Spending A Rainy Day In Hollywood

By alantvuong on September 18, 2020

As part of my African Safari trip with Access2Africa Safaris to Durban in March 2018, a buddy and I had a 2 night layover in Los Angeles to break up our long flight to Durban. We arrived in LA late the Thursday night so we only had one full day on the Friday to see LA since our flight to Durban starts the Saturday late afternoon. We wanted to visit one main area in LA as it seems that the city is so spread out. We decided to visit Hollywood and wanted check out all the attractions that we could in one day. It happened to be raining the whole day which varied from light rain to heavy rain, here is what we did.

we stayed at Center Lake Hotel which has since closed down

Getting There

We stayed at Center Lake Hotel (which has since closed) and decided to take a taxi to the Hollywood district. It was raining a lot while we were waiting at the lobby of our hotel and we took a 15 minute regular taxi instead of waiting longer for a wheelchair accessible taxi. We asked our driver if he could just drop us anywhere he thought was a great spot somewhere in the middle of Hollywood. We wanted to start off with lunch but didn’t want to wander so much in the rain.

taking a regular taxi from our hotel to Hollywood

Lunch

We weren’t too picky about where we ate and chose something we both hadn’t had recently and that was close to our taxi drop off. We saw Dubai Sauce Modern Grill which served Mediterranean favorites like gyros, kebabs, shawarmas and more. The restaurant was quite narrow but since it was basically empty, we had no issues getting inside and getting to a table.

we decided to eat at Dubai Sauce Modern Grill

One of the staff members told us about a 2 can dine deal of some delicious shawarma combos which we accepted. Each shawarma came with 2 sides, a drink and their signature Dubai sauce, which I remembered liking. By the time we were done eating, the rain wasn’t coming down as hard so we decided to get back on the street.

shawarma combo meals

Walk Of Fame

The Hollywood Walk of Fame comprises of more than 2700 brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Holly Boulevard and 3 blocks of Vine Street. The stars have names of people who made achievements in the entertainment industry. Since it was still slightly raining, we only looked at stars withing a couple streets as we didn’t want to get soaked while trying to read all the names. We wouldn’t even have time to see all 2700 stars if it was nicer weather, as we were ready to go somewhere inside.

did manage to see some of the stars

Museum Of Illusions

We happened to go by the Museum Of Illusions and thought that we would love to see what it was about. We asked a staff member about prices and about wheelchair accessibility and since the Upside Down House Exhibit wasn’t available to us, she gave both of us free admission. The Museum Of Illusions features over 30 3D art illusions that produce eye-popping pics, inspired by art, cartoon, movies and more.

on a ledge

There is an elevator so we got to see both floors. We both thought this museum was quite awesome and the art illusions really did look amazing. One illusion made it look like my buddy was about to fall over the ledge of a tall building. Another one made it look like we were floating on a wood piece beside a sinking Titanic ship.

Titanic

My favorite one was where my buddy and another guest was taking a pic inside a room of a house. It made the 2 of them look different sizes from each other. The whole museum was quite accessible and we did have a lot of fun and probably visited over an hour.

how did they do that?

Madame Tussauds

Madonna

With it getting a bit late, we wanted to visit 1 more attraction before heading back to our hotel. Only a 5 minute stroll from the Museum of Illusions, we went to Madame Tussauds wax museum, which was still on Hollywood Blvd. I have been to many Madame Tussauds locations around the world and knew what to expect.

Forrest Gump

The Hollywood location is 3 floors and has over 125 wax figures of famous celebrities, political figures, athletes and local recognizable faces. This place was really wheelchair accessible and the both of us had fun taking pics with various props and wax figures of Madonna, Michael Jackson, ET, Spider-man and more.

Psycho movie set

Even though we had only 1 full rainy day in Hollywood, we felt that we did get to see a great amount with the Walk of Fame, Museum of Illusions and Madame Tussauds wax museum. The attractions were wheelchair accessible and I would definitely have to come back on a nicer day to check out the neighborhood a little more thoroughly.