1st + 2nd day of 7-day vacation XD
1st day in LA - 13th August
Arrived in LAX at around 1230pm! Surprisingly UA was before time o_o but sadly, they guy that was supposed to pick us was not. In fact we had to wait for more than an hour for him. He said that there was a jam though i was wondering if he had forgotten about us and said there was a jam just to tide us through >.> but well, anyway, he finally came and it was awkward for us to pull two huge suitcases each but he did help out though unfortunately he parked his car sooo freaking far away >.> whatever, it was a smooth ride to the hotel we're supposed to live in.
The hotel was....simply the BEST i've lived in since coming to America!! I mean, the last time i went to New York, that really sucked...and then my one night stay in san Paublo, well that wasnt so great either... but this time (yeah it is more expensive and it was arranged by the travel agent but...) the room was so awesome :D it was clean, tidy and had everything we need. a bathroom, a shower with a bathtub, all the basic necessities. the internet there at night suxed though (that's why I had to write the journal entry in textedit first before copying it to LJ) but then, i had quite a lot of unwatched videos so i was just simply watching them. The day ended pretty much plainly like that. well we didnt sleep at the all the day before so when we got to the hotel, we totallly didnt feel like doing any other things but simply lie there and watch our videos, computers etc. in the middle of it, i slept just a little. then her friends came and we went for dinner together. Another really good thing about this hotel is that there are many restaurants and convenience stores around so that's excellent XD. though honestly, when i step out, i had a feeling i didnt arrive in L.A but instead in China...seriously, there are so many chinese and taiwan shops, or basically asian shops everywhere. no, actually i don't think i saw any non-asian shops...I'll never EVER see this many asian shops in Madison O-O
2nd day in LA - 14th August
First official day of our tour! Woke up at around 630 am. that was like one of the earliest times i've ever woken up haha. but then i slept at aroudn 1230 am so i didnt really get enough sleep (since i can't function with >70%effficiency with less than 8hours sleep >.>) but well, since the plan was to go to Universal studios that day, i doubt i need any brain haha XD anyway, we went for breakfast (another thing that i havent done for the past few months actually haha) breakfast was pretty normal, nothing special at all, or rather nothing much that I'll like to eat. it was simply some congee, bagels, cereal, bread etc the only extra thing is waffles which i don't really eat so i have my normal breakfast: toasted bread with butter and sugar XD well, not many people eat bread that way it seems, but ironically, the people who taught me this method all said this was a common way of eating haha.
okay, so the plan's to go Universal studios. there was a bit of confusion in the initial stage, because there are different tours heading for the same destination so there was confusion over who was to go with who. somemore some people are supposed to leave that day after the universal studios visit so there's a bit of disorganisation going on. frankly it kinda lacks some planning but well, with this many people i guess it's hard to make every arrangement possible, after all the tour guides are just more interested in making money, they won't be concerned over whether you enjoyed the tour or not since everything's prepaid...(but the tour's cheap) but anyway, in the end we got to the destination without much problems. My friend's friends were coming over so we intended to stick with the tour until then and leave after they come. Cos her friends are coming by car so if we ride their car, we can spend a longer time in universal studios. the tour plans to leave by 5pm which doesnt seem to give enough time to play around...
Universal studios since to be in the middle of a mountain or something, but before that, i must say i'm surprised that L.A was a different view from my image. i thought L.A was a big city with tall buidlings, a little like New York, but apparently, L.A's tallest buidling was only 74 storeys high...! Honestly, until now i havent seen the city part of L.A as of yet. but what i can see from L.A so far is that...there's really a lot of chinese O_O! the whole of L.A is like chinatown lol. anyway, back to Universal studios, now that i'm done with it, i have to say i enjoyed it a real lot. Honestly it was smaller than i thought and there weren't a lot of rides as i expected but it was a fun experience.
