Las Vegas

Las Vegas what a great place to relax, have a gamble (which Craig and I totally forgot to do, don't know how when there are casino's galore), have a few beverages and most of all it's SO MUCH FUN (great place to go to for a boys or girls trip). I do not recommend ballerina jumps though :-).

Our hotel room at the Bellagio

The Chocolate Fountain - YUM

The Botanical Gardens at the Bellagio during the day, very lovely!

You can experience famous cities in Las Vegas

The Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Paris Casino

Aria Resort & Casino

walking down the strip

Inside New York New York

we saw the real Coyote Ugly bar in New York

Excalibur Casino

Inside Planet Hollywood Casino

Our chopper ride to the Grand Canyon

some resort in the middle of no where, apparently it doesn't do so well...

The road to Hoover dam, the traffic was so banked up, we had never seen anything like it (it is hard to see in the photo though). They are building a new road and bridge (you will see below) to bypass Hoover Dam and hopefully this will help the traffic flow more quicker, the works are 2 years behind schedule.

Our pilot told us that the amount of concrete used for the dam wall could wrap around the world.....that's a lot of concrete...

Joshua Tree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_brevifolia

Fuel stop

back in the Vegas

far left is Stratosphere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratosphere_Las_Vegas

CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME....Downtown LA, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Venice Beach and ADAMS BLVD

Craig and I at Brisbane International after 2 hours sleep waiting to board our flight...(I've done this blog back to front...still trying to work out this blogging, anyway this is the start of our trip)

about to land in the concrete jungle....the clouds must have been low this day because as we were descending tops of the moutains appeared

Inside the Builtmore, it really was a lovely hotel...

Room service YUM

on Hollywood Boulevard, I got a little excited seeing the yellow buses

LA

Hollywood, what a great place, fully recommend to stay here if you are wanting to visit LA, although Beverly Hills would be the first preference

Sunset, this is where the rich and famous like to hangout...

can't remember which famous deisgner whose car this was, but apparently he has numerous cars and this was his personal car park outside his store in Rodeo Drive...pity I didn't get a pic of the store, might answer to who it was....

The house Michael Jackson rented

Arnold Schwarzenegger's new home, he hadn't moved in at this stage

Home of the Hilton's - as you can see the tour around the homes of the stars were a lot of high fences and big gates. As we approached Puff Daddy's house his gate was opening but they must have radioed through...."TOURIST ALERT" because the gate stopped and waited for us to drive off...can't blame them must be very annoying...

Venice Beach

the best boulevard!!!!

this is the building they blow up in Independence Day, was right outside our hotel. We watched Independence Day the other night just to see this building and we were pretty sure that the part where the first last is outside the lift at the hotel she is staying at was the hotel we actually stayed at, looked very familiar, they were filming something there while we staying at the hotel. We also came across a couple of movies being made, our first day in Downtown LA they were filming on 6th Avenue...very exciting...

upcoming blogs..

I am going to each week post more pictures on each place that we visited now that I have time and internet...so watch this "Blog"

Universal Studios - AWESOME!!!

Had a really great day here, got very burnt. I think the highlight at Universal Studios was the tour around the movie sets, shown what they use to create movies and the Simpsons 3D Simulator was the BEST!!!! Oh and the Underwater World show, that was pretty good also!!!

Some of these sets have been used to create various movies and TV series such as Ghost Whisperer and Bruce Almighty (the front of the apartment building where Jim Carrey takes the dog to try and get him to pee on the tree)

Mr Bean

Back to the Future

they were showing us here how they can create floods and also rain (but was to slow to capture the rain part)



I can't think what this was from but it was pretty awesome how they created a movie from this..

this is the set from How the Grinch stole Christmas

this is out of a Kathy Bates movie

this is from the film War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruise. The top of the plane has been cut off not for the film but because they could not get the plane under over passes when delivering it to Universal Studios for filming

this is the cabin out out of the movie The Great Outdoors, it's an oldie but a goodie, if you have not seen this movie you should it's funny and it has John Candy in it, I love John Candy movies...

WARNER BROTHERS - you can see this from Universal Studios

someone didn't want to get wet on the Jurassic Park ride (bigger version of Wild Wild West ride at Movie World)

BUMBLEBEE - yes I am a bit of a loser but I love Transformers, I think the movies are the BEST!!!

One of my top 10 favourite movies Notting Hill, parts of Notting Hill were filmed at Universal Studios

Underwater World show

Disneyland, the Magical Kingdom..

As I have already expressed on how much I loved Disneyland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland_Park_(Anaheim), it truely was the magical kingdom for young boys and girls. Walt Disney http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney sounded like a lovely man who created so many "amazing" and unforgettable characters and stories that hopefully, will be around forever....

the little buses that took us into Disneyland

Lax Airport...next stop LAS VEGAS....