Friday 20 February 2015

LA Story


It's interesting how this trip is reinforcing the basics rules of travel; do lots of research, don't try to do too much, sooner or later you will always leave your swimming costume in the bathroom, and never believe entirely what other travellers tell you.  So it has been with LA which, from everything I'd heard, I expected to be a smog-ridden, freeway-latticed sprawling conurbation with little soul, heart or centre.



After a day in Palm Beach (above) and a couple of days in Koreatown, in the heart of the city, I'm happy to report that yes, there are freeways everywhere, is is pretty smoggy and there definitely isn't one centre.  But leaving those factors aside, the city I've discovered has been very different to what I was expecting.

For a start, its the most ethically diverse city I've ever been too.  There's not just a Chinatown but a Little Tokyo, Thai Town, Koreatown and Little Armenia.  We've eaten freshly-baked Bungeoppang in a Korean supermarket




munched on wonderfully-cheesey borek in an Armenian bakery, and ordered up pad thai from a Thai foodstall in the 19th century Grand Central Market.


We've shopped in a Korean mall, which sold everything from traditional hanbok dresses to second-hand Korean books.  It also had a branch of Daiso, Japan's equivalent of a poundshop - which sold a dizzying array of things from kitchenware to pencil cases, make-up, gardening tools and stationery, with almost everything for a $1.50.  I almost had to be carried out.

Perhaps I've got more of a sense of place because we've walked a lot - something Angelinos, and many visitors, don't tend to do.  The pavements are quiet, many lined with statuesque palm trees, and the high-rise skyline I was expecting just isn't really there (with the exception of the financial district).  Instead we've found the original hispanic pueblo, just across from Union Station, where tribal dancers were - literally - shaking their tailfeathers,



spectacular views from the little-known (and free) viewing deck on the 37th floor of City Hall - we were the only people there



and a surprising amount of rather lovely period architecture.


But there have been moments of reassuringly predictable bonkersness too, most notably at our second hotel, the Line, currently LA's hippest address.  This is a hotel where two of the bedroom walls are plain, exposed cement.  The third wall looks identical, but its actually specially designed wallpaper, made to match the...er, cement. The ceiling covering in the huge lobby is hundreds of crumpled t-shirts carefully pieced together and the restaurant menu doesn't have any words on it, just pictures. Could it be any more LA?

Three days isn't long, but LA struck me as a multi-faceted, multi-cultural city that in some ways is quite under-rated.  I wish we'd had time to do Hollywood and Beverly Hills, particularly in Oscar week, but at 6pm last night we pulled out of Union Station, headed for Santa Fe.  But that's a different story altogether...



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