5 posts tagged “downtown”
Well the day started out with me finishing up the text part of the blogs from Elitches and the Pike's Peak Incline and Bowling that next day. I was sorta worried that I was going to get behind because I had a lot on my mind for those blogs. Luckily, just before I left to go meet up with the others to hang out and play basketball at Sinton Park, I finished the Elitches video and at the same time finishing the last couple of sentences for my latest blog that day. Around four that afternoon, I headed with my bike to Sinton Park. I thought I was going to be late or something. To my surprise, I was the first and only one there for about 15-20 minutes. Good thing though, people eventually started to show up. Originally, we had plans to go swimming right after the park. But that didn't happen. We stuck around the park, not necessarily just playing basketball the whole time, but pretty much just hanging out and attempting back flips. I myself didn't attempt any back flips, but Jeff did. The results weren't pretty when he tried doing one a second, guided lol. Matt and Keanan also attempted to try and do front flips. Keanan eventually successfully completed one ... and on video. After we got thirsty, we all went to 7-11 to cop ourselves some Slurpees.
While we were there, I gave Keanan and Matt the idea to start taking a collection of picture in front of places doing back flips. While they were doing their back flips, they seemed to be getting some attention. These two guys started walking out and they confronted Keanan and Matt. They convinced them to do yet another back flip for them on video. Now that's what you call Keanan and Matt, monkey flipping celebs. I called it a day for myself with them and split ways to go to Giane's place to meet up with the rest of the Flips. When I got there, Julie took me home to drop my bike off while I got washed up and ready to go to downtown for dinner. When we got back to Giane's we left straight to downtown to meet up with Julius and Romano at Old Chicago.
Download: Pictures from Sinton Park
When we parked and tried to get a seat at Old Chicago, there was a thirty to forty-five minute wait for the table. So what we ended up doing to kill time for dinner, we just walked around and talked. While we were walking, that's when we met up with Julius and Romano. Time seemed to go by fast because before we knew it, we were called to get seated. When we got seated, it took us a short while to figure out what we wanted to get. I ended up being the last one at the table to be undecided. When the time came up, I decided to get a mushroom swiss burger. In the end, I ate a lot. I ate my food, some of Marie Fe's chicken sandwich, some of Julie's nachos, some of Giane's fish, and some of RJ's quesadilla. I was stuffed. After staying there for about two and half hours, most of us went back to Giane's to chill. RJ left when we got back, same with Marie Fe. Julie and Hannah stayed behind to go to the Ritz for a couple of hours. So we just chilled and talked and me, Steve, and Mav watched Giane and Julius practice for the dance before we eventually left for home when Hannah and Julie arrived back.
Well to my surprise, I actually did something today. After spending most of the day on the computer tagging and organizing my pictures, I went to Memorial Park along with Darlene, Jon, and Joy to play some tennis. We played doubles for most of the time. The teams were Darlene and Jon vs. me and Joy. Boy, we got our butts whooped. But I still had fun. Right after that, we all decided to go to downtown to grab something to drink and eat. We first went to the Coffee Shop to cop ourselves a boba drink. I tried the new orange flavored pineapple boba, yahh I sorta forgot the name. Joy got the passion fruit boba, which she didn't like, so she basically gave that to me and Darlene. And instead, she got the traditional taro boba. Darlene got I think a chocolate type of boba, I don't remember exactly what though. After the boba, we walked down the street to grab some Chipotle. Well, at least the girls did. That was basically my day out.
So today, Saturday, Alex, Mav's family, Monica's friend Tori, and I all went to Elitch Gardens, the family theme park formally known as Six Flags Elitch Gardens. The day started off pretty well considering that we slept most of the way up to Downtown Denver, the location of Elitch Gardens. Mav and I attempted to try and keep ourselves busy during the drive there by watching The Descent on their portable DVD player. What ended up happening was that we both started to fall asleep. I guess getting very few hours of sleep'll, in the end, benefit you in which you won't have to stay up for hours during drives to far destinations. So what was supposed to be considered a 2 hour drive can feel like a 5 minute ride because of sleeping. Great thing huh ??
