A few reasons for being such wide-eyed wonders at this time of the night:
(1) It’s 7.57pm in Singapore. Dinner time.
(2) We fell asleep while marking Earth Hour in complete darkness at 8.30pm last night. It became Earth Six Hours.
(3) Saturday night traffic along Sunset Boulevard is keeping us up (I’ve heard more sirens blaring in 1 night than over 2 weeks in Singapore. More amazingly, we can still hear people’s conversations above the roar of traffic, which proves that human beings are the noisiest things on earth.)

We’re rooming at the Econo Lodge along Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood. It was a decent find off www.hotwire.com for US$50 per night – the same amount we would have paid for 2 dorm beds in a hostel in the same area.

Econo Lodge Hollywood - our home for the next 6 nights

Dannie checking out the TV channels and the pastries from Aroma's Bakery Cafe across from our hotel.

Econo Lodge Hollywood is in West Hollywood and sits along a busy stretch between The Strip and Hollywood Boulevard. Brilliant location – which is why we’re not too fussy about the noise level. The problem was in getting here and the problem started right at LA’s International Airport. We were ever-so-happy to see our bags appear on Carousel 1 after being misinformed by the inflight announcer that they would be arriving on Carousel 3. It didn’t help that the announcer over the airport’s PA system intermittently changed her mind over whether our luggage was arriving on Carousel 1 or Carousel 2, as if it was a matter of what colour of underwear she should wear for the day. Immigration was painless and we passed quickly in search for the Tourist Arrival information counter which we found at the…. Departure Hall??! The counter staff gave us fairly clear instructions on getting to Sunset Boulevard via public bus and we followed her directions to turn left at the exit and continue walking until we see the shuttle pick-up point. After traipsing halfway through the airport without a pick-up point in sight, we approached a couple of security staff to ask for directions. Turned out that the brilliant lady at the info counter told us everything except to take the escalator back down to the Arrival Hall first before turning left. Duh. We made a beeline for Shuttle ‘C’ and then transferred to Line 3 on the Big Blue Bus for $0.75 per person.

It took us an hour to get from the transfer point into Hollywood, passing through Marina Del Rey, Venice Beach area and downtown Santa Monica. During that time, we met a very friendly garbage man (I don’t know what to call him really, he was only picking out recyclable waste from bins, so not quite a garbage man) who chatted with us and another really nice passenger on the bus who plucked a sprig of fresh rosemary from his shopping bag to let us have a whiff of its aromatic leaves. The latter related stories of interesting local personalities – like the hermit millionaire who built Marina Del Rey and whose will was faked upon his death, the roller-skating singing Indian guru who has been picking out “shy ladies” to serenade for 40 years along Venice Beach, how Mr Arnold ‘Governor of California’ Schwarzenegger used to work out at the outdoor gym at Muscle Beach, the posh café which served Hollywood celebrities soups and burgers at US$25 a pop, etc.

We dropped off where the Give-Incomplete-Information Lady told us to and tried to walk along Sunset Boulevard in the direction of Hollywood towards our hotel. We walked and walked and walked – two scruffy backpackers sticking out like sore thumbs in a spiffy neighbourhood, realized that we were lolling along slower than 2 snails on a date and decided to hop onto a bus to get us to Hollywood. Big Blue Bus came along and told us to try the Orange Metro Bus. Orange Metro Bus does not turn up. We backtrack to the nearest major intersection to try and get a cab. Orange Metro Bus whizzes past us. Damn! No cabs. Nice Local Boy taps on his iPhone and gives us the number for Sunshine Yellow Cab. Incredibly, we spot Empty Green Cab along the road and hop in.

We ask the driver whether it’s too far to walk to Hollywood. He looks at us and says “You can answer that when we reach your hotel after 30min.” 30 frickin’ minutes?! Turns out that Sunset Boulevard passes through Brentwood, Bel-Air, Beverly Hills and West Hollywood neighbourhoods. Now we can swear that the travel guides are speaking true when they say that no one walks in LA. I repeat, NO ONE walks in LA. The cab driver gave us a magnificent audio tour of all the areas en route and even pointed out Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner’s oh-so-famous Playboy Mansion housing his oh-so-cute female pet bunnies. We saw lines of people queuing outside popular clubs for ‘live’ Saturday night acts along The Strip and the driver gave us tips on where to go, when to go, what to eat – all while we watched the numbers on the meter jump like frogs on a hotplate. US$50 later (ouch, it hurts just typing “US$50”), we reached Econo Lodge Hollywood.

Welcome to Hollywood, Baby.

YL

written by  DanYilin on March 29, 2009 from Los Angeles, United States
from the travel blog: go.
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Linny!!! Your blog is really amazing and reading it makes me think I'm having a coffee with you and just catching up!!

Miss you loads already. Take care and stay safe yah!

xxoo
Mich

written by  Mich on March 29, 2009

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where did my earlier comment go???

Anyway, to summarise, try biddingfortravel.com and priceline.com if you need to get cheap and good hotels. :) Good luck!

written by  junwei on March 31, 2009

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