7/2/98: AKA: Two Weeks In One Log. AKA: One Long Log.

So for the first time in a long time I have taken a rather long leave of absence and it is the first leave from my web page in a long time, thus upon returning home to find myself buried in almost 200 pieces of email, half of which require my reply. To also find that my hits maintained while I was gone ::surprise::. Okay a short note about this log. I intend on it to be longer then most because of the time I have missed. While it will cover the changes and other things that happened Tama-wise, it will also cover some of the things that happened over my vacation that my friends, my Tama's (one and the same for the most part ;)), and myself experienced over the entire vacation and some thoughts on what is going on now and where things are headed at the moment. So if you really don't want to know about that kinda stuff, then you probably won't wanna read this log. :)

Where do I start... god I dunno. I guess I'll try to keep things in chronological order, so if it gets icky, skip to the next paragraph ;). I believe this log will be written over a period of days...

Okay so let’s go back to Saturday night, June 20th. My friend LeAnne stayed the night and my sister was to take us out to the airport. We were leaving on the 6:50am flight into LAX, a 4 hour trip. We went to bed, the night was long and anticipation was hanging silently in the air that night, thus resulting in about 3 ½ hours of sleep. I decided to leave Zatchi on pause, at age 22 years, at home for this trip.

We thankfully made it out of the house and managed to get into the first boarding group onto the plane. Everything was going great, in fact. LeAnne and I were boarded on the plane about 15 minutes until take-off. Being a 'free for all seating' flight, I grabbed a nice seat a few isles in front of the wing, where I could see rather well at the surroundings. My carryon bag only consisted of a few things, among of which were a Discman, CD's, Mesutchi & Osutchi, and Mimitchi Tamagotchi. I had decided to take Mesu and Osu because my friends wanted to see them mate. Mimitchi, of course, was going no matter what happened. While the week before wasn't the best without him, he returned to me in plenty of time to be with me for this trip. Mesu and Osu were to wake up at 9am so I just let them be, as it was over 2 hours before that was to happen.

It was only my third time on a plane and this time I felt more relaxed and it was a less nervous situation for me. I really enjoy flying and this time I _had_ to have Mimitchi be with me during it. I woke him up about 5 minutes before we were cleared to take off into airspace. This being over 2 hours early of his normal wake up time, I decided he would be paused later to give back the time.

I often speak of bonding with Tama's and Tama's I'm bonded with. Mimitchi, as most would probably know, is one Tama I just love so very much and I was very happy to have him with me during this flight. Somehow things felt safer. Take off was great, I held him so he could see out the window, I believe he enjoyed it as much as I did. It's hard to describe something that is easier seen then read.

To sum up the flight in, we had two stops along the way; one in Boise Idaho and one in Reno Los Vegas, none of which we had to change flights (thankfully). So we took off the ground and landed 3 times during it all.

I might add that during the layover in Boise, Mesu and Osu changed into the Hyurutchi Babitchi stage.

The only problem we had with the trip was we had an unexpected layover in Reno. When we got there we were told there was a problem in LAX and we were going to be delayed in Reno for 30 minutes. The 30 mins turned out to be 45 and we didn't actually leave there until after 10am. We did finally arrive in LAX around 11:45 though, safely and thankfully none of our luggage got lost.

When LeAnne and I arrived we met up with Brendan, an Internet friend, and sat around in McDonald’s for about 4 hours until Ashley's flight came in, she's also an Internet friend. We have all met before, this was the groups’ second meeting.

I must say that California was in the 90's and it was just almost too hot for me. I'm more used to this 70 and 80 degree weather of Washington. It was pretty bad, but I survived it. I must say though, I really like California, and it was even better this time.. It is one big place.

When we got back to our hotel and relaxed for a bit, even though we were all so very exhausted, we decided to go to the Brea Mall. It is about as big as our mall, maybe even smaller, I'm not sure, but it has more variety of stores. While we did go, it was a Sunday so it was closed, so we just walked around and looked then went out to dinner, I believe.

