I just lost my drain of thought

Dark and early Saturday, April 5, my sister and I tumbled out of our beds to get to the local train station on time so as not to miss this month’s Metro Art Tour. Neither of us had ever used the rail system in LA and I don’t believe my sister had ridden any Metro vehicle since she was a kid going to Chinatown. We got on the Gold Line to get to Union Station, excitedly staring on the windows on both sides of the train, ready to absorb whatever images we could and making a mental notes about a couple of the stops. We finally got to Union Station and I stupidly ran to the first machine I saw, not reading what was written on top and blindly buying another two tickets for our next ride on the Red Line, our Metro fares for the day totaling only to five dollars between the both of us. When the tickets came out, I noticed they said Gold Line again and I felt so stupid! We headed towards the Red Line stop anyway, hoping they’d understand if we showed them the tickets we bought at the first station, and waited for the subway. As we came down the stairs, the subway we were supposed to board sped off without us, so we had to wait quite a while for the next one. We were rather anxious, because we didn’t know how long it would take to get to our destination at Hollywood and Highland, and we didn’t want the tour to leave without us. Luckily we got there with minutes to spare and there were some people who came even later than we did.

There was one particular moment that was pretty funny on the Red Line ride where this older gentleman walked in who looked sort of like Santa Claus if he were one of the Blues Brothers, sunglasses, hat and all. He was holding this bag with his arm straight up in the air, but the subway was not crowded and no one was in his way. As soon as he sat down, the arm closest to the pole near him shot up and stayed that way until he got off the subway. He did not exit the subway with his arm up, though, so my sister and I figured it was a ploy to make him seem less than sane so that no one would mess with him. I, in fact, saw him get out of an elevator as we waited for our tour to begin and he looked perfectly sane again. Well done, sir.

For those of you who don’t know (probably most people because it’s not very publicized), on the first Saturday and Sunday of every month, Metro puts on free tours for about two hours where docents talk to tourists about the different kinds of art in some of the rail stations. You are given a sticker that acts as your free Metro pass and the Metro system is all yours for the rest of the day. It’s pretty cool and according to the site, “Metro is the first transit agency to benefit from such a program.”

Our particular tour took place in more of the Hollywood-ish region and we looked at about four stations or so. The Hollywood/Highland station was pretty nifty because the inside of the station is shaped like human ribs. Next we went to the Universal City station, which was very colorful. The columns were covered in stories with pictures. The artist actually wrote on the tiles with a chopstick and on each column, one side of the is in Spanish and the other side is in English. The columns are sort of made to look like trees, with leaves all over the background and branches popping out above. You can take that particular station to go to Universal Studios or City Walk. After that, we went to the Hollywood/Vine station, which had to be the coolest one, because it leads you right across the street from the Pantages Theater, which is housing Wicked at the moment. Woot! The tourguide mistakenly called it Enchanted, even though there were Wicked signs everywhere. Psh. After that, we headed to the Vermont/Sunset station, which wasn’t super exciting but kinda. There’s some sort of strange astronomy/medical theme going on. I’m not totally sure where the astro theme comes in, but the medical theme is because Kaiser is right outside the exit and I believe they put in a lot of funds while this station was being built. The solar system is scattered around on the floor of this station and what is special about that is that there are actually models of bacteria on the planets. It’s kind of random. That was where our tour ended and the rest of our day began.

Anyway, like I said, the Hollywood/Vine station was the coolest station, not only because Wicked was right outside but also because of the inside. It totally has a Hollywood theme, with the whole ceiling of the inside being covered with old movie reels. There were also ancient cameras in there that Desi Arnez’s old production company had donated. They were supposed to be used to project images onto the walls of the station that had been made to look like movie theater screens, but the ceiling needed more support than they realized so the palm tree columns got in the way, but the theater walls still add to the whole Hollywood ambience of the station. There are also scattered yellow tiles all over the floor, because originally, the artist who designed this station wanted to use all yellow tiles to make it like the Yellow Brick Road, so while it was being approved, in anticipation of making this yellow brick road, she bought all the tiles. Unfortunately, the owners of the rights to The Wizard of Oz turned it down, so the yellow tiles are spread out so that the floor is not totally yellow but you still kind of get that Yellow Brick Road feel. What also made this station the coolest were the benches that had different types of motorized vehicles on them. My sis and I had a little fun with that. The walls were also pretty cool because many of the tiles were decorated by kids with some sort of Hollywood/car theme. I wasn’t totally sure what it was and I don’t think the tourguide knew either and he made up something about the kids decorating the tiles with their favorite movies, only I have never heard of any of those so-called movies, so I don’t think that was true.

After the tour, we went exploring. We headed back towards the Pershing Square station to get to downtown. On the way there at the Wilshire/Vermont stop, we were deciding whether we should get off or not, because I always see that stop across from where I get off the bus to get to my sister’s work, but neither of us had ever been to it. At the last moment, I said that we should get off so I jumped out the door and the door shut between us. She was stuck inside the subway and I was on the outside and we just stared at each other with looks of horror on our faces. I noticed the girl behind my sister laughing at us hysterically. For a good few seconds, I thought the subway was going to leave with her on it and me stranded in the station, but the door opened again, because I guess the cameras that are located all over the stations came to our rescue.

