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Published: June 25th 2006
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(Okay. This post is almost six months overdue. For the past 6 months, I spent 4 months slaving away in my university, 2 weeks travelling in Cambodia and Vietnam, and 1 month travelling in Macau and Hong Kong. Now, I'm finally back in Singapore and I will try my best to update all my travel photos and blogs. Phew!)
To be frank, Los Angeles didn't give me a very good impression. Unlike the past few cities that I visited (e.g. Salt Lake City, Denver, Santa Fe, Phoenix, San Diego, etc), Los Angeles is BIG, chaotic, and to some extent, lunatic. My very first impression of LA could be described with the words "shock" and "disgust". Expecting glamourous boulevards lined with palm trees and full of limousines (as what I saw in postcards and travel guides), I found myself in a seedy and run-down neighbourhood when I walked out from the LA Greyhound depot. Numerous beggars surrounded me as I left the Greyhound depot. After I shook them off, I quickly made my way to the Financial District to catch a bus to Santa Monica (where my hostel was). Along the way, I saw dilapidated buildings, streets full of cracks and
potholes, malfunctioning street-lamps, badly vandalised facilities (e.g. bus stops, signs, fences, etc) and many homeless people sitting on the streets and staring at me. At one moment, I thought I was in a third-world country. (I couldn't believe that I was in USA!!!)
When I reached the Financial District, things looked much better. The streets were cleaner and tidier. As I walked towards the bus stop to catch bus 720 to Santa Monica, a bus 720 reached the stop. I immediately ran to the bus stop, but the driver closed the door right in front of my face and drove away!!! 5 minutes later, another bus 720 arrived, but this bus would stop at Wilshire & Westwood and would not go to Santa Monica. At the same time, another bus 720 (going to Santa Monica) arrived. I waved my hand to that bus, but the driver ignored me and zoomed past the stop without stopping!!! (Maybe the driver saw the bus (going to Wilshire & Westwood) at the bus stop and he thought, "Why the heck should I stop?") By then, my blood was already boiling. Finally, after another 10 minutes, a bus 720 to Santa Monica arrived. I
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3rd Street Promenade boarded the bus, paid the fare, and suddenly the driver stepped on the accelerator before I had a chance to sit down! The ride from the Financial District to Santa Monica was a long and bumpy one. (Long, because there were a lot of stops and traffic junctions. Bumpy, because the driver always drove above 100km/h and then braked suddenly...)
When I reached the hostel in Santa Monica, it was already quite late at night. Hence I decided to stay in the hostel to check my email instead of going out for a stroll. I brought my laptop along, and I asked the hostel staff if the hostel provided wireless internet. To my surprise, the answer was "no". Isn't LA one of the most wireless-covered cities in the world? My hostels in Las Vegas and San Diego provided wireless internet, even though LV and SD didn't have such extensive wireless coverage. Nevertheless, I switched on my laptop wireless and to my delight, my laptop detected an unidentified wireless network and I could surf the net for free! (No wonder the hostel didn't bother to install its own wireless network.)
On the next day (29th Dec), I wanted to
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Santa Monica State Beach go to Downtown LA and Hollywood, but I missed the stupid bus (Big Blue Bus number 10) and the next bus would only depart in the late afternoon! There are other buses to Downtown, but they were only "local" bus and it would take an eternity to travel from Santa Monica to Downtown. In the end, I decided to explore Santa Monica itself. I strolled along the Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica State Beach, and the Santa Monica Pier. The view of the Pacific Ocean was awesome, as there were no islands on the horizon. (In fact, if you keep swimming west from Santa Monica, you will reach Japan without encountering any land. On the other hand, if there's a tsunami, LA will have no protection...) In the afternoon, I decided to go to Getty Center. It was one of the most popular tourist attraction in LA because it houses an impressive European art collection from Renaissance to Impressionism and Cubism. The architecture of the center itself and the landscaping of the garden were magnificent, and being on top of a hill, the center boasts an excellent view of the city and the ocean. In the center, I saw many
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Santa Monica State Beach great paintings by famous artists such as Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh, etc. I was so excited, because I studied art history for my O-levels and in the Getty Center I had a chance to see the real paintings. After visiting the galleries, I walked out to the garden and watched the brilliant sunset. (The sunset in LA looked so brilliant and colourful because the high amount of dust and polluants in the air scattered light from the sun and radiated the red/orange/purple light into our eyes.)
On the next day (30th Dec), I woke up early, checked out from the hostel and deposited my luggage in the hostel's luggage room. Then I started to explore the other parts of the city. First, I went to Beverly Hills to visit the grand Beverly Hills City Hall and the "high-class" Rodeo Drive. Then I went to explore Chinatown and Downtown. In the late afternoon, I went to Hollywood to find my idols' stars along Hollywood Boulevard. (Please view my photos for more details.) In the evening, I made my way back to Santa Monica to collect my luggage from the hostel. Then I went to the Greyhound Depot to catch a
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Houses along the beach Greyhound bus to San Francisco. Once again, I had to immerse myself into a scary and frightening neighbourhood as I walked from the Financial District to the Greyhound depot. I really didn't understand why Greyhound chose such a lousy and seedy spot for the main depot. Things will definitely be better if the main Greyhound depot is situated west of Downtown. (Actually there's another Greyhound depot in Hollywood, but unfortunately it's not the main depot.) When I reached the main depot, my nightmare was not over. There were simply too many people travelling from L.A. to San Francisco, and the queue was horribly long. Greyhound deployed extra buses to ferry the high number of passengers, but the situation was still very chaotic because there were people cutting queues, people sleeping on the floors, and people disappearing to smoke or eat, leaving their luggages in the queue line. In the end, I left LA 2 hours later than the scheduled time. (At least I was lucky enough to leave LA.)
In general, LA let me see the best and worst of everything. The glamorous and glittery scenes in Beverly Hills contrasted strongly with the slums and poverty in East LA.
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2 "mobile museums" built entirely with cargo containers... I can also see many different cultures in the city, like Chinese, Mexican, Italian, African, etc. Hence, LA can be considered a microcosm of the whole world. However, LA will not be my ideal place to live, as the pace of life is too fast and furious for me (and also because of high costs of living, traffic jams, air pollution, risk of earthquakes, etc etc...) :-(
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