The City of Angels

Arriving at Los Angeles we didn’t know what to expect from out hotel after our trying time in the Tenderloin which we both felt relieved to escape without any real incidents, so we were very pleased to find that our hotel was in a nice street one block from Hollywood Boulevard and right next to the Capitol Records building. Once inside we were pleasantly surprised to find the most equipped room we’ve had on the whole trip. Here’s a quick run-down; Satellite TV, DVD player, Fridge, Microwave and best of all free high speed internet access in the room. There was also free Coffee and Cookies in the reception 24 hours a day, so if you are ever in LA and looking for a reasonable placed to stay check out West Side Rentals on Yucca Street.


We headed round to Hollywood boulevard and wandered along checking out all the names on the walk of fame and all the tacky gift shops selling fake Oscars and walk of fames stars which you can have your name printed on. We then walked along to Grauman's Chinese Theatre which has the hand & foot prints of many Hollywood Greats immortalised in cement and in Jimmy Durante’s case his iconic conk. The walk of fame and the Chinese theatre’s lot is also the haunt of really sad look-a-likes who charge you to have your photo with them, it was quite difficult to tell who some of these losers where trying to be.


At this point we passed by the El Capitan Entertainment Center when we were approached to see if we could make it for a screening of TV show that night, we’d nothing planned so we agreed to go along to the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” talk show at 6:30. We hadn’t heard of Jimmy Kimmel but we thought it might be an ok way to pass a few hours and it was free. Once inside there was a warm up guy who was quite funny and it wasn’t too long before the show got underway. We only knew one of the guests which was Venus Williams the tennis player the other two being some local radio DJ plugging his new TV talk show who we can’t remember and a rapper called Young Jeezy. The show didn’t take too long to film and we were out the place quite early so we wandered a bit more on Hollywood Boulevard before heading back to our hotel to watch the show on TV.


Next morning we caught the Metro downtown to see the Los Angles Philharmonic Hall now branded the Walt Disney Concert Hall which was designed by Frank Ghery, who is probably most famous for designing the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. The building looked truly spectacular glinting in the LA sunshine with it’s curves throwing light and shadows in all directions, it had hundreds of little enclosures and corners that had me snapping away with the camera for over an hour. We then headed down to the City Halls that is another iconic building, and I’m sure any self respecting movie buff will recognise it from numerous movies and TV programs. We took an elevator straight to the top and had some views over the LA smog, to be honest LA is quite like Houston in that it’s all really spread out with a small grouping of skyscrapers in a few blocks of the downtown area.


We then caught a bus across town to the CBS studios in West Hollywood to be part of the audience for another talk show, this time it was “The Late Late Show” hosted by Craig Ferguson. Some of you may remember Craig from his stand up comic days in Glasgow as the character Bing Hitler, I’m not sure if he still has that on his CV. He’s had a few minor movie hits “The Big Tease” and “Saving Grace” neither of which I’ve seen and I wouldn’t like to pass judgement but they both looked a bit rubbish from the trailers I’ve watched. He’s being doing the show for a few months now which screens at 12:30 week nights but has supposedly being doing very good in the ratings and a big TIVO hit. The audience for this was a lot smaller than that of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” but this time you felt like you were part of the show and not just there for your laughing and clapping. Once again there was a warm up guy before the filming got started and Craig also came out and said hello. That night the first thing to be filmed was Natasha Beddingfield singing “I Love You”, which I think was a number 1 in the UK last year but is just getting the big push here, she sang live but she’s not really my cup of tea so it was good when she toddled off back to obscurity. Craig then came out and did his opening rant to the camera this was quite good and much better than anything on the previous night’s show, which wasn’t really difficult. The first guest was Joseph Fiennes brother of Ralph who was on promoting his new movie “The Great Raid” but he came across as a pompous twit full of his own importance and he didn’t really click with Mr Ferguson or the audience.

The warm up guy had told us earlier that the filming was going to take slightly longer tonight as they where filming a sequence that would be used on the following nights show. The extra guest was Sharon Stone and supposedly there were thousands of requests for tickets for the next days show when she was booked to appear, so we were fortunate as quite a few people were going to be disappointed the next day. I’m not sure if it was a late arrival or prima-donna behaviour backstage by Miss Stone but there was quite a delay between interviews, so Craig came back out and started to speak to the audience. He asked “Did I see some guy wearing a Celtic top?” and I replied which led onto a discussion about him supporting Partick Thistle and our trip round the world. Craig Ferguson hasn’t really toned down his accent for TV but I could see some of the audience struggle to keep up as Joanne, Craig and myself talked about Glasgow.

When Sharon Stone came on she looked great and when she said that she just had a child two months previously she made a few of the audience quite envious about her figure. She hit it off really well with Craig and was talking about her childhood and how she comes from an Irish family, when she suddenly ask Craig if he knows the song “You Canny Shove your Granny aff the Bus” which they both started singing much to the bemusement of the American audience but had Joanne and myself in stitches. The was quite a few references to her famous scene in “Basic Instinct” and to be honest she wasn’t hiding too much in her dress for the show.


