a quaint danish town called Solvang. It was really pretty, almost like a fairy village with cute little cottages.
 We tried some local danish food-it was something like a pancake ball called an Aebleskiver. There were loads of bakeries and small stores including one which was a fairy store and sold all sorts of fairy-related stuff. It was a unique experience. On the way we also went to Big Sur, a redwood forest and dipped our feet in a small stream running through it. The forest was very serene and relaxed me. Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world although the ones there were not as tall as redwoods normally are.

Redwoods

The whole drive was very scenic and a large part of it was by the sea.We also stopped at Mystery point, a place where apparently there is some mysterious force pulling towards this one point although we thought it was a hoax-still fun.
We reached Monterey in the evening. There was a wharf(harbor) and it was a nice little town. The next day my dad and I went deep-sea diving, my third time since the certification last July (click here to view blogpost about that). It was the first time I did a cold water dive and from the beach instead of off a boat. It was a nice dive place and a unique though challenging experience. We (my dad and I) saw a kelp forest, a wall with corals on it and even spotted a bird fishing underwater. We saw loads of starfish and these kind of giant water slugs. It was awesome and cold. We did 2 dives and were more comfortable with the new conditions by the second one. Swimming in between the kelp was amazing and the kelp was growing like a forest down there. It was one of the most diverse dive sites in the area because it had kelp, the wall, boulders and sand, 4 different landscapes underwater to explore. 

Trip to the US Part 1- Los Angeles

Recently I came back from US and I intend to write about my trip over the next few blogposts. It was an amazing trip and my 1st time in the United States. We (my family and I) went to Los Angeles, San Fransisco, Washington DC and New York. One question most people ask is what did you like best. I found each place quite different and with a distinct identity- Los Angeles and Hollywood is entirely different from New Yorks's Times square and skyscrapers.

The first place we went was Los Angeles. We reached in the afternoon and got out in the sun to combat the mighty forces of cross continental travel- Jet Lag. We went to the Santa Monica pier which was buzzing with activity. My first impression of the US, infact even when we were driving from the airport to our hotel in a rented car, was clean. And those of you living in India will understand why. The roads seemed empty. Since most Hollywood movies are made in the american atmosphere, everything felt like it could be straight out of a movie.

Waterworld show

The next day we went to the place you cant miss in LA....(drumroll please) Universal Studios! It was amazing. (understatement of the century) We went on the new Minion Mayhem, Jurassic Park, Transformers, Revenge of the Mummy and Simpsons rides(mostly simulations), the Studio tour and the Waterworld show - which my dad claims existed 20 years ago too. My favorites were Minion Mayhem and Transformers(it felt the most real)... and Jurassic park. The Waterworld and studio tour were of course legendary. We got thoroughly wet in the waterworld show, and saw some amazing movie sets in the studio tour.

Afterwards, we browsed through the shops on the Citywalk outside and drove up to a viewing point for the Hollywood sign. We walked through the Hollywood walk of fame, past(but not into, sadly) Madame Tussaud, a Ripley's and  Guinness world record museum.,

The next day was Six Flags, one of the in-my-opinion Best roller coaster parks in the world! The roller coasters were, needless to say amazing. They were scarier and screamier than I ever imagined, superfast, mind-blowing and thrilling, including a 400 ft drop of doom. I personally love roller coasters so I was on top of the world (almost literally).