Jason Harley's Corner of the Web

God bless us all... or should that be 'help' us all. As non residents we landed in Houston, Texas home of George W, and immediately felt the force of 'Homeland Security' as we had to wait 2 ?hours in the immigration line. This meant we missed our connecting flight to LA but after we answered all the questions and reassured them that we were not terrorists, we caught a later flight onwards.

Big Sur, California 23rd - 26th September 2004

A night in the Backpackers Paradise Hostel in LA, and we picked up our hire car to play Thelma and Louise for the week. Several wrong turns later and a few ' Why are all the cars driving on the wrong side... Oooppps it's us!' we hit Route 1, from LA to San Francisco, the scenic coastal road. We decided to spend 3 days and 2 nights making the journey. The first days drive included Malibu Beach (Baywatch anyone), Ventura, Santa Barbara and onto San Louis Obispo for the night. The venue of California Polytechnic, it has a busy night life... so we joined in ending up in a locals house drinking beer till 3am.

With a hangover and a quick reminder that it was Zoe's days to drive, I relaxed in the passenger seat as we made our way up Big Sur to Hearst Castle. Built and owned by the late Newspaper Magnet, William Randolph Hearst, he spent most of his living years designing and building this massive structure on a hill near the California coast. It's now impossible to value the art and castle but an amazing insight into what happens when one person has too much money! More information can be found here Click Here for Hearst Castle Web Site

We arrived in Monterey, and spent our first night in a shared dorm (16 other people and no-one snored). At Monterey they have one of the best aquariums in America and as luck would have it 10 days perviously they had put a Great White Shark on view. The only Great White in captivity, the aquarium was packed full of excited kids and me all hoping to get a look. The previous record for a captive Great White was 15 days and they have recently passed that and the shark remains healthy. To see the latest Click Here for Monterey Aquarium Web Site and the latest news on the Great White Shark.

San Francisco 26th September - 2nd October 2005

What a truly amazing city. San Francisco has everything. It's small enough to explore, the restaurants are world famous, the bars are excellent and there is a really nice feel to the place. We headed for a Baseball game, the Oakland Athletics (www oaklandathletics.com) were playing the Seattle Mariners and for our first game it was a classic with the home team getting the winning hits 6-5 in the last innings to send everyone home singing.

The Green Tortoise Hostel provided us with a small apartment on Broadway so we settled in to a place that felt like home. In addition, the weekly talent night meant I had a chance to do some International Comedy. The hostel provides free beer so the audience were not there to listen to the singers, musicians or comics but I got them to listen and got laughing with some new material on traveling as well as some of my old favorite material. I also did a gig at a venue in a laundry called Brainwashed. They put 30 comedians on over 2 hours so obviously no room for any audience ?a good night all the same.

San Francisco has so much to offer such as the site of the famous prison Alcatraz (click here for official website) of which the tour was excellent. Home of Al Capone, the Birdman of Alcatraz and George 'Machine Gun' Kelly to name a few. The tour walks through the escape attempts (only one was successful and Clint Eastwood starred in the film 'Escape from Alcatraz').

A big thanks to our friend from Guatemala, Todd, helped out and made sure we saw the best of the city by driving us around on a couple of days and taking us to nice restaurants and other secret places?Cheers Todd! Will return the favor in London one day.... but if you think I'm driving!

Yosemite National Park 2nd - 4th October 2004

The long way back to LA via another hire car meant that we could take in a few days in Yosemite National Park and stay in the American wilderness where the only sound you can here is screaming American children demanding that their fathers catch them a chipmunk. We met up with a couple from Bristol and spent a whole day exploring the Glacier Point, Redwood Forests and Yosemite Outback Village (were you can buy a Wilderness Burger!)

Los Angeles 5th - 9th October 2004

America is all about size, choice and value. So this place is a nightmare for Zoe as she changes her mind for any reason and can take half an hour to decide if she wants ice in a drink... In America it can take her 4 hours just to sort out the salad dressing... the choices are overpowering for example:

Soup or salad?

Which dressing? Blue cheese, ranch, thousand, honey and mustard, vinaigrette?

Which soup? Lentil, spinach, vegetable, cream of tomato, hot or cold, what color bowl, big or small spoon?

How would you like your meat cooked?

Rare, medium, medium well done, well done, charred?... And will that be in a microwave, oven, grilled, broiled, roasted, clay pit, by welders touch or should we drop it in a volcano?

Fries, mash, garlic mash, cheese mash, or baked potatoes?

ENOUGH WITH THE QUESTIONS AND BRING ME SOME FOOD! I've coped by saying 'Yeah How ever it comes', Zoe however has to start choosing her dinner at 7.30am!

Anyway we've made it to Hollywood and did Universal studios where we met up with friends Gerry and Stefano who we originally met in Peru The rides and tours were out of this world but the highlight had to be meeting Shrek!

We only really had time to do Universal and a city tour to see some famous things and places so I now know: where George Michaels toilet are(!); the place where Hugh Grant was caught in the act; the place where River Phoenix died; the hotel from Pretty Woman; Pinks (the hot dog stand where Bruce Willis proposed to Demi More); the Playboy mansion (I RANG THAT BELL BUT THEY WOULDN'T LET ME IN); Sunset Strip; Walk of Fame; the house from Fresh Prince of Bel Air; the Peach Pit from Beverly Hills 90210; the homes of Brad and Jennifer (He was away filming but she wouldn't let me in either), Tom Hanks, Jim Carey..... it goes on forever.

Anyway away from the star life and onto the quiet life in Fiji for the next 10 days, the flight leaves tonight and I hope the Fijians don't even care who Brad Pitt is, because sometimes life has to be about more than other peoples fame and money, simple things such as sun, sea and diving!