mybigadventures.com

Dani set her alarm last night in an effort to get us moving a little earlier. We snoozed in for quite a while before eventually getting up at about 9 AM. We put some clothes on and headed down to Starbucks with the journal and some postcards to write, whilst we had breakfast. I had an orange juice and a chocolatine, whilst Dani had a blueberry scone and vanilla latte. After breakfast, we headed up to get dressed and showered, ready for a day out. I spoke to Mum for a bit on Skype whilst we were getting ready; she was just having tea. We picked up the car from the car park and headed out towards Beverly Hills.

The plan was to drive up Rodeo Drive, home to all the expensive shops. Once there, we decided we would park up and have a walk around for a bit. We tried an underground car park; there were no spaces, but then we happened upon a multi-storey car park that was free for the first two hours - bonus! It was opposite the Warner Brothers media gallery. It was on the road running parallel to Rodeo Drive. We spent about an hour and a half wandering up and down. The weather was lovely and warm and there were lots of expensive looking cars buzzing around with open tops, blacked out windows, etc. We saw a Bugatti Veyron (a very expensive car) parked outside a shop on Rodeo Drive. It was getting a lot of attention and lots of people were taking photos, including me. On the way back to the car, we stopped at ‘The Ice Cream Lab’. The ice creams were five dollars for small tubs, but they made the ice cream fresh, on the spot, using dry ice, I think, to freeze it. I had Mulholland Mint, with chocolate chips, and Dani had Blue Velvet,  which had little tiny cupcakes with cream frosting mushed into it. We sat outside to eat and watched the world go by. After, we headed back to the car to drive to our final destination for the day - Santa Monica.

We joined the Santa Monica Boulevard almost immediately, as it was just around the corner and then ignored the SatNav, as it kept trying to get to turn us around, despite Santa Monica Boulevard being a straight road into Santa Monica - funnily enough. Tried a car park that turned out to be full, so parked in a space on the road, before realising that said car park suddenly had spaces again. We managed to get a space right near the entrance as someone was just leaving. It was three hours maximum parking, but the first 90 minutes were free! Amazing!

We wandered down towards the beach, which wasn’t far, as the car park was only on 4th Street. We found a spot near the lifeguard station and ate leftover pizza from yesterday, by way of lunch. We spent a while looking out to sea at the yachts and swimmers. There were also a couple of planes that kept looping around, advertising Bud Light. Dani went for a paddle and some pelicans flew over head in a flying V. We then started walking along the front, to the pier, which turned out to be a little disappointing, with lots of tacky theme-park-type attractions. We followed the pier back into town, looking for postcards, but in the end didn’t bother.

There were a number of street performers along the front, including a guy with lots of parrots who was giving them to people to hold; one girl was cradling a parrot like a baby! We walked back along 3rd Street Promenade - the pedestrianised shopping area. There were a number of street performers and also a number of monuments to recognise contributors to the Santa Monica Education Program (they were cast in bronze; one was a pile of books, another was a desk - they looked very good). We had a quick look in a gadget shop before heading back to the car. The parking cost $1 as we had only been 2 1/2 hours. Bargain!

The drive back was pretty straightforward and we were back in the hotel by 7 PM. The car park was very full as there was a wedding in the hotel and a concert nearby. We parked at the back of a double space where we would be blocked in. The valet attendant said there would be someone to help us in the morning.

We dropped our stuff and went to Little Tokyo for tea. There was karaoke in the main square which was quite funny, and some popular songs were getting murdered by a range of keen amateurs. A lot of the restaurants were quite busy, and we eventually settled for one in the back corner, where we took a number (32) and waited to be seated. I was a little anxious, so Dani did the ordering. I had chicken teriyaki with vegetable tempura and Dani had the beef version, but with a mix of vegetable and shrimp tempura. We had soup to start and green tea ice-cream to finish. We did a grand job using chopsticks and I only dropped the tempura into the dipping sauce by accident a couple of times. It cost about $37 and was very nice, apart from the ice-cream, which we both left the majority of.

We headed back to the room and Dani did some packing, whilst I watched TV. A little later we tried to visit the Japanese roof garden again, but it was closed due to the wedding. Instead, we went to the little minimart around the corner again, where I got an ice-cream and Dani had an almond Snickers bar. We had a beer, watched telly and went to bed.

Had a slightly more relaxed start to the day, as we didn’t have a timed ticket for anything. So, we were up at around 9 AM, showered and went down for breakfast. We made the most of the free breakfast - Ben had cereal and I had fruit and yoghurt, then we both had a toasted bagel. We got going shortly after that, aiming for the Smithsonian National Zoo, heading out a bit after 11 AM. Unfortunately, whilst getting ready, the hairdryer (the hotel’s - not mine!) blew up, and dented the bathroom sink, shorting the electric! Oops!

