So my tour finished on Sunday and everyone on what was an awesome tour group got straight out of Beijing and went home, leaving me to fend for myself until Wednesday night when my plane flies me to Australia. Just one day left until I get on that plane. Can't wait.
Today I did something I've been fired up to do since I arrived here. I went to see the Mausoleum where Chairman Mao's body rests. I was going to describe it now but perhaps I'll wait until I'm back in Australia to do that.
Instead I'll mention some other things I found interesting about China.
1. The funny stares. I think I mentioned this in my last blog entry but since I can't remember and can't access my blog to read it, I'll mention it briefly here. We kept getting many stares and in some cases laughs and giggles when people saw the 12 westerners walking around in a group. Even yesterday I was just sitting down in some shade outside a big temple resting when some dude who was there with his girlfriend and some other dude, asked if he could have a photo taken of me and him. I didn't mind. I'll never understand this photo thing but it's happened lots to people on the tour.
2. Babies bums. For some reason, young kids who have only just figured out how to walk, get put in clothes with pants that have a whole in the back that shows their bum. I thought it was kind of cute at first but then when some of our group saw a kid backing out one of his best on some nice tiles in the middle of a busy walkway in a train station, I think we all realised that's there are certain drawbacks to this no-nappies idea.
3. One morning, three of us from the tour (Ellisa, Lucy and I) went for a walk in Xi'an at 6.45am to find the main square and the tai-chi that happens there. It was great. So many mostly elderly people out and about before the heat of the day had kicked in. Some did tai-chi, others danced, others did gentle stretching and one crazy old guy was hitting a tennis ball attached to an elastic band and a brick and jogging around a bit hoping that one of us might take his picture. It was an aspect to the people I hadn't seen until then and made me respect that they are so dedicated to their health. I just can't imagine so many people getting up for public exercise in the morning in Australia for instance.
4. The Great Wall was well worth a look and one of the highlights of the trip. Oddly none of the guide books or our own tour guide mentioned that it was built to keep the rabbits out. They tend to go for the reason of keeping the Mongolians out which they so obviously stole from that South Park episode. A cable car took us up to the area where we started walking and after a while it got real steep. Felt a bit like the Inca Trail but without the altitude problems. The most dangerous part of the wall is the path from the cable car to the bus where vendors on both sides of the path try to sell you tourist rubbish you don't want and yell "hello!!" at you in almost accusing voices.
5. Lastly, the tour group was a really good one. We all got along really well which made the whole thing so much more fun. Made some great friends, some of whom I'm going to miss very much.
Finally, cos I've got the time , I've typed out exactly what was on a sign at the start of the great wall. While it's a definitely a Great Wall, they failed to hire a Great Translator.
"Welcome you to visit Mutianyu Great Wall. For your and others' security. Please pay attention to the following items.
1. Please don't carve arbitrarily on the Great Wall. Protect one brick and one stone consciously.
2. For your personal safety. Please don't climb the crenelated wall.
3. Please walk carefully on abrupt slope and dangerous way. Don't run and pushes to pash violently and the laugh and frolic.
4. Please pay attention to your safety in the rain and snow weather.
5. Old people and children must have been accompanied and leaded by their family members when climbing the Great Wall.
6. The fire is forbidden here. Please don't take tinder.
7. ( this was just police contact details so I'm not typing this out)"
Of all the many many examples of bad English I've seen since I've been in China, the one at the Great Wall takes the cake for me. Especially number 3 with the urging not to pash violently. Gold!
Hanging out to get back to Melbourne now and see if I can get back on the merry-go-round of daily life again after getting right out of it for 5 months. So many things I want to do when i get back. And yes, porridge with brown sugar faces in it and coffee scrolls both feature heavily.
Tuesday, 25 September 2007
Thursday, 20 September 2007
In Beijing
I am now in Beijing which is the last stop on our tour. I can't seem to get to read my own blog website at the moment as it seems to be blocked everywhere I go. So I can't read any comments. Somehow it still lets me write a new blog entry though.
