Easing out of sabbatical...or so I think: June 8-19, 2011

Returning from Peru, I had a couple of days' relaxation before visiting my brothers in Southern California.  It turned out that the flying I did during these two months enabled my qualification for Southwest Airlines' frequent flyer program called "A-List".  A-List members enjoy perks such as priority security lines in participating airports as well as automatically getting an "A" boarding pass without needing to check in 24 hours in advance.  Awesome!  I thought I didn't need to check-in at 24 hours for my upcoming flight to Ontario, but I was mistaken.  I found out on flyertalk.com that any tickets purchased before A-List qualification aren't automatically updated with the new status, so when I checked in way after 24 hours had passed, I ended up getting a really high "A" boarding pass, and a "B" boarding pass coming back. :(

On Wednesday, I flew to LAX where my brother Edmund picked me up and had a late lunch at Phoenix Food Boutique and the best boba tea I've ever had at the Half and Half next door.  I wish I had taken pictures of the huge cups; they're like the size of Cup'O Noodles.  We took them to-go so that his wife Angela could also enjoy the yummy treat.  I was reluctant to try it as I hadn't had boba tea in probably a decade or more because I hated chewing hard balls of tapioca.  When we got back to Edmund's house, I pushed a straw into my red bean honey boba milk tea and was pleasantly surprised to find that the tapioca balls were soft and tender, and slightly warm, like they were just made.  Edmund had gone upstairs when I started sipping the boba; when he came downstairs, he remarked that I was sucking down my boba tea with my eyes bulging out, like a crazed person.  It was that good.  I'm glad there aren't any Half and Half's nearby my house!

I spent a couple of nights at their house, doing mostly reading during the day as my laptop died due to a Windows update gone awry, so I didn't have a chance to update this blog (why I had been so behind!).  When my parents arrived in town on Friday, they picked me up to go spend the weekend with my brother Allen and his family.  Son Brandon was going to be baptized on Saturday and daughter Alison was going to turn 2 a few days later, so it was the perfect time to get together.  Allen and Lisa hosted a buffet lunch at Osaka Seafood Buffet and Lisa's friend created beautiful cakes for the two munchkins.

yay for Brandon's baptism!

cute Dora the Explorer cake

make a wish!

The next night, we had dinner in the Pope's Room at Buca di Beppo with the whole family including Lisa's parents and Angela's parents.  After dinner, Edmund and Angela drove me to Ontario airport to catch the last flight home.  I rented a car at the airport and made it back to my house after 1am.  Thankfully, no one broke in and the house didn't burn down, considering I hadn't been back in town since I left the Friday before sabbatical!

When I went to work that morning, the aisles were eerily quiet as several of my co-workers had gone to a conference.  I arrived at my cubicle to find how much my co-workers missed me. ;)  It took me about an hour to clean up all of the balloons and boxes.  I got a hold of pictures of their hard work blowing up all those balloons...apparently they had to do it in a conference room as it was making too much of a ruckus in the hallway!

people probably thought I was farting while deflating the balloons

Ki brought a pump to relieve the manual work

Marc, one of the partners in crime

People were amazed when I told them I had not been in town the entire sabbatical until 1am that day.  It was good that work was slow during the week as I had no idea what was going on.  I had expected to enjoy some downtime from all the traveling and living out of a suitcase.  Turned out I wasn't done...I was going to see the inside of an airport again.  A friend at work had an extra ticket to go to Saturday's U2 concert at Angel Stadium that was postponed a year ago due to Bono's back injury, and offered it up to fellow co-workers the week before I returned to work.  I saw the email in my inbox, but thought the ticket was gone so did not ask about it.  I found out on Thursday that no one took him up on his offer and he was going by himself, and would I go?  Sure, why not?!  I hadn't been to a concert in ages.  I also knew that Edmund and Angela were also going to the concert. (turned out they were going on Friday night, so we couldn't go together)  I could not match my friend's exact air itinerary, but got an award ticket on the same flight heading down to LAX, and then returning via award ticket on Southwest around the same time as his flight.  Since he was providing the concert ticket and rented a car, I offered to pay for the hotel rooms, food and activities (though he insisted on paying for some).  All the lodging was pretty booked up near Angel Stadium and expensive, so I ended up scoring a great deal on Priceline for two rooms at the Hyatt Regency Irvine, not super far from the stadium.  My brothers used to live near the hotel before they got married, so I was familiar with the area.  I also planned to take public transportation from nearby Tustin to Angel Stadium to avoid traffic jams and paying $25 for parking.

The end of the work week came, and I was up at 3:30am on Saturday to catch the 6am plane down to LAX.  My friend did not want to risk missing the concert, thus the early departure.  This meant we had 12 hours to kill after landing in Southern California...what to do?  First thing's first...food!  I found a highly recommended breakfast place on Yelp called the Original Pancake House (a chain), located in Redondo Beach, not too far from the airport.  I usually avoid pancakes as they are high in carbs, but since carbs were the specialty of the house, I had to order them, with strawberries to lighten it up (plus a side of bacon).  They were pretty fluffy and tasty, drenched in pure hot maple syrup.  My friend got another specialty of the house called a "dutch baby".  I had never heard of dutch babies before, and after taking one bite, I'd never order it!  To me, it was just a huge piece of eggy bread dusted with powdered sugar and lemon juice.

nom nom...the whipped cream was the best

After breakfast, we headed to Irvine to see if we could check in early, and we could, yay!  The rooms at the hotel had connecting doors, and it was interesting to see that you could string at least four rooms together (since both our rooms had a connecting door on each side), so you could have a big party stay together and not have to go out into the hallway.  The rooms were clean and offered with the same Portico White Ginger amenities that I've experienced at other Hyatts.

love freshly cleaned duvets!

