Snorp's Downtown LA Walking Tour, Part I

Oh Downtown, how I love you, in all your diesel-N-pee smelling awesomeness. This halfway-gentrified mutant city-within-a-city can be an assault on your senses and (mostly) lungs at first, second, third, fourth, and fifth glance, but if you take the time to dig deeper and dig more than once, you'll find an almost bottomless trove of... lots of cool stuff. If you're lucky, it'll be cool forgotten stuff. Behind most of the grimey bricks and faded or newfound glory are stories. Great historical stories. None of which I know... but read this anyway. (I'll come up with a better intro in part deux)

Firstly, one must be aware that downtown is not one neighborhood. It, like a microcosm of LA as a whole, is an uneven hodgepodge of several different, completely distinct merging neighborhoods veering wildly from the cozy & chill (Lil Tokyo), the tragic (Skid Row) and the lame (the Financial District.) In an effort to make myself useful whilst procrastinating other writing I have to do, I makey this handy walkthru guide. May it guide you.

Someone else's picture of Ricky the Pirate, local hero & self-appointed graffiti patroller, his story is a good one
http://www.flickr.com/photos/someonewalksinla/2869105125/

First, a quick neighborhood breakdown: (skip if you already know this)

• Arts District: Tiny, gritty but strangely cozy. Home to hipsters, quirky hidden coffee shops and a restaurant that sells rattlesnake meat.
• Bunker Hill/Civic Center: Concert halls, City Hall
• Chinatown: Pretty self-explanatory. Sits between Union Station/Olvera St & Dodger's Stadium. Broadway is its main drag, best during the day and lined with cool herbal medicine shops. The area kinda dies at night. Home to Phillipe's French Dip Sammiches.
• Fashion District: Jam-packed during peak hours, hole-in-the-walls selling every nic-nac you'd ever need, like no other part of LA, expect mild culture-shock.
• Financial District: Bank towers, some good restaurants, turns into a ghost town after dark.
• Historic Core: The midsections of Spring & Main St, self explanatory, this is also where most peeps who live in downtown live, outside of South Park. Lots of good eats and bars here. Home of the Downtown Art Walk (lots of art galleries here too.)
• Jewelry District: The area that sits between the Fin. District and the Historic Core, is a blend of the two atmosphere-wise, includes Pershing Square and lots of diamonds.
• Little Tokyo: The oldest Japanese neighborhood in the country. Tiny but dense. This is the most reliable nightlife corner in downtown, cept in the "booming dance club" department. Home to a lot of really good food.
• Olvera Street (El Pueblo): "Old Town", tacky tourist trap, home to Union Station
• South Park: The shiny new lofts around LA Live.
• Skid Row/Industrial District: Home to America's largest concentration of homeless people. Depressing place.
• Toy District: Blocks of wholesale toy stores just below Little Tokyo. I'm not sure why this place exists but I'm glad it does. Do not ride a bike through here during peak hours, you will run someone over. Do not enter here off-peak, it is part of Skid Row.

k, here we go

Part Uno

Start: Pico Metro Rail Station @ Pico & Flower

Lotsa Glass, Steel & LEDs: South Park District

Directions:

1. Walk up the sidewalk parallel to the station, toward the skyline (North on Flower St)
2. Right on 11th St.
3. Cross Hope St

Points of Mild Interest:

1. Staples Center/LA Live (self explanatory)
2. @ Flower/11th: The Palm - Steakhouse-type restaurant in the $$$$ class, won the Downtown News's "best waiter service" award or something like that recently.
   
3. @ Flower/11th: Riviera - $$$$ classy Mexican restaurant on the ground floor of 'The Building w/the Trippy Neon Red Squares that Flash On & Off in Cool Patterns"
   
4. @ Hope/11th: Bottlerock - Mildly pricey wine bar, never been here, sry.
5. @ Hope/11th: Suggested Breakfast NOM - The Hygge Bakery. Recently opened by some famous dude from Denmark. Their hazelnut truffle things are to die for, their cinnamon buns are soft and fluffy if a little pricey. The baker personally recommends the fruit-filled danishes, they're cheap and tasty enough, though again I'm more partial to the hazelnut things. Never had a real meal from here but I've seen people order yummy looking sammiches. As bakeries are usually at their best during morning hours and the next closest affordable breakfast option is IHOP, you should grab fresh noms from the Hygge.

To the Fashion District!
Direction: Keep walking down 11th until Santee St. These few blocks are sparsely inhabited lands. If you're on foot it'll be a bit boring, if you're on a bike, good call.

Point of Interest: @ Broadway/11th: The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner Building, the abandoned headquarters of LA's defunct second major newspaper. It's a strangely beautiful place, immense, almost temple-like, but sadly derelict. Commissioned in 1903 by William Randolph Hearst (Citizen Kane) and finished in 1914, more info can be found here: Here

Chaos, Taco Trucks & Bazaars of Olde: The Fashion District

Directions:

1. Right/South on Santee
2. Left/East on 12th
3. Left/N. up Santee Alley (you'll see the entry portal halfway btwn Santee & Maple)
4. Either turn on Olympic Blvd, doesn't matter,
5. Right on Santee or Left on Maple (depending which way you went)
6. Left on 9th
7. Continue to Main/Spring St. Wye

Points of Interest:

1. @Pico-Olympic, Midway btwn Santee & Maple St - Santee Alley, the main drag in this part of town, a seemingly endless pedestrian-only walkway jam packed with clothing shops, dirty dog carts, fresh juicers, and Angelinos from every walk of life. Mostly clothing shops. Even if you're not a shopper, which I'm not, it's an essential stop in downtown if only to soak in the atmosphere.
2. The Whole Area. Forget the turn-by-turn directions and just wander around at will. As with Santee Alley, you don't have to be shopping for clothes for the visit to be worthwhile. Bustling with the most foot traffic you'll find in LA, wholesale fabrics flowing in the wind, at least four different languages from Spanish to Arabic... it's a strange, trippy place, like someone carved a slice out of a developing world metropolis, dumped it into a forgotten corner on Downtown's fringe and threw it in your face anyway. Be prepared to bargain.
3. @ 7th/Maple - The SoCal Flower Market. There's no normal entryway, you have to wander into one of the shops on its outside and kinda squeeze your way back. It'll open up into a giant indoor flower market, really cool if you're a botanist or a girl. Expect to be charged a small fee if you don't have a merchant's pass, which you probably don't.
4. @ 9th/Los Angeles - The California Market Center. More cheap shopping craziness.
   

