Day 11, 29062008, Los Angeles

Two locations that we went to today: La Brea Tar Pits and Griffith Observatory

In the day we went to La Brea Tar Pits. Los Angeles archaeologists discovered fossils of animals from long ago right within the pits.


This depicts how it is believed for extinct animals to be stuck in the tar and therefore died in there.


Leg bones of the Eagle Hawk.


Here you could see archaeologists at work.


I don't know how they found out about this one.



The species of lion that was larger than the modern lion.




This is some equipment that we could pull up the knobs to feel how it is like to be trapped in tar.


Went into the theatre theater for some movie clip.


Walked around outside the museum, and there were still tar pits around that we could see...and of course smell. So smelly.

This tar pit was bubbling. It was probably too hot.


And I left behind my paw prints.


A larger tar pit.


By the way, I learnt today that the well-known extinct animal that we always call the sabre-tooth tiger is not a tiger. It's a cat. The actual name should be sabre-tooth cat.

Right beside the museum is the LACMA.


At the entrance of LACMA there were a lot of lamp posts.

Just too many.



And the shadow of one of the posts looked like E.T.


What I admire about car laws in the U.S. is that you can personalise your license plate. And I mean it. Not just SGH 8888 A or what. At a much higher price I think.

They can put heart symbols on their plates!


Some car I saw on the freeway had TRACY on its license plate. I should just put ERINA if I ever own a car. Muahaha. Yea right.

And over here you don't have to put the license plate on both front and rear of the car. Just either side will do.

Here's a unique-looking car we spotted. The rear wheels are partially covered by the car body which is not common.



For lunch we went to Boston Chicken which was quite near our apartment if we drove but damn far if we walked. Haha. And it is superb I'm telling you. Really damn nice. Just a tad oily. And five of us can share a four-person meal and that cost us about USD 5+ each. We saved quite an amount compared to eating elsewhere.


After lunch we made our way to Griffith Observatory. It's where we can learn more about astronomy stuff.


And from there we saw the Hollywood Sign!!!! Yeay!! Finally got to see it. I'm in Hollywood!



There were grooves on the ground indicating the orbits of the different planets. Pluto's orbit was still there.


Foucault's pendulum. I saw another of this in Italy last year. However for this, a needle at the bottom of the pendulum will knock the pins you see on the top of the picture over every ten minutes if I'm not wrong.


Periodic Table.



Ah gu gu-ing Einstein. I don't know what his pose was supposed to mean.


I'm spinning Jupiter!


Soon it was sunset. A very pretty sight against the Hollywood Sign.





Galileo and several other astronomical greats on the a statue at the front of the observatory.


That's it for today!