16 Sept 13 Hooray for Hollywood

September 16 – Hooray for Hollywood!!

Don’t ask me what day it is. We woke up at 5.30 and 7 (9 hours ahead of Perth but a day behind). We strolled round to the 711 for brekky. No muesli here! We walked straight into a pair of young police officers, who fanned out and cleared some elbow room when I asked if they were really LAPD. Hell yes . . . and a fine pair they were – very friendly and relaxed and they chatted away about their preference for Disneyland or Universal Studios. Actually, I’m not sure if that was last night or this morning? J has just woken at 3am and tells me it was in the morning.

We had 6” Subways with bacon egg and cheese and free soda buckets for $3 each. Back at the hotel, we asked the concierge how to get to Disneyland. It’s either $40 each for a pickup service plus $90 entry or 2 hours on a bus. He gave us a big map, which then immediately re-inclined us to go to Universal instead, which was a shorter ride on the Metro and would allow us to drop into Hollywood on the way home. Excitement !!! – we went up to the roof of our 15 storey hotel and there it was. . the Hollywood sign up on the ridge. Our tv was locked onto the shootings at the naval base in Washington.

We had a pleasant 10 minute walk down 7^th St into the main downtown area and caught the subway. A very kind young chap took the time to show us how to buy a ticket and add value to it. He even gave us his spare ticket.

The trip was all underground and we emerged after passing through a list of stations including Macarthur Park (someone left the cake out in the rain), Vermont, Sunset Boulevard, Santa Monica, Beverley Hills, and several Hollywoods. Hey we are in LA!! Out in the open, we caught one of those studio road train thingies up a very steep hill to the Studios.

Momentary hiccup when security wouldn’t let us in with the pastries we had bought for lunch. Damn. We walked back round the corner and repacked them into our pockets – the joy of cargo pants. Luckily they were apple Danish, cheese and berry and coffee cake (anyone for Seinfeld?) and not Subways.

The park itself was pretty much a copy of the Singapore version, without the huge entwined outdoor roller coasters. But it had the tour of the original studio backlots, which was very interesting.  We drove down Wisteria Lane, got splashed by Jaws in Amity, awesome 4D King Kong sound stage.  Spooky Bates motel and house (complete with actor with knife), various sets that looked like New York, an old Western town and Generic Europe.  We were shaken to the core in a subway earthquake complete with fire, water and a derailed trail surging towards us. 

 For western fans

 Subway

  Floors all broken by quake..here comes the water

  Sheesh... and on the other side is a fuel truck on fire and a derailed train hurtling towards us

  Amity ...

  They had caught the shark ...or had they

 Nope.  Here it comes

  For Housewives fans

  Who lives here?

 or here?

 Bates Motel with 'the' house behind and behind the motel is the set of 'The Grinch'

 Airplane crashed on this street.  I think he said it was a Tom Hanks film

  Marilyn

 For Simpsons Fans

 Minions!!!!

 

It was Hot – 90 something or big 30s in centigrade. There were lots of areas with water vapour being sprayed out of overhead hoses, particularly where there were queues squashed into tight zigzags.

The queues were not bad but we were pretty ragged by 4pm and headed off downhill to Grauman’s Chinese theatre where hand and footprints of generations of stars are embedded in the concrete forecourt. This is on Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame stretches out in either direction for kilometres. Hugh Jackman has been on there for a few years but we didn’t notice any other Aussies. Clint Eastwood had written – “you made my day”.  There were many a fake ‘movie star/characters’ vying for an opportunity to have a photo taken with you for a fistfull of dollars. We walked on down to the corner of “Hollywood and Vine”, which resonated for some reason, although we were not sure why? It is just an intersection surrounded by tall buildings, but we found a plaque which said that it had once been the heart of Hollywood. OK.

 Another Marilyn

 and Michael

 and Optimus?

 Hugh Jackman

 For Star Trek fans

 Potter Fans

I think 'everyone' puts their hands in Marilyn's.  Hers were the only ones blackened by overuse.

 Johnny Depp.  Yum.

 Michael Jackson

 Black Marilyn & Iron Man

 Famous sign

 I loved this.  The whole of the subway was movie reels.  Awesome.

  Christian at the hotel said, 'Go that way and past the man with his head in the building.  You will definitely see him.'  He was correct.  You couldn't miss him.

 

Back downtown, where we had a teriyaki chicken subway for $5 (that’s a footlong!) and were content to fall asleep pretty quickly, with CNN still stuck on the Navy shootings.

J rustled up some children on Facebook so we updated on all the grandchildren, including the one who spread “brown playdough” all round her room. Don’t ask.

We only scheduled 2 nights in LA because it is expensive and has a reputation for smog and some dangerous neighbourhoods. We felt quite safe and the subways were in good order without a lot of graffiti. An extra day to see the original Disneyland at Anaheim would be good. Maybe next time. We have vouchers for free entry to Universal, so we sort of have to come back?

We did notice a number of different groups of uniformed men in para-police roles, usually in 3s and 4s and armed with nightsticks. They seemed to be associated with specific areas, like the downtown area. Maybe the socially undesirables are encouraged to be elsewhere? Our hotel is on the verge of the highrise area and there are little shops, some of them with security cages, which speak of occasional disharmony and marginalised sub-communities.

We eventually tired of watching continuous repeated speculation about what might have happened in the Navy shootings. We flicked to channel USA, which we realised after a while was a series of police shows, all related to child abuse!  All episodes of ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’   You have to wonder about the relative benefit of drawing attention to the danger and the risk of promoting the practice. Either way, screening repeated episodes of the same stuff seems hard to justify.