LA Day 2

We slept a long time. Like 11 hours after a long plane trip and a long day in Hollywood. However it was from 9pm till 8am so we got up in time for Universal Studios which opened at 10am (but it was open until 9pm). We got there good and early and started wandering around the citywalk which is a mini city outside the actual park which has tons of stores and shops like the Bubba Gump Shrimp co (srsly), Hot Topic and even a Billabong.

Getting tickets was easy because I had purchsed them online and we got prioroity tickets which were more expensive but allowed you to go into special queues outside of the normal ones. Actually it wasn't a massively crowded day from what I could determine as the queue lines in the regular queues were much, much longer than they had people filling them. But I know I enjoyed the 5 minute max waiting time than 30 minutes the rest of the time.

Inside it reminded me most of movieworld with the sets and shops. However movieworld has less video generated rides and more mechanical ones and more rides overall. There was only the Jurassic Park ride (super wet boat ride = awesome), the Mummy ride (super fast and super short rollercoaster) and that was it. The rest were video rides that wern't really very exhilerating that sometimes combined live action with them. Oh they were fun but they had very limited re-enjoyment factors. I did ride the Simpsons ride several times out of sheer principle on the matter but after you saw all the video pieces it did start to get stale. Although another cool thing about the Simpsons ride was they played Simpsons funny moments of HDTV's in the queue (not that I had to wait that long) and SImpsons music in the eating area near the ride. I'm not sure if the Americans were laughing or cheering as I did the Bartman for their entertainment.

The Universal Studios tour was amazing and I took mostly camera footage as still footage would not have done it justice. There was the diaster set where the subway car comes smashing through, there is the Jaws attack scene, the backlot tour (with the city hall from back to the future) and unfortuntaely a Desperate Housewives tour... There was also a live action show for Waterworld which was far better than the actual movie. I almost filed all of it but I was running extremely low on both battery and discspace by that time. The Backdraft tour was incredible with the pyrotechnics and it scared the shorter people I allowed in front of me enough to jump back and allow me to stand in front again.

Oh yes one other thing about the park. It is built on a cliffside. To get to the lower lot you have to traverse down hundreds of meters of escalators. It was quite incredible and the views would have been amazing except for the ever present LA smog. Problem is if yhou wantted to go back to the lower lot it really did take a while. Food was pentiful, there wre more eateries than there were rides which is rather disappointing and they partake in this 'All you can eat program'. The eatieres in this program just make food in bulk and serve it out to customers meaning it isn't of the highest quality and it enourages gluttony just to get your moneys worth. One thing I didn't know was it did cover drinks! There was most of the value I got it for wasted which mean I ate 3 meals in the park just to cover the cost of the damn thing. Writing this at 8am the next day and I still feel full...

We were there all day to ensure we saw everything and some of it twice and actually didn't leave until right at the end. Outside the citywalk was still jumping with ultra late night shopping, movies and clubs. It reminded me of Osaka with all the neon signs cluster in one place. As we drove back to Hollywood the roads going to Universal Studios and Sunset Blvd (where the ultra hot clubs are that only let in entertainment stars) were clogged with traffic and it was getting on to 11:30pm. idn't want anything to do with that and just went to bed.

Today will be other LA sights like Venice beach and alike. Should be good.