Hipsters & Homeless: The Historic Core

To Be Continued...

City Year Registration & Nepal Quickie Update

Went in to the office at 10, sat down at a table with a bunch of soon-to-be-friends, signed a bunch of stuff and left. Not mucha else to say about it. Monday is the first full day of service, we'll be doing some outdoorsy project in Boyle Heights. A large amount of sunscreen will be deployed as my nose is still tender from not using it once during camp.

In other news:
Update from Pepsikola!
- An Australian couple donated a bunch of money to renovate OCRC. They gots new staff and new carpets.
- That one girl whose sister was adopted & moved to Spain, joined her sister and moved to Spain.
- Sudip (Igor) finally has a girlfriend. According to him.
- Pic from OCRC sent about a month ago:


Char-Char out.

--------------
1-?/2009 = Los Angeles Exploration & Bike Adventures
7-8/2008 = Southeast Asia Backpacking w/Jeff
7/2008 = Southeast Asia Backpacking Solo
5-7/2008 = Volunteering in Nepal
6-7/2006 = Europe Backpacking Blurbs

Coming soon...

The Chronicles of AmeriCorps:
A Tale of Triumph, of Humanity, and of Higher-Than-Usual Lager Intake

Starts August 25th.

Stay tuned.

--------------
1-?/2009 = Los Angeles Exploration & Bike Adventures
7-8/2008 = Mid-SE Asia Backpacking w/Jeff
7/2008 = Lower Southeast Asia Backpacking Solo
5-7/2008 = Volunteering in Nepal
6-7/2006 = Europe Backpacking Blurbs

More Bike Ride Blurbs

USC > Ballona Creek > Marina Del Rey

Click for Map

Rode down Jefferson Blvd through icky neighborhood to the more warehousey section of Culver City. The Ballona Creek Bike Path entry on Jefferson was closed 'kuz of construction on the new Metro Rail line there, "Next Entrance: Dusunquence (spelling?) Street" said the sign, w/out pointing the way there. Found it after some trial and error but not before quenching my parched thirst at a nearby park. Up a steep hill from this park was the "Baldwin Hills Nature Preserve", looked like it would be a great place to hike and get good views, but alas the hill was very very steep. Did not explore it, proceeded as planned onto the Ballona bike path.

Ballona Creek is a storm drain, like the LA River, but with actual water in it. The looooong ride down the creek was monotonous and boring, turning pretty & lined with wildflowers as the beach approached. The bike path turned north at Marina Del Rey, where I stopped at a fake fishing village tourist trap place for a minute before heading onward. Followed the signs out of dull Marina Del Rey and into hip Venice Beach, rode the beach bike trail up to Wilshire in Santa Monica, took the bus back from there. Bumped into Natalie on the bus.

Koreatown > Santa Monica (on Wilshire)
Rode across most of the length of Wilshire Blvd to the ocean. It sucked. Don't ever do this.

Thai Town > Koreatown (on Western)
This was pretty cool actually, the Koreatown section of Western has a lot of neat half-Asian/normal, half-Star Trek buildings along it, probably my favorite stretch of street in that neighborhood.

USC > LA River > Glendale

Click for Map

Oy where do I even begin with this one... Saw an entrance to the LA River bike path near Chinatown on the Metro Bike map, biked to where it looked like it was... It wasn't there. Spent the next half hour running circles around some random run down neighborhood east of the river trying to find it, even hopping on the Gold Line one stop back and forth. Wound up going north on a very dusty straightaway of San Fernando Blvd that seemed to stretch on forever. Found a large, bizarrely placed recreation park here, ran circles through that hoping to find the bike path in it, didn't find it.

Gave up and started heading back through Atwater when I found... the path! and a #603 bus stop! (the lil shuttle that runs down 23rd St.) I would take this bus home whence my legs finally gave out. Pit stopped at a random Thai restaurant before heading onto the trail. It was yummy. Took the trail all the way to it's end in the Horsey Stable District of
Glendale (or so I named it.) U-turned, rode back to the 603 stop and hopped on the next bus home.

Thai Town > Filipinotown > Downtown
Took Temple St. most of the way. Very hilly, lots of views, other than that Filipinotown was your standard LA inner city neighborhood. No real discoveries.

USC > Thai Town & Little Armenia
Took Vermont up through KTown to Hollywood Blvd. There's a random Muslim neighborhood around Beverly & Vermont, passed a Quran vendor or two here. Thai Town was a long strip on Hollywood of Thai bookstores, restaurants, etc, very cozy too. Stopped in a SE Asian grocery store here to poke around for a bit. Yay.

Doug's Koreatown Apt > Downtown at 2am
Heh this was interesting. Nothing really noteworthy happened though.

--------------
1-?/2009 = Los Angeles Exploration & Bike Adventures
7-8/2008 = Mid-SE Asia Backpacking w/Jeff
7/2008 = Lower Southeast Asia Backpacking Solo
5-7/2008 = Volunteering in Nepal
6-7/2006 = Europe Backpacking Blurbs

Local Event! - Chinatown 71st Anniv. Fest Thing

What T'Was:

7-11pm last night in the Central Plaza, dancing, retro 1940's lounge muzak live, martial arts show (missed that dangit), speeches (missed that yay), endless fortune cookies, small fireworks show, etc.

What T'Was Encountered:

Biked into Chinatown 'round 9:45 or so to catch the tail end of whatever the celebration wound up being. A small fireworks show launching off the LA River was just finishing up, caught enough of it to make me smile, then rounded the corner into that uber-tacky but oh so awesome Central Plaza where the fest' was taking place. A lone spotlight was rigged up at the entrance, I really wanted to climb onto it and make a shadow-puppet-bat but alas the security was too tight. Too bad.

