Hark! It's MJ's star! Grauman's Chinese Theater and a Visit to Willy Wonka's at Sweets!

We hit up Mel's Diner for what we planned on being dessert, but had dinner instead. It would be nearly impossible to fit both dinner and dessert in one sitting. Mel's is nice and nostalgic, but kinda pricey, but they have a bar they call the Celebrity Bar and they seem to have a lengthy happy hour. Although I've noticed a lot of places around here have a 4 or 5 hour happy hour, which is pretty decent it you want to get your drink on.

After dinner we walked up Hollywood Boulevard and for the first time since being here we found ourselves in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. This was kinda monumental because for one, I didn't even know that's where the theatre was, and two, every time we neared the area it was partitioned off from foot traffic because some hollywood-schmooze-fest was going on.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Isn't it magnificent!?

First I noticed Michael Jackson's star. And yes I took pictures because of all the stars it is the one worth looking like a total tourist for! I didn't linger too long though. At that moment his star was seeing a lot of love.

Someone had just been doing a spiderman-esque pose in front of the star before I scooted in to take this picture.   (Long Sigh)  - Be still my beating heart!!!

So Ryan and I moved along to the front of the Chinese Theatre. There were many cement hand and foot prints. We tried our feet in a few of them. By the way, Walter Matthau had huge feet! A lot of the lady actresses of the 40s had very tiny feet. It was very neat to see all the cement imprints left by all the old classic film stars.

To one side was a wishing well. There was a plaque in the front of it with a quote by Marilyn Monroe. To paraphrase, it said something to the affect of how when she was young she would try her feet in all the celebrity foot prints and how magical and wonderful this was to her. She would throw a coin into this bubbly little plot of water and make wishes.

Now to the other side of the theater was an entrance into a shopping center. A lot of things were closed because it was late, but we made our way into the most delicious little candy store called Sweets. We looked around a bit. They have every variety of candy, and a lot of old school nostalgic stuff. Stuff that you can't find just anywhere, except for maybe online. Like Jolly Ranchers in stick form. This is how my brother and I would by them and Pelletier's Convenient Store when we were still in grade school.

Anyway, Ryan and I  didn't get in too deep before we set eyes on a Willy Wonka section of the store. This is where we spent the remainder of our time. It was like being a kid in adult form.

A very animated store clerk told us all about the chocolates and spoke of Willy Wonka as if he were a real person, with a real factory. But come on! We all know the factory belongs to Charlie now. I mean didn't Willy teach him all his candy making secrets? Wasn't that the whole point of the golden ticket? And speaking of golden, they did have giant golden eggs for sale. There was also a giant white chocolate "sweet tooth." It looked good, and was the color of a tooth (not too white). Plus there were all kinds of neat chocolate bars and the truffles were quite something.

We rushed home and ate our loot

We bought some jacks (not that we play, but it's something special between Ryan and I), and I got some taffy. Ryan got a Wonka Bar, and we both got the same truffle - the Tropical Tide Pool Prize, which was a selection from the "Travel Trunk Collection." There were other collections too like the Observatory Collection, Square Sweets That Look 'Round, Kaleidoscope Collection, Stars Collection, and Magic Fudge.

The Tropical Tide Pool Prize Truffle - deeeelish!

See how great this bad boy looks on the inside. This truffle has a white chocolate outer shell, a milk chocolate inner shell, and some divine tasting  berry-ish concoction. 

We were told it was three berries that made up the center of this delightful truffle. The very kind clerk also told us that the flavors of the three berries gave some people the impression that the chocolate actually changes flavors. I will say that is mildly true. It's not as if it goes from lemon, to strawberry, to garlic, but there is a lot of flavor in here and it's fabulous!