STARS, CARS AND NBA... + more cars.

Well well. We have now ventured to some of the far more razzle dazzle areas in LA. We've basically been carrying out all my dreams really. Cars and NBA, it has been quite delightful. First day we were here we just wondered around Hollywood Boulevard and it is one of the most dissapointing places you could ever find. Not that i had any expectations on what it would be like but it's just nothing spectacular at all. It's got a rather large amount of homeless people and everything seems on the derolict side. I think all the movie characters that stand on the street are actually homeless people that they've dressed up. It's a good idea really, except when you walk around the corner and catch Cat woman and Jonny Depp from pirates of the Caribean shooting up, haha, no its not that bad but they do enjoy a smoke and seem to have a habit of begging when i think they'r paid to do it? It's very funny at night when some of the characters wonder the streets on their way home at night. We found Big Bird all alone just wondering home, very funny sight. I think it would be amazing to see how much the area would transform when the Oscars and such events are on.

On Thursday we caught a bus along Santa Monica Boulevard out towards the Ocean. The beach was very pleasant and the weather was beautiful, a very nice change after spending so much time in rainy/snowy conditions. It's very similar to Brisbane weather it would seem, considering it's winter here at the moment it can still be t-shirt and shorts weather during the day but at night gets a little brisk. I'm not sure what the water temperature was like but the beaches were rather empty. It was incredibly flat swell, but their are surfing beaches around here; as demonstrated in BayWatch and the O.C. Also in those shows are the little life guard huts scattered around the beach, it was pretty cool to see them when they've been used in a number of infamous shows. Along the beach they have public playground equipment of sorts, they have a few swings and such but then alot of the equipment is gym based. They have high vertical ropes and rings and parallel bars, saw some guy who was pretty amazing using some but the most amazing thing was a little girl who could have been no more than 3 or 4 years old doing the ring swing things, looked awesome.

Yesterday night I went to my first NBA game ever!!!! We just turned up to the Staples Centre and managed to score the cheapest tickets possible, they were only $10 US each. On the map it looked like it would be incredibly bad, we were rather far away, like the 7 foot giants looked a little bit like ants. No it was actually really quite good, the view was fine, nothing obstructing it at all because the stadiums are built so well and higher rather than further back so your looking down on the game with a pretty good view. We're glad that we didn't buy tickets off a scalper who was selling us tickets in the next section over, like just beside us for $40, very fortunate. One of the cool things about sitting up high is that whenever anything happened you had a view of the crowd as well, so when something massive happened you would see the whole stadium erupt which was fantastic. The game was LA Lakers Vs. Sacramento Kings. Kobe Bryant was rather awesome along with Pau Gasol, and i think it was John Salmon from the Kings also had a very good game. A couple of times Kobe did some incredible dunks that raised the roof. One time he broke his man down with a killer cross just beyond the arc then drove down hard took off from two feet and slammed down a hard two hand jam on a couple more of the Kings players. It was so incredible too watch, beautiful, absolutely incredible player. Crowd went nuts for a good long while myself included on that one. We enjoyed the spectacle of the, don't mean to generalise too much, but the rather stupid incredibly unhealthy American public. To give some examples, well during the game there is non-stop action, like advertisement quirks from endless fast food chains. They all have a very well organised little routine that lasts about 2 mins, like a txting competition between the upper and lower levels for free coupons or various challenges. One of the main ones was Carl Jnr's was going to give the whole crowd two free taco's if the Lakers held the Kings to under 100 points, nearing the end of the game the crowd was yelling taco's or something spurred on by the screen. When a kings player hit a 3 in the last minute to take them to 101 points the crowd/America was devastated.
This takes me back to how incredibly difficult it is to find good food over here, much more surprising is that even in the supermarkets you ahve to search hard for the fruit and veges, it's just incredible. We have however found a good little chinese place nearby that Alyson has been devouring the Wonton Soups, they are a good big portion as well, surprise surprise. I've been enjoying the 99c burgers at Wendy's which are surprisingly tasty and filling. Can't complain that we don't have more of it back home though, each one i consume feels deadly, deadly good.

Now lets get to the cars, this could take a long while. The kind of craziness it is can be illustrated in that when we were heading out the stadium from the game I noticed a Rolls Royce Phantom, a second later I saw a Maybach, these are both 1million dollar cars. Crazy business, I watched the cars go from that exit and saw an Aston DB9, countless Maserati Quattroportes and much more.

Today was the glory day however, I got incredibly excited initially because i spotted my first ever stationary Mercedes-McLaren SLR, that one that i saw back in Montreal, only to find out that it was even better than first thought. It was the 722 a slightly later release which i think stood for 722 bhp. As well as this it was the convertible model. Absolutely breathtaking beauty, lovely car. Managed to come across the beverly hills Merc dealership and there was another one their as well!! Along with 4!!!!! Maybachs. Bonkers, this is bonkers people. During the day I spotted another SLR on the road and yesterday I'd seen one also. The receptionist helped me track down the Ferrari/Maserati dealership which i went to with gusto, I was dissapointed that they didn't have an Enzo or an MC12 but rather surprised and delighted to find the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione. It's a beautiful Alfa supercar that we will never see in Australia as it's only coming in left hand drive and all the orders have already been taken for them. It was awesome because they must have been having an introduction day for the Maserati Gran Turismo because a number of them kept going past us with the dealerships plates on them, the salesman squeezing the throttle a little more than most owners seem too; bliss.
My favourite place so far in LA is Rodeo Drive, the rich haven with all the Lui Vuitton and other expensive brands i can't spell all that well. Constantly you see Bentleys, Astons which i've now seen the DBS (James Bonds ride) many times and it looks incredible everytime, Maserati's, and even Rolls-Royce. Mercedes and BMWs a plenty as well of course. One of the craziest cars was the Rolls Phantom Drophead which is the convertible, saw one of those parked, it was Yellow??? Then whilst taking a photo of it a Ford GT came alongside so i got that as well:)
It's been very happy times for me, very happy indeed. Somehow though I'd been expecting slightly more, don't get me wrong i'm incredibly satisfied, but tommorow I am going to go search the dealerships for a Bugatti Veyron. That should be exciting times. My expectations were high because i've seen videos on youtube of the car shows that happen around here, they would be so incredible. The amount of good cars is just insane, and to see them all brought together would just be heaven. I should have planned better but I am still a very happy camper with how things are going.
Tommorow evening we are off to Paris so i have to go and look at some more details for that.
Toodooloo.