Today's tour picked us up from the hotel at 9am and dropped us off at 4pm. The first section of the trip took us through downtown LA (CBD), Santa Monica Beach & Venice Beach.
After being in Tokyo, Downtown LA wasn't much to look at! Santa Monica was where Baywatch was filmed and there is a pier that was so big it holds a ferris wheel and a whole carnival! We got to see the largest man made marina in the world, with over 6,000 boats!!
We then stopped at Venice beach.
On the way we got to see the last 5 canals that have water. The others have all been made into roads.
We got off the bus for about 1\2 hr and got to see the basketball courts where 'White Men Can't Jump' was filmed & also got to see Muscle Beach - where there is an out door gym! It's permanently outdoor.
We also saw a food place called 'Bondi BBQ'.
The next stop was central LA. It was full of Mexican/Spanish stalls and we learnt that the Spanish were the first people to settle LA.
After this we returned to Hollywood for lunch. We ate the biggest slices of pizza I have ever seen! We did some shopping & loved the store called 'Hollywood Land'.
After lunch we went to the Hollywood Bowl (where live performances happen - an amphitheater that holds 17,000!) and then went to the Hollywood Sign.
I had said to Dale before the trip that I wanted to find a way to get close enough to hug a letter, but we learnt on the trip that no-one can get close to it anymore as people once changed the letters to "Hollyweed' so now, no-one can get near it.
We then started the trip to see the stars houses in Hollywood and Beverly Hills. We got to see the houses of
Meg Ryan,
John Travolta,
Leonardo Di Caprio,
Julia Roberts,
Jack Nicholas,
J-LO
Michael Jackson (no wonder he was broke, he was renting this place for $100,000 per month!!!)
+ Britany Spears, Robert Redford, Eddy Murphy, ... and that's just a few that we saw!
After seeing where the stars live, we went to Rodeo Drive where all the stars shop. It was full of exclusive shops (we even got to see where Wyonna Ryder got caught shoplifting!) but more importantly the street was filled with exclusive cars!!!
While the tour guide let everyone shop for 1\2 an hour, Dale & I spent the whole time checking out a Bugatti Veyron and then a few other expensive cars!
By that time the tour was almost over. We went past a few other key landmarks such as the Viper Room where River Pheonix died. We then got dropped off at out hotel, dropped off all our shopping & went to Hollywood Boulevard to shop some more.
We walked to Elvis Presley's star, booked a rental car for tomorrow, went to the Kodak Theatre and walked around the main street.
We bought some more things at Hollywood Land and then went to DSW (direct shoe warehouse). It was actually Dale's idea to go in :) :) A good spot he found ... well for me (not for the wallet!) I left with 6 pairs of shoes & Dale with 2 pairs. We spent an hour in their as the shop was MASSIVE! We found out there was an earthquake, that was about 5.5 but we didn't even realise. Apparently if you're walking or driving\moving it is hard to feel. We had no idea, it happened at about 5pm when we would've been walking to Holywood Bld.
With our hands full and our stomachs empty, we then decided to go back to Californian Pizza as we liked it so much last night. By this stage it was about 9pm. We just ate and are soooo tired. It is so hard to know what time it is here as it doesn't get dark until at least after 8pm. Our suitcases are already full of shopping and it is only day 2 in LA.
cool photos!!!
ReplyDelete