Ghostly Tinsel Town, California Wine Country, London Sky High, and Asia Downtown Golf

Sit back. Grab a drink. We’re going to a Hollywood not many know about.

We share how to get on top of London.

Then we play golf in downtown Seoul, South Korea.

And then we sip and chat with a California winemaker who is also a nurse.

Welcome to our first podcast episode of Undercover Jetsetter.

Ghosts of Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift

We begin in Hollywood. Like we have done throughout our episodes, we try to take you off the beaten path. In other words, we’re not going to drive you to crowded tourist traps. No, we know you have curious minds.

Also, here is one of the changes you won’t see in our upcoming podcasts. In this episode, we tease you by asking you to guess where we are. Could you have guessed this location before we told you? Some of our friends, who live in or near Southern California, were able to quickly identify Tinseltown.

Our first stop, was the Roosevelt hotel. It is famous for the ghosts of Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. Both actors frequented the Roosevelt during their careers.

The Roosevelt has two rooms – one for Marilyn and one for Montgomery — that you can book.

Marilyn’s is Suite 1200 that is poolside where she frequented. Guests say the full-length mirror there has illuminated her ghost.

Whether you see her ghost or not, the poolside has the Marilyn Monroe bridge that is a throwback to the 1950s. You feel like you are sitting in the golden age of Hollywood.

Montgomery allegedly haunts Room 928 where he has reportedly been seen playing a trumpet, walking the hallways, and reciting his lines from From Here To Eternity when he stayed at the hotel for three months rehearsing for the 1953 classic.

You will notice in the video version of this Undercover Jetsetter episode that we had fun pretending we saw the ghosts — even though we were the ghosts. We are fortunate enough to have hair color that resembles both of them.

We used video tricks and techniques to portray Marilyn and Montgomery that we wrote in our book, TV Studio in Your Hand.

And as you will see in future episodes, we bring you to other ghostly haunts, that seem to attract many visitors.

But the Roosevelt Hotel — like most of Hollywood — is more than just ghosts. It has incredible food.

25° is a burger joint unlike any other. First, you craft your own burger using high quality meats, cheeses, and freshly grown vegetables. The sweet potato fries are out of this world.

And then they have adult milkshakes.

One of them combines Guinness with chocolate. Be careful with these.

First, you don’t taste the alcohol.

Second, they can add pounds to your waist line.

Sure, Hollywood and Southern California gets a bad rap for being costly, crowded, liberal, and woke.

Still, Los Angeles is one of the great food towns. We talk about the many cultures here that are the foundation of the culinary scene. Hollywood also attracts many celebrity chefs. It also helped start the innovative food truck craze. Many people laud San Francisco for modern meals on wheels, but Los Angeles can make that claim too

You’ll notice that we shot our intros at The Grove. This is a shopping and dining district about 10 miles from downtown LA.

It is loaded with great restaurants, a farmers’ market, shopping, and also theaters. We suggest you try The Grove as well.

Next, we take you to London.

Actually, we get on top of London.

We ride the London Eye. This is a Ferris wheel with dozens of glass enclosed units.

We suggest if you’re going to London for the first time, book a ride on the London Eye for your first stop. You get a Birdseye view of the British capital.

You should also book a reservation on the London Eye, so you can enjoy a wine or food tasting while you are enjoying your tour above this great capital city.

Refining your golf game in a hotel underground

Next, we descend upon Seoul, South Korea. We will have other episodes giving you an overview of this bustling city that has so much American influence. But here we want to talk about golf in downtown Seoul. No, there are no golf courses in the downtown area. But there are plenty of driving ranges.

We hit the driving range below ground in the Seoul Marriott. And it was fabulous. It is fully automated so you don’t even have to place your ball on the tee.

Now you understand why there are so many professional South Korean golfers who flourish either on the PGA, LPGA, European, and Asian tours. John saw the effect. Even after being in Asia for three weeks, he was able to come home and shoot in the 70s again thanks to his practice sessions in downtown Seoul.

We take you from Seoul to another one of our Undercover Jetsetter obsessions – – wine. We go to Napa to the J. Rickards Winery.

Nurse who grows the best wine grapes in Napa.

We get a chance to meet Jim Rickard’s, and his wife, Eliza, who are the forces behind this booming winery and vineyard.

They are also entertaining and fun while letting us in on their fascinating story.

Besides being a winemaker, Jim is also a registered critical care nurse. He was a marine medic in the Vietnam war and has remained in the healthcare field. But as he admits, he always had a yearning for farming.

Eliza has worked in the wine industry with Kendall Jackson.

Together, they have grown some of the best grapes in the Napa Valley. Don’t take our word for it. They sell to neighboring big name wine makers — although we’re not allowed to tell you which wine makers.

And Jim and Eliza make their own wines as well from these great grapes.

We tried their Bordeaux style Cabernet Sauvignon, which was fabulous.

In a future episode, we explore their winemaking technique of resurrecting old vines to make new wines that are spectacular.

Keep it tuned here. We will be taking you to many more places.

Susan Anzalone and John Daly are the Co-Creators and Co-Hosts of Undercover Jetsetter, a show on travel, food, wine, mixology and, of course, golf. They show you how to jet set the world and at home. They also co-authored the book, The TV Studio in Your Hand: How to Shoot, Edit & Deliver the Easy Way on Your iPhone. Join them for lighthearted fun, easy tips and hacks you can use no matter where you are.