WATCH AULANI COME TO LIFE
Archive for category travel
Aha! Disney has done it yet again with a completely new and sensational parade. Mickey’s Soundsational Parade is all new at the Disneyland Resort. From a marching band to Mickey blasting away at the drums like the pro he is, the parade is, simply put, outstanding. The talent in the parade is top-notch, the music includes most of the classics we all love, and the colors are brilliant.
Ready to go to Disneyland and enjoy this masterful parade? Get your own discounted Disneyland tickets and go smile.
Here are a couple of videos that will give you an in-depth, inside look at what you can expect to see at the parade:
Not long ago, Julia Dimon from Outside Television approached Kijubi looking for adventure. The decision was canyoneering in Los Angeles. Here is a repost of her blog about her canyoneering experience along with the awesome Outside Television video:
Drive just 20 minutes from downtown Los Angeles and you’ll find yourself in Rubio canyon. A with a series of waterfalls that cascade across the San Gabriel mountains, it’s the perfect spot to try canyoneering! Now, for those like me who are new to the sport, a simple explanation of canyoneering is when you rappel into a canyon, down waterfalls using ropes, harnesses and other technical climbing gear.
I sucked up my long-time fear of heights to join up with Travis McDaniel, co-owner of Alpine Training Services (ATS), for an exciting afternoon of canyoneering. ATS has been offering instructional courses and guided canyoneering, rock climbing, mountaineering, photography, and kayaking adventures throughout the Western U.S. for the last 11 years. They are also one of the largest film rigging companies in Hollywood and have worked on shows like The Amazing Race, the Biggest Loser, and The Bachelor. Today, they deal with what maybe one of their most challenging clients…Julia.
After dividing our gear and packing our waterproof bags, we hiked 45-minutes along a trail that went from scenic, with impressive views of the LA city skyline, to steep.
Nature’s Stairmaster had me hiking up a nasty incline, past narrow passages, patches of poison oak, landslide paths and loose rocks. It sure got the blood pumping and was a great way to prep for the heart-stopping decent in my near future.
Travis clipped me into a series of safety ropes and showed me the basics of how to repel. First decent was the ‘big one’; a 100ft waterfall named Tha-La-La.
I peered trepidaciously over the side of the waterfall. Bad idea. The drop was drastic and if anything went wrong, I would surely plummet to my death, cracking my skull open and turning even my hardest bones into talcum dust. One who doesn’t like heights, should never look down. I did. Panic stricken, I wasn’t sure I could go through with the descent. The only problem is that once in the canyon, there’s no easy way out…but down. A calm Travis, who has no doubt seen plenty of wide-eyed terrified tourists in his time, assured me that the equipment can hold a “stupid amount of weight.” The key is to keep one hand on the break line, breathe, trust the equipment and enjoy.
I gave myself a little pep talk and slowly lowered myself over the edge, keeping my feet out in front of me. Walking down the waterfall proved to be difficult because of the freezing cold water rushing towards me and the slippery rock face. True, I did stumble, slip and scrape myself a few more times than I’d like to admit and yes – I did
blurt out a steady stream of expletives you can’t say on TV (we were filming this as an Urban Adventures segment for Outside Television) – but I was slowly starting to get the hang of it. Travis yelled some more words of encouragement as I lowered myself down.
Once closer to the bottom, I allowed myself to enjoy the scenery and was impressed at the distance I’d rappelled. As a pool of freezing cold water washed over me, so did a great feeling of accomplishment. I dropped into thigh-high water, unclipped my carabineers and threw up my hands in celebration. I was alive!! Whoo hoo!! Having just completed the first and largest of the six waterfalls, it would only get easier from here.
If you’re looking for a fun day trip that will challenge you mentally, physically and give you one hell of an adventure, canyoneering may be for you! The most amazing thing is how close this wild stretch of rugged nature is to downtown Los Angeles! Be sure to bring lots of water, snacks, a lunch and a dry change of clothes for after. You will get wet!
To book a canyoneering adventure go to Kijubi.com, an online booking engine that offers fun activities all over the US. http://www.kijubi.com/Detail-391/Full-Day-Canyoneering-Adventure-Los-Angeles,California
Inspiring Travel Quotes pt.1
Jul 21
Hola! Travelling has been a definitely positive influence on my life. It’s always been a reliable source for inspiration, motivation and, most importantly, self-knowledge. Nothing stirs the creative juices like getting out of your comfort zone while emerging yourself into a foreign culture. Moreover, soon after your first adventure, travelling has a tendency to assess every aspect of your life. One will strive to achieve the excitement and utter bliss that arises from that long leap away from home. However, the self-knowledge that these adventures have brought me surpasses all the other positives.
Travelling is not just about exploring new places on the outside. I believe that while you travel you are also exploring yourself. One does this by gauging their own reactions to completely new stimuli, stepping outside of their boundaries, and usually attempting something that they would have never dreamed of in the bubble that is there home.
This is why I will always push people to travel. A lot of people will complain about the price tag, but there are always ways to travel cheaply. Also, travel is a direct investment into yourself. The the experiences will change you and the memories will last you a lifetime. This is why I travel, and I hope these quotes will provide some inspiration, and nudge you in that new direction
1. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” –Mark Twain
2. “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine
3. “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
4. “The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” –Samuel Johnson
5. “All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” – Paul Fussell
6. “Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac
7. “He who does not travel does not know the value of men.” – Moorish proverb
8. “People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes
9. “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck
10. “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” – Lin Yutang
11. “Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.” – Aldous Huxley
12. “All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.” – Samuel Johnson
13. “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
14. “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese
15. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller
16″A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.” – Moslih Eddin Saadi
17. “When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” – D. H. Lawrence
18. “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” –Freya Stark
19. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
20. “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard
21. “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber
22. “We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” –Jawaharial Nehru
23. “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – Paul Theroux
24. “To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson
25. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
A 6-year undergrad career has taught me a lot, including how to live in perpetual economic crisis. An area that I have a particular expertise in is cheap travel. I constantly read travel blogs and guides in order to afford that travel fix I needed. However, I often found that cheap travel tips panned out differently while abroad.
To start, here are a few cheap travel myths I have come across with many more to come. Please let us know your personal cheap travel tips and if you’ve had similar experiences.
Hostels are the cheapest accommodation – Although they are traditionally considered the cheapest bed in town, I will argue otherwise. We often believe that there are only two choices for travel accommodation – hostels or hotels. It’s quite true that if these are the only two choices, the budget minded traveler will usually be better off in a hostel. However, as the internet keeps aggressively invading your travel destinations, there is a new and more exciting option – Couch Surfing.
Couch surfing is the practice of staying on someone’s couch for free, and often with much less hassle than booking a hostel or hotel room. Along with a comfy couch, you often get amenities that are only featured in the most expensive hostels — private showers, a full kitchen, tranquility, and a friendly and willing tour guide. A couple websites I’ve found that do the best job of connecting travelers to couches are Couchsurfing.com and Hospitalityclub.org.
Read the rest of this entry »