Day 1 in LA
Our greyhound bus was very much delayed and we arrived in LA at 3:30 in the morning. We then checked in to Little Tokyo hotel, which had such an authentic Japanese vibe with a really old man manning the reception and recording everyone's booking and receipts on paper. Booking this hotel was a last minute decision (we wanted to just rough it out) and I am so thankful that we did, just to be able to get a nice hot shower after hiking in Yosemite and to have a bed to sleep on despite only available to us for a couple of hours.
We checked out at 11am and as we were walking to the street level from the hotel, we saw a long queue forming outside, found out that it was for a ramen place and decided to join the queue! I mean if there was a queue even before it was open, it had to be good! and it was :)
After that delicious filling meal, we headed to our air bnb, popped out to Whole Foods where we spent hours trying to decide what to cook for dinner because the vegan options were endless there and then headed back for a chilled out rest of the day!
We ended up cooking a jackfruit and vegetable stir-fry with teriyaki sauce, which was so yum and had salted caramel So Delicious ice cream after, which was even more yum!
Day 2 in LA
The next morning started with Engine-2's granola with fruit and almond milk for breakfast and a lovely but extremely hot and sweaty hike to the Hollywood Sign!
The views were amazing :')
Ta-da!
We decided to hike up to the back of the sign and also to the front of the sign to get both views :)
After the hike, we headed to Smorgasburg sunday food market and had a Korean sushi burrito, a jackfruit plantain chip platter and I had matcha boba☺
We decided to walk to the Staples centre from the market and unfortunately walked on a 'not-so-nice' street lined with tents of homeless people that smelled like piss and encountered some weird people and even a pair shouting right in each other's faces. It was so shocking to me that with just one wrong turn, you could end up walking down the dodgy side of town. The contrast was so stark!
We ended up in Whole Foods again to stock up on more food and snacks and kombucha (we are obsessed!!) and then headed back home to have our jackfruit stir fry and this time with orange gardein chicken, which was so bomb!!
Day 3 in LA
Had the same granola breakfast before heading out to see the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was really rather underwhelming. In my opinion, it is very much over hyped and even the area that it was in did not even have a fun or exciting atmosphere, it just seemed pretty dull. We got bored rather quickly and decided to head to by Chloe. for lunch
The food here was phenomenal!!!
Every bite was bursting with flavor and thinking about this place makes me want to go there now! and luckily for me they have one in London so I'll be sure to be heading there soon ☺
We then decided to get a bus to save money on an uber to get to Santa Monica Beach!
I loved the vibes here but unfortunately, I couldn't remember much of anything else because the day ended with me passing out on the streets and having to be carried into the uber by Topo and heading home :(
Day 4 in LA
I felt much better after a good night's rest thankfully as we were going to Universal Studios!
I loved it! The vibes here were amazing and thousands of talented people have somehow managed to come together to create this fun atmosphere and world that is like no other. The attention to detail on the buildings, the streets, the costumes, the music was just brilliant.
and the Harry Potter world was up and running as well!!
The Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride was my favourite ride here!!
My favourite attraction was the Studio Tour! It was an hour tour around the sets where thousands of huge blockbuster movies and series have been shot. The set of The Good Place was up, which was so cool because Topo and I had watched it just a few months back :) The 3D 'rides' during the tour were amazing as well and the pics below show how could create a controlled flood that looked so incredibly real!!
Flinstones car!!
They bought an airplane just to make this realistic massive scene of an air plane crash
I was also first in line to take a pic with Po! hehe
We ended our trip with the Jurassic Park ride, which was so thrilling and also wet! At the last bit of the ride, they made it seem such that upon impact of a steep fall, we'd all get drenched from the pool of water that we'd encounter in front of us, but impressive engineers/physicists designed it such that that wasn't the case hahaha. We then got the train back to union station and took an uber home and made burgers for dinner!
Day 5 in LA
Had a very chilled out day that started with heading to watch the 11:25am showing of Deadpool 2! Unfortunately, the movie was rather disappointing as we both felt they were trying too hard to be funny and there was not much character development present. We then headed to Sage Vegan bistro for lunch and had an amazing platter of hot wings and a chorizo pizza!
After walking a short distance to Echo Park Lake, we decided that we had enough of LA and did all that we wanted to do/see and headed back to relax for the rest of the night
