4 go La La in La La Land - Day 3: From Hollywood and Vine to the Sunset Strip

[Pumba75]

Friday 2nd August 2018

Today was our final day in LA, and we still had quite a lot to fit in - luckily, only being day 2, we were still on early wake-up! Breakfast was again courtesy of Porto’s Bakery, but this morning I got to the massive pain au chocolat before the girls - winning! All the pastries were delicious again. Melissa loved her almond croissant.

The Tangerine had been a great base for a short stay and the location for us had been ideal. Shame we hadn't had time to check out some of the local cafes and restaurants.

Today was mainly about seeing Downtown LA - after packing and checking out, we were on our way to North Hollywood, or NoHo, metro station. They have a park and ride facility here, and it was only about a 10 minute drive. Finding a space was a little challenging as most of them are designated for Monthly Permit holders only before 10am, and we arrived just after 8.15am, but we managed to bag a spot - the cost of parking was $3.

Entrance to the metro.

You can ride the Red Line metro all the way into the downtown area from here - it cost us $9 dollars each - $7 for the daily pass, and $2 for the “tap” card you have to use (a bit like an Oyster card). However, riding this train was nothing like the London underground as we were able to get a seat each!

About 15 minutes later we were disembarking at Hollywood & Highland for the Chinese Theatre and Walk of Fame. Here’s a quick tip - you don’t need to tap the “tap” cards when leaving a station, just walk through the turnstile - we did not know this, and consequently failed the “try not to look too much like a tourist” test!

Even at that time of the morning, the area was busy. There’s not too much to say about this - we saw the theatre, we saw some stars (including Mickey Mouse and Daniel Radcliffe), we politely declined the offers to have photos taken with people in poorly made film character costumes (more politely than one American family who told one “go away, you’re not wanted here").

Popped into one of the tat shops and saw a rather apt key ring for this report!

We were there no longer than around 30 mins, and we saw all we wanted to see - it’s not the most salubrious of areas and we were content to move on at that point. We hopped back on the Red Line to take us to Pershing Square station, in the heart of the Financial District.

First stop was the OUE Skyspace, at the top of one of the tallest buildings in the area. We have been up both The Shard and The Skygarden in London (Spoiler - Skygarden is better, and free!) so thought we’d add another tall building to our list.

Interactive experiences on our way up.

Great views from the observation deck.

The novelty feature with Skyspace is that it has a clear, enclosed, slide that comes out the side of the building almost 1,000ft above the ground. It cost $130 for the four of us, which included one go on the slide (I believe it’s approx $95 without the slide option). The slide was fun. It's quite short but quite an experience looking down through glass so high up!

We had a brilliant time. There were great views to be had of LA, and at one point a passing LAPD helicopter did a couple of close passes to the observation deck seemingly just for the benefit of us all on there!

After a drink at the obligatory bar/coffee shop that all these buildings now have, we departed and walked a few blocks to see the Walt Disney Concert Hall - it’s a really interesting building architecturally.

By now we were getting a bit peckish and our next stop was Grand Central Market - an old market hall which is now filled with street food stalls - it was a hot, busy, hectic kind of place with loads of different cuisines on offer and, on a Friday lunchtime, was packed with a mix of tourists and workers from the nearby offices. After wandering around we eventually opted for sandwiches, sharing a tuna melt and a turkey melt. These were your typical US deli sandwiches - jam packed with filling, and they went down really well.

Time was now getting on, but we still had one more stop - The Last Bookstore. E loves reading and really wanted to pay a visit to this store. On the way in you have to leave your bags at the front desk, and on the way out you have to show your receipt for any purchases so they can ensure you’re not stealing anything! It was huge, and both girls enjoyed some time browsing, before E decided which book to buy.

With everything ticked off our list, we made the short walk back to Pershing Square station to catch the metro back to NoHo.

