Los Angeles, Downtown, Griffiths Park and Hollywood Bowl

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Thursday 14th Aug
We thought we had better brave downtown LA today, so I drove through the hairiest traffic ever and was glad to get out the car in Chinatown which had the cheapest parking lots!! We walked thought Chinatown and into the city stopping in Perishing Square to listen to a throw back hippy band. After wandering around for a bit, a nice LA women helped us find our way to a bus service that took us back to Chinatown passing the MOCA, a cool art gallery with some very strange gifts in the gallery gift shop! and the Walt Disney concert hall with its unique and striking curves that just couldn't be missed. Unfortunately we missed the striking lunch menu and had to head on to Griffiths park to find some food.

We ate a Mexican style lunch and looked at the map of the huge park. Our first thoughts were to hire bikes but at 5 times the size of central park we gave that a miss and found some free tennis courts instead!! After Gra thrashed me 6 games to 2 we headed up to the Griffiths park observatory to look at the Hollywood sign and take in a view of LA. It was a great view if not a little hazy a mixture of sun and smog!

Our next stop was the Hollywood Bowl where we had booked tickets to see a classical concert called the percussion plants and pictures, First half was Wagner with ride of the Valkiries and second half was Holst Plants Suites with pictures from the Californian Observatory Institute. All conducted by Collin White from England.

It was a fantastic setting and great views from all seats and at $16 it was a bargain, although we did have to hire seat cushions to last the performance. It was a tremendous performance with instrument I've never heard of before including lots of wooden percussion things to make snarling, laughing and smug sounds!! The second half pictures made great viewing and sat out in the open air added to the effect. We both loved the performance and we were glad to have the chance of doing something so unique to Hollywood and LA.

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