Ale ambra Mexicana!

I went to Mexico last week for a 2 days tour. I was really excited about it because I haven't been there before and it is a different kind of country from US or Australia.

First thing you notice when entering Mexico is how different it is with USA. This really strikes you because these 2 countries are only separated by a really long wall. This border runs for around 3,141km, and has the highest number of both legal and illegal crossings.

Entering Mexico is not too hard. If you have holiday visa to go to USA, make sure that you got the 5 years visa which allow you to enter USA multiple times. Entering Mexico you don't need visa, however re-entering USA is really strict and thus, you need the multiple entry visa.

We queue up in the border to enter Mexico while the officers are checking cars in front of us. While queuing, you can already see the pollution that comes out from Mexico. You'll see that the sky in front of you has dark smokes , and the sky behind you is clear blue.

The difference really striked me after I passed the borders. Mexico was really hot, dry, everything looks yellowy, and there's not much trees around. While San Diego, the nearest city to Mexico, is a really beautiful,modern city, it has a lot of trees, and nice cool breeze.

We stayed in Ensenada for the night. Before going to the hotel, we stopped by to the famous blowhole (like the one in Kiama - South NSW), it was a really nice place with great ocean view. Along the walkway, there were people selling Mexico souvenirs, it really reminds me to Tanah Lot walkway in Bali.

One of the guys in our tour both a leather hat for $30. The tour guide said that he should be able to bargain until $15! Lol!

The next day, we went to Tijuana for brunch in a really fancy hotel. The hotel is has a really unique Mexican look and feel to it.We ate our meal outside on the balcony looking at the beautiful ocean. Inside the hotel, there's this dining room area where Titanic movie was shot. The dining room has been left like it was, so everyone was taking photos in it.

After brunch, we stopped by near the Mexico monument to buy some souvenirs. I took photos with a fake zebra (donkey with black and white strips painted on his body) wearing Mexican hat ! I'm so framing this photo! :)

The way back to US feels really slow because we need to queue up in the US border. You can come in to US by cars or by foot. Because we were in a tour bus, we needed to get off the bus and queue up in the immigration, just like in airports. US is really strict on who can come it to their country. They also x-ray everyone's bags because they are really concern about people taking unprescribed drugs/medicine across.

In Mexico, drugs/medicine are really easy to get. Alot of prescribed ones are sold freely with much cheaper price. Viagra can be found everywhere! I lost count of how many times I saw the writing "Viagra sold here - 1 box for $10!". There is more pharmacy in Mexico than McDonald in US!

Well, luckily I got passed the immigration fine :) I heard that if they suspect you of anything, like what happenned to the tour guide once before, you'll get interrogated for 2-3 hours. And since I was there with a tour bus, the bus and everyone else won't be able to wait for us, they will need to leave , and we must get our own transportation back to LA! How nice of them =P

So, that's Mexico. A really interesting place and I do suggest everyone to go when they have the time :)

Aloha from Los Angeles!

Here I am in L.A ! Today is a very sunny day with nice cooling wind blowing outside my window. The holiday has been Goooooodddddd. Weather is supportive, Places I've been too are just amazing, and some little shopping won't hurt too! ;-)

So here's the summary of the places I've been to:

Los Angeles:

I am staying in West side of LA in my auntie's house. It is a really nice peaceful neighbourhood with just a 10 - 15 mins stroll to the nearest shopping centre - Westside Pavillion. It is not far from Santa Monica too, only around 15 mins drive (depending on traffic though - Santa Monica Boulevard can be really packed on peak hours).

Our neighbour is a really nice lady, she sent her son once to help us with gardening when she saw us trimming the garden. The son came and told us "My mom asked me to come and help you guys, or else she won't feed me lunch" Lol !!!

Santa Monica - We went to Farmer's Market held in Santa Monica last week, which is held once a week, every Wednesday morning. Fresh vegies, fruits and nuts are sold here. I heard that a lot of chefs from nearby restaurants come by really early to get the best and first pick of the vegies and fruits to be used in the restaurants! After buying a lot of fresh strawberries, mandarins, nectarine-like fruit, eggplants, pistacchios, we headed to Santa Monica shopping area for some window shopping. The place is gorgeous! Everything is outdoor, something like Pitt Street Mall, but longer and more beautiful. And with Santa Monica beach on the other end! I'll post up some photos when I'm back in Sydney!

Ontario Mills Factory Outlet - 1 hour drive from home - Gosh, what can I say about this place beside that this is HUGE! We reached there at 11-12pm, and didn't stop shopping until 9 pm !!! And even that, we didn't finish visiting the whole place! The stores closed before we can even finish visiting all of them!

