Monday, July 27, 2009

Hollywood

Today I took a Grand Tour of LA. While we saw some historical sites (first street, first fire station, first mission) and some beach areas (Santa Monica Beach, Venice Beach), a lot of time was spent on things:

The above picture was taken from the Hollywood Bowl overlook off Mulholland Drive. We drove down the twisty canyon roads, and we also drove through some of the residential sections of Beverley Hills and Bel Air. We saw Aaron Spelling's 36,000 square foot, $50,000,000 house, the house where Michael Jackson died, and several others. Even in other parts of the city, we ended up talking about movies (went over the 8-layer interchange featured in Speed, saw Mel's Diner and the Rodeo Drive shop that wouldn't sell clothes to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, etc.). We also stopped near Grauman's Chinese Theater, so I took some pictures:


Someone asked about seeing stars on the tours. The driver said that once he was stopped at a red light and the passengers started screaming. There on the sidewalk was Tom Hanks. The driver opened the door, and Tom Hanks got on the bus. He took some pictures with the passengers, then said he had to go and got off. Nothing so interesting happened on our tour - the closest I came was this:


More pictures from the tour later.