I haven't got much time so I'll just say for now that I'm having a great time and am currently in a great mood cos last night I bought a cool watch with a picture of Chairman Mao on it and he's waving his arm to the people as the second hands moves. It's so tacky it's cool!
The tour group is a lot of fun and we've so far seen the Forbidden City (packed with tourists), the Three Gorges Dam, Shanghai, spent two nights on trains and one on a boat plus lots of other stuff. We've been constantly stared at by the Chinese who obviously still find the sight of Westerners quite interesting (some stare blatantly, others walk past us and chuckle to themselves). A few of us have been asked to be in their photos which is kind of weird.
Gotta go. This is costing me too much. Most things are cheap here in China but use of the internet at this hotel is not one of them. Will write more when I get back from holiday in about a weeks time which I'm very much looking forward to.
I haven't got much time so I'll just say for now that I'm having a great time and am currently in a great mood cos last night I bought a cool watch with a picture of Chairman Mao on it and he's waving his arm to the people as the second hands moves. It's so tacky it's cool!
The tour group is a lot of fun and we've so far seen the Forbidden City (packed with tourists), the Three Gorges Dam, Shanghai, spent two nights on trains and one on a boat plus lots of other stuff. We've been constantly stared at by the Chinese who obviously still find the sight of Westerners quite interesting (some stare blatantly, others walk past us and chuckle to themselves). A few of us have been asked to be in their photos which is kind of weird.
Gotta go. This is costing me too much. Most things are cheap here in China but use of the internet at this hotel is not one of them. Will write more when I get back from holiday in about a weeks time which I'm very much looking forward to.
Friday, 7 September 2007
Off to China
I've gotta leave for Heathrow airport from my brothers place in one hour and yet I'm wasting time on the internet while I drink my coffee.
China is starting out on the back foot with me. In total, over two days I have spent 3 hours and 45 mins in queues in order to get a Chinese visa. When even Londoners are taking photos of the queue, it's clear that's pretty poor form. That said, I'm very confident the place will win me over quick once I get there and start looking around.
I'm very unsure what to expect though. I can't speak or read Chinese so that could be tricky. I'm guessing they don't speak much Spanish either. And what about all the bad things I hear about the place? Can I ask my tour guide his thoughts on their terrible track record on human rights abuses, torture, the Falun Gong etc and get a decent answer? It should be a very interesting place anyway.
Leaving London is sad. I've quite enjoyed my time here and won't see Luke and Theresa until maybe next June at the earliest. My mention in a previous blog entry about Mars Bar Icecreams was taken as a hint to buy more by L & T so between the three of us we've polished off another six-pack of them in the last couple of days. Oh, so good! Might have to start writing letters when I'm back home to get them going again in Australia. Hell, I'm be sitting at home with no job so I've gotta do something with my time!
Alright, now I've really gotta try to cram all of my stuff back into my backpack. This is gonna be tough.
China is starting out on the back foot with me. In total, over two days I have spent 3 hours and 45 mins in queues in order to get a Chinese visa. When even Londoners are taking photos of the queue, it's clear that's pretty poor form. That said, I'm very confident the place will win me over quick once I get there and start looking around.
I'm very unsure what to expect though. I can't speak or read Chinese so that could be tricky. I'm guessing they don't speak much Spanish either. And what about all the bad things I hear about the place? Can I ask my tour guide his thoughts on their terrible track record on human rights abuses, torture, the Falun Gong etc and get a decent answer? It should be a very interesting place anyway.
Leaving London is sad. I've quite enjoyed my time here and won't see Luke and Theresa until maybe next June at the earliest. My mention in a previous blog entry about Mars Bar Icecreams was taken as a hint to buy more by L & T so between the three of us we've polished off another six-pack of them in the last couple of days. Oh, so good! Might have to start writing letters when I'm back home to get them going again in Australia. Hell, I'm be sitting at home with no job so I've gotta do something with my time!
Alright, now I've really gotta try to cram all of my stuff back into my backpack. This is gonna be tough.