Hollywood - Went there to take photos. It's full of shops selling souvenirs (which is hard to find anywhere else in LA weirdly!), tourists taking photos (yup, i'm one of them) and people selling maps of celebrity homes! I would love to buy the map and drive around looking at their houses, but my parents were not up for that idea! Lol! I went to Kodak theatre (where Oscars is held annually), Chinese Theatre (walk of fame) and took photos with Darth Vader and Spidey!!!!

Chinatown - Weirdly, this place is really dry and hot! There's so little trees around! We went to Ranch Market (99) - the biggest oriental supermarket in USA. This is muchhh bigger than Thai Kee in Sydney. It sells everything from sauces , snacks, to meat, live seafood (yes live lobster is sold here), and cooked food (bakcang, bakpao, green onion shallot, and a lot of chinese dishes). I say this must be the biggest oriental supermarket in USA because I see these stores in Las Vegas and San Fransisco too ! Powerfuuu!

Westfield Century City mall - Believe it or not, Westfield is the biggest mall developer in USA. The same Westfield that we have in Australia, with the exactly same logo and colour! We went to the one closest to home, it has just been revamped not long ago and it looks really really nice. Only 10 mins drive from home, this mall has Borders, Container store (love this place!), Macys, Bloomingdale, Victoria's secret, Tumi, Coach, LV ,etc etc. You can find almost everything here! :) Don't forget to ask for visitors card where you can get discounts for tourists on quite some stores!

KoreaTown - We went here for dinner in a restaurant called HanYang. It is a really nice korean bbq place. Big and clean, they also have a children room with TV showing cartoons and sofas for the kids to sit and watch. Over here, they don't seem to serve raw lettuce to use as a meat wrapper. Instead, they gave us rice noodle wrapper! The bbq grill pot is nice, it is a bit elevated on one side so that all the oil will go down to the lower level and out via a special hole.

Marina Del Ray - This is just a 5 mins drive from Santa Monica beach. It's very much a parking place for boats. You see boats everywhere, it's neat and nice, but nothing much to do here, so we decided to just drink coffee in a nearby traditional American Diner, complete with jukebox, bars & stools to sit and chat with the waitress.

Westwood - This is where my brother stays. He stays in UCLA housing for postgraduate students. It's located outside the UCLA campus but not too far, maybe just 5 mins drive. This area is lovely, I don't mind living here at all! There's a lot of shops just underneath the apartment, brand names like American Apparel, Urban Outfitters, and there's a lot of cafe to relax and chat, and also a lot of restaurants and cinema (there's like 3 cinemas?). I watched Ocean's Thirteen in one this cinema with my bro. I also tried Pinkberry which is located not far from the cinema. Pinkberry is really famous right now in US, it started in LA, and now it has start opening branches everywhere. The concept is really simple, it's just a plain frozen yoghurt with toppings. You choose your own topping from the selections of : chopped nuts, muesli, raisins, or fruits (mango, kiwi, strawberry, blackberry, or blueberry), and that's it. It's that simple! I guess people love it because it's a really healthy dessert! And they manage to make it look cool too ;-) So all the youngsters are buying this. I reckon this will work great in Sydney since Aussies are getting really health conscious now! I have also tried Diddy Riese Cookies, the best cookies baked in LA until late at nite. These cookies are served with a scoop of ice cream in between them. It's delicious but sooo fattening!

Well, that's it for today, I'll continue next time on my trip to Las Vegas and San Fransisco!

Cheerios!

Happy 6th Anniversary to Us!!!

Yesterday we celebrated our 6th anniversary together with a dinner in beautiful Cafe Sydney. One thing that you must must try here is the Warm apple and passionfruit crumble with mango ice cream and custard. It is sooo divine!!!! I was so tempted to order another serve, despite my bloated stomach! I'll definitely coming back to Cafe Sydney to have this dessert again!

We then went to Sydney Tower to do the Tower + OzTrek combo. But unfortunately the OzTrek was already closed, so we just went to the observatory tower for a Sydney night view. Fortunately the ticket can be kept for futher 3 months, we'll definitely be coming back for the OzTrek! =)

The last time I came up to the observatory tower was around 9-10 years ago. And I was in Sydney as a tourist. Only a few years later that I came back here to study :). The tower was quite empty last nite (it was 9pm). Only a few Japanese businessman that seems to be on work visit to Sydney were up there with us. It felt like being a tourist all over again. Seems like I haven't seen this beautiful side of Sydney for a while :)

Puppy with Ugg boot!

I went to the pet shop on the weekend. Take a look at what I saw!

Little ShihTzu cross Lhasa Apso puppies wearing 4 Ugg boots!!
How cute!!!!