Wow. it was a busy weekend~~ I feel like I have become an official tour guide for LA now that I had shown so many friends around LA, always going to the same tourist attraction places.

Last Friday, my friend from Taiwan who’s studying in SDSU came to LA with 2 of her newly met friends from her language school. One is Spanish and the other is Taiwanese also. We went to Disneyland on Saturday and Santa Monica/Hollywood on Sunday. Their English weren’t that great but they tried every effort to communicate in the ways that everyone understand. After spending the entire weekend with them, I felt like my English has became poor as well~~

Disneyland was fun, even though we all felt a bit disappointed that it’s no longer the place of our dreams. We realized we’re all grown up and do not get excited anymore seeing Mickey Mouse or Snow White standing right in front of us. Instead of enjoying the happy music and cute decoration inside each ride, I noticed how old and worn down their facilities are. When we were waiting in line for Splash Mountain, they kept on holding up the line due to technical difficulties. We waited there for almost 2 hours. Disneyland has surely become old now. I think they should have tear down some old attractions and build new ones to attract more people!

I planned to take my friends to the famous LA spots:  Santa Monica pier and beach, Hollywood/Highland Kodak Theater and Chinese Mann Theater, and Beverly Hills Rodeo Drive. But I didn’t calculate the driving time to each places could take so long. They had to get back to San Diego with the 5 pm Grey Hound bus. So in the end we had to rush through Hollywood and skipped Rodeo Drive to fit into our one day sightseeing schedule. The Spanish friend was impressed by Santa Monica beach. She said it’s very similar to the beaches in Spain, where there are also street performers and roller coaster rides, shops around the beach. Hollywood was fun for them too and we took a lot of pictures with the Hollywood sign and the star name plates on Hollywood Boulevard. Too bad there wasn’t a lot of time to stay longer, or else I could’ve take them to more fun places in LA.

There were a group of anti-war people putting up rows of crosses on the beach. Each cross represent one soldier who died in Iraq. So far the total death number is 848 soldiers. Seeing rows and rows of white crosses standing there, it really provoked some thoughts for each bystanders. War is cruel. I could never understand how could people kill each other just for some selfish reasons. It’s just too sad…