The summer in LA is hot. T is wearing only boxer briefs at home. Having spent the past four summers in San Francisco, where summer is described as the coldest winter by Mark Twin, I forgot how hot the summer could be! Although sometimes it gets unbearably hot, we still love the weather down here: It is simply sunny everyday. This itself is a priceless gift to me.
LA often reminds of Beijing. Its size, popular, road complexity, horrible traffic at rush hours, integration of people from everywhere, and even its smog all remind of Beijing.
Tourists or new comers to these two cities may need a few days to find their way around. In Beijing, if someone tells you to get off Bus A at Xizhimen stop and transfer to Bus B’s Xizhimen stop, be prepared that it may take 30 minutes to finish the transfer, because you’ll first need 5 minutes to figure out which direction is north, and then you may need another 5 minutes to ask around where exactly the Bus B’s stop is because your vision is completely blocked by the abutments of the overpass freeways, and then you need 15 minutes to climb a overhead bridge, and finally you spend 5 minutes to wait for the bus. If you get lost, which is very easy, you may just end up just calling a taxi. Here in LA, you’ll easily figure out your bus transfer because there are not so many tall buildings except the downtown area, and the streets are narrower than the streets in Beijing. You can see what is on the other side of the street. But you may get lost in the highway web. Sometimes you even need to exit the highway from the left lane. GPS is a must.
The driving in LA itself may also take sometime to get used to. Drivers’ manners may not be that nice. Your way is often cut by other cars. Cars in front of you may change to your lane really quick without giving any signals. If you are 0.3 second late to start driving when the green light switches on, you would get honked. It is not a patient city.
But once you have gone through all these tough challenges, LA is an interesting place. There are many great beaches awaiting you. Japan town, China town, Thai town, Korea town, Armenia town... - all kinds of towns offer various food. There are also a lot of opportunities because of its huge population with diverse backgrounds. I would have never imagined that I would do a voiceover and teach a Chinese cooking class. But they both happened. If you like exploring and being ambitious, this could be your place.
