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The drive to San Diego isn't too long from LA but involves massive Highways, no smaller than 5 lines in either direction, it can make the drive difficult as when your driving down a 7 lane highway and 2 lanes of traffic exiting and entering, with drivers darting back and forth through the lanes, most of the time without a blinker, can get a little stressful. With this in mind and the fact both of us being Anchorman fans really couldn't wait to arrivie in San Diego as quoted by Ron Burgundy: 'Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means a whale's vagina.' and decided to try and check out any of the locations that were in the movie, yet much to our disappointment after a quick google search to find out where they would be found that none of movie was actually filmed in San Diego, but back in LA.
Our hotel was actually just outside San Diego in place called Mission Valley, and after navigating our way through all the spagetti we arrived in what was a nice almost resort type of accommodation. After a quick drive through town we grabbed some grub at a huge shopping centre in Mission Valley. Much to our amusement while walking through we found a couple of unusual vending machines, one of Leah's favourites is the 'Cotton Candy' Machine and the winner of the 'only in the US award' a Hurricane Simulator (see photos.) Since we still weren't feeling too well we had an early night and thought we'd get more out of tomorrow with a decent sleep.
We woke up feeling refreshed and headed to the San Diego Zoo! Wow what a place, with sssooo many different animals. We would have taken a 1000 photos with 300 of them being of the Tigers, 300 being of the new 1 day old Giraffe, 200 of the otters and 200 of the Pandas. To both Leah's and my disappointment we were still unable to see a Raccoon for a inside joke, there was one at the zoo but it was asleep inside his little wooden box and wouldn't come out. =/ It was a rather impressive zoo with the amount of different animals that were there, elephants, rhino's, hippos, bears, baboons, flamingo's, monkeys and koalas, though we both thought that some of the animal cages/areas were a little small, and wouldn't recommend ordering anything from the 'Sydney Cafe'. It was a fun day with lots of walking around, so once we had seen everything there was to see went for a drive across town to the bay, then back to our hotel for a quick rest before heading out for a walk around town and down to harbour. The Downtown and habour area of San Diego is rather classy, and have some cool ships docked in the harbour. We then headed to a Man Vs Food joint called Lucha Libre which is a mexican wrestling themed gourmet taco shop. I had their Massive Surf and Turf Burrito and Leah had their Nachos both dishes were massive, tasted Awesome and best of all came to a total with drinks to $18. It was a great way to top the day off.
The next day we headed for the US/Mexico border, that runs between San Diego and Tijuana (TJ) in Mexico, which also happens to be the busiest border crossing in the world! We drove the 20 mins down to the border and after consulting our lonely planet guide we decided to park the car on the USA side and just walk the border and back. We got through the Mexican side no questions asked.. looks like if you can get into Mexico they are happy to have you..!
After walking past the border sign and taking a few happy snaps we decided not to go to TJ due to the growing drug cartel violence, so we headed back over the other side of the border. We now upnderstand why they told us to leave the car as the return border crossing was nowhere near as free flowing as the one into mexico. There were cars lined up for miles just sitting in trafic, we got a few pics so you can see! We walked back into the USA, this time having to produce passports and reasonings as to why we were in mexico and how long we intended to be in the US (the usual immigration style grilling) and then get our bags screened, after a short walk over the bridge we were back to our car!! The border is nothing like I (Leah) imagined it to be.. for some reason I had in my head that it would be like a dirt road leading into a dodgy little town (TJ) hence all the car jacking and violence, but its not at all, its like two massive cities seperated by only a hundred metres of three fences between.
After our Mexican experience we decided to hit some outlet shops we had driven past only mins before reaching the border, we headed to the Adidas outlet store (of course) and found that most items were 50% off the reduced price which made things like shirts $3, so while I left mark in his domain i headed over to a womens fashion outlet and found a bargain of my own, two new pretty dress (was rrp: $266 and I got them for $60) so def a decent little find!! After finally dragging Marky away from the Adidas store, with only 1 shirt and 6 pairs of socks (yes I was a little surprised..... it was time to hit the road again, this time we were going to work our way (slowly) back to LA.
Our first stop off was Mission Beach which is north west of San Diego. Like Santa Cruz it also has a carnival/amusment park along the beach. Marky had a ride on the Giant Dipper which is another wooden style rollacoaster this one was originally built in 1925!! Lucky they only just restored it... after our fun at the park we headed to the beach where Mark decided it was time to take a dip in the North Pacific Ocean, I decided to sit and watch while stuffing myself with the biggest bag of fairy floss I have ever seen!! Good choice on my behalf as after only 5 mins he clambered out absolutely frozen.. yep last time he tried that ocean!! After Marky dried off we headed further north of San Diego to another place called La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya) Beach, where they have a man made cove called the childrens beach which has famously been taken over by sea lions and there is no solution to keeping them away. We arrived at La Jolla super keen to see the sea lions (well I was super keen...) only to see that there were none!!!! well one, but it was in the water just off the beach! Deflated by not seeing the sea lions Mark decided we would go for a walk down the esplenade, I mean it was rather a nice sight in itself even without the sea lions. After a 15 minute walk we rounded the edge of the last bay along the esplanade (by this time I was keen to get back to the car and keep going, but Mark insisted we do one more bay) and there they where heaps of sea lions hanging out on the rocks having a great time, sunbathing and swimming and generally annoying eachother. After watching the sea lions for ages and taken a million pictures.... well I must admit I took a million pics! It was time to head back to the car and head on up to LA. We had been avoiding this all day as we knew from last time just how bad the LA traffic is. We had booked a hotel for the night in the middle of downtown LA. We finally made it to our hotel (another inexpensive, very basic motel) and crashed and burned until Marky got up at 3.00 am to call his mumma bear for her birthday (damn time difference, being so awkward!!) after another couple hours sleep we got up as we had a big big day ahead of us! We were keen to check out downtown LA as well as have another look at Hollywood and also had to drive out Vegas (normally a four hour drive from LA).
After seeing the guts of LA, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Jewelery District. We headed to Rodeo Drive to check it out. While we were driving down the street Mark almost lost it at the rare sight of a Bugattii Veyron (its only worth 2 Million Euro's.) So Mark decided that we must stop to actually walk down the street (Don't worry he took staaacks of photos so you will be able to see it too!!). Then we drove back to Hollywood to grab some souverners and then hit the road for Vegas!!!
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