Wednesday, October 25, 2006

We got up around 9 local (Los Angeles) time and showered, shaved, dressed and repacked getting ready to check out and spend the day with Bob and Gayle Duncan. My brother in law, Don Heston, called around 11:30 to let us know that Lori's medical procedure went well and she is resting comfortably. He and Mom are with her and I'm relieved. Now, I only have to worry about Irena and her operation is tomorrow when we're on the plane and there's nothing we can do about it.
Bob and Gayle picked us up right around that time and after loading up their "hearse" (some strange kind of rental car), we proceeded to Chinatown for lunch. Los Angeles looks different in the daytime and we saw very few white faces like ourselves. Since Gayle was the designated driver and she doesn't like California freeways, we went thru lots of different neighborhoods where we saw Hispanics, Asians, Black, Hasidic Jews and Lord knows what other ethnic groups. That was fine with me; I saw lots of landmarks I'd only seen on TV - very interesting. We arrived in Chinatown and found a parking lot next to a restaurant that was featured in Bob's little travel book that he wanted to try. It was called Ocean Seafood and featured Dim Sum - what do we know? We'll try anything once! No one really spoke English and after we made it clear that we wanted a table for four, we were seated. Just barely seated, I might add, before we were accosted by a flurry of little Chinese waitresses all talking in tongues and rolling food laden carts into our table, trying to outmanuver each other and jockeying for position to get our attention. Each cart had a different item on it and we didn't know what any of it was. We didn't speak Chinese and they didn't speak English so we selected a few that looked appetizing. Before they would sit them on the table, they took our check and stamped their stamp on it. I'm assuming they were independent retailers and this was how they were paid. Wil and I saw what looked like regular Chinese dinners on a table near us and asked how could we order that? We had gotten a few things from the carts that looked good but they had a funny taste to them. Someone who spoke a little English finally came and brought us menus. He explained what some of the things were and that each dish you got was priced separately. We decided to order from the menu: Shrimp Chow Mein, crispy noodle for me and Kung Pao Chicken for Wil. The waiter said each meal would feed four. We said, "that's OK, we're pretty hungry" and pretty soon our food arrived. It was very good but it's no wonder the Chinese are little skinny people: I ate the whole dinner that he said served four. Bob had asked for something fried - like shrimp or chicken - but everything was steamed, sauteed or boiled: "Only fly on Sunday!" Anyway, we thought the bill would come and it would be expensive since we had eaten so many Dim Sums but it turned out to be only $50 for the four of us - we figured they had padded the bill and were over in a corner somewhere laughing at the "clazy, fat, American toulists".
We left there and wandered thru Chinatown for a little while. All the prices there were really cheap - huge bamboo plants for $1; large pottery "ming" vases for $20. I couldn't buy too much since we hadn't even left the states yet. There were some really beautiful old buildings in Chinatown but I found the people to be more Vietnamese than Chinese.
We left and Gayle took us on a tour of Los Angeles. We saw all the buildings you see on the TV shows plus the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Disney Concert Hall and Gardens, Warner Brothers Studios, CBS, NBC, Fox, Universal, Nickilodeon, Griffith Park, the Hollywood sign, Burbank, Inglewood and lots of other places I can't even remember. I tried to take lots of pictures but couldn't get some of them from a moving car. We stopped back by the apartment they had stayed in and had a drink in the courtyard and, since the door was still open, a potty break in the apartment they rented. We headed back thru rush hour traffic towards the airport and the rental car return.
We got dropped off at the wrong Quantas terminal - seems there are two of them - but once we got that sorted out, we got our boarding passes, passed thru security and into the boarding area. Bob and I both bought Maggie, our hostess in Hobart, a carton of cigarettes at the duty free shop and waited for the plane.
And, oh yeah, guess who I followed thru security??? Corbin Bernson, the actor. He was talking to the security guard and I was looking at him. He turned around and said, "Hi!" and I realized who it was. I said, "Hi! I like your work!" He seemed appreciative.
All of our group had arrived for the flight which, by the way, was uneventful although extremely long. Food was pretty good. I had pasta with wild mushrooms. It was served with a canneloni bean salad, a roll and some sort of wonderful coconut macaroon thing. Pretty good, all things considered. Then they gave us a bag of snacks, potato chips, cookies and mints and a bottle of water. You were supposed to sleep but that didn't happen for Wil and me (too excited I guess) so we watched movies (The BreakUp/RB/Lucky Sleven/Dame Edith) and listened to music. They turned the lights on at 3 a.m. Sydney time and suddenly it was Friday. I'm not sure what happened to Thursday (and Irena's operation). They fed us breakfast - I couldn't really eat all of mine so Wil did. They passed out entry cards and we're about to land. The sun is just coming over the horizon. What a beautiful sight and I can't reach my camera!