What to do until evening?  The hotel had offered free bicycles for rent to roam around the area, but all that was left was a kid's bike.  My friend suggested going to the beach.  I insisted on taking hotel pool towels with us instead of the white hotel room towels as that would be quite embarrassing.  We walked to the pool, which involved going down a different elevator and skirting around the back of the building, which to me seemed awkward for guests.  Thankfully, the towels weren't too shabby and were a bright yellow color.  As I packed four of them into my beach bag, I saw my friend strike up a conversation with someone (he recognized a U2 band logo on this guy's hat)...the guy and his wife attended the U2 concert for free in one of the sky boxes the night before, courtesy of his wife's uncle, who works as the band's travel arranger!  We found that the U2 stage crew were staying at the Hyatt, and this couple was in the Presidential Suite, which had a baby grand piano in it.  They were also going to the concert tonight...they had followed the band for a while, including attending the Seattle concert which my friend had gone to a few weeks ago (he wasn't kidding when he told me he was a die-hard fan!).  I thought maybe the couple might offer us a chance to see the band backstage or some other interesting perk, but no such invitations were offered, oh well!  So it was off to the beach.

We had no idea which beach to go to, so we just headed towards Newport Beach.  Once the highway slowed to a crawl, my friend decided (smartly) to follow cars carrying bicycles and/or surf boards who were turning off on side roads.  We ended up stumbling onto a prime parking space and walked a block to a nice stretch of sandy beach, passing by very cute oceanfront homes.  I'd consider renting one of those homes someday!  Lots of people were surfing this afternoon...they were in their wet suits, so I knew not to get in the water if I didn't want to freeze.  I ended up getting more sun than I expected, even with SPF 70 on.

"it's a beautiful day"

We head back to the hotel to freshen up.  Online, I had found a karaoke place called Plush near the hotel, so we went there to get pumped up before the concert.  The karaoke rooms were clean, the food and drink weren't bad, and they even gave us "microphone condoms" for cleanliness. :)  We ended up singing for a couple of hours (U2 songs included of course!) before we needed to get to the train station.

I've got protection!

standard Korean karaoke controller (I knew which buttons to push, thanks to my friend Ching)

I was surprised at the amount of people who were waiting for the Metrolink to Angel Stadium; don't Southern Californians drive their cars all the time, even if it's just three blocks down?  The fare was just $7 roundtrip per person.  We had no problems finding a seat and arrived at the stadium within 20 minutes.  The train dropped us off across the parking lot.  It was confusing where to line up to get in.  We walked all the way around the stadium and eventually found a shorter line next to two larger-than-life red baseball helmets.

the Metrolink station in Tustin

walking towards Angel Stadium

Once inside, we bought some beers and headed to our seats.  The view was pretty good, though not nearly as close as the ones that Edmund and Angela had that were practically four rows from the general admission area.

apparently there were 4 of these stages to keep the concert on schedule

Lenny Kravitz performing

Lenny Kravitz was the opener, and I only recognized two of his songs.  The performance was still pretty good.  When U2 came on, everyone was in a frenzy.  Above us were metal bleachers and I could see them bouncing up and down during the concert as people were rocking out, which was a bit disconcerting as I had the thought of them breaking under the pressure right on top of us.  I was very disappointed with the people around us as they did not rock as hard as the people upstairs.  I believe the tickets in our section were at least $250 each, and by golly if I'm spending $250, I'm gonna make the most of it!  The two of us pretty much stood up the entire time and dancing (which probably annoyed the people behind us) except when the song was really slow.  Only the four Latino guys to my left and the couple in front of us were standing up, no one else!  Even the drunk people a few rows in front of us were just sitting there.  Was it because of age, as fans of U2 would most likely be middle-aged?  I looked at the people and they didn't look particularly old.  Maybe they were too young to know the songs?  We kept track of one particular drunk guy as he was talking to his friends and disappearing every once in a while, eventually returning wearing a different shirt...maybe he blew chunks at one point.

intermission before U2 came out, tons of "general admission" people out there

super cool props, including the screen that dropped down like a honeycomb

the screen came back up during the show

All in all, the U2 concert was really good and I loved the TV screens, the special effects, and even the clips recorded from the Space Shuttle.  After the show, we got back on the train and returned to our starting point.  My friend wanted to do more karaoke (at 1am!), so we went back to Plush, which was pretty busy.  Luckily, a room opened up for us to sing for the last 1.5 hours before closing.  Definitely a jam-packed day!  So much for relaxing after my sabbatical.

We check out the next morning, had a cup of coffee at the hotel cafe, then drove towards Rowland Heights to meet up with Edmund and Angela at Phoenix Food Boutique (again) for lunch to discuss the concert.  It turned out that Friday night's concert had the same set list as the one my friend saw in Seattle, and Saturday's set list was a bit different, which he was glad for, since it was his second time seeing it.  After lunch, of course, we all went next door to Half and Half to get some boba tea.  The line was longer than when I was there a week ago, but it was worth it, bulgy eyes and all!  Afterwards, the two of us headed to LAX to return the car and catch our flights.  We barely made it on time as somebody (not me) was driving super slow (50 mph) on the uncrowded freeway.  My A-List status on Southwest came in handy as I got to skip past a huge security line and arrived at the gate just in time to board the A1 through 30 group!  My friend's United flight was delayed around half an hour, giving him enough breathing room, so it all worked out.

I didn't have any travel plans the following weekend so I eventually had a break.  Next entry will be the long July 4th weekend in Tahoe with Babe, stay tuned!