LEGO Ships and Little Tokyo - DisjointedImages

Touring the Queen Mary

Good morning! There is something lovely about being able to walk around a ship every morning. All the sounds and smells of the water. I decided to take some of my free time to really see the ship today.

Just don’t fall overboard.

There are lifeboats – but I’m pretty sure that would be overkill for a docked ship.

Seagull says “whaddya want?”.

Lots of air traffic today. Ad for the Peanuts Movie.

The other side of course is MetLife.

Some kind of military looking helicopter.

One of the areas has a LEGO display – with a huge recreation of the Queen Mary:

Detailed right down to the lifeboats.

Some facts:
Length: 25’ 11”
Weight: 604 lbs.
Width: 3’ 1”
Height: 4’ 7”
LEGO Parts Used: Approximately 250,000
Number of Builder Hours: 600

As of 2015 it is the largest LEGO all brick ship. The angled smokestacks were the hardest part to figure out.

If you want to see more closeups – check out the video on it.

There was also this cool LEGO studded poster recreation.

And a bust of Winston Churchill.

There is a ridiculous print on the wall in our new room – and I amused myself telling stories about the people in it.

Only to find the original is above the bar here.

The Queen Mary bell.

Little Tokyo

In looking up places to visit that were nearby, I saw that there was a small Japanese community dubbed Little Tokyo. Having an affinity for the culture, and the food, we decided this would be a great short trip to make.

Hey – the Goodyear blimp!

We grabbed some dinner first – I had seen a conveyer belt sushi restaurant the night before but it was closed. I had to come back if only for the experience. 回転寿司 (kaiten-zushi) is a sushi restaurant where plates with the sushi are placed on a rotating conveyor belt that winds through the restaurant and moves past every table and counter seat. Customers may place special orders, but most simply pick their selections from a steady stream of fresh sushi moving along the conveyor belt.

I’ve definitely had better sushi – but again, it was for the sake of saying you did something unique.

The total bill is based on the number and type of plates of the consumed sushi – so you stack them up at your table, and they are counted when you’re done.

Though here, all the sushi was one price. Some places the plates will vary in shape or color/design so they know how to bill you.

Since the sushi wasn’t as fantastic as we’d have liked, we headed out to see what else was around.

I stopped in a little gift store and picked up a few items. I got a tiny chair for one of my dolls, and a cute hair scarf with purple stars. I also laughed at some of the other items….

Like this auto inflating swan head/neck. Faux dick jokes are apparently hilarious in Japan.

Joints are also apparently massive there, hah.

Then we found the most amazing thing evar. I immediately tortured Cozy again by sending photos.

Hawaiian shave ice is NOT like US snow cones at all. A huge block of ice is set in a machine which razor shaves the ice into lighter-than-snow flakes. Seriously – take some snow and dump syrup on it and it still won’t be as fluffy and melty as this stuff.

Chris got the “regular” size. I cannot even imagine what a LARGE must be!

I got a kiddie size with cherry, strawberry and lemon. With condensed milk on top.

Joke was on us – we now know Cozy’s frustration and pain for wanting one of these again and knowing no one on the East Coast makes one!

We wandered some more and stopped at ROC for soup dumplings.

They were good – but they were not Yank Sing.

A few hours later – we’re driving around and I need a bathroom. EVERYWHERE is “customers only”. As in – they keep the bathroom locked unless you buy something. So we ended up splitting a single Fatburger.

It was very meh.

That was ok though, because we were killing time waiting for Leo’s Taco Truck.

They had an awesome toppings bar.

Baggies and cups for salsa, onions, pico de gallo etc.

We got an assortment (most of them are just $1!). From top: Carnitas, Chorizo, and Asada.

But the absolutely mouth-watering star was the Al Pastor with fresh pineapple.

We left very happy with our selection, and strongly recommend anyone in the area to go find this truck!

Another night comes to a close. Except . . . we learn upon getting back to our room that the haunted harbor has a maze that goes ONTO the ship. Into the engine room type areas that are unused. That just happen to butt up against our rooms walls. For HOURS we hear “thump thump thump WAIL metal-knocks SCREAM” etc, on repeat every 10 min.