AMERICA The 1st

SUNDAY 26th OCTOBER Today we were planning to go to LosANgeles as we had to pick up Simon (one of Sherry's fellow workers) from LAX at 8pm. We didnt quite know what we were going to do in L.A, but we had a bit of time to decide as we first had to go to the local T-Mobile store. But we thought we'd grab a spot of brekky first so we went to IHOP (International House of Pancakes). It was weird to see so many middle aged men wrking there. SHery and I discussed this and SHerry made a good point that hospilality is much more of a career here than it is in Australia where its mostly just universtity students doing something to get some coin while studying. I guess the tips here help. The Latino guy who served us reminded me of the voice off Grand Theft Auto IV at Burger Shot. "Hellow, welcome to Burger Shot / IHOP". The menu was massive, reminded me of our Age newspaper. Looking at the menu I was salivating over the pictures. Everything looked so good I didn't eat the menu -but I wish I did because it took ages for our pancakes to come out. All was good - especially the chocolate shake I had. I can never go back to Aussie shakes now. America gets its shakes right.

IHOP - Santa Barbara

Eggs, bacon, pancakes. Mmmm. Where's that shake? Oh yeah - desert pancakes to wash it down

After brekky we made our T-Mobile Pitstop. We parked the car at one of the lots and climbed the stairs up to the shops. We passed this blonde girl who returned my polite smile and i looked backand she was checking me out!

Also, while Sherry was at the T-mobile shop, a guy saw my Phoenix t-shirt and we started talking about Steve Nash, Shaq and then somehow horse racing. As it turned out, he worked in the shoe store and when Sherry talked to me he thought she was talking to him.

Next door was a gamestore so I bought 3 NDS games for $50. N+, Pipemania and Impossible Mission. No Tecmo Bowl there yet. I'll pick it up next visit I reckon. We also looked at some clothes stores. THe sports store had some decent stuff but was overpriced. By the time we hit the 101 to Los Angeles it was a bit after 1pm.

A cool car following us on the 101 to L.A

For people that had no plan of what to do I think we did really well. Trying to get to Mullholland Drive we ended up on the cool windy road that overlooks L.A. It's the road that the Need for Speed Carbon game is based on.

While driving on this road we were forced off the road. A group of 5 race bikes and 2 diablos (one lime green and one orange) came towards us head on,overtaking each other on our side of the road. We were forced into the dirt. The weird thing was, in front of us was a county utility or sherriff mobile. They did sweet bugger all to stop and pursue those hoons. I guess by the time they turned around the diablos and bikes would have been long gone.

The cool windy road

We then drove up to the Hollwood sign and although we didn't physically make it to the actual sign we idd drive around the narrow steep streets that were similar to the houses around Milson's Point in Sydney.

Im taking the sign home with me

We then drove down to Hollywood Boulevard and saw plenty of famous names on the Walk of Fame and also the nad/footprint thingy. There were heaps of impersonators on the street too.

Hollywood Boulevard

The funniest thing I saw was Spiderman with his mask off having a smoke break. Hahaha. I wanted to take a photo of him having a break. But I think he only allowed proper photos with a money donation. Other impersonators/ characters i saw were Yoda, Spongebob, a black wonderwoman, the Scream guy, Captain Jack Sparrow, Jimi Hendrix (who I thought was 1/2 decent but Sherry thought otherwsie).

The Kodak theater - home of the Oscars and Emmy's

We really did well in the 45 minutes we had on our car park metre. We bought heaps of souvenirs too. Below are some of my favourite celebrities on the Walk of Fame. We took heaps of photos of other stars too.

Team America style Watch me break his star with my 100 hand slap

Im trying to cover up her star

Handles

Marilyn Monroe

George Clooney

Actually a funny story about this, I heard on an interview with Matt Damon that when George Clooney did this he wore shoes 2-3 sizes larger than his own shoe because he heard that the concrete shrunk and would have made his footprint look smaller.

Yep - he did take George's advice!

Imprinted painstakingly by me!

Quick! before he comes back

Sherry IS famous after all!

Spot the Hollywood sign! It is there trust me

MASS

Let me teach you sir. Oh hang on.

After our express 45 minute Hollywood Boulevard experience we then drove down Sunset Boulevard, which is an extension of Hollywood Boulevard. We went past many landmarks, or i guess 'Manmarks', The Comedy Store (Paully Shore - and many actually famous comedians have performed here), The Viper Room - I think where River Phoenix famously died from an overdose.

Sunset Boulevard. At sunset!

The Viper Room

Sunset Boulevard then took us right into Beverly Hills. I was looking for old Ford's running red light's, chcick's in spandex walking their poodles, listening out for strange laughs, and trying to see Brandon or Brenda. We did go past the Beverly Hills Hotel. Famous for some reason. The roads were wide as. Is that because of all the Hummer's that famous people drive. The nature strips were massive too. One intersection was as big as a football field. Qw also drove past a really posh school but we don't think it was the one from the tv show 90210.

Dont think Axel it makes my #@#^ itch!

Spacious lanes to cater for drunk rich people

American's and their churches

We then tried to get to Venice Beach because I wanted to see those famous basketball courts. But it was getting dark and we needed to eat before we picked up Simon from LAX. We drove past the 'Hotel California' and realised we were back in Santa Monica. We parked the car and walked down an outdoor mall sort of like Bourke St but in Santa Monica. Santa Monica is only a jiffy up from Venice Beach which is then probably the same distance from LAX.

I love the bottomless drink thing and had about 2,5 cokes as well as a tasty mushroom pizza - despite it not having many mushrooms. The bathroom at this restaurant even had tokens. Why the hell would it have tokens? I thought I was in the disabled toilet because the urinals were so low.

As we drpve past the Santa Monica pier we saw how the whole place came alive at night. The ferris wheel was lit up and looked pretty snazzy.

We then picked up Simon from LAX. We had a good chat on the way home. I don't know whether he was tired or what but seemed pretty much over everything. Still, when you are a guy who moved to Beijing with 200 pounds, coming to America again and it being late you could excuse him for being lacadasical.

Anyway, we got home at about 11.30. Sherry had to be out of the house by 7.15 the next morning so she went to bed. I stayed up for a bit before coming hitting the hey and listened to Still the 12th Man.