Venice beach

Well, this is it, a trip down to Venice Beach as the last day before a midnight flight to Brisbane. What a hassle to store the backpacks at the hotel, as it turned out, it was even more difficult to get them back, who would have guessed?

Venice Beach is always featured in American movies and TV shows, using public transport, it takes a fair effort to get down the beach, I get the feeling LA is an automobile city. There is naturally public transport, LA however is a city spread over a huge area and it appears the system is a little lacking. All in all, Venice Beach has plenty going for it, good facilities, lots of sand and grass - unfortunately, there is also plenty of weird people with a fairly major altercation on the bus on the way down. 

Tom n Toms

Walking through downtown Los Angeles on the way to the arts district, I stopped in at Tom n Toms Coffee at the Little Tokyo pavilion.  As it was a fairly warm LA summer day, a refreshing drink was on the cards. A large strawberry smoothie was not my normal choice of beverage but on a warm summer day, I did enjoy a little respite from sweating and replenishing some liquids.

Skid row

We all know the United States has homeless people, I was shocked at the sheer number and concentration of homeless people in Los Angeles. I just happened to walk through the area and the stench of urine was over-powering, it makes you feel kind of nervous although I wasn't harassed at any stage.

I now find out this is the highest concentration of homeless people in the United States numbering up to 6000 people, the fact there is actually a place named skid row, that amazes me. I wondered what is being done to address this issue, I am guessing not a whole lot. To walk past and see the plight of the homeless in a rich developed country is just mind blowing, this is not a third world country although here you could be mistaken - this is such a shame.