LA la la la

Well i decided that the best way to see the most of LA was a tour. I took a "VIP Tour" grand tour of LA. We started of at Marina Del Wray - the largest man made boat harbour in the world - not all that exciting but lots of people were cycling which was an odd sight in LA. Next Venice Beach passing the restaurant John Wayne owned on the way. Venice actually does have canals I never knew that - in fact it has six. Both Angelica Houston and Julia Roberts live there and I guess it was quite nice. I had a look at Venice Beach and was disappointed to see that there was no-one at Muscle Beach - must have been too early. The beach was lovely - perfect California, but we had to be back on the bus in 20 mins and push on to Santica Monica. This was a very much posher area than Venice and has a very nice looking pier. We didn't stop though and drove onto Westwood, passing the building that was the Makatomi Tower in Die Hard 1. Westwood has the Veterans of Foreign Wars cemetery and also the Pierre Brothers Westwood Cemetery where Roy Orbison and Frank Zappa are buried. From there it was onto Beverly Hills which is actually a private city with its own laws, street signs etc. Certainly people didn't seem to want to hang about on the streets there - there was no-one and I mean no-one walking about - it was like 28 days later, weird. We drove down Rodeo Drive and saw all the high end stores, then down to Sunset Strip passing Marilyn Monroes last house.

On Sunset boulevard we saw the Viper Room and "Carneys" where Elvis ate his burgers as well as Chateux Marmont where the stars hang out (apparently).

For lunch we stopped at a "Farmers Market" which was really a outdoor food court - but I got some nice shrimp (prawns) and some cucumber salad and a beer. Which was a pretty yummy lunch. They had the craziest place there - a bakery for dogs! It sold pupcakes and doggy donughts - I have never seen anything like it - I thought the dog deli in Mosman was crazy.

We headed onto Hollywood, saw the sign, the Chinese Theatre, the pavement stars, the hand prints and the Kodak theatre. It was very busy down there and there was a lot of people dressed as movie stars looking for cash for photos. It wasn't great.

Next was Olivera Street - where LA started as a Spanish town. It had lovely little spanish style buildings, a lovely old firestation with an antique horse drawn fire engine and lots of stalls selling souvenirs and cactus candy - some of which I got for Keith. It had a lovely party atmosphere and although it was small there was lots of stuff to look at. We pressed onto Chinatown and Little Tokyo past the Walt Disney concert hall (big, shiny) and eventually got dropped back at my hotel.

After I dumped some stuff I walked back to Olivera Street and then onto Little Tokyo where I got Tempura (prawns and veg), rice, salad, salmon and eel nigri and tea all for $13US. Which is just mad. I also sampled some green tea and plum wine ice cream and maybe a couple of things in the Hello Kitty store....

Sunday I went back to Santa Monica beach and enjoyed the sunshine (and played with the new panoramic setting on my camera!

I got the bus there and the driver was really friendly I stood beside him and chatted almost all the way (its nearly a half hour journey). I think people really take to you when they found out you are Scottish...

Finally I headed back to the airport and caught my flight, with no delays, to St.Louis. Arriving at my hotel around 1am - and I guess now the work actually starts....lol.