The first attraction we went was the Studio tour. seriously, it was around 10am when we reach there and amazingly there's a freaking long queue! the queue moves really fast though because one tour carriage can contain a lot of people...but the entire queue lasts soo long! it's a like looonnnng snake, an almost endless queue. but there were some information bits about famous actors in Hollywood, though most of the movies are before 2000s so i don't really know too much about them. Anyway, the studio tour is something i'm really looking forward too because i always wanted to know how Hollywood makes all those effects. it's a pity though that we didn't get to tour Hollywood itself due to lack of time but i think this studio tour gives enough information for a summary. In the tour bus/carriage, we went to see the fabricated scenaries, and i was quite amazed by how a place can be drastically changed just by adding a few sign poles, a few (fake) trees, a few signboards and a few lights and a different scene can be set up. Now i know that most of the scenes i see in movies are actually fabricated scenes haha. then there was the new King Kong 4D movie experience thing! So it was a 3D visual thing but with movements attached so when we watch King Kong and T-rex fighting, our carriage were rocking and rocking, oh and we were splashed with water. it was a pity that i was too absorbed in trying to get a video of the scenes that i kinda forgot to actually see the whole thing for myself. Next time i think seeing things for myself is gonna be more important capturing videos. but that was a good show ;) After the KingKong 4D, we were introduced to all the scenes used for Jussaric Park, KingKOng etc, how some of the props worked. one interesting thing has to be the car crashes and all, how we see all thsoe explosions and all but actually those were not really crashes but just how everything was programmed and manipulated. it was interested looking at how those things were planned. Also the sound effects experience. it shows how an earthquake scene was taken. we experienced the effects of earthquake and we watched "fires" breaking out, trains "crashing" and electricity lines creating fires etc. all those were used in actual movies so now i kinda realized, really it's amazing how the creators of all these props can think of such things!!! O: After the entire thing, i can only say, Hollywood is simply creativity!!
After that studio tour, we met up with her friends and we went off to by ourselves. Before that, we took some pictures with the Simpsons. well, i don't really watch the Simpsons, so i don't really know their names but we took pictures with SImpson mom :D Well Daddy was around too but there was quite a queue for him haha. as for Simpson mom, apparently, we were the last two to be able to take pictures with her cos Mom need to go rest (change roles maybe). we also took photos with Spongebob XD after the pictures taking and all, we went for the Simpson's Ride. This ride is supposingly "fake" meaning that it seems like we're on a roller coaster, but really we are just moving in one spot. so it's like a 4D thing, except more vigorous...and man, that was one high of a queue. but it seems that Universal Studios understands that there will be a long waiting time (50 minutes for this) so they prepared some Simpson videos for us to watch, which was pretty entertaining and it helps make the waiting time more tolerable. The queue moves really fast, except that, well like previous the queue's freaking long!! it lasts like maybe 5 rounds on one side, then you reach the other side, there's 5 more rounds of queue, then you get past the first part of the queue, you go to the next part and there's around 4 more rounds of queue, finally you reach the stairs and you realise there's about 3 more lines of queues >.> and it's just tiring to stand and walk, stand and walk... the rides's takes place in a room and all. there are 4 of us in one room and another family of 4 with us. there are many many rooms so i guess that's why the queue moves fast. anyway, the ride's really entertaining. it's not really exhilrating, but you get splashed with squirts of water (i realized that people like to get splashed in L.A. there's splashing water EVERYWHERE!) and then there's all the bumps and all. it's wasn't scary at all, but it was a laughable and enjoyable ride haha. the plot's really random though, about some serial killer guy wants to kill the Simpson's family and so send them on a roller coaster ride (literally) except the ride's tampered so you see tracks falling halfway, iron balls coming at you and free falling everywhere and in the end baby Simpson saves the day because he/she grew really huge becaue he/she entered some radioactive zone.
