Dining in the Gorgeous Hotel Del Coronado

Today, April 11th, 2014, is the last day of Uncle Paul’s third visit. We of course all don’t want him to go because he is also so kind to take us to cool places or nice restaurants, but it’s impossible for him to stay for too long since he also have people to take care of in Chico. The good thing is, he will visit here again in June when my family comes, so my dad can will be able to see “His host dad”, and I am very looking forward to it! On his last day in San Diego, we decided to go to a really beautiful place to do some shopping and have lunch, that is, the Coronado Island. It is an affluent resort city located across San Diego Bay from downtown San Diego, I have actually been there once with my host family, it’s about 5 months before when I first got here, and we were just there for dinner. But today, we are going there in the morning instead of afternoon, I believed that we will see another beautiful side of the Coronado. 

Hotel Del Coronado and the beach.

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Disneyland Trip - Day 3: California Adventure - Pt. 1

How time flies, it was last day of the trip already. Just like yesterday, we packed our clothes, had a quick breakfast, and headed to Disneyland. But today, we were not going to the original Disneyland Park, we were going to the new California Adventure Park. The park opened in 2001, and it is the second of two theme parks built at the Disneyland Resort Anaheim. I think there are more "old-kids" rides in California Adventure such as California Scearmin' and The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Just as usual, both Disneyland park and California Adventure entrance were very crowed, we had to wait for a while to get into the park.

One of the most popular attraction in California Adventure: The California Screamin' Ride!

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Disneyland Trip - Day 3: California Adventure - Pt. 2

(Please read the first part of this post first: Disneyland Trip - Day 3: California Adventure - Pt. 1.)

We visited Cars Land today! (I will mention it later)

After this quick but awesome trip around California, we went to one of the most famous attraction (but it's not in the video...) in California, Hollywood! Well, of course, not the real one, we are still in Disneyland, we went to the Hollywood Land! This area are inspired by the 1930s Golden Age period of Hollywood, I really love it since I kinda like some old-fashion buildings, that's why I also love Main Street, U.S.A. in Disneyland so much, it is inspired by the 1920s of Los Angeles. The reason why we were here was because we are going to get ready for Elisa's "Disney Junior's Live on Stage" show at 2:30, this was the only time when she could take a small rest. Before lining up for the show, we just walked around the Hollywood Land. There were not too many rides in this land but some nice gift shops and maybe some stages. When we finally got into the show theater, we were surprised because we have to sit on the ground, there was no chairs in this theater, I guess it's because this theater was designed for kids to dance and sing. But we were actually expecting to sit on some nice, soft chairs and take a rest during the show... I have to say, the actual show was pretty good. Although it was designed for little kids, I still enjoyed it a lot, I love the decorations on the stage and the music of the show, plus, seeing all small kids dancing, singing and replying silly answers to the host was really interesting. I remember that there was one time when the host asked something like "Do you want to discover Mickey's clubhouse?" (which, of course, she expect kids to answer YES), and I heard a kid behind me answered NO really loud. That was just really funny!

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Disneyland Trip - Day 2: Disneyland Park - Pt. 1

Yeah!!! This day was finally here! It's day for visiting the world happiest place, Walt Disneyland! Disneyland opens at 9 today, so we woke up at 8, and had a simple, quick breakfast. Our hotel offers free breakfast, it was very basic, and there has not place for us to eat so we have to eat in our room, but it's actually a good thing since we can finish it fast have save time to have fun in Disneyland! As we were on our way to Disneyland, we could see some rides in California Adventure Park such as California Screamin' and The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, that make boys and me even more excited! By the time we arrived Disneyland entrance (about 8:45), there were already lots of people waiting there to get in to the park, it took us at least half an hour to go through all processes and got into the actual park, processes including backpack check, which can make this 40,000-visitors-per-day park much safer.

One of the rides in Disneyland, the Space Mountain

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Disneyland Trip - Day 2: Disneyland Park - Pt. 2

(Please read the first part of this post first: Disneyland Trip - Day 2: Disneyland Park - Part 1.)

Disneyland Mickey's Soundsational Parade (I will mention it later)

Buzz Lightyear, one of the main characters in the movie "Toy Story", even has its own ride, called Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. We went on it after riding Matterhorn, it didn't take us too long to wait. I remember that I have played this in HK Disneyland, we basically just have to use laser guns to shoot wherever targets are. I got 13000 points at last, but Ethan and Jason got much more points than me, I guess they know the trick... At the exit of the ride, we can send the photo of us on the ride to our own e-mail for free, I of course did send it, but I looks dumb in the picture. Ha ha.

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Disneyland Trip - Day 1: Downtown Disney

Where is "The happiest place on Earth"? I believe most people would say it's Disneyland. I've been looking forward going to Disneyland for months since I moved to California, and today, Feb 8th, was like dream come true, we were going to Anaheim for 3 days during the break! Anaheim is where Disneyland Resorts California located, including the original, oldest Disneyland Park, California Adventure Park, and Downtown Disney District. We planned to go Downtown Disney to have dinner and do some shopping on the first day, and visit the parks on day 2 and 3.

