2015 Oct 11 | Buddhist Temple hike, Halloween Horror Nights



Ogii's Mongolian dinner.



Skull paint job.



Neat idea; you can check your wait time online.



But I'm not going to download an app to do it.



We ate right as a bunch of football games ended; good timing.



There are a lot of nice houses in Hacienda Heights.



Interesting blue/yellow/white/brick color scheme.



A big lawn.



This one had a huge lawn and a gazebo out in the middle of it.



A very modern house.



A pretty memorial.



Food on a Chinese grave. Oranges are a sign of good luck and they often leave beer as well, although this person must have preferred Sprite.



It had rained recently so this large grassy area was still pretty wet.



A viewing area on the other side with telescopes.



Hiking the hills near Turnbull Canyon. Come on, Ogii, stop moving your hand away when he comes towards it; we need it for scale!



We went down this rather steep area to get in a good position for some pictures.



We had to push our way through some branches.



The Buddhist Memorial Columbarium temple.



A shot with these tree leaves. Right when I was in position I saw the leaves disappear; Ogii had moved them out of the way so they weren't blocking my view. Thanks, honey, but I want them in the shot.



And downtown. We went because it had just rained so we thought it might be a clear view, but it was still rather hazy.



Coming back up.



It doesn't look that steep from this angle, but it was a pretty good incline.



With a flash, showing how dark it really is outside now at the top.



Me looking out at it again before the last leg to the top.



Zoomed in on downtown.



The city below with clouds above.



It rained even more on Monday.



Ogii counting during exercise: 9,10,12,13,14,15,13,18,19,20! How can someone who works in accounting not count?



We put this bowl out for one of our neighbors because he kept throwing his cigarette butts on the ground, but now he nevers empties the bowl. What a jerk.



My new laptop power supply is huge and heavy. I wonder if it really needs to be that big? The new laptop is a little heavier and more powerful than my old one, but not that much.



Breakdown on the highway. Thankfully there's enough room for everyone to get around the side.



A helicopter searching for someone.



When I go to McDonald's, I order honey with my chicken nuggets. However, they usually assume it's honey mustard, so I make sure to say "regular honey" when I order. Even then about half of the time they give me honey mustard, so I always check the bag before I leave. Sure enough, this time they gave me honey mustard, so I asked for honey instead. This was the first time I was given pure mustard, though. She had really gone out of her way for this, though; she had gone all the way over, found this container, and put some mustard in it, so I would have felt really bad saying it was wrong, so I just took it and went home. Thankfully I had some honey at home to use instead.



The blimp is back.



Three minutes for one quarter. That's insane.



We bought the front of the line tickets to Halloween Horror Nights. Everything I read said they're definitely worth the money of the general admission ones. Also, it's cheaper to go on a Thursday and earlier in October, so we decided to do it this week.



Pretty sunset from the highway through Hollywood.



Just some palm trees.



A bigger one closer to the road.



At Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios. The front gate parking was sold out.



The entrance.



It was kind of weird because not everything was touched up for Halloween; this statue and most of the Simpsons stuff was just regular.



We had front-of-the-line passes. $100 more each, so hopefully worth it.



A dancer and a chainsaw murderer headbanging together.



The entrance had guys in costume chasing people around.



Some more costumes.



Us in front of this trash area with rats and bugs.



Me with a rat.



Huge blasts of fire above the entrance.



We got there right after it opened, and the wait times didn't look too bad; most are around 10-20 minutes.



There were already a lot of people ready to watch Jabbawockeez.



Dancing. I don't think it's the original crew, though.



To get to a few different mazes you had to ride these trams.



You could see the lower area of the park where the blue and red lights are.



The Bates Motel had a photo area where they would take a picture of you with Norman Bates.



Take her; I want to live!



Plane wreck.



The sets were pretty elaborate.



Good lighting to draw your focus.



The front of the line passes were nice; this is what the line looked like for Transformers for us.



With our glasses on.



In the ride.



Versus this is what the general admission lines looked like. Back and forth multiple times.



The only line we had to wait in a bit was to get to another tram; both front of the line and general admission were in the same line, although it moved quickly. To the far left is the general admission line for another maze, which is packed, and in the middle is the front of the line line for it, which is almost empty.



Wait times are getting much longer now.



Lots of zombies.



At This is the End, a 3D maze.



The Mummy roller coaster; we got to sit in the very front row.



The Asian couple beside us seem like they're sitting at an outdoor cafe having a cup of tea; Ogii looks like she's about to die.



It was a pretty good ride; very dark and scary.



They had these escalators to take you between the upper and lower parts of the park.



It was really hot outside, and even hotter in these.



Moe's Tavern; fun.



They actually sold these giant pink donuts with sprinkes, probably around a foot in diameter.



There were around four areas of the park that were scare zones with guys in costumes running around; the French Quarter was one.



Lots of skeletons.



The only ride the front of the line passes didn't help with was Despicable Me; the regular line was tiny anyway.



Although it was the longest wait for a ride we had because they have to stand in this room watching a short film while the group in front of you rides.



A mouse in a cat in a dog in a lion.



The short movie is still going. The ride actually moved around a lot; I was surprised. It was almost as exciting as Transformers but it's for little kids.



Drink of water from a shark.



Another scare zone: Dark Christmas.



This is where the Halloween Maze got out. It was actually really fun to sit here and people watch because the last room was full of mirrors and multiple Michael Myers chasing people with knives, easily the scariest room in the maze, so people would run out screaming.



Nice costume.



Back in the scare zone by the entrance. The costumed guys were like wild animals: if you show fear, they'll chase you. This guy chased these two women all around this store, haha.



There's this giant staircase out in Citywalk, which would be cool to go up, but they probably don't allow anyone access.



Me with King Kong.



I wonder why this fire hydrant is golden?



My phone's operating system updated to Marshmallow and it wouldn't connect to my computer. Thankfully a little Googling solved that...



... they added a file transfer option to the pulldown menu. Although it's a little annoying; before it would automatically do it, and now you have to turn it on each time.



I thought updates were supposed to streamline things, not add an extra couple of button presses.



Another annoying thing is that the keyboard doesn't come up in Google.



I checked in the keyboards settings, and it seems to be on. Even weirder, it works for all of the other websites. However, if I just type whatever I'm searching for into the search bar, it goes to Google and searches, so it's an easy workaround, if still a bit weird.



Google Maps has perspective on buildings. See how the building at the bottom-right is tilted to the bottom-right?



And when you move the map and the building is in the upper-left, it's tilted to the upper-left. Kind of cool, although not very useful and it probably slows the program down a bit.



Taste of Italy? Although $55 is kind of expensive.



It's $4.50 per food or beverage; I don't think it's quite worth it.



Played Governor of Poker, which I haven't played in forever, when I was bored the other day. It's still super easy.