I stopped by a friend's place in Pasadena, Anthony Rubalcaba, a fellow LED geek. He showed me his collection:

From there I went to Randya and Emily's

they had a CDJ to mix tunes

They had just gotten new kittens:

We had some nice chats, after a great visit to JPL, we went to Universal Studios. I think by then it was my 4th time there, but I hadn't been there in many years. By then it had gotten quite expensive ($150 even for a half day), and was very crowded, most rides had waits of 1 to 2H, not that fun... Still, the grounds were pretty though:

not cheap anymore

The HArry Potter area, I had already seen, but is still very nice:

The new Nintendo/Mario Bross area was very well done:

OTher nice areas:

The next day, we drove to, and hiked Deep Creek Hot Springs, which was quite nice, even if by then I was half sick due to lack of good sleep, but it was a great hike.

cute sign

busy airport

After checking in a bit late, went for a walk;

leftovers from french invasion :)

most likely place to die by being run over by a scooter :)

Went up the bitec tower for views:

The next day, I went on my guided tour, it started with a craft center run by people who were affected by agent orange

Then we arrived at Chu chu tunnels, which showed an impressive amount of narrow tunnels that went all the way to cambodia:

they also had shoes with backward soles to trick the enemy

Seeing the amount of traps was also pretty cool:

Next, we took a boat to an island for local crafts and village:

yummy candy

Back in town I had a tiny bit of time left to walk around:

The next morning, I went to join my walking tour with a very good guide who has been doing this for years (many tours were available but I think I got the best :) ):

An interesting spot in history was the US embassy building where they helicoptered out as many people as possible when the US had to leave:

Notre dame was unfortunately being renovated:

Next was the interesting post office:

The tour finished with some famous local french derived sandwich, although I'll admit that I Was a bit underwhelmed:

I spent the time left at the war remnant museum, which is the local version of the war, and even if you don't fully agree with all of it, the nubmers and facts given, even if one sided, looked correct:

The parts on agent orange that was sprayed and poisonned lots of people, were tough but true:

And then it was time for me to go back to the airport, where they nicely found a leftover battery pack I had in my check in luggage, and I had to go back to get it ;)

Nice enough seats on vietair: