So, here we are at LA International Airport. This is chaos on a grand scale with people pushing and shoving in every direction. We located our luggage and dived into the fray. We were ushered into a line of travelers that snaked its way to the other side of the terminal where Customs were waiting. It took an hour for the line to start moving, then just as quickly a Customs Officer appeared in front of us and started to herd a long line of French Tourists ahead of us.
The people behind went ballistic. The tourists in front started jabbering away at us in French. The Customs Officer turned around and sighed. I gave him a big smile and my very best Aussie ‘Gidday Mate’. His face lit up as he said ‘It’s Crocodile Dundee’ and shook my hand. Next thing I know he had diverted our line straight to his Customs colleague and we are at the head of a new line and everybody behind us is cheering and giving the French Connection an assortment of finger messages as they disappeared down the other end of the terminal.
Jadeite made friends with the Customs Officer checking us in and she suggested that I go and get a trolley while she did her thing with our passports and luggage. I got back in time to load our luggage onto the trolley (wow, that was quick) and was directed to walk straight back to where my new best Customs friend was waiting. A couple of knowing winks and we’re through the exit doors into the waiting arms of our limo driver. He was the biggest guy I’ve ever seen and he immediately collected our bags and walked us to his Lincoln Continental limousine.
On the way to the Hotel, we struck a deal with him that included driving us to and/or from any place in LA during daylight hours. This would work well as Jadeite wanted to see her Aunt Daisy in ‘South Central LA’.
The LA Marriott Hotel was a classy place. I took pictures of the foyer as I was sure that I’d seen it before (If you look up the video clip of Fat Boy Slim’s song called ‘Weapon of Choice’ you will see Christopher Walken’s incredible dance sequence in this foyer). After the Ibis Hotel, the room seemed huge and genuinely relaxing. The evening meal was more like a banquette with breakfast being an all you can eat affair.
We waddled out of the Marriott and decided to walk off breakfast. We ended up in downtown LA, where Jadeite spotted a familiar old building where part of the original Blade Runner movie was filmed. It was also the Charlie Chapman Museum with him willing to be included in a selfie.
We walked around the markets where the shop owners welcomed Jadeite (they thought she was either Mexican or Colombian) and looked at me with suspicion. We met two policemen on push bikes and asked them how we could get back to the Marriott? One of them gave us some complicated instructions waving his hand to our right and up the hill.
We found an office tower that had a bridge spanning the six lane freeway to the Marriott. All we had to do was get into the tower, go up a few floors and find the right exit. It took us over an hour of walking around in circles on several floors before we found a mezzanine floor with sliding doors (but no exit sign) leading out to the pedestrian bridge.
The next morning we rang our limo driver and arranged transport to aunt Daisy’s place. When he realized that Jadeite’s aunt lived in South Central LA, he told us to be ‘careful’ and he would pick us up at 5:00 pm sharp. I already knew the district’s reputation and had left the camera at the hotel. We turned into the street where aunt Daisy lived and it looked inviting – well-kept houses and gardens with leafy maple trees lining both sides of the street.
Aunt Daisy is a retired trauma nurse and she is quite happy where she’s living, surrounded by all her friends and local facilities. She took us out for a drive down to Santa Monica Pier, the local Seniors Center (we met a few of her friends) and her favorite Diner. If you walk in with aunt Daisy, you are welcomed into the family. We had cheeseburgers with wedges. The meal was huge with all the good stuff – egg, bacon, tomato, lettuce, beetroot, onions, 3 cheeses, all dwarfed by the biggest beef patty I’ve ever seen. The clientele would come around and politely ask were we married, where did we come from (Aussies!!) and how did we know aunt Daisy. It struck me how much aspects of the Diner reminded me of ‘Happy Days’. Not so much the layout but the people –all different backgrounds and all well behaved and friendly.
By the time we left the Diner, it was well after 3:00 pm and we decided to head back ‘home’. We had only enough time to thank aunt Daisy for the day-out when we noticed the limo parked out the front – aunt Daisy was impressed with the limo and the driver (such a nice young man). We said our goodbyes and headed back to the Marriott.
We got back just in time for the 6:00 pm ‘Police Chase’ on TV. All the locals discuss what happened the previous night – how long the chase lasted, was the car wrecked, did the driver get away, was there a shootout, etc. We got the feeling that this was some kind of new sport in LA, similar to the roman chariot races.
The last day of our LA stay was spent on a morning tour of LA and Hollywood with an afternoon tour of Universal Studios. We were warned by our US tour guide (Sven from Austria) to watch out for ‘tourist traps’ and hang on to our valuables (don’t show your passports or credit cards, pay by cash and don’t put wallets in your back pockets).
The morning bus trip went past the La Brea Tar Pits (complete with Mammoths), Beverly Hills Town Hall (no sign of the Clampetts), Johnny Depp’s – The Viper Room (no sign of River Phoenix), a glimpse of the Hollywood sign and the Chinese Theater (where they host the Oscars).
The afternoon tour of Universal Studios was ok. I managed to catch a small shark but they wouldn’t let me release it. The ‘back lots’ tour featured ‘Desperate House Wives’, the ‘Bates Motel’ and an airliner crash into a few houses (the day after the 911 anniversary). On a lower level we wandered around the different movie rides – Transformers, The Mummy and Jurassic Park but by now we were more interested in getting back to have dinner and rest up for the next day’s ‘long bus trip’ through the Mohave Desert to Lake Havasu City.
Trying to match the best photo's to the narrative was the hardest task. You'd thing I would have picked up the spelling mistake with Charlie's name clearly in the photo but I will blame it on me having a 'seniors moment' (you may know it better as a Homer Simpson moment). doh....
Digital photo's are so much better than film. In a moving bus, you need to take them quick but so many of them turned out sub-standard - blurred, window reflection, out of focus, etc. For every 10 that are rejected you get one good one.
Now working on the next leg, which is the Grand Canyon and Lake Powell.
I was recently asked about long haul flights and smoking. So, my experience as follows.
Most airports will have a 'smoking room', usually well hidden. The room at Singapore is right out in the open which makes you feel like a caged animal at the zoo - people outside slowing down to have a look at those pathetic humans that need a nicotine fix.
2012 - trip back home from LA to Tokyo, Singapore and Sydney. No smoking facilities at LA (there's at least a 12 hour wait for the next one) but I lasted 14 hours until Tokyo and had a 'double bunger' (two cigarettes one after the other). A short hop to Singapore but then laid up in the airport lounge from 3 am to 7 am = another smoke. Then 9 hours to Sydney + 2 hours through customs + 2 hours getting a taxi and the drive home (another 'double bunger'). So a total of 36 hours for 5 cigarettes. Not bad for a 25 a day smoker.
Over the next three years, I cut down to 6 smokes per day and started to understand that it was not physical addiction anymore but more a mental craving. Also, giving up work helped a lot.
In 2015 I was diagnosed with liver cancer and I'd need a liver transplant. When you are told that you will only get on the transplant list if you give up smoking - you'll never get a more motivating reason to stop. Although I still get cravings, I haven't had another cigarette for almost two years.
Sorry. A bit preachy towards the end but the take out is that if you can cut down before going overseas it will help in the long run.
doh....
