Long Beach and Hollywood

The final stop in my world trip. I think I only stopped here cuz the travel agent suggestively manipulated me into it "If you're stopping by New York, you will have to go to L.A." At the time I was like "Sure, why not? I have a cousin I could stay with while I'm there." I realise now that it wasnt a mandatory stop over, but it was nice nonetheless. Their outlets are nice, El Polo Loco mixtures of sauces are impossible for me to get get right, and Sam's Club is only a shadow to CostCo and Walmart, but boy how I wish Sydney was that cheap.

HIGHLIGHTS: Seeing my uncle, my cousin and her family and eating a jawbreaker.

I haven't seen my uncle since he stayed with us, in Sydney, since mid 2004 (I think), and the last time my cousin saw my was back in the Philippines, circa early 1990's. Hanging out with them reminded me of how far, geographically, we were situated from each other and how similar we all are. She took me to a Citadel outlet, and I noticed the seemingly endless freeways we had to use to get there. It was a day before "carmageddon", luckily lots of people watched the news and stayed at home. So we got there and I was constantly reminded of how expensive Sydney is.
By the end of the shopping my cousin and her kids had Starbucks while I started on my jawbreaker. It was medium sized and it took over 20 minutes to wear it down. Rule number one when eating a jawbreaker: never bite it unless it's down to the size of a marble. The picture below reminded meof the train that runs through Darling Harbour, so I guess that's why I took a picture of it.

Now why wasn't visiting Hollywood a highlight? Because outside of the perimeter of the Walk of Stars and the Kodak Theatre, it's a hole; cracked pavements are a commonality, broken buildings have shoddy fencing surrounding them, bums roam the streets and there wasn't much else interesting around. Think of cities as nodes, the bigger the node the bigger the city. Hollywood would be a 1 inch node whereas Long Beach would be a 0.5 inch node, in between there's little to do. In New York, however, there was always something to do in between the nodes. From Chinatown to Harlem there would be a lot going on, and I was never bored. But travelling by car from one area to another in L.A. made me sleepy and it wasn't jetlagged; I had no jetlag!


More pictures to come.