And so we landed at Long Beach Airport, LA in the afternoon of the 5th day. Long Beach Airport is a typical, small domestic airport where you walk to/fro between the plane and the airport building. There is nothing impressive about this place EXCEPT that the baggage claim belt in IN THE PUBLIC!! Coming out from the 'Secured Area', turn left and there is the belt. Non-passengers who where there to fetch their loved ones or friends where less than 20m away. I'm extremely stunned by this means that someone walking in and steal your luggage is probably going to be able to succeed. Poor security...
We happened to run into a lady whom we met whilst on our Yosemite National Park trip. She was on the same flight as we are, going back home in San Pedro, LA. Knowing that we were clueless getting around the place, she offered to drive us to the nearest Metro Station so that we can catch the Metro to our hotel (Hollywood Downtowner's Inn) along Hollywood Blvd. Along the way, she purposely drove past the more scenic parts of the area for us to have a look. We were cautioned to be careful whilst in Hollywood because there are many 'weird' people, according to her. She finally dropped us at this boardwalk along the waterfront called the Shoreline Village. It was a short walk from here to the Metro Station, cutting across the LA Convention Centre. The Metro is a no frills, decent communter train service much like our MRT except that it runs entirely on road level and stations are totally unmanned and 'un-gated'. So its pretty much based on trust and integrity. However, if you are caught without a ticket, be prepared to pay a hefty fine!
Having heard from her friends as well as that lady we met about how cautious we needed to be whilst in Hollywood, she got worried and suggested to change hotel if possible. I was rather annoyed at the idea at first although I kept those thoughts to myself. However, after some thinking over the matter during the journey to our hotel, I convinced myself that even if I disregard my safety, I mustn't compromise her's. With that, we agreed to stay in the current hotel for 2days before moving to a hotel near Disneyland for the next 2days until we depart LA. Luckily for us, the hotel proprietor, Bernard, is a friendly, helpful and very accomodating person. He's totally cool about it when we cooked up a story about why we're staying 2days short at his property. Immediately after checking in, we went to a cybercafe few doors away and started looking for hotels in Anaheim (where Disneyland LA is located). We managed to secure a booking for a room at Holiday Inn Express Anaheim Maingate which is about 10mins walk from Downtown Disney.
Having settled the hotel arrangements, we proceeded to The Grove, a local shopping mall for dinner and some shopping. Following tips from Bernard, we took Metrobus 28 from outside the hotel. As always with any Free & Easy trip, one is bound to have to get lost at least once. This was exactly what happened to us. Following the rough map we had, we alighted accordingly and proceeded in the direction where we think our destination was. We still don't see any signs of the place despite having walked a few blocks. Finally, a kind Mexican we approached pointed us in the right direction saying The Grove is 3blocks away. The time is now slightly past 8pm and we're both pretty hungry and tired having not eaten since 7am. 3blocks away... Its a decision between walking or waiting for the bus. I prefer the former, she wanted the latter. She opted to go with my preference but we soon got to regret it as the 3blocks seemed more like 3 GIANT blocks! Usually, a block in the US is about 100m long, however, this time it seemed more like 500m per block! We finally reached The Grove at about nearly 9pm and some of the shops had already began closing for the day.Grabbing a quick dinner, SO launched into shopping mood again... Had it not been for the time being late, we wouldn't have been able to leave the place just 2hrs after arriving!
Day 6 brings us to Universal Studios Hollywood, a movie-themed theme park located just north of Hollywood. I initially thought there would be plenty of visitors but I was wrong. The crowd seems not too bad. SO decided our first ride of the day to be the 4D Shrek thingy. This is easily one of my favourite item here due to the effects they dished out! Imagine watching a 3D show with LIVE effects such as 'real wind blowing from behind you', 'seat rocking' and the best part : while the spiders crawled up the legs of the movie characters, one can feel wind from beneath the seats and felt like creepy crawlies!! Our next ride, the Studio Tour, made us waited 45mins or so due to the huge crowd going for it too. This Studio Tour takes you to some of the sets that were used in the TVs or Movies. Later on, you can see a picture of 1 of the sets created by Steven Spielberg for War of the Worlds. Lunch was at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company which was another 'must-try' from Gary. We had a Blueberry Lemonade, Cajun Shrimp for appetiser and a Tilipia thingy with rice to share. We had a few more rides after lunch such as The Mummy, an indoor roller-coaster in the dark at times and Jurassic Park, a water-based ride.