i can't remember the order of the rides and shows we went to but anyway, we had lunch at some place at Bog Chicken? or was it Dob? i can't remember, but there's a looonnng queue for it so we thought it might taste good. (there's really queues EVERYWHERE in Universal studios D:) well, in the end, it didn't really taste that good, but definitely it's better than any other chicken sold in fast food restaurants in United States. (sorry, but it just can't be compared to what i can have in Singapore D:)
There's a special effects stage show that we went to watch. it was a funny show. well because the "actors" were really entertaining as well maybe. So before the actual shows begin, the host looks for volunteers to come help out later. so we have a newlywed couple, a couple celebrating their anniversary, 2 "muscleman" (just big and well, urm lumpy men), and 1 canadian woman. It was funny seeing them act out some scenes. and honestly i think if the same show took place in singapore, all the singaporeans will probably just stare blankly back at the host and the volunteers will just do all the acting half-heartedly and the host will have a really tough time lol. so the show begins with telling us some of the traditional methods of effects and then after that we were shown the modern tecnhiques of making effects. those were really cool. I now realised that actors don't actually go all the way to Paris or Tokyo or London or whatever when they supposedly have a scene there! It's all the work of effects! and the monsters like King Kong and Jurrasic Park and all pretty much acted out by maybe humans with some probes attached to them and from there the computers can attach visual images to them and a monster is created on screen. Another cool thing i remember is their knife props. there are some gory films like Saw and all that and (i didn't watch Saw btw cos it's *yikes) but the host was demonstrating to us how he managed to "cut off" a person hand with the person's hand still attached by the end of it. so apparently the knife's really blunt and when pressure is applied at the tip, there are red coloring squirting out and the knife actually bends in so that it looks like the knife is stabbed right through the hand but actually it's all fake haha. but then it definitely took a lot of work for the directors and animations and effects staff to make a fake thing look so realistic *-*
Ah, actually now that i remembered i think we watched Shrek 4D before the Special effects show, but whatever. Well, i think i watched Shrek I and IV, not sure about II and III because they are quite a long time ago, but then i do know most of the characters. so I can understand what's going on when the show took place. the others don't really know the story well, but i think they enjoyed themselves all the same. All shows and rides have a prestory and this one is about the Lord V-sth (the one from the 1st Shrek movie) wanting to destroy the Shrek family even after becoming a ghost. so the pre-story involved the mirror, the 3 little pigs, pinocchio and the gingerbread man. as usual, their antics were really funny XD For the story, it involved some happening when Fiona and Shrek were on their honeymoon i think and they were lost in some place. and Donkey was around too (i was sad that pussy wasnt around T_T) it's quite a typical storyline though. Fiona was kidnapped, and Shrek and Donkey had to save her and so their ride's somewhat our ride lol. The bad Lord guy wanted to kill Fiona so that they can be together as ghosts. but well of course, that won't happen because Shrek, Donkey and even the Dragon came to help out! and blah blah, all the *phews and everything, eventually, the bad guy was exterminated with Dragon's fire.
We took a few more photos with the Simpson family. Daddy, mommy, and the siblings and we went off for the real more exciting rides at the Lower lot. there's really quite few rides in the place though but i guess maybe 'cos it's mainly a studio for the actors and directors and plus the waiting time's suuppper long so no point building so many rides. and well, indeed the waiting times are extremely long. We went for two rides - the Jurrasic Park Ride and the Revenge of the Mummy Ride. We went for the Jurrasic Park ride first since the mummy ride was a little more scary and there were inhibitions about whether to go on it or not. anyway the Jurrasic Park ride is bascially the one that's goes up the slope and descends splashing into the water. the waiting time's 1 hour but the ride's only like 5 minutes. it was an interesting ride but because the ride's sooo fast it doesnt feel like the excitement i gained can compensate for my waiting time haha. the main attraction for this ride is the 74 feet drop at the last one. and man, after we were done with that, everyone in the carriage were just soaked. literally. there's just this really huge volume of water coming at us lol. The mummy ride also took about 60 minutes of waiting time. it was said this ride is the most exciting ride in the park and that's true except even though it was exciting, the excitement lasts about 5 minutes, so like previously, the feeling of exhilration doesnt compensate my waiting time D: but all these rides take you around some scenaries and there are stuff popping out to scare you but well those are just pre-shows lol. one thing different about this mummy ride is that it actually went backwards towards the end! Initially it was just high speed accelaration around curves and bends and then we came to an abrupt stop. and suddenly, we were going backwards at maybe slightly lower accelerations and speed but wow, that's one new experience XD.
