LA

3/10/2010

LA, to be honest, never received too much of my attention. I had very little sleep while tidying up loose ends in Melbourne, and probably slightly less on the flight. Hence I didn't deal very well with arriving 4 hours before I left yet stunningly more tired.

Still, as it was morning and check in wasn't for a while I decided to go shopping for some basics. After leaving my bags in the Culver City hotel I headed for the Westfield centre I was told was nearby. I was aiming for sandals (due to how badly my feet were dealing with the heat in my hiking boots), groceries, SIM for my phone and general groceries to keep food costs down.

I headed for target for item one, and found that they seem to do groceries there too. That, and end-of-season sales meaning 75% off sandals from a 50% off price meant I did fairly well there. On the phone front, today was the first step of many in struggling to find phone dealers (and departments in department stores) who understood the concept of an unlocked phone/prepaid phone use and most importantly actually stocked SIM cards.



Poster from the associated film

Of most interest to me though was the difficulty in getting into the store. I had been told that a car was the best way to find one's way around in Los Angeles, but this was more than I imagined. I still suspect I might have been "doin' it 'rong!" somehow, but after 5 or so minutes of trying the only way I could find my way into the mall was through the carpark.

While looking for I-forget-what I eventually stumbled into an Islands restaurant, asked what time it was, looked horrified (still 11:00am or so) and proceeded to rotate between sipping the bottomless iced tea, chewing buffalo wings, reading Bengal Lancer and falling asleep at the table for the next 2 hours. It wasn't the book. Eventually enough was enough and I begged for an early check-in. It was pretty soon 8:00am.