Big Noggin

After a spectacular night at Koi, we awoke early this morning, and started planning today's adventure. We had a great breakfast at the Beverly Wilshire, then checked out and headed for Hollywood. After a tour down Sunset Blvd, then up and over Hollywood Blvd, we turned around and found a place to park that wasn't too far from the Kodak Theater.













Because it was Sunday morning, traffic was light, and there weren't very many people around. We did notice some activity in front of Mann's Chinese Theater. They were preparing for a premier, and across the street, people were actually camped out for the day awaiting the festivities. The signs on the theater said that some Owen Wilson movie was playing (and it didn't look like a particularly memorable movie), so seeing people early Sunday waiting for this premier seemed odd to say the least. I enquired with one woman, and apparently there is a new Jody Foster movie. Well, that makes a bit more sense I guess.






After taking some pictures, we wandered into a mall adjacent to the Kodak Theater. Helen bought some flash new movie star sunglasses, for all of $15. Sweet.

We wanted to go and have a picture of us wearing our Melen North American Tour t-shirts in front of the Hollywood sign. We could see it from Hollywood Blvd, but I had no idea where exactly you could get close enough for a good picture. So we drove around for a while, and I declared us lost, and no where near the sign. The GPS was of no use, because apparently the sign doesn't rate as a destination. Helen had a great idea though, she said "google the sign's address on your blackberry." Brilliant, one search later, I had an address that was "close" to the sign. You can't go right up to it because of an electric fence, and some land mines. Ok, I made up the land mines part.



We drove up, and up, and twisted and turned through a residential neighbourhood. The road was at most 1.5 car widths wide, and I was getting nervous around these tight quarters. We finally arrived at a spot right at the top of the hill next to "no trespassing" signs. We set up the tripod for some pictures, and as we were doing that, a stretch limo showed up, and a buff guy in an ESPN jacket and his wife and 2 young daughters got out. Their limo driver kept calling him "Doc", but I have no idea who he was.


We asked their limo driver to take our picture, and then packed up our troubles, and headed back down the hill. After a fuel stop, we were on our way to Las Vegas. Only 3.5 hours away.

We've checked into the Bellagio, and are ready for another fun night. We're going to have dinner at Koi Las Vegas. Yes, we loved dinner last night so much that we're eating there tonight. Hey, it's no big whoop. I eat at McDonald's in different cities frequently.

After dinner, I have (I think, subject to confirmation from the concierge) acquire sweet tickets for Spamalot at the Wynn hotel. We get a backstage tour as well, so this should be a riot.

Anyhow, gotta start getting ready for dinner...More later.

mJm