LA and Universal Studios

LA highlights and Universal Studios
Today was the start of our Globus tour of the West, beginning with a city tour and optional Universal Studios tour.
The most interesting parts of the city tour were in Beverly Hills and Hollywood, especially Sunset Strip, Rodeo Drive and Hollywood Boulevard. Rodeo Drive was especially interesting – just about every expensive brand shop you can think of with dress prices commonly around $10,000 for the cheap stuff! We stopped at the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to take a stroll down the walk of fame. It was interesting to see so many Australians there – Olivia Newton John, Gwyneth Paltrow etc. We also managed to get a photo of the ‘Hollywood’ sign, but it was so far away that it is not worth uploading the picture here. To get a better photo you have to drive well into Hollywood, but tourist coaches are forbidden to do so.
This afternoon Phil did the Universal Studios tour. The Studio Tour covers all the working studios from the outside and takes 45 minutes. The most interesting part was all the streetscapes created over the years for movies and TV series set in the old West, New York etc. Included in the tour were ‘rides’ involving driving the coach through tunnels in which you experience, in 3D, dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, King Kong attacking and rocking the bus, and an attack by beetles from The Mummy. Good fun!
After that Phil took in the Special Effects Stage, the Terminator 2: 3D experience and the House of Horrors. Sometimes it’s just fun to do kids’ stuff, even at 60 . Now for a quiet night before we head for Arizona tomorrow morning.