#261: Egyptian Theatre Historic Tour

Aloha L.A. Adventurers! As I mentioned in my previous post, I've moved to Hawaii! I'm still completing my 365 things though, so my posts are now meant to be a "Things To Do When I Visit L.A." list rather than a "Things I've done in L.A." list. So many new adventures to look forward to!

This one's been in my bookmarks for a long time; take a tour of the historic Hollywood Egyptian Theatre which was built in 1922. Visit the dressing rooms, singers' boxes, and projection room on your hour-long tour. Tickets are $5 and the next tour is October 15th so mark your calendar!

Egyptian Theatre Historic Tour

#258: Sweet!

Urinals that dispense candy at Yucky

Urinals that dispense candy, a Ferrari that shoots gumballs out of its exhaust pipe, a chocolate lab where you can put everything from Hot Cheetos to Bacon Bits in your custom chocolate bar... You can experience all this and much more at Sweet! located in the Hollywood and Highland complex. 

The Stay Puft marshmallow boutique

Sweet! is the Disneyland of candy shops. This over the top store contains a dozen boutiques including Peace of Candy (candies from around the world), Stay Puft (everything marshmallow), the Wonka Room (creative truffles and chocolate bars designed by Willy Wonka), and Sticky (traditional handmade hard candies with customizable messages).  I am pretty sure this place has every candy imaginable!

The Sticky Boutique

The good ship lollypop at the Lollywood boutique

Sweet! took me down memory lane. Seeing the Nerds, Airheads, and Chupa Chups made me nostalgic for simpler times. (That nostalgia must have carried through when I chose the song for the video--can you name who sings it?)

The main candy counter

Taking Candy from a Baby candy dispenser

Another awesome thing about Sweet! is the free samples. At the main candy counter they let you try any of the sweet and sour gummy candies in the case. I chose the gummy watermelon, which I used to inhale as a kid. Also at the Sticky boutique we got to watch them make sour apple candies from start to finish, and we got a taste at the end! 

Making sour apple candies at the Sticky boutique

Wonka's "Square Sweets That Look Round" (haha!)

Here are some tips for your visit:

• There is an underground paid parking garage for the Hollywood and Highland complex. The garage entrance is off of Highland. 
• Sweet! is located on the second floor.
• We went early to avoid the crowd on the weekend which was a good move--we had the place mostly to ourselves.
• Some of the boutiques (Peace of Candy, As If and Stay Puft) are located across from the main Sweet! shop. These boutiques open later than the main store (on Sunday they opened at noon).

We loved our time at Sweet! and highly recommend it. It just might be in my top ten places to visit in L.A.!

The largest gummy bear in the world!

Does this seem wrong to you?

Choose your jelly bean

Make your own chocolate bar at the Chocolate Lab

This snozzleberry tastes like snozzleberry! 

Wonka's Travel Trunk Truffles

Wonka's Hot & Cold Bar (cayenne and cinnamon for the hot and mint for the cold)

Farts in a Can in the Yucky boutique

Hazardous candies at Yucky

Have you been to Sweet? What did you think of it? Leave me a comment below!

Sweet! at Hollywood and Highland

#234: Ferndell Nature Center

I love the name Ferndell. It reminds me of the 90's animated movie FernGully, with its vibrantly saturated colors and greenery. Ferndell Nature Center is equally verdant and quite arguably the lushest area of Griffith Park. It's also the perfect spot for a cool summer stroll. The towering California sycamores at Ferndell provide ample shade, and there are over 50 species of ferns to admire on your walk. 

A suspended plant hanging above the trail

Located at the Western Canyon entrance to Griffith Park, Ferndell blends so well into its surroundings that most people don’t even know it’s there. The pathway is flat and paved, making it perfect for dogs, elderly people and families with small children. Although it’s located right next to a busy street, the trees block the sound and the view so it felt like we were much farther away from the hustle and bustle.

I read that Ferndell was a popular filming spot for Star Trek. When I told Brad this, he (a closet Trekkie) seemed much more interested in our excursion. If you're a Trekkie too, check out this guy's blog post in which he takes pictures at various Star Trek film locations around L.A., including at Ferndell.

One of the Star Trek film spots

We spent a leisurely half an hour exploring the area, which is only about ¼ mile long.  Along the way, we passed by little waterfalls, purple morning glories, and a few benches. 

Small waterfall

We easily found free street parking on Ferndell Drive. To get to the entrance of the park, turn north onto Ferndell Drive from Los Feliz Drive. The entrance sign is on your left not too long after the turn. 

Look for this sign on your left

Just north of Ferndell is the highly rated Trail’s Café, but we were too full from lunch to check it out. Next time!  

Have you been to Ferndell? What did you think of it? Leave me a comment below!

