QH SENSATIONS
Words and selected images by Lynsey Riach
Los Angeles, California… the City of Angels. Watch your step – under your feet the pink stars of Hollywood Boulevard stretch as far as your legs can walk, and you never know whose star you’ll stomp on next. Welcome to Tinseltown.
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os Angeles is known to be a city of contrast – glitz and glam meets grime and gangster. Downtown L.A. has rough streets, but as a tourist if you base yourself in Hollywood then you’ll only see what the movies want you to see (minus any CGI effects). And with a new direct route from Doha on Qatar Airways (16 hours, 25 minutes – their longest one) you’ll arrive into LAX, shades on and ready to feel all kinds of famous. Start by stretching your legs and hike up the movie star-frequented Runyon Canyon which sits smack-
bang in the middle of Hollywood. At the top you can snoop into palatial homes of the rich and famous (if you zoom your camera enough that is) as panoramic views stretch over L.A. and beyond to the Pacific. Staying at the W Hotel, this place is hip and happening, full of beautiful people. We felt like a couple of extras in a music video as we soaked up the weekly pool-party. As the sun set behind the Hollywood Hills straight ahead of us, we headed on out to explore more of the local area – cafés, restaurants and shops are plentiful. We stopped at Pinks Famous Hotdogs mostly because there was a line round the block and, mostly, because my husband loves to try street-food and this was something only America could pull off. Each dog is named after a celebrity so he opted for a frankfurter named after swimmer Ryan Lochte complete with Olympic onion rings – mega! The next day we walked down skinny-tall palm treelined avenues gawping at the great and gorgeous homes before reaching the iconic Paramount Pictures for a tour of what makes the movies so magical. Whisked from set to street all with an iPad that shows the actual finished product, prepare to
be impressed by the transformation made on quite a small (and Hollywood’s oldest) lot. They even film ocean scenes in the car-park here. Think your fifteen minutes of fame is right about now? Well this is your opportunity to get on TV thanks to free tickets to shows such as Ellen and The Tonight Show. And if that’s not enough, hop aboard the TMZ tour bus that takes you round the homes of the rich and reality ‘famous’. Stalker favourite… As night fell, we wanted extra glam so we headed to The Mondrian hotel for dinner. Seated next to a British boy-band, we gazed over the twinkling lights that pull so many to believe they too can be the next big thing (every waiter will tell you so). For a little more of California, it’s worth hiring a car and heading out of the city and up to the scenic mountains in Calabasas. Made famous by those Kardashians, this town is only 20 minutes away from L.A. and takes a sweeping road down to surf-town Malibu. Stop for some tacos at Café Habana and watch as local surfers walk on by, while A-listers chow down behind their oversized
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