That day was rather short because most of it was spent at the airport, but this is pretty typical... out of all places in LA I've seen, the airport is the place I'm most familiar with... well kinda, it's so many buildings I'd still get lost... anyway..

We went to bed late that night in a nice air conditioned (YEAH!) room.

The next day, Monday, we got up really late, after noon I believe. Now I was really surprised I got the best characters all week on Mesu and Osu because they sat alone all morning receiving minimal and/or no care from me at all while we all slept. We watched some TV and decided to go back to the mall, because it was open. We shopped around and I almost bought a few things, but didn't. Brendan bought me a Road Runner stuffed animal from the Warner Brothers store though :). It was a nice place, kinda hot though. Seems like we weren't gonna get any breaks from the weather at all this week.

After doing a few other errands we decided to go to the beach. It was after 6pm when we arrived. I wasn't really dressed to get in the water, plus I had my Tama's on me so I declined getting wet. It was my first time of going to the beach since I was very very young, so young I couldn't remember. We saw the sun set, and even though I didn't want to get wet the water came up pretty far onto the beach several times, getting me a little wet.

One thing I was surprised at while being on the beach is how moist the air felt. It's like I was walking through wet air, but I wasn't really wet. The air smelt nice once I got to the edge of the water. It was a pretty comfy environment to be in. I think Mimitchi enjoyed it.

Mesu and Osu were in my pocket at the time and sadly I forgot the time so they went to bed in poop... amazingly this didn't effect what they changed into.

We all walked the beach, LeAnne went off on her own walk, while Brendan and Ashley got in the water, and Mimitchi and I stayed away from the wetness, I'm not much into getting wet, especially when the wind is blowing that hard and it's getting kinda cold out.

The beach also was very different than another other shore I have ever seen in all the lakes/oceans I've seen. This one was incredibly dirty. Humans are so messy. There was trash everywhere. It looked like a big trash can. It also smelt bad walking through it. It only smelt nice when I got up to the edge of the shore, then I could smell that 'beach' smell that one is supposed so smell, instead of the trash smell.

We weren't at the beach very long that night, but it was enough, it was comforting and cleared my mind.. I was finally away from work, finally away from that pressure, finally away from the house I live in, finally away from everything I know, except that in which I wished to bring with me. I was in an entirely new environment with friends I love and care about allot, Tama's and humans alike. :)

This was Mimitchi's first trip outside of Washington state. I am so very happy he was able to come, I think he enjoyed it and I really enjoyed having his company.

Tuesday we got up kinda late, as always because we always go to bed late. We didn't have time for allot of things, so we went to a movie, Can't Hardly Wait, a truly awesome movie. I intend on buying it when it comes out.. it was just awesome, you have to see it to understand. I made sure Mimitchi could watch and I'm sure he enjoyed it.

Later that evening we went out to a restaurant and had dinner with Brendan's parents and basically just talked and relaxed. I don't even remember the name of the place we went to, but it was really nice and Brendan's parents treated all of us to dinner, which was pretty cool of them.

While Tuesday was mostly a slow day it was rather relaxing, and as usual, we went to bed kinda late.

The very next day we tried our best to get up early and did manage to be out by noon or so. We all went to Knott's Berry Farm. While this is a kinda low scale Disneyland, it is different, less crowded and in that way it is almost better. I don't think it's the best place I've been to though. I'm not so into the rides as I used to be and coasters just aren't my thing, but it was still fun, but incredibly hot temperature wise.

Another thing I must note about Knott's is Brendan used to work there and they treated him _horribly_. I won't explain entirely, but obviously he isn't the only one because there were banners outside on the way into parking that talked of rats on the premises and bad employee treatment. So at least something is being done about it...

We stayed about until closing and the last thing we did was watch the light/laser on water show, it was pretty cool how they did it, but the subject matter was disappointing and obviously directed more to an age group of 5 to 10 year olds. No less the effects were pretty cool.

