25.9.15 to 27.9.15 - Day 21 Friday - Santa Monica, Day in LA tour, homeward bound to Day 22 - Sunday - Home.

Awoke again at 3.30am, which is 6.30 on our US body clock, managed a broken sleep till LA time - 6.30am.

Up and showered, changed and reshuffled the packing again. Need to be organised for the day out and for a quick refresh at end of day before heading to airport.

Breaky at The Georgian was again delicious, I chose the granola and fruit this morning, and shared some of Lyn’s pancakes, with jam. Good Latte too.

Sitting area in The Georgian

Old Art Deco light of The Georgian.

Looking out at Breaky across Ocean Avenue.

 Then we did the absolute final pack, checked out and stored luggage and headed over the road to meet our LA for a Day – tour at 9.30.

We had our little Rastabus with BJ our guide, to tour us and 22 others around LA for the next 7 hours.

Our Rasta Bus - for the day tour.

Looking back to the Hotel

Down across the Pallisades to the Ocean.

We did and saw heaps.

First stop – Venice/Muscle beach, I managed to get some time at the skatepark, which I didn’t really get on the Segway tour.

Mural at our first stop - Venice Beach.

Skateboarders at the first ever Skate Park. Back in the day, the local kids, broke into homes with pools (which were drained due to drought) and created the first skate park.

There was even a lady in a wheelchair having a go.

She had a mate to help her out.

The respect and kindness showed by the young guys was great to see.

Caught some action.

more action

gutsy effort down the edge.

Lots of homeless folk along the boardwalk, and other interesting stuff.

Also saw some sort of HAZMAT clean up at a Tattoo Parlour – yuk!

The tattoo parlour raid.

Hazmat to the rescue.

All suited up.

 We also toured through neighbourhoods in Venice and Santa Monica.

Shops along the Venice beach boardwalk.

Even a dude surfer, not sure there were many good waves.

Dude basketballer

playing to the beat of his own headphones.

Along the boardwalk.

The clown icon of Venice (I think)

 Then off to Beverly Hills – we stopped and had some time on Rodeo Drive and pics with the Beverly Hills sign. 

A hunting statue at Beverly Hills.

Water lillies.

Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills

A Tulips scultpure.

Cool plant along Rodeo Drive.

In Rodeo Drive we saw the Bijan owners very Bijan Rolls Royce, bright yellow. This store outfits US presidents with their inauguration suit. Suits range in price from $5k to $60K for a suit.

Rolls Royce, owned by the owner of Bijan. He parks
it here for the tourists evidently.

Bijan Rolls.

And again.

Smooth.

 BJ indicated that the average daily spend by a person ACTUALLY shopping in Rodeo Drive is $100K. It was OTT (Over The Top), the window dressing work was great.

Lots and lots of information from BJ about lots of things, movie studios, who lives where etc, all good to see, but not good to photograph from the bus with other heads and hands through windows.

Our bus, with the Police Station in the background. One cop to every 20 people here.

 Next stop was lunch stop at Farmers Market and The Grove, evidently a good place to spot stars out doing a bit of shopping, I failed to see any. 

Had a slice of pizza for lunch and cruised around the fresh and food stalls, then wandered into The Grove – full of all the expensive shops again, but nice to look at and a lovely old trolley running through it.

Travel Angel with Lyn at the Farmer's Market.

Farmer's Market.

Inside the Farmer's Market.

 Originally the site of Gilmore’s Dairy Farm, they struck oil and became Gilmore Oil moguls.

The original site of Gilmore's Farms, then Gilmore's Oil Fields.

Farmer's Market Clock.

Scultpure at entry to The Grove.

The Grove Theatres.

Found in the car park, looking for Sprinkles Cup cakes...couldn't find them.

The Grove Trolley.

Polished to a particularly sparkly shine. Free rides on the tram tracks through The Grove.

Gilmore Oil/Gas Station.

 From there much more touring through various neighbourhoods and famous venues. The variety of housing was amazing, from total mansions up in the hills around the observatory, to quite small places down in LA, different styles from tudor to weatherboard, lots of stucco, spanish styles.

We also drove through and around some of the movie studios - Fox and Paramount (with another over at Burbank which we didn't go to) BJ recommended highly the tours through these real studios as opposed to the Theme park that is Universal Studios.

There was a weird variety of home in LA. One of them I could get out the bus window.

Self explanatory. I used to LOVE "I Love Lucy"

Paramount Pictures, one of 3 studios still in the area.

 Next stop was Griffith Observatory, we drove up through some posh housing and gated communities, BJ pointed out houses of Johnny Carson, Jack Black, and others I can't recall.

From here we would get our best view of the Hollywood Sign. Originally a bulb lit sign advertising a housing development in the area - Hollywoodland. The word land was removed and Hollywood remained. It was left to go to rack and ruin,  then renovated, and looked after by a man living behind the sign. Eventually the lit sign was replaced by what is there today. It is now fenced off and impossible to get up to.

Griffith Observatory and our opportunity for pics of THE "Hollywood" sign.

There it is.

Yep that little white thing in the distance is it.

 

The observatory was open and free. Lots of interesting info in there, but we had limited time.

There it is in the background.

LA sprawls forever. 

and ever.

Ceiling over a pendulum swinging below to tell the time.

