San Francisco, CA

Another early start – up at 5am to ensure we reached the airport in plenty of time. After the seemingly customary minor delay and gate change, we were on our way. One nice things about the design of today’s plane – we finally had the opportunity to “turn left” after boarding! Within minutes of getting away from the airport one word sprang to mind: Character. Rows and rows of lovely old terraces somehow clinging to ridiculously steep hills. Before long we were at our own lovely old terrace – the “Inn On Castro”, a terrace converted to a small hotel. And sure enough it too is full of character. A small room, but wood-panelled with a big bay window, even with a glimpse of water in the distance. Off we went for a wander to check out the local area – The Castro is the gay and lesbian centre of town, a bit like Oxford st in Sydney but it covers a few blocks instead of part of a street. And it has trams. And trolley buses. And trains. I didn’t even know cities still had trolley buses, so there you go. We jumped on a tram (ok, a streetcar, not named desire) to see more of town. I’m happy to report it’s so very different to LA. It has a really friendly feel to it, and it felt somehow familiar, a little bit Melbourne – maybe it’s the trams, and the cold. The cold! Yes we were warned, and they were right. The sun is nice but oh that wind is bitter. They even have a Westfield – I thought we’d left San Francisco and ended up in Miranda for a moment. Oh and just for the record I guess curved escalators aren’t so special – this Westfield had them in abundance. For dinner we wandered about, past the delightfully named Squat and Gobble restaurants and the Sit ‘n’ Spin laundromat, to end up at The Sausage Factory, where an hilarious waiter brought forth the most delicious Italian food, along with, to use his words, “a dirty joke to help ease digestion”. I won’t repeat it here, but yes, I think it served its purpose – I’m not sure was more funny – the joke itself, or the fact we were being told it by a waiter in the middle of a beautiful, oak-panelled Italian eating establishment. Whatever, he certainly earned his generous tip that night. San Francisco, so far it’s been a delight!

Hollywood, CA

We had no plans for today – just to take it easy, have a free day to wander around and do whatever. That can present a bit of a challenge in a city that is really large, very spread out, and somewhat lacking when it comes to public transport options. We eventually decided West Hollywood looked nice when we’d gone past it on our tours, so we jumped in a taxi and headed over to the corner of Santa Monica Boulevarde and Melrose Avenue. We walked into a supermarket and one of staff quickly identified us as being Australian – not because we were yelling “Crikey! stone the flamin’ crows, Ailsa!”, but because, like all Australians (apparently) our jaws hit the floor when we noticed the price of alcohol. A 1.75 litre bottle of Smirnoff for $14? If you buy a six pack, yes it’s only $14 a bottle. Amazing. We walked on, over the rainbow pedestrian crossings that weren’t doing anything to ‘endanger public safety’ – which is the ******** reason Duncan Gay gave for ripping up Sydney’s one… what a stupid excuse. After that we eventually (this is so not New York!) found another taxi to take us back to our end of town. I hadn’t ridden in a Prius before, so it was kinda fun watching the dashboard report when we were running on petrol, and when the engine would shut down and we ran solely on electricity. There isn’t much of a language barrier here – but there is still one conversation I’ve had many times but never quite understood. It goes like this. “Thank you.” “Of course!” Huh? My best guess is that it’s short for “of course you are welcome”… but to my Australian ears it still sounds quite odd. But hey I guess we sound a little weird to most of the ears around this city, so certainly not judging. So that’s about it for our time in LA. To be honest, not quite sure what to make of the place. For a city that seems to be full of glitz and glamour every time you see it on TV, the reality on the street is pretty different. Even the glamour spots like the Dolby Theatre and Rodeo Drive lack the expected sparkle. Ultimately I guess we’re just passing through, so maybe we never had the opportunity to know the real LA – if ‘real’ is a term you could attach to LA. It had its wonderful moments – the Yamashiro farmers market was the highlight for me, just because it showed that there is more to this town than smog and people asking for money. So it can be a nice place if you k ow where to look. Or if you’re a major movie star. Would I be back? I know I haven’t seen all LA has to offer, but for the time being… It’ll do. Another early start tomorrow morning for the flight outta here… Goodnight!

Los Angeles, CA

Today’s tour was tops! Called “LA Sites and Bites”, it started in the delightfully swanky Roosevelt Hotel, built in 1925 and still looking lovely. It was also the home of the first Academy Awards in 1929.

