Friday, August 9, 2013

Hollywood & outlet shopping in LA - Part 2 (USA west coast summer trip 2013)

Hollywood Walk of Fame


The next day, we went to explore the area around our hotel and took some pics at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There were many tourists around (like us) all snapping away at the different stars on the walkway lol.

Here's me and Limin posing at one of the stars, do we look like the Olsen twins (below)? Lol.


source: reuters

Oh actually i wanted to do one lying down (like the pose which Scarlet Johannson did below) but was abit paiseh to do it so didnt do it in the end hah!


source: laineygossip

Hollywood is a very touristy area so there were many impersonators who dressed up as stars and took pics with tourists (note to tourists: its not free!)

Spotted a Johnny Depp impersonator dressed out in his Pirates of the Caribbean outfit.


We tried to kiss this Johnny Depp but he wasn't very interested.

Limin and I took one with Shrek too!

Wonder Woman and Super Girl

The famous TCL Chinese Theatre (formerly Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and Mann's Chinese Theatre), home to many premieres as well as birthday parties, corporate events and Academy Awards ceremonies.




Had dinner at the Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar which served really good beer (we loved the mike's hard lemonade) and finger food like buffalo wings, fries and they had the most appetizing celery and carrot sticks. The celery sticks were huge and crunchy!


It seems Americans are very into basketball, the customers in the restaurant were all cheering on one of the basketball teams and very into the game.

Mike's hard lemonade - this tasted so yummy! Wish they sold this here in Singapore!

american food = huge portions!


Ontario Mills Outlet

Time for outlet shopping! We had a good breakfast at the hotel before going out, its not a huge spread but i really liked the hot bagels and the apple cinnamon oatmeal mixed with applesauce.


Selection of milk, cranberry sauce and orange juice (mind you all the juices are super fresh not those cordial type!)

Selection of pastries and bagels

loved these tubes of Philadelphia cream cheese which was very handy for spreading on the hot bagels

The staff who was helping at the breakfast area was so warm and friendly, i really liked her. She would greet the guests every morning and asked us if we needed any help. It was nice seeing her every morning for the few days that we stayed there, she made our stay at Orchid Hollywood suites a really pleasant one.

We booked a shuttle van to bring us to the Ontario Mills outlet through Taketours because it was quite far away.  The shuttle cost USD 58 per pax which was a little expensive and there were other outlet malls we could have gone however i chose this mall because of one main reason:  it has my favourite Abercrombie and Hollister outlets!!

Found out about this outlet mall through this link: http://www.have-fun-in-the-usa.com/Abercrombie-Fitch-Outlet-Stores.html which lists all the a&f and hollister outlets in US.  FYI, there arent many outlet malls in the states which carries Hollister and Abercrombie so this link really came in handy ^^

Limin sat up in the front with the tour guide (though technically the tour guide just drive us to the mall and back to the hotel. She was however quite interesting and pointed out some tourist sights along the way)

After a1nhour plus ride, we finally reached the Ontario Mills Outlet. Time to hit the shops!!

 Finally i saw my beloved Abercrombie outlet *loves*


Hollister outlet

As a side note, after shopping at the Hollister/A&F outlets, i find that while the items are very cheap at the outlets (at least 30-50% cheaper than normal retail outlets), the selection is very limited and its mostly old stock.  Like for the hollister jeans, they only carried boot cut and no skinny jeans at all :( So while I thought i would buy alot of stuff, i ended up buying less items than expected. You can get some really good deals on basic tank tops though, got a few of them at less than USD 7-8 per top!

Coach items on sale- at first i thought the prices are not that cheap, dunno whats the fuss. Then i realized after a while, there was an additional 50% off whatever prices were listed so for example, the above Coach card/coin pouches were going at USD 24.50! I think in Singapore, the cost would be at least SGD 80 and above if im not wrong??

Carrying our bags of purchases after leaving the outlet mall

my shopping haul

Next stop: Vegas!

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