Day 1 -- Getty Villa & Medieval Times (Los Angeles, CA)

11/23/2016 Wednesday

We woke up early today as we have a planned vacation in Southern California over Thanksgiving with our friends. After having breakfast at home, we started our journey to the south. On the way we stopped for lunch before reaching our first destination, Getty Villa in Malibu.

I have been wanting to visit the Getty Museum and Villa for a while but wasn't able to make it last time we were in LA. Since we are short on time, we had to pick one of the places to visit and I decided to pick Getty Villa. The reason being that I wanted to drive by PCH (Pacific Coastal Highway) since it was on the way to the Villa. For the Getty Villa, you will need to go online and reserve the tickets (free of charge) ahead of time so that you can enter the Villa since they only allow limited number of people each day. 

After paying for parking, we went inside and it was beautiful. If you go there early, you can go to both the museum and villa with the same parking ticket. 

They have a very nice open auditorium and cafe which we passed by before entering the museum.

Inside the museum, there are many statues of Roman Gods and other antiques on display.

There is also a family room where the kids can have fun drawing and pretending they are Roman warriors.

After that, we went outside where there is a large fountain of water. Unfortunately, it was under repair when we were there.

Overall, it was a beautiful place and gave us a very relaxing and peaceful feeling. After staying there for a little over an hour, we left for our next destination. We had reserved a Medieval Times dinner and show, and since we had 2+ hours before our dinner, we decided to check in our hotel first.

Unfortunately, we failed to take into consideration the bad traffic in LA, so it took us more than 2 hours to our hotel, so we decide to go straight to dinner instead.

First, we got our tickets at the front desk and we were divided into separate colors. They gave us the paper hats to wear and we went inside to check out the horses they have. The horses looked well groomed and the kids were excited looking at them up close.

Soon after that, we were asked to enter into the room where the show and dinner begins. We were seated according to our colors and there is a warrior associated with each color so that we can cheer for.

After we were seated, the waitress came by to take our drink order and started serving us while the show begins.

The show was pretty exciting and it was a very good experience but the only downside for me is that we have to eat with our hands as there were no utensils provided as they try to mimic the experience of eating during Medieval Times. 

Overall, we had a fun busy first day in LA and look forward to the next few days.

Sunol Regional Wilderness, California

08/13/16 Saturday

The kids are with my parents for the last 2 weeks of summer before school starts, so Anthony and I decided to go for a hike. It was a pretty hot day today, so we decided to go in the evening around 5:30pm. 

After we got off the 680 freeway, we had to drive about 5 miles or so to reach the entrance. On the way, we saw some deers and cows. After paying a parking fee of $5, we went to the visitor center. Unfortunately, the center was already closed when we went, but we were able to get a printed map.

We started at the end of the road on Geary Street, past the picnic area. We parked our car there and walked across a long bridge. 

We kept walking uphill and finally after more than 1 mile, we reached Little Yosemite. It's basically a small waterfall and there is a creek. To get down to the water, we had to climb over the rocks to descend and it was a little challenging. We have to be careful not to trip between the rocks and fall.

After taking some pictures at the creek, we climb up and went for the Canyon View Trail hike. On the way there, we saw many cows roaming around.

We decided to stop there and go back. The hike back to the parking lot was a breeze as it was mainly downhill and the weather was cooling down as well. As you can see from the picture, California is in drought and our hills are so brown now. Hopefully, it will rain more this winter.

After the hike, we decided to reward ourselves with all you can eat Korean BBQ. 

We were so full after the dinner and had to go to Target to walk more since it was already dark. If not, we would have went back to Sunol and do another hike.