We were lead along some of the Walk of Fame, learning a bit about it – for instance, anyone can nominate someone for a star on the walk of fame, but who actually makes the cut is determined by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Next stop (well, only a step away) was Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, with all its famous handprints and footprints in concrete. It was cool to see some of the newer ones (Harry Potter stars for instance) but great to see some of the old ones – like Deanna Durbin’s handprint from 1938, and Shirley Temple from 1935.

Once the tour began in earnest we went to some great food spots that we would never have normally found as many were tucked away behind the scenes. “Grub” home of bacon so good they call it “crack bacon” was wonderful, as was pizza at Mario Battali’s “Mozza 2go”. And I now understand why people rave about pastrami, having sampled the pastrami on rye at Greenblatt’s Deli.

John Kerry chocolate was all very fancy and hand-made, and of course yummy so we picked up a few pieces for later. Then on to an Iranian-owned ice cream place for delicious Saffron Rosewater ice cream.

All that, and a drive past some of the famous and infamous LA attractions, from the Whisky a go go to the Viper Room. The tour guide was wonderful and there were only three other people on the tour, all of whom were from Australia. So we had a great time, it was much much more enjoyable than yesterday’s tour.

And we (so far) have had a record day in LA – nobody asked us for money. It might be something to do with the fact that the Roosevelt Hotel (where the tour started and ended) is only two streets away from our hotel.

On Thursdays there’s a Farmer’s Market in the car park of the nearby Yamashiro restaurant – we wandered up there for dinner and … It’s lovely! A couple of gourmet food trucks selling wonderful dinners and desserts, farmers selling their own organic produce (at a farmer’s market? Who knew!), and my favourite part – a young lady, with her typewriter, producing poetry on request. How wonderful! (Think I might head off to Byron Bay, get a typewriter, and set up shop :).

All this took place overlooking the LA basin, plenty of people milling around, enjoying the food and the ambience as the sun was slowly setting, accompanied by the clack-clack-clack of an Olivetti portable bringing forth the word on the street.

Los Angeles, CA

Today was a long tour of some of the sights of LA. While we were on the street waiting for the tour to begin, we again experiences one of the constant realities of LA – people asking us for money. A minute later there was something new – people asking of we wanted to buy drugs. No thank you. Thankfully the tour soon began and we were on the bus and on our way. I shouldn’t be so harsh on people who have fallen through the cracks and ended up having such a tough time living on the streets. But after meeting one every few minutes.., you can’t give everyone a few dollars, you can just hope the city gets itself together and is doing enough to help the people that really need it. One other constant of LA: traffic. Just the thing you want on a bus tour – but hey it’s a genuine LA experience I guess. Our first stop – the famous Venice Beach. To be honest, it left me wondering why it’s so famous. It was a little grubby, a little dodgy, and … people asking us for money. Also there is the also famous Muscle Beach – which ended up lacking both beach, and muscles. So… Not a big fan of Venice Beach, can’t say I’d recommend a visit. Next stop wasn’t Santa Monica Pier. Which was a shame – it looked interesting. So finding our way there might be a task for Friday. One nice looking part of LA was the historical part of downtown East LA – it looked a lot like New York, might explain why I liked it. We stopped in he heart of historical LA – the ole pueblo, they call it. Home of the oldest home in LA. And, umm…. Nobody asked us for money! Moving right along we drove along Mulholland Drive, where all the rich and famous live. I can see why they choose this area, it’s up above the rest of the city with some lovely views – including the Hollywood sign, which was great to see in person. Our last stop on the tour was Rodeo Drive. Home of the fanciest shops where the rich people spend a fortune and it always looks so glamorous and beautiful on the TV. In real life… It looked pretty much like one of the fancy northern or eastern Sydney suburbs. I’m not sure what I was expecting, and it did look flash, just not all that flash. Oh and … people asked us for money. So … Not the most spectacular tour ever. Or dare I say maybe its just not the most spectacular city ever, but hey we still have a few days to figure that out. One nice thing about having a place with a proper kitchen is that tonight we’re eating in … Very classy (but delicious) microwave ready-meals. Yum! And no people asking us for money. 🙂 Tomorrow – another tour, all about food so hey that’s gotta be good!

