By Waiching
There are places and cities around the world that have earned their reputation for being what it is: I'll be honest, Los Angeles appealed to me because I was interested in film and TV and it was a major draw for me in wanting to explore the area. Sometimes, it took me by surprise that my impressions of Los Angeles and this city that had so much to offer besides Hollywood were rather far-fetched.
What with its reputation, yet come to think of it, L. A doesn't quite rival New York in the overly impressive U.S. big city stakes when it comes to the tourist attractions or lack of. The fact of the matter is, what I and my sister realised is if you strip away that aspect of L.A, there probably isn't much going for it and as unique the Mexican and South American influences are, they take a massive backseat to the glamorous, showbizzy stuff that goes on.
To get to various places in the city, we had to take Ubers and took the subway transit a few times. Los Angeles isn't a walkable city by any means; there was always some type of obstruction right around the corner, although we still walked it on foot because the weather was nice. But it shows how inconvenient & underdeveloped the public transportation system and its infrastructure is, compared to London, New York, and even Hong Kong and still it is heavily reliant on cars, buses, and trains.
Regarding the Hollywood sign, it is a massive hike that we were not going to take, so we took a photo of it from afar instead. And we had to make do with a shorter trek across the sign, which was located at Ovation, Hollywood and Highland.
My experiences were for the most part, okay. I preferred it over Washington D.C. just about because I was into TV and movies, and Los Angeles is the home to many TV and film studios. As well as various films have been shot and produced in Hollywood. We did skip the theme parks such as Disneyland as they were not our type of thing.
But it doesn't come close to New York, and I enjoyed Boston even more.
I'm probably wrong, but downtown at night had no sign of life, Chinatown in Los Angeles was a cop-out: one evening, when we arrived at about 7pm or something after getting off the subway, almost all of the shops and restaurants were closed. We ate in a restaurant, Foo Chow that was featured in the film, Rush Hour which was made famous as Jackie Chan was in it, but the food itself left a lot to be desired.
Katy Perry's former home
The Hollywood Walk of Fame, whilst it was okay to look at and explore, didn't wow us and wasn't a big deal. It's just a bunch of stars & and their names littered on the pavement: some looked like they needed sprucing up as they had cracks on them. If you are really into sightseeing, then fair enough, but in terms of seeing celebrities out and about, that only happens sometimes. Or rarely at all. I had not met or seen one famous actor or celebrity when I and my sister were there. Unless they count the presenter of Dr Pimple Popper, the TLC series in Sandra Lee, which my sister bumped into at Ovation. They tend to live right up in the Hollywood Hills or the mansions or up in Beverly Hills.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame, whilst it was okay to look at and explore, didn't wow us and wasn't a big deal. It's just a bunch of stars & and their names littered on the pavement: some looked like they needed sprucing up as they had cracks on them. If you are really into sightseeing, then fair enough, but in terms of seeing celebrities out and about, that only happens sometimes. Or rarely at all. I had not met or seen one famous actor or celebrity when I and my sister were there. Unless they count the presenter of Dr Pimple Popper, the TLC series in Sandra Lee, which my sister bumped into at Ovation. They tend to live right up in the Hollywood Hills or the mansions or up in Beverly Hills.
Sadly the city is marred by crackheads and rough sleepers in Skid Row, shady individuals wandering around Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame area, tour sellers (some who came across as desperate by flogging you tickets) and people wearing daft costumes selling pamphlets or getting you to take a picture with them; it stinks of urine and weed, and then there's the state's sales tax, which took me by surprise, and the burden that it is really expensive (but that is to be expected everywhere in a big internationally renowned city, given we are in a cost-of-living crisis and cities are still recovering after 2-3 years of Covid).
That isn't to say our time in L.A. was a complete loss, though; I still enjoyed my time away from working life and away from London. The weather was nice and we had some good grub to eat. I enjoyed stepping foot inside the supermarkets/grocery stores to see the different types of food items that they had and people are a lot more relaxed and chilled and not as in-yer-face as those in New York; despite that, I loved the fast-paced, hustle and bustle of New York, that energetic buzz that L. A lacks. Hollywood Boulevard/Hollywood & Vine, was okay but if you were to ask me to choose between Times Square and Hollywood Boulevard, I'd go for the former. Having been to both cities, New York still has that cutting edge.
New York and Los Angeles are completely worlds apart: one is on the East Coast, and the other is on the West and close to Mexico, hence the Latino influences throughout L.A. and its past colonial history and is a very highly capitalistic-oriented culture. One has a higher cost of living than the other in NY, one city is fast-paced, and the other is more relaxed.
As I mentioned, people say that L. A is one of those cities everyone must experience and visit once in their lives to be able to form an opinion: is it for everyone though? The answer is no, and I wouldn't return until a couple of years down the line.
If there is one regret is that we could have spent a few more days in the city; we were there for like 4, 5 days- and that is still not enough time to see and do everything, or see, do things we wanted to do, but couldn't do. My opinion on L. A would have differed for the better.
I feel as though San Francisco - a city I meant to go to - might be a better fit for me and is more comparable to New York; it has more in common with that city than Los Angeles through Little Italy and Chinatown.
L.A. is, fine personally speaking, and is worth coming to for the photo opportunities and to get a few souvenirs, but that's mainly it.
The plus points +: the hotel we stayed in The Adler is very good, the bus tours, lovely weather, markets and food shopping were good
The bad points -: Chinatown is not worth it, the city is too spread out, the homelessness issue is a concern, druggies on the streets, the city is not commutable-friendly nor walkable, the metro system isn't as good as in New York
