Hollywood Trip Recap

The Mrs. and I had a great day trip to Hollywood and Downtown Los Angeles yesterday and I've prepared a special slide show to show you some of the places we visited. I took over a hundred photos during the day and a lot of them are in the show.

We took the 7:10 am Metrolink to Los Angeles Union Station. I've never ridden Metrolink trains before, but our experience was pretty good. The trains are not as plush as the Amtrak units - no reclining seats, power plugs, fold-down trays, and the leg room is a little bit more cramped, but not "airline" cramped. The cars are made for commuters, not long distance travelers.

It's also surprisingly cheap to ride on Metrolink. The round trip fare from Irvine was only $12 apiece compared to $26 on Amtrak. The Metrolink makes a few more stops, but otherwise it's exactly the same trip. I recommend using Metrolink for a short trip like this. One other difference with Metrolink - they use L.A. County Sheriff's deputies to check your tickets. I guess they give you a citation if you don't have a valid ticket.

At Union Station we walked a short distance to the Metro Red Line subway and took the 20 minute ride up to Hollywood. I don't know if weekends are free on the subway, but unlike New York City and Washington D.C. subways that I've ridden before, there was nobody taking tickets nor did you have to swipe your ticket through a machine to get on the train. We're probably the only people traveling there yesterday who actually bought tickets.

Subways in other cities tend to be used by everybody because the systems go all over the city, but in L.A. it appears that you don't take the subway unless you have to, judging by our fellow travelers. It was a real slice of life. On each trip we had a homeless person sleeping in the seat behind us.

The Hollywood/Highland station puts you right at the Hollywood & Highland shopping complex which is right next to the Kodak Theater, the home of the Oscars, and just down the street from Graumann's Chinese Theater where all the stars are memorialized in concrete. With the Oscars happening next week they were already setting up. The stands were going up and everywhere you went there was extra security and self-important people walking around with Oscar access badges.

We hit the Chinese Theater pretty early so it wasn't too crowded and we could walk around and look at the various star handprints and footprints in concrete. There were stars whose prints had been made in the 20's and others from recent years. I shot a picture of Bing Crosby's prints, but we saw all kinds of famous people. There are always movie star impersonators hanging out to take pictures with the fans, and I cracked me up to watch people pose with these costumed losers.

We ate lunch at a Baja Fresh across Hollywood Blvd. from Graumann's and had an entertaining time watching the wall-to-wall crowd trying to see the stars and pose with the poseurs. We had lunch with Bill Cosby, Carol Lombard, and Bette Midler...at least with their stars which were in the sidewalk outside our window. After awhile you get star fatigue because there are stars every couple of feet for block after block. I shot a picture of Little Richard's (since I met him many years ago) and right down the street Billy Graham's. I also grabbed a shot of a special star at Hollywood and Vine for the Apollo XI astronauts.

We found that after a couple of hours we had pretty much seen all the Hollywood tourist traps we could stand, so we walked the 3/4 of a mile down to Hollywood and Vine, snapping pictures of famous theaters and sites along the way, and caught the subway back towards downtown. We noticed that the Disney Concert Hall is one stop from Union Station, and since we had time, we stayed on the train and rode it back one stop (along with those who were sleeping on the train) and got off at the Civic Center. From there we walked a short distance up Hill Street to the amazing Disney Concert Hall. The brushed stainless steel structure is pretty spectacular. When it was built the finish on the steel was polished, but they discovered that the reflected heat off the building was causing nearby apartments to heat up to intolerable levels.

During the day the Hall offers free self-guided audio tours of the grounds and various key places in the building. You don't get to see the auditorium itself, but you do get a good look at the surroundings. They have a beautiful garden on the third level and great views all around. It's worth the hour or so it takes to do the tour right.

After the Disney Hall we rode back to Union Station and walked across the street to Olvera Street and the quarter mile of Mexican tourist junk that's on sale there. There was a musician playing Beatles hits on the pan flute (which seemed a little odd, though he was talented), and he had a guy selling his CDs who looked like he just came from a human sacrifice at a Mayan temple. That was one scary looking Indian. I'm wondering if he hurt their business?

After all the walking and traveling, I was very glad to leave the driving to Metrolink. We took that 4:30 pm train home and didn't miss sitting in freeway traffic at all. We're going to do another trip soon, but next time we'll stay on the subway all the way to Universal Citywalk at Universal Studios. It won't cost anymore to go the extra miles.

Here's the slideshow! (be sure your sound is on)