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Tuesday, 29 September 2015 - (Central Coast, California) Big Sur

The Californian Central Coast is an area of California spanning the coastal region along the Pacific Ocean more-or-less between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The region is known primarily for agriculture (including wine grapes) and tourism. We spent today driving the scenic Highway 1 along the rugged coast of the Big Sur region, which reminded me a lot of the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island.		A couple attractions we stopped at along the way included Bixby Creek Bridge, a 700-foot long (200m) bridge standing 280 feet (85m) high.
There may be nothing particularly interesting about it, but it's scenic :)

Further south in this little cove is the tiny McWay Falls, which drops 80 feet (24m) into the ocean below, making it one of only a small number of waterfalls around the world that empty directly into the ocean. New Zealand's West Coast has a couple of them too ;)				Too bad about the cloudy day, but this is certainly an awesome part of the country!

Wednesday, 30 September 2015 - (Central Coast, California) Show me the money

Day two of our drive along California's Central Coast towards Los Angeles. We stopped in Santa Barbara for lunch and a wander, home to many of Hollywood's rich and famous, and with a distinctive Spanish flavour to its architecture.
The average home price in Santa Barbara: $1.5 million.		No shortage of awesome beaches in this part of the country!

Later on we stopped in Malibu for another look around, also home to many of Hollywood's rich and famous.		The average home price in Malibu: $2.3 million hehe, sheesh!		No shortage of stunning sunsets in this part of the country too :) Anyway, LA here we come!

Thursday, 1 October 2015 - (Los Angeles, California) Aaaaand action!

Our first of three days in Los Angeles was spent not exploring the city, but visiting the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park and film studio instead. We were planning to make time for this later, but given it's the weekend tomorrow and it'll be utterly manic here, we opted for today. Universal is one of the oldest and most famous Hollywood film studios still in use, and we were keen to see some movie magic!		Right out front Mario Lopez (the kid from Saved by the Bell) was doing pre-recorded segments for Extra - an "American entertainment television news program covering events and celebrities". This is the second time I've seen Mario, after first seeing him down the street from my office in New York while I was getting lunch.

Anyway, the point of our visiting Universal was less about its theme park and more about its studio tour. This is overlooking the so-called "back lot" - the area containing sets used for shooting building exteriors and outdoor scenes (as opposed to the "front lot", containing several dozen individual and fully customisable sound stages for interior scenes).		Despite appearances, most of these buildings are merely facades. A small number can be used for both exterior and interior shoots, but for the most part it's all a ruse :)

This area of the lot, known as Courthouse Square, was used for the filming of the Back to the Future trilogy! Marty drove the DeLorean along here, and Doc Brown slid down a cable from the clock tower there hehe. The buildings are redressed frequently as each movie or TV show requires, and Courthouse Square (representing a typical American town square) has featured in many.

Elsewhere in the backlot is Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives hahaha! My Mum used to love that show! This street actually featured in many projects prior to Housewives (Gremlins for example), and in many more since. The houses themselves are mostly empty, with interior scenes being shot on sound stages in the front lot.
Elsewhere on the studio tour we were taken through a subway station, which subsequently went through an awesome earthquake simulation which left it a complete mess...		And a scene from the 2005 movie War of the Worlds emulating one in which a commercial airliner has crashed in suburbia. The parts of the plane were salvaged from an actual out-of-service Boeing 747. Interesting stuff!

After the studio tour we got stuck into the theme park!		The Simpsons is the theme of a large part of the park, and I couldn't resist at least one cheesy photo :)

Elsewhere, the Jurassic Park ride is a park staple.		Transformers 3D and Revenge of the Mummy have been more recently introduced, and both rides left me feeling queasy hehe.

We also saw a show entitled "Water World", based on a dystopian world in which the polar ice caps have melted and dry land is a myth. Just like the subway station during the backlot tour, they blew a lot of shit up and left it a mess.		And that was our first day in the big smoke.		Tomorrow we'll be exploring the city itself.

