| Los
Angeles:
A
Journey Through
the
Portals of the World |
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| Sunday afternoon. “What’d’ya
wanna do?” “I dunno. What do you wanna do” And thus began
a uniquely Los Angelian journey that started in small-town
America and ended in the suburbs of Saigon watching the
Vietnamese equivalent of the MTV music awards (including
a rather disturbing rendition of Beauty and the Beast) –
but not before passing through modern city splendors, ancient
ruins, pastoral beauty and a rainbow of nations – all within
15 miles of my armchair. |
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Exploring.
It doesn’t matter where or how – like life, the joy is in
the journey. There are amazing sites to be seen in this
town, worlds to be explored, cultures to be experienced,
all within footfalls of home. Architectural
wonders abound. See the monuments and attractions, but
always remember that every back street has |
| something unique and extraordinary
to offer. History is ubiquitous, and the future is being
formed before our very eyes. All that is required is a sense
of adventure, a wanderlust, the will to see what is just
around the next corner. And the next. There
are amazing portals that seem to transcend time and space.
Pass through certain doors, and you emerge out the other
side in the 1940’s. Round a corner, and you suddenly find
yourself at the turn of the century – the last century.
Still other meanderings will send you into the next century. |
| Some avenues
bend and warp space, transporting you effortlessly to distant
lands. Turn right, and you’re in Guatemala or Honduras.
Left, and you miraculously appear in the heart of China
or Vietnam. Where
else can you begin a journey on a sidewalk that turns
into a trail that becomes a path that leads you to the
heart of a piney wood, or a mountain lake, a trackless
desert or the boundless ocean?
And there’s so much more
than meets the eye alone – a universe of |
 |
| delectable aromas, a raging
sea of extraordinary sounds, a cosmos of intriguing tastes.
Los Angeles is a city of sensation, an impressionistic palette
of discover. It
always amazes me when I meet someone who says they don’t
like LA. Sure, there are bits we’d all like to forget,
just as in any metropolitan area. But unlike most others,
Los Angeles offers the entire world in just a few square
miles. |
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|
The movies
have been doing it since the beginning, shooting virtually
every country of the world, and every epoch of time, without
ever leaving Southern California. Adventure
is everywhere, or nowhere, depending upon your state of
mind. You either find around the next corner, or you’ll
never find it at all – even at the ends of the earth.
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