Los Angeles, May 3-6, 2011

Our trip to LA from Auckland was pretty good, we both got a bit of sleep on the Skycouches and arrived in LA strangely enough at 2.45pm on Friday, several hours before we had even left NZ... Weird.

Our wonderful friends, the Terrill's, had already scoped out LA on their way home from the UK, so they had some instructions for us when we got there. It made it much easier knowing what we had to do when we got to the airport, which was to get the LA Flyer bus to Union Sation then get the Metro Red Line to Hollywood/Vine. Then it was a short walk to our hotel. We obviously stuck out like sore thumbs with our 3 suitcases and backpack, and a guy on the Metro started talking to us, asking us where we were from and telling us that we were gonna love LA. He gave us the LA Weekly, a free newspaper that has everything that's on that week. Then when we got to Hollywood/Vine Station, another guy walks up to us and asks where we needed to go, and points us in the right direction.

It turns out that the Capitol Records building is right there when we come out of the station. My camera was almost out of battery so I was trying to minimise the number of photos I took. I don't know why I missed that iconic building though. Also right in front of us was the Pantages theatre, which is where thy show the Broadway shows. When we reached our hotel, we got a very warm welcome from the guy at the desk, and our room seemed pretty good. It was over 30 degrees that day (unseasonably warm apparently, and this was to continue for the 3 days we were there), so we had showers, changed into shorts and t-shirts, and went out to find some dinner.

The hotelier told us one place we could try was Katsuya, frequented by the likes of Clint Eastwood, but when we found out prices started from $100 we decided to give that a miss. We walked down Hollywood Boulevard looking at all the Stars (apparently they cost the celebrity $30 000 and the celebrity has to apply to "The Board" to have one put in...). It was very tacky with lots of souvenir shops, not really what we expected. We got to the Kodak Theatre and had a look at the mall inside. There was a huge line for something that we realised was a J Lo signing, but we decided not to hang around. Next door is Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the place that they have all the celebrity handprints outside. It was closed off for something, but I took a photo from across the street.
Eventually after being pretty unimpressed with our eating options, we ended up at Popeye's Chicken, which I was curious to try. It proclaimed it had beat KFC in a nationwide taste test. It wasn't too bad, but we were so hungry by that stage anything would've been good. We took it back to the hotel as we were getting pretty tired by then.

The plan for the next day was Universal Studios. First Rob wanted to check with the hotel if we could change rooms as he hadn't got much sleep the night before with all the road noise. They assured us that wouldn't be a problem, so we packed our bags and left them with reception for them to sort out (sure enough we got a much better room on the second floor and towards the back of the building, which was great). So eventually we were on our way, onto the Metro again a few stops north. We got a front-of-line pass for Universal studios which would get us guaranteed seats in the shows and much shorter lines for the rides. The first show that we went to was animal actors, which was really cute. I felt a bit sorry for the apes though.

I went on the Simpsons ride after that to assess whether it would be safe for Rob to go on, as he's not allowed to accelerate his heart quickly or be around magnets. It was really well done, you actually don't go anywhere but you feel like you are due to the way they do it. I figured it would be OK so Rob went on it later.

The next show we went to was the Special Effects show. They showed some techniques like stop motion animation, green screen, and motion capture.

We also went to Waterworld, the show, which had some pretty good stunts and special effects.

For the Studio Tour we took a risk as people with heart conditions were on the "banned" sign. We thought, how bad can it be, really? And we're glad we went because it was pretty tame... We looked at facades used in movies,

The Clock Tower from Back to the Future (minus the clock),

Then we went into the King Kong 3D Experience, outside of which was this squashed Tour Trolley.... Scary... It was well done but I don't think it elevated our heart rates significantly.

This street was used in many, many Spaghetti Westerns.

We saw Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives.

And the wreckage from the War of the Worlds (with Tom Cruise)

We also saw Jaws, Norman Bates and the Bates Motel, and lots of famous movie cars.

