Day 3 - Universal Studios Hollywood

Before I start today's blog entry I remembered some random stuff from yesterday. When we were riding the bus I noticed that the drivers all sit right in the open. No cages like at home. So when the drivers in LA are comfortable in the open, how bad must the situation be at home when they have to be protected by metal cages??

And the other random thought: How good is Google? I mean seriously, for traveling in an unknown location, Google Maps is the best companion. Punch in the destination and it will pull up the travel route on public transport and track the stops via GPS so you know exactly when to get off the bus! Brilliant stuff.

Today we spent our day at Universal Studios Hollywood. We got up early at 6.30am and went to breakfast where we had omelette and freshly squeezed orange juice. After taking the metro for 6 stops and taking the shuttle to the entrance, we arrived at Universal at about 8am. At 8.30 they opened the doors and the rides started at 9am.

We did purchase the Front of the Line pass which lets you skip the big queues and go directly to the front. In the afternoon, the Transformers ride wait was 80 mins! Not for us though :)

Note there are two videos in the mix as well.

The Transformers ride. So good we did it twice! I had no expectations and we both just went "wow" after the ride was over. What a thrill!

The start of the Studio Tour - this was the early crowd. When we got back 90 min later this crowd was 4 times larger. Thankfully we had the Front of Line passes for everything so we didn't have to wait for anything.

 For mum - Wisteria Lane :)

Set from War of The Worlds

Bumblebee going to his photo op

The end of the Jurrasic Park ride - you get very wet!

Vin Diesel's car from The Fast And The Furious

The Waterworld show - I still remembered it from last time I was here last century :)

Pulled Pork sandwich at the Hard Rock

At the subway station

L.A. Sightseeing - photo dump

Today we decided to do the usual tourist thing and do some sightseeing. We got up early to have breakfast - turns out the hotel breakfast leaves a lot to be desired, so we opted to go to Denny's across the road. We had smoothies and a hot breakfast.

On the way to our next destination Simone noticed that even the walls in LA can be as fake as some of its people.

We bought two one week metro passes and caught the underground and the bus to our first destination, which was the start point of the sightseeing tour. We arrived only to find that the office was closed. So Simone phoned the other office and the initial plan was that they send a bus to pick us up at 11.30am. So with time to kill we went into Madame Tussaud's, some photos below:

As you can see Simone got a phonecall to from the sightseeing company to ask whether we can make our way to their main location rather than being picked up, and they would knock $10 off each of our tickets. We had enough time so we said yes. It took about an hour or so by bus to go to Santa Monica.

After grabbing an iced chocolate in Santa Monica we made our way to the office where we started the tour. The group was fairly small thankfully, however we were both quite embarrassed about the 6 Australian women and girls. They were rude and inconsiderate by talking loudly amongst themselves whilst the driver was talking and all others trying to listen to him. They were also late at pickups and then wondered why other stops were cut short. Oh, maybe because you were late on the preceding stop and we need to make up that time somehow?? Idiots.

Pic spam below:

 For my work friends - fancy streetlight!

 Venice beach. We decided our stop here was too short so we are going to return hopefully for a longer stay/walk.

 Some bees decided to make a hive underneath a kid's bike. Police was called and then fire department arrived a few minutes later to take care of the problem.

 Yeah and I reckon this guy has shoulder implants.

 Santa Monica pier

 The end of route 66

 That is a pool on the left, what a view whilst you swim!

We got home at around 7.30pm and are both really tired. No dinner for us today, we had a slice of pizza around 4pm.