Inside the neony plaza, which for those who haven't been is basically the China exhibit at EPCOT Center airlifted from Disney World & plopped into an LA warehouse district, was a solid crowd of all ages, mostly middle aged, swinging and watching others swing dance to the live Sinatra-esque lounge band on stage. The neighborhood was founded in the late 30's so they (the Chinatown Business Improvement Board or something) were appropriately going for that classy WW2-era retro theme.

After having my fill of jazz I started poking around the plaza a bit more. There were some candle-lit dinner tables set up here and there for VIP guests, pamphlet booths advertising the local Chinese American Museum and other attractions, a fortune teller (tacky!) and heavier than usual foot traffic in all them little souvenir shops. The outside of the Hop Louie Jazz Club was the greatest attraction though: two vintage mobster cars and a makeshift outdoor casino! The casino was obviously the main awesomeness there. Alas though I had no money to gamble. The atmospheric also-retro Mountain Bar, the best reason to come to Chinatown on a normal weekend night, was disappointingly dead 'cause of all this other cool stuff going on outside.

Strutted out of the plaza's rear, across Hill St and into Chung King Alley, an art gallery row where various hipsters were doing their art gallery thing. It was cool for a minute or two. The random strutting and poking around continued for the ensuing few minutes... mostly strutting because I could still hear the live blues from here and, you know, there's just something about that vintage saxophone lounge music that just makes you feel on top of the world. This music continued playing in my head on the (very downhill slopish) bike ride back, during which I got cocky and crossed said slope way too fast, lost control of the steering and... was biking one minute, rolly-pollying across the ground the next. Owie.

Bike Ride! - Alhambra

Downtown Main St. > Valley Blvd./Atlantic Blvd. (1hr each way)

Click for Map

Rode Main St straight thru past Union Station, Phillipe's The Original & into Chinatown, on across that sorta gnarled section of the LA River beside the train tracks. Came upon "The Historic San Antonio Winery!" a few blocks later, a large & fancy (on the inside) complex offering free tours and lots of expensive wine. It will be added to me increasingly long list of "spots to return to when the wallet is fatter." A giant shady-looking beer brewery from what must've been the early 1900's was down a dirt alley a few streets over and has been added to my only one-item-long list of "spots to google the safety of before returning to."

Then things took a turn for the random... As this is West-ish East LA, the neighborhood was obviously turning a bit ghetto & industrial and amidst the freight trucks, freight trains and century-old graffitied factories was a strange sight. Groves of trees, grassy knolls, what looked like a real lake (not a hole dug in the ground & filled with sewage & called a lake ala McArthur Park), seagulls chirping, an old fashioned fair ground etc etc. This was, as I soon found out, a place called Lincoln Park... now my favorite park in all of LA. Granted it's competing with like, nothing, but alas it was still quite a romantic little spot.

Continuing the theme of randomness was a giant (about as big as Leavey) pagoda situated between a bunch of truck warehouses a few blocks farther. This was the "Los Angeles Center for Buddhism" or something like that, forgot the exact name, really wanted to go inside but opted out due my gym shorts & tattered t-shirt seeming inappropriate attire for a religious building. It wasn't that far past the LA River, I'll return here sometime too.

The warehouses and freight trucks disappeared, the street changed its name from Main to Valley, wound over a hill past some nifty pottery shops and through a bunch of old battered houses, and whalla I was now in residential East LA. It was badly run-down but not in a ghetto dangerous-looking way. Expecting to be biking another hour or so to reach Historic Alhambra I started peddling faster, but turns out the Metro Map was a bit off scale and Alhambra wasn't so far out after all. The little "500 Places to See Before they Disappear!" Fodors guide hyped this as a charming time capsule back to 1930's half-developed SoCal and under threat of demolition, sounded purtty neat. What I found was a delightful, very well kept middle(?)-class suburb no different than any of a dozen similar neighborhoods in San Diego (Coronado in particular) and elsewhere-LA. It was nice and all but a bit anticlimactic, though I'm no architecture buff so maybe some of the historical charm flew over my head.

Stopped at the local CVS to refuel with some chocolate milk (my last $2! omgz) and turned back the way I came. Nifty if minor discovery on the way back: passed a bustling Mexican restaurant across from the USC Health Sciences campus, was like "hmm this place looks really good", turned the corner to check it's name, lo and behold: "The Original Chanos." Every USC campus must have its own Chanos I guess, heehee.

Overall... the journey was definitely better than the destination here, but a pleasant journey it was.

Bike Ride! - Hollywood to the Ocean

West Sunset Blvd: Bel Air, Pacific Palisades & Malibu
via Metro Rail > Hollywood/Highland > Sunset Blvd > The Beach!
ETA from 23rd St = 4.5hrs
--

Click for Map

Used the subway to skip most of the mid-city area, got off at the farthest-west station (Hollywood/Highland mall.) Rode me bike down Hollywood Blvd to its merge with Sunset then followed Sunset down the entire long remainder of its length. The ride was easy enough through West Hollywood & Beverly Hills but got a whole lot worse once UCLA hit.

The sidewalk began playing hide-&-go-seek with a road clearly not intended for pedestrian traffic and dangling branches/vines threatened to behead. Flatness gave way to what felt like an endless, sometimes pretty steep uphill climb through the otherwise gorgeous Pacific Palisades area. This along with Bel Air is the legendary exclusive domain of celebrity mansions and Star Maps/Tours, the windy road was so densely lined with fairy talesque old trees it probably came as close to "enchanted forest" as LA can.

Following the peak of Endless Uphill Climb, the road swerved and dove down into Malibu, revealing... the ocean! It was an epic view that made the whole struggle worth while. From here I merged onto the beach bike path, following the sand and water down to Santa Monica Pier. In this neighborhood I rendezvoused with Mr Wheeler, some beers were had and I enlisted his chariot to carry me and my now battered bike home.
--
Verdict = A gorgeous ride that was totally worth it but so grueling at points that I may never do it again. Definitely a one-time thing.
Difficulty = Ridiculous
Discoveries = Nothing really.

