The Epic Journey Back Home

We left Sin­ga­pore on Tues­day evening and arrived in Syd­ney early morn­ing on Wednes­day. We barely slept in the plane (note to self: bud­get air­lines suck for long-distance trips). The F1 Hotel we had booked in Kings Cross looked like a halfway house: the shower was a trickle of water, the win­dow was busted and there were cig­a­rettes burns every­where. Both exhausted, we headed to Bondi Beach for a last look.

The Rich L.A

I was curi­ous to see the other side of L.A, the glam­orous one. So far, I wasn’t too impressed: houses looked nice but noth­ing out of the ordi­nary. I cer­tainly couldn’t pic­ture all these movie stars and socialites liv­ing here, in Korea Town or in Lit­tle Armenia.

Venice Beach

We headed to Venice Beach and had break­fast in a small side­walk restau­rant, from which we could observe peo­ple com­ing and going. This is one of the best spot I have ever seen for can­did por­traits and street photography—locals seemed obliv­i­ous to what was going on around them and sim­ply kept on rollerblad­ing, run­ning, singing or what­ever activ­ity they were into.

Hollywood Boulevard

After Hol­ly­wood Hill, we headed back to Hol­ly­wood Boule­vard for a much-needed dose of tacky sou­venirs and postcards.

Being in L.A was very fun for me, the same way it is for an Amer­i­can going to Paris, I guess. I read so many mys­tery and thriller books tak­ing place in that city, includ­ing Jonathan Kellerman’s books, that I felt I knew it. Yet it sur­prised me.

Hollywood

We didn’t sleep much on Sat­ur­day night and get­ting up at 4:30 a.m. on Sun­day was bru­tal. I can barely remem­ber what we did at the Ottawa air­port, but we must have got it right because we landed in Toronto at 8 a.m., trans­ferred to another flight and landed in Los Ange­les six hours later.