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...