California (Part1)

When it was finally the day before the trip, I think all of us were too tired from working to actually be excited about the trip. Of course no one was looking forward to getting up at 3.45am to catch the 6.15am flight. I used to have that problem with waking up but I'm glad to say that my current job has given me more than one occasion to practice.

Anyways, it was the four of us at the airport, all of us looking half asleep that we flew off to Minneapolis/St. Paul to catch our connecting flight to LAX. The previous day, Northwest Airlines were having terrible delays and we were afraid that we would not be able to catch our connecting flight in time but thankfully, there were no delays whatsoever going there and coming back.

In comparison to the midwest, California looked dead and brown from the air which came as a surprise to me because I expected it to be greener at least. The midwest from the air is lush with greenery which is a pretty sight. We landed at LAX and had to take a shuttle to the hotel to get to the rental car company.

Not knowing what car to expect, we sorta went with the flow and requested for an intermediate car. We did the right thing because if the car were any smaller, our bags would not have fit into the boot space...and we had only 1 bag apiece. The car turned out to be a brand spanking new Toyota Corolla. Needless to say, our driver for the trip was delighted. It is always good to keep your driver happy.

I got assigned the job of being the navigator which stuck for the rest of the trip. However, after we got the car, we decided to check into our little motel which was quite a drive away. I have been rather deprived in Des Moines of good asian food so when we saw a Yoshinoya, I think all of us the the car screeched and there was no further negotiation. We all had lunch at Yoshinoya. However, I think the Yoshinoya in Malaysia tastes better than the ones here.

Our little motel was situated in the county of Bellflower which turned out to be where a lot of Asians and Hispanics live which was nice for a change after seeing and living with WASPs all the time here in Des Moines. I was surprised to see the number of Koreans, Filipinos and Spanish people all in the same community. They even had a Filipino bakery where they sold authentic Filipino goodies. For a while, I felt as if I was in the Philippines.

After checking into the hotel, we decided that it was time to check out Los Angeles. Our first destination was Sunset Boulevard. However, we didn't get a proper map and therefore, we got lost for about an hour. After numerous attempts to get directions from gas stations, we finally reached Sunset Boulevard along historic Route 66.

To get to Sunset, we passed by the heart of Los Angeles City and Koreantown and a little Hispanic area that reminded me of Petaling Street. I kid you not. It was that similar!

We drove down Sunset and stopped by at the infamous Hollywood Forever Cemetary. There were way to many graves so much so that we didn't see any famous graves except for Johnny Ramone from the Ramones. I guess his headstone gave it away. After bumming around in the cemetary (sounds really morbid), we drove down to Beverly Hills to look at all the nice houses and then back up Santa Monica Boulevard and as we were about to head to Chinatown, we found ourselves at Hollywood Boulevard (ie. Mann's Chinese Theatre, The Walk of Fame, etc etc) and decided to take a stroll down.

We spent a couple of hours there and boy did I love the Virgin Megastore. It was precisely how a music store should be. There were some awesome stuff in there but I didn't buy anything. After a while, all of us were running on pure mental strength alone. We were oh so tired from all that travelling and lack of sleep. We decided that it was time to have dinner and dinner it was at Micelli's. Micelli's is the oldest Italian restaurant in LA and it was just along Hollywood Boulevard. The food was alright but I think Italiannies still has better food. After dinner, we walked a bit more and hit the souvenir shops and finally went home completely zonked.