We're done with all 3 rides and so we decided to watch all the remaining shows. we were told that terminator 2 in 3D and the Water world are must watch shows and so we went for those. Terminator 2 in 3D, it's cool and all but i kinda feel the preshow as a little boring because it talks about Skynet blah blah blah, because i didnt watch the Terminator series, at first i talk this was some kind of commercial or sth but it turns out to be the "antagonist" of the show. the pre-show's kinda long too and not as entertaining as the previous. the real 3D show was interesting an all but i just don't find it that fun as others, and the sound's reallly loud, but after watching the entire show, it does make me want to start watching the Terminator's series cos it seems like a lot of fun :) After that we went to check out the Water world show. the plot's a little messy because the actors were talking really fast and they were moving really fast as well, so it's kinda hard to keep up with their movements and speech at the same time. but bascially it's a story that takes place after almost all dry land on earth has been innudated by water and so these people are going to find dry land. One of them finds it and wants to tell her companions but there are evil forces wanting to get the information out of her and get that land themselves for their own selfish desires. but well there's all the people coming out trying to save her and protect the location of the dry land and all. plot's about average but their stunts are pretty good. not exremely professional but definitely a lot of effort. their waveboarding and all were amazing though. and the only female character was seen jumping from on high tower down to ground with jsut a simple rope. Now that is just sooo cool *-* as usual there's the water splashing thing but this time's it's not so much. because they took into consideration that it's night and so water's gonna make us reallly cold. There's a lot of fires "breaking out" and the most interesting part is when an areoplane suddenly came crashing down. That totally took me by surprise. like from where it flew down i was like, there was a plane there??? anyway, the story ended off the typical way. but after the entire show, they introduced the cast members again and apparently these people are actually working for various TV shows or dramas or movies. I don't really know any of them but they might just be stunt people for the studio.
The last show we want to watch is the animal star show. But we have some time before it starts so we went off to the Horror house first. my friend was too afraid to come so only 3 of us went. The two of us girls were pretty much clinging to each other while her boyfriend was supposedly the front guy lol. it wasn't really scary honestly, though i think i might be terrified if i have to walk this thing alone and with no one else around. and if i stare at the displays long enough i might get chills cos some of them were kinda bloody....yeewww. the main parts you get scared is when the human actors suddenly pop out and surprises you. they by themselves don;t really scare but they popping out of their hiding places suddenly is really scary >^< the only thing is that because there are many people in front of us, we can tell when a surprise is coming and so we can brace ourselves for it. the last part was just kinda gross, cos it showed some headless, and limbless body hanging there, probably having gotten mutliated or sth. it's probably from some movie...and one super gross thing is that you have to go through some bodies. as in rubber bodies wrapped in plastic were hung like a door, so you have to push those bodies away to get through. they are fake but still, it's just....ewww >^< that horror house is definitely the most scary one i've ever gone to but i think there are definitely more scary ones out there haha. i definitely want someone to be there with me when i go to such places X_X
the last show, the animal stage show was simply adorable. because it's about how animal stars on TV learn their tricks and all. I really want to watch Evans Almighty now because that movies was said to have the largest number of animals participating. anyway, the whole thing was just really cute because of the tricks that the cats and dogs and piggies can do lol. i think the best one has to be Archie the monkey. well, not monkey actually, but an orangutan kinda of animal. his expressions are so funny. and becuase well, the monkey family or whatever is kinda similar to human, so Archie shows his teeth he does look like he's smiling and his movements are just soo human like that's it's simply fun to watch XD i can't remember the details of the show now because i watched another similar show after this one so what i saw were getting mixed up, but Archie left an impression so yep :D
and with that the Universal Studios visit came to an end! We took some photos and wanted to head out for dinner except it was getting late so we gotta hurry. Unfortunately we got caught by some surveyor and so that took a while...in the end. we went back to the hotel area and had some quick dinner because all the shops there closes at 11 pm.... and after dinner ends, the day somewhat ended as well ~~
Arrived in LAX at around 1230pm! Surprisingly UA was before time o_o but sadly, they guy that was supposed to pick us was not. In fact we had to wait for more than an hour for him. He said that there was a jam though i was wondering if he had forgotten about us and said there was a jam just to tide us through >.> but well, anyway, he finally came and it was awkward for us to pull two huge suitcases each but he did help out though unfortunately he parked his car sooo freaking far away >.> whatever, it was a smooth ride to the hotel we're supposed to live in.