Anyways when we finally arrived to the theme park, that's when the true fun started to happen. We arrived at the parking just in time for opening. Before we actually went in though, we had to solve a little problem before proceeding. So last night, Mav bought an extra ticket on accident because they already had the right number of ticket beforehand. After like 2-3 minutes with finding a resale, I found a person who bought the extra for the price we got it for, $24.99. It was pretty sweet. Once we got in there, all the young'n's went straight to the Mind Eraser. It was pretty cool cause all the rides we rode that day, they basically had no lines, so the wait was very little. Well anyways, what was memorable about this ride was that after riding the ride, the picture of Mitch's face was priceless ... well because you couldn't see it. While everyone had their usual roller coaster face, Mitch looked like a dead zombie throwing up from alcohol. Right after that, we went straight to the other rides such as the Boomerang and the Twister II (both of which, Mitch had priceless faces) and also the Tower of Doom (which everyone except me and Alex pussied out) and the Halfpipe.
Well another classic moment that happened today was when we were on the Twister II. So for the other two rides before we came to this one, the Boomerang and the Mind Eraser, Mav recorded footage while the ride was going on. Unluckily, Alex decided to record this time and he got warned by the operator there .... three times lol. Two when we were getting seated for the ride; and one time on the first ramp up the ride. It was hilarious cause on the way up the ramp, the speaker hanging out beside us as we were passing by up the ramp had a voice scream out, "PUT THE CAMERA AWAY !!" lol. Well after riding all the roller coasters out there (except the Sidewinder), we all went to find a spot to put our stuff at and go swimming. The bad thing about it was that it was abnormally cold. We eventually got used to it, so we then went to a couple of slide before heading out to the car to grab something to eat for lunch. When we got out to the car, we opened up the truck of the van. When we opened up the car, the back seats were pulled down to make it seem like it was a picnic table. Everything was set up; the drinks were cold, utensils were available, the meats were warm and hot, and most importantly, there was rice.
Once we finished eating, we had yet another problem. So basically visitors are able to exit and re-enter the park as long as you get this special stamp and a ticket stub. Yahh, when I first read that, I thought it said or. I mean I was fine cause I had my ticket stub in my bag. Mav and Alex, on the other hand, didn't lol. We ended up having to get Mav's mom to come give them extra ticket stubs to get in. Well when the problem was solved, the three of us went to what was formally Looney Land looking for Bugs, Tweety, Sylvester, and the others. This was before we even found out the bad news. So we first went into the foam place with the foam balls and their guns. It was pretty sweet even though we were technically kinda too old to be in there without a legit reason. Walking out of there, we were still looking for the Looney Tune characters. We finally decided to ask a couple security guards nearby about the situation. That's where we found out the horrible news. So I guess last year, the corporation, Six Flags, decided to part ways from Elitch Gardens. With parting ways, Six Flags also took with them the Looney Tunes, the Batman attractions, and basically anything dealing with Warner Brothers. That explained why Looney Land was renamed, there was no more Batman show, and the Batman ride was renamed to the Dragon Wing. Wack. So of you guys probably already have known this for a while now. But for me, I didn't mainly cause the last time I went to this theme park was when I was in middle school.
Well even though the whole Warner Brothers theme throughout the park is gone, there were still entertainment that still kept this visit enjoyable. There were these African dancers who performed for the public doing these acrobatic and athletic trick and moves with jump ropes and everything. It was pretty sweet. There was also a show presented by Cirque Innosia called Imaginique. The show had a similar style of entertainment like the show I watch before at the World Arena earlier this year. That show was called Saltimbanco, presented by Cirque du Soleil. The tricks and movements they did during the show was simply amazing, and we'll just keep it at that.
For the rest of our time there, we rode a couple more rides, chilled out at different areas of the park, a window shopped at the many souvenir shops there. Overall, the stay there was pretty amazing. When I look back at everything we did that day. I gotta say that this is a day to look back upon when this summer ends.
