Gringo Tour 08/09 Part 2

Our flight to LAX on Qantas Business was quite sweeet. The service didn't feel like the normal Qantas "consult with the union manual" economy service - rather it was really good (they serve you immediately after pressing the call button) and we both enjoyed it. The movies were a little dire on the flight - Tropic Thunder was the most ridiculously bad movie I've seen in a while... really bad. The best bet is to just watch the trailer for the "chucking a Vietnamese child off a bridge" scene because sitting through the rest of the film is just torture. We both managed to get a bit of sleep on the flight (3 hours - new world record). Maybe this was due to the copious amounts of champagne and red wine we had??

Upon arrival at LAX - we had to queue for a bit in the "alien" queue. All of the flight crew were jumping the alien queue - and that sort of pissed both Ant and I off a bit. We thought it was a good idea to "hide our Cuban visas" from the American authorities - just incase they thought we were "I heart Che" commie pinko bastards or something.

Last time in LA - we caught the "Super" (rip-off) "Shuttle" which was about US$30 each for a short bus trip to West Hollywood. Ant did a bit of research before we left and discovered the Fly-Away Shuttle which was about US$4 - which dropped us off at Union Square (only a couple of metro train stops away from our hotel). When we boarded the shuttle - we tried to pay the bus driver our $4 - but she said - "just pay at Union Square"... as you do...

The bus trip to Union Square was fairly easy and I'm sure we passed over the top of South Central via a highway... At Union Square - I did a good samaritan thing and paid for the bus ticket (no one really bothered to check whether we were going to pay or not).

Union Square (we had been here before on our last trip) is a nice old-mission style train station - complete with the requisite vagrants that usually come with train stations. We were thinking that we had to hike to our hotel (the Westin Bonaventure - aka True Lies/In the Line of Fire hotel) - but there was a metro stop just nearby the Westin - so we took that option.

The LA train metro network (if you have watched Speed - you would be somewhat familiar with the metro - except I didn't see Sandra Bullock handcuffed to a pole and Keanu and that bad guy duking it out with bombs and stuff) is a fairly efficient train system - not too disimilar in style to the "nuclear fall out" train subway network that is Washington DC metro. I think it is a bit of a misnomer about LA that the public transport is really bad. Ant and I reckon that it is pretty good - with both trains and buses covering a large area and running fairly constantly (never usually have to wait more than 15 minutes). I know I'm going to sound a bit like Ja'ime from Summer Heights High but public transport in the states is usually populated by low-socio economic people or something. How random..

We had a short stroll to our 4 star Westin Bonaventure hotel in the financial district of downtown LA. I mentioned True Lies and In the Line of Fire - because there were a couple of scenes from both movies which were shot at the hotel (True Lies shot the "Arnie riding a horse through a hotel lobby and lift" movie here and In the Line of Fire shot the money shot scene where the president is being shot whilst riding the elevator by John Malkovich or something...). The Westin Bonaventure looks more like a giant space ship / office building with huge circular pillar things with those outdoor/indoor glass elevators on each pillar than a hotel. Speaking of shooting stuff - there was a camera crew shooting a scene on a nearby bridge with the makeup trucks parked out the front of the hotel whilst Ant and I were walking from the train station. Good old Hollywood.

When we entered into the hotel lobby - we had thought we had entered into some strange time-space continuum warp which we had entered into the Melbourne Crown Casino water fall lobby thing - with tacky water fountains/water features everywhere (including ones that spurted water over a walkway to a lift). There was also this really tacky Christmas mock-up model of the hotel all decked out xmas style with snow and stuff (not the typical hollywood "snow" but the perisherblue variety instead).

Amazing - we checked in at about 7am and both decided to crash in the hotel room for a couple of hours to catch up on some sleep. Our room was a little small and dated but it was comfortable and we had a view of some lifts (which kept Ant happy because he loves not only True Lies but In the Line of Fire as well).

I woke up at about 11 am and felt really dehydrated (maybe it was something to do with all of the grog on the plane) - so I wandered out in an attempt to find some shops. Downtown LA was a bit like the CBD in Sydney (only if the Sydney CBD had been built in the late 80s/early 90s) - no real life (or shops) so finding a drink was a pretty hard task. I found this strange indoor/outdoor mall which had a Macys and a truly horrific/depressing food court which made me feel like I was in Peru or something. I found this "California Pizza" food chain thing and ordered the free-world's most expensive Pepsi Light (US$3 which is about 20 Aussie pesos).