The hotel was....simply the BEST i've lived in since coming to America!! I mean, the last time i went to New York, that really sucked...and then my one night stay in san Paublo, well that wasnt so great either... but this time (yeah it is more expensive and it was arranged by the travel agent but...) the room was so awesome :D it was clean, tidy and had everything we need. a bathroom, a shower with a bathtub, all the basic necessities. the internet there at night suxed though (that's why I had to write the journal entry in textedit first before copying it to LJ) but then, i had quite a lot of unwatched videos so i was just simply watching them. The day ended pretty much plainly like that. well we didnt sleep at the all the day before so when we got to the hotel, we totallly didnt feel like doing any other things but simply lie there and watch our videos, computers etc. in the middle of it, i slept just a little. then her friends came and we went for dinner together. Another really good thing about this hotel is that there are many restaurants and convenience stores around so that's excellent XD. though honestly, when i step out, i had a feeling i didnt arrive in L.A but instead in China...seriously, there are so many chinese and taiwan shops, or basically asian shops everywhere. no, actually i don't think i saw any non-asian shops...I'll never EVER see this many asian shops in Madison O-O
2nd day in LA - 14th August
First official day of our tour! Woke up at around 630 am. that was like one of the earliest times i've ever woken up haha. but then i slept at aroudn 1230 am so i didnt really get enough sleep (since i can't function with >70%effficiency with less than 8hours sleep >.>) but well, since the plan was to go to Universal studios that day, i doubt i need any brain haha XD anyway, we went for breakfast (another thing that i havent done for the past few months actually haha) breakfast was pretty normal, nothing special at all, or rather nothing much that I'll like to eat. it was simply some congee, bagels, cereal, bread etc the only extra thing is waffles which i don't really eat so i have my normal breakfast: toasted bread with butter and sugar XD well, not many people eat bread that way it seems, but ironically, the people who taught me this method all said this was a common way of eating haha.
okay, so the plan's to go Universal studios. there was a bit of confusion in the initial stage, because there are different tours heading for the same destination so there was confusion over who was to go with who. somemore some people are supposed to leave that day after the universal studios visit so there's a bit of disorganisation going on. frankly it kinda lacks some planning but well, with this many people i guess it's hard to make every arrangement possible, after all the tour guides are just more interested in making money, they won't be concerned over whether you enjoyed the tour or not since everything's prepaid...(but the tour's cheap) but anyway, in the end we got to the destination without much problems. My friend's friends were coming over so we intended to stick with the tour until then and leave after they come. Cos her friends are coming by car so if we ride their car, we can spend a longer time in universal studios. the tour plans to leave by 5pm which doesnt seem to give enough time to play around...
Universal studios since to be in the middle of a mountain or something, but before that, i must say i'm surprised that L.A was a different view from my image. i thought L.A was a big city with tall buidlings, a little like New York, but apparently, L.A's tallest buidling was only 74 storeys high...! Honestly, until now i havent seen the city part of L.A as of yet. but what i can see from L.A so far is that...there's really a lot of chinese O_O! the whole of L.A is like chinatown lol. anyway, back to Universal studios, now that i'm done with it, i have to say i enjoyed it a real lot. Honestly it was smaller than i thought and there weren't a lot of rides as i expected but it was a fun experience.