Los Angeles, CA

It’s probably a good time to re-iterate how amazing the Magic Castle Hotel and its people are. It’s no surprise or has the number 1 rating from Tripadvisor for hotels LA. It’s a little old, far from being swanky, but has the most amazing people working there, and the most amazing services of any hotel I’ve ever stayed in. Free wi-fi, free drinks and snacks on demand (haven’t tried this out yet), free brekky, and the one thing that really floors me – free washing. We dumped two bags at reception this morning, and when we returned tonight, there were freshly washed and folded clothes, delivered to our room, in brown paper packages tied up with string – one of my favourite things, if the song is to be believed. 🙂 Anyway there was a lot more to today than that – a visit to Universal Studios. Perry summed it up nicely on Facebook so I’ve attached a picture of what he said, rather than try to write it all up myself. A big day, but a wonderful one. Really enjoyed the rides, and the opportunity to see real parts of the working movie studios. Tomorrow – another tour. So need to get some sleep to recover from a massive day. Ni-night!

Hollywood, CA

Good bye Vegas – though many of its inhabitants didn’t seem to mind that 4:30am is a ridiculously early morning. There were still plenty of people partying on from the night before. The poker machine floor was a little quieter than usual, but still a number people were playing along happily. Me? As with any 4:30am start, not much to be happy about. At least in this 24 hour town it was no trouble hailing a cab at the hotel, and we made it to the airport with a minimum of fuss. Despite mechanical issues and a change of aircraft, United still manages to fly us to LA only 10 minutes behind the scheduled time, which was quite a feat. Especially for all the people who had connecting flights to catch. To an extent I welcomed the delay – the normal hotel check-in time is 3pm, so the less time we have to wait for that, the better. Our shuttle bus took its time to get everyone at the airport and make its way to the hotel – another good chance for a bit of a snooze. The Magic Castle Hotel had all these great write-ups for amazing services, and from the second we walked in the door I could see why. In short, “Help yourself to free breakfast while we go get your room ready” – that is, getting the room ready four hours before the regular check-in time. Nice one. And, nice breakfast! Once the room was ready – what a room! It’s actually a one bedroom apartment. For the first time, we have a fridge! Such luxury. We eventually dragged ourselves out doors to grab some great Japanese food, and see some of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But really, that was about it. Definitely not a high-energy day. In the evening we went out for a dinner in a old-school-styled dinner, Johnny Rockets, dodging the homeless people and all the cartoon characters who want to pose with you for a photo, and a tip of course. But that was it for the whole day – OK, 4:30am, you win!

Las Vegas, NV

Our last full day in crazy town – so how else do you start? Buffet breakfast/brunch! It sometimes feels like its the only way to get food in this town. Sure, there are lots of McDonald’s, Starbucks etc, but I have to admit it is quite hard to pass up a good all-you-can-eat pig trough, especially since we got this one at a discount for buying Donnie and Marie tickets. So we hopped next door to the Monte Carlo and ate ourselves stupid. On the plus side – in Vegas, two meals a day is more than enough – there’s no such thing as lunch anymore. We basically spent the day casino-hopping. Anything to get out of the heat – it was only 30 degrees, but in the city that shade forgot, the sun was pretty punishing. It wasn’t too nice being outdoors at all. I can describe all the casinos equally well by saying they are enormous, noisy, a little tacky, and it makes the mind boggle just thinking about all the money in the place. So with that out of the way here are the edited highlights of the casinos we visited today. Monte Carlo – nice breakfast! MGM grand – I don’t know if its the biggest casino here but it sure feels like it. Harrah’s – any casino with a slot machine called “kitty glitter” can’t be all bad. The Venetian – lovely faux-Venice canals and gondolas (and gondoliers) inside happy to take tourists on a ride… Though seeing the propellers on the boats did remind you that it was as fake as the est of Vegas. Singing gondoliers did a wonderful job of singing though – I don’t know that I’d like to be singing “that’s amore” for an eight hour shift but they were doing it with aplomb. Caesars palace – as opulent and decadent as Rome in its heyday. Lovely fountains. And the curved escalators were pretty cool. A very odd feeling though! After that I headed up to the “fashion show” mall, while Perry headed back to the hotel for a nana-nap. I only went there so I could ‘check-in’ to the Apple Store on Facebook. Otherwise, it’s a big mall full of high-end shops, but it was indoors, and the aircon was good, so that made a nice place to visit! I made my way back to the hotel via a few casinos, and a, happy to report I came out ahead on the pokies I played on the way through, so that was a pleasant surprise. Then it was time to pack to suitcases and prepare for our last show. Why pack now? We’re checking out at 4:30am tomorrow – I’ll be lucky to even recognise my suitcase never mind figuring out how to pack it at that hour. Tonight’s show was cirque du soleil’s “O”, at the Bellagio. Since Bellagio is famous for its fountain, it was no surprise that this show had a lot of water. The stage was at times a giant pool – floors appearing and disappearing, a triumph of hydraulics over storyline. Ok, there was a story – “boy gives girl her scarf back”, but of course the story isn’t the point. Again, he performers were incredible, anything and everything from synchronised swimming to trapeze to contortionists to fire dancers to clowns to high diving… There was so much going on, and all of it was spectacular. However of the three Cirque shows we saw. I’d have to pick Ka as the favourite. After the show finished we had a final chance to see the Bellagio fountain do its thing again – it’s an even grander display at night as the lights really emphasise what’s going on. The it was time for a short walk back to the hotel. Just kidding. There is no such thing as a short walk in Vegas. The Bellagio is effectively three doors up from our hotel, but it takes a good half hour to get from A to B, such is the immense scale of everything in this city. It takes about 15 minutes to walk through the MGM Grand, for example. So it really pays to plan ahead when you have to be somewhere. So it has been an interesting place. Much bigger than I thought, and actually, more family-friendly than I anticipated, seeing as how’s all the really dodgy places are a little out of town. But the one thing that sticks with me is the realisation that the city really only exists, because of people that have too much spare time and money on their hands. In a way,it serves no meaningful purpose. But it does give a lot of people a brief chance to forget about the rest of the world for a little while – if that’s a meaningful purpose, then consider it admirably fulfilled. If not, then go ahead and be angry at the world that it even allows such a place to exist. But I don’t think Vegas would even notice. Next stop – up at 4:30am (argh!!) for the next leg of the adventure…