Bike Ride! - Chinatown

Downtown: Chinatown
via 8th > Alameda
ETA from 23rd St = 30min

Click for map

Rode north beyond Little Tokyo on Alameda St, past Union Station. The road lead straight to the Chinatown Metro Rail stop, two blocks to the side of which was a long strip of knick-knack shops, potent incense fumes and banks shaped like pagodas. The area was run-down but full of character. Was asked by a salesman if I wanted "Lady Boom Boom" (see Vietnam blog), then asked by another if I wanted a "free" Chinese medicine reading. Regrettably I turned him down.

Turned down a small covered alleyway lined with clothing stores to find that it was the entryway into a vast, convoluted flea market of sorts built into the alleys between the two main streets. Most of the booths were clothing sellers, one of whom had scantily-clad ladies poll-dancing in front of his shop.

Farther east, I came upon what I think was named "Central Plaza," Chinatown's main landmark and the filming location of Big Trouble in Little China. Tis a neon-lit small plaza designed like a medieval section of Shanghai & draped with red paper lanterns. Old Chinese men playing Mah Jong around picnic benchs and random white tourists split its population. Every building here had a Taiwanese (not Chinese) flag fluttering above, thought that was sorta interesting. There was a bar in this plaza staffed by a particularly gorgeous bartender who will one day become my royal mistress. One day.

--
Verdict = Quirky, slightly sleazy & bustling neighborhood that makes for a good destination if you want more of an adventure than Little Tokyo but don't have time to go too far.
Difficulty = Easy
Discoveries = Secret Swap Meet, Medicine Shop Row

Bike Ride! - East-of-Hollywood Sunset Blvd + Lil Tokyo

East Sunset Blvd: Echo Park & Silver Lake
via Figueroa > Bunker Hill > Cesar Chavez > Sunset
ETA from 23rd St = 3hr
--
Details =

Click for Map

Went straight up Fig/Flower where I was thwarted by a steep uphill in the Bunker Hill area of Downtown. Walked the bike up it, discovered an art museum or two I never knew existed once up there. Far northern Figueroa led to a bridge over the 110 where it ended and forced me onto a quiet side street or two lining a pretty residential hill overlooking the skyline. Biked in the general direction of USC, intending to return home when I stumbled onto the eastern terminus of Sunset Blvd. Decided to follow it as long as I could.

First passed through an old Hispanic neighborhood where Sunset was lined with neat looking Mexican restaurants and buildings that must've all been built in the 50's. Twenty or so minutes down Sunset the road reached a summit and started going downhill from there, adding the surrounding hills to the view. Passed Hoover, resisted using it to return home (the steep hill it led up helped), continued onward. Neighborhood transformed with the flip of a switch into trendier, hipster Silver Lake. Made a pit stop at an Army Surplus Store here, was disappointed by it, continued onward toward Vermont. Boarded the Red Line at Vermont/Sunset and took the subway home.
--
Verdict = Breezy, surprisingly quiet, quirky neighborhoods, fun downhills and some good views; perfect length too. Probably my favorite ride yet.
Difficulty = Medium
Discoveries = LA City Ballet Museum, cool looking Mexican cafes of unverified quality, Army Store

--

Downtown: Little Tokyo
via Figueroa > 8th St. > Broadway St. > 3rd St.
ETA from 23rd St = 20min

Click for Map

Details = Turned off Fig at 8th St, passed through the gentrified, newly built loft area of South Park. Area declined rapidly into "normal ole run-down downtown" at Broadway. Broadway's central stretch was a deranged, trippy mess of bootleg clothing stores, shady music shops, offers of fake-IDs and the highest concentration of pedestrians I've seen anywhere in LA, all alongside decomposing theatres from the 1920's. Fled off the sidewalk & onto the street, only to be nearly rammed by a bus. Returned to sidewalk and proceeded cautiously through the people-minefield which subsided around 5th St. Continued north until turning on 3rd St. The Little Tokyo section of 3rd (or 4th?) was lined with a mildly hilarious row of smoke shops.
--
Verdict = A short but pleasant trip that always ends in good food. Reliable but nothing epic.
Difficulty = Easy
Discoveries = "Little Tijuana", Smoke Shop Row

It's hard to see here, but they're dressed like 1950's maids. Weird Japanese fashion, sigh

A Day Almost-but-Not in the US Navy, Pt. 1

5pm, Tues 11/18/08

A slick dark blue BMW(?) town car, leather seating, GPS and the works rolls up the Bonsallo driveway (a ploy to make me think the Navy pays well I'm guessing.) Inside drives Petty Officer Williams, the amicable, unimposing but nonetheless charming fellow who by random chance winds up being my assigned recruiter. It could have been some bullying buff dude out to nail his contract quota no matter the cost, it could've been a half-insane wash up who joined the service by necessity. There's a lot of hype about military recruiters being these fearsome slick manipulators who will hypnotize you into a decision you'll regret, and many of them are; this guy definitely ain't one of them. He's an instantly readable and honest average Joe who by the end of our magical car ride convo has made me promise that if I join, I will not under any circumstances agree to become a recruiter. "This sh*t is so stressful, you have no idea." He's since become something of a friend - not to be confused with InstantFriend(tm) - and one I'm proud to have, though I suppose we still really know each other all that well.

