Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Upcoming: California Coast

This is just an introductory post to preface my next trip.

Tomorrow, I will be traveling with the LBCC Wind Ensemble up the California coast.  It won't be a super fancy vacation, but I am looking forward to it.  It's very music-oriented: we're only playing once (doing a clinic at CSU East Bay), but we also get to go to an Air Force Band performance and a San Francisco Symphony concert, and will see some other interesting things as we make our way up to San Francisco.

So, I will be updating this blog daily again until Sunday!  I'm looking forward to having some interesting things to share with you all in perhaps lesser-traveled parts of California.

So, you'll hear from me tomorrow from San Luis Obispo!

Friday, March 11, 2011

A Slight Re-Introduction to Hollywood

I spent a couple of hours in Hollywood yesterday, and since I'm in the process of planning a visit from Mara (a friend from school in New York, former roommate and traveler extraordinaire) for hopefully this June, I thought I'd archive some of the things I came across.

I've lived in Southern California my entire life, and due to that callous, "of course I'm not a tourist, god forbid I should ever look like one" mentality, Los Angeles is very low on my list of places to explore.  An unfortunate side effect of that is there are many things I surprisingly have not done.  This blog will serve to keep track of adventures I have here in Southern California, and hopefully come of some use to fellow residents and tourists alike.

Yesterday, after rehearsal for my band up in Hollywood, Loren (my boyfriend), Ali (fellow band-mate) and I decided to hang out for a couple hours on Hollywood Boulevard.  This is where I made that re-revelation that I have not experienced much of what Hollywood has to offer the typical tourist: I've never been inside Ripley's, Madame Tussaud's, the Hollywood Museum, the Guinness Book of World Records... the list goes on for a long time!

We did not do any of those things, so those will be later posts as I've resolved to start working on my L.A./Hollywood local tourist knowledge.

Hollywood Boulevard is like a very run-down, dirty, dingy version of the Las Vegas Strip.  As you walk down the street you pass Elvis impersonators, superheroes, really creepy versions of Pixar characters, anything that's ever been in a movie (we even saw an Chuckie doll-man that might give me nightmares).  There are homeless musicians, store ringers (one almost tempted me to buy a $6 fish umbrella), strip club flyer-passers wearing gorilla suits, and the list goes on.

One somewhat redeeming revelation I had was that in front of certain famous venues, the stars in the streets (you know, the famous pink stars with famous peoples' names inlaid into the pavement that make up Hollywood's "star walk") matched the venue.  In front of Hard Rock Cafe are many famous musicians and record labels.  In front of the Pantages are names such as Andrew Lloyd Webber.  In front of the Disney store, there was Roy Disney, Donald Duck, Tinkerbell, Disneyland, and others.

The Disney store is right next to the El Capitan Theater, where Disney puts on their big premiers (I went to the Toy Story premier when I was younger and it was awesome!).  That is one thing I know for sure is cool, depending on what movies are coming out - if you absolutely must be a tourist in Hollywood, try to see a movie at the El Capitan.

Other theaters that have premiers include the Kodak Theater and the Chinese Theater.  One thing I've always somewhat known about but never really explored are all the stars' hand and footprints in the front enclave of the Chinese theater.  Had I known I was going to do a blog post about it I would have taken better photos, so I apologize for the lack in visuals.  Anyway, that actually is a really neat way to spend half an hour - crawl around and find famous actors and actresses' hand prints and compare your own, snap some pictures, etc.  We made a surprising revelation - Loren apparently has the Hollywood-approved standard-issue male hand size, with the exception of George Clooney, Harrison Ford, and most African American actors.  Almost every hand print he tried he fit perfectly.  Here are some fun photos (not wanting to look like a tourist, I neglected to get out my good camera, so these are all phone-pictures):

Loren trying on Hollywood hands

I am a monster compared to Judy Garland... and I have wicked witch of the West tights to match!

We found ourselves in front of the Kodak theater, which hosts the Oscars every year and has a timeline lining the entrance (it's a giant hallway of stairs and designer shops) of every best picture ever.  Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I saw a sign that made me take a double-take: Crumbs Bake Shop!  I had always thought it was a New York store, there was one near my dorm in 2007 that Mara and I frequented all the time - and they are primarily Manhattan based, but they have a smattering of locations in different states now!  I couldn't believe it - I had to buy a cupcake.


Crumbs sells gigantic specialty cupcakes that are INCREDIBLE.  It took me at least 10 minutes to decide on a cupcake.  I finally settled on S'More - chocolate cupcake with frosting descending down into the middle, topped with chocolate frosting, marshmallows, chocolate chips, and graham crackers.  Loren got a Devil's Food cupcake.  



We saved them for much later in the evening, after we enjoyed sushi at Sushi Hiroba on Vine just south of Santa Monica Blvd. (I'll save you a giant essay on food - long story short, we got a deal from LivingSocial, I had promised him a nice sushi dinner for his holiday gift, and we finally made it happen, and it was so very delicious).  It wasn't one of the "top sushi restaurants in L.A.," but it got great reviews on Yelp, had a wonderful atmosphere, friendly staff and chefs, and delicious and fresh fish.

So, it's not the most picturesque place in the world, and as Loren would say, it's "like an art class - full of sketch," but there are still random (and delicious) ways to spend your time in Hollywood and enjoy yourself.

I'll be sure to post on any of those typical tourist-y places as I visit them - since I'm in Hollywood every Sunday anyway, I hope to expand that area of local expertise in small bursts before and after rehearsal :)