We got home pretty late again.. and again.. the usual ritual of watching Jerry Springer on KCAL 9 was followed by going to bed after midnight, as always.

Thursday we got up late again, but we were outta the hotel by 1130 or noon, we grabbed a bite to eat and we soon drove 3 hours off to my all time favorite place in California... Universal Studios!

It was a fun ride out. Ashley brought her CD's and we listened to them whenever we were in the car. They are the Bob & Tom CD's, a couple of really funny morning radio show guys that have been on the air for many many years in Ohio.

When we finally got there we paid to get in and decided to do as much as we could. The first thing we did was basically look around at the shops, I didn't really buy anything, except a camera to take pic's of everything with. We walked by a filming of some new Nickelodeon TV show, which name I forget, but I took a pic, the film has yet to be developed. The next thing we did was we took the tram on a tour of Universal. Really this is something you just have to experience on your own to enjoy. Incredible! It was soo fun. We got to see some of the sets of old TV/movies, and there were several areas we went threw that were set up to scar the riders of the tram. We went through a cave that was designed to look like an underground subway and it simulated an earthquake, very realistic, with fire and just.. so much, too much to remember. There was another area with Godzilla and Jaws, not to mention a falling bridge and a few other areas. They showed us the studios and what they were for, what was being filmed there and little about the sets. So much.. too much to even describe, go there if you can! I could go back 2 or 3 times and still have so much fun there.

The tram was only probably 30 mins to 45 mins, or maybe it just seemed that long? Either way that was one of my favorite parts of the entire day. We got off there and proceeded to go on every ride we could, in fact, we did go on everything. I don't recall the order of things we did, but one of the first was E.T.

Now I kinda enjoyed the movie in the '80's when I saw it.. but I didn’t' enjoy the ride at all. I found it rather dull and boring, though it had some pretty good effects and most children would enjoy it a lot.

I REALLY enjoyed the Back To The Future ride! It was one of my faves in fact. It was more of a simulator. I had never seen the movie, but only parts, but it was enough to make me want to see the movie sometime. We got into a large car and the effects were out of this world, so to speak. This isn't easy to describe, but if you go get on this ride... it's the best!

I'm sure there is one I'm missing.. but I can't recall what it is. Either way we decided to go into the Back Draft ride/exhibit/whatever you call it. I refer to things as rides, because I don't know what else to call them. Either way.. this one left me shaking. I don't think I've clutched Mimitchi as hard in my hands as I did this time around. I hate fire, but I went in anyway. They showed a behind the scenes thing on the movie that was interesting, as I have seen the movie (it was okay not my fave, btw..).

Then we went into this room that kinda resembled a boiler room and a storage room and a garage, put all together. They guy kinda warned it wasn't for the faint of heart.. well I wanted to stay. Curiosity killed the Kat, no? Suddenly a small fire started, no biggie. But little by little, cans of gasoline got spilt and poured among the walls, floor, and several things scattered about the large room. It got rather hot in the room as the fire spread about the room, exploding things all over, it was so loud in there I almost had to cover my ears. The roar of the flames and metal screeching against metal barrels and the walls just was almost enough to kill my hearing. It was kinda like a sharp piece of metal scraped across a chalk board... times a hundred. It kept getting warmer and warmer in there and the gas kept splashing all over and the fire was filling the room.

This was kinda traumatizing. Next thing that I recall happening was the balcony type thing I was standing on, which was quite high above the flour and was a black metal/iron sorta thing, suddenly gave way right below my right foot. I dropped what felt like a good entire foot downward. Of all places I could have been standing... I had to have been standing right there.... The whole thing lasted I'd say a good 20 mins, maybe less, and indeed that was all it took to shake me up and traumatize me for life....

Finally it was over, the flames were distinguished and I was able to leave. I think those behind me were the only reason I was able to move, as I felt myself being pushed forward in the crowd, I managed to stumble out of that place and boy I did take a sigh of relief as I was ushered out of there.

