Wednesday out at the tarpits

Today was pretty cool. In the sense that cool can be when it's 34 degrees Celsius (94 degrees... Trying to learn the English system...), and hotter if you're cut off from the ocean by hills on all sides.

A little out of the hills I went out to Hollywood again, catching a bus using the Metro system... The first bus driver was not very nice. You have to put the exact change into the thing because it doesn't give you change... She yelled at me and just grunted at me to go sit down when I tried to get coins out of the coin return (isn't that meant to be for change usually?).

I got to Hollywood Boulevard where I was planning to catch a second bus... Only I hadn't marked on my map which side of the road it was meant to be on, and just as I realised... I missed it. No matter, it gave me some time to lunch and get excited because some people promoting Disney were out on the street: (Click me) (Click me) I was a little upset that I didn't have anyone with me today actually, I couldn't get a photo with Jack Sparrow! I'll have to wait until October when we go to the theme park itself I guess...

Eventually I did catch my bus, and off I went to the Miracle Mile, also known as Wilshire Avenue. Excitement abounds.

So the mission of today was of course to go to the La Brea tar pits which I had heard about from Annie S.S. I think it would be much better to go in and see as a school group (in fact there were several groups of kids on Summer camps there) or a family, but it was interesting all the same to see a lot of the fossils, and the bubbling tar pools outside. There was also some people excavating a tar pit outside, which only happens once every year when it is warm so I was lucky. I couldn't see much, but I think one of the guys was chipping out a bone. On a day like today I'm just glad that it wasn't me... They only dig up the stuff that is a bit hard, so think about trying to dig up a sealed road on a day when it's so hot that the road has begun to melt and get stuck all over the bottom of your shoes... Yeah, I'd rather not be them with my face so close to that.

It was interesting, though almost just as interesting was my discovery of vending machines selling 600 ml bottles of soft drink for only $1!!!! This is apparently standard too!!! So I sat in the shade and had my very cheap bottle of Coke before walking back to the bus stop... On my way back, about five random people started launching into conversations with me, which struck me as very odd, because that kind of thing usually happens to me only at Scout camps. People here are obviously very sociable... None of them made comments on my accent (which is still very Australian, if not a bit British sounding to most people here), which was also interesting. The conversations were all about how hot it was though, as if I didn't need reminding!!!

Then, I caught the bus back here.

The end.

The catch up

I should be more consistent with these updates, sorry for making you all wait!

I've done a few things since my last post, though no v. blog YET. I have the footage but have not edited it. I've got a lot of photos though so perhaps that'll make up for it! To stop long loading times a bit, the photos can all be found by clicking on relevant links.

First of all, here are photos from Wednesday night dinner:

A Jicama. Looks like a potato, tastes a little like apple. Goes well in salads!
Kristy cooking up a storm
Rice - A - Roni ... Just because...

Thursday 9 (after the last post): Kristy got home and we went grocery shopping for dinner... And dessert- s'mores.

There is one way to make s'mores, and one way only because if they are made another way, then they're not s'mores.

First, you heat a marshmallow over a fire (like a stove fire!!!) using a stick (like a fondue stick). It has to be melted on the inside, so catching a part of it on fire does not do it much good. The best way is to turn it and sort of brown the outside.

Once your marshmallow looks all goeey, put it onto a Graham cracker (these crackers are square, thin, and have a sweet honey taste to them.). Then put a part of a Hershey chocolate bar on top of the marshmallow (Hershey is best, but in any case it needs to be thin chocolate for it to melt properly with the marshmallow) . Then you put ANOTHER Graham cracker on top of that and you eat it.

S'mores taste very good and are very appropriate for watching the end of Ghostbusters when the big marshmallow monster comes.

Friday: After going for a good walk up the road expecting to find NoHo, this time I went the other way up the same road, which lo and behold was the right way to go if I wanted to get to NoHo. NoHo is the Arts District apparently, though it took me a lot of walking to figure out why! At one stage it branches off into two streets, and I chose the wrong one. Eventually I found NoHo and it's pretty groovy. The zebra crossings are multicoloured, people do acrobatics with big signs to advertise some apartments that have opened up for rent, and there are studios, drama schools, comedy clubs, theatres, cinemas, and agencies EVERYWHERE. It was pretty cool.

Saturday: Kristy was working at 3 on Saturday, and so taking the opportunity of a lot of time to be ready in time to go with her, I was off to the Burbank Empire Shopping Centre (where the airplane decorations are everywhere). The place has shops spread out all around and in a huge carpark, to walk from one end of the area ("The Great Indoors/Starbucks") to the other (A big office building) it takes about 15-20 minutes. OK maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is still a long way. Talking of Starbucks, not only is there one INSIDE a furniture store, but there is a second one in the food court area... But first things first.

