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I’m in the Taipei airport right now, waiting to board my flight back to Vietnam. A recap of my two and half weeks of California, USA fun:
- Adventures:
- Six Flags Magic Mountain on New Years Eve – X2 is still a fantastic ride, even if only for the first 15 seconds, but Batman and Goliath were closed
- 49ers vs Lions, lower deck seats – 49ers win!
- Warriors vs Suns – Warriors win!
- Warriors vs Celics – Warriors win!
- Sherlock Homes – might enjoy it more if I saw it again as I fell asleep towards the end (that only happens when I see movies soon after my returns from Vietnam, gave it 6/10)
- Up in the Air – a movie that reminds me why I have to continue working; I can’t let someone fire me (gave it 8/10)
- Star Trek Exhibit at the Tech Museum in San Jose – interesting, but way overpriced
- Saw UFC 108 at M Cafe with Kyle, Tay, Midland, and Mike – great setup, a ton of TVs
- Food:
- KFC – The new grilled chicken is pretty good; it definitely has that picnic chicken taste to it. Great to have biscuits again…yummy, biscuits
- Albertsons/Lucky’s Fried Chicken – traditionally my favorite fried chicken for taste and value, it didn’t hold up this time around.
- SmokeEaters – formerly Cluck-u near Santa Clara University, had good wings and fries one of my first nights back meeting up with Andrew
- Fiesta Del Mar – Mexican food! bBurrito during lunch with Kyle
- Fenton’s Creamery & Restaurant - this is the famous ice cream place mentioned in Pixar’s movie Up. Had my favorite, cookies n’ cream in a cone.
- McDonalds – McChicken, fries
- In-N-Out – cheeseburger and fries, and then a double double with fries. Both times were subpar for me. I’m a bit worried about their quality, and maybe it’s just in my head, but after reading In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules by Stacy Perlman, I am very, very concerned about their future.
- El Pollo Loco – chicken and CHURROS! (best ever)
- Costco – chicken warp (not as good as some would have me believe) and churro (not as good as El Pollo)
- Harris Ranch – ordered ribs after heading home on I-5 with Mike on the Magic Mountain trip. Fries and Ribs were good, as they should have been for a $30 meal.
- Mountain Mike’s – had pizza there while watching Cal lose their bowl game. Substandard, a bit dry, maybe a bit hurried. Wasn’t cheap either, I think it was near $20 for a medium.
- Thai Pepper – my pad thai wasn’t so great, but maybe other items are better there.
- Other:
- Tried out Redbox to rent movies – $1/night’s a great value and very convenient. Probably not coincidentally, Blockbuster is closing a ton of brick and mortar stores, including one in downtown San Jose. How can they compete with Netflix and Redbox?
- Used Yelp to research places to eat and go – my sister remarked, it feels like it’s early success came from Asian popularity, where you can feel that much of the writing comes from Asians
- Tried out dad’s GPS tracker on the Magic Mountain trip. GPS is brilliant! Almost makes me want to move back to the US just to go on trips and have GPS lead the way.
- Did some work. Poop.
- Had light basketball workouts 7 times over the 2.5 weeks. Hopefully, I’ll be better for the mean courts of Vietnam (no joke, it’s tough out there)
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