We walked to DuPont Circle, taking it quite steady as our bites were very irritated and irritating. We managed the Metro ticket machines better this time, allowing the extra dollar for the paper ticket. We got on the train and went merrily on our way. At the second stop, we realised we’d gone too far! We’ve been expecting a fair journey, but it was only actually one stop and it took less than a minute. So, caught the train back again, feeling surprised.

We followed the signs to the zoo - a 10 minute walk from the station. We were greeted by a man in a cubicle, who told us about the daily events and sold us a map/guide for one dollar - considering the actual zoo is free, this didn’t seem too excessive! The zoo is separated into different sections, so we followed it quite methodically. First, we went to see cheetahs - who were having a nap in the grass, so the view of them was only partial. But there were some huge frogs in the pond, sitting about on lily pads and frogging about. Then we saw a vulture in with some African deers, who are close to extinction in the wild. It was nice to see some of the animals mixed together in the enclosures, similar to how they may be in the wild. We also saw some zebras, although they seem shy, staying at the back of their enclosure.

We then moved on to the Panda Trail and then the Asia Trail. The female panda has been confined, as it were, due to pregnancy, and unfortunately the male panda seems to have gone out, as despite searching, he wasn’t to be seen. A shame, as I’ve never seen a panda. We moved on, wandering around. We saw some short clawed Asian otters - they were little youngling otters too! They were wiggling all over and through an old tree stump, some napping upside down and others simply piling up. At one point, they all wiggled over to the edge of their enclosure, peering over the wall into the passage and squeaking a lot. Then they went back to piling up! While we were watching them, a very vivid red bird was flying around - a little smaller than a blackbird and with tufted feathers on its head. Ben got a couple of photos, although he was very nippy (the bird that is!). We also saw a fishing cat and clouded leopard, which I particularly liked - especially the fishing cat kitten. Had some lunch at the Panda cafe.

We admired the elephants in their huge enclosure, and then followed the American Trail, watching a beaver snuffling about, an Eagle - a bald eagle, no less - and some sea lions. Unfortunately, the bears were having their afternoon nap, so we didn’t get to see them. We also saw lots of turtles, just after the big cat section - some huge and some tiny! So cute! We were really impressed overall by the zoo. The individual enclosures were all big and clearly a lot of thought has gone into the flora and fauna for the animals. It was all very green and was over a vast space.

Feeling very weary, we left about 6 PM, heading back to the subway. When we got back to DuPont Circle, we popped into a CVS pharmacy to get some drinks, as we felt very thirsty, and made our way back to the hotel. After a bit of a sit, we headed out for tea. We decided to go to ‘The Pig’, another hotel recommendation. There was going to be a 45 minute wait for a table, but there was room to sit at the bar, so we decided to do that. The barman recommended ordering a number of different dishes from the different sections of the menu, as they were designed for sharing. We decided upon two of the small appetizer dishes and two of the larger courses. We had mac and cheese with a crumb top, and ‘spoon’ bread which was bacon, courgette and onion, baked with chunks of bread. Both very nice. The larger courses were spicy pork masala and pork Spaghetti Pomodoro. For dessert, Dani had chocolate pudding and I had two scoops of chocolate ice cream (which came in two separate bowls). It was all very nice and altogether cost about $90, including tip. Feeling very full, we tottered back to the hotel and watched some TV before heading to bed.

Well we've been here 6 days and I've only just got around to this. It took just over two hours to get here from Odawara station on the bullet train and was fairly straight forward to get to the hotel. We're right next to a metro stop but have only used it a few times as unlike Tokyo, there are only two metro lines so it doesn't cover as much of the city. It's been really hot generally keeping in the mid thirties during the day time which has made walking around a bit of an ordeal but despite that we've got about a lot and even found time to climb a mountain.

The mountain was Fushimi Shrine which is one of the top sights to visit here. It's famous for the thousands of Tori gates that line a trail up and back down a mountain side. We picked what turned out to be one of the warmest days for it but made it all the way to the top managing to see some wild monkeys on the walk back down which was fantastic. 

We've also seen a lot of temples and shrines around the city and some spectacular pagodas. It's not far stretch to say there's a shrine or temple in every district and more often than not more than one. We're on the move again tomorrow heading for Osaka which is only a short distance away, but I'll try and come back and add a little more detail about Kyoto if I get a chance. In the meantime check out the album, linked below!