Saturday, 1 September 2007
In España
Capital city Madrid was first up. A somewhat typical big city, the thing you do in Madrid is visit the Royal Palace and see museums and big art galleries. The Royal Palace is amazing. They let you walk through about 25 of the roughly 3000 rooms that are there. Decorated with tapestries, old and impressive paintings and extremely detailed frescoes on the ceilings, there is heaps to look at and it oozes richness like ummm, a toads back oozes poison. My favourite room was the one where "the king would perform the daily ceremony of getting dressed". Way to turn everything into a ceremony! I bet the Royal Flossing Of The Teeth ceremony would have been a right royal cracker as well!
My favourite city in Spain is now Cordoba. South of Madrid (in the REGION of Andalucia), on the day I arrived it was still 39 degrees at 7.50pm. The city centre has narrow streets and heaps of plazas where, once the sun goes down and the city cools, everyone emerges to sit around and cool off and look at fountains and stuff. I had a hostel room to myself in Cordoba and took to the traditional afternoon siesta like I was born to do it! To be in a place that views a sleep in the afternoon as a good idea rather than mocking it and calling it a "nanna nap" or "grandpa nap" was a joy. The highlight of Cordoba is The Mezquita which was originally the site of a Christian Cathedral in about the 6th century AD. Then the Arabs took over the city and knocked it down and built a MMM (Massive Muslim Mosque) about a hundred years or so later. Then the Christians in about the 13th century won the city back and converted the Mosque to a Cathedral so it´s got elements of both religions in it and is amazing to look at. This was King Ferdinand III´s doing. Commonly known to his mates as Ferdo or The Ferdmeister, his name seems to pop up heaps in this area of Spain so he must have been pretty busy with all his conquering and other kingly duties.
Now I´m in Granada where The Alhambra is. Rumoured to have been named after an EP that Canadian band The Tea Party released a few years back (I may be wrong about that), it is an area containing, once again, a combination of Muslim and Christian buildings/churches and gardens. Before going, everyone was telling me how wonderful it is, building it up again and again so that when I finally saw it yesterday I was slightly disappointed. It was really nice but too much build up meant it suffered a little. That said, it´s pretty impressive. Gardens full of hedges, flowers and running water are relaxing to sit in and the Muslim buildings converted into Catholic churches with elements of both religions make for a very busy camera.
I´ve got a couple more days here before it´s back to London. Actually, I´ll back in Melbourne in less than a month now. Just in time for the Grand Final!
My favourite city in Spain is now Cordoba. South of Madrid (in the REGION of Andalucia), on the day I arrived it was still 39 degrees at 7.50pm. The city centre has narrow streets and heaps of plazas where, once the sun goes down and the city cools, everyone emerges to sit around and cool off and look at fountains and stuff. I had a hostel room to myself in Cordoba and took to the traditional afternoon siesta like I was born to do it! To be in a place that views a sleep in the afternoon as a good idea rather than mocking it and calling it a "nanna nap" or "grandpa nap" was a joy. The highlight of Cordoba is The Mezquita which was originally the site of a Christian Cathedral in about the 6th century AD. Then the Arabs took over the city and knocked it down and built a MMM (Massive Muslim Mosque) about a hundred years or so later. Then the Christians in about the 13th century won the city back and converted the Mosque to a Cathedral so it´s got elements of both religions in it and is amazing to look at. This was King Ferdinand III´s doing. Commonly known to his mates as Ferdo or The Ferdmeister, his name seems to pop up heaps in this area of Spain so he must have been pretty busy with all his conquering and other kingly duties.
Now I´m in Granada where The Alhambra is. Rumoured to have been named after an EP that Canadian band The Tea Party released a few years back (I may be wrong about that), it is an area containing, once again, a combination of Muslim and Christian buildings/churches and gardens. Before going, everyone was telling me how wonderful it is, building it up again and again so that when I finally saw it yesterday I was slightly disappointed. It was really nice but too much build up meant it suffered a little. That said, it´s pretty impressive. Gardens full of hedges, flowers and running water are relaxing to sit in and the Muslim buildings converted into Catholic churches with elements of both religions make for a very busy camera.
I´ve got a couple more days here before it´s back to London. Actually, I´ll back in Melbourne in less than a month now. Just in time for the Grand Final!
