We made it to Los Angeles yesterday, after a few stops along the way. We went to the library to print out Amazing Race Australia forms (if we don't try, we will never know...) (for those of you how don't know, Amazing Race is a TV show where 12 couples race around the world for one million dollars. This is the first time there is an Amazing Race Australia, so we thought we would apply). We also printed our Universal Studios pay for one day get two tickets. We went to Barnes and Nobel and bought a Nook each (an eReader, like the Kindle. You can read books on it, access the internet, listen to music and audiobooks etc). We had been researching them for a while and decided the Nook was best for us, and as they are not available in Australia we got them here. We also went to Walmart and bought SCALES! so we can now weigh our bags. The scales cost $8 and as we don't have any at home, they can come in handy (as long as we convert pounds to kg). We had to weigh ourselves, and to our surprise, we have both lost weight. I came over at 55kg, and I am now 50kg, and Kade came over at 60kg and he is now 57 kg. So much for fatty American food :). I also weighed the big bag I was sure was at least 50 pounds, to find out its only 30 pounds. So the worry about having too much stuff is over :) We will be plenty under our limits.
We then drove to Los Angeles and checked into our RV park.
Today we woke early, at sunrise. Freezing, even with a blanket on. Those who think Southern California is all sunshine like the movies are so wrong. Its COLD here, and smoggy. We got another blanket and slept till 8 when we got up and headed into Universal Studios. So we once again braved LA's morning rush hour traffic, and actually got to Universal Studio's without any trouble at all. Once we paid for parking (remember we parked in the ET lot), we made our way to through something called the Citywalk. The Citywalk is a bunch of shops that lead you up to the entrance of Universal Studio's it has a Starbucks and souvenir shops as well as restaurants and pubs.
Once we got inside Universal we made our way down main street following the signs to the Studio Backlot tour. We decided to do that first up as it was my (Kade) favourite when I was there last time and as it was just after the park had just opened we got straight onto a tram that takes you around the back lot of Universal Studio's and show you a whole bunch of movie sets, props and stuff. We saw all of the film studio's that they use for all various TV shows and movies, we also saw outside sets that can be made up and used in almost any setting. When we were being shown all that type of stuff they were filming for the TV show Desperate Housewives so we had to be very quiet as we went down Wysteria Lane, it was all very exciting. After that we went onto King Kong 3D where we drove into a tunnel that had a screen on each side of us (at this point all passengers put on there 3d glasses), we were taken back to skull island where King Kong manages to save the tram from a few attacking dinosaurs T-rexs' I think but the ones from the movie at least.
Next the tram took us past some vehicles used in and made famous by certain movies, they had some from the fast and the furious movies and Jurassic park and of course my personal favourite, the Deloreon from the Back to the Future movies as well as Biff Tannen's car from 1955 (that's in the Back to the Future movies also).
Then we were shown a fast and the furious stunt sequence where two robotic cars where shot at and "blown up" and as the were blown up the launched through the air on hydraulic arms towards the tram, only to be pulled up at the last second. The two cars then proceeded to do a dance routine that was quite funny. As we moved on from that we went through some more movie vehicles, specifically Jurassic park vehicles and as you focus on the vehicles a Dilaphasorous (the frill necked dinosaur from the first Jurassic Park movie) jumps out and spits water on you. Remember the Dilaphasorous as he will make some reappearances in the blog post.
As we moved from that section we went into another little village setting where we encountered rain and a flash flood, after we survived that natural disaster we went through some more movie sets, all of which we for western type movies, with cowboys and the like.
We then moved on to an underground subway tunnel set, which then simulated an 8.6 earthquake with water pipes bursting, concrete cracking, the above ground caving in and a fuel truck crashing in and catching on fire and finally the subway train arrived..... only to crash into all the existing rubble left by the earthquake.
