Day bus tour - L.A. and Olvera Street markets - oldest remaining house in L.A.
Downtown L.A. very quiet.
Tour guide sounded just like Robin Williams' character in Happy Feet.
Hollywood - Hollywood sign (in the distance, but at least we saw it this time), stars on H. boulevard, Grauman's theatre, many spruikers, bus drive along major Hollywood roads and sights. Farmer's market for lunch.
Drive to Santa Monica - walk on the beach and out on to the pier. I can understand now why Americans often come across as being rather pedantic, specific and almost demanding when ordering, especially food - so often the order is wrong. Thus far we have been too polite to go back and demand it be rectified - but no more! We too can be obnoxious.
Dinner at Bubba Gump's - a brilliant marketing strategy based on the film - a combination of restaurant and film merchandise, with many references and tie-ins, again designed to extract as much money as possible - with great success, if our response is anything to go by. On the walk back to the hotel we saw an employee of the Ramada hotel vacuuming the carpet outside the hotel lobby where the cars pulled up - there seems to be something of an obsession with cleanliness - perhaps it is a way of brushing over [pun intended] the more sinister and darker underbelly of some of the other aspects of American culture - I'm not sure I've thought this particular theory through very well, it's more of a work in progress. I might give it some more thought - or not.
Dinner at Bubba Gump's - a brilliant marketing strategy based on the film - a combination of restaurant and film merchandise, with many references and tie-ins, again designed to extract as much money as possible - with great success, if our response is anything to go by. On the walk back to the hotel we saw an employee of the Ramada hotel vacuuming the carpet outside the hotel lobby where the cars pulled up - there seems to be something of an obsession with cleanliness - perhaps it is a way of brushing over [pun intended] the more sinister and darker underbelly of some of the other aspects of American culture - I'm not sure I've thought this particular theory through very well, it's more of a work in progress. I might give it some more thought - or not.
Long day - all tired.
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