Los Angeles Day 2 / Los Angeles Dia Dos

Am now used to getting everything in English and Spanish with a flavour of Japanese.  We are staying in a Japanese Hotel in an area called little Tokyo which has Japanese tea shops and Japanese supermarkets.  We were slightly surprsed to go round the side of the hotel and find a replica of the space shuttle as a memorial to the Japanese American colonel who went up on it.

We then walked through a more Spanish area with lots of murals.  This was one in the veg market

There was also the world's shortest fenicular railway here called Angels Flight.  (Unusual for USA to have the smallest of something)

Our main destination for the day was Universal Studios. We had never done a theme park before and were interested to see what was on offer.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and tried to make the most of photo opportunities and soak up the atmosphere. Here is Martin with the one that didn't get away.  He is definitely going to need a bigger boat!

The studio tour showed us some amazing special effects - we experienced King Kong and also passed some spectacular car stunts.  You could feel the heat of the flames.

There was also the flood in the Mexican village.

The one area we couldn't go into was Wisteria Lane as they were actually filming there but we did just get a glimpse

After the studio tour we went to watch the animal actors.  They had cats, dogs, pigeons, chickens, a pig a falcon, a parrot and of course a monkey and an orangutang.  The show was introduced by a monkey

We also saw a Shrek show, a special effects show and a Waterworld extravaganza.  I hated the film with Kevin Costner but this show was excellent with people whizzing round on jet skis aand jumping off high platforms

We then had a quick look round universal city which springs into life when the park closes.

Having been entertained all day we were glad to go back to the hotel but sad to pack away all the summer clothes and get out the warm jumpers again.  5 hour flight to Boston tomorrow .  Now need to do our homework on what to see in Boston.  The guidebooks we got for Christmas have been very useful as we are usually such a short time in the cities that we need to know what to see.

Lots of good signs in the park today but favourite was "The Brews Brothers" on a coffee stall

So goodbye/ adios from California