Day 8: 13 March - Exploring the large city!

City Tour Day in LA

Today I woke up bright and early for hop-on-hop-off bus tour from the Chinese Theatre. This is a brilliant tour and goes all around the city. L.A. is amazingly big, and if you don't have a car, this is the next best thing.

It was a beautiful, hot, sunny day! Luckily I thought to pack my sunscreen because I was in the sun all day, and I didn't turn into a lobster! The first route that I  did took me around the Hollywood/West Hollywood and Beverly Hills areas. It was an audio tour, so I got to learn a lot about the city as we stopped by famous locations, interesting spots, celebrity hangouts and the like. Unfortunately, no celebrities were spotted, but the day was still great.

Shameless selfie on Hollywood Blvd

West Hollywood was in a great spot, higher up in the hills and will a great outlook over the city. Beverly Hills was incredibly opulent and oozed rich people at every turn. Each street has it's own species of tree (no doubling up, lest one street copies another), and all the fire hydrants are painted silver, instead of red, because it's that little bit fancier. There are even small alleyways put there especially for the bins to go, so they don't have to be seen. I felt posh just being there! The bus went down through Rodeo Drive, though it couldn't stop there. It was fun enough just to see the shops and the beautiful street that I've only ever seen in movies..the shops were unfortunately a little bit out of my price range.

Famous Beverly Hills Sign

After visiting Beverly Hills, I hopped off the bus and transferred to a different line which took me down to Santa Monica beach. It was the perfect day for the beach and I was very happy exploring the Santa Monica Pier. Firstly, it was not as big as I expected, but it was still very fun and had incredible views of the beaches and Malibu. While I was there, I went for a ride on the Ferris wheel and did some souvenir shopping at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

Santa Monica Pier

End of Route 66

Every angle of Santa Monica

After Santa Monica, I headed down to Venice Beach Boardwalk. The boardwalk was completely lined with market-style shops and stalls of souvenirs, T-shirts and food. One very strange thing was the amount of "Doctor's Examination" stalls - which prescribe medical marijuana cards...to pretty much to anyone, which explained a lot! Their were all sorts of people along the boardwalk performing, trying to sell anything and everything, and the beach itself was huge! The sand extended so far, I couldn't even see the water. It was a very fun and interesting place to experience.

After Venice beach, I hopped back on the bus and made it back to the hostel, exhausted and with the beginnings of a cold. I decided not to do too much, as I wasn't too keen on getting sicker. Jonathon and I walked down to Tommy's Burgers for an unhealthy dinner, and back on the room, we got to hang out with new friends from Sweden - Julia and Amanda, who were drunk and very entertaining!