L.A. Without a Map

I visited Los Angeles when I was a kid, but my only memories are vague recollections of Mann's Chinese Theater and the long lineups at Disneyland. I had no plans when I visited L.A. and no real list of anything I wanted to see, other than Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Griffith Observatory.

I stayed at the Stay on Main hostel, downtown; you shouldn't. It's actually part of the Cecil Hotel building, occupying a few floors of the same building, but with separate entrances. The hostel looks very new and modern in pictures, but in reality they've just splashed new white and orange paint over the old Cecil rooms, and then thrown in new and weird furniture that looks like it came out of a '60s mod movie like A Clockwork Orange. They have bunk beds directly under ceiling fans (sit up at night and you might get whacked), and exposed electrical wiring in some rooms. More problematically, they have real security issues, as it appears that they have groups of people who will have only one person check in and pay, and then invite their friends to stay in their room free of charge: I had to get my room switched because of this, and no one at the front desk seemed surprised. 

Union Station by night.

The walk from Union Station to the hostel passes by L.A.'s gorgeous, art deco City Hall.

This being car-centric L.A., there is a parking garage directly opposite the Concert Hall. They were filming a car-intensive scene for a movie on the garage that night (I believe it was for Fast & Furious 6, but I have no idea), and they had light balloons deployed (they give much softer and naturalistic light, with less noticeable shadows, than point sources would provide).

Turn the camera around 180° (and wait 12 hours), and this is the view you get.

San Jose to L.A. by train: The Coast Starlight

I like trains. They're comfortable and spacious, and they allow you to soak in the scenery as you travel. Sure, they're slow, but they give you the impression of actually traveling, and they allow you to psychologically adapt to your changing environment in a way that flying through a featureless sky over distant terrain simply does not. I had the option of flying to L.A., taking the bus, or taking the train. Sure, the train takes a staggering eleven hours to make the 550 km journey, but it passes through scenic territory and hugs the coast for a significant part of the journey, so the decision to burn a day on the train was pretty easy. The fact that the ticket was a reasonable $55 made the decision a little easier, too.

The train was pretty empty on the day I took it, and I spent most of my time on the observation car, which has huge windows and outward-facing seats. There was lots of space in the lounge car, but it probably wouldn't be so great if there were more people on the train. The windows of the passenger compartments are also heavily tinted, making it difficult to take decent pictures with good colour balance.

It's only about 550km between San Jose (where I caught the train) and L.A. as the crow flies, but the train ends up covering over 600 miles and the trip takes over 11 hours.

The observation car (from the Amtrak blog).

A strawberry farm near Salinas.

The front of the train as the track doubles back on itself.

The coast south of San Luis Obispo, along Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Heading East towards Santa Barbara

A suburban farm near Oxnard, in the twilight.

San Francisco & Sleeping with Royalty in Oslo

Tokyo by way of California

It turned out that the cheapest way from Calgary to Tokyo, by far, was to fly out of Los Angeles: instead of $800 flying through somewhere more direct, like Vancouver, Malaysia Airlines had flights from L.A. for $450. I decided to fly down to San Francisco, spend a few days there visiting a friend, and then spend a few days in L.A. before flying to Tokyo.

San Francisco

From when I was a kid, I've always been enamored of San Francisco: its reputation and history as hippie central, the epicenter of '60s counter culture, a bastion of American liberalism, the home of some of the most vibrant Asian communities in the West, great weather and tremendous natural and geographic beauty.

I didn't see much of San Francisco on this trip, as I was staying with a friend, Nicole, down in Silicon Valley.

The Big Red Breathing Lotus Flower in front of City Hall.

Saint Mary's Cathedral, near Japantown.