San Diego, 12/2006

Second day, we got up early for Legoland.  Had a quick breakfast at the nearby Starbucks and headed out.  Because of the long drive (35-40 minutes from San Diego Downtown), Han was a little impatient in the car.  But she was all happy when we finally arrived.

The first things we noticed were the legos everywhere and all the things made of legos - lego elephants, lego frogs, lego dinosaurs and a giant lego Christmas tree (with ornaments).  Amazing!   HanHan was afraid of the dinosaurs because they looked so real especially with its scary roar (the sound effect).

The first ride we took was the Fairy Tale Brook which floated along a man-made river with lego fairy tale characters displayed on the river bank. We saw the Little Red Ridding Hood, Three Little Pigs and Jack and the Beanstalk came to life in this 7-8 minutes ride.  Next, we got in line for the Sky Cruiser which was one of the most popular rides in the park.  What impressed me the most was the separate play area for kids to build legos while the parents wait in line.  Kids entered thru one gate at the far end of the line and exited thru another that was near the front of the line.  The ride was great, but it was a full hour wait for 5 minutes of fun, yikes!

Next, we stopped by a pond full of lego animals - turtles, giraffes, elephants, and alligators where kids can shoot water at with the water guns.  This turned out to be HanHan's favorite thing to do in the park.  So next time you see her, be sure to ask Han about her showering the animals at Legoland...

Finally, it's lunch time and we rushed into the first indoor eating place we found.  Still remembering the pizza from yesterday, HanHan demanded pizza again.  Unfortunately, there was no pizza at this place so she settled for a hot-dog kid's meal.  I had shrimp linguini ($9.99) and Mark ordered a Philly cheese steak sandwich ($8.99).  The food was surprisingly good with reasonable theme-park price.

After lunch, we kept walking and ended up at Miniland.  This is where miniture lego landmarks or cities are built.  We saw a mini replica of NYC, Mardi Gras, San Francisco, the White House, Kennedy Space Center and many more.  The even more amazing part is the Block of Fame where faces of celebrities old and young were modeled with legos.  They looked so real it gave me goose bumps staring at them...

Here's NYC (left) and Mardi Gras (right):

Here's Golden Gate Bridge plus Lombard Street (left) and Chinese Theater in Legowood (right):

Last but not least, the Washington DC Capitol Building (left) and Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad (right):

After strolling Miniland, we found a house full of legos of different sizes and Han played with the giant legos there.  By then, Mark had discovered apply fries and wanted a taste so we headed to Knight's Kingdom where HanHan rode the Royal Joust horse all by herself!  And she looked so cute and happy on the horsey! But then, my camera had run out of battery at this point (how could that be!!!), so I've only captured this one and only Han knight picture.  :(  At this point, even though there were still many places we haven't visited, we were ready to call it a day. 

Watch out Legoland, we will be BACK!

Dinner time, we went to a decent family Italian restaurant, Trattoria Fantastica, at Little Italy.  Han wanted pizza again so we ordered one small pizza and a veal dish.  The veal was wrapped in prosciutto, topped with think layers of mozzerella cheese and drizzled with more olive oil.  It's very good, but I'm sure to have a heart attack if I eat like this everyday!  In fact, the pizza was big enough to feed all 3 of us and we didn't need the veal dish at all.  So we took half of the pizza back to the hotel but ended up throwing it away since there's no way to heat it up.  (On a side note, I learned that mini-fridges and microwaves in the hotel room is crucial.) 

The other side of the restaurant is a dessert shop that belongs to the same owner.  So we ordered another cannoli for dessert and I personally liked this cannoli better than Solunto's.  With that, our second day at San Diego had a very sweet ending...