We arrived on Thursday afternoon after a fun drive over the L.A. freeway system. It wasn’t that bad; I had a great navigator sitting next to me in the captain’s chair (“there will be a slowdown in a half mile”, get ready”; “do you see those brake lights?”). Parking in front of her apartment building was something else; it is basically a free-for-all, but we got a spot that we could squeeze the van in. We were advised to empty all the valuables, because of the homeless living down the street; my daughter already had their car window broken for what appeared to be an empty grocery bag. Some time after that we put shades and blankets in front of the windows to make sure the van appeared occupied, and no one could look in. This seemed excessive at first, but later in the evening while walking the dogs we observed a gathering of homeless folks and saw at least two vans that someone obviously lived in (a.k.a. boondocking). The doors to those vans were open and there was mosquito netting hung in the door openings, a sure sign of active living.
During our entire stay in the area, we were made very aware of the homeless crisis in this area. It is amazing. A couple of days later we visited a bonsai shop, and the owner (a 50-year-old Asian lady) started to blame the welfare state of California. We hesitated but did not tell her that Republican states are partially to blame for all this, by bussing them in.
A good friend of my daughter and fellow minister came in from Alabama the following day. She was going to sleep at my daughter’s place as well, and we needed to decide how to organize the sleeping of five persons and three dogs in a small townhouse. At night we had a small gathering at a microbrewery nearby and all was well. The first days we did not do too much, we had a ceremony to prepare for. Our daughter and spouse took good care of us, and we were acquainted with the area’s (Asian) donut shops (15 or so between home and her work), the taco stands (too numerous to count), and the ethnic food in the area, most notably Cambodian and Indonesian. The fermented fish dish at the Cambodian restaurant was interesting and delicious, but it or the uncooked vegetables gave me terrible gas. It seems that nobody cooks at home, and everyone eats out all the time.
Our daughter’s church where the ceremony took place is absolutely gorgeous and is in a beautiful location. We got there early which allowed us to scout out the place and take the nature trail, which is owned and maintained by the church, at the edge of the canyon that looks towards the Pacific Ocean. The ceremony was great, and we now have a reverend for a daughter. Afterwards there was a social gathering with a taco dinner, beer, wine and cake. We got to meet more colleagues, and congregants that we can remember. Later on talking with our daughter we heard the stories on all the folks we could remember talking to.
Sunday was a trip to downtown L.A. We visited Little Tokyo for lunch; this place is absolutely worth visiting and went for a hike up hill to the observatory. However, what goes up must come down and so did we. While the downhill was relatively easy, in hindsight I injured my knee; two days later it ballooned and was painful.
We visited the Huntington dog-beach on Monday (see the photograph below) and Tuesday was our bonsai and Japanese garden day.
I guess I’ll write more about our Long Beach visit (Wednesday, Thursday and maybe some other observations) in my next post.
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| We had to go wool shopping after the aquarium |
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| One aquarium picture |
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| The Japanese garden |
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| Jasper did not like the waves at Huntington Beach |
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| The view from the conservatory |
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| Hiking to the observatory |
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| One picture from the ceremony |
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| Get together at the brewery |
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