We left Universal Studios early about 4pm SO wanted to hit The Grove once more but again, we got 'lost'. We took the bus in the wrong direction, bringing us back towards our hotel direction instead of towards The Grove. It seemed like we ain't fated to go to The Grove. Firstly, we got off at the wrong stop and now we took the bus in the wrong direction. I suggested since we're back to near our hotel, why not we go to the supermarket nearby and buy dinner back to our room and eat? And so we got frozen pizza, vegetable salad and a small packet of milk (upon request by me) back for dinner. Guess what? SO mistaken the 12mins indicated on the pizza-box to be microwave timing instead of defrozing. By the time 12mins went by, whatever's on the rotating plate in the microwave oven is burnt pizza and an intense burnt-smell! We laughed our heads off... Luckily the oven was too small to cook the entire pizza at shot, which means we still have about 1/2 of our pizza still uncooked and we were better able to experiment with how to cook it.
We moved to Anaheim on Day 7. As the check-in timing at Anaheim Maingate was 3pm, we need not leave Hollywood Downtowner Inn so early. Our plan is to check-out about 12noon to proceed to the Amtak Station for the 40mins train ride over to Anaheim. Lugging several pieces of heavy luggages, it's impossible to walk from the Anaheim Amtrak Station to our hotel 2miles away. Hopping onto a cab, SO thought she saw the meter jumped by 60cents! I brushed her off saying she might have seen wrongly... I took a sustained look at the meter and INDEED it jumped by 60cents!!! OMG.............. The short trip over to the Holiday Inn Express cost USD10 odd. The hotel DOES have standards that one come to expect of the Holiday Inn brand at 100USD per nite and I'm extremenly satified with what I'm getting so far. Having settled down, we proceeded out to the Anaheim Garden Walk via the hotel shuttle.
Day 8 is Disneyland Day! Yippie.... As mentioned earlier, it was less than 10mins walking from hotel to Downtown Disney. There were 2 parks, the Disneyland Park and the Disney's California Adventure Park. We opted for the latter as it offers more thrilling rides as compared to the mostly 'kiddy' rides by the former. First ride of the day was the Hollywood Tower Hotel. This is an 'elevator' type of ride where one is being hoisted up in the lift before a series of sudden drops and lifts. This is also the very ride which scared 1/2 the hell out of me!! :S We went for a couple more other rides before having this thingy called the Corn Dog for lunch. This is actually a hotdog wrapped in corn-batter before being baked or deep-fried. I initially thought there would be a huge crowd on a weekend, which also means a longer wait for the rides but it seemed I was wrong. We had gone on most of the rides we had wanted to by the time we had lunch about 2pm.
With no more rides we were keen on, we left the park for Downtown Disney, intending to hang around until 5pm before returning to the park for the Pixar Play Parade, which we did. The main reason why I opted to visit Disneyland on a Saturday is due to the fireworks display at 930pm on weekends. According to the hotel staff, we can watch the fireworks from the hotel carpark. We standby at the carpark at 920pm but it wasn't 945pm before the first shot went off. The display is nowhere as spectacular as what we usually have in SG, but it was nevetheless a nice sight to have. I've always loved fireworks because I viewed fireworks as 'painting in the sky'. Tonight is our last night in LA as we'd be departing for the Sin City (Las Vegas) tomorrow afternoon via Long Beach Airport (again).
Please stay tuned for Part 3 of this triology. In the meantime, do enjoy the following photos taken in LA!
1 of the set for the filming of Desperate Housewives...
the set of War of the Worlds built by Steven Spielberg.
Blueberry Lemonade from Bubba Gump.
The highly recommended Cajun Shrimp from Bubba Gump...
A customary pic of the Hollywood sign in LA :p
The 1st ride we tried at Disneyland California Adventure Park which scared the shit outta me!! Imagine being dropped and lifted in the darkness!!!
