zenn bites...

the road to hollywood

the weather was great and warranted the rental of a sweet chrysler convertible for my first visit to los angeles. with the help of the all-important gps, we navigated our way from anaheim to hollywood and enjoyed a hearty omelette breakfast before moving on to see the stars in front of kodak theatre.




i took photos with jack sparrow, davy jones and charlie chaplin and elvis gave me a peck on the cheek. at grauman's chinese theatre, i photographed the handprints, footprints and sometimes, hoofprints of famous people/animals like marilyn monroe, arnold schwarzenegger, bruce willis and julie andrews.


drove from there down sunset boulevard/strip (just because we'd heard of it in songs) on to venice beach where we spent the next few hours basking under the scorching californian sun with throngs of people enjoying a weekend at the beach.


we walked from one end of the long strip of shops selling all sorts of drugs and touristy items to the other and grabbed a deliciously crispy slice of pepperoni and mushroom pizza each along the way.


there weren't many hulk hogans lifting weights at muscle beach that day.

when we'd had enough of the beach, we drove off through rodeo drive just to see what that famous strip is like with all its luxury boutiques and rich people with expensive tastes.


got to farmers market thereafter for a spot of shopping at the grove followed by some pampas churrascaria for dinner and yummy pinkberry for dessert.



went back to anaheim after all that but not before photowhoring with our wonderful car:


driving in the wrong side of the car and on the right side of the road took some getting used to and my friend actually turned into incoming traffic once. it was damn scary and the cars (and this hugeass dinosaur of a lorry) just kept driving towards us and forced us to reverse into a little lane (thank god there's a little lane). but we survived *pat on back*

in tokyo and i didn't get to explore shinjuku and downtown tokyo much because i went on a tour to mount fuji!


we were lucky and the sky was clear and blue and mount fuji stood high and mighty and unobstructed by any clouds. yay i use many "ands". i never knew that some people (mostly ang mohs) don't know how to use the "squat" toilet or, japanese-style toilet, and that's a picture of my guide educating them on the proper squatting technique. his use of visual teaching aids can rival that used in singapore schools.




because there had been heavy snowfall in the days before we journeyed there, we weren't allowed up to the fifth station which is half way up mount fuji and had to make do with photographing the volcano from a little further down. all pictures of the mount fuji kinda looked the same after a while.

our cute little tour guide gave us cherry blossom origami paper and taught us to make personal mount fujis that can erupt!


took a cruise on lake ashi after lunch and from hakone pier where we got off, rode an aerial cableway up to mount komagatake for a view of mount fuji and the sweeping landscape of hakone national park.


there's a temple at the top of mount komagatake that's accessible by locating the (hopefully) least muddy/snowy path and trudging through thick snow (thus wetting newly-cleaned uggs) and climbing stairs to heaven.


at the close of the tour, we went on the famed bullet train for a ride back from odawara station to tokyo station. the speed of the bullet train took me by surprised when i stood on the platform and one flew past me, threatening to pull me along. once inside though, it was so quiet that i hardly felt the rush and things didn't really zoom past me when i looked out the train's windows.




back in shinjuku, i shopped a little and had a dinner of duck soba on the 13th floor of takashimaya. returned the next morning for another bit of skincare shopping and brunch of mini sukiyaki and raw beef sushi (among many other things that the lunch set was made up of) in a restaurant on the top floor of takashimaya.


yumyumyum!

and that's it for my first sq12. think it'll be a good idea to go back to LA and tokyo soon to explore and hopefully, see some cherry blossoms!