From there we ventured onto a little place known as Amity Island, I'm sure you've all heard of it, but if you haven't it is where the movie Jaws is set. Needless to say we met Jaws himself in a terrifying way as he jumped out of the water to say hi to everybody. From there we went through the movie sets for How the Grinch stole Christmas with Jim Carrey and then just around the corner from that was a lovely little place to stay called the Bates Motel and just behind it was where the owners lived in the nice little house. The owner of the motel, Norman even came out as we came around the corner and went into one of the motel rooms, only to return carrying....... a dead body wrapped in plastic, which he then threw into the boot of his car. He then looked up and "noticed" a tram full of tourists that had just witnessed what he'd done. He then pulled a knife from his jacket and started to run after the tram, but we got away just in time and he only got the end of the tram carriage.
After that we went through another set from the War of the Worlds that had a jumbo jet that had crashed into a small town, and the whole set looked like a war zone with destroyed houses and cars and bits of plane wreckage everywhere it looked pretty amazing. Next was where they filmed The Mummy movies and we drove into a tunnel and stopped just as we noticed that the cylindrical tunnel we drove into was moving around the tram giving everyone the appearance that we were rolling over it was quite cool. Then the tour was over and we hopped off and went to see what else we could do, as we were walking along we saw a group of characters so we got a picture with Scooby Doo and Crash Bandicoot.
Once we had gotten those photo's we went into a movie memorabilia type room and saw things related to Jaws, Back to the Future, Josie and the Pussycats and other movies. From there I can't really remember the order we did them so I'll just get them out there. We went on the Mummy ride which is a roller coaster ride that was really fun and we also went on The Simpsons ride which is a simulated roller coaster, we then got some lunch (chicken pieces, mashed potato and corn) then we went and did Shrek 4D, the Terminator and then went looking in and around all the shops at Universal Studio's, getting pictures of various things like the bookshop and red door from Notting Hill with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. We also did the Haunted house tour, which was really good if you like that kind of thing. There was a disclaimer at the entrance of the house which said no child under 13 but it was up to the parent. There was a dad and daughter behind us and she was under 13 and we overheard her dad say that he was taking a gamble bringing her in, and lets just say that she did not like at all...
From there we went and bought an ET doll that we had saw earlier that day and then went to the special effects show, which is a show that teaches you the process of all the movie effects that they do from old school to new school. By this time it was getting late and we decided to make a move, and as we exited we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant, we both ordered the teriaki chicken and it was sensational. After that we got to the RV and ran the LA traffic gauntlet back to the RV park to set up and get ready for our second day at universal studios.
Once again we woke up and departed for Universal Studio's braving that LA traffic and getting a park in the ET lot once again. We walked through the Citywalk streets to the entrance of Universal Studios and once we were inside we made our way down to the Mummy ride to ride that again, after that we decided it was now or never to go on the rides that wet you. The first on the list, The Jurrasic Park ride, this was a boat tour ride that takes you through Jurrassic Park showing you all the dinosaurs and what not, until things start to go wrong and the dinosaurs escape and some of them aren't very friendly. Your chased by velocorapters and of course the tyrannosaurous tries to get you at the end right before a big drop into a cascade of water that gets everybody in the boat wet. After that, we went on it again :) and got some good pictures, after we got off that ride again the sun was out and we dried in no time.
We made our way back up to the main area of Universal Studio's to get some lunch, we decided on a half chicken with potato and coleslaw and as we approached the shop to buy it, Kate saw some people leaving a table and so she snagged it while I went up and got our lunch. When I got back another couple had asked if they could sit at our table as there were no free tables available and we said of course seeing as the table could easily fit 6 or more people and as it turned out they were Australian! We talked about our respective holidays and told them our story, and they were on a 40 day cruise stopping in at various places and they also visited their son who lives in Boston. They also told us that their bus leaves at 3:30 and asked us what rides we had been on and what we would recommend as they only had a short time to try and fit things in so we said that the Simpsons ride was good as well as the special effects show, they decided to go to that straight after their lunch and it was right across from where we were sitting. As they were leaving to see the special effects show they told us about the front of the line passes they had purchased and said because they were leaving well before the park shut they offered to meet us at the exit at about 3:15 to give them to us, which was really nice of them.
