We’re giving this travel vlogging thing a go… so press play! Otherwise..continue scrolling..

// Now in San Francisco airport, waiting to board our flight to Boston! Figured I should finally get a blogpost together..

What was a 300+ days countdown felt like 100 years, but when it boiled down to just a few days to go… time went by so quickly, work became stressful and before we knew it… we were on the plane to a land far, far away from home.

We’re heading to the USA for (hopefully) a white Christmas!

We put ourselves up for a 23hr~ trip to LA as opposed to what could be a 13hr or so flight… we saved like $500/pp though by flying Cathay with a stop over in Hong Kong. The thought of it all was certainly daunting. Fortunately it didn’t turn out all that bad, I’m just not sure if I ever settled on my favourite sleeping position during the trip hah!

Its been 2-3 years since I last flew Cathay – seeing their menu for both flights reminded me how they feed you good food! Can’t go wrong with Asian food on an Asian airline… 🙂

Approaching Hong Kong

It just occurred to me, I didn’t take any photos during our short 1 hour transit in HK Airport. We didn’t think we’d have time to wander around a little bit, but we did have a solid 30min for a quick feed. Tossing between Popeyes and Wontons…. Popeyes won (though we could’ve gotten this in US I’m sure!). We weren’t very prepared for transiting in HK since we had no HKD on us, luckily they accepted credit card anyways! We had their Cajun chicken wings which were finger-lickin-spicy-good. We also made quick video calls to our family to let them know where we were. We must’ve not kept a good eye on time because we found ourselves running for the gate… and were the last 2 people to board… oopsies. Oddly we got upgraded at the gate to slightly better seats… into the exit row with more leg room.

Hello, LA!

12 hour flight from HK to LA… we finally spotted land! Looked pretty amazing from up there! Though I have to say Sydney looks a lot more colourful and green… <3

We got off the plane onto the tarmac and into airport shuttles which took us to the actual terminal after a good 10min ride.

It took us about 30-40min to clear immigration and claim our bags… I gotta say the fellas at the airport are so damn serious… 🙁 Lighten up a bit mate!

This was the first car we got upgraded to, but before we reached the exit gates .. Alfred didn’t like the drive of it sooo we requested to swapsies… to this flaming red thing! Its a Chevrolet Camaro convertible… I think..

We managed to fit 2 medium sized suitcases in the boot without too much drama

Starting to look out for familiar brands at this point… no time to shop here though 🙁

We stayed in an airbnb pretty close to Sony Pictures

This was the street we stayed on, it was like a granny flat behind the white house to be exact.

Fell in love with Cali sunsets then and there <3

Korea town was a pretty long stretch!

IN-N-OUT, HOLLYWOOD

We were a bit behind on our ideal schedule for the first few hours there, rather than going sightseeing already we had to satisfy our tummies and there was an In-n-Out along the way!

There were some interesting characters in the restaurant, I was so scared haha.

I ordered the Cheese burger

Verdict? Ordinary… almost like a slightly unhealthy version of burger project. Fries were rather stiff and very oily. Did not leave a lasting impression… then I learnt that the signature burger was hidden in an apparently not-so-secret-menu which you’d know of only from word or mouth or you saw it on their website. I was gutted of course since I wasted a good amount of calories on that! But of course willing to give In-n-Out a second chance, another day.

GRIFFITH OBSERVATORY

We took a drive up to Griffith Observatory through rather pretty neighbourhoods all decked out with Christmas lights. The view from up there was pretty amazingggg, you really need to see it for yourself! Its free to wander around the property and into the observatory itself, you just have to get tickets if you want to listen into any talks.

LACMA – Urban Lights

Next stop; was checking out the insta-famous art installation called ‘Urban Lights’ at LACMA. The gallery was not open on Wednesdays so we couldn’t check out more of their exhibitions (really wanted to see the Rain room!). Luckily this light installation was accessible by all outside of the gallery.

We got there earlier than planned (around 8:30PM) and thought we’d see a crazy amount of people… but it wasn’t too bad. There were probably around 8 groups/couples around there. I guess it helps that the gallery wasn’t open that day so there were less people in general. It was still a challenge trying to hide people in our shots though.

It was fun doing our usual cheesy remote-tripod shots and watching others do their own thing too. Quite a cool installation if you ask me, definitely worth checking out 🙂 That’s another thing checked off my priority-to-see list in LA!

We went back to our airbnb as soon as we could since we needed to catch up on much needed zzz and hope that our bodies would adjust to the timezone quickly!

Next up: Our first and only full day in L.A