Day 17 (July 20): Universal and Pasadena

Total Driving Time: 26.6 miles (trip total: 4,418.1 miles)

States Traveled To: California

Main Activity: Universal Studios, dinner and a night in Pasadena with Nhi

Waking up is always so much nicer when you're not in the back of your van. It's even nicer when you're in southern California. And it is even nicer when you're about to spend the day at Universal Studios.

We arrived at Universal shortly after it opened at nine. We tried using coupons that we had picked up at a local Burger King for $15 off, but the woman at the ticket counter told us that the coupons were only for southern California residents so we had to pay full price. Lame.

We went over the map of Universal to plan out our day. There are only about five rides at Universal but there are several 3-D shows that are fun to see. And at the Universal in Hollywood, the studio tour is a must.

The map told us to go to the back section of the park first and ride them early when less people were there. It was right. The wait time for all the rides there was five minutes or less. The first ride we went on was The Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride.

The indoor rollercoaster was way faster than I thought it would be which I loved. The next ride we went on was Jurassic Park THE RIDE, a log flume ride that brings you "face-to-face with "living" dinosaurs, a 50-ft. T-Rex, hungry raptors, and the only exit, a treacherous plunge straight down an 84-ft. vertical drop waterfall" (from the studio map).

This ride was also a lot more exciting than I thought it would be and the big splash at the end completely drenched us. Im not sure why I thought the rides would be tamer than they were. I guess I thought it was more aimed at kids than it was. In fact, it was so adult-oriented that there was even an area where you could trade your kids in for better kids!

The next ride on our list was the new and crazy-popular The Simpsons Ride, where we had to face our longest wait time all day: fifteen minutes. If this had been Six Flags Over Georgia, everyone would have been racing to this ride because it had the shortest wait time.

The great thing about the Simpsons Ride is that they have about fifty TVs playing different clips from the show the whole time you are in line. Many of the clips were from an episode where the Simpsons go to a theme park, such as this one:

Several of the characters came out and took pictures with people:

As you can see behind Marge, the gift shop for the ride was inside a replica of the Kwik-E-Mart, which for huge Simpsons fans like myself was totally awesome (the other side of the building was Moe's Bar). The ride was also very fun and entertaining. When we reached the front of line and were waiting to board, there were screens on both sides of us where characters would stand there and occasionally say something to you. Apu stood next to us and didnt say much, although he did scratch his neck a few times and sneeze.

After the Simpsons ride, we tried to race over to The Terminator 2: 3D to catch a showing, but we were a minute late and they wouldnt let us in. So we went to the House of Horrors and would return for the next showing.

The House of Horrors was a haunted house where you walked through all of the famous Universal horror movie sets, including Frankenstein, Dracula, Psycho, Chucky, The Mummy, Dawn of the Dead, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The live actors actually made it pretty scary. As you walk through each set, characters from the movie jump out from dark corners and scare the bejesus out of you. One guy behind us kept trying to scare the girls he was with and

every time they screamed he would get a good laugh. But when we were walking through the Texas Chainsaw set, Leatherface leapt out at him and he got so freaked out he almost fell to the ground.

The sets were almost too realistic. We walked through a "morgue" scene that had body bags hanging from the ceiling. There were so many that you had to push them aside to get past. The bags were heavy to make it seem like there were actual bodies in there (it seemed real). And the weirdest part was, they made the room smell horrible to recreate a "dead" smell.

After the House of Horrors, we went to see the Terminator 2: 3D show. I think this is one of the oldest Universal attractions, because I seem to remember the floating metallic head of the terminator being in a commercial at least fourteen years ago. You know, this one:

We decided to take a break and walk back to the van for lunch. We had bought food the day before at Walmart and kept it in the cooler. The meal was surprisingly decent. Liz even made a salad from some vegetables that she had bought at Walmart to go along with our sandwiches and chips. We both were so full by the end that we began to feel sleepy and almost fell asleep on the mattress pads in the back of the van.

Before we had left for lunch, the wait time for the studio tour was down to 15 minutes after hovering around 30 minutes all day. We thought about doing the studio tour, which takes about 45 minutes, and then going to lunch but we decided we were too hungry to wait. And I am glad we didnt, because when we came back to the park, the wait time said less than five minutes. Hooray!

