Gone Hollywood

Woke up in LA the other day- who ever imagined we'd actually make it this far? The very LAST stop! Excited and tired to be there, we arrived in North Hollywood after a very restless 8 hr bus ride through the night, and grabbed a taxi to a hostel to drop our stuff.

We took advantage of some coffee, cleaned up and were out the door to meet our 3rd travel buddy, Jessica, who'll be joining us for the next leg of our trip. We made our way up and down the Walk of Fame just outside the hostel, taking loads of shots of the stars of all our favourite actors, musicians, etc. We also met some MJ and Marilyn Monroe lookalikes, and a Spiderman from Mississauga who very kindly offered to pose in a photo. We passed the famous Chinese theatre, the Kodak theater (where they hold the Oscars) and got a nice view of the Hollywood sign from the top of the mall. Woo!


We later strolled down the Boulevard to haggle some bus tour prices to see what we could see of the city in such a short time. None of us were too keen on seeing any celebrity homes, but this seemed to be the highlight of most every tour. After settling on one we hopped on openair bus to Beverly Hills. Some highlights of the tour included the chicken restaurant where Brad Pitt worked as a chicken mascot in his pre-movie days; Rodeo Drive; the tree Lindsey Lohan drove into last year; the 'body parts' hospital where lots of stars get their Botox fix; famous clubs where Janice Joplin (etc etc) played; the homes of tons of celebrities (Robert Deniro, Orlando Bloom, Leonardo Decaprio, the house MJ died in, Tom Cruise + Katie Holmes, Angelina Jolie, Ben Affleck + Jennifer Garner; the list goes on ), all filled in with other ridiculous facts that none of us ever really needed to know. All in all it was a fun little jaunt around la la land!
Sandie and I ended the afternoon with some pints at the Pig N' Whistle, Hollywood's oldest restaurant/bar, and then checked out a movie being filmed infront of the Chinese theatre-- when what famous person would reveal himself? None other than Justin Timberlake! We're bringin sexy back... Yeah! ;)


Onwards to the airport for a 11:30pm flight!
Things were going smoothly until we are about 10 minutes from LAX, and Jessica says, "Hey! Where's my wallet?" The rest of the van got dropped off at the airport while Jess frantically trecked back to the hostel. Amanda and I begin to sort out our luggage when I discover an entire bottle of shampoo has exploded all over my stuff! ah! Cleaned up, we are going to check when the lady informs us we need to have an exit ticket from Vanuatu in order to board the plane. Whoops! So much for deciding on this later... and so after a mad dash to find some internet, we booked our Vila to Auckland flight for the middle of September, and made it back in line. Amazingly, we all made the flight- just another airport adventure.