Pacific Coast Explorer

Archers Direct, May-June 2011

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DAY 3: San Diego to Los Angeles, California

This morning was our first proper travelling day. We knew this because the seat allocation-rotation had started. Now I fully agree with this. Cosmos 'rotate' seating so that every day you move back (or forward) four places. This means no one can hog the front seat, there are no towels out at 5.30am! It also gives you a chance to meet your fellow travellers as you are across from different people most days. It seems to work for the most part, provided people can count seats and know their right from the left (so, it mostly works! Sorry, fellow passengers - I'm only kidding.)

We took the I-5 (Interstate 5) out of San Diego to Los Angeles, passing the Del Mar Race Track, which lies next to the Torrey Pines Golf Course. On the way to Los Angeles (LA), Jose explained how the trip would work (and what wouldn't - apparently the cable cars in San Francisco would not be running for three days, which coincided when we were in town). He also talked us through the various optional tours we could take.

Our first stop on arrival in LA was at Olvera Street. I'd been here before but it had changed. There were still a variety of cheap tat market stalls, but there seemed far more than last time. They didn't really have much of interest to bears, however some of our crew were raving about $10 leather belts and $5 cowboy hats. This area is where the town began, back in the 1870s. The bandstand in the new Plaza area wasn't here last time I came, but it's a nice addition.

We visited the Avila Adobe, which was new to me. The original house was built in 1818 and it is considered the oldest house in Los Angeles. The house is preserved to look how it did in the 1840s, although only one original table remains. It fell into decline and was condemned in 1926 by the City of Los Angeles, to make way for a gas station! Fortunately, it was saved by socialite Christine Sterling, the founder of Olvera Street, who lived in the Avila Adobe in the 1950s.

   

Across the street is LA's Union Station. This is the railroad station for Amtrak and MTA. The building is on the National Historic Register and it is lovely. Deemed one of the "last of the great railway stations", it was built in 1939, the architecture is very ornate and the floors are beautifully tiled. The former ticket desk area is huge but they're too cheap to have that many staff any more! I do like my stations and this is a pretty cool one.

     

   

We made a quick stop at the Los Angeles Music Center which houses the new Walt Disney Concert Hall, a large metal-covered, weird-shaped building, together with the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, former home of the Academy Awards, and the Mark Taper Forum.

   

We headed down Wilshire Boulevard, passing Lafayette Park, where they filmed White Men Can't Jump, then we passed the Ambassador Hotel, where Robert Kennedy was shot in 1968, except that we didn't, because it's gone! Forget history - the hotel was built in 1921 and used in many movies, not to mention yet more Academy Awards ceremonies, but they demolished it and put up a, no, not a parking lot, a school, three years ago. Hey ho. We passed Hancock Park which is being called the new Beverly Hills. Apparently, the sub-division has been around since the 1920s and it looked very pretty.

As we continued our tour, we could see the LA City Hall, which, in the past, played the Daily Planet in the 1950s television series Superman, then we saw the floodlights of the Dodgers Stadium in the distance. We passed the La Brea Tar Pits (remember them? I was only talking about them yesterday!) Sorry about the photo, but we didn't get off the bus and there's a fence in the way.

   

Our lunch stop was at the Original Farmers Market. The Market has been here since 1934 and is considered an institution. There are dozens of food stalls, fresh, cooked, places to eat, delicatessens, all nationalities and types of food can be found here. We heard the neighborhood round the back had changed, so we headed through the back of the Market and out into The Grove. Wow! It had changed - none of this was here last time I was, in 2000, I think. There are shops (upmarket ones at that), restaurants and even a movie theatre. The Barnes and Noble bookshop is huge, although the service is lousy! Took me fifteen minutes to buy a book and there were only three in line in front of me at the ONE open till in the whole store. Grr. It was cool in there though, because, as well as their free Wi-Fi and Starbucks, they were advertising all kinds of book-signings. I guess cos a lot of the folks live locally, they are easier to get in to sign, although I'm not sure Simon Pegg is a local!

   

Our post-lunch tour would take us to Beverly Hills. We passed the Two Rodeo Drive shopping mall. We weren't able to stop, but that didn't really bother us - we were in the land of Versace, Tiffany and Jimmy Choo. Not really my price range (and they don't do much for bears, anyhow) but it did look really nice (although you'd hope so for Beverly Hills). Doing our touristy bit, Jose pointed out the house where Marilyn Monroe died, but he was a little slow to mention it hence you don't have a photo.

   

We drove on Santa Monica Boulevard (no, you don't have to sing, this time!) before heading onto Sunset Boulevard (I said don't sing!) which would take us to Hollywood. It's only been about 7 years since I was last in Hollywood and it hasn't changed too much. I caught sight of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel as we approached, can't imagine why I remember it. Might be the name, and the fact this is where we stayed back in 2000.

The bus parked across the street and we headed down to Graumann's Chinese Theater. This is the place where they have all the handprints and footprints out front. The theater opened in 1927 and is still used for major premieres because of it's iconic image. Fans flock here to compare their hands and feet with those of the stars, old and new. Cary Grant, John Wayne, Trigger, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are here, as are R2-D2 and C3PO and more recently, the leads from the Harry Potter movies. We then headed down to that other Hollywood icon, the Hollywood sign.

