by Roz
Regular readers of this blog will remember
that for years I despised LA. I’d
visited it quite a bit for work, and frequently described it as my least
favourite American city. You’ll also
remember that back in August I found out how very wrong I was and after a
holiday there, went to the opposite extreme: I became an LA obsessive. I was therefore a bit nervous about going to
LA this time around, for fear of reverting to my original view (I can be very
changeable). I used this as an excellent
excuse for suggesting we Uber direct to the flat we were to stay in from
Fullerton (where the bus from Palm Springs had deposited us) so that we could
have an enjoyable evening rather than sitting for ages at a cold station to get
all the way to our apartment by public transport. This proved an excellent choice, and we were
happy to soon find ourselves first back in our old Venice home, popping into
the nearby Wholefoods and then to a local hipster vegetarian restaurant, the
Butcher’s Daughter. We both usually shun
vegetarian restaurants since they incline to the worthy (and I can’t really
cope with too much choice on a menu – it’s too unfamiliar) but the quick meal
we’d had last time around had given me an enthusiasm to return for proper
dinner and this proved to be an excellent choice. As did the cocktails. We wandered home afterwards congratulating
ourselves on an excellent start to the second part of our holiday.
Next morning, we peered out of our front
door and were somewhat dismayed to see that it looked a little cloudy and
chilly. However, not liking to be
deterred, we set off on a cycle to the Venice boardwalk via the highly cool Google
building which is shaped like binoculars.
I was so enthused to get a good picture, that I went to the other side
of the road to take a photo of Layla in front of it, meaning that she was stuck
on the other side, with our two bikes and powerless to move when a tour bus
came by to take photos of the same building.
Personally I thought that having Layla and the bikes standing guard in
front of the building improved the numerous photographs taken from that tour
bus…I hope the inhabitants of said bus (and all their friends and family who
will get to see her) shared my view.
By the time we got down to the boardwalk
(ie less than 10 minutes after leaving the house) the sun was shining and the
sky perfectly blue. I could enjoy living
in this kind of climate. We delightedly
cycled along, revelling in the feeling of cycling along a beach (the boardwalk
makes it feel almost as though you are cycling on the sand). After a very long
time, including a necessary deviation on to the road (which I did not enjoy
since I forgot how to brake properly and nearly came to a sticky end), we were
still loving the cycle but becoming increasingly interested in lunch. Ah, dilemmas, dilemmas, we wanted to return
to a salad-ey place we’d enjoyed last time, but that was far far away. Me and Yelp came to the rescue, and I plonked
Layla in a convenient spot and hiked up a steep San Francisco-type hill to a
charming road where I found a pretentious bakery to procure an interim solution
(lunch 1, if you will). I was tempted to explore all the other fancy shops
there, but Layla was waiting – and she was hungry. Sated, we continued cycling
for a bit, before reluctantly turning back 6 miles before the end of the
amazing cycle track. Next time we really
will make it the whole way to the end…
En route back we stopped for salad then
frozen yoghurt (something I’ve not yet found in Tokyo) and then headed to La
Louve gallery, which we pottered around briefly. It’s famous and had a number of LA artists
showing their work at the moment, but not exactly to either of our tastes. From there we headed up to Abbott Kinney, named
the hippest road in the US, where we deposited our bikes and pottered in and
out of shops. My favourite was a dog
clothes shop (Kaseki is currently roaming naked in Tokyo and this surely needs
to be remedied) but we generally enjoyed ourselves looking at beautiful and
expensive things and buying none of them.
We headed home thereafter, for a brief rest
before Ubering to Hollywood for our evening’s entertainment: a Moth Mainstage
show. We already had the extortionately
expensive tickets for this storytelling show, so when we arrived we decided to
take the risk of not getting good seats in order to wolf down a brief dinner in
a nearby salad-soup place (though Layla complained bitterly when I made her
have soup because I thought this would be quickest, pronouncing both then and
later that “soup isn’t proper dinner”).
Regardless, we polished it off, then made our way into the beautiful
Avalon theatre – an art deco theatre that glistens and makes you feel as though
you are in a different era. This being a
curated show, I didn’t have the usual feeling of anxiety that I normally
experience when we go to an open-mic style Moth storytelling show: Layla always
puts her name in the hat when she gets a chance, dooming me to spending the
whole show feeling far more anxious than she does about the possibility that
she may be called. So this show was
quite restful, in many ways…. The stories were great, ranging from the
Beckenham hairdresser who ended up doing the hair of her nice client Mrs
Jones’s son (who turned out to be David Bowie), to the Iranian-American who’d
fallen foul of US Iran sanctions, to the son of a mountaineer who kept being
subjected to seeing his father’s death fictionalised in film. We then went – probably for the only time in
our lives – to the after party. The only
tickets I’d been able to acquire had, as I’ve mentioned, been horribly
expensive and as part of that, involved an after-party. We are not really after-party kind of people
but we are stingy. We therefore went
along to a beautifully cool venue in the theatre, nabbed a seat like old ladies,
and then devoured the vegetarian sausage rolls and tofu pies on offer. So
“proper dinner” was had in the end. All in all an excellent night.
