California

The first thing you notice about California is it feels as if you have been here before (in Greg's case this is true!) because so many movies are set here it feels so familiar. We started the California road trip in San Francisco - this is a really cool city with absolutely everything you need in a city and it has such beautiful parks (even bigger than Central Park). SF is pretty big so we spent 3 days exploring it. We did the usual sights like Golden Gate Bridge, rode the trams, Union Square, China town etc.

From San Francisco we picked up the car and headed to Yosemite National Park. Yosemite is beautiful, so much more than I imagined. The beauty was not the only thing to take us by surprise. We woke up on the first morning to the temperature being a full zero degrees - we have been living in flip flops and shorts for 5 months so this took a bit of adjusting to! (i.e we quickly found a shop that sold gloves and hot tea). Anyway we did some spectacular hikes which also helped to warm the bones. If anyone ever goes to Yosemite I highly recommend staying in the Yosemite Bug - an eco-resort which has an awesome restaurant only serving organic home grown food (very Californian) but having fresh food by the fire in a log cabin each evening after a long days hiking goes very well with the Yosemite experience.

After Yosemite we were back on the coast to start the Highway 1 drive south. First stop Santa Cruz...mmmm..what to say about Santa Cruz. There is a nice part with some lovely houses on the beach but while we were doing our laundry at the laundromat is probably the most scared I have been the whole trip....Santa Cruz is just filled with a lot of people who might have had one too many... Before leaving Santa Cruz we did go the Mystery Spot which is a strange place that has all these weriod things to boggle your mind (see photos).

The next day we left early for the drive through 17 mile drive, Pepple Beach and further south. Another thing you notice about California is the obscene wealth – I thought the UK had its fair share of billionaires but California makes Buckingham Palace look average. We drove along the coast stopping at the look out points along the way and at Pepple Beach Golf Club to watch a few people come down the 18th hole - Greg was drooling.

After a night spent in a town we can't remember the name of we headed to Santa Barbara. This is the kind place you can imagine living - not too big or small, GREAT huge beaches (freezing water). We got to live the typical Californian lifestyle here for a few days. Sunshine, beach, food, drink and very little work (wealthest place I have ever been, least amount of work going on).

After Santa Barbara we hit LA - everyone I know who has been here hates it so I wasn't expecting too much. I actually like LA - its nothing special but its nice. We found a cool hotel on Sunset in Hollywood and were lucky enough to get tickets to Viggo Mortenson and Charlize Theron's movie premier of The Road. Yip we got to see them both, Charlize actually watched the movie sitting behind us and Viggo gave a little talk before the start of the movie. Greg and I still can't believe that the one celeb we see in LA is the only South African one.

We left LA on Thursday for San Diego for 3 days. We got tickets to watch a football game which was cool; cheerleaders, dancers, marching band and all. Totally OTT.

Sunday was my birthday and goodbye to my 20s (SOB) we left SD and stopped in Laguna Beach for a nice lunch and then headed back to LA. We spent the next 2 days driving around Beverly Hills and shopping....and that was California.

Even with all the hybrid driving, vegan eating, low fat soya, extra shot, no sprinkles coffee drinking "I'm in the movie business" people, California is no doubt really beautiful and you can see why nearly 1/4 of the population live here.

Tomorrow we fly to Tokyo, Japan for 2 days and then Hong Kong and mainland China for a month. We no longer have our US mobile number but hopefully our UK ones will work in Asia.

See you on the other side of the world.....

P.S thank you everyone for the birthday messages and sorry I haven't had time to respond to them all XXX