I went on the Jurassic Park Ride and The Mummy Ride by myself, as we didn't think Rob should risk it. They were both awesome - The Mummy Ride was terrifying! Think Roller Coaster in the dark... We missed out on a few things like The Terminator show and the Shrek 4D show, the park closes at 5pm so it is hard to get everything done. Afterwards we went out to the big mall outside the park - Citywalk, and watched some buskers doing some hip-hop and entertaining the crowd. One of the guys did a flip over four people lined up for the finale. We found a shop called It's Sugar, with a wall of different coloured M&Ms that you can dispense individually, and bought some candy made famous by Seinfeld and popular American Culture, like Jujy Fruits, Tootsie Roll, and Butterfinger. Other stuff we had to try while we were there was Junior Mints, Red Vine, and Twinkies. NZ sweets are definitely better, 100%. Even English sweets are better. The American ones are either too sweet or too artificial-tasting, I thought anyway.

We made our way back into town, and decided to go to Chinatown as Rob wanted Chinese. Somehow I don't think we made it into Chinatown proper, as despite the streets having Chinatown flags, and the Chinatown placename, there was only one Chinese restaurant, one Thai restaurant, and one Vietnamese restaurant in the couple of streets we looked at. We were too hungry to wait any longer so we went to the Chinese restaurant we saw which looked quite full. Rob ordered chicken and cashew nuts and I ordered beef stew chow mein. The lady was very insistent about other dishes we could order so we got fried rice as well. When the food came out our mouths dropped because each dish looked like it would feed 6 people. We ate our fill (really good food as well) and barely made a dent. The fried rice had all sorts in it, including prawns. We asked to take the rest home. All up we spent about $25 American and got free tea, 2 soft drinks, all that food, free tapioca puddings, free fortune cookies. It lasted us for dinner the next day, and we had to throw the rest out before we left, so it was a pretty good bargain. I couldn't believe the family next to us though, a mum and dad and two very small children, ordered about 5 dishes, including lobster and a whole chicken... The kids only ate a little bit of fried rice each! Very American...

The next day we planned to do a tour and go out to Venice Beach. We walked along Hollywood Boulevard and had a couple of people offer us deals on tours. We got to Starline Tours which is the one that does the Hop-on Hop-off Bus and the guy there offered us a tour of celebrity homes for $20 each (normally about $55) and the hop-on hop-off bus for $30 each. Seeing as I was expecting to pay $50 anyway it seemed like a good deal and would get us to Venice Beach as well. We had an hour to kill so I had a taco for lunch in celebration of Cinco de Mayo (a big deal here due to the big Mexican population), then we looked at the handprints outside the Chinese Theatre. It was interesting seeing what years the celebrities had got big enough to get handprints.

Then we met our tour guide, a very interesting lady. She was very enthusiastic about her work, to say the least, and excitedly told us about the celebrities she's managed to see. Our first stop was up the Hollywood Hills. We got to see the skyline of LA through a nice haze of smog.

We got a view of the Hollywood sign.

We drove around the Hollywood Hills and got glimpses at houses of celebrities, or fences of houses anyway. Then we drove around Beverly Hills, a crazy manufactured city. The streets all have back alleys to put the rubbish out so garbage trucks don't have to drive through the streets. All of the streets have a different tree theme, and have silver fire hydrants. There are no shops or service stations so the (mainly Mexican - sorry but it's true) workers eat lunch from Taco trucks that come by specifically for that purpose. Some of the old star's houses, like Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant and Doris Day, are in Beverly Hills. Its very different from the new stars' houses, whereas these days everyone has huge fences and mega-security, in the old days there was no fences (and no paparazzi).