Las Vegas, NV

This day began with a jolly good sleep in. No massive breakfast buffet this time, instead we jumped in a cab and headed straight for the old-school Vegas district, Fremont Street. Home of the Golden Nugget, the Four Queens,and whatever else you may have seen in Diamonds Are Forever or other films of the same period. It was surprising how tiny those casinos seem now, compared to the behemoths at the new end of town. Still, it was interesting to have a good look around and sacrifice $10 to the poker machine gods 🙂 Speaking of poker machines, there must be rounds and of different varieties, at the very least. It seems they will make a poker machine based on internally anything. Today, we played A Star Wars machine, and. Sex nd the City one. Yesterday, one based on one of my favourite computer games, Plants vs Zombies (there’s also one based on another fave game, Crazy Taxi). There are countless other movie and tv show tie-ins (like Survivor which we had a go at as well) … If you name it, there’s a poker machine for it! One productive thing we did at Fremont Street today was visit the half price ticket booth, where you can get a discount on shows that are on the day. And yes we scored the hottest tickets in town … Donnie and Marie Osmond!! What can I say – it was kitsch, a little tacky, and a lot… Awesome! It was a real Vegas show – ok, not totally Vegas, no boobies. But the theatre was a proper ‘tables and chairs’ club arrangement, the songs were plentiful, the dancers snappy, and the stars, well, still pretty much the Osmonds we knew and loved from the 70s. And Donny did Gangnan Style which was all kinds of funny. So yes, a great show in the truest sense of the word – colour and movement, song and dance, and two people who seem to still really enjoy working together some 50 years (!) after Donny started his show biz career. We had to leave at the start of their final number to make sure we made it to our 2nd show in time. It was cirque du soleil’s “Ka”. Now, I’ve run out of fancy words that I could possibly use to describe this show. A triumph of acrobatics, dance, costuming, and engineering. Yes, engineering, for the whole stage rose, fell, tilted and rotated until it was completely vertical at times – apparently it weighs about as much as a jumbo jet or something. Incredible. The story didn’t make a lick of sense but you don’t go to cirque for the story, you go to be amazed. And I was, and then some, and then a lot more. It would seriously be worth going to Vegas just to see that one show. Tomorrow is our last full day in Vegas and yes, it’ll be our last Vegas show.