The first attraction we went was the Studio tour. seriously, it was around 10am when we reach there and amazingly there's a freaking long queue! the queue moves really fast though because one tour carriage can contain a lot of people...but the entire queue lasts soo long! it's a like looonnnng snake, an almost endless queue. but there were some information bits about famous actors in Hollywood, though most of the movies are before 2000s so i don't really know too much about them. Anyway, the studio tour is something i'm really looking forward too because i always wanted to know how Hollywood makes all those effects. it's a pity though that we didn't get to tour Hollywood itself due to lack of time but i think this studio tour gives enough information for a summary. In the tour bus/carriage, we went to see the fabricated scenaries, and i was quite amazed by how a place can be drastically changed just by adding a few sign poles, a few (fake) trees, a few signboards and a few lights and a different scene can be set up. Now i know that most of the scenes i see in movies are actually fabricated scenes haha. then there was the new King Kong 4D movie experience thing! So it was a 3D visual thing but with movements attached so when we watch King Kong and T-rex fighting, our carriage were rocking and rocking, oh and we were splashed with water. it was a pity that i was too absorbed in trying to get a video of the scenes that i kinda forgot to actually see the whole thing for myself. Next time i think seeing things for myself is gonna be more important capturing videos. but that was a good show ;) After the KingKong 4D, we were introduced to all the scenes used for Jussaric Park, KingKOng etc, how some of the props worked. one interesting thing has to be the car crashes and all, how we see all thsoe explosions and all but actually those were not really crashes but just how everything was programmed and manipulated. it was interested looking at how those things were planned. Also the sound effects experience. it shows how an earthquake scene was taken. we experienced the effects of earthquake and we watched "fires" breaking out, trains "crashing" and electricity lines creating fires etc. all those were used in actual movies so now i kinda realized, really it's amazing how the creators of all these props can think of such things!!! O: After the entire thing, i can only say, Hollywood is simply creativity!!
After that studio tour, we met up with her friends and we went off to by ourselves. Before that, we took some pictures with the Simpsons. well, i don't really watch the Simpsons, so i don't really know their names but we took pictures with SImpson mom :D Well Daddy was around too but there was quite a queue for him haha. as for Simpson mom, apparently, we were the last two to be able to take pictures with her cos Mom need to go rest (change roles maybe). we also took photos with Spongebob XD after the pictures taking and all, we went for the Simpson's Ride. This ride is supposingly "fake" meaning that it seems like we're on a roller coaster, but really we are just moving in one spot. so it's like a 4D thing, except more vigorous...and man, that was one high of a queue. but it seems that Universal Studios understands that there will be a long waiting time (50 minutes for this) so they prepared some Simpson videos for us to watch, which was pretty entertaining and it helps make the waiting time more tolerable. The queue moves really fast, except that, well like previous the queue's freaking long!! it lasts like maybe 5 rounds on one side, then you reach the other side, there's 5 more rounds of queue, then you get past the first part of the queue, you go to the next part and there's around 4 more rounds of queue, finally you reach the stairs and you realise there's about 3 more lines of queues >.> and it's just tiring to stand and walk, stand and walk... the rides's takes place in a room and all. there are 4 of us in one room and another family of 4 with us. there are many many rooms so i guess that's why the queue moves fast. anyway, the ride's really entertaining. it's not really exhilrating, but you get splashed with squirts of water (i realized that people like to get splashed in L.A. there's splashing water EVERYWHERE!) and then there's all the bumps and all. it's wasn't scary at all, but it was a laughable and enjoyable ride haha. the plot's really random though, about some serial killer guy wants to kill the Simpson's family and so send them on a roller coaster ride (literally) except the ride's tampered so you see tracks falling halfway, iron balls coming at you and free falling everywhere and in the end baby Simpson saves the day because he/she grew really huge becaue he/she entered some radioactive zone.