With the relief passed, the conversation drifted immediately to the subject that kept coming up as the day moved toward night and it proceeded to get a little darker. Jurassic Park. I love the movie. I love the books. I love it all. And the question was... should we go on the water ride? We all kinda debated for a long time... I myself dislike water rides, but resistance was futile and so was Jurassic Park. We all decided to go for it, what the hell... you only live once, right? I paused Mimitchi and put him safely in my purse, in hopes I wouldn't get that wet... previously throughout the day we viewed several people leaving Jurassic Park, completely soaked from head to toe.. so right then my worry was Mimitchi.

We got into line and we managed to get on the ride right away, the four of us got the last seat in the boat and soon we were zoomed off up a large hill and landed ourselves into a neat replica of Jurassic Park. There were many dinosaurs around us, including that one that spits (whose name I can't recall), but instead of spits water, instead of blinding poison. It seemed very tame for a very long time, we traveled among brontosaurus and soon things began to look creepy. The broken fences, Velocirators, and T-Rex made appearances as we entered a cave. Into the cave we began to climb a large hill, a very steady almost straight uphill in what looked like a tunnel. It was designed to make it look like it went on forever. But the illusion stopped as we began to level out and it got pitch black. The boat stopped for just a few seconds and a silence fell just as fast as the screams began. Suddenly we were falling and I mean rapidly near straight downward. I was lifted off the seat I was in and I felt a scream leave my lungs as I felt the wind and some water rush up into my face. We finally hit the bottom and a huge wave splashed up and fell over and into the boat, soaking some, leaving others only a little wet. I was lucky.. getting only partly wet.

At the end of the day we went to Marvel Mania, a restaurant completely decorated in Marvel Comic's characters and look. It was incredible, it was very genuine and real to the comic looks. They played scenes from the TV shows and other tidbits throughout the evening, while people walked around dressed up as the characters. I am not a Marvel Comic fan, but was familiar with some of it. Brendan was really into it, he loved it. I sure wasn't complaining, it was really cool. The food was a bit expensive, but then again this is California and Universal, so it was probably normal. There was so much in here, you just had to see it to believe it. This is the only Marvel Mania in existence right now, but the waiter told us they intend to have others made as soon as they can.. I'd say it'd be a hit anywhere, even people who don't like comics could enjoy this place. I think they should make similar restaurants with other themes.... Tama's... Tamagotchi... Tamagotchi... maybe Tamagotchi? :)

Another thing about Marvel Mania I almost forgot.. the bathrooms. They are dark, lit with red lighting, the doors are like the ones you see in dungeons and on one of the walls every now and again Spiderman makes an animated appearance. Very cool!

I believe I forgot to mention we went to the Hard Rock Cafe, but mostly to just look around, we didn't eat there, it would have probably been to expensive anyway.

After that we took 5 steep escalators out of Universal and went up to the parking lot, as Universal was closing for the evening. I really wish we had made it there a few hours earlier then we did.. There was so much to do and see, we just didn't get a chance to do it, no matter how we hurried to look at it all.

Of all places, Universal is the one I love the most in California, so far. I gotta go back!

Only one negative thing occurred in CA and it was a portion of the ride home. We took a wrong turn off the highway. We soon found ourselves deep in downtown LA, after midnight, in a rather bad area of down town LA. It took Ashley's good instincts to get us out of there and back on the right track... safely back on the right road. It kinda shakes a person up when total strangers come up to your car and wash your window with a dirty newspaper... lets not go into details, shall we? You had to be there. It was no joy ride, but we made it out.

We got home late, as you can imagine and got up late again Friday, missing Jerry this time. I don't really recall what we did on this day other then talk and eat out. It was a kinda relaxation day, if I recall correctly. We did a few things, not a whole lot.

Wait a min... we did do something, I think we did it today. We went to see The Truman Show