Las Vegas, NV

It’s our first full day in crazytown – so we start it the way many people advised: Buffet breakfast at the Bellagio. The Bellagio, like pretty much everything here in Vegas, is almost overwhelmingly huge. We did eventually find the buffet though, which was of course delicious, but my expectations may have been set a bit high because, despite being big, it wasn’t huge ginormous and overwhelming. Can’t complain though, still had a great feed. And it had soft-serve sorbet machines. What? Yep, apparently that’s a thing now.

After gorging ourselves at the posh pig trough we jumped in a taxi and headed to a big outlet shopping centre. I wish the watch shop we went to didn’t have “buy one get one half price”, we all know how that story ends… After that we went back to the Bellagio and yay they’ve fixed the fountain – it was an impressive display, will be interesting to see it at nighttime. One unavoidable aspect of walking anywhere in Vegas are the countless people handing out business cards for strip (or more) joints. They’re at every single intersection , and about every 20 metres in between. (The people. Not the strip joints!). You have to give these people some credit though – today’s best response to my “no thank you” was this: “They’re just titties bro they ain’t gonna bite ya!” 🙂 In the early evening we had of a bit of a walk around, through the MGM Grand (huge), the rest of New York New York (huge), and the Bellagio (huge). Yes there’s a common theme running through the Vegas casinos. Each one is the size of a suburb – it makes Star City look like a quaint little village.

Tonight’s show (we might not be near broadway but that won’t stop us) was Cirque du Soleil’s “Zumanity”. It’s the Vegas, grown-up version of cirque – so yes, lots of boobs-out-for-the-lads. But despite that it still managed to be mostly artful and in good (enough) taste. And the performers are incredibly talented, regardless of their state of dress. Zumanity was at the theatre within our hotel, so it was a very short walk to dinner (in one of the 8 or so restaurants here). Then we spotted a Wizard of Oz pokie machine so we had to give that a whirl – and for once actually managed to turn $15 into $50 so I guess Glinda the Good Witch really was on our side after all.

By this time it was nearly 1am so definitely time to just crash. (Hence no update last night). I will surprise you all now by mentioning that tomorrow is time for another show…

Las Vegas, NV

Up and at ’em this morning, to check out of the hotel at 8:00. Should you ever be visiting New York I can strongly recommend the Tryp by Wyndham, it was a great place, friendly staff, a good comfortable, room kept spotlessly clean, and it’s very well located near Penn Station for great subway coverage to get wherever you need to go. The car we hired ended up being 20 minutes late (dial7.com, I’m looking at you!), but we’d allowed an extra half hour and still arrived at LaGuardia airport more than 90 mins before our flight was due. I still took the opportunity to wield a bit of New Yorker’s Revenge (I don’t know if that’s a thing, I just made it up), and only gave the driver a very modest tip. First flight from LaGuardia to Chicago O’Hare was great. Calling it “First Class” is maybe a bit of a stretch, but the seats are big and comfy, you get real glass, and metal cutlery, and the quality of service on board was great. The in-flight wifi is a fun gimmick for us foreigners who don’t get to experience it at home. Chicago O’Hare is o’huge – but for the benefit of nerdy travellers the world over, the place is positively festooned with power outlets – both normal power points, and powered USB ports as well. Nice one! And very welcome since our 3.5 hour layover has stretched out to 4, thanks to a delay on the Chicago to Vegas flight. But we made it eventually with the minimum fuss and here we are at New York New York, Vegas.

As a New York themed hotel, of course it has a giant roller coaster out the front – I guess that’s Coney Island. One thing that is very un-New-York-like is the size of the room – it’s enormous compared to the actual New York hotel room. Probably about double the size. We went outside for a quick wander into crazytown, which to be honest wasn’t that crazy once you get used to it. A world of neon and artifice, and people on every corner inviting you to go to their strip shows. Nice. But despite that sleaziness, ‘the strip’ itself is very well kept, clean, tidy, and … everything is just massive. So much neon and light, the moon hangs sadly in the sky like some kind of afterthought. We waited by the Bellagio fountain for a while, but alas it wasn’t doing its tricks as it chose today of all days to break. Ah well, we still have a few days. We had a “when in Rome …” moment, donating $10 to the upkeep and maintenance of our hotel via the ‘Survivor’ poker machine. Sure enough, those $10 were quickly voted off the island. 🙂 But for now, off to sleep! Since we’ve been heading west all day, the shift in time zones means we’ve actually had a 27-hour long day – 11pm here is like 2am for our New York selves. So… Goodnight!