i can't remember the order of the rides and shows we went to but anyway, we had lunch at some place at Bog Chicken? or was it Dob? i can't remember, but there's a looonnng queue for it so we thought it might taste good. (there's really queues EVERYWHERE in Universal studios D:) well, in the end, it didn't really taste that good, but definitely it's better than any other chicken sold in fast food restaurants in United States. (sorry, but it just can't be compared to what i can have in Singapore D:)
There's a special effects stage show that we went to watch. it was a funny show. well because the "actors" were really entertaining as well maybe. So before the actual shows begin, the host looks for volunteers to come help out later. so we have a newlywed couple, a couple celebrating their anniversary, 2 "muscleman" (just big and well, urm lumpy men), and 1 canadian woman. It was funny seeing them act out some scenes. and honestly i think if the same show took place in singapore, all the singaporeans will probably just stare blankly back at the host and the volunteers will just do all the acting half-heartedly and the host will have a really tough time lol. so the show begins with telling us some of the traditional methods of effects and then after that we were shown the modern tecnhiques of making effects. those were really cool. I now realised that actors don't actually go all the way to Paris or Tokyo or London or whatever when they supposedly have a scene there! It's all the work of effects! and the monsters like King Kong and Jurrasic Park and all pretty much acted out by maybe humans with some probes attached to them and from there the computers can attach visual images to them and a monster is created on screen. Another cool thing i remember is their knife props. there are some gory films like Saw and all that and (i didn't watch Saw btw cos it's *yikes) but the host was demonstrating to us how he managed to "cut off" a person hand with the person's hand still attached by the end of it. so apparently the knife's really blunt and when pressure is applied at the tip, there are red coloring squirting out and the knife actually bends in so that it looks like the knife is stabbed right through the hand but actually it's all fake haha. but then it definitely took a lot of work for the directors and animations and effects staff to make a fake thing look so realistic *-*
Ah, actually now that i remembered i think we watched Shrek 4D before the Special effects show, but whatever. Well, i think i watched Shrek I and IV, not sure about II and III because they are quite a long time ago, but then i do know most of the characters. so I can understand what's going on when the show took place. the others don't really know the story well, but i think they enjoyed themselves all the same. All shows and rides have a prestory and this one is about the Lord V-sth (the one from the 1st Shrek movie) wanting to destroy the Shrek family even after becoming a ghost. so the pre-story involved the mirror, the 3 little pigs, pinocchio and the gingerbread man. as usual, their antics were really funny XD For the story, it involved some happening when Fiona and Shrek were on their honeymoon i think and they were lost in some place. and Donkey was around too (i was sad that pussy wasnt around T_T) it's quite a typical storyline though. Fiona was kidnapped, and Shrek and Donkey had to save her and so their ride's somewhat our ride lol. The bad Lord guy wanted to kill Fiona so that they can be together as ghosts. but well of course, that won't happen because Shrek, Donkey and even the Dragon came to help out! and blah blah, all the *phews and everything, eventually, the bad guy was exterminated with Dragon's fire.
We took a few more photos with the Simpson family. Daddy, mommy, and the siblings and we went off for the real more exciting rides at the Lower lot. there's really quite few rides in the place though but i guess maybe 'cos it's mainly a studio for the actors and directors and plus the waiting time's suuppper long so no point building so many rides. and well, indeed the waiting times are extremely long. We went for two rides - the Jurrasic Park Ride and the Revenge of the Mummy Ride. We went for the Jurrasic Park ride first since the mummy ride was a little more scary and there were inhibitions about whether to go on it or not. anyway the Jurrasic Park ride is bascially the one that's goes up the slope and descends splashing into the water. the waiting time's 1 hour but the ride's only like 5 minutes. it was an interesting ride but because the ride's sooo fast it doesnt feel like the excitement i gained can compensate for my waiting time haha. the main attraction for this ride is the 74 feet drop at the last one. and man, after we were done with that, everyone in the carriage were just soaked. literally. there's just this really huge volume of water coming at us lol. The mummy ride also took about 60 minutes of waiting time. it was said this ride is the most exciting ride in the park and that's true except even though it was exciting, the excitement lasts about 5 minutes, so like previously, the feeling of exhilration doesnt compensate my waiting time D: but all these rides take you around some scenaries and there are stuff popping out to scare you but well those are just pre-shows lol. one thing different about this mummy ride is that it actually went backwards towards the end! Initially it was just high speed accelaration around curves and bends and then we came to an abrupt stop. and suddenly, we were going backwards at maybe slightly lower accelerations and speed but wow, that's one new experience XD.