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
We happened to run into a lady whom we met whilst on our Yosemite National Park trip. She was on the same flight as we are, going back home in San Pedro, LA. Knowing that we were clueless getting around the place, she offered to drive us to the nearest Metro Station so that we can catch the Metro to our hotel (Hollywood Downtowner's Inn) along Hollywood Blvd. Along the way, she purposely drove past the more scenic parts of the area for us to have a look. We were cautioned to be careful whilst in Hollywood because there are many 'weird' people, according to her. She finally dropped us at this boardwalk along the waterfront called the Shoreline Village. It was a short walk from here to the Metro Station, cutting across the LA Convention Centre. The Metro is a no frills, decent communter train service much like our MRT except that it runs entirely on road level and stations are totally unmanned and 'un-gated'. So its pretty much based on trust and integrity. However, if you are caught without a ticket, be prepared to pay a hefty fine!
Having heard from her friends as well as that lady we met about how cautious we needed to be whilst in Hollywood, she got worried and suggested to change hotel if possible. I was rather annoyed at the idea at first although I kept those thoughts to myself. However, after some thinking over the matter during the journey to our hotel, I convinced myself that even if I disregard my safety, I mustn't compromise her's. With that, we agreed to stay in the current hotel for 2days before moving to a hotel near Disneyland for the next 2days until we depart LA. Luckily for us, the hotel proprietor, Bernard, is a friendly, helpful and very accomodating person. He's totally cool about it when we cooked up a story about why we're staying 2days short at his property. Immediately after checking in, we went to a cybercafe few doors away and started looking for hotels in Anaheim (where Disneyland LA is located). We managed to secure a booking for a room at Holiday Inn Express Anaheim Maingate which is about 10mins walk from Downtown Disney.
Having settled the hotel arrangements, we proceeded to The Grove, a local shopping mall for dinner and some shopping. Following tips from Bernard, we took Metrobus 28 from outside the hotel. As always with any Free & Easy trip, one is bound to have to get lost at least once. This was exactly what happened to us. Following the rough map we had, we alighted accordingly and proceeded in the direction where we think our destination was. We still don't see any signs of the place despite having walked a few blocks. Finally, a kind Mexican we approached pointed us in the right direction saying The Grove is 3blocks away. The time is now slightly past 8pm and we're both pretty hungry and tired having not eaten since 7am. 3blocks away... Its a decision between walking or waiting for the bus. I prefer the former, she wanted the latter. She opted to go with my preference but we soon got to regret it as the 3blocks seemed more like 3 GIANT blocks! Usually, a block in the US is about 100m long, however, this time it seemed more like 500m per block! We finally reached The Grove at about nearly 9pm and some of the shops had already began closing for the day.Grabbing a quick dinner, SO launched into shopping mood again... Had it not been for the time being late, we wouldn't have been able to leave the place just 2hrs after arriving!
Day 6 brings us to Universal Studios Hollywood, a movie-themed theme park located just north of Hollywood. I initially thought there would be plenty of visitors but I was wrong. The crowd seems not too bad. SO decided our first ride of the day to be the 4D Shrek thingy. This is easily one of my favourite item here due to the effects they dished out! Imagine watching a 3D show with LIVE effects such as 'real wind blowing from behind you', 'seat rocking' and the best part : while the spiders crawled up the legs of the movie characters, one can feel wind from beneath the seats and felt like creepy crawlies!! Our next ride, the Studio Tour, made us waited 45mins or so due to the huge crowd going for it too. This Studio Tour takes you to some of the sets that were used in the TVs or Movies. Later on, you can see a picture of 1 of the sets created by Steven Spielberg for War of the Worlds. Lunch was at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company which was another 'must-try' from Gary. We had a Blueberry Lemonade, Cajun Shrimp for appetiser and a Tilipia thingy with rice to share. We had a few more rides after lunch such as The Mummy, an indoor roller-coaster in the dark at times and Jurassic Park, a water-based ride.