We arrive at the Crenshaw Recruiting Station shortly thereafter, tucked away in an obscure corner of the ghettotastic Baldwin Hills Mall. The office is bordered by a TJ Max, some magazine store, and off in the distance the unmistakable golden arches of a McDonalds. There's a strange charm to the place. I'd dropped by here twice before in the previous month to take the ASVAB, the military entrance standardized test that basically just verifies the existence of your brain, so the office was already familiar territory. This time I'm treated to sort of a window into the recruiters' daily lives. Williams needs to make a pit stop here to finish up his day's paperwork before driving me down to the hotel (more on that later) for the night and "his day's work" lasts until almost 8pm. Him, his grizzled superior and the rookie underling all seem exasperated and ready for a bar trip. They exchange in jokes, chat idly between each other about their lives at home, their errands, etc. These are shockingly normal people:

"I was out on my honeymoon on Catalina the other week and damn Chief calls me demanding I come back in... I'm like screw that, I'm on leave man. There's a copy of the leave orders in my desk, in my car, in my cabinet, on the Chief's desk... he knew what was up. That's the most important rule of the Navy, make copies of everything. I opened the (wine) bottle and was 'Well too bad, not fit for duty! (burp)'" lol

As they close up shop for the night, I chat with the only other recruit present, a good looking Hispanic girl named Forgothername. Unlike me who due to my utter lack of certainty in wanting to join was on the (very)delayed entry track, this girl was "shipping" right the next day. She's more excited than nervous and despite being only a few months out of High School exudes an aura of calm maturity. For her, the service is an ingrained family tradition that she'd already been planning on for a while. Due to a lower ASVAB score she'll have to settle for Boatswain's Mate or something but this does nothing hurt her enthusiasm - it's a right of passage for Forgothername, not a grudging last resort or risky drastic life change.

Williams finishes his paperwork and off we drive to the LAX Radisson. MEPS, "Military Entrance Processing Station" in Culver City only runs physicals starting at 5am due to low staff, too many recruits, and the length of the exam, so the policy is to simply put everyone up in a hotel for the night and bus them over in a single group in the wee hours of the morning. A complimentary buffet dinner and breakfast is included courtesy of Uncle Sam. There are around fifty to a hundred peeps staying here on most nights of which a third are bussed directly to the airport to catch their flights to bootcamp (scary!), a third are bussed to MEPS for their second physicals to ship the next day, and the remaining third are here for their first exam to make sure that they even qualify. I'm obviously in that latter group.

We arrive at the hotel, which is flooded with new sailors, Marines, soldiers, pilots, etc and check in. Officer Williams puts me on the phone with his Chief briefly who gives me the run down on what to expect at MEPS: grumpy doctors out to scare you into confessing a disqualifying broken bone or the one time you smoked at a party thereby thinning their day's workload so they could go home at 2 instead of 3. "Don't let them scare you" is his general message. I grab dinner, chat briefly with few, and retreat to the room. From my window is a good view of that crazy roundabout with the rainbow glowing pillars of light at the LAX entrance. Airports are such epic places when you think about them; all the emotion that must be taking place in those departure gates...

4am the next morning I skim breakfast and stumble out into the driveway along with fifty other 17-20somethings. Most are guys, more than you'd expect are girls. There's some serious palpable nervousness in the air, this is the last decent contact many of these recruits will have with home for months. A hotel shuttle pulls up. "LAX Terminal #" There's a unanimous "Awww damn!" as everyone waiting for the MEPS bus is disappointed. The "shippers" scramble aboard, it can fit only a fraction of them and drives away. It'll be a little while until the next one comes. Impatience sets in immediately. I look from side to side...

A shaggy haired skater boy twirling a wallet photo of his girlfriend.
A chubby dude looking nervous and awkward.
Two girls, clearly BFFs beforehand, giggling in excitement.
A tall fellow talking quietly on the phone with a loved one: "I'm scared."

There's Hollywood and there's real life, rarely do the two match. This moment was one of those rarities. It was romantic, poetic... Guys and girls from all walks of life, many not even from LA, some not even out of puberty, all gathered here at a crossroads of their lives. You knew exactly what was going through the heads of anyone with an emotional expression on their faces, and that was pretty much everyone.

The MEPS shuttle arrives and off we go.

To Be Continued...

Journey's End: Tue 8/19, Day 91 (Time Travel!)

Back on May 22nd when good ole Singapore Flight 5312 first began its descent into the Kathmandu Valley, I wrote that the zero-g moment and landing gears popping out shot my heart into my throat and nearly gave me a panic attack. "OMG what have I done, I'm gonna die, etc etc!" ran through my head over and over. Now the landing gears were popping out again and I could feel the cabin start to descend... but this time there was no epic Himalayan vista or gemstone tropical island rushing up toward the plane. There were houses, lots and lots, all identical, stretching into the horizon as if the entire planet was covered in subdivisions. There were churches instead of minarets. There was a strangely beautiful cluster of giant skyscrapers floating on an island of brown smog. And inside me, instead of heart pounding and head throbbing nervousness, there was only a calm, unexplainable warmth as if I was back in Mama's womb. After three grueling months of ruins, chickenbuses, and curry... of jungle treks, of great new friends, of tuktuk drivers and poverty and decadence, and of some amazing Nepali youngsters who would crack the brightest smiles over the slightest things... I was finally back where I at times would've given anything to be. As I bit down on the juicy grease of that first hardly kosher In-N-Out burger, listened to Ashley rant about how bad the traffic was and fought back tears of joy, I could do nothing but smile. The world is a huge and amazing place, but at the end of the day, while it's cliched to say... There truly is no place like home.

And on that note:

The. END.

To whomever is still reading this, thank ya'll for reading.

---Quote of the Trip---
"Charlie-brother, you buy Cadbury? Me? Me Cadbury? Cadbury me? You buy? Camera? I play? Me?" - Sushaan

---Quote Runner-Up---
"ATTENTION: DONT SHIT HERE. ONLY FOR PISSING." - Painted across the wall of a leaky Indonesian bathroom.

---Top 5 Favorite Places---
1. Pepsikola & Duwakot, Nepal
2. Bukit Lawang, Sumatra (Indonesia)
3. Saigon/HCMC, Vietnam
4. Ko Phi Phi, Thailand
5. Bali, Indonesia
Honorable mention: Siem Reap, Cambodia

---Places That Can Go Frak Themselves---
1. Thamel District, Kathmandu
2. Sunrise Beach, Ko Pha-Ngan

---WTF?---
1. Silom District, Bangkok

---Where I'm Gonna Pack-up and Move to Someday---
Indonesia. (and of course Nepal)

Special, Very Belated Shoutouts to:
- Mai VSN peeps! For being such awesome co-peeps! It was an honor serving with all of you.
- To Jeff for letting me throw coconut candies at him & for being a noble travel buddy.
- To Dan for the suitcase. (told you I'd bring it back!)

