Los Angeles Part 1

When we first arrived in LA, we were so excited to see and feel the buzz it is so well known for. Our hotel was on Sunset Blvd, one block away from the famous toursist area on Hollywood Blvd, so we walked straight to the Grauman's Chinese Theatre and watched on as tourists were harrassed by these independent characters like the one you see above. It seems Michael Jackson has been resurrected. It was the closest likeness I have ever seen. Some of these characters were dressed professionally and well, some looked like they made their costume from scraps of material and some just didn't wear many clothes at all, hoping their bodies would be enough of an attraction. The worst of these beings were the scary ones, dressed as monsters that would stalk you for miles down the street. It was awful.

The other thing I noticed straight away was that there was a lot of rubbish on the ground, I couldn't believe how dirty this place was and then I realised that there were no rubbish bins. It was so strange, there was literally no place to put rubbish, so people would obviously just throw it on the ground. By the time we reached LA, I had run out of doggy dodo bags and ended just leaving it there, thinking what difference is it going to be, there is so much rubbish here no one would even notice, except on our last day a cop saw and threatened to fine me, funny how a cop is happy to exert his authority on this matter but not on the violence I endured, (more about that in Tim's blog LA2). Later that night, I happened to ask Tim's carer, why there were no rubbish bins, she explained that people were using rubbish bins to set off bombs, so they just removed them. I don't which disturbed us more, the nonchalant way she said this, or that fact this was occurring.

We figured the best way to get around and see the city was to buy a ticket for the hop on - hop off bus tour. It meant that we would get an informative narration of the sights as well, as opposed to a normal transit bus with the locals. The tour left from directly out the front of the Chinese Theatre and did a loop around hollywood. You would then hop off the bus at different terminals to get on other bus loops to view other areas of the city. The buses were like the British double-deckers, so Mel was able to go upstairs for a great view and took these shots.

 

Left: Offices of the Screen Actors Guild. 

Right: Famous Chateau Marmont (hotel for the stars)

Left: The Standard Hotel (owned by Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake) 

Left: El Capitan Theatre - Muppets Premier.

Self explanitory

 

Left: Johnny Depps Viper Room.  Right: Roosevelt Hotel

 

 Streetscape views and signs

 

Left: Millions of Milkshakes. Lot's of celebrities like to be seen here.

Right: Famous Business Building used for many film and tv shoots.

 

Home of the Jim Henson Company. Charlie Chaplin used to produce his films from these studios way back when. 

Left: Maryin posing at the start of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

Right: Golden Globe banners. We were looking forward to Ricky hosting again.

Here are some photos of the famous hand, foot and object prints out the front of the Chinese Theatre.

THE HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME STARS

In our next couple of blogs we talk about our experiences at other attractions we visited around Los Angeles. We thought we would be very happy with the location of our hotel being so close to this tourist area, but you only need to walk one block away and you are deep into the slums and ghettos of the city. There are a lot of homeless people and very seedy types in the area and as mentioned above it is quite dirty. Probably the only other good thing apart from the attractions mentioned above, is the shopping. Everything is very cheap in the States. We were over the road from from a fabulous cheap shoe store. It's just a shame we had to 'commando style' our way there past the dangers.