Well, I'm back from my trip to Southern California. Overall it was a very fun weekend and I got to spend time with my sister, who I don't get to see very often.

On our way up, my sister was still at work, so we checked out The Getty Museum, which was funded and built by the estate of this really really rich dude named Getty who appreciated art. The building itself is wildly beautiful, and the landscape is truly a sight to behold. Looking out over a balcony, you can see miles and miles of the interstate and the magnificent cities in the background. Gah....I'm at a loss for words here. It was a very amazing sight and would have inspired me had I had something to be inspired about. Instead I just sat there and admired the beauty of Southern California. Despite being smoggy and polluted and noisy and filled with some of the biggest assholes in the entire world (but not as much as Vegas), it's still a wonderful place and is a testament to the power of mankind and capitalism, I guess.

Anyways, the inside of the museum was pretty cool too. I mean, art really isn't my thing, but I still enjoyed very much what I saw. The problem was that with so much art, it all started to look alike after a while. Paintings about jesus and fruit. I don't know, it was well done and very realistic, but after a while, it wasn't very interesting to look at. What really caught my eye were the ancient sculptures (although the troves of naked people got pretty boring after a while too) and artifacts. I especially enjoyed the 16th (15th?) century songbooks. Man, they had some pretty crazy music notation back then. It wasn't really about what to sing but more about how to sing it. Singers were expected to already know the notes. The ancient Roman/Greek sculptures were also cool, espcially the elaborately designed and sculpted coffin piece. It must have taken ages to scupt all the intricate details on that slab of marble, all to be wasted on a dead guy. Figures.

Anyways, after meeting up with my sister and my cousin at my sis' apartment, we headed out to get some Korean food at this place we always go to when down South. It was nice to just sit down and catch up with some people I hadn't talked to in a long while. I also saw some pictures of myself that my cousin had taken during Thanksgiving. I look better when I'm laughing because I have a genuine smile on my face. For some reason, I can't smile on cue and look like I'm genuinely smiling. It looks like I"m faking it. I guess it's something i have to work on. I'm just not very photogenic. OH well. It's not like people take lots of pictures of me anyways..

The next day, we headed down to San Diego and went to Sea World. The drive down was insane. Or to be more precise, my sister went insane during the drive down. Between inept drivers, hunger, and having to pee, she never thought she would make it, and in turn, we nevr thought we were going to make it. The day itself was a pretty good time. It started out on kind of a sour note with the obligatory expensive meal that doesn't even taste that good. And then we saw a pretty lame show involving otters and sea lions. The problem was that they didn't really do that much. Most of the action was done by the humans, who weren't really that funny. The opening act was kinda funny as one of the main guys danced around to some music (Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Milli Vanilli) in costumes, but the rest of it was pretty dumb. But then it got better after seeing the dolphin show, a water circus type show, and several exhibits about sea stars, freshwater fish, sharks, and manatees. And then, we saw the big guy himself, Shamu. Judging from like every other water show I've been to, I figured that about the eight row up, despite being designated as "the Soak Zone", would be safe from splashing. Of course, I forgot to factor in that Shamu is very very very big. Not only did we get wet, we got absolutely soaked!! Even rows NOT designated as teh Soak Zone felt the effects of Shamu's big fat tail splash. A good way to end the show, but unfortunately it was dark and a little bit cold by then. Afterwards, we went to one of those 3-D shows that have interactive effects with the audience (like Honey I Shrunk the Audience or Terminator 2 3D). It was pretty cool cuz it had pirates, but the end had a pretty big splash that got a lot of people wet. I didn't feel it so much, but my sister seemed the tiniest bit annoyed (just a little bit, she actually seemed more annoyed at the fact that I asked if she got wet). After that we decided to leave and ended up having dinner at around 2 at some cheap Korean place. We just hit the rush before all the clubs closed and trendy, arrogant Asians with Rice Rockets would show up for a cheap meal before turning in.

The next day, the day we were to head up, was pretty uneventful, except that it was the first time I had ever had Dim Sum. I have got to say that that is one of the coolest and most inconvenient systems ever. Its cool that you get to pick out what you want, and its good stuff, but its also like eating a meal of appetizers, and at the price of appetizers too. Good food, but a tad pricey. Oh yeah, and on the way up, we saw a truck filled with tomatos. It was cool!

Quote of the day: "Why would anyone want sandwiched at midnight?" -my mom