Friday, 24 August 2007
London Calling
I´ve just spent a little short of 2 weeks in London, staying with my brother Luke and his fiance Theresa who currently live there in a funny named suburb called Sidcup (sounds like a name for an icecream company). Also in London were my parents who also happened to be visiting at the same time. It was really good to see everyone!
Summer in London is living up to it´s reputation. I had three days when I arrived of nice sunny 21 degree weather. Then for the rest of my time it was at best overcast and at worst, raining and cold. I don´t know how the Poms can stand it! Yesterday I spent an hour and a half standing in a queue outside the Chinese consulate trying to get a visa to visit there and with the rain, wind and cold, it really sucked. Then I reached the front of the queue just before the 2 hour mark and the woman told me I was too late to get a visa processed that day! Why was I late? Because there was a freekin´slow queue! Whose fault? THE CHINESE CONSULATE!!! Who had to pay a kings ransom for a full day pass on the tube only to find it was a waste and will have to go through the same thing again another day? ME!!!! So yeah, still got a bit of anger left over from that one.
But the anger melted away somewhat when I was walking near Charing Cross station later that day and I stopped to pick up a Big Issue from a dude on the corner and he called me "Guv'nor". Twice! First and second time I've ever been called "Guv'nor"! Hopefully not the last.
Basically in my time in London I took it pretty easy. Visited some relatives one day, checked out some museums and galleries on other days, and spent a fair bit of time relaxing, reading the final Harry Potter book and refreshing my mp3 player with lots of new music. I probably should have been heaps more productive but I´ve enjoyed being a bit of a slacker.
Now I´m in Madrid. Just arrived today. All I've done is check in to the hostel and find a tapas bar where I enjoyed being given a small free snack with each beer. I´ve got 12 nights in Spain so am planning to head south in a few days to Andalucia (everytime I see the city´s name I think of The Clash´s "Spanish Bombs" song) where The Alhambra is. It´s a "palace and fortress complex" which I think was built by the Moors who I prefer to call The Moops in honour of George Costanza. Should be fun and I should see lots of sun for the next 12 days.
Oh yeah, I was just about to finish this blog entry and then I remembered... About 10 years ago, it was possible to stroll on in to a supermarket, saunter on down the ice-cream aisle and pick up a six-pack. No, I´m not talking beer, I´m talking a six-pack of Mars Bar Icecreams! An actual improvement on the original chocolate bar, they are melt in your mouth gold! But like Holly Valances singing career, they disappeared virtually overnight. Unlike Holly Valances career, I´ve missed Mars Bar Icecreams. But....THEY STILL SELL MARS BAR ICECREAMS IN LONDON!!!! I´ve eaten two now and I tell ya, they are just as good as I remember them!
So if you add up the fact that I ate two Mars Bar Icecreams, was called Guv'nor, managed to spend a fair bit of time with the family and I refreshed my mp3 player with new music, I´d say that easily cancels out the carp weather I´ve seen and has made for a fun time in London.
Summer in London is living up to it´s reputation. I had three days when I arrived of nice sunny 21 degree weather. Then for the rest of my time it was at best overcast and at worst, raining and cold. I don´t know how the Poms can stand it! Yesterday I spent an hour and a half standing in a queue outside the Chinese consulate trying to get a visa to visit there and with the rain, wind and cold, it really sucked. Then I reached the front of the queue just before the 2 hour mark and the woman told me I was too late to get a visa processed that day! Why was I late? Because there was a freekin´slow queue! Whose fault? THE CHINESE CONSULATE!!! Who had to pay a kings ransom for a full day pass on the tube only to find it was a waste and will have to go through the same thing again another day? ME!!!! So yeah, still got a bit of anger left over from that one.
But the anger melted away somewhat when I was walking near Charing Cross station later that day and I stopped to pick up a Big Issue from a dude on the corner and he called me "Guv'nor". Twice! First and second time I've ever been called "Guv'nor"! Hopefully not the last.
