LA
1. Living near Beverly hill.
- Compared to Hollywood Blvd where it is dirty, no big trees, cheap shops, homeless, Sunset blvd and Rodeo drive near Beverly hill are much cleaner, big street, tall trees, mansions, well maintained gardens.
- Sunset Blvd has many good bars.
- Celebrity houses near Beverly Hill is architecturally attractive. Every single one of them is different. If you want to know which stars own the house, you can enroll a celebrity house tour cost about 20-40$. The tour is sold at many shops on Hollywood Blvd. The only other two similar competitive neighborhood I have seen before are Chicago Oak Park, where there are many Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings, and New Orleans Garden District Houses.
- If you like Eagles, if you ever know what is Hotel California, you cannot miss Beverly Hill Hotel. The rate during Oscar weekend is 695$ per night. But you are more than welcomed to park your car here, order a lunch or afternoon tea, walk around their gardens. The staff is super friendly.
2. Trying out your luck for attending Oscar.
- Every October, there is a lottery to select several hundreds of fans to attend red carpet. Just Google “Oscars Red Carpet Fan Experience” for details.
- Part of the Hollywood Blvd near the theater will be closed on the day of Oscar. So if you want to visit the theaters, make sure you are not planning on that day.
- There is a guide book called “Official Hollywood Walk of Fame” (free at any travel tables). It lists the street addresses of your stars so you can easily find them.
(road blocked because of Oscar)
3. Traffic in LA.
- Typically during weekend, driving from one tourist cite to another (for example, from Hollywood to Santa Monica, from Hollywood to China town), you prepare about 40-50 minutes, sometimes only for traveling for a few miles.
- Airport is relatively far. For example, I spent 78$ renting a car for a weekend, but I spent 100$ for commuting from Universal Studio to airport on a taxi.
- Buses and trains can pretty much take you anywhere
4. Sugar fish. It is a chain of Sushi restaurants. Locations include Beverly hills, downtown LA, universal studio, airport. Many stores do not take reservations. Typically when you go to wait when the door opens, you do not need to wait long. The best one of the all is called Nozawa bar. It runs as a privileged restaurant, and every day serves only two groups of people, 6:30pm and 8:30pm. 10 of people a group, costing … 150$! I tried to make reservation one month before for the Oscar weekend, but the seats are already sold out. So ACTION NOW
5. China town in LA is very out of date and dirty-looking (I guess modern Chinese immigrants nowadays are living in the Orange County).
- There is a dragon parade during the Chinese new year weekend every year. It considers one of the oldest parades in US. In addition to dragon dances, floats, there are also fancy cars that carry famous people from LA. For example, this year we saw the LA mayor, Chief officer from LAPD … Of course, the quality is nothing compared to Macy’s parade.
- Generally speaking, Chinese new year is a big thing in the LA area. This year is a sheep year, and you can see some hotels and streets are decorated with sheep and sheep characters. Interestingly, I never wear summer clothes during Spring break. But in LA, you can.
- I heard Best Chinese restaurants in LA are not in China town. In China town, majority of the restaurants are Cantonese restaurants. I like the one called “渔邨” with many authentic recipes from Hong Kong.
6. Universal studio. If you have never gone once, you just HAVE TO go, though it costs about 90 something dollars. The travel tips often say it takes about a day. I think planning half a day would be sufficient. There are really no good food inside universal studio, however, there is a so so bar and restaurant outside the universal studio.
- “Water World” is a 20 minute live short movie, acted by attractive girls and guys. There are fire and explosions in front of you.
- Studio tour show you fake cities, lakes, forests they made that show up in the famous movie scenes, for example, ones in jurassic park. Interestingly, they take you to some fake subway, and suddenly, things are collapsed around you, as if earth quick happens, water pump explodes.
- Special effect shows you how blood effect is made, how to make a scene where an actress is on top of the building and how to rendering a 3D monster using motion senors mounted on a moving person
- There are plenty of 3D virtual reality rides as well
(real city)
(fake city)
7. Santa Monica, a very romantic place to watch sunset, and a good place for a first-time kiss 😛 Many interesting artists were performing there.
8. Piano bar. I heard it is great but don’t have time to go this time. This makes an excuse for my next trip to LA 🙂