Grub, Glitz and Grit: The City of Los Angeles

Santa Monica Pier

Los Angeles, also fondly known as L.A., is an eccentric, unique city - full of culture, flavor and a sense of ease. My impressions of this city have always been through pop culture - think Miley Cyrus' hit "Party in the U.S.A", American teen drama The O.C. (please tell me I wasn't the only one obsessed with this show back in the day), The Oscars, Forrest Gump ... I could go on. It's weird to come to a place you've heard and seen so much about (almost feeling like you know it), yet being so completely removed from it's true reality. As soon as I got out of the airport, I knew I was gonna like it here - in short, it's a cool vibe.

But I do have a lot of thoughts about this city so far, but here they are, in three main buckets:

Grub

Known as one of the most multicultural cities in the world, Los Angeles is home to such a vibrant community, particularly shown through food, art & culture.

In terms of food, we've aimed make sure that every single meal was strategic and tried everything we could - so we wouldn't waste any room in our stomachs! We've been munching through Mexican tacos, Japanese vegan ramen, sugar filled doughnuts and halal hot dogs. A great place for all the foods you can think of would be Grand Central Markets. Located in Downtown L.A., this market is a place lined with vivacious food offerings described with neon signs above & loud cashier patrons. It's crowded, it's busy, and you know that locals & tourists love it. Have a try of the falafels & seafood tacos - so. damn. good. You know what they say - when the stomach is happy, the mind is happy (... okay maybe they don't say that, but now they do!!!).

Neon Signs and bustling crowds 

Being a book lover, I also needed to make the trip to The Last Bookstore and I genuinely needed a moment to process where I was. This place was filled with new and used books from authors big and small. What I found really unique about this place was the way they tried to diversify their customer audience. On the 1st level was your typical bookstore, but on the 2nd level was part bookstore, part art gallery, curating local artists living in Los Angeles. There was even a crafty knitting artist who embroidered cool quotes on embroidery hoops!

Lessons of life communicated through thread

On the other side of the floor were some cool photo opportunities in between book holes & fluttering flying papers. Can't recommend coming here enough - it really was magical in every way.

I genuinely have no idea what this book is and am posing with it for the photo. I know, I am pathetic

First & second floors

The Bradbury Building was also really cool to see nearby, illustrating 1930's architecture restored for today's world. It also happens to be a place where one of the original Blade Runner scene's were filmed - I quietly fan-girled about this ... eee!

Exterior of Bradbury Building

Interior of Bradbury Building

Glitz 

It's no secret that people come to this place to make it big in the entertainment industry. Follow along the Hollywood Walk of Fame and you'll find the names of numerous stars and celebrities who have graced covers of magazines. Drive through Beverly Hills and Malibu to see homes valued into the millions, inspired by Spanish, Mediterranean, Tuscan and Victorian architecture. Walk into high end shops lining Rodeo Drive to find Chanel, Louis Vuitton and many more high end brands. Whilst the glitz are not my kind of walk in the park per-say (I'm not into that #MaterialLife), I do admire the moxie these people have. I can only imagine the few number of opportunities to 'make it big' here, but it's their passion for the industry that keeps them going.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Grit

Whilst there is the glitzy part of Los Angeles, there's equally an extremely underprivileged and ignored section of the city. Beneath the facade of pop stars, actors & movie sets, more than 60,000 people (... and unfortunately counting) are classified as homeless in 2019 alone. We're currently staying at a supposed 'shadier' part of the city - east of Downtown L.A. We drove through Skid Row for about 5 minutes and immediately realised the full force of this problem - it genuinely felt like we were driving through a refugee camp. Make-shift tents, rubbish and graffiti curtained the edges of the narrow blocks. Drive past this neighbourhood and you're immediately immersed in streets lined with murals, wall art, popular food trucks and even now trendy restaurants - also known as Arts District and Pico Gardens Drive. It's these gentrified neighborhoods that showcase the true divide evident in the city - the poor are trying to get by day by day, whilst the rich are trying to find the next 'cool thing' to latch onto.

I couldn't bring myself to take photos of the tents, but I did capture this shot - Springfield in Los Angeles 

Drive about 20 minutes south of these areas, and you'll find yourself again in another notorious area known as Compton (you may have heard of this place from N.W.A.'s song Straight Outta Compton). There are serious problems here with homelessness, unaffordable healthcare and traffic, and it's really hard to witness this stark inequality between these parts of town that are so close, yet so far. We talk about inequality happening in developing countries, but what about the insane inequality happening within developed countries, where people really don't have anywhere to go?

You can learn more about the current situation in Los Angeles via this AJ+ Youtube video here. 

Driving into the night

This city is eclectic, but it sits uneasy with me knowing the stark inequality. It's a town full of coolness & contradictions that are sometimes hard to get your head around. Hollywood isn't all it's cracked up to be - are we surprised? No. Do we think it should do better? Most certainly yes.