From Hollywood to Vegas

So, another flight, another airport visit. I don't think I like airports anymore. We've put heaps of photos up on a site called Picasa, so take a look, you can add comments whenever the urge takes you.

While in Hollywood, we visited Paramount Studios, which was fun, despite my uninterest in 'celebrity.' Paramount was probably the best studio we could have seen, as it's a working studio, with no rides, no sugar-eyed kids careening around; just the hardware and manpoiwer needed to make the magic. Our young tour-guide, Rob, (private tour of two, sweet!) was interested enough and knowledgable enough to keep us entertained.

If you are interested, we saw Alicia Silverstone filming a sit-com called 'The Singles Table' and Jaleel White (Urkel) wandering around. Barry Manilow was narrowly missed.

Went to the Hollywood Wax Museum, kinda fun. We found a mixture of good likenesses which are almost creepy, and bad likenesses, which are pretty funny.

We've seen quite a lot of good live music at both The Lava Lounge, and The Hotel Cafe, including Alana Sweetwater and Zak Hexum - names to look out for. Shout-out to Andrea: at first I was amused by your Jagerbombs, then I was addicted to them.

Hollywood Boulevarde sidewalk-stars: despite the popular theory that you need to be a leader in your field for five years, everyone has a side-walk star, from Arnie to Ryan Seacrest to Big Bird. There are thousands of them and Mickey Roonie has two, I must find out why.

Today we are flying out to Las Vegas, so hang on to your cheese-o-meter, it's going to be vibrating at 'overload' for the next week.

hello again! i thought i'd do a little blogging before heading out for the day. we're going to the getty museum today, which should be great. then tomorrow morning we're off to las vegas.
since the last entry, we've been busy... though it's been weird, i think i'm still coming to terms with being in LA. bit late now i guess, seeing as tomorrow we won;t be here anymore. ah well. we have been on a 'stars homes' tour and also on a tour of paramount studios. while the first was as un-amazing as it sounds, the paramount tour was quite amazing - we've put some pictures up here (bookmark it!). it was great to see the behind-the-scenes of a working studio - we got to visit the sets of many shows, including entertainment tonight and nip/tuck (the only one we weren't allowed to take photos of, actually). there were supposed to be nine people on our tour, but the other seven people didn't show, so mark and i got a tour guide all to ourselves. he was great - he'd only just got the job there three months ago, and he loved it. as for star spotting,m we saw alicia silverstone! once form a distance while she was shooting a scene on their new york backlot - an amazing re-creation of a new york street, complete with brownstone facades and removable trees and streetlights. then, just before we left the studios, mark and i were looking at some photoboards and we heard a voice and turned around and there she was, chatting to a guy and a bunch of kids. i wish now i'd said something - i would have loved to have given her a copy of my book, seeing as how i've quoted 'clueless' in it. we also saw jaleel white - aka erkel. i know! talk about different ends of the spectrum, huh?? haha!
we were allowed to take picks on the set of entertinment tonight, and met the producer in the control room, where he let us sit in his chaor and take pictures. all up, it was a great tour.
the weather here has been excellent, and we're hoping it holds out today. this evening there is a haloween celebration at the 'hollywood forever' cemetary, and we're hoping to check that out. anyway, more news later - hope you're all well and happy!

what nerds huh - been here barely 2 days and already, 2 blog entries. what can i say? - free wifi will do that to you.
we're having some down-time at the hotel right now - mark has a little sinus headache so i've drugged him up and tucked him in, and he's snoring appreciatively as i type. i think it's a jet-lag thing - we stayed up watching tv till 3am, then work up 'this morning' at 11. it's all good though, there's no rush to see anything in particular. yesterday we bargained with the tour people on hollywood boulevarde and bought open tickets for a 'see the starts homes' tour - i expect a slide-night's worth of images of large gates to come of it. nonwithstanding, i'm looking forward to it. maybe tomorrow. today we went to a cool 50's diner called mel's for lunch - they have $4 mojito's so might have to go back there for dinner as well...
one thing i wasn't prepared for was the smog - it's quite thick. i can't imagine living in it all the time. it's there all the time, though i expect the air quality in the hollywood hills up behind our hotel, like the life there, is markedly sweeter. haven't spotted any stars as yet, though the day before we arrived was the premiere of borat's new movie at the kodak theatre. thursday night there is a tribute concert being taped there, a tribute to reba macintyre, and dolly parton is billed to perform - we'll hang out in the papparazzi zone & try and get a shot for you, melissa! i still cannot equate that place with the academy awards on tv. where do they put all the bleachers and red carpet? i am thinking about going on a tour inside the theatre but mark's not. i really don't know why he's not in the least bit curious to find out exactly what seat reece witherspoon sat in last year. yes, i am kidding.
so, as mark told you earlier, i got what i like to call the 'brown girl grilling' at passport control, which i wasn't expecting cause they guy that checked our passports was brown. and his surname was khan (what? nothing, i'm just saying...) hmm. maybe it was because i said i was a writer. though the bad luck did start at melbourne airport where they confiscated my hydrating spray because it was 100ml, not 90ml (new travel security measures, i could have caused a nasty soaking with that extra 10ml - though i did spill my mini bottle of sparkling on the plane, so suck on that, security-man!). jeannie, if you're reading this and wondering, i did get to use it a couple of times beforehand, and loved it! made me especially sad to see it soar through the air and into a plastic-lined bin at the final gate check. he'd obviously done that before... anyway, the LAX experience though made me a little worried about what the rest of my experience here would be like. so far though everyone has been great (touch wood). especially the girl yesterday who massaged my back with a variety of massagey-type things while i was hooked up to the machine at the oxygen bar stall at the hollywood & highland mall... oh yeah, baby. i'm so hollywood.