Basically in my time in London I took it pretty easy. Visited some relatives one day, checked out some museums and galleries on other days, and spent a fair bit of time relaxing, reading the final Harry Potter book and refreshing my mp3 player with lots of new music. I probably should have been heaps more productive but I´ve enjoyed being a bit of a slacker.
Now I´m in Madrid. Just arrived today. All I've done is check in to the hostel and find a tapas bar where I enjoyed being given a small free snack with each beer. I´ve got 12 nights in Spain so am planning to head south in a few days to Andalucia (everytime I see the city´s name I think of The Clash´s "Spanish Bombs" song) where The Alhambra is. It´s a "palace and fortress complex" which I think was built by the Moors who I prefer to call The Moops in honour of George Costanza. Should be fun and I should see lots of sun for the next 12 days.
Oh yeah, I was just about to finish this blog entry and then I remembered... About 10 years ago, it was possible to stroll on in to a supermarket, saunter on down the ice-cream aisle and pick up a six-pack. No, I´m not talking beer, I´m talking a six-pack of Mars Bar Icecreams! An actual improvement on the original chocolate bar, they are melt in your mouth gold! But like Holly Valances singing career, they disappeared virtually overnight. Unlike Holly Valances career, I´ve missed Mars Bar Icecreams. But....THEY STILL SELL MARS BAR ICECREAMS IN LONDON!!!! I´ve eaten two now and I tell ya, they are just as good as I remember them!
So if you add up the fact that I ate two Mars Bar Icecreams, was called Guv'nor, managed to spend a fair bit of time with the family and I refreshed my mp3 player with new music, I´d say that easily cancels out the carp weather I´ve seen and has made for a fun time in London.
Friday, 10 August 2007
San Francisco, Las Vegas - tick 'em off!
Well I've just finished 4 nights in San Francisco and 2 nights in Las Vegas.
San Francisco - A really nice city that feels a lot like Melbourne. When in San Francisco you are supposed to do three things. Ride a cable car, visit Alcatraz and check out the Golden Gate Bridge. Well I only managed one of those. I wandered down to Fishermans Wharf where the boats leave for Alcatraz and found out that the next free space on a tour was in a weeks time at 2.20pm. So no Alcatraz for me. As a replacement, I ended up getting on a cruise for $10 that took us under the Golden Gate Bridge and then AROUND Alcatraz. So I didn't get on the island but at least I saw what it looks like up close. Kind of shabby. A girl in the hostel yesterday told me that going inside is awesome. I choose not to believe that. I reckon it was dingy, cold and probably harbouring bird flu due to the pigeons. :) In short, a health risk! I was wise to avoid the place!
The cable car I didn't do either. The queues to get on one were just ridiculous. So I decided that it was really only a glorified tram except that it goes up hills probably just a bit steeper than going east on a tram on Bourke Street so skipped it. I DID manage to see the Golden Gate Bridge up close when I hired a bicycle and cycled over it. It felt good to get back on a bike after more than 3 months. It was windy up the top and you couldn't see the top of the bridge due to constant cloud but it was well worth it and gave a great view of San Fran. I also walked just about everywhere including some parts of town that felt somewhat dodgy. A tourist with a map and no local knowledge is a danger to himself I reckon.
There were no moonie sightings either. Never even heard of them until today!
I really enjoyed SF but what was a real surprise to me was the homeless situation there. Driving in to the city on the bus we drove through a couple of streets that had heaps of people on them and pretty much everyone was either pushing a shopping trolley with all their possessions in it or wandering around without any real place to go. The bus dropped me about two streets from there at my hostel. I then discovered that it's a fact of life in San Francisco that pretty much wherever you go, there are homeless people everywhere! It's often in the daily newspapers but the last time the mayor did anything about it, he just hired more police which is so obviously a bandaid "fix". It was very disappointing and sad to see really. I did get a laugh at one point when a woman came up to me (one of so many) and jokingly said "Right, all I'm asking for is your credit card, your pin number, and about half an hour." I think that approach was doing quite well for getting her some spare change. I don't know what else to say about it cos I have no answers or anything and there's homelessness everywhere but it was a shock to see it in such public view and in such massive proportions.
