Day 4: Hollywood Boulevard

The day once again began slowly, and we finally managed to skip the expensive hotel breakfast and have one in our room (thanks to late night shopping at the supermarket the day before).
After breakfast we found our way to the Metro Station, actually just around the corner at Memorial Park. After working out how to work the machine we got our tickets for unlimited Metro train and bus travel for the day.
From here we boarded the train to a fast trip to the other side of L.A. and our destination: the famous Hollywood Boulevard. Our trip by train was brilliant after being so used to Auckland's own dodgy train service.
We arrived at the corner of Hollywood and Highland (roads) and were finally standing within the labelled stars at Hollywood. There are three main attractions as you leave this station, that of the Ripley's Believe It or Not, the Waxworks and the Guinness World Record museums. We visited these in due course, the Ripley's museum amusing but odd (there was a whole section on medical miracles, with bizarre objects removed from "indestructible" people; this section was not really of great interest), while the World Record museum rather more interesting, which included a 10min long video of one of the longest domino runs.
After these attractions we walked the street in search of famous names, trying not to be put on tour buses by very good spielers. At first we found such stars as Marylin Monroe (unfortunately now located directly outside McDonald's) and Walt Disney. After a look into the standard tourist shops for some small mementos, we had lunch then began up the other direction of the street. This was much more interesting. Aside from seeing such names as Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg, Godzilla, Lassie and others we also came across a blocked off area of the street outside the main area of the Boulevard. Unbeknownst at first to us, this was the Grand World Premiere of Toy Story 3. The red carpet was out but we recognised few of the stars.

We eventually had had enough of Hollywood and after spotting the Hollywood sign back in the distance we travelled via Metro back to the hotel. Here we found again it was the perfect temperature for a swim, so acted accordingly.

Eventually we found dinner at a Thai restaurant and had a new experiment for pudding (slightly further down the road): a frozen yogurt bar. It was delicious! Before returning to the hotel we went on to discover a brilliant bookshop round the corner (which would have helped us yesterday, before we walked to the Borders on the other side of town!). Rest assured we will be back to this new shop soon, the prices are so much lower than NZ!
We look forward to tomorrow, as the Theme Parks continue: Universal Studios!

Pictures of this day and prior ones will follow later (when I find the Time).