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As we bid adieu to San Francisco, it was time to head to the City of Angels, Los Angeles.

With only 3 full days available, we decided to rent a car to save time on public transport, and keep our core itinerary to a very distilled 3:

• Warner Brothers Studios Tour
• Disneyland
• Universal Studios

If we had time, we’ll include side attractions such as the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Santa Monica Boulevard etc. Turned out, time was on our side.

Hollywood Boulevard

This is where Jimmy Kimmel tapes his shows, right along Hollywood Boulevard. Where’s Guillermo? Coincidentally, Matt Damon’s (with whom Kimmel’s had a long-standing “feud”) Star was right opposite of Kimmel’s studio.

To the extreme left is the Chinese Theatre, where Happy Hogan was injured in a blast in Iron Man 3. Cool huh!

Disneyland

Aahhh.. Disneyland, a place where adults and children alike fight for rides.

Of course, one of the main events would be the daily Disneyland Parade along Main Street, which happens every evening, where many Disney characters come together in a song and dance float parade!

Warner Bros Studio Tour

When we were selecting our hotel in LA, we sort of knew that our highlights would be Warner Bros, Universal and Disney. With that in mind, we went about searching for a hotel that would be near one of these spots.

Finally, we settled on Tangerine Hotel in Burbank, literally a 10 minute walk to Warner Brothers Studio. The hotel also had a Subway across the street, as well as awesome mexican food.

The hotel staff were also great, and though a pretty small hotel, they had free wi-fi, a small pool, and free parking. It was cosy and awesome. So a shoutout to Tangerine, and if any of you are looking to staying in Burbank, it’s a damn fine choice!

Filming in progress. Looks like shit just hit the fan! And we found the culprit below! Check out the identical cars, pre and post accident.

As we went along various sites of the Studio lots, we were introduced to a lot of facade buildings. You could only film from the outside, and they are made of plywood, or something.

Last but not least, one of the most loved TV shows in the history of television!

The set of Central Perk!

Now, here we come to the part where I explain the title of this post. Right at the end of the WB Studio Tour, our very friendly guide asked if we were keen to be a part of the Conan audience that night. He had some standby tickets to give out, and he said chances were pretty good that we could get on.

We weren’t diehard Conan fans (or even casual fans to be honest), so we wanted to know who the guests were.

He said five words, two of which blew my mind:

JJ Abrams and Jesse Eisenberg

Holy shit JJ Abrams! I didn’t mind Eisenberg either! So we snatched the tickets and proceeded to pee my pants in excitement.

But as you can guess from the title, when we turned up at the allocated time at the allocated place, this lady said that all the seats have been taken up.

Man, I was sadder than Sad Keanu.

Universal Studios Hollywood

Brushing off the disappointment, we drove on to our next destination.

We first went on the Universal Studios Studio Tour. The Tour (video hosted by Jimmy Fallon) brought us around the studio lot, and showed us some of the sets including Bates Motel below, as well as the actual plane crash set from War of the Worlds.

The tour also included many interactive elements where we were shown rain simulation, flood simulation, earthquake in a train station platform, as well as in immersive 360 King Kong experience. It really was one of the more interesting aspects at Universal.

Then, all of a sudden, as if everyone knew who we were, we had bunches of very strange people come take pictures with us.

See what I mean?

Oh, a quick tip. If you’re looking to have a good time, shell out a bit more for the “front of line” passes. Really saves a lot of time and energy from queuing!

Santa Monica Pier

Last but not least, we snuck some time out to visit Santa Monica Pier!

What a perfect and scenic way to end the LA leg of the tour!

Watch out for the Epic Finale to the USA Triplogy – Las Vegas.

This will be a post filled with pictures, and will be part I of III of the recent US trip I took with the wife.

I’ve divided them into the different states we went to: San Francisco, Los Angeles and Vegas.

First Stop: San Francisco!

San Francisco’s known for its rolling hills, cool weather, golden gate bridge and of course, Alcatraz. But for me, it’s also where Google and Facebook are headquartered. So these are all the must-sees!

This is the lesser known cousin to the Golden Gate Bridge, simply called Bay Bridge. Still magnificent and pretty awesome. Actually, anything’s pretty awesome as long as you’re on holiday.

Even hotdogs.

We visited an Atas chocolate factory. We know it’s atas because it has a silent “T” in its name.

Pronounced Cho.

Along the way to Pier 39, the wife started stalking making friends with seagulls. The one on the right didn’t seem too pleased.

We finally made our way to Pier 39, and it seems to be our lucky day, cos the decks were filled with sealions. It is apparently the most visited location in San Francisco. We did a rough count of the sealions and there were at least 200 of them.

From Pier 39, we could also see the Bay Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, as well as Alcatraz from afar. After taking so many shots of the sealions, it was time to take a break from that, and instead take a selfie!

San Francisco’s also famous for its cable cars, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark, and is a major tourist attraction. So of course we rode it.

After seeing some of the more famous sites in the city, it was time to turn geeky. First, we headed toward 1 Hacker Way:

It was private property, so taking a picture with this sign was sort of as good as we got. No sign of zucks, and and we tried to peek into the office lobby, we got no likes from the security either.

Next, we headed to the decidedly more fun GooglePlex. It was also private property, so we couldn’t get in to pee in the building toilet, but at least they placed something out in the yard for us to have fun with.

We even spotted a dude wearing Google Glass, and the wife had a picture taken with him. And thereafter, he promptly said “OK Glass, take a picture.” And now, this guy has a random snap of my wife. Hmmm.

We then totally blended in with the Stanford crowd. Just a couple of hip-hop majors.

The next day, we passed the Golden Gate Bridge on the way to Muir Woods.

Muir woods is the same woods where Caesar made his home at the end of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”. It was enchanting.

After admiring nature, it was time to drink some grapes! Off to Napa Valley!

Last but not least, we had to definitely go visit Alcatraz Island. Located 2.4km off the shore of San Francisco, the prisoners could hear sounds of party floating through the waters into their dark cells.

14 attempts at escape were made from 36 prisoners. All were accounted for, except 5. They are listed as “missing and presumed drowned”. In my heart of hearts, I hope they made it.

And there you have it. The gist of our San Francisco leg. This leg of the trip was made possible because of my wonderful cousin Joanna, who so kindly let us bunk in with her in Foster City.

Thank you so much!

Check out Part II of the Triplogy, titled “The Conan that wasn’t, and other adventures in LA“