Visit to California - Los Angeles

2 - 4 May 2009

The next destination after Las Vegas is Los Angeles (LA). Getting there was another random thing again...heard from the grapevine that there were regular coach buses going to LA at very affordable price. So just wanted to try my luck at that Chinatown place if I could catch that bus to LA. It's cheap, only about $30! Anyway it's only 4-5 hours drive, can snooze in the bus! By then, think LH had already reached LA via his morning flight! We would meet up soon again!!! Again, like in the hostel in SF, came across some rare species, because I met some Sporeans again on the bus to LA...

We found a neat little boutique hostel called Stay (beside its sister hotel Cecil Hotel) in the downtown area along the Main Street. It has a warm white/orange colour theme, with simple furniture and chic decorations. Most importantly, it is clean and new! Round the corner is the Blue-la cafe, another nice cozy cafe that is my favorite place to go for a simple brunch and savour their large variety of good-looking cakes. :)

In fact, LA is huge! Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district that features many of the city's major arts institutions and sports facilities, skyscrapers and associated large multinational corporations, and an array of public art and unique shopping opportunities. However, there wasn't time for me to hang around downtown, didn't really see much there...

Downtown doesn't seems to be very vibrant with businesses or tourists. It is more like a drive-in-drive-out destination for people to come in to work and leave immediately when they are done. It also seems to be the poorer part of the city, especially after seeing the richer parts in Beverly Hills etc. There seems to be lots of homeless people, such as when night falls, tents just pop up like colourful mushrooms outside the shophouses along the street.

Maybe the more centralized place to stay in is the Hollywood Entertainment District, because it has Santa Monica Beach (to the west), Downtown LA (to the east) and the Long Beach (to the far south). Subway has limited coverage, plus there is no personal assistance at the stations, because everything is automated (eg. ticket sales via machines), and sometimes it is so quiet that you can't even grab a person to ask for directions. Thus, it will be so nice if I have license and can get a car to drive around...


This is part of the Hollywood Entertainment District, which boasts many of the world's most recognizable landmarks, such as the legendary Walk of Fame, the renowned Hollywood sign, the Capitol Records Building and other iconic sights.

When in Hollywood, start at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine and follow the Walk of Fame two blocks south to end up in the heart of the Sunset and Vine Business Improvement District.


The Hollywood Walk of Fame - see Winnie and Kermit is on the list too...


The Kodak Theatre is a 3,332-seats live theatre on the Hollywood Boulevard, where the annual Oscars Academy Awards is held.


The Grauman's Chinese Theatre is one of more impressive architecture in the Hollywood B0ulevard area. It was financed by Sid Grauman, a theatre mogul who owned many other super-size theatres in Hollywood. There are nearly 200 Hollywood celebrity handprints, footprints, and autographs in the concrete of the theater's forecourt.

The theatre rises 90-feet high and two gigantic coral red columns topped by the bronze roof, with tiny dragons up and down the sides of the roof. Between the columns is a 30-foot high dragon carved from stone, and guarding the theatre entrance are the two original giant Heaven Dogs brought from China.

The Grauman’s Chinese Theatre was declared a historic-cultural landmark in 1968. Today, it continues to serve the public as a first-run movie theatre, with many Hollywood films showing their premieres there.


The Hollywood sign and its radio tower is one of the most well-known landmarks in the world. It's not easy trying to capture the best shot, I tried walking miles, just to get a good glimpse of the sign with no other obstruction.


There are many other sights and architecture around the Hollywood and Sunset Boulevard areas. However, I think you got to be a true Hollywood fanatic, and then you will get to appreciate those big names associated with the various buildings, eg. Johnny Depp used to own the club Viper's Room along Sunset Boulevard; Sister Act II was filmed in the Hollywood United Methodist Church.


At the end of the Walk of Fame at Hollywood & La Brea Boulevard, there is a status built to honor the multi-ethnic leading ladies of the cinema, commemorating 4 actresses from the early 1960s: Dolores del Río (starred in more than 30 films in Hollywood and dozens in Mexico including "What Price Glory"), Mae West (writer and star of a string of hits including "I'm No Angel" and "My Little Chickadee"), Dorothy Dandridge (first back woman to be nominated for an academy award as best actress for "Carmen Jones"), and Anna May Wong (starred in silent and talking pictures including "The Thief of Baghdad" and "Shanghai Express").


The Jim Henson Company that traces its origins to the Muppets Inc, is founded by Jim Henson who is the creator of The Muppets. Kermit the Frog is used as the icon at the entrance of the building near to Sunset Boulevard & La Brea. The next street Melrose & Fairfax is the punky-hip-hop shopping district.


LA is truely the place to be for whatever film related studies and industries eg. Hollywood Film & Acting Academy, the Capital Recording building, Directors Guild of America, LA Recording School etc.


