Thursday, September 2, 2010

Los Angeles Passion Day 7

With an extra day in Los Angeles due to our friends who could not secure a flight home today, we decided to fill our time doing what women love most and have passion for; shopping.

As we had a 50% voucher for either the buffet breakfast or buffet lunch in this Los Angeles Airport Hotel, Crowne Plaza International, we chose to experience the breakfast in The Brasserie. With a choice of luscious red strawberries, which were so tempting, we easily enjoyed the buffet breakfast, or more like brunch, at leisure.

Breakfast at The Brasserie at Crowne Plaza International, Los Angeles Airport Hotel

Enjoying a slow and leisurely breakfast

We booked the tickets for The Ocean Express, (Gateway to LA), @ $5 per person with the receptionist and walked to the bus-stop around the corner. As we were turning the corner, we spotted the bus coming. It looked like we were going to miss this bus; which would delay our shopping spree by thirty minutes.

The Ocean Express

Spotted along the route to Manhattan Beach

We decided to make a run for the bus and fortunately for us, the traffic light turned red in our favour and we were able to catch up with the bus. Panting, we boarded the bus, ever so grateful that we did not have to wait half an hour for the next bus.

Manhattan Village

Los Angeles Shopping Mall

We got off the bus at Stop 8, Manhattan Village where we had been on the first night we arrived in Los Angeles. Even though we had been to this Los Angeles shopping mall, just a few days ago, we still managed to do quite a bit of shopping and made some purchases at Macy’s, Victoria’s Secrets and CVS Pharmacy. Boy, did we go on a shopping spree in the six hours we were at Manhattan Village!

Holiday Travel Tips:-
When you are in Macy’s shopping, be sure to inform them that you are from out of town and they will give you 11% off the price. We had made a few purchases in Macy’s amounting to hundreds of dollars on Thursday as well as today and even though we had to produce our ID to make sure the name matched with the name on our credit cards, none of the other staff had taken the trouble to enlighten us about this fact. Fortunately for us, we discovered about this 11% discount through our friends and Christine the cashier was kind enough to check with her manager if she could give us the discount for purchases we had made earlier that day.

Holiday Travel Tips:-
CVS Pharmacy was having a promotion for a number of their products where you could ‘Buy 1, Get 1 free’ or ‘Buy 1, Get Next at 1 cent’ if you have the CVS card. The associates there were very helpful and friendly and we had no problem getting the card to enjoy the great and fantastic discounts and bargains.

LA Shopping Spree

When we were done shopping at Manhattan Village, we proceeded to the bus stop to catch the Ocean Express to El Seguindo, Stop 9. As we explored Plaza El Seguindo, another Los Angeles shopping mall close to Los Angeles Airport, an area where you can find all kinds of great shopping including books, music, electronics, toys, health & beauty, apparel & accessories, sporting goods and restaurants, we managed to find another great place to shop at Dick’s Sporting Goods. Here we spent another few ours as we were, in essence, revamping our wardrobe. Here again, most of the items were on offer and we managed to get some pretty good bargains.

Los Angeles plants

We were also treated to the sight of more Los Angeles plants, such as the beautiful cacti, some of which were flowering. They were so lovely and an pleasing sight to behold.

Plaza El Sequindo, another Los Angeles shopping mall

Was not just women shopping...

Our shopping bounty... overflowing!

Lovely fresh mangoes

And sunflowers to brighten our day

It was almost 2000 hrs when we thought of getting some dinner at Salt Lake Grill. However by the time we made a detour to Borders, there was too little time to have dinner at the Grill as we did not want to miss the last bus back to the Los Angeles Airport Hotel where we were staying. Instead, we went back to the hotel and adjourned to The Brasserie Lounge and enjoyed the cozy atmosphere and the roasted chicken pizza from the wood fire oven. The pizza had a fragrant aroma. Calamari was done just right where you get a beautifully sort and not chewy cuttlefish. The buffalo wings, on the other hand, was so salty that we had to ask them to redo it.

Roasted chicken pizza

Buffalo wings

Calamari

The night was truly memorable as it was really funny how the waitress would only refill water for Lionel when he requested but when Pat requested, she would refill for everyone around the table. This happened three times. We had so much laughter because we were teasing Lionel that the waitress must be mesmerized by his red shirt or could it be that he was exuding more masculine energy that it kept on happening the same way time after time. We must have drunk tons of water that night just to test what the waitress would do. It was really the joke of the whole night and will definitely stay in our memories forever.

The joke of the night

The wood fire oven

The Brasserie where we had our meal

By the time we got back to the room, had our shower and packed our bags and had some discussions, it was almost 0300 hrs before we retired for the night.




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