I walked around and looked into all the shops... Targets here apparently all have mini restaurants and kiosks in them. This one also had a photo developing place and a pharmacy, with the mini restaurant being a Pizza Hut. One thing that I noticed in a lot of them was that they're already all getting their Halloween stock ready. This picture is from inside an art supply store... The white girl thing moves, her eyes light up and she makes that sort of ghost moaning sound: (Click Me)

Then, in the food court... There is... This

I had heard about Outback Steakhouse before coming, but I didn't quite believe it... Take a look at their menu (link opens a .pdf file), it's the funniest thing ever next to their door.

I've started drinking coffee too, it's not my favourite thing in the world, but it's not bad and they drink it A LOT here. Starbucks might be everywhere, but they're still a pretty good place to sit and relax!

Sunday: Richard had the day off and so we went to this place called Trader Joe's to do some grocery shopping. The place makes almost all their own stuff, and most of it is organic... It's pretty cool with its hippie atmosphere, but not over the top with it's health freak stuff... It's pretty normal as a store and the stuff we bought there I'd expect to buy at any grocery place.

When Kristy finished work, we all went to a place called Corral Cafe for dinner, which was pretty cool... Richard had seem some video where a ghost was following a waiter there, but there were no ghosts. Instead, the crepe I ate was pretty good as was the Oreo cheesecake!

Monday: There is A LOT of video taken on this day, and so you'll see some of the stuff I'm talking about on there.

Today was a bit of a sightseeing trip for Hollywood, kicking off by driving past the set for the TV show Scrubs before heading through Studio city and onwards to Hollywood Boulevard. After driving up and down the street and deciding we couldn't get a decent shot of the Hollywood sign or any of the stars on the footpath from the car, we parked and got out an walked in the heat.

For a while anyway. Most of the shops around there aren't that interesting... Sure there are a few clubs and such, but most were wig shops, tattoo & piercing shops, or shops for costumes or skimpy and slutty 'Hollywood style clothes' (as the shop fronts say) or Scientology buildings. After walking around for a while, we were feeling pretty hungry and so headed for the mall to place called The Pizza Kitchen. There were lots of cool types of pizza and it was good. (Click me) (Click me)
Outside was a balcony where I finally got the picture I was looking for.

The mall had a lot of other stuff too, but most notably this: (Click Me)... Apparently it's the latest craze.

And here is a photo of me in front of El Capitan, an apparently famous place. (Click Me)

There was also a movie premiere for the newest movie by the people who made The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up called Superbad being set up at the Chinese theatre... We didn't end up going to it, or seeing any celebrities around it.

While we were walking again, we were stopped by a woman with a video camera asking us if we'd like to be interviewed for a segment on the TV show Dr. Phil... With Dr. Phil not really being cool, we declined and instead went to look at Kermit the Frog's star.

And then, we saw all these celebrities! They were everywhere! Tom Hanks, Johnny Depp, Anthony Hopkins, Jim Carey, Angelina Jolie, Chuck Norris... Even Jesus!

...OK, so they were made of wax. I took lots of photos all the same. Some of them were looking sad or old, or just plain bad, but it was still pretty cool.

Part One
Scarecrow, Dorothy, The Cowardly Lion, Tinman and The Wicked Witch of the West
Tom Hanks with Wilson
Me with Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow
Charlie Chaplin
The Beatles (Yoko Ono missing from photo!)

Part Two: Scary stuff
Freddy and Jason
Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector
Betelgeuse
Elvira
Regan MacNeil from the Exorcist (Father Lankester Merrin missing from photo)

Part Three
Kristy sez: These stars are OK!
Even more easily recognisable celebs (can you name them all?)
The GovernTerminator
Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka
Katherine Hepburn and Humphery Bogart from The African Queen
Classic Stars
Jim Carey as Ace Ventura
Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy (looking not quite as he should...)
Leonardo Di Caprio in Titanic
Kristy and Chuck Norris
John Wayne
Clint Eastwood
We want it noooow
Kristy tries to lift the mood at a certain supper
Spoilers for "The Passion"
Spiderman
Raphael
Leonardo and Kristy
Donatello and Michelangelo
A scene from Hook
The Men in Black
The Matrix



...Also these ones taken especially for Sean:
Star Wars I
The cast of M*A*S*H (NQR, but there you go)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Luke, Yoda and Leia
Darth Vader
Darth Maul
James Bond

We went walking some more afterwards and saw in the distance Capitol Records, and this place that I can't remember the name of... But it's near the Pantages Theatre, where the musical Wicked is currently playing... We took a photo of the roof because it's pretty cool...

Today has been pretty quiet. It's hot and so I stayed inside and cleaned up and did laundry... Tommorow, I'm planning on visiting the La Brea tar pits, woo hoo!