philly

Now, a word on LA's public transportation system. Above is one of their hybrid buses (press release on their system) which are pretty cool. They're spacious, clean and these new buses (at least in LA) have live maps of the bus's location via Windows Live on several 15" LCDs throughout the bus (I think 3 on the standard length bus, that's the double length above). It's crazy. The metro system is clean and new. Upon initially hearing one of LA's trains pull into the station we were at, I guessed that they were using similar technology to that of DC's train system. After we got onto the train, I noticed that they were the same cars (minus the ridiculous carpet) so they were same.

But the good stops there. From our 3 day experience in LA, it would seem that 90% of the city is oblivious to the fact that one can take a form of transportation that is not a personal automobile from point A to point B. Asking for directions via public transportation is like asking for moon rocks. Asking for walking directions might get you slapped in the face for such a preposterous request. Being the east coasters we were, we persevered and got through 3 days in LA only riding in a car one time to Grifith Observatory only because we were headed there at sunset and they close the walking trails at that time. But, we did make the car trip in our gracious hosts' bio diesel Benz.

We were staying around the Hollywood/Western Metro stop and got to/fro the LACMA, Hollywood, The Farmers Market, the Getty Center and Union Station without a car. If you ever need to get to those places, or many places in between, let us know, we'll fill you in on the secrets of the LA Metro system because you won't get a straight answer from Angelenos from what we could find.

So, back to our adventures… On Day 2 in LA, we headed to the Farmers Market. But before we headed there, I had to make a pit stop at Freestyle Photographic Supplies (conveniently a quick <1mi walk from our friends' house) for some slower film. I had brought a bunch of 400ASA film with me to SoCal - bad idea. I had to grab a 5 rolls of Fujicolor Pro 160S. Even with that, I'm shooting at f/11 and up all day long. The Tri-X and Pro 400H will have to wait until I get back to Philly. If you're in LA and need some photographic supplies, head to Freestyle - they have film up the wazzoo. I'll be taking a closer look at their catalog when I get back to Philly to compare prices to the local shops and B&H.

The market is a nice and big open air market dating back to 1934 (Philly's RTM is from 1893!). It had tons of local food vendors selling tons of seafood, ice cream, donuts, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, French, burgers, pastries, hot sauce… But we only saw a single produce vendor. For a farmers market, they seemed low on farmers. No produce for us, but we did have some good eats at ¡Lotería! Grill.

I had a huge shredded beef burrito (served with fresh guacamole, salsa chipotle, and finely chopped cilantro and onions), Lady had bean and cheese enchiladas drowned in black beans. It was some of the best Mexican we've had. The homemade spicy salsas weren't as hot as I wanted, but very tasty. We washed them down with some fresh lemonade from a stand in another part of the market.

If in LA, I highly recommend a couple of hours wandering around this open air market. There were lines all over the place and the food smelled wonderful at every turn. But if you're looking for fresh produce and can't find what you're looking for at the single produce stall, there's a Whole Foods across the street and vendors on the street selling whole, peeled and sliced on request fruits and veggies including cukes, watermelon, mangoes, pineapples and melons.

More shots added to the CA 2008 trip flickr set starting here.

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