We left Universal Studios early about 4pm SO wanted to hit The Grove once more but again, we got 'lost'. We took the bus in the wrong direction, bringing us back towards our hotel direction instead of towards The Grove. It seemed like we ain't fated to go to The Grove. Firstly, we got off at the wrong stop and now we took the bus in the wrong direction. I suggested since we're back to near our hotel, why not we go to the supermarket nearby and buy dinner back to our room and eat? And so we got frozen pizza, vegetable salad and a small packet of milk (upon request by me) back for dinner. Guess what? SO mistaken the 12mins indicated on the pizza-box to be microwave timing instead of defrozing. By the time 12mins went by, whatever's on the rotating plate in the microwave oven is burnt pizza and an intense burnt-smell! We laughed our heads off... Luckily the oven was too small to cook the entire pizza at shot, which means we still have about 1/2 of our pizza still uncooked and we were better able to experiment with how to cook it.
We moved to Anaheim on Day 7. As the check-in timing at Anaheim Maingate was 3pm, we need not leave Hollywood Downtowner Inn so early. Our plan is to check-out about 12noon to proceed to the Amtak Station for the 40mins train ride over to Anaheim. Lugging several pieces of heavy luggages, it's impossible to walk from the Anaheim Amtrak Station to our hotel 2miles away. Hopping onto a cab, SO thought she saw the meter jumped by 60cents! I brushed her off saying she might have seen wrongly... I took a sustained look at the meter and INDEED it jumped by 60cents!!! OMG.............. The short trip over to the Holiday Inn Express cost USD10 odd. The hotel DOES have standards that one come to expect of the Holiday Inn brand at 100USD per nite and I'm extremenly satified with what I'm getting so far. Having settled down, we proceeded out to the Anaheim Garden Walk via the hotel shuttle.
Day 8 is Disneyland Day! Yippie.... As mentioned earlier, it was less than 10mins walking from hotel to Downtown Disney. There were 2 parks, the Disneyland Park and the Disney's California Adventure Park. We opted for the latter as it offers more thrilling rides as compared to the mostly 'kiddy' rides by the former. First ride of the day was the Hollywood Tower Hotel. This is an 'elevator' type of ride where one is being hoisted up in the lift before a series of sudden drops and lifts. This is also the very ride which scared 1/2 the hell out of me!! :S We went for a couple more other rides before having this thingy called the Corn Dog for lunch. This is actually a hotdog wrapped in corn-batter before being baked or deep-fried. I initially thought there would be a huge crowd on a weekend, which also means a longer wait for the rides but it seemed I was wrong. We had gone on most of the rides we had wanted to by the time we had lunch about 2pm.
With no more rides we were keen on, we left the park for Downtown Disney, intending to hang around until 5pm before returning to the park for the Pixar Play Parade, which we did. The main reason why I opted to visit Disneyland on a Saturday is due to the fireworks display at 930pm on weekends. According to the hotel staff, we can watch the fireworks from the hotel carpark. We standby at the carpark at 920pm but it wasn't 945pm before the first shot went off. The display is nowhere as spectacular as what we usually have in SG, but it was nevetheless a nice sight to have. I've always loved fireworks because I viewed fireworks as 'painting in the sky'. Tonight is our last night in LA as we'd be departing for the Sin City (Las Vegas) tomorrow afternoon via Long Beach Airport (again).
Please stay tuned for Part 3 of this triology. In the meantime, do enjoy the following photos taken in LA!
1 of the set for the filming of Desperate Housewives...
the set of War of the Worlds built by Steven Spielberg.
Blueberry Lemonade from Bubba Gump.
The highly recommended Cajun Shrimp from Bubba Gump...
A customary pic of the Hollywood sign in LA :p
The 1st ride we tried at Disneyland California Adventure Park which scared the shit outta me!! Imagine being dropped and lifted in the darkness!!!
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
Pixar Play Parade....
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1 comment:
Good post. I would like share point about Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce building, is on the east side of the 100s block of Broadway. The building, also known as the Southwest Building, had 130 S. Broadway as its address; the Chamber of Commerce, which moved here in 1903, and stayed until January 31, 1925, used 138 S. Broadway as its address. Previously, the Chamber, founded in 1888, had been sited initially on N. Main Street, then at what was to become the Tajo Building lot at 1st and Broadway, moving in 1890 to the Mott Building at 131 S. Main Street, and moving in 1894 to the then-new Mason Building at the southeast corner of Broadway and 4th.
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