Our tour guide got extremely excited when we were on our way back to Hollywood, when she saw Janice Dickinson in a black BMW. SHe immediately did a U-turn and floored it to try and catch up with her, but Janice craftily turned into a private road that the tour van could not follow. No one in the tour van seemed too cut up about it, except our tour guide. We drove down Sunset Boulevard and got to see some famous bars and hotels, like the Viper Room and Whiskey A Gogo, the Standard and Chateau Marmont.

We finally got dropped back at the Chinese Theatre and got on the Hop-on Hop-off bus. I took a photo of the handprints and the tourists milling around while we were waiting.

The bus went round Beverly Hills so we got another look.

If you look closely you can see the silver fire hydrant.

We went past the building used in the Die Hard movies and Rob made me get a photo...

We got to Santa Monica and decided to hire bikes to get to Venice Beach which was about 45 minutes walk up the beach, but only about 10 minutes cycling. We got ourselves some gorgeous Blue Smoothies for $7.50 per hour and cycled to the Pier at Venice Beach.

Unfortunately you can't make out the little blue beach huts used in Baywatch very well in this photo.

We walked our bikes back down the Venice Beach Boardwalk. Unfortunately there wasn't many people working out at Muscle Beach.

People were touting their wares, including medical marijuana - get assessed by the doctor now!

We needed to make sure we got the bus before they stopped for the night so we went and got it, luckily as it turned out there was massive traffic jams in downtown LA and it took ages to get back. We had our left-over Chinese, and another early night. So, no Palladium for us this time round!

The next day we checked out and decided to head straight to the airport to avoid being late. Time for the Air New Zealand Experience again, and back to London :-)

New Zealand, April 16 - May 3, 2011

Our long-awaited trip to New Zealand for Rob's sister's wedding finally came around. We left London on the 16th of April and flew Air New Zealand to Los Angeles where we had a 2 hour stop-over before flying to New Zealand. We had booked Sky-Couches (http://www.airnewzealand.co.uk/economy-skycouch) so we were able to have a reasonable sleep which was great. Air New Zealand provided great service as usual.
We got an in-flight message from Rob's mum which was entertaining - the stewardess came to our seat and had to work very hard to keep a straight face while she told us that "your Aunty Ronnie will pick you up from the airport".
Sure enough, Ronnie did pick us up, which we were very grateful for. We got in at 5.30am, went to Ronnie's house, had a shower and something to eat, and then she drove us to the rental car place where we picked up a wee Ford hatchback. Then I drove five and a half hours to New Plymouth. I hadn't driven since before we left for London so I was a little nervous, but it was fine. I had to do the driving as Rob isn't supposed to drive for 6 months and besides, his licence has lapsed.

It was nice driving through all the wee NZ towns. We stopped and got a steak and cheese pie each at a bakery and they were amazing. Just the first of many kiwi favourites I had to sample before we left. When we got to New Plymouth we stopped in at the Vet Group and surprised everyone. Anne had kept it a secret that we had coming and was very relieved that it was finally out. We got to look around the new building which is great, but I am told already too small!
Matt made us Hellers sausages for tea - Yum! And we had jelly-tip ice-cream for dessert.

The next day Anne had the afternoon off so we met her at work, then went to East End Beach and had a coffee with Chris, before going to an old favourite - Arborio - for lunch. We had, by this stage, realised that prices in NZ had gone up exponentially since we left, so we limited ourselves to a pizza and fries between us. That night we went to Lone Star for tea with the NPVG crew. I had the Johnny Cash Stash and Rob had a giant pile of ribs. It was yummy, as usual, but maybe not quite as yummy as I remembered it.

The next day we left for Taupo, after doing a spot of suit and shoe shopping for Rob. We were staying with Sarah and Simon. We had KFC for tea (before Sarah got home) because I wanted potato and gravy (you can't get it in the UK), but it wasn't that good (not really unusual to be disapointed by KFC I suppose). The next day we went for a walk down to the Lake. It was amazingly clear and beautiful and a lovely day.