We're done with all 3 rides and so we decided to watch all the remaining shows. we were told that terminator 2 in 3D and the Water world are must watch shows and so we went for those. Terminator 2 in 3D, it's cool and all but i kinda feel the preshow as a little boring because it talks about Skynet blah blah blah, because i didnt watch the Terminator series, at first i talk this was some kind of commercial or sth but it turns out to be the "antagonist" of the show. the pre-show's kinda long too and not as entertaining as the previous. the real 3D show was interesting an all but i just don't find it that fun as others, and the sound's reallly loud, but after watching the entire show, it does make me want to start watching the Terminator's series cos it seems like a lot of fun :) After that we went to check out the Water world show. the plot's a little messy because the actors were talking really fast and they were moving really fast as well, so it's kinda hard to keep up with their movements and speech at the same time. but bascially it's a story that takes place after almost all dry land on earth has been innudated by water and so these people are going to find dry land. One of them finds it and wants to tell her companions but there are evil forces wanting to get the information out of her and get that land themselves for their own selfish desires. but well there's all the people coming out trying to save her and protect the location of the dry land and all. plot's about average but their stunts are pretty good. not exremely professional but definitely a lot of effort. their waveboarding and all were amazing though. and the only female character was seen jumping from on high tower down to ground with jsut a simple rope. Now that is just sooo cool *-* as usual there's the water splashing thing but this time's it's not so much. because they took into consideration that it's night and so water's gonna make us reallly cold. There's a lot of fires "breaking out" and the most interesting part is when an areoplane suddenly came crashing down. That totally took me by surprise. like from where it flew down i was like, there was a plane there??? anyway, the story ended off the typical way. but after the entire show, they introduced the cast members again and apparently these people are actually working for various TV shows or dramas or movies. I don't really know any of them but they might just be stunt people for the studio.
The last show we want to watch is the animal star show. But we have some time before it starts so we went off to the Horror house first. my friend was too afraid to come so only 3 of us went. The two of us girls were pretty much clinging to each other while her boyfriend was supposedly the front guy lol. it wasn't really scary honestly, though i think i might be terrified if i have to walk this thing alone and with no one else around. and if i stare at the displays long enough i might get chills cos some of them were kinda bloody....yeewww. the main parts you get scared is when the human actors suddenly pop out and surprises you. they by themselves don;t really scare but they popping out of their hiding places suddenly is really scary >^< the only thing is that because there are many people in front of us, we can tell when a surprise is coming and so we can brace ourselves for it. the last part was just kinda gross, cos it showed some headless, and limbless body hanging there, probably having gotten mutliated or sth. it's probably from some movie...and one super gross thing is that you have to go through some bodies. as in rubber bodies wrapped in plastic were hung like a door, so you have to push those bodies away to get through. they are fake but still, it's just....ewww >^< that horror house is definitely the most scary one i've ever gone to but i think there are definitely more scary ones out there haha. i definitely want someone to be there with me when i go to such places X_X
the last show, the animal stage show was simply adorable. because it's about how animal stars on TV learn their tricks and all. I really want to watch Evans Almighty now because that movies was said to have the largest number of animals participating. anyway, the whole thing was just really cute because of the tricks that the cats and dogs and piggies can do lol. i think the best one has to be Archie the monkey. well, not monkey actually, but an orangutan kinda of animal. his expressions are so funny. and becuase well, the monkey family or whatever is kinda similar to human, so Archie shows his teeth he does look like he's smiling and his movements are just soo human like that's it's simply fun to watch XD i can't remember the details of the show now because i watched another similar show after this one so what i saw were getting mixed up, but Archie left an impression so yep :D
and with that the Universal Studios visit came to an end! We took some photos and wanted to head out for dinner except it was getting late so we gotta hurry. Unfortunately we got caught by some surveyor and so that took a while...in the end. we went back to the hotel area and had some quick dinner because all the shops there closes at 11 pm.... and after dinner ends, the day somewhat ended as well ~~