We jumped back in the car, and at 1.55pm were pulling off for the journey to Joshua Tree National Park, which the satnav told us would take about 2.5 hours. Perfect - the plan was to get to the hotel we were staying at for the next two nights and head to the pool. Unfortunately the LA traffic had other ideas!

As we pulled up on to the freeway, Melissa uttered the immortal words “well at least it’s moving” - literally 30 seconds later we ground to a halt, and this was the pattern of the journey until we pretty much reached Palm Springs. In all, it took us 5 hours to do the 140 mile journey!

We arrived safely and checked into our room at Fairfield Inn in Twentynine Palms, staff were friendly and our room was clean and spacious.

Our initial observation about the area was that it was hot - but I guess that was to be expected given we were in the desert! By now we were tired and hungry so we headed out to the nearby Denny’s for dinner. It may not be the height of cuisine, but it’s good value and you know what you’re getting - plus, Twentynine Palms is not a huge place so there was not a huge amount of options.

Meals were as follows:

Melissa - Grilled Salmon, with mash and corn (and gravy! - yep, gravy... with salmon!)
E - Chicken and Avocado Caesar Salad
M - Sirloin steak with mash and broccoli
Me - T Bone Steak with mash and corn

We passed on dessert (again! I’m not sure what’s wrong with us) and headed back to the hotel. M did get time for a quick swim whilst E read her new book and then we were all off to bed.

So that’s the first stage of the adventure done. WB Studio Tour was excellent, as was Skyspace. As for the rest of it? I’m glad I’ve seen it, something to tick off the list, but I can’t say that I’ll ever be desperate to go back and do it again. The other thing is the traffic - I drive a lot of miles each year with work, I’m comfortable doing it, I even quite enjoy driving, and I’ve been comfortable driving on numerous occasions in Florida. We expected the traffic to be bad, but it was ridiculous - and on the rare occasions it is moving relatively freely, everyone else is driving like a loon - you have to have your wits about you.

So, LA is done. Tomorrow is Joshua Tree National Park.

Thanks for reading.

[i love jack]

Nice comfy seats at the top of skyspace, I thought you meant the slide went all the way to the ground (I’m still in theme park mode)
Traffic is crazy hope it settled once out of LA

[sheluk]

You got through a great number of the LA hits today - everyone always seems to say like you... glad I’ve done it but no great shakes.

Does the traffic tend to be better earlier in the day or is all about the same?

Looking forward to your next day xx

[Lisa_Lollipop]

LA is a funny place isn't it? I'm glad I have experienced it but it's not somewhere I would hurry back to... I found it all far less glamorous than I was expecting!

Skyspace looked amazing though, you were all so brave to do the slide... it made my knees wobble just looking at the photos!

I'm excited for to see your day at Joshua Tree, this was definitely a highlight of our trip!

[Goldia]

You had an interesting day in L.A., such a shame the traffic doubled your travel time. Still time for a quick swim at the end, we love a night swim on holiday.

[Grump$]

I seen that skyspace slide on Ozzy and Jack's American roadtrip, did you use as many expletives as the prince of darkness as you slid down?

[Disney Wishing]

Great report so far. You really caught the full LA traffic experience Looking forward to the rest of your trip report.

[mrsdjh]

You found some interesting places to visit such as the concert hall and the bookshop that I've not seen mentioned before. You were all brave on the glass slide!

Wow Ive read about the LA traffic but that was a long time to drive that distance.

As for no dessert again I can only put this down to the heat!

The jury is still out for me on visiting LA – only the WB Studio Tour interests me. Even the Hollywood sign etc don't hold much appeal especially when people who have been don't seem too impressed. It obviously is a "been there done that" type of place.

Looking forward to the next day!

[Zomax25]

Thanks for sharing! Really interesting to see LA. My sister hated it and it definitely sounds like somewhere to go once.

[Lisa29]

Another great day, I’d go nowhere near that slide! I would love the bookstore though.

I can’t believe how bad the traffic in LA is, how do locals get anywhere on time?!