Day 19 - L.A. On the Buses

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Day 19 - Los Angeles tours on Starline Buses, distance travelled - lots, but someone else driving!

Today was an early start in order to make the most of our last full day in Los Angeles. The plan was to cover as much of L.A. as possible using our 2 day hopper passes on the Starline open top buses before we left for San Diego tomorrow afternoon. Once again we had pre purchased the tickets from the UK, and more by luck than judgement, the starting point for the tours and head office for Starline buses was just around the corner from our hotel outside the Chinese Theatre.

Vouchers were exchanged for tickets and we ducked and dived past photo opportunities with Captain America, Spiderman, Pirates from the Caribean and the Hulk to jump on to the red route heading west towards the 'painful on the wallet' areas of Rodeo Drive and Beverly Hills. If the first day in LA and Disney was full of Spanish/Mexicans, and the second day in Universal full of Japenese, the buses today seemed full of Aussie families with kids, surprising as one Aussie family had already told us they had taken the kids out of school for their trip, so wonder how many do this?

I think it's safe to say from what we've seen on our short trip there were only 4 or 5 real 'hotspots' worth visiting (excluding the parks and museums) across the whole of Los Angeles and these are spread out over about 20 miles so the bus tours have to do a lot of filling (and a lot of driving) between these spots. In retrospect we might have been better using cabs or even our own car to visit, if you stay off the Freeways, the normal roads seem a lot less choked up!

The five areas we have probably enjoyed the most and are worth spending some time visiting:

1) The area around the Loews hotel on Hollywood and Highland for the shops, restaurants, Chinese Theatre, Hollywood museum, Stars in the pavement and general madness of L.A.! This was the starting point for the bus tours going North to Universal, East to 'Downtown'/chinatown etc. and west towards the shops and coast and its where we came back to every night.

2) Next stop on the open top tour worth a look was the area around Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. Here it was everything you can imagine and more. Expensive shops, a very few expensive looking shoppers, Bentleys, Bugattis and Ferraris everywhere and shock of all shock, Sharan didn't want to get out and shop, I even offered the Pretty Woman credit card option which was declined ( but then my cards have been declined throughout most of this trip, bloody Halifax!) The Beverly Wilshire hotel is also here (Pretty Woman) and looked worth a visit or at least a cup of coffee on the pavement outside to watch the rich and not so famous pass by. Here it is also the place to get off the bus and switch to the yellow route to get to the coast, so we did that along with everyone else.

The yellow route passes through Century City and past Fox studios before a loooooong boring straight drive out to Santa Monica, even the commentary struggled to find something of any note to describe. It was more fun watching everyone ducking the low hanging trees lining the streets on the top deck, especially when someone wasn't quick enough.

3) Santa Monica pier, beach and Venice are definitely an area worth exploring and as soon as we got there, the whole bus emptied. The pure white sandy beach stretches North towards Malibu and south as far as the eye can see, the baywatch lifeguard towers and yellow vans are all there, muscle beach was pretty un-impressive and I soon showed those guys a few tips on how to train for a successfull body like mine.

We ate lunch on the pier (no Sealions and no pelicans!) and went Mexican for a change. After lunch we made a half hearted attempt to walk the 20-30 minutes to Venice beach but in the heat and on full stomachs we gave up pretty quickly. We also had a recommendation to try "Shutters on the beach" which is just along from the pier towards Venice, didn't go in but it looked amazing and definitely a place for a beer or some food with a great view. Once back in the bus queue, it was a bit like a Sutton Station bus queue, no order, violence acceptable in order to seek position A on the top deck so with the help of a couple of wide elbows and a snarl or two from Shas we were back up top for the trip back. Still little of interest on the second leg of the yellow route so we made it all the way back to the Rodeo Drive transfer point without seeing anything of real note (to us!) I'm sure some of it was fascinating to others although the Aussies behind me didn't seem that impressed either.

