Hello Los Angeles

It was the first time Krish was visiting the USA and our first foreign trip together. He got the USA visa without any trouble at all, but we had our tickets booked through Fiji airways and according to Fiji immigration he required a transit visa to travel through Fiji. Fiji immigration website states that visa will come in 3 days and despite that he didn't receive his transit visa until the day before we travelled. We were on pins until the visa arrived, but finally it came 2 days before. To celebrate the arrival of his visa we did some retail therapy the day before our tour at Kathmandu and bought lots of clearance buys. I was excited too as this is the first time me traveling outside Australia after almost 3 years due to COVID.

We drove to Brisbane airport, this time we used Valet parking which was very convenient, dropped the car and went straight across the road to the terminal. First leg of our flight was to Fiji. Our flight was delayed by approximately an hour and finally we boarded our Fiji airways flight. 

It was a nice flight, crew was great and food was passable. After a 4 hour flight we landed in Nadi where we had a 5 hour lay over. Fiji looked beautiful from air, lush green landscapes contrasting against blue waters of the Pacific, should definitely visit for a holiday one day. 

Good thing about Fiji airport is you can use Fiji premier lounge even if you are not travelling business for a fee of only FJD 99 per head. We checked into the premier lounge and had enough food and drinks and rested well. The beef stew was particularly excellent and we ate twice. 

Finally we boarded our flight to LA which is a 11h flight from Nadi. Fiji airways service was good and we managed to catch some sleep before we landed.

Getting through USA immigration was a nightmare as usual. There was a long line and just before we were to go in, the guy in front of us didn't have his papers sorted and had to be escorted inside for interrogation and our counter was closed and we were directed to a different officer. Once we got to the counter, the immigration officer was quite pleasant and was surprised listening to our itinerary!

Finally we stepped out to the mayhem of LAX airport traffic. Thankfully we booked a hotel, Grand Hyatt LAX, within walking distance to the airport and walked to our hotel. Sparing no-time we set to explore LA after a quick shower. Our first stop was the Hollywood sign. Our Uber driver was an Ethiopian immigrant with masters in education who has given up his school job due to too much stress. We had a pleasant conversation on our 45min drive from hotel to Hollywood sign. He told us how LA has become almost unliveable with soaring rent and food prices. Though he had lived in LA for the past 15 years, he had never been to the spot which had been made famous online for capturing good pictures of the Hollywood sign. The spot on this park has a good view point from where you can get a good glimpse of the Hollywood sign and excellent pictures, far better than the commonly known spot from the Griffith Observatory.

Next we called another Uber to get to the Griffith Observatory. The driver this time was an Italian immigrant, who gave us some tips around LA - A spot near the beach where you could just walk and have a free secondary smoking of Marijuana and to visit the Getty museum. Getty was closed unfortunately and Marijuana is not our thing unfortunately or fortunately. Griffith observatory and the views from it are always amazing. 

After browsing the exhibits we had sometime before our planetarium show and grabbed a bite at the Griffith restaurant. It struck me how food has gone up in price at this point, it clearly wasn't the same US before COVID. After a quick and rather salty Meatball lunch we settled ourselves to watch the Secrets of life live show. The huge dorm shaped screen is simply amazing and the narrator was excellent too. 

As we came out of the show, the sun was setting at the horizon casting beautiful red hues all across the place. 

As sun set in, Los Angeles was coming to life with lights popping up all around eventually forming a sea of glittering stars on ground. 

We took in the sunset and decided to go down to the Hollywood walk of fame. As we got down near the Chinese theatre, the reality struck again. There was no glamour in the Hollywood walk of fame, just a dirty pavement with stars and poor / drunk / drugged people just laying all around and poor traders and showmen trying to earn a buck from tourists. We managed to find Michael Jackson's star just by accident.

And just next to all this you have the Dolby theatre where Oscars happen. I find such disparity painful.

After visiting the Dolby theatre we wanted to go and see Beverly Wiltshire hotel, where Pretty woman was filmed, a film loved by both Krish and I. The hotel looked very nice indeed. The Uber driver who took us there shared some experiences of her Ubering around Bevery Hills, the rich and famous neighbourhood of LA. Where possible celebrities slip into Ubers late at night in sunglasses and big hats to cover their identity and go in search of taste of normal life. 

Just across the road from Beverly Wilshire hotel is the Rodeo drive, lined by the famous branded stores for shopping. We had a night stroll along the Rodeo drive admiring the many pretty window decorations. We would have to work hard to shop here, but then again high end brands are not our thing too. 

We then took a Uber back to our hotel and called it a day.