Day 54 - HoHo to Hollywood - Hot On, Hot Off...

Once again, awake in the middle of the night!  Going to bed too early does not work with us as we are normally 11:30pm plus, not 10:30.

We’d set the alarm for just after 7am, but we were awake early.  Just a coffee and a banana then outside to the bus stop, just 50m back down Century Boulevard, to catch the HoHo bus – Black line. For anyone staying at the LAX hotels, there are two link buses on the HoHo system, the Orange line, which goes to Fisherman’s village, where you then transfer to the Green line for Santa Monica and then the Yellow line and then the Red line for Hollywood! Needless to say, that is not very quick… 

The alternative is a twice per day run straight to Hollywood, but that is 7:34am and 8:34am only.

The bus arrived at spot on 8:34, with driver Damon in good form.  We paid our $49US each which covered all routes, 24 hours.  (There is also a purple route going up to Universal Studios and I think, to the central city.)

Traffic around LA is notoriously slow and this link route doesn’t pass anywhere of real importance, so there is no recorded commentary – so Damon did his own.  We were up on the open top deck and even at that time of the day, it was starting get pretty warm.

Due to roadworks, some of it due to extending the Metro line, we had a bit of a diversion through streets with overhanging trees, but at least Damon warned us.

Once at Hollywood, we transferred straight to the Red route, but stayed down below, out of the heat and hopped off at stop #10, for the Petersen Museum (also the stop for the Tar Pits) at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard.

This is one stunning looking museum, having had a $90m upgrade to the exterior and interior.

According to the time stamp on my first photograph, it was 11:05… So exactly two and a half hours on the bus. (About the time by car from Heathrow to Nottingham…)

Even the exhibits in the foyer were impressive and one of the first was a McLaren.  A beautifully presented museum and they do keep changing the exhibits.  Down below, they have a vault.  You can partake in a guided tour for an extra fee, but you are not allowed to take photographs.

We paid the seniors fee of $12, which is more than reasonable, for 3 floors of exhibits.

For plenty of pics of the exhibits, hook into my TRS message board thread –

Just-A-Mix-Of-Pics-Ray-Green-52

We exited the museum and dived into their restaurant.  Not your usual snacks, but a proper Italian restaurant (Drago) where ironically, their pasta dishes were about the same price as a burger at the Marriott.  We were lucky to get a seat as it appears to be very popular for a business lunch, with locals not visiting the museum.  A very nice meal, though as in the Blackpool Italian, a bit more sauce on the carbonara would have been nice.  For Italians, it is all about the pasta.  For us non-Italians, it is as much about the sauce.

Anyway, we ambled outside to catch the HoHo again at about 1pm and were not at all impressed with the bus.  The downstairs exterior windows were totally blanked out by the exterior paintwork – not the perforated stuff that you can see through.  It was now over 90f and there was no way we were sitting up on the top deck, getting scorched.  For the country that invented air-conditioning and prides itself on its tourism industry, this was torture.

Back then to the Yellow route to Santa Monica, where we caught the BBB back to the LAX area.

I think we got back about 5pm, so most of the day was spent on a bus.

We opted for a burger meal, but not at the hotel.  Our choices within 3 or 4 minutes were either Burger King or Carl’s Junior.  Never having had a Carl’s burger before, we gave that a try.  I don’t think we’d do that again.

Suitably tired, we just crashed – too early again, but this is our last night in a hotel, as tomorrow night, we fly home, to a NZ winter, so our sleep patterns will be disrupted again anyway.