Friday, 2 October 2015 - (Los Angeles, California) Stars

Downtown Los Angeles - a cacophony of traffic and horns, and rather light on tourist attractions.		Instead we headed to Hollywood - probably the most touristy thing in the whole city. This is looking down Hollywood Boulevard, which almost feels like New York's Seventh Avenue as it passes through Times Square. Kristina and I briefly visited this area while en route to Southeast Asia almost four years ago to the day, at the start of our previous mammoth adventure.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame, comprising more than 2,500 of these stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard. Established in 1958, the stars bear the names of a mix of actors, musicians, directors, producers, musical and theatrical groups, fictional characters, and others.
From there we headed for the hillside neighbourhoods, specifically Hollywood Hills, Beverley Hills (think 90210), and Bel Air (think Fresh Prince) - filled with palm tree-lined streets, large properties, and countless celebrity inhabitants.

We didn't spot any celebs (nor any paparazzi), but there are many tour companies that bus you round known celebrity homes and hangouts.		In Beverley Hills we grabbed a late lunch around the Rodeo Drive area, known for its luxury-goods stores.

This is where people with money (or daddy's credit card) come to spend it!		Welcome to Beverley Hills - small dogs with cries for help on their face, and Botox hahaha!

Later on we took a drive through Bel Air, as did many celeb-spotting tour buses.		Behind these gates is the Playboy Mansion, which isn't visible from the street. Despite the little gap in the gate, I decided against sneaking in hehe.		Downtown LA by night, with no letup in the traffic.

Saturday, 3 October 2015 - (Los Angeles, California) Surf's up!

After another fight with LA's disgraceful traffic we made it to the beach, starting with Santa Monica! All I can say is thank Christ for GPS, because one wrong turn on LA's freeway system and your one-hour drive becomes two.

Santa Monica's most prominent landmark is the 100-year-old Santa Monica Pier, a bustling boardwalk sticking out into the Pacific Ocean. The pier is a major tourist attraction, and features an amusement park as well as several restaurants and cheesy tourist shops.

The pier has starred in several movies, including Forrest Gump when he "just felt like running". When he reached the end of the pier he figured that since he'd gone this far, he "might as well turn around, just keep on going". Smart man, in a simple way.		Santa Monica's beach is pretty decent as far as beaches go, and traversing its length is this cycle path known as The Strand, which runs for 22 miles along the beaches west of LA. Good stuff!

From Santa Monica we headed down to the neighbouring hood of Venice, which has a less interesting pier of its own but an equally awesome beach. Both Santa Monica and Venice are good people-watching spots, and LA has no shortage of colourful characters from all walks of life that like to congregate right here.				And that's that for our three days in Los Angeles! There is a lot more to the city than we had time to cram in, thanks in part to the fact it takes forever to actually get anywhere, which sucks.

Sunday, 4 October 2015 - (Orange County, California) The real O.C.

Not exactly beach weather today, at least not initially, but we had to pass a bunch of them to get to our next destination, all of them in Orange County. That got Kristina all giddy - she used to be "obsessed" with a TV show called The O.C. which was a teen drama that spanned four seasons about a group of Orange County brats with too much money, and the drama that is their lives hehe. First up we stopped in the seaside city of Huntington Beach, the most populous beach city in OC and complete with a pier of its own.
Huntington Beach is known for its excellent surfing conditions, and hosts the world surfing championships each summer. The sidewalks are littered with surfing plaques such as this, but Kelly Slater was the only name I recognised.
Down the road is the bloody expensive seaside city of Newport Beach, where "median family income and property values consistently place high in national rankings". The median value for homes around here exceeds $1 million, but frankly you don't get much bang for your buck. These rather average-looking homes here go for around $1.2 to $1.5 million. Nice cars parked on the street though, which they need to be because some of these joints don't even include a garage!		Go a couple blocks over and you're looking at nicer homes (and with garages for your Bentleys), but you're right up against your neighbour's house and you're looking at blowing $2 to $3 million - sheesh! For that sort of moolah in Texas you'd be buying a castle and moat.

Down the road again is the seaside resort city of Laguna Beach - probably the nicest spot of the lot for mine.		Nice homes, nice restaurants, nice beaches...		...but always a nutjob loitering around. This particular one was yelling something about Jesus at the ocean, and just round the corner another one was enjoying what appeared to be a sachet of chocolate sauce on the side of the road while making orgasmic noises.

Monday, 5 October 2015 - (San Diego, California) Rain delay

After arriving in San Diego last night, we awoke to pissing rain this morning with no indication that it would let up. The forecast for tomorrow and beyond is nothing but blazing Californian sunshine however, so we're going to have a much-needed rest day today and push the remainder of the trip back a day. After more than three months on the road, this is the first time we've been impacted by rain when we've had weather-dependent plans, so no complaints here :)

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