As some of you know, last Friday I logged off MFC early to go take a little getaway trip with Jawbs. We'd had a weird couple of weeks and just needed a breath of fresh air. Our usual Saturday adventures involve driving to the lake and going fishing, but this weekend we spent 24 hours in Long Beach. I have been wanting to visit The Aquarium of the Pacific for years now, and decided to go down the night before and spend the night to get an early start on Saturday.
Our hotel was fan-fucking-tastic. It was right in the middle of The Pike, which is a whole collaboration of restaurants, a ferris wheel, a comedy club and some bars. I don't know if I've ever stayed in such a fancy feeling hotel. Top notch. It's called Avia, in case anyone is in the area and wants to check it out. A very short trip across the street lends quite the view, also. This is from outside the restaurant we ate at, Tokyo Wako.
After a rockin' sushi dinner and some wine, we walked around a little, and wound up getting tickets for The Laugh Factory's 10pm showcase. Neither of us had ever been to a comedy club before and have been dying to, so it was a nice surprise to find this right downstairs from the hotel. I felt a bit under-dressed, since I had gone in stretchy pants and a tank top just to walk around and have dinner, not knowing I'd end up at a comedy club. The other women were in nice outfits and heels. Oh well!
It was an absolute blast and my cheeks hurt after the 2 hours were up from laughing so much. I'm sure the 2 drink minimum (Tanqueray and tonics) helped keep my giggles going. Tired and slightly tipsy, we walked back to the hotel and passed out for the night. It was probably about 1am when we got to sleep, intending to get up at 7am for breakfast and an early day. Finally, a comfortable hotel bed!
Like clockwork, Jawbs woke up at 7am. No alarm, just... magic. Hah. I made in-room coffee and tried to pry my eyes open. I was excited for the day, otherwise I could've slept at least 2 more hours. The shower was awesome. Dual head, rain shower. Once clean and smellin' good, we went down to a spectacular hotel buffet breakfast. It was fancy! Not just the usual oatmeal and bagels... among the usual there were fancy cheeses, smoked salmon, frittata and apple chicken sausage. If you hadn't noticed before, food excites me.
We checked out of the hotel with full bellies and took a very short walk over to the aquarium. Now, for years, I've heard great things about this place. "It's the biggest/best aquarium" and "that place is so awesome you have GOT to go see it". So Jawbs and I both had very high expectations for this Aquarium of the Pacific. Even though I had fun, I couldn't help but be very underwhelmed by it overall. For example, this was one of the biggest sharks they had.
Seriously? No awesome underwater shark exhibit? This was the biggest disappointment, as the night before I told Jawbs "OMG I can't wait to see the sharks!" I guess since I've been to Sea World numerous times, I was expecting a lot from this aquarium. I was also excited to see the otters. I love otters. But it was a very small exhibit with only 3 of them. The most fun part of that was watching one of the otters pee on himself. Heh.
At least there was some hands-on stuff outside. Petting the little sharks and bat rays is always fun. It figures, though, right when I got to the bat ray pool, they started the feeding time and no one could put their hands in the water. I got about 3 seconds of slimy bat fingering before the lady yelled.
At least I learned something. I've always had trouble remembering the difference between Seals and Sea Lions. In case you have the same issue, I'll put this here:
Inside the aquarium was the usual display. 3 sections divided by region. Of all the creatures on display, I fell in love with the Weedy Sea Dragons. They're so fascinating the way they move and how "out-of-this-world" they look. Like alien sea horses. Here's a clip of them since we didn't get a clear photo. You'll see me being totally awestruck at about 00:25.
Since we were underwhelmed by the size of the Aquarium and had devoted a whole day to it, we decided to go find other adventures. We hopped on a free shuttle from the aquarium to the Queen Mary. I've heard stories about this ship all my life, most of them being ghost stories and things of supernatural nature. It was time to check it out for myself.
We got a passport ticket that included a very cheezy presentation called "Ghosts and Legends Tour". The tour guide was great, in that he was very dramatic and probably scared the shit out of the little kids that were in the group. But Jawbs and I both agreed we wished there were less added sound effects and scare points and wanted to just walk through the so-called "hot spots" in their natural state. Instead it felt like a haunted house you'd go through on Halloween. Still cool, I guess.
Once that was over, we just wandered around the boat and took tons of pics. Jawbs thinks its funny to aim the camera at me like he's taking a picture, but he's really recording. Example here:
Jeez my hair looks terrible. Blargh. Anywho... We spent a few hours following tour paths, reading signs with history, and of course had a drink at one point. Here's a few of the pics.
Although we escaped what was supposed to be the hottest weekend in LA, it was still pretty toasty in LB. I had enough of walking and sweating, so we took the shuttle back towards our car, got back on the freeway and headed home. A quick stop in to feed the puppies at home, and clean up a bit, then off to a wonderful dinner to finish off the day. It was a fantastic 24 hours.
Sunday we had a couple errands to run and stopped at the mall to walk around. We went to our favorite Japanese place for a pitcher of Sapporo and some calamari and ended up getting a pretty hardcore buzz going! I was craving some cheap champagne so we stopped and got some on the way home. Popped and finished that laying in the sun out back, and killed nearly a whole bottle of two-buck chuck Chardonnay as well. Holy drunkenness. This is why I had a hangover on Monday morning.
