Monday in Los Angeles – what to do… Today we thought we’d visit the Jewellery and
Fashion Districts of the city. Somehow
in the past it came to be that various industries clumped themselves together
in the city. Was it planned or did it
just evolve? I have no idea. Suffice to say that there are recognised
districts where one goes for certain things.
After another hair-raising drive amongst the thousands of
cars that were all going to the centre of the city today, along with some lousy
navigation skills from my co-pilot, we eventually arrived in the general area
of the Jewellery District. Well, I have
to say it was a let-down. I wouldn’t be
buying anything of the gold and silver jewellery with any confidence that it
wasn’t just plated. We wandered and
wandered with increasing disillusionment.
It was smelly, the shops were crappy and in general seemed a bit dodgy. Not hugely, but enough.
Most of the store owners/workers were Latinos. I’m not sure what that says. I’d expected that the full ethnic diversity
of the city would be on display, but that didn’t appear to be the case. I found it odd. We had a couple of conversations with some
stall holders, including one crazy Israeli who Andrea was convinced was trying
to rip her off, but eventually we found a nice (apparently) Japanese man who
sold us a few bits and pieces at what seemed to be reasonable prices – i.e. neither
ridiculously expensive nor ridiculously cheap.
So, having had our fill of crappy jewellery stores, we
headed towards the fashion district.
Arriving into a zone that appeared to sell fabric by the roll in every
single shop visible, we stumbled across a nice pizza place for lunch – Papi’s
Pizza – which is recommended if you are in the area and not in a hurry…
After lunch, we discovered the zone of rhinestones, shiny
beads and semi-precious stones (real and fake).
Hard to believe any of them can make anything against all of the
competition because there is little to distinguish most of them. Eventually we bumbled into a shop where the
owner was nice and helpful, suitably chatty, so of course a few more baubles
were acquired.
At about 3.30pm, we decided we’d had enough. While we achieved some interesting things,
today was generally disappointing, probably due to having expectations too
high. And maybe it was a bit crappy too. We successfully navigated back to the hotel
via a different route than originally planned, but one that worked out well
enough. We stopped by a Trader Joe’s
store, as I’d heard about it and we’d been given good coffee from there when we
were living in Chile. It was pretty good
– a little gourmet supermarket, although I don’t feel the urge to rush back
again tomorrow!
It’s still early now, but I’m very tired. Last night involved 3-4 hours sleep, then a
good 4 hours awake being bored before I got so bored that I had to get up. I’m loving the jetlag…
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