Random fond memories in no order:
- Fight w/evil gibbon
- Any "Dave Moment" at OCRC
- Moped drives in Bali
- Abdul crooning "Hotel California" in Bukit Lawang
- Martinis in Thamel
- Norman's beard
- Lindsey: "No, I can't accept this kitten!"
- Watchin the scooters swarm by in Saigon
- Seeing a wild orangutan for the first time
- The first hour in Singapore after Nepal, developed world culture shock
- Sushaan hijacking and possibly crippling my camera
- Laxmi Didi, and anything she did
- Everest beers in The Hut
and others.

Very Special, Even Though They Won't Read It, Shoutout to:
My Nepali family. For letting me become part of the family, letting me into their home, providing and sacrificing for me, and for existing. You are all amazing people, and an inspiration. Keep up the good work.

Click to go back to May 22nd.

Singapore: Tue 8/19, Day 90 of 91

At 4am, a wake up call came knocking on the door of our Khao San guesthouse room. It had been two hours since I first climbed into bed, so this call was obviously not welcome, but I had an Air Asia flight to catch and little margin of error in which to do so. I stumbled around in the dark packing the final nick-knacks into my rucksack, put said rucksack on my back and the school bag on my belly. Jeff, light sleeper though he may be, somehow slept through all this. I tapped him on the shoulder to wish him faretheewell (his flight was leaving later that day from Bangkok, whereas mine was from Singapore) and a safe flight, and his head cocked up for a moment to grunt. I took this grunt as sleep-speak for "Thanks Charles, you too! It's been fun." And fun it was. Thus was ended the Jeff-segment of this adventure.

Shoulders loaded well over capacity, I scrambled out to catch the first airport express bus, actually a van at the early hour and crammed to the teeth with fellow backpackers and their backpacks. There was some funny audible frustration at this one girl who didn't know if she was on the right van:

(Israeli accent) "What the f%ck is she doing? F%ck."
(Brit accent) "I have a plan to catch!"
(another Israeli accent) "(unhappy Hebrew mumbles to fellow Israeli)"
(3rd Israeli accent) "(more Hebrew grumbles)"

As soon as she was aboard, the driver TOOK OFF at what must have been three times the "speed limit" or rather the speed everyone else on the highway seemed to be sticking to. I don't think I've been more terrified by a car ride since stepping into one with David Nepsky at the helm early Freshman year. The terror was worth it though, I had only an hour until my flight left and probably wouldn't have made it had the driver been less insane. This means of course that I made the flight and landed in Singapore safely, with a comfortable five hours to accomplish my mission of rescuing Dan's suitcase from storage in the hostel I'd stayed at here 6 weeks ago after first leaving Nepal. This city almost feels like a second home, having now done a third tour of duty providing relaxation, transitioning and rebooting to a battered Charlie.

I didn't bother with any sightseeing... after three months on the road, what difference would one more pagoda make anyhow. Instead I settled down at a Muslim food court near the hostel and "splurged" SGD$5 on a huge feast of deliciousness including Singapore's specialty fish-head curry, gross in appearance but heavenly in yer mouth. Yousif, the obese mustached cook of either Malay or Arab origin noticed my luggage and gave me a free dessert on the side: "You have a long journey ahead, please, it is my pleasure!" I'm gonna miss hospitality like that, it's hard to come by back home where all the fast food is owned by this and that evil corporation. No disrespect to the UV Subway's trusty sandwich artists but them all got nothing on the charms of Fat Mustached Arabian, Mr. "Would You Like To Twy Sum Pwrwawn?" from Vietnam or half the other charismatic if untrustworthy vendors of these Eastern lands.

With my tray now stacked full with the biggest feast in weeks, including one final boba drink, I took a seat and chowed down on the glory. The meal took almost an hour and a half of solo, steady measured nibbling to conquer and came close to detonating my stomach, but my was it worth it. I was in no rush. This was my last supper, the final meal of the trip (airplane food doesn't count)... it deserved to be savored. Only after it was deep into my stomach could coherent thinking start again. After sinking into my chair in a digestive coma for a few minutes, I thanked Yousif and began the same five block walk to the hostel I trotted six weeks prior.

It was a nice feeling to be back here, bringing the journey full circle and all. I remembered the thoughts that went through my head the first time around, fresh off the plane from two months in Nepal; the giddiness of being back in the "developed world," the mystery of what might lie ahead... and now it was all over. There would be no more haggling, no more chickenbus rides, no more worry if I'll find a room in the next city or even navigate my way out of the train station. The pressure was gone completely. The only thing left to do now was crack open a can of Tiger Lager with hostel owner Mr Lum and wash the bittersweet taste of the moment down. An important chapter of my life was about to end. Important in what way, I'm still not sure.

5pm rolled around, I cashed in my remaining MRT cards, got me passport stamped... the airplane engines kicked in, and I made my peace with Southeast Asia.

---Vital Signs---
Feet = In Heaven! Finally got my sneakers back.
DBA's Suitcase = Rescued
Wallet = Written off till Spring '09
ETA to Home = 20ish Hours
Flight Transfer in = Taipei

FOOD POISONING = NONE... Thank you Portland Street House!! Thank you thank you.

Bangkok, Thailand: Mon 8/18, Day 89

^ The "infamous" Khao San Rd

There are few things more relaxing than a soft birth on an overnight train rocking you gently to sleep... Well actually there are many things more relaxing than that, but it is never the less a cozy way to spend the night. The beds could also do this neat transforming thing where they could be folded up and turned into seats once the sun rose. I woke up and shoved my privacy curtain aside, and the submarine was now a normal train, with chairs and rows and everything. We rolled into Bangkok a half hour earlier than expected, I scrambled off with my bags and looked up and down the strangely small platform for Jeff. Not only was there no Jeff, but hardly any one was deboarding here. I'd stepped out a station (or two or three) too early! Shit.