So there's my weekend in a not-so-nutshell. Hope you enjoyed my story telling.
Our hotel was fan-fucking-tastic. It was right in the middle of The Pike, which is a whole collaboration of restaurants, a ferris wheel, a comedy club and some bars. I don't know if I've ever stayed in such a fancy feeling hotel. Top notch. It's called Avia, in case anyone is in the area and wants to check it out. A very short trip across the street lends quite the view, also. This is from outside the restaurant we ate at, Tokyo Wako.
After a rockin' sushi dinner and some wine, we walked around a little, and wound up getting tickets for The Laugh Factory's 10pm showcase. Neither of us had ever been to a comedy club before and have been dying to, so it was a nice surprise to find this right downstairs from the hotel. I felt a bit under-dressed, since I had gone in stretchy pants and a tank top just to walk around and have dinner, not knowing I'd end up at a comedy club. The other women were in nice outfits and heels. Oh well!
It was an absolute blast and my cheeks hurt after the 2 hours were up from laughing so much. I'm sure the 2 drink minimum (Tanqueray and tonics) helped keep my giggles going. Tired and slightly tipsy, we walked back to the hotel and passed out for the night. It was probably about 1am when we got to sleep, intending to get up at 7am for breakfast and an early day. Finally, a comfortable hotel bed!Like clockwork, Jawbs woke up at 7am. No alarm, just... magic. Hah. I made in-room coffee and tried to pry my eyes open. I was excited for the day, otherwise I could've slept at least 2 more hours. The shower was awesome. Dual head, rain shower. Once clean and smellin' good, we went down to a spectacular hotel buffet breakfast. It was fancy! Not just the usual oatmeal and bagels... among the usual there were fancy cheeses, smoked salmon, frittata and apple chicken sausage. If you hadn't noticed before, food excites me.
We checked out of the hotel with full bellies and took a very short walk over to the aquarium. Now, for years, I've heard great things about this place. "It's the biggest/best aquarium" and "that place is so awesome you have GOT to go see it". So Jawbs and I both had very high expectations for this Aquarium of the Pacific. Even though I had fun, I couldn't help but be very underwhelmed by it overall. For example, this was one of the biggest sharks they had.
Seriously? No awesome underwater shark exhibit? This was the biggest disappointment, as the night before I told Jawbs "OMG I can't wait to see the sharks!" I guess since I've been to Sea World numerous times, I was expecting a lot from this aquarium. I was also excited to see the otters. I love otters. But it was a very small exhibit with only 3 of them. The most fun part of that was watching one of the otters pee on himself. Heh.
At least there was some hands-on stuff outside. Petting the little sharks and bat rays is always fun. It figures, though, right when I got to the bat ray pool, they started the feeding time and no one could put their hands in the water. I got about 3 seconds of slimy bat fingering before the lady yelled.
At least I learned something. I've always had trouble remembering the difference between Seals and Sea Lions. In case you have the same issue, I'll put this here:
Inside the aquarium was the usual display. 3 sections divided by region. Of all the creatures on display, I fell in love with the Weedy Sea Dragons. They're so fascinating the way they move and how "out-of-this-world" they look. Like alien sea horses. Here's a clip of them since we didn't get a clear photo. You'll see me being totally awestruck at about 00:25.
Since we were underwhelmed by the size of the Aquarium and had devoted a whole day to it, we decided to go find other adventures. We hopped on a free shuttle from the aquarium to the Queen Mary. I've heard stories about this ship all my life, most of them being ghost stories and things of supernatural nature. It was time to check it out for myself.
We got a passport ticket that included a very cheezy presentation called "Ghosts and Legends Tour". The tour guide was great, in that he was very dramatic and probably scared the shit out of the little kids that were in the group. But Jawbs and I both agreed we wished there were less added sound effects and scare points and wanted to just walk through the so-called "hot spots" in their natural state. Instead it felt like a haunted house you'd go through on Halloween. Still cool, I guess.
Once that was over, we just wandered around the boat and took tons of pics. Jawbs thinks its funny to aim the camera at me like he's taking a picture, but he's really recording. Example here:
Jeez my hair looks terrible. Blargh. Anywho... We spent a few hours following tour paths, reading signs with history, and of course had a drink at one point. Here's a few of the pics.
Although we escaped what was supposed to be the hottest weekend in LA, it was still pretty toasty in LB. I had enough of walking and sweating, so we took the shuttle back towards our car, got back on the freeway and headed home. A quick stop in to feed the puppies at home, and clean up a bit, then off to a wonderful dinner to finish off the day. It was a fantastic 24 hours.
Sunday we had a couple errands to run and stopped at the mall to walk around. We went to our favorite Japanese place for a pitcher of Sapporo and some calamari and ended up getting a pretty hardcore buzz going! I was craving some cheap champagne so we stopped and got some on the way home. Popped and finished that laying in the sun out back, and killed nearly a whole bottle of two-buck chuck Chardonnay as well. Holy drunkenness. This is why I had a hangover on Monday morning.
So there's my weekend in a not-so-nutshell. Hope you enjoyed my story telling.
