Los Angeles

Hello, Jennifer Aniston?

Leaving: Fresno, California. Mileage: 8271.6km
Friday, July 28, 2006. 10:05am

Arriving: Los Angeles, California. Mileage: 8650.6km
Friday, July 28, 2006. 2:30pm

On the way from Fresno to LA, we stopped off at a Swedish town called Kingsburg. Kinda strange to see Swedish buildings in the middle of California, but I thought it was worth mentioning. The coolest building was this Shell station. That's about it.

Kingsburg, CA. A Swedish village.

First stop: Downtown LA. Millenium Biltmore Hotel. I think that the only claim-to-fame this four-star hotel has is that they hosted the Grammy's or something in 1934. That seems to be the only photo they have around the hotel of something "famous". Anyway, it was nice enough, but we're glad we never paid full price for that place! It was a bit pretentious, and on top of the steep price of a room for the night, internet cost $10 for 24 hours in your room, and another $10 if you wanted to be able to access it from the lobby. Plus, we had to fork over $30 for "no-other-option" valet parking.

Aside from that, we had a great time! We went to Brentwood or Westwood or some place around there to Josh & Jean Mooney's place. Once again, people I haven't seen for years. Last time was at their lovely Westchester, NYC wedding in 1999? Something like that. And now they have baby boy who is almost an exact replica of Josh! They took us out to the Cheesecake Factory, where we not only had really good food (and huge portions, once again), but excellent cheesecake. We went back to their house later, where we got our first glimpse at a real live TIVO! We had never seen one of those before, except for on the Ellen show :).

Jean, Luke & Josh Mooney


I don't think he liked pictures.

We headed out at around 8pm cause we had to meet up with Ethan - he's probably the friend from Taiwan that we have seen most recently, and that was in 2004 for Kris and 2003 for me (in Shanghai, where we had some other wonderful adventures that you can ask us about at a future date... including having a good ol' Red Guard help us get impossible-to-get train tickets to Beijing during Chinese New Year's!).

Ethan picked us up at our ritzy accommodations, and drove us through sketchy parts of LA, before we ended up at the diner where they filmed much of "Swingers". Ethan's estimate was that 90% of the crowd there were wannabe actors. Including Marion. Hey - if I was to get discovered that night, and they offered me a few million to do a movie, I would probably put off the international teaching career for a bit :). But alas, we only managed to get really good corned beef hash, and no million dollar offers.

Canters... a place to try to be seen!

We were the only ones who wanted a photo of us... sigh...

The next morning (Saturday), we went to our tour guide's home, and met his awesome little grandmother! Ethan showed us around his place and 'hood - he has not only the amazing "Taiwan" trees in his community, but also an avocado tree right next door!!

It made us homesick for Taiwan.

We headed out and went to California's restaurant - In & Out Burger. We had milkshakes and burgers, and fries - all greasy and so yummy.

In....

Apparently they're owned by Christians, so they write Bible verses on their packaging. I still have no clue what was on the cheeseburger... it was Nahum 4:6 or something like that. There's also a secret code to ordering - the only one we know now is "Animal Style", which means something like "grilled onions with cheese".

...and OUT

Then, of course, we had to go to Hollywood. Once again, to Marion's disappointment, no one recognized her talents... nor did Ethan come through on his promise to show us someone famous. We saw the Walk of Fame, and the closest thing to famous was this Star Wars Mickey (Anakin Mickey, whatever...). As he posed with us, he also whispered, very un-Mickey-like, "I do this for tips..." (hint, hint). Much like the 40 Baht per person photo we took in Thailand... (again, another story). The annoying thing is that you can't even tell he looks like a Star Wars character in the photo! I want my money back :)!

Our one tourist trap

After Hollywood, we went to UCLA, to visit Ethan's beautiful alma mater. My favourite part was watching high school cheerleaders practice. They were awesome... The other highlight was a random telephone ringing on the side of one of the campus buildings, and Ethan sprinting across the quad to actually answer it. Wrong number.

UCLA and Marion, Kris & Ethan

Then it was onward ho to Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Bel Air, etc. for a quick tour of big houses. We got bored fairly quickly, and went to Santa Monica. We went for Kris' first "Cold Stone Creamery" ice cream, saw the famous amusement park off the pier that is Wade & Kris' favourite scene from some movie, watched people fish off a pier in LOS ANGELES,

Santa Monica beaches


Would you really eat fish caught from here?

saw some cool beach houses,

Awesome house on the beach

and of course, we went to Venice Beach to watch the muscle guys work out (where Arnold Schwarzenneger once lifted as well).

I'm big and strong, and I want to be like Arnold.

We finally ended our fun-filled day at a great Cuban restaurant called "Versailles" (somebody needs to explain that name to us someday!). Mmm, mmm, good is my review. Marion got an entire chicken, and rice, and beans, while Kris got the same thing but with pork instead of chicken (no, he didn't get the entire pig).

Pork, beans, rice, onions... a good wholesome Cuban meal

We had a great time with some great friends, and although traffic in LA is possibly the worst in the world (maybe except for Manila), we had a wonderful time there... Though next time, Ethan, we want our money back if you don't let us meet someone famous! :)