Los Angeles (aka LA) is a place you either absolutely love or absolutely hate! High crime rate, traffic crowd; but also beautiful people, huge houses, super cool cars, fashion, and money…
We reached LA around 2o’clock. So we started with lunch at an Indian restaurant - Rajdhani. It was pretty cool… you sit down and they will bring out utensils for you and start serving a million things – aloo tikki, kadhi, dal, mixed vegetable, aloo matar, dhokla, roti, poori, rice, chaaz, aamras, pickle, papad, salad etc. and then you will have a choice of dessert – gulab jamun, kulfi falooda, gajar ka halwa, besan halwa, lauki halwa etc. and I must say, the food you get here is the closet to what you get at home. Loved it!
(Rajdhani @ Arteisa)
(Such a pretty table :) )
(When was the last time you ate in steel utensils?)
(Mall @ Kodak Theater)
We parked at the Kodak theater, went around the mall a little bit and then decided to take a Starline tour. I highly recommend taking a tour, if you ever happen to go to LA. They took us around the ‘Walk of Fame’, the Chinese Theater, the celebrity houses – Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Tom Cruise, Jay Leno, Michael Jackson and other countless famous people. Sunset Boulevard – definitely worth driving around. It would be unfair if I don’t mention that the tour guide was so much fun! He would play music related to the place; giving you a little hint and having you guess what’s next. Like he played Mission Impossible theme track right around when we crossed Tom Cruise’s house and so on…
(Random picture at Hollywood)
(Walk of fame)
(Chinese Theater)
(Just for the Harry Potter lovers... Hand/Footprints of Harry Potter cast)
One interesting thing I came to know about the Hollywood Sign – It was an advertisement for a housing development ‘Hollywood Land’. So when it was first put on the hills, it read (no marks for guessing) “Hollywood Land”. Only recently (in seventies I think) they changed it to Hollywood. Then the locals started playing around with the sign… the hippies made it HOLLYWEED and the saints made it HOLIWOOD. That’s when the state took over and decided that it needs surveillance. Also, by now the sign had started falling apart. To erect a new Hollywood sign, with good quality steel, a lot of money was needed. So different actors decided to buy the alphabets, each worth $28,000. So the money raised from that auction was used to erect a new sign with best quality steel.
(The famous Hollywood sign)
It was already dark by the time we returned from the tour. So we decided to get dinner at a (newly opened I guess) Mediterranean restaurant – which by the way sucked.
But our short trip to Hollywood ended there and we started driving back home :-)
TIP: Read a little bit about Sunset Boulevard/Hollywood before you actually visit. It will definitely be more fun to see stuff you know about. No research required… but just a little introduction
We reached LA around 2o’clock. So we started with lunch at an Indian restaurant - Rajdhani. It was pretty cool… you sit down and they will bring out utensils for you and start serving a million things – aloo tikki, kadhi, dal, mixed vegetable, aloo matar, dhokla, roti, poori, rice, chaaz, aamras, pickle, papad, salad etc. and then you will have a choice of dessert – gulab jamun, kulfi falooda, gajar ka halwa, besan halwa, lauki halwa etc. and I must say, the food you get here is the closet to what you get at home. Loved it!
(Rajdhani @ Arteisa)
(Such a pretty table :) )
(When was the last time you ate in steel utensils?)
(Mall @ Kodak Theater)
(Random picture at Hollywood)
(Walk of fame)
(Chinese Theater)
(Just for the Harry Potter lovers... Hand/Footprints of Harry Potter cast)
(The famous Hollywood sign)It was already dark by the time we returned from the tour. So we decided to get dinner at a (newly opened I guess) Mediterranean restaurant – which by the way sucked.
But our short trip to Hollywood ended there and we started driving back home :-)
TIP: Read a little bit about Sunset Boulevard/Hollywood before you actually visit. It will definitely be more fun to see stuff you know about. No research required… but just a little introduction
