We checked out of the hostel and headed for the subway to Union Station. Yet again it was raining..so not a great start to the day, at least we got to see if our big bags are waterproof..which they seem to be!
We booked our tickets for the train and checked our big bags in. We headed into downtown LA to see what it was like! Outside the station seemed ok and looked fairly smart and clean, however this was soon to change! A few blocks down and it was completely different! It seemed so rough and dirty everywhere and cheap shops everywhere. We weren’t impressed and the weather wasn’t helping things either!
We mooched through some of the districts including Toy district, fashion and south park and headed back to the station through the financial district. The first few districts were not what we had expected so we headed for the tall posh buildings of the financial district. On the way we saw the staples centre where the LA Lakers play basketball and where Michael Jackson’s televised funeral was held. There was a different vibe in the financial district and we felt safer there! We were the only white Europeans in the other areas! We stopped for some lunch and decided that there wasn’t much else to see and that we were getting too wet so we headed back to the station to catch the train to San Diego. We weren’t impressed with downtown LA and were glad we had stayed in Hollywood for our time here as it was much nicer up there!
The train was a posh one, newer than the Coast Starlight which we had got from Seattle to LA. This one was the Pacific Surf liner and it did just as its name say..we practically surfed the Pacific as we were so close to the Ocean! We had some brilliant views of the ocean and endless miles of beaches! We have planned for a beach day tomorrow, think it is well deserved and we hope the weather improves!!