Great art deco features

Art deco lights at Griffith Observatory

One of the observatory domes.

There is a statue of James Dean.

One of the LA in a Day tour buses.

School rules and signs the same the world over.

 Next stop was the Hollywood walk of fame, over 2500 stars along 15 blocks, with lots of stores and theatres as well, including the Dolby Theatre (formerly Kodak Theatre) home to the Oscars as well as the Chinese Theatre, El Kapitan, and Egyptian.

In the front of Chinese Theatre. Lots there, here was one without people's feet. Meryl Streep.

That stairway, had a little play.

Thousands of stars on the Walk of Fame, here is Robyn Williams.

El Capitan Theatre.

Oakley entrance sign.

Cinema.

Entry to Egyptian Theatre.

The walk of fame...or part thereof.

Gotta love Fred, Ginger was there too.

El Capitan.

Chinese Theatre.

Gene Autry - the only star with a star in EVERY one of the five categories = FIVE stars.

Elvis in one of the over the top, souvenir stores.

Typical palm lined street.

 From there we toured back through LA towards Santa Monica.

Green wall in front of a building.

Another typical house.

The police centre.

The Wallis Annenberg Performing arts centre. Donated by the Annenbergs

Cool sculptural plants in front of Sony building.

Twin towers, within the city built around Fox studios, designed as part of New York Sets. Same  architect as Twin Towers, just half the height.

Another view of  Twin Towers.

Paramount Pictures

Fox Studios

Us in the bus.

Great art work on the side of F&S fabric store.

The bus

The bus

Another generous donation by the Annenberg, their house along the coast, open to the community.

Flash house along the way in Santa Monica.

Back to the Hotel, for final drinks and a bite to eat, a chance to freshen up and change into travel gear, ready for our departure around 7.00pm, for our 10.50 flight.

Final Drinks.

Charlie Chaplin was sitting on the bench opposite, when we were having a drink. 

Sunset at Santa Monica

 Out to airport with a very chatty Luis. Traffic was a bit busy so he took some backstreet shortcuts. We were there soon enough. 

Pier entrance at night, taken from our Town Car en route to airport.

Shocker shot, but here we are at LAX, the journey home begins.

  Checked in and through the security. Different each time. Shoes off laptop out. No dramas. 

Then a look thought Duty Free - my sunnies had broken in the cab, but no sunnies to be seen in the airport. 

Found a seat and started to download the last of the photos 

Got yesterday's blog written, photos sorted and published, but time and concentrations were against anything further. 

Eventually last to be called for boarding. We have exit row seats which are both good and bad. No room to put anything but able to stand up and get to loo and to walk around. Also close to kitchen and preparations for business and first class, however this wasn't a problem with headphones etc. 

A bit delayed at take off. My plan to sleep as much and whenever possible worked well. I slept before they served first meal and then for several hours after. I resisted the movies and just listened to the radio and dozed. Read my book. 

Had a couple of walks around some snacks water and a clean of the teeth which always feels good. 

We did get that lovely sunrise above the clouds. But I had no access to a camera for a pic. The shades of blue yellow orange and white are always brilliant up here. 

Served breaky and then the captain announced issues with weather at Melb and Avalon. Despite his confidence that we could land safely, regulations require enough fuel to divert if necessary and we didn't have enough so we landed in Sydney and refuelled which took at least an hour - grrrr. 

Crossing the Snowy Mountains on our diverted via Sydney trip home.

Eventually landed at Tullarmarine, fog had lifted by this time, we now had to wait for a plane to push back from our gate, and a medical plane to go in first, then us.

Waited a while before Captain again announced his frustration, the gate was not opening far enough for us, engineers and technicians were working on it.

That's our plane, just sitting there waiting, waiting, waiting...

Finally probably 45 minutes later we taxied in.

Given where we were seated we could watch a lot of the crew interacting, it was interesting. Before leaving LA 3 guys got on late, 2 big black guys (muscles on their muscles) and another weedy white guy. There was obviously something about them, they politely requested seats closer to the front, but I don’t think anything could be wangled, the plane was pretty full.

They also carried on their own food, all a bit weird.

When we eventually pulled in and waiting for the airbridge to connect, these guys came to the front and waited. Turned out they were Justin Beiber’s body guards, and Justin was in First Class, he walked straight past us, within touching distance (all the way to the US and we see our first close up star on the ground in Melb!!!) Anyway, finally off quickly as we were at the front, only to enter chaos in the airport, as many planes had been delayed by fog, long queues everywhere, we used e’passport and got through surprisingly easily to meet Roger who had been patiently waiting with some Beiber groupies.

Home to Lyn and Roger’s for a cuppa, before driving home about 12.30.

Janine has done her usual brilliant job with Snug and Aero. Poor old Snug is not doing so well, suffering with the balance issues again, so glad to be home to relieve Janine of that stress, off to the vet with Snug again tomorrow. Poor old thing.

So another adventure done and dusted, all the planning and research paid off, with lots and lots of ticks off our lists. Thanks so much to the group - Sandra, Kathy, Carolyn, Julie and Lyn for a fun trip away. New York was the key destination and we certainly did heaps there.

Particular thanks to Lyn for the extra time we did together, it was great to slow it down a little, but again see some more of the country. A great travel buddy.