Ferndell Nature Center

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#227: Lake Hollywood

Whether it's from behind, inside a cave, or on horseback, the sight of the Hollywood Sign always makes visitors and locals stop in their tracks. If you're looking for a lesser known spot to admire the sign, Lake Hollywood is the perfect place. When we went on a Saturday afternoon there were hardly any people there and parking was plentiful, making it a great place to escape the traffic of the city.

Lake Hollywood is a man made reservoir holding 2.5 billion gallons of water. The dam was completed in 1924. Check out the awesome bear heads decorating it:

There are three gates to the lake: the North Gate, Tahoe Gate and Weidlake Gate. We took the narrow sinuous roads up to the Weidlake Gate and parked on the side of the road (there's also a dirt parking lot that was empty when we went). Since the bridge/dam is at the South end of the lake, we didn't have to walk very far. If you park at the other gates, it's about a 3-4 mile walk down to the dam and back. 

Note that the West side of the lake is closed to the public so you can't do a full loop around the lake. The best view of the lake is on the dam. On the rest of the path, you can only see the lake through fence and trees. So if you don't feel like walking much for your million dollar view, definitely park at the Weidlake Gate.

Have you been to Lake Hollywood? What did you think of it? Leave me a comment below!

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#219: The Schindler House (aka Kings Road House)

Tall people better be prepared to duck because this house is made for shorties! The Schindler House is a must-see for fans of modern architecture. The house is tucked away on a quiet residential Kings Road in West Hollywood. Walking past it, you'd never guess that it houses the MAK Center for Art and Architecture.  

The house was designed by Rudolph Michael Schindler, who was friends with other architecture heavy weights such as Richard Neutra and Frank Lloyd Wright.  After overseeing the construction of Wright's Hollyhock House (#64), Schindler set out to build the Kings Road House, which became one of Schindler's most important works. Construction of the house completed in 1922.

There's currently a small exhibit running till January 8th titled Sympathetic Seeing: Esther McCoy and the Heart of American Modernist Architecture and Design.  It focuses on the architectural historian Esther McCoy through photographs, drawings, texts, videos and audio interviews.  Admission is $7.

Finally, a word of caution. The bathrooms in the house are for you to use, but beware! The toilet refused to flush, and as Brad fiddled with it, one of the tubes came loose and started whipping around, soaking our clothes and getting us both in the face a couple of times. It was like a scene from Three Stooges. Nyuk nyuk nyuk. Pretty embarrassing, especially when I had to inform the front desk about it, utterly drenched. :P

 Short doors for short people

The driveway

Have you been to the Schindler House? What did you think of it? Leave me a comment below!

The Schindler House

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#216: The Hollywood Wax Museum

This place is wiggidy wiggidy wax! 

Did you know that Hollywood has two wax museums within a block from each other? It's a showdown between the old school Hollywood Wax Museum and the newer Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum (#62).  Madam Tussaud's Museum has a lot going for it: it's bigger, the wax figures are a bit more realistic, and it's got interactive props that you can use when you pose with some of the figures. Nevertheless, there's something that I really liked about the Hollywood Wax Museum that I didn't get at Madam Tussaud's--that old Hollywood je ne sais quoi. 

The Wizard of Oz cast and Johnny Depp greeted us at the entrance of the museum, followed by Charlie Chaplin and a handsome Pierce Brosnan. Next we (ok, just Brad--I was scared and waited outside!) entered the Chamber of Horrors, which had wax figures of Hannibal Lecter, Dracula and Chucky. 

We then walked into the "celebrity gallery" which featured the likes of Angelina Jolie, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. It was funny standing next to each figure and seeing how small we were compared to most of them (not next to Tom Cruise though!).  Some of the figures were incredibly lifelike. The winner was Samuel L. Jackson:

Harrison Ford's beard hair gets honorable mention. Brad was fascinated by how real it looked:

Daniel Craig was pretty lifelike too. He gets a fist bump:

On the other hand, some of the figures were so way off that I had to look at the sign just to figure out who they were. Fans of Jessica Alba, Will Ferrell, Antonio Banderas, Steve Carrell and Jackie Chan will be sorely disappointed. 

I guess Jessica Alba's beauty is really hard to capture in wax because 

Madam Tussaud's version was equally as bad as this. 

As you're walking around, don't forget to read the little signs that accompany the wax figures. They give really interesting background info about the making of each of the movies. 

The wax museum has great hours: 10 am to midnight, 365 days a year!  Imagine how fun it would be to visit on Halloween night and walk through the Chamber of Horrors. Tickets are $13 if you buy them online, or $16 at the door. There are also discounts for children and seniors. 

Another cool thing about the Hollywood Wax Museum is that they offer package deals where for just a few bucks more you can buy entry into the Guinness Book of World Records Museum and the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, both of which are right across the street. We did the double deal and bought entry into the Guinness Museum where we saw video of the world's largest dominos display, replicas of the world's smallest and largest people, and the world's largest vegetables and fruit. 

 Transformers

Have you been to the Hollywood Wax Museum? What did you think of it? Leave me a comment below!

The Hollywood Wax Museum

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