OK, for those who have been following, we apologise.... it's been a few days since our last post. To make up for it, we shall summarise Los Angeles in a single flowing post... or two... haven't really decided yet.
So to start, Friday afternoon, after we arrived and checked in, we went for a leisurely walk around West Hollywood where we are staying to stake out somewhere to eat and maybe go for a drink later. West Hollywood is the heart of the gay district in Los Angeles and fortunately, hasn't yet gone down the road to obscurity like Oxford Street in Sydney has done. After a quick freshen up we had a pleasant dinner at a place called Skewers before enjoying a few cold ones at Abbey, a new-looking venue that was very trendy and looked to be the latest place to hang out for locals.
That brings us to Saturday. After another wonderful sleep in (we are really struggling to get up before 10am!) we put on our walking shoes and hit the pavement. We did a LONG walk through Beverly Hills, down Robertson Boulevard (strip of expensive shops where stars/celbrities can be seen), Wilshire Boulevard (home of Miracle Mile, a string of museums) up Fairfax to The Grove, before looping back via Melrose Avenue.
We discovered The Grove last year, it's an open air shopping centre which is a little upmarket. We resisted the urge to eat at the Cheesecake Factory which we also first ate at here last year. After a short time and minimal shopping (we noticed the nose dive in the Aussie dollar) we had a cheap Chinese take-away lunch before plodding on.
It was good to stretch the legs on a great walk, taking in the sights. This was, not surprisingly, followed by a nap before preparing for tonight's event - our (to date) favourite Broadway show, WICKED. This was at the Pantages Theater where we saw this show almost 12 months ago.
Wicked is still as enjoyable as the first time we saw it in New York last year. We are booked to see it again in Melbourne a few weeks after we return home. Sunday saw us up a little earlier and this time exploring by car.
Our first stop was the Griffith Observatory. A great vantage point for views of Los Angeles, Hollywood and the surrounds. It also starred in "Rebel Without a Cause" starring James Dean. Next we followed our little SatNav unit in the car to what it knows as the closest you can get to the Hollywood sign. It's a suburban intersection, which was weird, but a tour bus pulled up at the same time so we figured it must have been the right place. We then drove onto Venice Beach which is, well, quintessential LA. It includes Muscle Beach and a plethora of shops, food outlets, stalls, beggars, tattoo parlours and a range of other services (including "legal medical marijuana... right upstairs").
Sunday evening saw us braving LA public transport (bus then train, and I'm sure we were the whitest ones there) to make our way to Ahmanson Theatre in downtown LA to be one of the lucky few to see "9 to 5, the Musical" based on the 1980 movie "9 to 5" starring Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlins and Jane Fonda. Music and Lyrics for the show were written by Dolly Parton. This was a 'pre-broadway' production where they iron out glitches in a brand new production before taking it to Broadway in New York. We were lucky enough to have the full cast (no understudies) which included two who had both played leading roles in Wicked at some stage. While shorter than most shows it was a great laugh with some great numbers and amazingly technical stage changes.
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