A restaurant in Downtown Disney- Rainforest Cafe

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Solana Beach: beautiful view & fine gift shops

Today, we went to another famous coastal city in San Diego, the Solana Beach. We thought that today might be a nice day to go down there and have lunch. According to Wikipedia, Solana Beach is an affluent city in San Diego County, California. When we first arrived Solana Beach at about 10 o'clock, the weather was really foggy, and the sky was dark, there were only few people on the beach, and one person was surfing. To get to the actual beach, we have to walk through a park, so we decided to let Elisa play in the park. Karen, boys, and me walked down to the beach, it was a bit cold, and since the weather was foggy, we couldn't really look far from the beach. Karen told me that if the weather is nice, we will be able to see through all Southern California beaches, including the one we visited before, La Jolla beach. Elisa and Jason then came down to the beach with us, we took some pictures, and decided to head to the restaurant to have lunch. By the time we leave, the weather started to turn nice... well, it seems we doesn't have good luck today...

Solana Beach

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Chinese New Year Festival in Downtown San Diego

Chinese New Year is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated at the turn of the Chinese calendar, in 2014, Chinese new year was on January 31st. There are all kinds of Chinese New Year celebration around California during this new year season, since Chinese population have a large percentage in California. Today we went down town to attend the "Chinese New Year Food & Cultural Fair", according to the official San Diego website, this is a event fun-packed with various cultural performance including lion dancers, martial arts demonstrations and acrobatics, children's crafts, lantern parade and a wide variety of Chinese and Asian food booths.

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Upgrading iMac & Having Panda Express

We did such a cool thing today, that is, open the iMac and upgrade its hard drive. Before doing this construction, we went to Costco to get some groceries. After that, I asked if I can buy some food at the Americanized-Chinese restaurant which is right next to Costco for lunch. This chain restaurant is called Panda Express, it is kinda like a "fast food" version of Chinese food, today was my first time trying it. Some people always say that Americanized-Chinese food are nasty, but I found it is actually pretty good! But all workers in the restaurant are not Asian, which is pretty interesting, isn't it a Chinese restaurant? I ordered a plate of chow mein with Beijing beef and black pepper chicken entries, all of them taste fantastic, it is even more delicious than the real Chinese food! Why was that? I guess is because most of the entries are either spicy or really sweet, but anyway, I love it! Maybe I should learn to make some Americanized-Chinese food instead of real Chinese food so I could feed myself...haha

The process of upgrading iMac was a good opportunity for kids to learn about computer hardware.

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Shopping in the Mall & Uncle Paul's Arrival

(The content of this post happened on Dec 22nd, 2013 PST)

On the second day of Christmas holidays, Mr. Paul Anderson arrived San Diego, and he was going to stay here for a week. Mr. Anderson is my host mom's dad, he was also my dad's host dad. Our relationship is very special, I will be in this family was because of his help. A month ago, I was in Ipswich finding a new host family, my dad asked Mr. Anderson for help, since Mr. Anderson is used to be my dad's host dad when my dad was studying in America's college, and they still keep in touch. Mr. Anderson is very nice, ha asked his daughter, Karen, if she would like to host me, and she agreed. So that is why I will be in here.

I always call Mr. Anderson "Uncle Paul", since every time when my dad is telling me his story in America, he always says "Uncle Paul". Uncle Paul live in Chico, a town in Northern California, a town which my dad used to study in. Because of his coming, we cleaned the house and went shopping at the mall.

Since I am in San Diego, the mall in here will be bigger than in South Dakota. Although it is just a mall, but to me, this was my first time visiting the REAL mall in America, so I took many pictures. This is also my first time visiting the real Apple Store, not a Apple authorized reseller. I love this store so much! We then went eat at a restaurant called Red Robin, it is a restaurant just like T.G.I. Fridays, their food are very good.

The Apple Store in the mall

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Busy weekend - Visiting Downtown and Bicycling

This weekend was my second weekends in San Diego. Jason, Ethan, Brennan and I went playing "laser tag" last weekend. It is a really fun game, we used laser gun attack others to get points. Every player have to wear a special cloths that has many sensors on it, so the computer know who has been shot. We played the game in a dark room, it has many walls so the player can hide and not to be attacked. After playing 3 games, everyone were all very tired, but it was really fun!

Having dinner at Coronado bay, San Diego this weekend.

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Making supper with JJ ourself

Barb works very long time this season, sometime she even came home at 12 o'clock. Because of this, JJ and me have to make supper our-self most of the time. Two weeks before, we ate microwave food most of the time, but now, we find some ways that we can eat healthier. Such as making egg, pizza and Korean pancake.

Making the Korean pancake

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Experience of America's Chinese Restaurant

 (The content of this post happened on 22 Sept, 2013 CDT)

September 22, I have been here for a month and some more days. Today, we went Aberdeen to bought some groceries, then, we have lunch in Aberdeen. But lunch today was special, because it was Chinese food! I had been two months did not eat Chinese food, so I was pretty excited. There are 3 Chinese restaurant in Aberdeen, we went to the one which is on Main Street. It is a buffet restaurant, we can choose what whatever we want.

It's Chinese restaurant!

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