I huffed and puffed and jumped back on just as the train was starting to pull away. Disaster averted, there would have been little or no way to get back in touch with Jeff (email aside) if we were separated like that. It reminded me of a similar scare early during the Eurotrip with Mika when the Berlin SBahn's doors shut behind me and cut off Mika & Xany, I spent the next ten minutes in a frantic panic riding the subway up and down its line getting off at this and tat stop looking for them. This was an idiotic mistake on my part considering I'd already been inside Bangkok's giant central station three weeks prior and should've known I was in the wrong spot, sigh. All is well that ends well, as they say. When we finally did arrive and reunite, Jeff told me a group of monks stopped him from sleeping by waking up at 5am and yammering to themselves for the rest of the morning. I slept well and taunted him accordingly.

Honestly there's not a whole lot to write about the rest of the day. We didn't even settle down into our Khao San Road hotel until 2ish, then split up for some souvenir shopping and eating. Jeff took the SkyTrain to the hostel we stayed at three weeks ago, to rescue the suitcase he left in storage there, while I kind of wandered around town aimlessly soaking in the atmosphere. We would rendezvous at the Banyan Tree Hotel rooftop bar (one of the highest points in the city) at 6, I got there an hour early and talked to this British construction worker for an hour and a half until Jeff arrived while simultaneously emptying the bar's free cashew snack bin. This place was classy by the way, even nicer than the Sheraton Saigon. One of the best things about backpacking through SE Asia as opposed to Europe is that where in the latter you're living off bread and water, constantly counting pennies, here I could get a martini in a 5-star skyline restaurant for six bucks. It would be my final, last developing world indulgence until the next trip, whenever and where ever that will be. And so we sat, Jeff and I, watching the skyscrapers twinkle and the traffic buzz about, pondered the meaning of life some more and thanked each other on an adventure well done. It's been fun and all, but goddamn I want an In-N-Out burger & a salad already.

^ Cowboy Alley

One mistake we made three weeks prior was not checking out any of Bangkok's legendary nightlife, so we resolved to fix this problem and stay up really really late walking around Thanon Silom and it's surrounding adult Disneylands. There was a redux of the Ko Samui night here where I let Jeff walk in front and draw the sleazy go-go girls' fire. Cowboy Alley was the nuttiest of these areas, lit up and down with crazy neon lights not unlike that one street in Downtown Vegas the name of which I forgot. There was also the 3 story outdoor mall of brothels. No comment regarding that. Though a night out clubbing was the obvious thing to do now, Jeff didn't have it in him and my foot was in deep, searing blister pain from the cheap flip-flops I'd been walking around in all trip. We decided to head back to Khao San Rd and spend the rest of the night brewing it up with fellow backpackers and hip young locals. It was a fitting, low key end to things. We stayed out on the cozy crazy street until 3-4ish in the morning, only a handful of bars were still open and countless were lounging on the curbs chugging beers. A few food vendors were still awake to feed them, Jeff got some yummy beef and chicken satay, I got my last pad-Thai. There was also a pair of 7/11s positioned directly across the street from one another, making us lol.

Two hours of sleep followed, until the next and truly final day.

---Vital Signs---
Time Till Home: 36h
Food Poisonings: None
Feet = PAIN
10baht Banana Cakes Eaten = Many

Thai Full Moon Party, Part 2: Sun 8/17, Day 88

^ The beligerant man who couldn't even throw chair...

Ko Pha-Ngan, 05:00, the morning after:

I woke up drenched, shirtless in the sand, having deployed said shirt as a makeshift pillow and splattered with Unknown Liquid at some point while I slept. Not slept actually, half-hearted nap is more like it. I looked around, Jeff was nowhere to be found but he knew where I laid down so I figured it best to stay put. By this point, the hordes of partiers had divided into two distinct groups: those who were not on some sort of mind altering substance, thus were either passed out on the sand or sitting down watching the fire jugglers, and those who did in fact pop pills of E/fake-E/adherol/God knows what else. This goofy faction was still very much awake and about, dancing like crazy in the water usually by their lonesome. In only ten hours this once pristine beach of baby powder had become a wasteland of slobbering drunkards, empty beer buckets, rainbow colored straws and fed up locals. One vendor woman touted her soda bottles to tourist passersby with a deep, desperate tone as if to say "Please, just buy my drinks, just do this one thing for me, you've destroyed my home, please... :-\" At least once a month the island willingly puts itself through this debauchery. We felt bad for the Thais, but it's what earns them their living.

Within five or so minutes Jeff appeared, rather violently shoving someone away who'd apparantly been chasing him around trying to give him an unwanted bear hug for the past while. Jeff had been off watching the fire dancers and insisted, rather begrudgingly, that we remain on the beach until sunrise. We'd come this far, we had to make it all the way. The second the sun rose however we would hop on a ferry and hightail it the frak out of here. So we sat down and waited, sleepless and battered as ever. This was supposed to have been the trip's grand mindless crazy fun finale. As we exchanged mutual fed up glances however, and looked around at the mayhem surrounding us that we were not in the state of mind to join, it was clear that the Full Moon Party turned out to be something different. It was a test of our warrior's metal, a reminder of what we were missing back home. An experience, not a vacation. Not quite what was expected but a fitting hurrah nonetheless.

The sun rose and we began the trek back to the docks. Along the way we passed a beligerant 20-something man tossing plastic chairs around left and right. In the midst of his third toss, he lost balance and fell hilarious backwards into the sand. There he sat for a while with an expression on his face of pure and utter defeat. Did his girlfriend break up with him earlier? Did he lose a battle for a girl he was hitting on? Was his worldview as shaken apart by this apocalypse of impending liver problems as ours' was? One wonders... He became the symbol of the past night for us, the individual who bridged the gap between the sober and the drunk, who like us couldn't help but think "wtf" about the past twelve hours. Then he proceeded to get up and start crawling over foot-high concrete walls. And that was our last memory of Sunrise Beach on Ko Pha-Ngan. We boarded the dangerously crammed 7am ferry too tired to sleep and sailed back to our quiet Lamai Beach bungalow on Ko Samui.

