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.
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
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.
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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
