Thursday, June 08, 2006

Shen San Antonio!!

Yay! Our first long weekend in the US!! Ok maybe our first OFFICIAL public holiday weekend but anyhow, it was great to take a long break from Friday to Monday and NOT have to think about work shit! Our destination for the weekend was San Antonio, where there were lots of fun stuff to do!

We didn’t really feel much about Memorial Day, which was kinda bad because it was a day to commemorate American soldiers who gave their lives for the country…. But then again you’ll be amazed how many Americans themselves were going all out to enjoy the holidays… Tubing, Theme Parks, shopping, gambling, etc…..

I have to say in all honesty though… that this weekend was the absolute BEST time that we’ve had in the US so far! I mean, we did so much in a space of 4 days that I can’t really believe it even now! Here’s a lowdown on what we did though….


Day 1: Tubing

The first time I told Yee Chung about Tubing, he had no friggin’ idea what I was talking about. I then told him it meant people sitting over-inflated car tires and then floating our way down a river. Sorta like this:


"Dayong Sampan anyone?"


Yup it was nice and simple… all of us paid a princely sum of $15 to sit in these tires and even brought a cooler with ice-cold Coke, water, sandwiches and ham to last us through the day. The water was literally ICE-COLD too and it was a shocking feeling to suddenly freeze your butt when we first sat in our tubes….. the trip brought us down the nice, scenic and serene Guadelupe River and all in all it only took us about just over 3 hours to finish the whole thing.

It was really nice and relaxing to just sit and enjoy the peaceful surroundings and also ride some of the mini rapids along the way (nothing like the rapids in Taiwan and NZ though). However, the sun was scorching hot and a lot of us suffered burns… I’m still peeling now by the way!


Day 2: Six Flags Fiesta Texas

Now for those of you who didn’t know, I am quite the roller-coaster junkie… although I’ve not been on one ever since my mum’s company stopped sponsoring us for overseas trips! Hahah…. Anyway, Six Flags is a popular US theme park which has the latest thrill rides and can be found all around the States. The one we went to was called Six Flags Fiesta, which had its share of fast and dizzy coasters and even a fireworks show at the end!

Some of the rides we tried included:

The Superman Krypton Coaster – The best coaster we tried. Ridiculously fast, ultra-modern, floorless and lots and lots of insane turns. Sat in the front TWICE!
Tim’s Puke Rating: 2/5


"Found a video of the damn Superman ride. That's obviously NOT Wen, Sharon and Me..."


The Poltergeist – It looked like a miao miao coaster… until we saw the group of us speed off from 0-60mph in like 3 seconds. The pace never lets up and it never stops turning till the end.
Puke Rating: 3/5

Boomerang – A simple coaster, which does a butterfly turn and then a loop…. And then doing the same thing again backwards. You can’t imagine how bad I felt after that.
Puke Rating: 4/5

The Rattler – The 2nd fastest coaster in the park…. And one of the fastest wooden coasters (most old coaster tracks were made of wood) around. Absolutely gigantic but the rattling because of the unstable wood tracks almost rattled us to death. Argh.
Puke Rating: 4/5



"Spot the missing genius. And click on the pic to link to my photos!"

We were there from the moment it opened (10am) till it closed (10pm) and we pretty much wasted ourselves on the activities there… although it included a lot of waiting time because of the long queues for rides. However, I really enjoyed all of them (despite feeling really pukish at a point) and I am looking forward to my trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain in Los Angeles, which is supposed to be 3 times as insane!!

Day 3: Schlitterbahn

Yes, I know the name sounds like SHIT but I must say, this water theme park is anything BUT! Just imagine… a water theme park with 4 portions, 2 on a West section and 2 on an East section… now, each of these 4 portions is about the size of the old Fantasy Island from Sentosa (if you can recall…). And from the West to East sections and vice versa, you can’t walk but instead, have to take a 5-minute shuttle bus. Now THAT’s how big this damn theme park is!


"Wasted couples at Schlitterbahn. Click to check out the official webby!"

We first saw a tv show a few months ago stating that this theme park was the World’s Best Water Theme park and truly, it lived up to its word! With ridiculously insane rides (we queued up for over an hour for the Master Blaster despite coming to the park before it opened), wave pools that finally have REAL waves and surfing sections whereby there was a perpetual wave for you to surf on (as long as you can of course... I only lasted a grand total of 2 secs before being blasted away…), and much much more. This was an amazing experience for all of us and I’m really looking forward to going to one of these theme parks again… seems like there’s one nearby at Galveston Island.

The summer is really getting hotter and hotter now and going to Schlitterbahn is hands-down my BEST way of spending a summer day! Now I know how suggy Fantasy Island really was!! No wonder it closed….

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On the last day, we did a little bit of shopping at San Marcos again… Sharon and I weren’t really too keen so we were outta there after a couple of hours. I have no idea how Yiren and Tzeying managed to last till 9pm man…..

As you can see… it was a really packed long weekend. There’s not too many holidays around here so we really have to make full use of ‘em…. You guys in Singapore please don’t take all your holidays and long weekends for granted alright? Peace man… will update you on my upcoming California Trip… woohoo!

3 Comments:

Blogger Adrenaline said...

i am so jealous =( the only roller coaster i went on these 2 years was the one at genting.

15/6/06 3:52 PM  
Blogger Tim said...

Genting one how lousy! Don't believe ask Wen.... his face also pale after the Superman ride.... hahaha

16/6/06 7:23 AM  
Blogger Adrenaline said...

i know the genting one damn lousy lah.

i once went on one particular ride at the anaheim disneyland and i can still remember up till now. arrghhh ..... long time no holiday.

19/6/06 12:24 AM  

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