Hollywood

Who wouldn't go to Hollywood when in Los Angeles right? In all honesty, I had never planned nor expected that I would be going there, but was urged to go there since I had ample free time for now. I was told by many people that the only thing you can do in Hollywood was take pictures, and that was exactly it. You'll find out more as you read on.

Random insight: Throughout the roads especially in residential areas, there are STOP words on the road at junctions. A driver is required by law to stop at these junctions for about 3 seconds, even if there are no cars, before they move. If there are multiple cars at the junction, it goes on a first come first serve basis - whoever stops first will go first. Since everyone will stop, there won't be any collision of any sort. However sometimes if there are too many people, they forget who stopped first and who should go, and in these cases drivers will just let others go first. Such courtesy, where can you find this in Malaysia =.= Also, all the exit lanes on residential areas have a row of spikes on the road. These row of spikes are placed in such a way that the tyre of an exiting vehicle will not be pierced - it will just push the spikes into compartments within the ground. Thus, any vehicle who stubbornly enters via the exit lane OR reverses on the exit lane while exiting, will get their tyres pierced.

Hollywood is located in the city area which is about 30-40 minutes drive from where I'm currently staying. I needed more than just toasted croissants this time though, so uncle brought me to Denny's Diner where I had the truly typical American breakfast that most of you would expect- sausages, bacon, scrambled egg with cheddar cheese and hash brown. It was called the All-American Slam on the menu. The portion is rather big for breakfast and it lasted me from 9am till 2pm+ without me feeling hungry. For those of you who know me well enough, you know my eating portions so you get the message.

Another thing that I really like about the US is the systematic road system that they have. I have forgotten to mention this in my previous post, so I'll just go on and explain a little more about it now. Basically, the roads and streets are all squared-shape without any messy turnings. The lanes are also really restrictive, and signs such as "right lane must turn right" are in abundance to remind drivers to stick to their respective lanes which means you need to plan your route correctly. Having all the streets/boulevards/avenues in squares are good in a sense that you won't get lost that easily. Say if you make a wrong turning, you can get back to the same street by turning left three times because its a square (just pray that the street you turn into isn't that long :P). It is also because of this systematic squarish road system that makes it possible to navigate using a map. Not Google maps or GPS, but the traditional paper map. I could actually properly navigate and ascertain our location on the map - there are no confusing winding roads like back home, just straight and occasionally winding/diagonal roads cutting in and out of the freeways.

My ride. Don't be jealous.

Also on the freeway (highway, its just called freeway here) there are usually 4 lanes and sometimes 5. I might have said this on my previous post already - the two (usually two) left lanes are car pool lanes which means that only vehicles having two (three in some states) or more people may use it. The car pool is considerably faster than the usual lane, and to my surprise there aren't any single drivers that use the car pool lane even though the normal lanes are jammed up and the car pool lane has almost no cars on it. This car pool lane will never ever work if it existed in Malaysia >.>

See how effective the car pooling lane is

Oh oh, and halfway through the freeway we came across this amazing networking of freeways that criss-crossed each other. The sight of it is really something to behold.

With the help of the car pool lane, we reached Hollywood, and my god the amount of people there is just... yeah I'll just leave it to the pictures. Today is only a Thursday so the crowd on Saturday/Sunday should be even worse. Parking itself was already a huge hassle, and there were super misleading signboards setup by those people wanting to earn a quick buck. For example, what would you think when you saw a sign saying "5$ pubic parking"? Of course, its a little vague since that's all it said, but you would have to drive in before you finally see '5$ for first 30 minutes and 10$ flat rate afterwards". Its not illegal, but it really gives you that "what the fuck" kind of feeling you know, that feeling of being scammed ._.

Check out the crowd

Other than the famous Hollywood sign there are also wax museums, which I unfortunately never went because the parking fee is a bitch (2$ per hour) and I don't think my uncle would be interested as well. Instead we went walking on the Walk of Fame which stretches like forever and I don't even know 90% of the names on it. Hollywood Boulevard is a long distance to cover, but the main attractions and the biggest crowd is in the center near the Chinese Theater and Dolby Theater. Here, there are people who dress up as famous movie characters and earn tips by letting others take pictures with them. Another thing about Americans, they are not afraid to speak up and will straight away ask for tips before you even agree to snap a picture. A girl wanted to take picture with a Darth Vader and a Storm Trooper when I overheard Vader saying "You know, most people give us 5$, sometimes 20$..." Yeah, I just left the scene after hearing that. After all, I'm the one having a better light saber. I did take a picture with "Mr. Incredible" who apparently knows how to say "selamant datang ke America". There was someone else that stood out in the crowd. Someone with extremely pale, sparkly skin walking around. Yes, its Edward Cullen ._. I wonder why he's so lonely though, people are just walking past him. Where's your Bella now? HEYOOOOOOOOOOOO


So all I did throughout the day was pictures, pictures and more pictures. That's all you can do in Hollywood honestly. You can buy souvenirs somewhere else - prices are sure to be higher at a major tourist attraction like this. Was supposed to go to Rodeo Drive afterwards but decided to go against it and went back via the freeway once again. I also got my handphone number today, and no, I didn't got for any plan that included a smart phone. I'm reusing my Sony Ericsson that I used back in Malaysia, just with the American SIM card. Its a San Francisco number since I'll be there for most of my duration here. 


Lets just say that Hollywood isn't as exciting as it seems, in my opinion of course.

You can find all of the pictures I took at my Facebook album here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151041135972964.450723.643867963&type=3&l=ac71768b69

PS: I had nasi lemak for dinner. I totally haven't left Malaysia at all.