Once they left for there show, Kate and I finished our lunch and went to the haunted house (again) and went through all of that again before making our way over to the Water World show. Once we got inside we sat down and looked at the set and watched the rest of the people coming in to see the show. About 5 minutes before the show started some guys came out as Water World characters and proceeded to warm up the audience by getting them to shout and stuff, but if you didn't do a good job, he squirted the crowd with water. On one particular instance we didn't do something to his liking so he threw a bucket of water into the crowd, I actually think that Kate and I got the worst of it, right in our laps. After that the show pretty much started with actors in boats with bad guys trying to take over, there was guns, fire, stunts, and high dives and such but the good guys one at the end of the day so all was good.
Once we left the Water World show we went for a walk down and around some shops to look and buy some postcards, and further down was the Terminator gift shop so we went in there to have a look and I saw some gaming machines where you could win some prizes. One was the old claw machine and all it had in it was MP4 players but my favourite machine was there where you have to stack blocks on top of each other and make it to the safe point for a minor prize and then the top for the major prizes (things like PSP and Nintendo DS's) but I played the blocks game and won two minor prizes (these really cool led light clip things) but didn't really do that well at the game. The boy playing the claw machine next to me did really well though, well sort of, he picked up the MP4 player must have been about 5 or 6 times but the claw wasn't strong enough to hold it and get over to the drop point, so I did play that machine after I saw that.
Once we collected our prizes we went to the exit to meet up with our friends from lunch, we got there a little early and so decided to get our picture with the fountain that is at the exit. With that done Kate spotted our Australian friends and we walked over and said hi, they gave us their front of line passes and we wished them a safe trip for the rest of their holiday and they said the same also, I also gave them one of our blog business cards and told them the let us know how there cruise went, so hopefully they jump on and read this, thank you and safe travels our Australian cruise boat friends who had lunch with us at Universal Studios.
From there we made our way to do the Studio Backlot tour again, and it was different the second time around as there was no filming happening we could go around the lot and see a few more things than we did the day before. The only thing was we didn't go through the simulated earthquake attraction, whether it was broken or being used for filming we don't know. But it was still fun and didn't detract from the backlot studio tour. After that we set off for the Animal Actors show, which was really cool with cats, rats, dogs, birds and even a pig and an orangutan. They showed us how they train each animal and got volunteers from the audience to do some tricks with the animals. It was really cool and funny, after the animal actors show Kate and I went and had a chocolate churro sundae, which was good but I'm sure everybody has had the experience of being in line for awhile and when the people in front of you get to the window to order, they seem to suddenly realize what they are in line for and have to look at the menu and decide what they want.
We got our sundae and sat down to eat it, it was really good with chocolate topping and whipped cream, ice cream and of course a churro cut into four and dipped into the sundae.
We finished our sundae and then decided to do one final thing before we left and that was to squash a few pennies for souvenirs, we got the Jaws, ET, Jurrasic Park and the Universal Studio's logo ones. We then headed for the exit but as we were walking out the next animal actors show was on, so we decided to go and see that again, after that we headed for the exit again only to go through the haunted house again. But once we done that we did make it to the exit and went through to get a perfect (if I do say so myself) picture of us both in the front on the Universal Studios fountain where the logo rotates. From there we went through the Citywalk shops one last time, got into the rv and ran the traffic gauntlet back to the campgrounds.
Today we a packing and preparing to hand back the rv as well as getting ready for our Trek America tour through Alaska. So as usual please comment or ask any questions and we will try to update the blog as much as we can as we do not know where the internet is in Alaska, but we will have it in Seattle before we officially leave for Trek.