We left Taupo around lunch-time so we would be back for the Hen's night. It took absolutely ages to get back into Auckland because of the traffic though, so by the time we got to Claire and Ian's house in Ponsonby we were running quite late. I spruced myself up and Wanda and I took a taxi to the starting point of the night - an Italian restaurant. Rob and Owen waited at the house for the guys to get back from shooting hockey pucks at Ian, and from there went to some dodgey strip joint.
When Wanda and I got to the restaurant Kat, Owen's girlfriend, was already there. It was good to get to know her a bit better as we'd only met once before Rob and I went to London. There wasn't much time to eat before we had our next event (all of this was a surprise for Claire by the way), which was a Kareoke Party Bus. Claire was ecstatic, and we spent the next hour belting out some eighties classics. Then it was on to Whare Aroha (Claire's old flat) for an A&E party (because that was where Claire and Ian ended up on their first date). The "surprise" arrived, which was a gigantic fireman stripper, very entertaining. It was a really good night and Claire's bridesmaids did a wonderful job at organising it all.

The next day was Good Friday. Owen, Kat, Rob and I swapped our little rental for a bigger one that would do all four of us. While we were waiting for it to be ready, we went across the road to get something to eat. We went into a nice-looking place and ordered some eggs and coffees for the four of us. Unfortunately we forgot about the Public Holiday Surcharge and walked out $130 lighter...
The car we got was pretty good for the price. Owen took over the driving duties and we drove out to Puhoi, which was where the wedding was and where we would be staying for the next few days. The place we stayed was called Kauri Glen Lodge.

We found out there would be around 11 of us in the one house, which had one bathroom... Fortunately Ian's family and friends turned out to be really nice people, so it wasn't a trial at all. Owen, Rob, Kat and I shared a room which was fun as we don't get to see them very often.

On Saturday we did a few things to help Claire with the wedding, and got a few groceries to get us through the weekend. Only $300 worth.... Admittedly some of that was on New Zealand lollies we missed. That night we had a yummy barbeque for tea. We also hopped in the spa which was lovely.

Sunday was Ian's birthday. While Ian and Claire were out getting some stuff sorted we went to the little Puhoi market, where I bought some lemon honey, then to the Puhoi tearooms, which apparently do the best Devonshire teas South of Devon! We didn't have one but other people did and the scones looked absolutely massive. When Ian and Claire were back we went to a driving range with golf driving, baseball hitting and air-rifle shooting which was good fun. Then we made a massive amount of spag bol to feed 16 people, which went down very well. Afterwards Ian got a couple of birthday cakes and presents.

The Big Day dawned rainy, a shame after a couple of really nice sunny days. We took our time getting ready and then it was time to go to the church. The wedding was beautiful, and Claire looked amazing. No one cared about the rain.

The reception was at a hall across the road from the church. Rob and Owen were MCs, and had a bit of a test of skill when the power went off in the hall before Claire and Ian had arrived. The wedding planner was desperately trying to get it sorted, but when the happy couple arrived and Rob told them to go round the block another couple of times, Claire just shrugged and asked for another bottle of champagne.

Eventually it all got sorted and we had a lovely buffet dinner, heard some entertaining speeches and TJ and Zac hosted some German wedding games which were a hit with the crowd. It was really nice to catch up with the family and see people we hadn't seen for a year and a half, including Rob's cousin who's had a new baby. The band was really good, a bluesy rock band with the bassist doing some amazing things with his double bass, everyone was up and dancing until the hall closed at 11, then we went back to the lodge and chatted and had milos.

The family all gathered the next day for the post-wedding BBQ at the Lodge. There were lots of goodbyes and then Owen, Kat, Rob and I went drove back into Auckland. We went into Ponsonby and met Kat's friend, Rob, then we went to Mission Bay and had good old fish and chips followed by extremely yummy, huge, Movenpick ice-creams. We stayed at Ronnie's that night then Kat and Owen had to leave at 5.30am to catch their plane back to Melbourne while we got to leave at a far more civilised time of 8am.

