Out and About Town: Part 2

One Sunday, I decided to make use of the $10 Weekend Metrolink Pass and make a trip downtown. I arrived at Union Station at about 11:40 and then walked to Little Tokyo. Here I had lunch at one of the Plaza restaurants. The restaurant offered a lunch special which included two dishes and a drink for $8.99. I chose udon, rice bowl with eel and a beer. It was very tasty. I really like eel a lot and hadn't had it in a while, so I particularly enjoyed this lunch. The udon noodles came with a Chinese spoon. I'm always a bit confused by finding these spoons in my miso soup bowls and this time my noodle bowl. You can't find these spoons anywhere in Japan. For Western food you get forks, knives, and teaspoons and for curry rice and fried rice you get tablespoons. Everything else is eaten with chopsticks. Soups are drank. This was one habit I was happy to adopt for the rest of my life. I am the girl dumps a load of milk in her cereal, eats the cereal out and then drinks the milk from the bowl. I'm also the girl that puts twice as much water and milk into her oatmeal and malt-o-meal and then drinks it out of the cup. I never really understood the concept of ladling up spoonfuls of liquid into your mouth, it seems like just wasting energy. Chinese spoons don't seem like much of an improvement on the regular spoon, they are harder to fill up and the liquid sloshes around in the bowl of the spoon too much between the bowl and your mouth. But I guess that when Japanese restaurants in LA started being frequented by non-Japanese, that they tried to come up with some concessions the the Western reluctance to drink soup from a bowl. Personally I love lifting up the big noodle bowl to my face and feeling the hot steam open my sinuses. It's very gratifying.
After lunch I walked over the bakery and bought a shu-cream or cream puff.
After lunch, I walked downtown, up Angel's Flight and then rested and relaxed for a bit at the Biltmore.
I couldn't decided what to do next, I didn't have enough time to board the metro to Hollywood, besides, it was going to be a mad house down there since the Academy Awards were that evening. I considered it might be interesting to experience all the madness but then I saw a sign for the contemporary art museum. Althought I am not the biggest fan of modern art there is quiet a bit of it find interesting and since I hadn't been to the MOCA before, I decided that this was as good of a way to pass the afternoon as any.
The main exhibit was on Weegee who first made his name in New York as a crime photog, but later came to LA and documented the often contradictory images of Los Angeles and published the Naked City which in turn inspired the movie the Naked City. I found the exhibit fascinating and inspiring. But just as I expected, I decided that that most of the permenant collection made little sense or moved me. I was pleased with myself that I was able to identify the Jackson Pollock for what it was before I confirmed it with the label.
Inspired by WeeGee's photos, I took these photos. I don't know if it was staged or not but I found the tricycle chained up whimsicle. I also took a quick snap of the people standing in line at the MOCA ticket office. I think that this is a pretty good representation of the people downtown and not homeless on a Sunday afternoon.

I wanted to go back to Little Tokyo to the supermarket to pick up some of my favorite goodies. I know that I can get most of these items at the Korean Market in Santa Clarita, but shopping in a Korean market is a different experience than shopping in a Japanese market. I wanted the experience as much as the anything else.
I snapped a couple of photos of LAPD, I thought my brother would appreicate these, and then in the new Parker Center mirrored windows I noticed the traditional building from across the street. Yes, this part of My LA, the clashing of modern and tradition, the juxtaposition of styles.

At the Japanese market, I bought pickled daikon, a bag of short grain rice, rice sprinkles, somen noodles and soup base, and fish paste. All this week, I have been eating steamed rice with rice sprinkles. The left over rice became curry friend rice. I have been crunching on pickled diakon as well.
After picking up my groceries, I stopped at a gift shop and found M daughter a saftey driving charm. Her daughter commutes from the Antelope Valley all the way down the San Fernando Valley for work and she has had some pretty odd and expensive traffic problems. A rock punctured her gas tank, debris sheered off her OnStar are just a few. The clerk and I went through the charms trying to find the best one for her. We decided that the Maneki Neko scooping in good luck into her car along with the safety driving fortune was maybe the best one for her. Not that I overly superstitious but her very bad fortune with these freak accidents leads me to believe that it couldn't hurt.
After a little bit more wondering, I gathered my heavy bundles and walked back to Union Station to board the train back to Santa Clarita. On the train, I relaxed and read A Vintage Affair on my Kindle.