Las Vegas - Any city that has the likes of Celine Dion and Barry Manilow singing 5 or 6 nights a week is either pure evil or has a wicked sense of humour. I choose to believe it's the humour option. I really enjoyed Vegas. Neon and bright lights everywhere. The only way I could see so many bright lights in LA is to crawl out of my bottom bunk in my dorm here and smack my head on the iron bar above! I spent most of my short time just walking around looking at what a shipload of money can build. Great water shows, trapeze acts, pyramids, a sphinx, a castle...etc. I ended up spending a while at the Las Vegas Hilton where I found the Star Trek Experience which awakened my inner nerd. It was pretty cool. Out-of-work actors dressed as Klingons and members of the Borg...etc .
I didn't even end up gambling while there. At one point I felt like I should so that I could say I have gambled in Vegas but then decided that i couldn't really give a rats about whether I have or not so just skipped it completely.
And I paid $6.49 for a gelati. Was so suprised when I was told how much it cost that I actually paid it.
Now have one more day in Venice Beach before I catch a plane tomorrow to London where I'll be staying with my brother and his fiance and seeing my parents who are visiting them too. It'll be 4/7ths of Evans family reunion and I'm really looking forward to it.
San Francisco - A really nice city that feels a lot like Melbourne. When in San Francisco you are supposed to do three things. Ride a cable car, visit Alcatraz and check out the Golden Gate Bridge. Well I only managed one of those. I wandered down to Fishermans Wharf where the boats leave for Alcatraz and found out that the next free space on a tour was in a weeks time at 2.20pm. So no Alcatraz for me. As a replacement, I ended up getting on a cruise for $10 that took us under the Golden Gate Bridge and then AROUND Alcatraz. So I didn't get on the island but at least I saw what it looks like up close. Kind of shabby. A girl in the hostel yesterday told me that going inside is awesome. I choose not to believe that. I reckon it was dingy, cold and probably harbouring bird flu due to the pigeons. :) In short, a health risk! I was wise to avoid the place!
The cable car I didn't do either. The queues to get on one were just ridiculous. So I decided that it was really only a glorified tram except that it goes up hills probably just a bit steeper than going east on a tram on Bourke Street so skipped it. I DID manage to see the Golden Gate Bridge up close when I hired a bicycle and cycled over it. It felt good to get back on a bike after more than 3 months. It was windy up the top and you couldn't see the top of the bridge due to constant cloud but it was well worth it and gave a great view of San Fran. I also walked just about everywhere including some parts of town that felt somewhat dodgy. A tourist with a map and no local knowledge is a danger to himself I reckon.
There were no moonie sightings either. Never even heard of them until today!
I really enjoyed SF but what was a real surprise to me was the homeless situation there. Driving in to the city on the bus we drove through a couple of streets that had heaps of people on them and pretty much everyone was either pushing a shopping trolley with all their possessions in it or wandering around without any real place to go. The bus dropped me about two streets from there at my hostel. I then discovered that it's a fact of life in San Francisco that pretty much wherever you go, there are homeless people everywhere! It's often in the daily newspapers but the last time the mayor did anything about it, he just hired more police which is so obviously a bandaid "fix". It was very disappointing and sad to see really. I did get a laugh at one point when a woman came up to me (one of so many) and jokingly said "Right, all I'm asking for is your credit card, your pin number, and about half an hour." I think that approach was doing quite well for getting her some spare change. I don't know what else to say about it cos I have no answers or anything and there's homelessness everywhere but it was a shock to see it in such public view and in such massive proportions.
Las Vegas - Any city that has the likes of Celine Dion and Barry Manilow singing 5 or 6 nights a week is either pure evil or has a wicked sense of humour. I choose to believe it's the humour option. I really enjoyed Vegas. Neon and bright lights everywhere. The only way I could see so many bright lights in LA is to crawl out of my bottom bunk in my dorm here and smack my head on the iron bar above! I spent most of my short time just walking around looking at what a shipload of money can build. Great water shows, trapeze acts, pyramids, a sphinx, a castle...etc. I ended up spending a while at the Las Vegas Hilton where I found the Star Trek Experience which awakened my inner nerd. It was pretty cool. Out-of-work actors dressed as Klingons and members of the Borg...etc .