After Sleeping Beauty (aka Ant) woke up from his self-induced coma - we headed out to the streets of LA and caught a train to Hollywood and Vine. The musical "Wicked" was playing at a theatre just outside the metro stop but the tickets were super expensive ($USD90 which was about 50% more expensive than the Aussie tickets) so we decided to give it a miss.

Hollywood hadn't really changed much from the last time we had been there - there are still the crazy people, the prostitutes and the scared and confused tourists... That's pretty much the only people on Hollywood Blvd (ie: no locals). We were sort of feeling a little hungry and both decided to stop at a place called Baja Fresh - which was some Mexican chain where I and the front counter guy had problems communicating with each other. It wasn't as bad as my experience at a Subway at Key West in Florida - where I attempted to order a "Meatball Sub" and the woman kept thinking I was asking for a "Maple Sub"... but it was close. Americans heart food options and combinations/permutations and every meal comes with about 1000s different sauces, sides or dressings which makes it a bit of a daunting experience for an Aussie. The guy at the front counter sort of mumbled in a thick hispanic accent "white beans, brown beans or black beans". I got him to repeat what he had said - I still didn't understand him - then I just sort of mumbled - "the last one please." Our meal was pretty huge (another thing about american food portions) - it had come with two soft tacos, salad, rice and beans and the free-world's largest coke (probably about 2 ltrs big).

After our Baja Fresh experience - we decided to wander in the general vague direction of West Hollywood - LA's gay district. We wandered along Sunset Blvd for a bit (we were the only pedestrians in sight). There were the standard big "f##k off" billboards along the Sunset Strip and various yuppies/bums/crazy people as well. We decided to visit a Mc Donalds in a little strip mall - where we almost got run over by three HUVs in the carpark (it was obvious that no one had every walked to this Mc Donalds before). We were planning on going to Knotts Berry Farm (eg: the snoopy themepark) and had read on its website (when we were back in Australia) that you could pick up a coupon at "participating "So Cal" Mc Donalds" for a US$17 off an adult ticket at Knotts Berry. We collected the aforementioned coupons (we also collected 2000 calories with a Mc Donalds Sundae) and kept walking down Sunset (ironically it was sunset @ Sunset).

Everyone here at America has big cars. My mid-sized Nissan Pulsar would be considered to be a "micro" car here in the states. come to think about it - a Holden Commodore would be considered to be a medium car in the states. Maybe everyone drives around in big cars to haul their big oompa-lompa a##es around everywhere because of their up-sized food portions...?

We headed down to Santa Monica Blvd (after about 1.5 hrs walking) and stumbled across the "gay district" of LA - which is pretty small all things considered (eg: population, california is rather progressive). Ant thinks that the gays here in LA are fairly closeted as most are in Hollywood and are next to their big break or something. We checked out the gay bookshop (where there is a better selection at the Sydney Bookshop on Oxford St than here) - I bought a Razzie's Guide to Bad Cinema (which described the sex scene my fav all time movie - Showgirls -as "Flipper" meets "Striper" which is fairly accurate) and Ant bought a couple of double-entendre T-shirts.

We strolled up and down the somewhat small gay strip and decided to head in the direction to the Beverly Centre (the somewhat famous LA mall where "Scenes from the Mall" was shot). As we were waiting for the bus - a box full of catalogues had fallen off the back of the mail truck into the middle of a 6 lane road - complete with crazy SUV drivers. A panicked woman shouted at Ant - "you must pick up the mail". Ant looked at her and said "are you crazy bitch?" - well they probably weren't his exact words but neither of us were willing to risk our lives (and our ability to claim travel insurance) by attempting to rescue some crappy catalogues for Walmart or something.

A short bus ride later - we reached the Beverly Centre - where it felt incredibly dead quiet - sort of like a zombie/post-apocalyptic mall movie.... apart from the (I kid you not) "Hunky Santa and the Candy Cane Girls" show. For about USD$50 - you could get your picture taken with "Hunky Santa" a skantly clad santa with a six pack (but with a need for a paper bag to hide his shameful face). Occasionally - Hunky Santa and his posse - the Candy Cane Girls put on a show. Correction - Hunky Santa just posed a bit and the Candy Cane girls put on these Xmas inappropriate contortionist shows with ribbons and things. Anyway - the mall was pretty much dead (maybe something to do with the GFC aka Global Financial Crisis) apart from the Apple Store which was dead busy.

Ant and I were a bit underwhelmed with the shopping at the Beverly Center (or should that be "Centre") and so was the food court - so we headed to a small Vietnamese Pho soup place next to the centre for dinner.... Until next time