A Very L.A. Day

One of my goals while out here in California is to take full advantage of all the fun places around Anaheim. Last week, my room mate Ellen and our friend Kelly headed over to Hollywood to go to Universal Studios for what ended up being a very "L.A." day!

Our first stop of the day was

Universal Studios!

Disney offers a 3 use pass for cast members for $60, so it was a really good deal! We have 2 more chances to go together before the program is up! Universal is about 45 minutes from our apartments, and it was a really nice day for our day off! It was an interesting trip to the Studios since they leave a lot of the staging for Halloween Horror Nights up during the day. This led to some fun pictures with the props...

Ellen during this picture: "You're always touching disgusting things!"

Hey, he looks friendly!

Some of the props were actually pretty scary! I'm excited to go back for Halloween Horror Nights with my dad and sister this Saturday to see what it looks like when everything is all pulled together. Even though we only had about 5 hours at the park, we got to see and do everything we wanted to, including the new King Kong 360 3D experience that is on the tram tour. I am glad that I got to see the original King Kong experience several times before it burned down, and the new one is really cool! We also did my favorite, the Mummy several times, Jurassic Park, Shrek, and a few others. After a day of scary and somewhat gross props throughout the park, we ended with the "Animal Actors on Stage" show for a nice dose of cuteness!

Before we headed out, we stopped to get some dinner at Universal City Walk. We decided to eat at Pinks Hot Dogs since none of us had been there before and it's a well known Hollywood restaurant! The hot dogs were huge and really good! I had a Guadalajara Dog, which included sour cream! It was definitely different. We also looked through some of the shops, which included a candy store with a giant Marilyn Monroe made entirely of jelly beans and 3 pound gummy bears. City Walk is a really fun place - they even have a Buca di Beppo's, a Yogurt Land, a store entirely of socks, a Bubba Gumps, a ton of other places!

Next up on our list was a really random place I wanted to go to. I have Stumble Upon added to my internet tool bar (which, if you don't have Stumble, I really recommend it! You just install the tool bar, click the "Stumble" button, and it takes you to a random and interesting web page.), and recently found a place called the Echo Park Time Travel Mart through it. Its a little time travel themed store that benefits 826LA. 826LA is a non profit organization for childrens' literacy and does writing workshops and classes. Well, as it turns out the Time Travel Mart is on Sunset Boulevard about ten minutes from Universal Studios!


Wherever you are, we're already then.

The place is set up like a 7-11, but has the most ridiculously random items for sale. Some of these included authentic chain mail, dinosaur eggs, robot emotions, jewels made from the future's smog, classic literature, an "extra 15 minutes at the meter kit" that includes 1 quarter, caveman spears, and Egyptian artifacts. The front window display has a caveman and a robot shaking hands, and the inside the shop is a board with flyers featuring requests such as, "LOST DECADE: the 1960's. Last seen in the back of my friend Steve's van." There was a also a case of donuts from the 1980's as well as this machine:


I will apparently not be getting a Slurpee today.

The store also had books and collections of stories that kids had written through the 826LA program. I ended up buying a keychain and two "haiku" buttons ("I like to play with a screw/screws are cool like a peanut/you are very nice"), and was pretty happy knowing it was going to a good cause.

Our last stop was the famous Millions of Milkshakes. It's on the corner of Santa Monica and Robertson, and is open until 2 am. Celebrities come by pretty often for a photo op and to create a milkshake to be named after them. I had a "Miley Cyrus", who is apparently a girl after my own heart - cookie dough and peanut butter cups in a shake! They even have vegan ice cream available, and their own theme song (which was playing constantly and a really, really bad pop song). The shakes were amazing and I will for sure be making the drive back over there more than once!

It was truly a great day off, and there is more to come - this week we are headed to the San Diego Zoo!