I didn't even end up gambling while there. At one point I felt like I should so that I could say I have gambled in Vegas but then decided that i couldn't really give a rats about whether I have or not so just skipped it completely.
And I paid $6.49 for a gelati. Was so suprised when I was told how much it cost that I actually paid it.
Now have one more day in Venice Beach before I catch a plane tomorrow to London where I'll be staying with my brother and his fiance and seeing my parents who are visiting them too. It'll be 4/7ths of Evans family reunion and I'm really looking forward to it.
Wednesday, 1 August 2007
Los Angeles
Well after a couple of sweltering days in congested and Gold Coast built-up hotel-style ridden Cancun, it was goodbye to Craig and hello LA! In my time in LA I've been called Sir, Dude and Bro. I've seen lots of loud people and have upped my donut consumption in order to more properly assimilate into the culture. They'll make me an LA copper if I keep this up!
Arriving in LA was weird. My major understanding of LA comes from owning too much old-school west-coast hip-hop. Ice-T, Ice Cube, NWA etc have given me a great education in LA street names. I was on a city tour today and I was just hoping the guy would take us down through South Central so I could see what that area looks like. One example of the real tour was comments from the tour leader like "See that tunnel we are driving past now? That's the tunnel where in the movie Independence Day, they blew up 300 cars!". I could have been just as happy if the guy had taken us down to South Central and said "Ok, we are now going to follow the original route driven by Evil E as described by Ice-T in his classic song 'Let's Peel Their Caps Back'". But it wasn't to be. We did get to see lots of interesting stuff un-rap-related though.
We drove past Santa Monica beach which was the home of Baywatch. The driver, after announcing this then hit play on the cassette deck and we got to hear the whole Baywatch theme song. Way corny! We drove up into the Hollywood hills, Beverly Hills, Belle Aire etc and saw what obscene amounts of money can get you in the way of a house these days. Impressive. We went to Hollywood Boulevard and saw the stars on the sidewalk with famous people's names. I couldn't find my name anywhere! We got dropped off at Rodeo Drive and that was boring. I hate shopping. I could walk around the more expensive end of Collins Street and look at stores with stuff I can't afford and don't want so for me to be dumped out of a bus in front of the most expensive stores in California is a waste. Longest 20 mins of my life waiting for the bus to pick us up! :)
San Francisco is tomorrow. For those who don't like or don't know their west coast rap, I hope the above wasn't too confusing. :)
Arriving in LA was weird. My major understanding of LA comes from owning too much old-school west-coast hip-hop. Ice-T, Ice Cube, NWA etc have given me a great education in LA street names. I was on a city tour today and I was just hoping the guy would take us down through South Central so I could see what that area looks like. One example of the real tour was comments from the tour leader like "See that tunnel we are driving past now? That's the tunnel where in the movie Independence Day, they blew up 300 cars!". I could have been just as happy if the guy had taken us down to South Central and said "Ok, we are now going to follow the original route driven by Evil E as described by Ice-T in his classic song 'Let's Peel Their Caps Back'". But it wasn't to be. We did get to see lots of interesting stuff un-rap-related though.
We drove past Santa Monica beach which was the home of Baywatch. The driver, after announcing this then hit play on the cassette deck and we got to hear the whole Baywatch theme song. Way corny! We drove up into the Hollywood hills, Beverly Hills, Belle Aire etc and saw what obscene amounts of money can get you in the way of a house these days. Impressive. We went to Hollywood Boulevard and saw the stars on the sidewalk with famous people's names. I couldn't find my name anywhere! We got dropped off at Rodeo Drive and that was boring. I hate shopping. I could walk around the more expensive end of Collins Street and look at stores with stuff I can't afford and don't want so for me to be dumped out of a bus in front of the most expensive stores in California is a waste. Longest 20 mins of my life waiting for the bus to pick us up! :)
San Francisco is tomorrow. For those who don't like or don't know their west coast rap, I hope the above wasn't too confusing. :)
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