United States of America – Los Angeles Part I

It all started with a year of hopes, a letter and a few new faces.

The trip of our young lives has begun.

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Los Angeles - Day 1

Nell, Jake and I – We worked out a plan on the plane. Whoever was still awake on our 12 hour flight, had to tell the air stewardess to leave the food on all our trays.

After several meals, ice cream, movies, and a time travel trip back 17 hours, we touched down with barely any sleep from the excitement of it all.

We arrived early at our Airbnb (See below for a AUD$35 off promo code!) accommodation in downtown LA, so we headed to the local Starbucks around the corner and ordered a drink. Incidentally, because of a brilliant plan the night before to stay up packing so that we could feel tired and sleep on the plane, I probably had not slept in 30 hours. My hands were shaking around my iced tea, and the moment we stepped in our apartment, I basically crashed.

When we’ve recuperated, we set about exploring the city. Being summer, the sun gave us plenty of time to do just that. Someone once told me that LA was full of the most superficial people with fake tans. But repressing any judgement, there was a distinct smell of pee in the air, and the streets were certainly full of joggers walking their dogs.

Between bistros, wide streets and art in random places, we spotted a neon-flashing arrow that has always reminded me of a 1950’s drive-in restaurant carhop waitress on roller skates. Here, we finally settled down at D-town Burger bar for lunch with a burger, fries and a shake. Mind you, one thing I’ve learnt about America is that: A shake is not equivalent of a milkshake as we know it. Appropriately missing the word ‘milk’ in front of it, they were more like ice-cream shakes (i.e. melted ice cream) than a drink.

Experiencing LA was definitely an eye-opener.

For dinner, we headed to Daikokuya at Little Toyko, where we met up with Alanie – another comrade on our not-so-little adventure. The queue (or said in American: ‘line’) was long. But the wait was worth it. The atmosphere of the tightly squeezed restaurant, the posters on the wall and that steaming hot bowl of tonkotsu ramen. For awhile, I felt like I was back in Japan.

We arrived back exhausted, but still took the elevator to the rooftop to admire the night view. And I’m glad we did.

Goodnight, LA.

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