Universal Studios

 As the engine light on my car came on on the wednesday before thanks giving, it looked like the car would not take a long trip at all. Nissan service center put in oil that was virtually emptied apparently due to a leak and engine arbitrarily jerked at least a couple of times enroute that I was not even sure I would make it to the service centre, much less a long weekend road trip.  Once that was fixed, had to fix the break pads which were at 1mm thickness and I have felt the breaks being pretty weak. Niya's one week vacation would have gone pretty eventless but for the Universal Studios trip we did today so that she has something to share with her friends when she gets back to school tomorrow, 

      Amusement parks and it's rides are not something I am terribly interested in. So I was looking at this mainly as good time for Divya,Niya and Kittoose while I would take a backseat. Since the studios was pretty close, we took a yearly pass and we approached the park from a we-are-going-to-be-back standpoint. 

        With hardly any homework, we walked into the "Walking Dead" show which is not recommended for kids below thirteen years old. It was pretty noisy and basically had actors dressed as wounded deadbodies in big groups and suddenly one of them would walk into your space. As I was preoccupied with making sure Kittoose is fine, I was not really super scared. Neither was Kittoose. However, Niya just went to bed scared of the walking dead. 

        Next, we took the minion ride after a 25 minute wait which was a 3D show with jerking seats and was pretty well directed. They have videos playing all along the line with minions entertaining the crowd in the wait and the show was pretty good too. 

     We had the hot dog, turkey sandwich etc lunch which was not something any of us enjoyed. As we were to come here again, we decided to give priority to the seasonal shows which meant the Harry Porter rides. There are sign boards that show wait times for the various shows ranging from 10 minutes to 60 minutes. The harry porter ride which Kittoose cannot take due to his height was a 60 minute wait. So Divya and Niya went on that line while Amey and me went to the roller coaster ride which was a 25 minute wait. As I am pretty afraid of heights, I was watching to see whether me or my three year old son seated next to me would get more scared. As the roller coaster climbed to the precarious perch from where the fall would start, I could see in his eyes the same knowledge and I could also see him overcoming that much more confidently than me. He is a brave boy and was asking for a second round right after. 

          We hung around a bit and Divya/Niya joined us excited about the ride they had done. We decided to do the universal studios tour next. And that was great infotainment for me in particular and everyone else as well. Once that was done, we came back and watched a few shows - The Special Effects show, the animal actors etc which we chose mainly because the wait times were low. The harry porters section now had a special lighting show which starts only after dark and it was like the castle show in Disney and was pretty good. Child switch is an option that basically lets one parent babysit the kid while the second parent takes the ride with the older kid. Divya had learned about this in the morning harry porter ride. Late evening, the wait was cut down to 15 minutes or less and Niya and me went on the harry porter ride and then Divya and Niya went on the same ride again. The ride was much better in daylight than at night for them. 

         We decided to start the return journey and we had dinner at a chinese place from the City walk which was pretty good. The city walk is a line of shops which gets more life at night with the striking neon lighting. There was a DJ playing with a huge TV and camera pointing at the crowd and the crowd seeing themselves on the TV. It was an easy sell to the crowd and everyone pretty much stopped there and danced to the DJ's music watching themselves on the screen, waving at themselves, thrilled, excited. That was an awesome finale and we hung around as long as the DJ did and then we walked to the parking lot. 

       There were people from everywhere and once again the cosmopolitan charm of LA was working it's magic. I remember feeling pretty much the same way while waiting for the train at the Getty Centre. I am pretty sure I am going back there quite a few times. My favorite was the universal studio tours.