---Vital Signs---
Travel Weariness = 90%
Mood = In the Red
Time Till Home = 2 Days
Pad Thai = Sick Of
Acknowledgements = Despite mood, songs will be sung of this day

Leaving the Islands, Thailand: Sun 8/17, Day 88 Pt2

After some brief napping recovery time in Hat Lamai, we were forced by scheduling to once again hit the road (err, water) and make way to the Samui ferry pier. Jeff cut short an Internet round and I, quite heartbreakingly, bid adieu to the warm patch of sun drenched sand that had become my home for the past hour. I clocked about 45min of unconscious time, not nearly enough but better than poor completely sleepless Jeff. We threw our rucksacks and bodies aboard a sawngethew and whizzed over to the docks. We were let off next to a bus a few hundred feet from said pier and instructed to buy a ticket for this bus, which would then drive aboard the ferry (separate ticket) and onward to the mainland train station. Ha! Scam. Not wanting to pay ten bucks to be driven a couple feet, we marched on foot to the pier ticket office itself. The ladies here turned us away and told us to go back to the bus. Across the way in the other direction was a second, much larger pier... the real pier. Here we found the real ferry, not the 50% chance it's made-up ferry, and bought our thru fares to the Phun Phin/Surat Thani rail depot. Unfortunately they'd stopped selling tickets for the 3pm boat, departing any minute and we'd have to wait an hour for the next one. We took turns watching the bags and running off on food errands to pass the time. I bought some tasty street curry, Jeff bought some 7/11 nibbles. Neither did much to improve our energy levels.

Jeff (understandably) crashed once we sat ourselves down for the 2h ride. We're talking complete and utter mental and physical shut down, in de facto coma until we docked. I, after finding myself not sufficiently tired to put up with the seat's discomfort, decided to stroll up and down the deck and watch as the island faded into the distance. It had nearly the same serenity as the long boat ride to Ko Phi Phi that began our island hoping a week prior; the breeze blowing at your face, the silence except for the pattering of the waves, the hot tropical sun... I should go on boat rides more often. They're good places to reflect on deep things, as I did about this soon-to-be-ending trip. I sadly don't remember what exactly my epiphanies were, but I'm sure they were profound.

We docked at Frak Knows Where, Definitely Not Surat Thani on the mainland about two or three hours after leaving Ko Samui. Remember how I said the ferry seats were uncomfortable? Uncomfortable fiberglass seats to not produce the most reinvigorating comas and Jeff's followed suit. The next twenty minutes would go down as the hands down groggiest, grumpiest, most zombie-like I've ever seen him (sober.) It wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't even awake but was in fact sleepwalking and talking his way off the boat and onto the bus. This bus was to drive us a further hour inland to the rail station, where we would catch a hopefully not fully booked overnight train to Bangkok. The five other backpackers we bumped into on this drive all had reservations, and all said their local travel agents told them said reservations were among the last available. We chose not to trust the travel agents on Samui, who honestly didn't seem to know what they were talking about in regards to anything, and wing it. Was this a terrible mistake?

Nope. When we finally arrived at the train station, a Belgian friend we'd made who cockily taunted us about the comfy bed he'd reserved wandered into the waiting area and lounged around. We approached the ticket window. There were in fact bunks still available on the 9:30pm train, three hours later than the departure we hoped for but acceptable considering the short notice. The Belgian's train was to arrive within a half hour. An hour later he approached the ticket window to discover that lo and behold, he'd reserved a bunk on a nonexistent train! Our strict policy of "don't buy transport tickets from anywhere but a ticket window" was victorious again. With upwards of five hours to kill in tinsy Phun Phin, we wished Mr. Belgian the best of luck and explored town. The night market here was understandably smaller and less interesting than that in much busier Surat Thani, but Jeff found his beloved oyster omelets, which was all that mattered anyway. I had the misfortune of buying the worst, weirdest tasting banana shake in memory. About halfway through it hit me that the bizarre taste was probably a sign that local tap water had been used in its make. I tossed the rest out and thankfully didn't get sick. Night market dinner was light but tasty overall.

Back at the train station, now much later, we used our rucksacks as backrests and lounged about on the concrete chatting amiably. The hour struck 9:30 and a train rumbled in, but it was not ours. This was the 8pm one running an hour and a half late, which assuming Thailand doesn't have much money to double or triple track their rail network, probably meant ours would be equally delayed. A dry erase board with updated arrival times confirmed this; we'd now be leaving at 11. Not good, but not bad... that officially makes Thai Rail 50% more punctual than Amtrak on a bad day or Trenitalia. Fuck Trenitalia - excuse my Italian. (angry smiley) The trains themselves were a bit foreboding, leaky sinister-looking tin cans from the Cold War these things were; I would not want to be an overnight passenger in the 3rd class section. Thailand is still a developing country and it was nice that they even had a semi-reliable train system at all, so I can't complain much. It wasn't as modern as Java's rail but would do just fine. I'm a bit if a train geek, forgive my train geeking.

The 8pm sleeper squeaked, burped and rumbled forth, and again we went back to lounging and chatting. Suddenly, commotion! A Thai man in his 20's or 30's frolicked over our legs and out of the station, dripping generous portions of some dark red juice? all over the place in his wake, not on our feet but nearly so. The station police soon clustered around the largest splotch of this stuff. We looked closer, it was definitely blood. He must've tried robbing someone who was armed with a knife or something, oops. The station's old lady janitor approached and mopped up the blood with a simple mop. No soap. No water. Only in Thailand... This event sent Jeff a bit over the "what am I doing here" edge but we got through it. Soon there was another rumbling, another buzzing, and our delayed train arrived. The inside of the 2nd class sleepers, while not as private as those on European trains, was surprisingly clean and modern. It was a bit submarine-like but a train in any form is better than a chickenbus. I fell asleep quickly and with a smile on my face, rocked gently by the car and rolling into Bangkok in style:

...or, well, "style." ... it's all relative, ya know!

---Quote of the Night---
"All they had left was a 3rd class bench on the 12am train, I'm gonna be crammed on plywood all night, F#CK." - The Scammed Belgian

---Vital Signs---
Food Poisonings = ZERO despite 1 near-miss.
Travel Weariness = With the Full Moon Party firmly in the past, weariness was back down to happy levels.
Mood = Ponderous, Measured Happy
Time Till Home = 2 Days (?)