and it’s good morning LA…
After minimal sleep, it was time to ‘bounce’ out of bed and get the
Hollywood adventure underway… the kids were bursting to catch up with the
Aherns so we had a long breakfast at Denny’s (located inside the hotel). After
several coffees, pancakes and eggs, we set out to get me an American SIM card
for my phone. Simple – you would think. At our third T-Mobile store we were
finally able to purchase one only to discover that my iphone appeared to be
locked. In my calm?, rational? manner…. I contacted Telstra as I had actually
got them to unlock my phone several months ago… They told me that my phone
appeared to be unlocked and I would have to contact the special iphone
unlocking team during business hours.. which I did, only to be very frustrated
by the exceptionally unhelpful ‘experts’ who told me my phone was actually unlocked
and all I had to do was ‘sync my phone through iTunes’ – I explained that I had
done this approximately 20 times since and the phone was still not unlocked…
eventually I managed to sort decipher what I had to do… long story short: when
Telstra ‘assistance’ tells you to ‘sync’ your phone to complete the unlocking process
they really mean that you have to ‘restore to factory settings’…. Grrrrr. What
would have been a fifteen to thirty minute process at home took me much stress
and about 1.5 days to complete as we then had to download iTunes via the hotel
wi-fi (SUCH a speedy and reliable process!!). Never mind, it was worth the
effort as the phone has been wonderful as the walk-talkies are good for close
range only.
After the exasperating phone saga, we decided we all needed to cool down with a visit to Yoghurtland – an awesome place where you help yourself to as many flavours of soft serve frozen yoghurt and toppings as you like… of course we had to sample them all first to determine which ones we wanted. The flavours were awesome including cotton candy (fairy floss), pumpkin pie, New York cheesecake, frappe coffee, cake batter, dutch chocolate, key lime pie, apple pie, chocolate custard, vanilla custard, praline and of course all the basics such as vanilla, strawberry and chocolate.
With ‘icecream and candy’ smiles on our dials, we finally got going on the ‘touristing’ by heading up a windy street to visit a lookout that gives an awesome view of both the Hollywood sign and the Hollywood Bowl as well as some spectacular homes perched on the hills with amazing views over LA (although we did much speculating just how fantastic they might be should an earthquake hit…). We drove through some leafy, lush suburbs in the Hollywood Hills and wound our way down toHollywood
Boulevard
The rest of the day was spent wandering up both side of street taking in all the sites/sights (architectural and physiological – yes, there were some interesting things about town including entertainers, street dwellers, sprukers and all the glitz and glamour of highly commercialised shopping!). We took a break from the buzz in a Mexican restaurant across from the Graumanns Chinese Theatre where we had front row window seats to keep us all amused. Our favourite encounters with characters were with Spiderman who spent a lot of time posing and playing with the kids as well as a mellow chap with a few pet snakes which we all (yes, as petrified as I was, even me), allowed to crawl around over us… I was doing OK until mine decided it wanted to ‘sense’ my neck with it’s tongue… the cool and calm façade quickly vanished!
Most characters were pleasant to deal with but it was a little disappointing to come across the odd ‘mean’ few who won’t pose unless you tip them first… one ‘evil chucky’ even had a sword she had written ‘TIPS’ on in fake blood that she flashed around as she turned away from your camera… I struggled to understand the logic of these people’s behaviours as it was their reluctance to engage (or in some cases their choice to be downright demanding) that actually made us to NOT engage with them, and certainly not tip them. It would be interesting to know if most tourists were like us – more than happy to very generously tip those that made our experience fun and enjoyable, and who minimised the ‘commercial’ feeling of the experience.
Anyway, it is a bit too late for philosophical reflection… what else? Of course, the mandatory gazillion or so photographs of various stars on the Walk of Fame that actually stretches both sides of the street for several miles. We stumbled upon a Disney Jnr concert with many screaming young adults – interesting as we had NO IDEA who anyone was, nor had heard any of the songs they were singing! After a long day we headed back to the car via a Starbucks ‘hot chocolate and coffee’ stop. Home to bed, bed, bed… yes!
After the exasperating phone saga, we decided we all needed to cool down with a visit to Yoghurtland – an awesome place where you help yourself to as many flavours of soft serve frozen yoghurt and toppings as you like… of course we had to sample them all first to determine which ones we wanted. The flavours were awesome including cotton candy (fairy floss), pumpkin pie, New York cheesecake, frappe coffee, cake batter, dutch chocolate, key lime pie, apple pie, chocolate custard, vanilla custard, praline and of course all the basics such as vanilla, strawberry and chocolate.
With ‘icecream and candy’ smiles on our dials, we finally got going on the ‘touristing’ by heading up a windy street to visit a lookout that gives an awesome view of both the Hollywood sign and the Hollywood Bowl as well as some spectacular homes perched on the hills with amazing views over LA (although we did much speculating just how fantastic they might be should an earthquake hit…). We drove through some leafy, lush suburbs in the Hollywood Hills and wound our way down to
The rest of the day was spent wandering up both side of street taking in all the sites/sights (architectural and physiological – yes, there were some interesting things about town including entertainers, street dwellers, sprukers and all the glitz and glamour of highly commercialised shopping!). We took a break from the buzz in a Mexican restaurant across from the Graumanns Chinese Theatre where we had front row window seats to keep us all amused. Our favourite encounters with characters were with Spiderman who spent a lot of time posing and playing with the kids as well as a mellow chap with a few pet snakes which we all (yes, as petrified as I was, even me), allowed to crawl around over us… I was doing OK until mine decided it wanted to ‘sense’ my neck with it’s tongue… the cool and calm façade quickly vanished!
Most characters were pleasant to deal with but it was a little disappointing to come across the odd ‘mean’ few who won’t pose unless you tip them first… one ‘evil chucky’ even had a sword she had written ‘TIPS’ on in fake blood that she flashed around as she turned away from your camera… I struggled to understand the logic of these people’s behaviours as it was their reluctance to engage (or in some cases their choice to be downright demanding) that actually made us to NOT engage with them, and certainly not tip them. It would be interesting to know if most tourists were like us – more than happy to very generously tip those that made our experience fun and enjoyable, and who minimised the ‘commercial’ feeling of the experience.
Anyway, it is a bit too late for philosophical reflection… what else? Of course, the mandatory gazillion or so photographs of various stars on the Walk of Fame that actually stretches both sides of the street for several miles. We stumbled upon a Disney Jnr concert with many screaming young adults – interesting as we had NO IDEA who anyone was, nor had heard any of the songs they were singing! After a long day we headed back to the car via a Starbucks ‘hot chocolate and coffee’ stop. Home to bed, bed, bed… yes!
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