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Published: July 17th 2009
Southern California, or ‘SoCal’ as the locals like to call it, is
the place to be. Oozing with trendiness and confidence; overflowing with bronzed bodies and hyper-real colours. Whilst Santa Monica had a considerably different atmosphere to more laid-back and less image-conscious Long Beach, they both uphold their Southern Californian roots and traditions of promoting excessive sun-basking, refreshingly cool cocktails and über-cool small beachside businesses.
Anaheim, being the other SoCal locale that we ventured to, is home to Walt Disney’s Disneyland.
The Disneyland, with the original spinning tea cups and the Disney Castle and Mickey and Minnie Mouse running amuck. We got in early knowing full well that being the summer school holidays, thousands of little shits i mean kids would be running around causing chaos. Some of the rides were incredible, such as the Pirates of the Caribbean ride (on which the successful movies featuring Johnny Depp are based on) that had such amazing attention to detail it must have been designed by a team of anal-retentive architects suffering from OCD. There was an amazing bobsled roller coaster ride that I swear nearly ripped off Aaron and I's heads as we rocketed almost upside-down and barely buckled in because
of the impatient ride staff.
Disneyland was definitely worth going to just the once; it really is more orientated to the little munchkins but we still had a lot of fun nonetheless. Although, we were very lucky and just missed getting on a ride that involved log-boats falling down a cascade waterfall that broke down just 5 minutes before we were about to get on. That night I went home and googled ‘disneyland accidents’ and it was probably for the best I did that at the end of the day rather than the beginning. It was surreal going to Disneyland with Brent and Kim, and really nice dipping our toes in their warm hotel swimming pool catching up on life over a few beers. Times like that, we really wish we were home to share that with more of our friends.
Saying adieu to these two until we meet again in San Francisco (with flowers in our hair), we retreated to Long Beach for 5 days to get some much needed R&R before we hit the road again. We were so relaxed that we didn’t even party on July 4th, and instead opted to lounge on the beach
and watch the 9pm fireworks over Long Beach Harbour and the Queen Mary cruise liner, and went home early to get some beauty sleep.
Aha!
Night night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite. There is a reason we say this to our loved ones before they sleep…because they freaking exist. No, they are not mystical creatures that are a figment of some clever poet’s imagination and nor are they friendly cute little bugs that live in your bed and protect you and your freaking unicorn. These f%!@(MISSING)ing bastards bit me at least 212 times and have physically and mentally scarred me for life. Aaron got away with just a dozen or so bites but apparently they love Malaysian flesh. We have gone through developing countries and slept in the skankiest of hostels and shared dormitories with hundreds of other potentially disease-ridden backpackers … but it is in a Californian hotel that we get bed bugs.
Naturally, I googled ‘bed bugs’ like an insane mental patient searching for god. Apparently these critters are making a huuuge resurgence in North America particularly in California and New York, fuelled by an increase in international travel to these
parts of the USA and the bugs’ resilience to pest control chemicals. They can infest even the cleanest of 5-star boutique hotels (one lady sued Pacific Regency for $300,000 a couple of years back for getting bitten over 600 times) and can live without feeding for up to 12 months. We managed to get compensated 2 nights tariff for some medication and an enormous amount of grievance, but it will take a lot more than that for me to get over the anxiety and stress I now feel when going to bed.
Let this be a cautionary tale to all you travellers out there: CHECK YOUR BEDS BEFORE YOU GO TO SLEEP!!!! Lift up the sheets and see if any of these bastards are hiding in the seams of the mattress or wooden headboards of your bed, check for any blood spots which are a result of you rolling over and squashing/exploding these bastards in the middle of the night, and if you think you have been bitten by something then GET THE F$!@ OUT OF THERE ASAP!!!!!
I'm thinking of starting a facebook support group. Seriously.
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Elise
non-member comment
awwww Jian ur bites look very sore!!! u poor thing! We had flea's here a while back whilst everyone else was in newy and im still scarred.....tiny bugs a lil bastards!!!! SoCal looks fab, i love the photos of disneyland!! Space mountain, Splash mountain and pirates of the carribian are my fav's....splash mountains song that they do at the end "zipidee do daa" is HILARIOUS in jappiness....even after the 14th ride...although by that time i was prolly just delerious hahahaha. xoxoxoxoxoxox