After the show we soon realised that all types of movies are made in Hollywood. We saw a movie of the blue persuasion being filmed on the roof of a house as we casually walked along the road before being chased off for taking photographs. We went to an excellent Thai restaurant “Toi on Sunset” which had some really cool Beatles stuff on the wall and some early Pixies records on in the background. We had a few Singha Beers to wash down our delicious Green Thai Curry and Pad Thai Noodles before wandering further along Sunset Boulevard back to our Hotel to watch ourselves on TV.


Blackpool Pleasure Beach is the only theme park that Joanne and myself have been to previously so we decided to go to Universal Studios more out of curiosity than any great desire, after a short journey on the metro and once we handed over a large slab of cash we entered at about 10:30 in the morning. As Joanne doesn’t like the fast rides or anything that shakes, twists or bumps too much and after her experience on the flight over the Nazca lines we decided to miss out on a few of the big rides, so our first thing to try was Judgement Day 3D (Terminator 2). Once your seated inside a large theatre some actors appear on the stage and set the scene for what’s about to appear on the three massive screens behind them, I won’t spoil the story in case anybody is planning to go see this. The 3D was amazing and million times better than the rubbish experiments on British TV in the early 80’s with those crappy red and blue glasses, you honestly did think things were flying about you. The room was also covered in dry ice and the seats were rigged to move at certain point in the show, even though I’m usually quite cynical about these things this I came out thoroughly impressed and was all for going straight back in.

We then we went to quite a few other attractions ranging from the quite interesting “Backdraft” and “Special FX” to the down right rubbish “Van Hesling” update on the Haunted House. I had always heard that you spent most of your days queuing at theme parks but luckily enough the longest we waited to get into anything was just over 20 minutes. Joanne then decided she would try the Jurassic Park which led us past some really awful plastic looking dinosaurs on a small boat before winding us up through a disused factory where raptors were spitting water at us, once at the top it was an almost vertical drop into water below. We were both soaked and when came off the ride there were photos for sale of the people on the ride just at the top of the drop. The photos of Joanne and I were so funny, we both looked terrified while hugging the safety bar as the kids behind us all had their hands in the air screaming with excitement.



After lunch we went on the tour of the film lot, taking us past some old film sets and a few street scenes which have been used in loads of movies. The guide was a right pain and didn’t really add anything positive to the tour, we passed the hotel used in “Psycho“, the street used in “Desperate Housewives” and the crashed plane site from the new Steven Spielberg film “War of the Worlds”. You also get taken to a few specially created lots for the tour, which has King Kong attacking you, Jaws snapping at you and a river flooding towards you. The tour wasn’t as good as I thought it might be but it was a pleasant enough way to spend an hour.

We then went to a show called “Fear Factor Live” a live version of an American programme where the contestants competing against each other in endurance tests and gross acts like holding gigantic spiders, eating worms and Joanne’s favourite petting Scorpions. This again wasn’t that great but the kids in the audience seemed to love it, but there’s no accounting for taste. It was good to get away from all the screaming and shouting after half an hour.


Out last attraction was “Shrek 4D” another 3D extravaganza which we had queued for earlier in the day but once inside the fire alarms went off so we had to get out but we were given front of queue passes for a later showing. This time no alarms and we were treated to probably the highlight of the day with another great 3D movie with water and gust of air being fired at you and seat shaking to enhance the film. You also had to wear some really stupid glasses as you can see from the pic above. After this it was out to the Universal City Walk where there’s loads of shops trying to get what’s left of your wallet and a huge outdoor cinema screening classic Universal movies as we passed hundreds of people where watching “West Side Story”. We headed back to Hollywood at about 9:30 after being in the place for over 11 hours. We’d had a good laugh most of the day and we both thought it was probably worth the money but I’m sure kids would absolutely love the place. Once back at the hotel we stayed up to watch ourselves and Sharon Stone on the TV.

Next day we were burnt out after the last few days so we had quite a lazy day catching up with some things on the internet and window shopping in some of the shops on Hollywood & Sunset Boulevards. If you’re in the area check out “Amoeba Records” on Sunset Boulevard near Vine which has a massive stock of CD’s and Movies. We even got a Chinese take away and borrowed a few DVD’s from the reception to complete our completely relaxing lazy day.

After checking out the hotel we had a few hours to kill before out flight so being in Hollywood we decided to go see a movie. We went back to the Chinese Theatre and got tickets for “War of the Worlds” which was ok in blockbuster kind of way but a little to cheesy and All American at times but hey what else did you expect. I think I preferred the one from the 50’s but it’s been years since I seen it.

One of the things I’m going to miss most about America is the great choice of soft drinks, back home my favourite was Diet Vanilla Coke which I was glad to reacquaint myself with in the States. Some other great ones we’ve tried are Big Red,
Stones Cherry Soda but my favourite by a mile was “Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper” hopefully they will have it in Glasgow by the time I’m home but I doubt it.

We had a great time in Los Angeles and San Francisco and we would thoroughly recommend it as a two week holiday destination with maybe a few days in Las Vegas to break it up. Just remember to check the area of your hotel before booking and don’t go for the cheap option like we did in San Francisco. Now it’s over the Pacific and the International dateline for the next part of out trip….. New Zealand.