Little Tokyo · LA City Hall · The Last Bookstore · Walt Disney Concert Hall · Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels · The Old LA Zoo
While the parents are away, the sisters will go out and play. Janelle and I decided we wanted to go on a LA day trip. Here's the list of all the places we went on our little adventure.
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Little Tokyo | We began our journey at the Mosaic Tile House in Venice Beach at Little Tokyo. (Mosaic Tile House is definitely on my list next time! My navigator inputted the wrong address when we left for LA. >.<). We were looking for parking close to City Hall and ended up finding street parking in the heart of Little Tokyo. I hadn't been there since an 8th grade field trip to the museum of Tolerance and nostalgia swept through me, from the Japanese umbrellas to remembering I ordered a crunchy roll in one of the restaurants all those years ago. We walked around and saw all the stores with the Japanese architecture. Strung lanterns waved above us and a tree with different color papers and messages in various languages called us to look at it's branches. A startup florist company were giving passer-buyers a single long stem sunflower for free, bring a little joy to everyone's busy Tuesday afternoon.
Los Angeles City Hall | City Hall is in the middle of downtown and is definitely worth the visit. The building faces the Great Park and has an astonishing 360 view of Los Angeles from the observation deck. It's free to go up the observation deck, all you have to do is go through the main entrance facing Main Street , go through security, go up two elevators and some stairs. The building still has it's old school feel with the gold elevators and tall columns.
The Last Bookstore | A hype for a reason. It's beautiful seeing people excited to go to a bookstore and actually buy books. The Last Bookstore is a mix of a bookstore, a record store and an art gallery (and a creative space for some in-home artist). The second floor has a labyrinth of bookshelves and original art pieces. This is where you can see the famous arched book walkway that is always instagrammed. Janelle and I decided we had to buy something and I happened to find a set of two old cookbooks for a dollar, just for fun. Janelle, being the librarian she is, got a bunch of other books including a Grimm's Fairy Tale book that I'm pretty jealous of. It's hard not to fall in love with this store and get lost in the maze of books. If our parking meter wasn't running, I could stay here all day mesmerized by all the adventures I could possible have. Imagination would be my only obstacle.
Walt Disney Concert Hall | Of course I would. Janelle and I remembered an episode of the Simpsons (if we remember correctly) where one of the characters crumple a piece of paper and throws it on the floor and that's the inspiration of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. No matter where it is, all Disney things always brings magic. The building self is a shiny mirror random shaped building that looks kind of odd. But if you go to the outdoor up a flight of stairs to the second floor of the concert hall there is a lush, shaded garden, that saved us from the hot day. It has countless trees and seats in different corners and a few sculptures to look at, however there is always the view of the Los Angeles skyline.
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels | I've been to the LA Cathedral before but it had been a while and it was walking distance from the Disney Concert Hall so we decided to go check it out. (Can't pass up on my daily dose of Jesus) The Cathedral has a peaceful atmosphere that I love feeling whenever I go to a grand church like this one. They had an exhibit of pictures in their hallway areas with portraits of people standing in front of wings (like in The Last Bookstore, pictures above). We were going to go down to the chapel and mausoleum but once we got to the bottom of the stairs the hallway was pitch black and we decided no to that...
The Old LA Zoo | Boy was it hard to find this place. It is in Griffith Park but the direction to the place is pretty confusing. We parked the car in the parking lot near the playground and the abandoned Merry-Go-Around. On foot we circled the playground and finally found the way by walking on an incline towards a set of stairs. Once at the top of the stairs there is a big open area with a stage. I guess they have public events from time to time there. I had wanted to come here to see all the graffiti and what the old zoo looked like but honestly it was anticlimactic in our LA day. It was so hot that day and all the walking just didn't make seeing this place fun. The only thing to see is the abandoned animal cages. If you follow a path going up the hill you can go behind the, what looks like, big gorilla cages and there is an opening to the fences with graffiti everywhere but there wasn't that much. Overall it is a nice park with lots of people having picnics but not worth really seeing just for graffiti. LA has cooler places to see.
Overall our LA day trip was a lot of fun, but need to come back to explore more. It was ridiculously hot. I drank so much water but never needed to use the bathroom since I sweated instead. Parking just always sucks in LA and is expensive. We might not have spent money of food but we spent quite a bit on parking. Traffic wasn't too bad, we just got lost going to the Old LA Zoo because I'm not familiar with LA at all and the signs suck so there was a lot of U-turning. Thanks LA...until next time LA.
» Experienced: July 21, 2015 « » Updated: April 15, 2017 «
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What's your favorite part of LA? What's still on your list to explore LA? Who do you like to explore a city with?
