Chinatown & Little Tokyo in Los Angeles

Hello everybody!

I am in California/USA at the moment and I'm travelling with my friend Lau through different cities. Currently we have been to Los Angeles (L.A.) - a really great city!

We had a hotel directly in the middle of Chinatown, kind of funny, because of course I didn't tell my travel agency that I love Asian countries, ha ha.

So here we are, in the middle of the Asian quarter.

our hotel: Dragon Gate Inn

The Chinese Plaza was pretty nice but the rest of Chinatown is quite unexited. The main street behind the 'Dragon Gate' (which marks the entrance of Chinatown) is kind of shabby >.<

Chinese Plaza

From there we took the Metro Rail Gold Line to Little Tokyo^^ (it's really called that way and it was only two stations from Chinatown)

This quarter is totally different from Chinatown and much more nicer!!! It's clean and filled with nice shops, hotels and restaurants and the Japanese American Museum. Even the traffic Lights are pieping like in Japan, that was so cute X3

In the centre of the quarter the Japanese Village Plaza is located. It's a circle walk with many typical Japanese shops and restaurants. We were totally happy because it is really a little Japan.

There was a great supermarket where many super delicious sweets were on sale *_*

We had to buy a package of Matcha KitKat there X3

choice of sweets

But there were also drug stores (where my friend Lau had to buy some eye lashes *lol *), backeries &cafés (I bought a Matcha Mochi Mochi),goodie & souvenir shops and of course some restaurants serving sushi. Udon, Ramen and other typical dishes (I could post a picture of almost every shop, but that would be too much^^;). Down in a centre were also a Anime store, a Lolita shop and shop selling cosplays and stuff like that. It even had some purikura machines. Of course we had to try one X3

centre of the plaza

shop with puri-machines

inside the drugstore; Lau buying her lashes^^

We went there in the morning but after our tour through the city we came back in the evening for dinner. We chose a nice restaurant called 'Maruya' which served Sushi. Ramen, Donburi and several side dishes. We both longed for a good Katsudon and weren't disappointed, it was totally delicious!!! and pretty much, we were so full afterwards XD

I also tried a cocktail there: Chu-Hi Cocktail – White Peach (sake) with soda and ice, it tasted fresh and sweet^^

Maruya

my cocktail

Katsudon X3

So we had much fun and it is worth a visit - even if you are not so into Japanese stuff like I am XD

~*~

During the day we have also been to Santa Monica and Hollywood, so here also some impressions of our trip:

Santa Monica Beach

Chinese Theatre

Hollywood sigh between the houses^^'