According to the tourguide, the stations are full of state-of-the-art gadgets that have the ability to zoom in so close with such clarity that they can see the tiny timestamp on our Metro badges. He told us this story about how this one lady’s bag was stolen and the man got on a subway and the people watching were able to act so quickly that within the couple minutes between the stations, there were a bunch of cops waiting to arrest the guy. I found the super zooming thing to be sort of not totally believable, but I’m sure the cameras can at least see when someone needs the door to open up again, especially if she is knocking on the door. In retrospect, that incident was so classic but when it was happening it kind of sucked. haha

After snapping a couple photos, we were on our merry way again to Pershing Square. First we went to Central Library, the hotspot for all the hipsters. Not really, but it’s still pretty cool. After that, we were on a hunt for the Grand Central Market. Armed only with our street smarts and a couple photos we had snapped of a large map of downtown when we emerged from the Pershing Square station, we naturally got a little lost. Well, not lost per se, but we did a little more walking than we really needed to. We stopped by the outside of MOCA and took a gander at the Disney Concert Hall. Finally, we found the market and it was full of so many good smelling things. We kind of wanted food but we kind of wanted to save room for sushi in J-town but we kind of thought that maybe if we filled up here we could save money on sushi… Eventually we decided to just eat some desserts to stave off the hunger for the time being, buy some strawberries for 75 cents, and then eat sushi later.

One of the main reasons my sis wanted to go downtown that day was to see the Bradbury building, which turned out to be right across the street from Grand Central Market at 3rd St. and Broadway. From the outside, it already looks kind of exciting because it’s like something you would see in a movie from the early 1900s or something (it was built in 1893). And apparently you may see the inside in movies. The interior was used to shoot a scene from Blade Runner, to name one of the many. The interior is really, really cool looking. When I walked in, it felt like I was walking into a fancy ship like the Titanic. The elevators are the kind with the levers and such, but unless you’re on some sort of tour, you aren’t allowed to go in them, or even go anywhere above the first landing. And by the way, we totally met Charlie Chaplin here. He’s pretty great.

After that, we were on a quest to Little Tokyo for the Cherry Blossom Festival. There were all sorts of people, big and small, modeling traditional kimonos in a fashion show, and then there was some not-so-traditional garb donned by some interesting characters. Apparently, to some people, any sort of gathering for Japanese traditions calls for cos play, or dressing up like anime characters. There were lots of stands selling crafts and other merch, but some of the stuff was a little too pricey for my taste. We were really there for food, so we went into a plaza to a place called Frying Fish, which has conveyor belt sushi with the chefs in the middle laboring away and ready to take special orders. I am no sushi connoisseur (seeing as I equally enjoy California rolls from Costco; please don’t throw things at me), but I thought their sushi was delicious. The tastiest sushi I had was fried eel, but as far as raw fish goes, salmon and tuna seem to be the best. The one I definitely did not like, though, was the squid sushi. It was sort of covered in this gooey film. Not too tantalizing.

We were pretty pooped after that, so we walked to the Civic Center subway station to begin our journey home. We were told earlier that this station was supposed to be really amazing, so thanks to the tourguide, it was hyped up and we felt a little disappointed. He had told us that the artist chosen to design this station had absolutely no idea what he was going to put in it and then one night he had a dream that he could fly and so designed it to reflect this dream, I guess? I don’t know, I tried looking it up to confirm this story that the tourguide told us and found nothing. Well anyway, there’s several people flying near the ceilings, all made to look like the artist, Jonathan Borofsky, and every once in a while, you can hear birds chirping. They aren’t real birds, it’s just a recording that resonates throughout the station. Don’t get me wrong, this station was still cool beans, but the way it was described to us made it seem like there was a full on sky in there or something.

So we boarded on the Red Line to Union Station and right away noticed a giant puddle of barf near the front of the car we got on. It was an ungodly sight that made me want to upchuck a little myself and it reminded me a little of My Sassy Girl. That scene had almost made me throw up when I was watching it because it came out of nowhere and I was totally eating a sandwich at the time. Anyway, we moved towards the back as far away as possible, but the image was etched in my mind and a hint of it wafted back towards us. Luckily our destination was only one stop away so we jumped off the subway ASAP and went to check out the awesomeness that is Union Station.

I felt kind of bad when we went to the main waiting area, because my sister didn’t think it was as great as I said it was, but she shot some pictures to make me feel less bad anyway. I still think it’s rather grand. I’d really only been inside twice before that day, once going to San Diego and the second time coming back, but I still thought it was cool. For some reason, when I walk in, I can picture it being a really busy place in like the 20s or something. Union Station is a hub for several rails and such, but it’s not really super busy like the image in my mind. It could be if people would utilize other forms of transportation besides cars a little more.

We got on the Gold Line towards home, leaving the city for the suburbs. We got off at the Mission stop to check out the area, because it looked pretty cool from inside the train when we were heading towards Union Station that morning. It turned out to be one of the fancier areas of South Pasadena and it seems like a really cute place to go for dates and such. After snapping some photos, we headed back to the train before the sun went down. Who knows what crazy things take place when that happens? We got back to the Sierra Madre Villa stop and the sky was the same color it was when we started our trip in the morning. Having looked at a Metro map at Union Station earlier, we figured we could take a certain bus home but could not seem to find it. When we did find it, we found out it only ran once at the top of the hour and we missed it by 17 minutes. The Metro system is tricky like that. So we just walked on and then gave up and called our dad to pick us up at the DMV. When we got home, we eated some strawberries and they turned out to be kind of sour. haha. ‘Twas a fun day overall.