Sunday 21st September 2008

[08:22 PDT]

The Hollywood sign is just visible this morning up on the hill. There's low cloud out there that's expected to clear within a few hours. Hopefully it'll be warm out there as we have plans to visit the roof top pool. It's actually only on the 5th floor, but it's still open air so we need something warm.

Overall the weather out here in southern California has been fine, clear and warm. Although the TV has been saying it's about 10' cooler than normal - but it still seems OK to us. However, the forecasters are saying that the Santa Ana winds are expected to get started very soon, bringing much higher temperatures to the whole area (they are saying high 90s) we should be in Anaheim by then.

[17:32 PDT]

Back after a little walk and drive this morning / afternoon. We started off just wandering back to the Chinese Theatre and joining a 30 minute walking tour there. We then collected the car and drove along Sunset Boulevard and into the Beverly Hills area. Finally we went off to Santa Monica and stopped there for a couple of hours, walking along the (very busy) pier and taking in the sunshine.

Now we're getting ready for our next LA tour - "LA by night" which starts in 30 minutes.

[22:51 PDT]

Well, we're back from what can only be described as a marathon tour. We were about 20 minutes late starting the "LA by night" tour. I think we were waiting for a missing couple. Anyhow, we were shown onto a small mini-bus with an Australian guide (we can't remeber her name) who had lived in LA for a long time.

She drove us first up to the higher part of the hills, near the sign, where we stopped for some photos. She then took us through part of the area where the film stars live, pointing out who lives, or lived, in which house.

She then took us down into the Beverly Hills area. I'm sure Linda was overjoyed when she pointed out George's favourite public toilet!

From there, we went through the central area of LA and finally into the downtown area. Quite a few roads were blocked off down there as tonight was the Emmy awards show in the Nokia Theatre in downtown LA. I lost count of the number of stretched Limos I saw tonight.

Finally, she drove through some of the more dodgy areas as she dropped some of the groups off at their hotels. I'm certainly glad we were not staying in some of the areas other people were being dropped off at - they looked very uninviting. We were the last couple off the bus as she dropped us off outside the hotel. We'd expected about a two hour tour. In the end, including a 45 minute stop for food, we were travelling around for nearly four hours. This woman just didn't seem to tire of little stories or facts about places we were driving through. It was a very interesting journey. I'm a little disappointed she won't be doing our full day trip tomorrow, as she was a very good host.

Tomorrow's full day tour starts at 9am out front of the Chinese Theatre.