Today we headed for movie magic in Hollywood and Universal studios.
We started with the Walk of Fame at Hollywood and Vine metro station. The stars are set on footpaths shared by homeless people and next to empty parking lots and run down shops. Glamourous? No, but we thought it was so bad it was fun. We particularly liked the Oscar statues available at the corner convenience store - pick one up with your morning juice.
We should mention it was very windy and cold so we rugged up well and continued to walk. Next stop was the main section of Hollywood including Graumanns Chinese Theatres and the feet and handprints of stars. This was better and more of what we expected.
We love Clint...
Then we headed on the metro train for 1 stop for Universal Studios. The park was nearly empty considering the cold and it being a weekday so queues were non existent. Fantastic.
The world famous back lot tour was our starting point. A good hour of history, studios sights and fun. We encountered 3D King Kong and our tram took a bit of a hammering but we survived - whew!
The rest of the tour included dancing cars, Norman Bates, flash flooding, jaws, the Mummy, plane crashes and more. Here are some highlights.
While waiting for the 12noon Special Effects show, we found Mr Bean's holiday car and a french town square.
The Special Effects show was lighthearted and included the mandatory blue screen, but also a green screen. Quite a few volunteers from the audience, but not us.
After the show we visited the Haunted House. Very dark and our hearts were quite jumping when monsters lurched out at you through dark maze. Di led for a while then pushed Hans ahead so she could hide behind!
Here we are at the entrance to that show.
To calm down the nerves, we took a break for lunch, with clam chowder and rolls. All good. Afterwards we went to the lower lot to see the "museum" but decided against the Jurassic Park river ride as you get quite wet and we were already cold.
Back at the upper lot we encountered Jaws (how brave is Di now...) and enjoyed the 4D Shrek show.
By 3ish we had enough and headed home. 3 stops on the red line, very convenient. We definitely needed a coffee and our local Armenian pastry shop has become a favourite. For $4.26 total we get a tea, a coffee, 2 fantastic cookies for Hans and 1 small but rich Armenian baklava style pastry for Di. Yummy and they are lovely people working there, remembering us from our first visit.
A walk around a few blocks revealed the 99cents store down on Sunset. Now our favorite place. We bought a few useful items for our 6 months here. Plastic cups and plates (featuring Da Vinci's last supper painting on the surface) and cutlery. Back to the motel for offload and a break.
Dinner was, as per recommendation from a Chinese doctor in the Armenian pastry shop, Vim Thai Restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard, some blocks away to the east. The only problem was that by the time we decided to go there, around 6.30pm, the wind was whipping into a frenzy and it was friggin cold.
The restaurant was doing some good business in what looked like steamboat, but after we queried, it turned out to be seafood soup which the punters seemed to follow up with some cheap dishes like noodles and rice. We didn't go that way, but ordered shrimp fried rice, beef stir fry with mint, chili and garlic and green curry chicken, here referred to as chicken curry with bamboo shoots. All surprisingly good and hot.
Here is Di actioning her doggie bag of rice. Breakfast for the next day.
By 8pm, we wandered back to the motel, and just when we were discussing how safe this seemed, we saw an empty travelers suitcase dumped on the sidewalk just outside our motel. Guess you never know...
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