Hollywood!

Hello everybody and welcome once again to the latest installment of my blog. Yet again I have not posted for a while, however this is due to the fact that I have been exceptionally busy over the last few weeks and have not had the time to sit around and post.

I am currently writing this from my hostel in Tokyo Japan. I have bid farewell to the America`s and yesterday I arrived on Asian soil. I will be here for just over a week before I head to Thailand. I think the shortness of my stay in Japan is a wise choice. Not because i do not like it, in fact today has been fascinating, but because it is extortionately expensive. I have spent all today walking around Tokyo, starting early in the morning at the Tokyo fish market where I had a sushi breakfast whilst wandering around. It seems that the Japanese are the French of the sea, they eat anything that swims. My sushi/sashimi breakfast included salmon eggs, which was interesting to　say the least. The food here is great, if unusual. Last night I had octopus and noodle soup, although how I was supposed to eat the soup itself with the chopsticks i`m still trying to work out.

Anyway since I have last posted I have actually spent the bulk of my time in Mexico and the United States. The rest of my time in Mexico was fairly enjoyable, I spent around a week exploring the countryside around the Copper Canyon and found it very relaxing. It was also nice to get away from the hectic surroundings of Mexico City and into a true wilderness.

Following my time in the Copper Canyon I decided to head straight up to the US. The first stop was San Diego where I stayed for a couple of days. San Diego in actual fact suprised me a little. Despite having relatively little for a backpacker to do in the day apart from going to the beach, it had a great nightlife. The Gas Lamp Quarter in particular was really fun and seemed to have a lot going on every evening, although it is a slight pity that all clubs had to close before 2.

Now following San Diego, my next stop was LA where I was set to fly out to Japan. I was looking forward to LA because a friend, Neil, who I met in Columbia and travelled with for a for a few weeks had invited me to stay with him whilst I was in LA. This was great for 2 reasons, firstly I got on really well with Neil and was looking forward to a few nights out, and secondly it saved me the cost of accomodation for the 5 days I was staying. However I did not know how lucky I had got.

Now I was wondering where Neil was staying in LA. Neil is in fact from the UK and had told me that he was going to be in Austin, Texas for the next couple of months working on a film (he works as a production assistant), so when he told me he was actually working in LA I was suprised. I kind of knew that I had struck it　lucky when I was picked up in a Porsche by Neil`s friend who was also named Neil (i`ll call him by his surname Mandt in order not to make this ridiculously confusing). Now on the drive back to his house he informed me that Neil were old friends who had met travelling about 8 years before and that Neil was now living in his house and working for him. Mandt as it turned out is a very succesful Hollywood TV producer and director who owns his own production company and has directed a number of independent films. He told me that he was more than happy for me to crash in his guest house at his place in the Hollywood hills as he was always willing to help a traveller out and because I was a friend of Neil`s. I still find it almost hard to believe. His place was amazing and quickly made up for all the cockroach-riden hotels i`ve stayed in over the last 6 months.

However that was not all. On the second night I was in LA Mandt invited me along to a party at one of his friends places. This party was as it turned out was in the most ridiculous house I have ever seen. The party was great even if I did not really fit in due to the fact that I was neither an exceptionally attractive girl who worked as an actress/??? or an exceptionally wealthy man. That being said the party was great and I attracted quite a lot of attention, if only for being the only man there under the age of 25.... they probably thought I was an actor, or model.

The rest of the time was fairly chilled

Anyway I best be off, I should be heading out in Tokyo soon.

Speak to you all soon

Phil

Speak to you all soon