The cool thing about the studio tour at the Universal in Hollywood is that the sets we saw were the actual sets used for filming the shows and movies. Some of the sets were created solely for the entertainment of the tour, such as the Jaws scene and The Mummy tomb, but everything else was "real."

A list of some of some of the sets we saw:

• The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park
• Skull Island from King Kong
• Whoville from The Grinch
• the plane crash scene from The War of the Worlds
• Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives
• the Bates Motel from Psycho

There were also many sets that had been used in countless films, such as the Old Western Town, Old Mexico, The Courthouse, Little Europe, and Rome. They showed us some cool special effects, too, such as how they create floods and earthquakes and blow up cars. One funny thing they did on the tour was show video clips of a studio tour that Conan O'Brien had recently led.

Jurassic Park:

The War of the Worlds:

Desperate Housewives:

When we passed the Bates Motel, Norman Bates was carrying the body of a woman out to his car ("Why would he do this in broad daylight?" Conan had said).

When he saw us, he began chasing us with a knife. During the Conan-led tour, Conan shouted to him, "Why are you wearing corduroy? It's 98 degrees out here!"

The last thing we wanted to do after the studio tour was see the Shrek: 4D show. After the show, we went to buy souvenirs at the Simpsons gift shop (in the Kwik-E-Mart!). On our way back to the van, we stopped at a Jamba Juice and bought a couple smoothies for the ride home.

When we got back to Nhi's house, she called me from her office and asked if we had plans for dinner. We didnt, so she offered to take us out for Phở, a Vietnamese beef and noodle soup. I had actually had Phở before (my mom and aunt love it) but Liz never had. When Nhi got back from work at around 6, she picked us up and drove us to one of her favorite Phở places. "To get good Phở, you have to go to Chinatown," she told us. "For some reason they do not have good Phở at the Vietnamese places near my place."

The Phở was amazing. If you have never had it before, go out and try it. The soup on its own is delicious, but after mixing in basil, bean sprouts, peppers, hoisin sauce (sweet), hot sauce, and lime juice, it is, as Flanders would say, scrum-diddly-umptious. The sugary lime drink we had with it was superb as well.

After dinner, Nhi wanted to show us around her beautiful city of Pasadena. For those who dont watch college football, Pasadena is home to the annual Rose Bowl and the Tournament of Roses Parade. The California Institute of Technology is also located in Pasadena.

The first place we drove was over the beautifully-lit Colorado Street Bridge. Since I forgot to bring my camera along with us, I am going to have to put pictures on here that I found on the Internet.

The next place we visited was the Rose Bowl stadium. Apparently it is a great place to exercise, because even at 9 at night there were hundreds of people biking, running, and walking. It was definitely a happening place.

The last place we went to was Pasadena City Hall, an incredible building to see at night. "It's one of the last places in Pasadena that actually belongs to the people," Nhi said, "We dont really have parks or public places like that, so a lot of people come here." This is not your average city building, whose only purpose is to house the city government. Pasadena City Hall is more like something you would see in Rome or Paris. It has a courtyard with a fountain, it is almost all outdoors with open hallways and few doors, and the architecture is the kind that makes people who couldnt care less about architecture actually appreciate it.

Here are some of the best pictures I could find of it:

After exploring the courtyard and hallways, Nhi led us upstairs to a walkway where you could see almost all of Pasadena.

After our tour was complete, Nhi asked if she could take us out for desert. Although we were still full of Phở, we couldnt say no. She took us to Noodle World where we had shaved ice loaded with fruit, ice cream, and condensed milk. We had to wait a while for the desert to come, but it gave us a great chance to talk and really get to know Nhi. We told her all about our trip and she told us about some of the exciting trips she'd been on. We talked about CouchSurfing and about how crazy and amazing it is. She is a firm believer in the philosophy of "pay it forward". She would not let me pay for anything the entire night and believe me, I tried. Her generosity and kindness made our night in Pasadena one of the most unforgettable of the entire trip.