LA

Starting with the plane which couldn't take off cos someone forgot to sign the flight log, changing planes to a completely different company, and loosing our luggage in the process... didn't bode well, not to mention Phil suffering from some bad food poisoning. But we rented a car and headed to my cousins place to recuperate... Culture shock... everything costs too much, and where have all the street vendors gone? And where else but Hollywood could you go to try and find medical help for Phil and find the medical centre is being used as a TV set instead... Scrubs!

Universal Studios

Wow, very artificial but somehow still heaps of fun with rides, shows, special effects, giant characters and all.

San Diego Zoo

We took a drive down to San Diego to visit the zoo, and ended up experiencing LA's famous freeways, traffic, and bad driving. We counted 8 lanes in our direction at one point with 6-8 going the other way. Karen felt very nervous with cars zipping by ignoring speed limits, not using indicators and generally driving very agressively...

The zoo was nice, and highlights were the hippos, pandas, polar bears, gorillas, chimps... and some of their impressive enclosures. Think we have to visit the Melbourne zoo again when we get home.