City Walk: Little India

Today Bill and I took a walk through Little India, located about 20 miles south of Los Angeles. It wasn't just any walk, it was a walk with prescribed start and stop points and with stores to check out highlighted along the way. Fritz and Roxanne gave me Los Angeles City Walks: 50 Adventures on Foot, prior to my move out to L.A. Totally thoughtful and appropriate gift!



We chose this walk at random, much the way many of the walks will be chosen and headed out shortly after breakfast. After parking, and with the Little India card in hand, we began the walk. Among the recommended stops was an International Video store. Once inside we browsed through the selection of mostly Bollywood DVDs, taking in the smell of incense and sound of foreign music playing throughout the store. Being in the store brought back memories of traveling to India. I went to India a few years ago so I told Bill about my experience seeing a Bollywood movie there in the capital of Mumbai/Bombay.

"It was a romantic comedy with lots of singing interludes," I said, "and I think I fell asleep halfway through it."

Story of my life with movies.

Bill pointed out a DVD featuring, what's his name? Samantha's exboyfriend on Sex in the City? Glad he made the cross over to Bollywood films.

On the City Walk map above you can see a park, or at least a green space, and it's called Artesia Park. It's not part of the walk but we decided to veer off the route and check it out. The sun seems to shine more brightly in L.A. than Philly and we had stopped for Indian food so we were both feeling a little wiped.



"I think we're both a little zombie-like today," I said as we made our we past some quiet residential houses.

"This area doesn't have much life to it," said Bill as we came upon the park, "and the park is deserted."

That was true, moving off the main strip of the town took a little energy out of the scene. The park was deserted, although there were numerous baseball fields, a couple playgrounds, and two basketball courts.

Bill spotted a basketball near one of the hoops so we decided to see how much life it had in it. The ball bounced although its surface had a slightly spongy feel. After playing around with the basketball for a while we decided to finish up the walk and head back to our car.

We drove back on a similar route Bill takes to drive home from work. Bill pointed out a small lake? pond? on the way and said that he once saw a helicopter dip a giant bucket of some sort into that lake to carry off to dose on a fire burning in nearby Whittier Hills. Never a dull moment around here.

Home now and looking forward to watching Dostana tonight, a movie we picked up at the International Video store.