Scenes From A Weekend: Chinatown

I have lived my whole life in Southern California, and until yesterday, I had never visited the famed Chinatown. I’ve seen the movie and driven past it, but never walked around the neighborhood.

So when Cliff’s cousin suggested we all make a day of it for Saturday’s Chinese New Year parade, I was completely on board.

We started the day by meeting up at Union Station.

 It really is one of the world’s most beautiful train stations, and if you ever get the chance to, I  suggest dining at Traxx, or at least having a drink in the famous bar. We stopped into the bar for a scotch, then set out for lunch and the parade.

Since Olvera street is also so close by, we decided to stop in for some Mexican food. If fajitas and margaritas on a patio on a balmy February afternoon in L.A. isn’t your idea of a great Saturday afternoon, then… I don’t know what to tell you. Because it was wonderful.

We figured at some point we should catch the parade, so we walked a couple of blocks over to where the parade route ends.

While scurrying across the street after the light changed, I caught the edge of my foot on a crack in the pavement and twisted my ankle sharply. Maybe it had something to do with the margaritas? All I know is that it hurt, but I limped along the rest of the day and refused to hold the group back.

Since we were in the middle of Chinatown, we thought it was the only time appropriate to buy hats and parasols. Now, I know the hats are technically Vietnamese and not Chinese (a woman at the beer garden made this very clear to Cliff. He asked if they were offensive. “Offensive? Yes.” Was her reply. D’oh. But they did protect us from the sun, and they were selling them on every corner, so…).

We ended up finding a beer garden (I had to bow out of the drinking by that point) where local bands were playing.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Chinatown, sampling some of what the food trucks had to offer, dancing with little girls with parasols.

When we got home, I discovered that my ankle was in worse shape than I let on; it was swollen the size of a softball, and I soon wasn’t able to put much weight on it. 

It doesn’t look to be a sprain, but unfortunately it looks like it might set me back about a week in my marathon training. D’oh!

Nonetheless, Chinatown did not disappoint. I may be biased, but Los Angeles really is one of the most unique, eclectic, exciting, wonderful cities in the world.

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