One of the very amazing sights I saw is the George C. Page Museum. The picture shows life-sized fibreglass models of a Columbian mammoth family stand at the lake. The mother has became trapped; her mate and offspring watch helplessly. Bubbles of natural gas can be seen emitting to the surface of the water.

The lake fills a quarry where asphalt was mined during the 19th century. After the quarry was abandoned, rain and groundwater seepage soon filled the evacuated area. The surface oil slicks are composed of asphalt. This and the bubbles of natural gas (methane) escape from fissures below the lake.

For thousands of years, at Rancho La Brea, asphalt has seeped to the earth's surface from an underlying oil field. These seeps became unique death traps for countless Ice Age mammals and birds, making Rancho La Brea the world's richest deposits of Ice Age fossils.

The Page Museum houses the Earth's richest and most important Ice Age fossil collection. There is a working paleontology laboratory and scenes depicting Southern California and North America thousands of years ago. More than 30 complete skeletons of fossil mammals and birds are on display.

Asphalt Deposits: For millions of years, the area that was to become LA and Rancho La Brea lay beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. During this time, marine sedimentary layers formed and in some places these eventually became rich with fossil fuels produced from ancient sea life. When the ocean levels receded less than 100,000 years ago, long after the extinction of dinosaurs, the area of Rancho La Brea became land. At Rancho La Brea, the crude oil has been seeping out of the ground through conduits and fissures in the coastal plain sediments for the past 40,000 years, the seeps forming pool in low-lying areas. Fresh sediments from rivers running out of the Santa Monica Mountains and nearby hills continued to form new layers on top of the older ones and asphalt continued to seep to the surface. Over tens of thousands of years, the produced the asphalt deposits found at Rancho La Brea.

Entrapment: Rancho La Brea, with its numerous asphalt seeps, became a hazardous place for animals to roam. This was especially true during the warmer seasons. As the semi-solid asphalt turned softer and stickier, leaves, dust and water covered the surface and partially obscured it from view. Wandering animals unknowingly ventured onto the camouflaged asphalt. If the conditions were right, the animals became trapped like a fly caught on flypaper. The stranded animals were easy prey for the many predators and scavengers in the area, and they in turn became trapped. The asphalt preserved not only bones, but evidence of the entire ecosystem. The evidence is complete enough that scientists can reconstruct the environment that existed in the LA basin 12,000 - 40,000 years ago!


Next to the Page Museum is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which houses a vast variety of ancient and contemporary history of arts and films.

Directly in front of the new entrance to LACMA on Wilshire Boulevard is the Urban Lights, created by Chris Burden. The Urban Lights is an orderly, multi-tiered installation of 202 antique cast-iron street lights from various cities in and around the Los Angeles area. The street lights are functional, turn on in the evening, and are powered by solar panels on the roof of the BP Grand Entrance.


Santa Monica is the seaside city of LA that features long stretch of beaches, pedestrian-friendly downtown and excellent dining. The Third Street Promenade is the major outdoor pedestrian-oriented shopping district that stretches for three blocks between Wilshire Blvd, and Broadway. Third Street has been closed and converted to a pedestrians-only walkway to allow people to congregate, shop and enjoy street performances.


The Universal Studio is one of the oldest and most famous Hollywood movie studios still in use. Like kids, we were all very excited to go the Universal Studios theme park. We spent an entire day at the park, tired but happy at the end of the day.


There are demonstration shows on how special effects are made, or how blazing scenes are created etc. Of course, thrill rides are definitely part of the fun! :D


Many mascots of cartoon characters come out to meet their fans!


The famous Gorilla! ;)

The day ended with a wonderful sunset...


Overall, I feel that LA is a place where you need to live there in order to understand it better. There are some little pockets of excitements anywhere and everywhere around in the city, which you will not know as a tourist unless you stay for a longer period of time. Frankly, it is not the place that I especially liked at the very first sight, but definitely it has a lot more to offer than what I had seen so far. You really need to stay there, take your time to slowly unravel the undiscovered secrets, could be good ones or negative ones, but definitely an exciting and refreshing process...

Tips to note:
- After drop-off from the coach bus from Las Vegas, walk to the 2nd traffic light at the Garvey & Atlantic streets, at the bus-stop diagonally opposite the gas station, catch the bus 70 to go downtown. It is about 30-45min ride.
- Visitors' information centres are usually closed on weekends, so can be tough to get maps or directions or other information. But usually any hotels will give any brochures for free.
- Start getting serious with brochures! In fact, we found discounts coupons from the brochures to get deductions for admission tickets to the Universal Studios. We were also lucky as we met some random lady who gave us more discounts from her hotel.

Wrapping up my LA trip, it was time to return to San Francisco for my final nights and then back home to Toronto. Sigh...another 8hr ride back to San Francisco. By then, swine flu was on high alert, especially in LA and San Diego, definitely got to be on the lookout!!!

Good Bye, Los Angeles!