First week in Los Angeles

This is a view of my empty loft

I feel like the past week went by both really quickly. Since I arrived in Los Angeles on September 3, I had to check Jack and Missouri into a kennel, find an apartment, and start a new job. While I was "homeless," I stayed at the Orbit, a hostel in West Hollywood. While I don't mind doing the hostel thing, it is completely different when I have to get up early in the morning for work while rest of my roommates are partying late into the night. It was not an ideal situation for me for the long term.

I lucked out my fourth day in LA and found a loft in downtown LA's Fashion District. My loft is between the Fashion District and Toytown.

My neighborhood is a very busy place during the day. One could see garment workers pushing their carts of fabric, buttons, and merchandising through the streets. A couple blocks north of my building, one could see a great number of Chinese toy importers working out of their shops, loading and unloading their goods and at the same time working in their rudimentary English and Spanish to attrack customers. What I find the most interesting, however, is the Portuguese-speaking Brazilian Koreans. They look like Koreans, eat a mix of Korean and Brazilian food, but speak in Portuguese. I guess only in LA could one find such a mix of people.

The job is completely different than Capitol Hill. I found myself heading to San Diego for my first day on the job. I arrived at the office to find that the Asian Business Association of San Diego is hosting a debate between the Proposition 78 and 79 forces and hiked my way 2 hours down south for the event. I drove two hours south and two hours back to attend a 30 minute debate. But at least they were all billable.

I am still getting used to the whole billable hours. The entire industry is based on this concept of generating billable hours to justify its pay and budget. I'm still learning but I have a long way to go before I master this new concept.

Before I leave, I took some photos of my neighborhood. It is not a pretty district. But it is the engine room of Los Angeles and I look forward to exploring it block-by-block.