On Wednesday we drove to Hollywood! We went to the Chinese Theatre where we saw celebrities’s hand/foot prints in concrete.We also did the Walk of Fame (celebrities names in stars). Hollywood was different to what I expected, I thought it would be a lot more glam, at night I guess it would look really cool with the lights. On the way back from Hollywood we went driving around Beverly Hills, trying to spot celebrities and marveling at the mansions (we didn’t see anyone famous ). When we got back we met up with Emily and Joe and went for a swim. After a big catch up we bused to Santa Monica. We had a few margaritas at a pretty cool Mexican Bar and walked down the famous pier again - the famous ferris wheel looked pretty awesome when lit up. Mark got really cold so in an act of desperation bought a jersey from the Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant for $16.99…it was the funniest sight ever and the margaritas just made it even more hilarious. It made us look like such tourists!  We went to a few different pubs for some drinks and went back to the original Mexican bar we started out, a pretty good night and not too expensive with all the happy hours happening.

On Thursday we had a massive day at Universal Studios with perfect warm weather - I still can’t get over how warm LA’s winter is! Soon after arriving Joe and Si played some the Coke water canons. Si pushed a button and a gush of water squirted him in the crutch. Si and Joe were such fast walkers! Not a bad thing because we got to go to all the attractions. It was so awesome there because it was really quiet, absolutely no queues so we walked straight onto the rides. After a big day of entertainment we walked around the ‘City Life’ part of Universal and had dinner. We decided to bus back because we already had a bus pass from the morning. Thanks to Simon and Joe’s navigation we walked to the wrong bus stop and walked for like 3 kms because they thought we were going the right way! It was frustrating because while we passed like half an hour in a bookshop and we should of walked to the bus stop before it, instead of walking on and trying to find a bus stop. We ended up having to get a taxi back to our hotel. Oh well it was all part of the travelling experience! 

Yesterday we went back to Hollywood with Emily and Joe. We managed to find a good view of the big Hollywood sign from the Kodak Theatre. Simon is such a stirrer. Here is a good example. There was a guy trying to sell us a concrete slab which you can customise your hand/foot prints (for US$27.99  I thought that was a real rip off!). Simon points to Emily and Joe and states "they should get one, it’s their anniversary!". The guy was like "OHHHHH MY GOOOD!!!!" and got so excited, it was pretty funny! We bused back to our hotel and took detours AGAIN! we ended up at the UCLA and had to hop on another couple buses to get back…Emz was only 40 mins late meeting up with her cousin..woops! In the evening we went to a pretty flash restaurant in Santa Monica. We met up with Michelle (Mark’s wife) and Lou (Michelle’s friend) as they’ve been away in Las Vegas for the last few days. The meals were pretty yummy (and expensive). Something I have to note is about the bathrooms. I have NOT been to a toilet where there isn’t a crack in the toilet door! There’s always like a cm gap in the hinges, makes me paranoid when people walk past. Anyway after our meal we tried to find a decent club in the area. Our mission failed as they were all packed bars with no dance floor. We went to a bar and Joe and Emz got a couple Malibu and pineapple drink for US$33…they were not impressed! That’s like over 50 bux for 2 average drinks! Another thing about the bars is that all the ones we went to only had 1 mens toilet and 1 womans toilet…pretty ridiculous if there more than a few hundred people in the club!!!

I hope ya’ll are enjoying the blog!!!

What an amazing day we had! I have suuuuuch sore feet. Today I went to Camerillo Outlets with Mark and Simon. We got a rental car and it was about a 45 minute drive. It reaally weird driving on the RIGHT HAND side of the road. They have a weird rule that if your turning right on a red light, you can go. Also they have random stop signs on a straight where there are 4 signs! Luckily Mark and Simon were good drivers and lucky I’m too young to drive a rental car…I don’t think I could trust myself over here! The freeways which have over 10 lanes were also quite scary merging into

Camerillo Outlets were massive…imagine Tower Junction times 10…thus the sore feet! It’s like a dress mart but with wayyyyyy better savings and labels. For example I got a Calvin Klein long T for like US$12, a Guess bag for like US$30, and Banana Republic stuff for less than US$10. I am soooooo glad I did’t go shopping before going away. I also bought some Guess jandals/jewellery, Gap t-shirt, Fossil watch (US$25) and that’s all can think of at the moment. I have to pace myself for the San Diego Outlets too! Si bought quite a lot of stuff, especially at Kenneth Cole, including a very swanky suitcase.

After some R & R we went to a nice little Japanese restaurant in Brentwood. Suburban driving on the right-hand side of the road is scary, yet entertaining. Thank god for the navigation system.

