Highland and Hollywood Center

I enjoyed watching the Highland and Hollywood Center being built from the roof of my apartment building when I lived in Hollywood. While in essence it's not much more than another outdoor mall, it does provide a good central location for the tourists that flock to Hollywood each Summer. 

Part of the architecture of the H&H Center are the reproductions of set pieces for the 1923, Cecil B. DeMille 10 Commandments. The set was dynamited and buried in the sands of Nipomo Dunes








In addition to the usual suspects of shops and eateries, there are these fun fountains to play in that are located in the center on the second level. If you're bringing young children, be sure and bring a change of clothes as they'll soon be soaked playing in the water.

View of the fountains from the Hollywood sign viewing bridge

The escalators that take you between levels have some interesting art hanging between them. 

The hanging piano...

...and the mirrors that hang right below it.

And then there's the bridge. The bridge offers you a perfect view of the Hollywood sign. But be forewarned that you will almost certainly never be alone on that bridge. 

Tour bus crowds all trying to get a shot of the Hollywood sign

Parking is on site and remember to get validated. The El Capitan theater, the Kodak (where the Oscars are held), Gruman's Chinese theater with the hand/foot prints, and Madame Tussauds are all on the same block.  


From H&H you have access, within walking distance, to a good portion of the rest of Hollywood too, including the wax museum, Ripley's, and the Max Factor museum. 


Cheers!
J.

Aquarium of the Pacific

For my daughter's third birthday we took her to visit the Aquarium of the Pacific. 

It had been a few years since we visited the aquarium and I was rather unimpressed with it at the time. I wish I could say that the aquarium has vastly improved since then, but it really hasn't. Not that it's all bad of course, but it's just, well, underwhelming. Maybe I'm jaded for watching shows like Tanked and the building of the mega aquarium in Okinawa. 

But if you're in LA and you're looking for a small taste of what the Pacific has to offer in marine life then this is a pretty good bet. They have a decent breeding program and seeing baby anythings is always bound to interest children. That and their touch pools make this a place that will keep little ones interest for a good couple of hours.


Cheers!
J.

The giant tank in the Grand Hall at feeding time.

One of many touch pools

Spend the $2, it's worth it to have these beautiful Lorikeets walk right up to you.

There's even a touch pool for jelly fish. If you're a fan of "Finding Nemo" you'll already know that if you touch them on their domed tops, you won't get stung. 

What are you looking at? A seahorse camouflaged to look like kelp. 

Orange Drive Farmers Market Hollywood

We checked out the inaugural Orange Drive Farmers' Market Saturday right in the heart of Hollywood.

Located on Orange Dr. between Hollywood Blvd to the South and Franklin to the North. The new market is using the circular, tour bus, driveway of the Highland & Hollywood Center for it's staging area, which is perfect for this small but tasty farmers market. We parked at the center as well, with validation was only $2.00 for 2 hours. 

The crowd was somewhat light given the early hour and perhaps owing to the word not yet getting out. We lunched on Hawaiian BBQ with The Big Kahuna order being enough for my husband and I to share. The kids enjoyed the small petting zoo and  we took home fresh honey in honeycomb and some homemade pickled beets The Highland & Hollywood Center obviously plans to make this a regular thing judging by the signage.


Afterwards we took the kids over to the fountains in the middle of the Highland and Hollywood Center, but I'll save those pics for another post.


Cheers!
J.

Bread stall next to the Hawaiian Bbq stall

Salt vendor

Pastry stall. Man did the spinach quiche thing look good

Lobster mushrooms

Farm fresh eggs

One of the non-food stalls also there

Petting zoo was $6 for two kids er children

New Dinosaur Hall at Natural History Museum Los Angeles

We were very excited to check out the new Dinosaur Hall at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. There had been a lot of hype by the museum over this renovation and we were not the least bit disappointed.

The past few years have been spectacular for the museums of Los Angeles County. Major additions by LACMA and renovations by both LACMA and NHM, that widely surpassed our expectations upon their completion. We are finally starting to feel like we have world class art museum's in LA besides The Getty Center.

And there's till more to come with a landmark art attraction currently being installed at LACMA to debut by December. 

But first a visit to the Dino Hall which opened mid-July of this year. I cannot over state what a wonderful job the NHM did on renovating and reinstalling their Dino Hall. It's modern, it has clean lines, yet they went out of their way to keep as much of the architectural detail of the old museum (the original 1913 building by designed by local architects Frank Hudson and William A.D. Munsell) as possible, almost like they were putting a modern museum inside a Roman ruin. 

The installation includes large scale fossils and a "family of T-Rex's. A 70% complete male (one of the most complete skeleton's on earth) plus a female and junior T-Rex. Two viewing floors allow visitors to look down on some of the major pieces to get a really complete assessment of the exhibits. 

They've also updated their cafe, but even with Stokke high chairs, it's still a far cry from the cafe at the V & A in London. 

Cheers!

J.

Constructions is ongoing  as they work on the new entryway to the museum.

9/11/11 LAX

A few shots from the memorial at LAX on this 10th anniversary of Sept 11, 2001.

Long Beach Antique Market

Long Beach Antique Market  is my antidote to the hot, costly and crowded Rose Bowl Antique Market. I do enjoy the Rose Bowl and usually go at least once or twice a year, but it's sprawling and during the Summer months can feel like a march through Death Valley. 

Long Beach is smaller, cooler in temp and easier to navigate. But we hadn't been down there in the past several months so we were surprised when we tried to park in our usual lot. It was full! This time we were directed to a parking structure at Long Beach University and had to park on the third floor to boot. Turns out our little market has gotten quite popular since our last visit. 

And while we found some of our usual favorite stalls, they've added quite a few new ones as well. We hope this bodes well for the local economy. 

For a bonus, as we were leaving we caught site of a huge US Air Force cargo jet and took a slight detour to get a closer look. 


There's just something about a big plane that brings out the kid in us.

Cheers!

J.