Back at Rodeo Drive, Shas once again turned down the opportunity to shop, or at least look. I thought this meant she was heading for some lethal sickness but turned out an hour juddering on the bus she needed a loo. With none in sight we transferred straight onto a waiting red line bus vowing to get off at the next stop for a loo break. Four stops later and having passed the tar pits, a couple of museums a huge shopping mall and not a lot else we came across a little oasis in the centre of L.A. The Farmers Market and Grove shopping area.

4) The Farmers Market is probably a little more advanced these days than the original concept of farmers riding into town with their wares to sell but nevertheless it's is full of little shops and stalls. It is linked to the Grove shopping complex by a pedestrianised cobbled street and an old style tram (but it's a very short walk across one road). This was our first experience of the smoking police where within seconds of lighting up on the street we were pounced on by a cowboy hatted policewoman who informed us it was a no smoking district. We asked where we could smoke and she pointed to the other side of the path about 15 yards away and said, "over there, we don't own that bit!" she then very nicely directed a cross legged , tap dancing Shas to the nearest restrooms.

The Grove is also 'open air' so not like a normal US Mall and is a great little mix of shops restaurants, bars, even a cinema and local TV studio and was a perfect place to chill, unwind and people watch from the French inspired pavement cafes...and there were definitely some sights to see. More plastic surgery than an episode of Nip Tuck, and dress code from 'tramp like' to full evening gown at 5pm!

Refreshed and revived with bladders empty, we headed back to the bus queue, this time no elbowing could get us to the top deck and we were consigned to spend the rest of the red route with another extended Aussie family who just wanted to moan, I thought it was the 'Poms that moaned'. The two matriachs of the unruly brood, (who I named Kath and Kim for some reason) didn't seem interested at all in the tour judging by the loud, inane conversation about food and whether to have a burger or salad that evening (20 mins), telephone call costs back home(10 mins) and whether its acceptable in LA to wear shorts or jeans out for an evening meal or not (20 mins!)

By now the Chinese theatre couldn't come quick enough, we had probably covered 50-60 miles on 5 buses in 8 hours and we were ready for beer, cocktails and a wash and brush up.

For dinner in the evening we decided to go adventurous and head across town to Benihana's, a Japenese teppanyaki style restaurant where your food is cooked in front of you on a hot plate by the chef. We took a cab and I'm pleased to report, its not just San Francisco cab drivers who dont have a clue where they are, but we had the address and a map, he had his mate on the phone so we got there! We have been to Benihana's before in Las Vegas and Key West and it's always a great night out. This one has probably seen better days but the pictures on the wall showed it once had a very impressive guest list. The chefs are part cooks and part entertainers as they impressively chop, shape, mix and flick the food around in front of your eyes, highly entertaining and usually a good conversation starter!

Tables are usually 8 or 10 so as a couple you get put with other smaller groups, everyone else seemed to be having a great time at the other tables in there but as we were late (8-30) and hadn't booked we seemed to get put on the table of 'leftovers'. To our right was a very young hispanic couple who didn't even acknowledge anyone at the table for the whole meal, instead holding all their conversations by whispering in each others ear. This meant her hair spent most of the time in her onion soup which she didn't touch. More bizarrely he ordered the most expensive filet mignon along with Sapporo beer. He then proceeded to pour the beer for her regularly but didn't touch it himself, and as his food was ready (starter, salad, steak and vegetables) he put them all to one side without touching a thing. At the end he asked the waitress to put it all together in one takeaway box and off they went.

On our other side were two sisters with their father. They spoke little English, the dad just sat and drank a bottle of wine to himself whilst the girls had water. Virtually the only words he spoke was to ask for garlic to be added to everything presented to him, by the time we got to ice cream even I had to ask him....Garlic? , he smiled and shook his head. It was a fun night if not slightly surreal but we had a few drinks and a giggle! Cab driver home got us back to the hotel safely and it was time for bed after a long day.

For those keeping tabs, number 5) comes tomorrow. I hope....

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Comments

[anonymous]

what type of car
what type of car

[Jase and Shas US Adventure]

Bugatti Veyron