I didn't really get up to do anything till like noon. Around 1 or 2, I finally got my ass up to go to the Old Town Bike Shop in downtown on Tejon to go fix up the gear cable on my bike. It was pretty sweet to look at the different types of bike that they had. I learned a lot from looking around at that shop. Basically to have a quality bike, you're gonna need to drop some big bucks on it. To sum everything up about bikes, titanium framed bikes>steel alloy bikes. Anyways, the repair guy did a great job repairing my bike. The service there was great and everything; I recommend going there if anything happens to your bike. Well after I got home, I ate a tuna sandwich and I packed an extra "triple stacked" tuna sandwich for dinner on the go. So after, I left to go bike to the gym and get a quick weights workout.
I wanted to go on base on my bike to go meet up with Jon and Jeff, but as I was approaching the B Street Gate, the sign basically concluded that they would not let me in without a safety reflector vest and a bicycle helmet. So what I ended up doing was biking all the way back home to go grab my car. I thought I was going to be late meeting up with them like usual. Fortunately though, they were the ones late because Jeff left his ID lol. We ended up going to the Waller Gym since the other one we usually go to closed earlier. The racquetball court there was slightly different compared to the other gym's. The ceiling was higher and the walls seemed closer. Like the first game we had seemed really frustrating because everything for me was going too long in my serves. After a while though, I started to kill it. After that day of racquetball, I started to really like this game a lot. I mean, I can finally say that this is much easier compared to tennis now lol.
When I got home, Julie and I went back to Fort Carson to watch some firework near the park formally known as Iron Horse Park. The fireworks were pretty nice from the view that we had. After those 20 or so minutes of fireworks, we drove to Giane's to meet the others up. We missed a huge event though at Tinseltown. So something happened I guess with the movie Hancock, so they started to give away free tickets. Maybe I should've went and got some lol. Well after sitting around trying to figure out what to eat, Giane, Mav, and I went to King Soopers to go pick up some candies and pizzas and fruit punch while Julie, Kevin, Alex, Steve, and Art stayed at Giane's. When we got back, we watched an episode or two of In Living Color while the food was cooking. When the pizza got done, I ended up eating about six or seven slices haha. Well we finished the movie watch the movie 23 with Jim Carrey.
So the third day seemed to be just as relaxingas yesterday, but not as fun. After waking up to a nice home cooked breakfast with an experimented sandwich containing eggs and peanut butter, which I can say was actually pretty tasty and delicious, me and Julie decided to relax a little while in the sun while Giane finished up her homework. Living in this hotel room so far really does feel just like I'm at home. The suite, like I said already, is about the same size, if not larger, than a large two bedroom two bathroom apartment. The thing I'm hating most about it, though I'm getting used to it, is the wifi signal in the room. For one, it's very expensive; about $50 for five days on one device. Now that's a rip off. But hey, I'm not complaining for having it. The other thing I hate about the wifi is that the signal is only somewhat decent when you're at a certain spot.
Going into downtown, I saw a different side of Puerto Vallarta. I saw the Puerto Vallarta I was expecting to see. We first went into the decent side of downtown. The place where the tourists were to be found. For lunch, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe. Once we finished lunch, we went to go look around the flea market areas to see what the had. There, I sorta got the idea of the art of bargaining.
Finally after three days, we all realized that there was another side of the mall that we didn't see. There was an arcade, a movie theater, that seemed to only show their movies in Spanish, and a food court that contained fast food places like Burger King, McDonald's, Church's Chicken, Subway, and other local food joints. But from looking at the prices of the food at Burger King, their food here seems to be much more expensive the their US equivilent.
Well to finish off the day, we did our little beach photoshoot with Giane's amazing Nikon camera. The outcome was about 170 pictures NOT including outtakes and junk pictures which ended up deleted. To conclude the evening, we went and ate at the restaurant in the suite, which I might say is expensive as hell for seafood.
Song: This song played while we were eating at the Hard Rock Cafe in Downtown Puerto Vallarta. They showed them, the All-American Rejects, playing this song live at a concert. That whole day, I kept thinking about this song when I looked back at what I did that day.