   

The original sign was erected in 1923 and announced the "Hollywoodland" real estate development. Each letter was 50 feet tall and 30 feet wide and featured 4000 bulbs. Intended to last 18 months, most of the sign remains, except it's not really the original. It was 1949 when the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce dropped the "Land" part and repaired the rest, not least because the "H" had fallen over and now read "ollywoodland". In the 1960s and 1970s, the sign - and Hollywood itself - fell into decline. The top of the "D" and the third "O" fell down the mountain and an arsonist set fire to the bottom of the second "L".

In 1978, each letter was auctioned off in an attempt to pay for the preservation of the icon. For three months, there was no sign on the mountain. In 1980, a $90 million federal grant lifted Hollywood out of the doldrums, reinvigorating the city. The Sign got a new paint job in 1995 and in 2004, an 80th birthday celebration was held. Hugh Hefner provided funds to protect the site and today the Hollywood Sign stands over the city of dreams.

   

The Hollywood Sign viewing spot can be found in the Hollywood & Highland Center which comprises four floors of stores, nightclubs, a cinema and several restaurants. There's still a lot of empty buildings in here, but it's a nice little centre and, more importantly, they have a Build-A-Bear Shop! Picked up a UCLA t-shirt, but was hoping for a baseball mit and ball - they'd run out of them. However, a nice lady took the one off display and let me have it. Very nice of her.

The heart of this shopping mall is the Kodak Theatre. Opened in 2001 (so I missed it, my first time here) it became the first permanent home to the Academy Awards. I can't really rate it, as we couldn't go inside, although they do tours throughout the day. Maybe next time.

   

We crossed Hollywood Boulevard to Disney's El Capitan Theatre, which debuted in 1926 as "Hollywood's First Home of Spoken Drama". Many theatrical productions later and, in 1941, Orson Welles held the world premiere of Citizen Kane here, closing the following year to reopen as a movie theater. A museum-quality restoration began in 1989 and the National Historic Site was reopened in 1991. It continues to host live shows, premieres and special events.

 

We decided to check out the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel next. I stayed here with Di in 2000, and Di stayed here in 1990, so we're both kind of attached to it. Got to say, I was a little disappointed in the changes - or restoration.

The Hotel was founded in 1927 and hosted the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929, handing out 13 statuettes in just five minutes! (I think that's the last time I'll mention Academy Awards ceremonies, this trip.) It has a lot of history - Clark Gable and Carole Lombard stayed here, Shirley Temple took her first tap-dancing lesson, from Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson, on the tiled stairway and Marilyn Monroe posed on the diving board of the hotel's swimming pool for her first advert (for suntan lotion, in case you were wondering).

   

The carpets have been torn up, revealing those tile floors that Shirley danced on, and the Hotel was restored, by the Radisson hotel chain, to it's former glory. The main problems I have with it are that the painting of President Theodore Roosevelt is no longer hanging in the lobby (how dare they remove it?) and, when you climb Shirley's stairs to the mezzanine level, the photographs and history of the Academy Awards that used to adorn the walls have also gone, which is a shame. The lobby now has a Moorish feel to it, although it's all a little bit dark. We sneaked a peek into a side room and were amazed at the huge meeting room.

   

We were dropped at the Los Angeles Marriott Downtown. Our immediate goal was dinner, so we headed out to the California Pizza Kitchen that Jose recommended. I'd eaten at one before (can't remember where) and it was only a few blocks away. We were seated immediately, but they were a little slow to take our order. When the pizzas arrived, they weren't bad, although Di's was sadly lacking tomatoes, which is weird in a pizza (she obviously didn't read the menu that well) but it was piled high with mushrooms. The wine here was a reasonable $19.50, but for the slow service, and the fact Di had to ask for her free Coke refill, they only got three Teds. One thing we were impressed with though was Di could pick up Wi-Fi, from the next door Starbucks on her smartphone, which was useful, as there was no free Wi-Fi in the hotel room.


On the way back from dinner, we decided to go for a drink at the bar at the top of the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, which was across the road from our hotel. The Bona Vista Lounge is on the 34th floor so you get a good view of the city around you. They weren't very busy and it's a little dark in the revolving cocktail lounge, with padded semi-circular booths or regular tables. We decided to order different bottled beers and my favourite was the Alaskan Amber. At $8 each, I guess this was not bad for this upscale (if almost empty!) place, and the view was good. It must take about an hour for the lounge to rotate, but we got bored after about 40 minutes and walked the rest. To be fair, Downtown LA doesn't have a lot to look at!



Back at the hotel we paid for an hours Internet use at reception. This was supposed to be $2.95 (it said online) but they charged us $2.99! We went and logged on, both Paul and Di, assuming that, as it was Wi-Fi, the internet use was for the room. It timed us out after an hour which wasn't much time, but $9.95 (or probably $9.99) for 24 hours when we would be asleep most of the night and out most of the day was unnecessary. Next morning there was a message to see reception, which we did. They wanted to charge us another $2.95 as we'd had TWO hours of use. We said sorry, no, we had ONE hour of use and got timed out. We apologised for maybe pressing a wrong button (maybe?) but no, we'd had one hour and that's what we were paying for. They were dropping those Teds all over the place.

TGTips
A note for our furrier internet-using guests. It's bad enough that the Los Angeles Marriott Downtown charges for internet use (the only hotel on this trip to do so!) but the use is one hour per user and NOT per room! Disgusting! Stay somewhere else!! Oh, and neither the terms and conditions of use online, nor the people on Reception mention this. Hmph!


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