Next morning, we set off to Malibu for a
hike in Solstice Canyon. Uber really has
transformed the LA experience since as non-car drivers none of these places
would be accessible to us. The hike was
beautiful and deserted, and the first three quarters was ridiculously easy – so
we spent the hike debating our options for the future (where shall we live,
what jobs shall we do and such like). We
then decided to add on a bit more to the hike and found ourselves going uphill
fairly sharply and without enthusiasm.
Eventually, noting the lack of lunch options we decided to turn back and
immediately liked the hike again (because we were now going downhill – sigh,
it’s a shame to be predictable). Still,
back at the trailhead we summoned another Uber and headed to the Getty Center, famous for being a
beautiful – and free – art museum spread over several buildings up on a hill
overlooking the city. Out of the Uber, we hopped into the special tram that
conveyed us up said hill to the museum and then dashed frantically to the café
to get there before they stopped serving lunch.
Lunch successfully consumed (ah delicious tofu burritos) we meandered
round the museum, enjoying the photography and recognising the odd Picasso etc,
before pausing before an anti-war Manet that we both liked. We then pottered in the garden, which was
delightful if chilly, before heading home.
We had a quick dinner at home before
heading into downtown (by a complicated metro route that was not a success) to
see a new musical version of Amelie.
This was terrific with a Kneehigh vibe (for those of you who know
English theatre) and I loved it. There’s
probably not enough plot in it for it to be a successful musical on Broadway
(which is where this production is headed now – ha, bet this is famous last
words) but it was very nicely done, and entirely charming. It made me miss English language theatre with
vigour: alas. We hopped in an Uber home,
and went to a local Mexican restaurant for a pre-bed drink.
Next morning, we headed to Griffith
Observatory and went hiking up Mt Hollywood for close-up views of the Hollywood
sign. I’d originally intended to take us
behind the sign – something you see people doing in the movies – but we got
distracted by hearing of the delights of the Observatory. It was cheery to hike and see tons of locals
out and about (though why weren’t they all working?) with their dogs. And the glamour of the Hollywood sign doesn’t
really wear off. Well not for me
anyway. On this occasion we’d had the
forethought to bring sandwiches with us and so we ate them at the top of Mount
Hollywood, in the sunshine. Delightful. We then headed down to the Observatory, which
was beautiful outside and in. We went to
the planetarium, where we found that show had live narration, which struck me
as surprising and presumably expensive.
I was struck that in many ways the narration sounded like a plea for
investment in climate change and dark matter research – so perhaps in these
times where such things are so political in America it may end up convenient
that the narration can be so easily changed.
We then hiked down to the bottom of the park, stopping for tea and apple
pie in the nearby outdoor café before Ubering home.
We had a quick dinner at home again today,
before heading to Santa Monica to go to the cinema to see Arrival (a sci fi
film with Amy Adams, which only came to Tokyo for 5 minutes so we didn’t get a
chance to see it). We both enjoyed it,
though disliked the main character for her excellent linguistic abilities (as
is only reasonable of us, given the state of our Japanese despite putting in
just as much effort as she did to learn the alien language!). We then went to a lovely wine bar where we
had cheese and wine and cocktails and felt intrigued that everyone else in that
venue was clearly on a date other than a solitary man with a very large pink
bow tie (we suspected he’d been stood up).
Our final morning felt somewhat bleak: last
days are not my favourite. Looking at
the somewhat grey sky, we ditched a plan to go rowing in a lake in Echo Park
(it sounded too depressing) and instead headed to explore a new area (for us) –
the downtown arts district. This felt a
bit like Bloomingdale (for Washingtonians) or Shoreditch (for Londoners) or
Kiyosumi (for Tokyoites). As the sky
became blue, we settled down in a hipster coffee shop for coffee (and, um,
avocado toast) and admired the passing dogs and moustaches. We then pottered around the area in artsy
bookshops and pretentious dog stores (Kaseki now has a plaid / tartan coat to
don on Monday) before walking to proper downtown to have lunch (avocado toast
not counting) in Grand Central market – and more coffee. Also to read our books. We then popped into one of our favourite
bookstores of all time – the Last Bookshop – before heading to Union Station
for a walking tour. On the downside, the walking tour mainly took us to places
we’d been. On the upside, we learned
loads that we hadn’t and saw lots of things that we’d failed to notice
before. It was particularly fun going
into the LA Times building and admiring Moderne architecture.
It was then almost evening, so we headed to
an area called Melrose (west Hollywood ish) for delicious cocktails and some
dinner at a brilliant place called the Melrose Umbrella Company. We resolved during our stint here to become
better at Tokyo and love it even more, which is a very good note to end a
holiday on. But before it quite
finished, we had one more show to go to – the Groundlings Holiday show. This was a combination of improv and sketch
comedy and though not quite as excellent as similar shows we’ve seen from the
Second City (I suspect I missed the political comedy) it was still excellent
and a fine Friday evening. After that,
it being 10pm it was time for bed (we really aren’t party animals) ahead of our
flight back to Tokyo. LA: I love you
just as much as I did in the summer; we must do this again soon.
Books we read on this (not very bookish)
holiday
Layla: Swing Time by Zadie Smith, part of
Tokio Whip by Arturo Silva.
Roz: Swing Time by Zadie Smith, Love Nina
by Nina Stubbe, New Woman by Charity Norman, and good progress on David
Copperfield by Charles Dickens.
