The Beauty of Downtown LA

{Bunker Hill}

I am an Angelino born and raised. And yet there are so many places I have not explored within Los Angeles. Thankfully, my mum and I discovered a few places today. We went with the objective to go to four places (which I had Googled and Yelped yesteday): Pershing Square, Angels Flight, Grand Central Market, and the Bradbury Building.

We left the house around 10AM and headed over to the Sierra Madre Villa Metro Gold Line Station. Parked, purchased one way tickets (just $1.50 each) and got on the Gold Line to Union Station. This is the second time in my life that I've ridden the metro. It's pretty nice. We then bought tickets and hopped onto the Purple Line to Pershing Square.



{Pershing Square}

The station is just across the street from Pershing Square so going there via metro is very convenient. You can read my Yelp review for my thoughts on it but I was happy that there was a farmer's market when we decided to go. Killing two birds with one stone! Unfortunately there really wasn't anything to buy at the farmer's market. So we headed north to Angels Flight, which Jinwon had told me about when she participated in the LA version of "Amazing Race." Angels Flight Railway is pretty cool. Where else can you ride a trolley car in LA for 25 cents? My mum and I took it up to Bunker Hill. I don't understand why it's called Bunker Hill. Is it a tribute to the original Bunker Hill in Boston? Anyway, it's a really nice place. Much nicer than Pershing Square. I love the fountain here! We walked around the area--there's MOCA, some nice hotels, a lot of businesses and restaurants--until we decided to head back down to Grand Central Market.



{Angels Flight Railway}

I bought a burrito from Grand Central Market to eat for lunch and then we headed back up to Bunker Hill since my mum didn't want to eat there. This time we took the stairs, since I wasn't going to be going to the gym today. That was a workout! A bit of trivia: these are the stairs that Benjamin McKenzie's character on Southland was running up in the season premiere. You also pass by Angels Knoll on the way up to Bunker Hill, which is a small grassy area with a few benches. Apparently it's a big deal to people who watched (500) Days of Summer but since I'm not one of them, I just walked on by. Don't worry, I will watch it someday. My mum got lasagna from Johnnie's New York Pizzeria (which I ended up splitting with her after eating half of my burrito) and we sat by the fountain and had lunch.

Afterwards we headed to the Bradbury Building. The interior of that building is SO NICE. It blew me away. I want to live there. It's so beautiful. I took a picture with Charlie Chaplin there :)

Since it was only 1:30PM and there was still half an hour before the farmer's market would end, we headed back there. Bought a small bag of kettle corn and a couple veggies and that was it. Then we took the Purple Line back to Union Station and the Gold Line all the way back to Pasadena. We had been out for five hours but it was exhausting. So I crashed when I got home and took a nap. That was nice.

I'm really glad my mum and I did a "tour" of downtown LA today. I can't believe I've lived my whole life here and never knew about these places. I definitely want to go back to Bunker Hill in a couple of months when it's full-bloom spring, I imagine it will be even prettier then.

{With my friend Charlie C}