hey everyone

After a long flight from fiji i finally arrived in LA. Customes wasnt too bad, just lots of ques! My first night in LA was spent in hollywood! The hostel was just off the hollywood boulevard so it was a good spot. After i checked in i went straight up to the walk of fame. I must admit i was pretty nervous as its a pretty intimidating place and there are lots of weirdos around! But there were plenty of tourists around so it wasnt too bad. So i walked around, took photos of some stars, some foot/handprints outside the kodak cinema, etc, and basically got a feel for the place. It is a bit of a dump to be totally honest so i didnt hang around too long, but it was great to see all the stars!!

Back at the hostel i tucked into some chilli provided by the hostel, and then had an early night as i was going on a tour to Las Vegas the following morning.

The next morning i got on a bus through the company LA City tours. I had actually already booked to use the greyhound buses but i had heard some really bad comments about the buses, apparently when people come out of prison they get given free tickets to use th buses!! and the guys at the hostel (who told me to book the greyhound in the first place) kept saying how i would meet some very interetsing people. But luckily LA City had just changed there vegas tour and it fitted my dates perfectly so i went with them instead. The tour they did included two night accommodation in vegas and also a trip to the grand canyon. However because i had already booked my accommodation in vegas, i only paid for the transport. But with a good chat with the driver, he agreed to let me join the grand canyon tour for $50 cash! Wicked!! bargain. So i was doing the same trip as the rest of the people on the tour, expect i was staying in my own room on a nice hotel on the vegas strip! And overall i think it all worked out cheaper!! Fab!!

Las Vegas

In Vegas i stayed at the sahara hotel. It was on the strip but it was right at the top so was a little out of the all the action, but luckily the monorail that runs up and down the 3 mile strip actually went through my hotel, so it was easy to get to all the good stuff!!

The first night i headed straight down the the bottom of the strip where the mandalay, luxor, excalibur, new york new york and the mgm all share a part of the strip. I must admit i think Vegas is one of the best places i have been on my travels. Its just the craziest place ever!! Its like one giant theme park!! The hotels are just amazing!! Each hotel has shops, theme park, restaurants, some kind of theatre as each hotel puts on shows and obviously, a giant casino at the heart of it!! I didnt do any gambling to be honest, i just spent most of my time walkin up and down the strip, checking out some of the luxurious hotels and watching all the free shows! I worked my way up the strip passing the bellagio where the fabulous water show is. The water dances to classical music! There was the mirage, the flamingo, caesers palace, treasure island oh the list goes on, and they were all fabulous. At the mirage is a volcano show where it gives the effect of it erupting! Very impressive!! Treasure island had a pirate show but unfortunately they kept cancelling it becuase of the wind, so i didnt get to watch that one!

It impossible to include everything about vegas because its just the most bizzare place ever, but i love it and want to go back. That first night i didnt get back to my room until 1am! Shattered afetr walking for over 6 hours, and i had to get up at 5.30am as i was meeting the tour group at 6.30am for the grand canyon tour!! Ouch!!

The trip to the canyon took quite a while but it was worth it. We went to the southern side of the canyon which is the most visited and it was a very impressive sight!! can understand why its a wonder of the world!! the only down side was the fact that its was absolutely freezing, and it started snowing!!! Couldnt believe it! Ever since arriving in america i have been so cold as i am not used to it anymore. Especially coming from fiji it has been really hard!!

Anyway teh grand canyon was brilliant and glad that i made the deal with the driver! Was worth the money!!

The second night in vegas i just visited the hotels i had missed the previous night and did a little bit of shopping. I even went to the top of the strip to the stratosphere where i got a ticket to the top of the tower and gots some brilliant views of vegas. The rides were not working though as the winds were too strong, kind of glad though, it was sooooo high!! Would have been scary! They have the coolest shops in vegas. Two of them are the coca cola shop and the m&m shop! Each having 3/4 floors full of related stuff!! Brilliant!!

The next day was back to LA but this time i stayed in santa monica. I had booked to stay for two nights but when i had checked my tickets, i only needed the one as i was flying the next day!! Good thing i checked!! haha

Santa monica was very nice, the beach (where baywatch was filmed) was gorgeous. Was a shame i didnt get another night there!

So the next day i was flying at 23.45 so i booked to do a tour of pretty much everything. the movies stars homes, Hollywood, beverly hill/rodeo drive, the hollywood sign and then finally universal studios. It was an excellent tour! However with it including everything i dont think i saw as many movie stars houses as i would if i had done it seperatley. Still saw some good ones though. Steven Speilburg, uma thruman, nicole kidman and tom cruises ex house, goldie horn, snoopy dog, michael cane, richard gere, madonnas (bit of a lie really, i saw the hedge that surrounds it!) and a load more but i forget all the names. Rodeo drive was really cool. I went to the toilet at the beverly wilshire hotel!! The hotel from pretty woman! Very posh!! Also saw the shop from the same film where she got turned away!

The shops were very very nice and i could resist a look around. I looked such a scruff as well in these luxurious shops, haha, so out of place!! These people just have way too much money!! Everywhere you look there are ferrari's, bentleys, hummers (loads of people have these) and more. How the other half live eh!!

Went up to the hollywood sign, well, we went in view of it to be honest. Because of vandalism it is now an offense to get close to the sign so you can only go so far. And we were quite a bit away to be honest. The first night i spent in hollywood i could actually see the sign from my hostel room, and on the trip it wasnt all that much closer really! haha, never mind, got the photos anyway!

Universal studios was brilliant, only problem i had was time! We only had 4 hours there!! No where near enough so i didnt get on all the rides. I managed to do the house of horror (dedicated to all the horror movies universal have done, eg chucky, psycho, frankenstien), the terminator ride, the tour of the studios, jurassic park and backdraft. Not bad but i missed the mummy ride and the back to the future one so i was a bit gutted. The ones i did though were excellent, i got soaked on the jurassic park ride!!! The tour of the studios was excellent. The actual studios bit were a bit boring coz they were just the outside of the buildings because we couldnt axcess them, but the outdoor sets were fab. "new york street" where scenes in towns are filmed, a mexican themed village, the pyscho house, the grinch village, wisteria lane from desperate house wives and many more. During the tour which was on a little bus type thing, they took us on some pretty cool rides and showed us so fab special effects. There was a king kong ride, a jaws ride, an earthquake ride, and a couple more. A little hard to explain them but the rides taught you how they would film certain scenes. Like the earthquake one, we experienced what the set would do and the special effects that would be used when filming. Lots of fun.

Shame i didnt get to finish the place but i still had a great time there!! It was straight back to the hostel after that so i could collect my luggage and head up to the airport.

Next stop New York