We had a long and exhausting overnight fight. Simon and I took sleeping pills and Si was fortunate enough to have like 6 hours sleep straight…unfortunately I only got 3 hours. After walking through customs and seeing their officers with guns I truely knew we had arrived in America! On our taxi to our hotel I realised how spread out LA is…highways, highways and more highways! (with lots of palm trees like the movies! After arriving at our hotel I had the best nap ever on the most comfortable sheets and pillows. We had dinner with some of Mark’s friends at the restaurant at our hotel. Pretty cool restaurant, it had glass all around and a view like the sky tower - ok maybe not so high. It was quite swanky and the whole tipping thing came into play. Tipping is crazy, you ALWAYS need to make sure you have $1 bills in your wallet. It’s a weird feeling leaving EXTRA money on the table and walking off.

Today we caught a taxi to Venice Beach…won’t be doing that again anytime soon! We hired out ‘chopper bicycles’ and rode down to Santa Monica Beach. Venice Beach had lots of interesting people to see…homeless, hippies, street entertainers and just plain weird people. For those who don’t know much about these beaches it’s the beaches that the Flight of the Concords rollerblade down in their music video. We got conned into buying some rap CD’s from the local African/American rappers. It was much easier to say NO to people in Thailand when they were half your size! When we got to Santa Monica Beach we saw the famous ‘muscle gym’. This is where big muscle heads are lifting heavy weights like ON the beach. We parked up our bicycles and walked down the famous pier. You know the one that has the big ferris wheel. We saw a guy in a wheeelchair, paralysed from the neck down who painted with his nose! We also walked along the beach and rocked on up to those lifeguard huts from Baywatch!!!

After a work out at the GYM (I’m so good) we went to a nice Italian restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. To date I have not seen any celebrities.

Luckily the airport staff let us away with our overweight luggage. It was a good flight and we came back to some mild temperatures…

I’ll be back!

It was raining so we couldn’t go to the beach. To make the most of our time we caught a train to Little India and Sim Lim. The trains are like the tubes in London - not that I’ve been there. The trains played a loop of bomb threat videos. It didn’t feel great watching the Madrid bombings etc while traveling on a train. The shopping wasn’t that cheap and the markets looked like there would be more action at night. We went to a big department store called Mustafa’s. There were soooooo many cheap cosmetics and I purchased quite a lot of stuff. 

On the way back we had dinner at Harbour Front. The food in Singapore is quite cheap. Food court meals are only about $4-5 for a big meal.

We spent the morning swimming in our resort. It was a lot busier because of Singaporeans going to Santosa for the weekend. I did ‘water aerobics’ which the cheesy lifeguard led.

After we freshened up we took the free local tram to Dolphin’s Lagoon where we saw PINK DOLPHINS. They did cool tricks and was a once in a lifetime experience! We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the other man-made beaches on the island and went to Underwater World. Outside the aquarium a man came up to me and put a snake around my neck…I was so terrified the snake wasn’t around my neck long enough to get a photo. It felt pretty smooth and was quite heavy. When we were in the aquarium we patted stingrays - I was quite cautious as it wasn’t long after Steve Irwin had passed away.

We started the day with a swim at the beach/pools and then caught a train to Chinatown. After a tasty lunch we went back to Mustafa’s to get some more treaties .

At night we went to the Night Safari. It was amazing seeing animals at night time and traveling in a little tram. We watched a show called ‘Creatures of the Night’. When the animal trainer pretended there was an animal on the loose, Simon touched the leg of the lady next to us. She JUMPED UP and started SCREAMING. Everyone looked!

What a mission to pack up all of our shopping!

Singapore was sooooo clean and green. If you spit or throw rubbish on the ground, you get a massive then and have to clean rubbish from the streets…even if your a doctor! It was weird being in a place where most people speak English. Santosa was only 25 minutes from the airport. Our resort (Santa Rosa Resort) was VERY flash, however our resort in Phuket had better pool facilities. Santa Rosa Resort is located ON the man-made beach so when you’re sunbathing you just have to step across two metres to switch between them. Our room had a massive poolview balcony with sunbathing chairs and a phone next to the toilet! There was even a volume control next to the toilet so you could listen to the television in the bathroom. Another standout feature in the bathroom are the TWO showerheads!

After getting over how cool the bathroom was we treated ourselves to room service and they delivered it covered with a big silver dish - just like how they do it in the movies. We felt very pampared eating our meal in the robes and slippers that the resort provided.

Ohhhh it’s good to be back to our buffet breakfast, the pancakes are really good! After we went for a swim and went to the gym, yes that’s right!!!

We caught a tuk tuk to Patong in the late afterenoon.  After some fantastic sweet and sour pork we went to an ‘entertainment show’. I won’t say anymore…Anyway I bought another handbag. It’s hilarious seeing the signs that say "Come see my secret room" which basically means come see my stash of fake Gucci and Prada. There were so many lady boys tonight! Some are really quite stunning!