It Was All Happening Here ...
... as illustrated by a streetmap extract, here:-
The hotel was bottom left; the meeting was in the tower block, a rhomboid marked "H" (for Helipad). Between the two was an exciting bus station and an underground railway (subway) station. It is probably fair to say that the bus and underground stations were not too exciting for No 3 son, but he did send a stunning photograph of a bus ...... which looks even more exciting when enlarged.The weather was damp and miserable. Just like back in the UK.
No 3 son has been on a business trip to Los Angeles, leaving on Tuesday 4th Feb and landing back at Heathrow on Thursday 6th. After a brief respite "chez lui" he joined the rest of the family on Friday 7th. On Monday 10th the lad returns from the weekend "do", going straight to Gatport Airwick for a short business trip to Berlin.
As for the office block ...
French conglomerate Vivendi Universal sold the building to CarrAmerica Realty Corporation and Beacon Capital Partners in 2003, for $190 million. CarrAmerica have owned 80% of this building, while Vivendi and NBCUniversal owned the remainder. The building was sold to Broadway Partners in December 2006. The firm lost control of the building in March 2008 in an auction to a partnership between Normandy Real Estate Partners and Five Mile Capital Partners for $306 million after Broadway failed to service its massive debt load.
On October 3, 2013, it was reported by the Los Angeles Times that NBCUniversal's parent company Comcast Corporation had purchased the building for about $420 million.
No 3 son had business with Universal (Film) Studios.The block is called 10UCP (Universal City Plaza); which is the "lot" where Universal makes films; and the associated Theme Park.10UCP is centre left.
The Theme Park is as revolting as you would expect. There are mildly interesting bits, like a re-creation of part of Noo Yoick ...... the cars from the Flintstones ...... and there IS a Red Carpet!To avoid utter exhaustion, you can ride round in an official tour ...... which looks like fun.Of outstanding delight is the huge range of brightly coloured catering outlets, selling delightful (?) brightly coloured fast food. The enormous chocolate coloured blob below serves huge chocolate coloured blobs of stuff.The mind boggles ...... and the pocket is easily emptied.A basic day ticket is £87.
Oh, fbb nearly forgot. You can also enjoy Super Nintendo World ...... and this joy is included in the price. And you could even enjoy a meeting with Mario and Yoshi.
But we must explore the huge and surprisingly empty bus station.The entrance to the underground is equally, erm, mysterious ...... lacking any indication of what is down below.
There is plenty to explore tomorrow.
By way of a taster, here is the Los Angeles transport network map.You could click on the map to enlarge it - but it would be huuuuge.
P.S. No 3 son also sent this picture, also of a bus in LA.fbb spent at least 15 minutes trying to find out the route of the 38, as snapped passing Universal - or so fbb thought.
And yesterday's three-way birthday tea?One octogenarian and one nearly ditto enjoy the cake with "8" and "0" candles.Praise God for His faithfulness and His gift of a joyous family.
Next Universal blog : Mon 10 Feb
No comments:
Post a Comment