When we got to Christchurch, Dad picked us up and we got our first glimpse of the earthquake damage. A lot of the roads are sunk and askew. Mum and Dad's house have some pretty bad cracks and some doors that don't do what they're supposed to. A lot of the houses on the street have not escaped lightly though and many are now empty. That afternoon we got to meet my brother's baby, Remy Blue, for the first time as Dad was looking after him while Nick and Sarah were moving out of their flat, which was really lovely, he's a gorgeous little guy. We also went round to see our cats at Wanda's place. Wanda's been away for a while, and the neighbour has been feeding them. We got a bit of a shock as Peep was extremely fat while Bella was extremely skinny. Because Peep was too fat she couldn't reach round to groom herself, so her back fur was all matted. We made an appointment at the vets for the next day.

We got spoiled at Mum and Dad's with yummy home-cooked meals. That night Nick and Sarah came round for vegetarian lasagne.
The next day Nick dropped off Remy and we got some more cuddle time, then we took the cats into the vet. The vet we saw was in my class at vet school. She was a bit surprised to see me as I should be able to treat my cats myself, but I don't have any facilities to do that so she drew the short straw... especially with Bella being her usual self and needing sedation to have her blood taken. Peep got her back shaved and got the all clear with her blood tests, but poor Bella ws diagnosed with hyperthyroidism - exactly what we had suspected given her dramatic weight loss given her huge appetite. We decided to shell out the $600 to have her treated with radioactive iodine after we'd talked it over with Wanda.
We went to see our good friends, the Ashdowne's that night. Nic was away but Simon and the boys were there. We got in some time with our Godson Max which was cool.
On Friday it was my birthday. We went to Winnie Bagoes for a really good lunch and got dessert pizza for after. Sadly, Nick, Sarah and Remy Blue were leaving for Berlin today. We went to the airport to see them off, keeping in mind that we would be able to see them soon. Afterwards Rob and I went to the movies and saw Paul. Kind of an expensive night out in New Zealand nowadays, but still a nice birthday treat.
Another exciting event was on that night - The Royal Wedding! We stayed up and watched it and were a bit jealous at our friends back in London having a public holiday and going to street parties and and BBQs...

Saturday we caught up with the Ashdowne's again and all the old Christchurch crew. It was great seeing everyone again, but we felt a bit sad that we'd missed out on a few weddings and things. Simon baked me a birthday cake which I was absolutely chuffed about!

Beforehand Dad took us into the city as far as we could go to see the earthquake damage. It was sobering to see what was left of the CTV building, and to know that there were still bodies that had not been recovered from the rubble.


It was devastating to see all the empty spaces where landmarks used to be. It was hard to get our bearings with all the missing buildings.

We got more of a look at the problems in poor old Christchurch on Sunday. Mum, Dad, Rob and I went to the Arts Centre Market which was being held in Ferrymead. Not many of the stalls had even turned up, but at least we had a look around Ferrymead which was nostalgic. We also saw all the poor houses on the hill looking all sad and wobbly, and saw where all the big rocks had fallen off the cliffs.
After that Rob and I went on to meet Katherine and Neill and baby Solomon in the Speights Ale House in Ferrymead and had lunch. It was good to catch up with them on how they were going since leaving London. After lunch we went to Sumner and walked up the esplanade. Then it was time for yet another goodbye.

Monday we went to Brighton with Dad and had ice-creams. The pier and beach looked beautiful but isn't safe to swim in yet.

Rob's mum was arriving from Auckland so we went and picked her up from the airport, and then had lunch from the bakery. We all had dinner at my parent's house, our last night in New Zealand. Then we went round for a last visit with Simon, Nic and the kids.
Tuesday was mostly spent packing and sitting around talking, until we were to leave for Los Angeles for the airport. More sad goodbyes, and we were off to Auckland so we could connect with our flight to LA.