Secondment - The one with all the magic (Chronicle 4.1)

Hi all,

How are we doing? Magical I hope!

So I promised a bit of magic in this post. Alrighty, so get ready. You are so not ready for this.

HARRY POTTER LAND!! (Island of Adventures, Universal Studios Orlando)
Ok, maybe not all of you are excited. But I was. Finally, I made it to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Boy, did it not disappoint! I love the books. I love the movies. I love all things Harry Potter. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

This place was AMAZEBALLS. We arrived at the park nice and early to join the crowd ready to run for Harry Potter Land. We actually did some research beforehand and found out that the ExpressPass doesn’t work for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, so we were advised to line up there first before going on other rides. We kind of forgot and might have ridden the Dragon Challenge first.

Ah, the Dragon Challenge, so I’m not much of a fan for roller-coasters. They always freak me out before hand. Seeing the speed and the drops...*sigh* But my friend really wanted to go on this. After some “encouragement” from her, we went on it. There's 2 dragon coasters here; one red - the Chinese Fireball and one blue - the Hungarian Horntail. You get to choose which one you prefer to go on. We chose to go on the Chinese Fireball, which is apparently meant to be the faster one. There's no floor, so your feet dangle. After about 2min and something seconds, I survived, as I always do, and as always I enjoyed it. It was a good ride. I scream for fun. Screaming makes it so much more fun. But my friend came out not quite agreeing with the ride. She didn't like the fact that there was no flooring.

After this, we joined the queue for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. Boy what a queue that was, we waited for just over an hour. But once we actually got into the castle and placed all our belongings in a locker, we joined the single riders line, the queue was moving much faster and sometimes by chance, you still get to sit with your friends. So my tip for you - if you don't mind splitting up - join the single riders line.

I loved Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. It’s an indoor roller-coaster that takes you on a journey through and around Hogwarts, join a quidditch match, get chased by a dragon. Very entertaining. The rollar-coaster, twists and turns, spins. It was so much fun!!

We also took a ride on The Flight of the Hippogriff roller-coaster, this is the kiddie roller-coaster, but still fun!

After enjoying all the rides, we walked around Hogsmeade, oh my lord! I was in heaven. The design of stores was amazing! We visited Ollivander's, Dervish and Banges, Honeydukes, ate at the Three Broomsticks and of course we had Butter beer! 

It was just so cool to see the magical world of Harry Potter come to life, unfortunately at the time, Diagon Alley was not yet opened. So you know what that means. I have to go back. I need to go to Diagon Alley and I NEED to ride Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts.

We also explored the park and rode most of the other rides. Transformers ride, Simpsons ride, The Revenge of the Mummy, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, The Minion ride, The Amazing Spidermand ride, Dudley Do-Right's Rip Saw Falls, The Hulk Rollar-coaster. Twas quite fun!

I'll be back Harry!

NEWWWWWWWWWWWW YORKKKKKKKKKKKKK!! Concrete jungle where dreams are made of…

Yup! NYC! New York City! Like San Fran, New York was a city which I have wanted to visit for ages. I mean, it’s New York. Tall skyscrapers, the Statue of Liberty. The hustle and bustle of Time Square. I think in total we spent 4 days here and we just played tourist. 

We saluted Lady Liberty. 

Guys a tip, make sure you book your tickets in advance as these can sell out fast! Especially if you want to head up to the crown of Lady Liberty.

We walked along Brooklyn Bridge. 

We were actually staying in a hotel quite close to the bridge, so we figured we might head there and have a nice stroll. We saw some people doing yoga on the bridge. I didn't join, I'm not that flexible.

Rode bikes in Central Park. 

This was so much fun! It was a great way to see the whole park and the day was beautiful. We did struggle up some of the hills though.... I highly recommend doing this. It was so much fun! 

Make a pit stop at Columbia University

The campus was big and beautiful. We didn't make it around the whole campus, but we just wanted to, you know, check it out. Cause we could.

Watched the New York Yankees

Yup more baseball and why not, we got to see it in the famous Yankee Stadium. 

Visited that old fair Canoey Island

This was a must see for my friend. It was pretty cool to head down here and check out the famous Canoey Island. It was also a beautiful sunny day, so being by the beach was a plus.

We went to the Top of the Rock.

There's two ways to get see New York from sky high; one is from the Empire State Building and the other was from Rockafella. We decided on the latter, as it was a recommendation from a friend. Boy what a sight for sore eyes. Check out how gorgeous New York is.

We saw a play on Broadway

So this was a must do on my list and what made it even better was that we saw Aladdin! My fave Disney movie! Ah I was so happy that night. We watched it at the New Amsterdam theatre. The musical was awesome! James Monroe Iglehart who played Genie was absolutely amazing! I can't wait for the Sydney show. 

Paid our respects at the 9/11 memorial

We also went to visit the site where it all happened. I liked the memorial which was set up. 

I think i've shared enough. Haha. We also saw Time Square, walked through Soho and plenty more. Ah New York, what a city. I definitely want to come back here! There's just so much to do!!

To round up the America trip, the final stop was HAWAII!

Sun, sand, beautiful ocean views. What a way to end my American adventure. We were only here for 4 days, I wish we had longer. There’s just so much to see and do here. Here's a summary;

Hiked Diamond head

The hike wasn't too difficult. But there are heaps of people, so probably best to do this early if you can. You will also avoid the hotter part of the day by doing an early hike. Check out the amazing view when you reach the top.

Snorkelled with turtles at Hanuma Bay

Yup! We snorkelled with turtles. You have no idea how excited we were. I mean, we...snorkelled...with...TURTLES!!!!

Went to a Luau at Paradise Cove

Yup! Being in Hawaii, I wanted to attend a Luau. It was cool. Seeing the Polynesian dances and making crowns etc. It was a really cool, fun experience. The view was also amazing and we saw a gorgeous sun set. Oh also, don't forget your ID. We were standing behind a lady who forgot her ID and therefore wasn't entitled to her free mai thai. 

Visited Pearl Harbour

We couldn't come here and not see Pearl Habour. It was pretty cool, we did this as part of a tour and there was a lot to see. We saw a video, went on a submarine, saw the different memorials. 

For a lot of these activities, we booked them through our hotel. Again, I ran out of time to organise this portion of the leg for us… ok, I got lazy. But we still did a lot and our hotel tour guide person was very helpful. Oh, before I forget, if you like outlets you have to pay a visit to Oahu Waikele Premium Outlet. You’ll return with a handful of bags. There’s buses from Waikiki that can take you to the outlet for free.

And with that – the US secondment is now complete! Wow! Now that was a long read wasn’t it. Haha! Well I hope you enjoyed the concise way in which I tried to explain my US adventure. I hope it gave you some ideas on where you could possibly go if you ever decide to head over to there. Sorry I couldn’t be more detailed, but writing these two years after the fact is quite hard.

Until next time peeps!