After leaving a very cold New York we were originally expecting about 22 degrees for a 2.5 days in Los Angeles but were pleasantly surprised by 25 degrees on Tues, 29 degrees on Wed and a staggering 31 degrees on Thursday which was actually hard to deal with. I've been battling a constantly dripping nose since last Sunday and even though had been taking Beroccas and some pharmacy drugs, have still been sneezing / dripping all over LA and now Melbourne (despite the warmer weather which I was sure would help!)
It was certainly different in LA, and not just the weather. We felt like a higher proportion of the food was greasy spoons/ burger joints etc than New York. What we couldn't figure out is what more than half the population was eating as at least 60% of LA is extremely thin (girls & guys). Whereas the rest are either overweight or obese (as expected from the food). Bad food is priced very well for those with less willpower and less money to succomb. For example, we went to a Panda express (typical Asian style food outlet in shopping centre). We were able to buy a large Coke for only 20 cents more than one nearly half the size!
One of the other suprising things was that no-one walks around in LA. People will drive even short distances. We're not making this up - even the airport taxi driver confirmed this. We had just walked across all of NY, averaging between 1.5 - 6hrs per day. We still walked but in most cases we were the only ones, as soon as you stepped away from the tourist zones or shops.
The Standard Hotel on Sunset is in West Hollywood and had a very nice pool deck which we ate breakfast on each day and drinks on Wed night watching the sun set before going out for dinner.
On Tues by the time we got in an settled it was already 4.30pm, so we just checked out the local area and found a restaurant, ordered dinner (mine took nearly 45-mins even though there were only about 10 people there!) and then went to bed.
Wednesday we took the Dash (local bus, 25 cents) to Hollywood & Highland and went shopping (as you do) next door to the walk of fame.
. Mark has worn Skechers shoes for several years and so we walked in. The prices were equivalent to half the cost in Australia. We wanted to buy about 6 pairs but had to contain ourselves to three (including some apres-ski boots for me)! We also bought some other little buts and pieces and then found a beautiful Prada bag for me.
We walked around Hollywood checking all the stars names and they go around the block, down the road, on the next block - there's heaps!
We had a Thai chicken salad and found the Arclight cinema and saw Where the Wild Things Are to get out of the heat at a great cinema (rumoured to be the best in LA).
The theatre which was huge - sat at least 1500
We had some great steaks at a hip local restaurant on our last night but sadly no pictures (It was a bit too hip to take photos even for us!).
Our last day was spent visiting Hollyhock House (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) were we ended up getting a private tour, although the guide was a bit defensive when we picked up his Charles Rennie Macintosh influences (we think they inspired each other as they were about the same era) as well as his more ancient Mayan influences.
Our final LA stop was the walt Disney Centre which was designed by Frank Gehry, the same as the Guggenheim in Balbao in Spain.
No comments:
Post a Comment