Hollywood touchdown

Hello, Mark here (spiffo = mark). Our journey started at 4am this morning, and that's a long, long time ago now. First stop was Dandenong station at 5.20am for the airport shuttle, followed by a 15 hour flight to the not-as-glamorous-as-expected LAX. Thanks to the international dateline and Einstein's special theory of relativity, we landed 3 hours before we departed.

Arriving at LAX, our passports were checked, and Shalini was asked to follow a customs official. He asked her to sit in an open office, checked something mysterious, stamped something mysterious, and mysteriously let us continue on our way. Two minutes later, the last customs official in the procession dropped the throw-away line "Do you folks have a return ticket?" which I think was designed to catch us off guard. Out into L.A. we stumbled.

Sam the shuttle driver was a cac, repeatedly assuring us we'd see 'crazy stuff' on the streets of Hollywood; 'the good crazy.' He also said everyone in L.A. had a car, lazy Americans drove one block to the shops, you can't get anywhere in L.A. without a car, taxi's were expensive and buses infrequent, but he finally admitted we wouldn't need to hire a car. He seemed to be battling some kind of driving-everywhere-conditioning.

Hollywood Orchid Suites are great, Marlo behind the counter overflowing with helpful info. Free wireless net, full kitchen, clean pool, room-safe, our own balcony, we are comfy little tourists right in the middle of the action. Thanks a bunch Loren for pointing us to this place.

Today was spent getting a vibe for the area, currency and pace. And losing our jet-lag of course. A full day tomorrow beckons...

happy diwali!

we just got back from the diwali mela at sandown park raceway. it's been going for five years, and for five years i've been meaning to go - but glad we made it there this year. sampled some lovely vegetarian fare and gorged on sweets, witnessed some excellent performances - the best by far from jhanak dance company. they really blew the crowd away, and the punjabi boys were loving it, jumping and shouting and whistling the snoozing babies back to attention. i brought back a little pack of sweets for mum and dad, and a beautiful murti for myself - a three-in-one handpainted set of lakshmi, ganesh and saraswati. when we get back and settle down again, it will sit on my study desk next to my other idols - natraj, buddha & wonder woman.
we leave for our three-month around the world trip next tuesday, and i still don't think it's sunk in totally. the idea of packign is stressing me out - it took me so long to get it together for just a week away in ubud - how am i ever going to work out what to pack for three months away?? everyone's been telling me, 'think layers'. sounds good, but what about shoes? and how many pairs of underwear should i pack (as many as the undies section in my bag can take, i would imagine). i must take something sparkly to wear in vegas (i'll turn 33 there), and maybe some heels (i bought a pair of apple-green wedges the other day - and i don't have any apple-green in my wardrobe). i'm a little nervous, and i can't wait. we will be posting updates here, so stay tuned.

we are back in melbourne after a blissful week in ubud, bali. i had never been to bali before - i guess it was the stigma attached to the whole non-stop-party image of the main touristy places - but ubud is something else. it is the most beautiful place i have been (so far). i come from fiji, and though i feel a little like a traitor saying that about ubud, it's true. it's all rice paddies and temples and cocnut palms, very lovely, the people are great and the pace of life is just different. ubud is a little town about an hour and a half by car from denpasar, and it's an arty place - a lot like byron bay. mark and i were there for the ubud readers & writers festival (my first offshore literary-type shindig), and we had a ball (you can read more about the ubud experience at my other blog). spaeking of 'my other blog', i got as lillt healthy schtick for having 2 blogs while i was over there! i have thought about merging both blogs into one using some type-pad or wordpressy type software but to tell you the truth i can't really be bothered at this stage. maybe one day...
we're here for another three weeks, then we're off on our round-the-world adventure. i still can't believe that i'm soon going to be standing on streets i've only read about. i'm excited and scared all at once, least of all because of the fourteen hour flight we'll have to take to LA, our first destination. then vegas then new york. and that's just the first leg... the mind boggles.