Welcome to Hollywood! What’s your dream? Everybody comes here; this is Hollywood, land of dreams. Some dreams come true, some don’t; but keep on dreamin’ — this is Hollywood. Always time to dream, so keep on dreamin’ — from the film
Pretty Woman
Landing at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport is like prising open a Chinese lantern: the aircraft cruises endlessly on flyovers, opening new vistas, while the cars ply on the roads below.
I was in Dallas to wish a friend on her birthday, but learnt upon my arrival that she planned to celebrate in Los Angeles. So off we went, from DFW to LA International Airport, across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, states I’d visited before, and finally to California, a new destination for me.
The city of angels pulsates with life and excitement. The airport shuttle took us to a self-drive car rental agency, where we picked up our snazzy mode of transport, a Nissan sedan, for the next few days and drove through the huge city to our hotel. Thank God for GPS!
The next morning, we headed for Beverley Hills. There were squeals of recognition as we drove past the Beverley Wilshire Hotel, the primary filming location for the 1990 movie Pretty Woman, starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.
The historic hotel is located at Wilshire Boulevard to the east of South Rodeo Drive. We wound our way up Beverley Hills to the Griffith Observatory, past the Hollywood Bowl west gate, for that sense of deja vous every visitor to this film locale experiences. Across the valley was the iconic Hollywood sign engraved on a hill. What a delight it was to see the George Harrison tree, a yew-pine, fabled to withstand drought, ice and insects, with the plaque that reads: “In memory of a great humanitarian who touched the world as an artist, a musician and a gardener.” It also includes a Harrison quote: “For the forest to be green, each tree must be green.”
It was a lovely, sunny day to stroll around the observatory overlooking the city. We then headed for the fabled Hollywood Boulevard, with the Dolby Theatre that hosts the Academy Awards function. Having seen this venue so many times, we stopped to read the list of all the award-winning films, before entering the Chinese theatre and on to the food zone above. Next came the Walk of Fame, comprising more than 2,500 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks. We went tripping over enthusiastic young tourists taking selfies with the stars named after Tom Cruise and Matt Damon, the older ones stopping momentarily by those of Andy Garcia and Julie Andrews. Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Spiderman as well as Cinderella were among the Disney characters traipsing around in the milling crowds.
We next headed for the Santa Monica beach, a vast expanse of the Pacific that sports a jetty and a Ferris wheel. It was on these beaches that Baywatch was shot from 1989 to 1999 and the coast guards little wooden ‘towers’ dot the seafront. A Mexican lady was selling fruits: sweet-and-sour mangoes and watermelons, that we sampled with relish! We walked over two miles along the edge of the surf and then flopped down on a seat on the pier to give our tired feet a break.
On the way back, we went around the universities: UCLA and USC, to retire for the day after a delectable Japanese dinner. The next day was a toss-up between Disneyland at Anaheim, 26 miles away, or the San Diego zoo. After a hearty debate, the vote went for the 120-mile Pacific coast ride to San Diego and it was a decision we did not repent even for a moment. The koalas, pandas and polar bears, among the other inmates, stole our hearts in their natural habitat. With 3,700 animals, open-deck point-to-point buses and a ropeway, it was easy to see why this park is such a huge draw. The weather was glorious, to boot.
The long drive back along the azure expanse of the Pacific offered the bonus of a scintillating sunset. We returned to a grand birthday dinner, a final tour of the landmarks before returning to pack for an early departure.
The flight out of Los Angeles is always a dream. Instead of flying east to our destination, the aircraft surges over the ocean for a while before doing a U-turn towards the mainland. The logic is to combat pollution, but it was a bonus for fliers like me on a tryst with the Pacific coast. The calm expanse soon gives way to the mountains and the arid, rocky terrain of the southwest as temperate California recedes into the horizon.
