first few steps in the sleepy Long Beach...

Thursday, January 31, 2008 | 19:04 | 4 comments

Firstly, Long Beach is boring, i don't think I've seen so little people on the streets ever, I'd compare it to the small little japanese towns i pass by. As far as i can tell, Long Beach is a ghost town, perhaps this is just not the season, but then I still don't see it the attraction if it were busier. The ghosty noticable after a short walk down the boulevard, shops are closed, in a state of disrepair or changing hands / new management. there are just empty blocks where you just know a big building was once, and now its just a pile of rubble.

But you know what, the people are nice. well the people within the restaurants that I have visited are nice, but then it's hard to tell because you don't know if it's them being nice for a tip or being nice cos they are nice. Well, i guess it's best to assume the latter.

I gotta say though, LA seems to be a place that is jumpy, on edge, if not then probably racist. I gotta say I'm pretty blind to racism, i think mainly because i'm open to the idea of people being absolute jerks or absolute ignoramuses for no reason. But i think i saw it today at the airport. I'm casually walking out of the airport, hand my passport to the final check guy, when i hear this loud and obviously rude and arrogant voice owned by a man called Shved.

Shved: OI... pause ... OI YOU... pause... OI
me: ...  errr... me?
Shved: yeah.. you.. come here..

so i'm significantly shocked by how rude this man is, there are civil ways of getting a person's attention and there are ways jerk use, this was definitely how a jerk would do it.

Shved: Where you from?
me: australia
Shved: doesn't matter, I want you randomly checked. *scribbles quickly*

a) if it didn't matter, wtf did you ask me. b) he obviously thought i was going to say Philippians or Korea, cos that was the proceeding flight... c) That was the most unrandom random check i've ever seen. Granted i was wearing a suit, carrying a camping backpack, a significantly weird sight. I was giggled to myself thinking "ah ha, American border control are the jerks that I've read about on the Internet". That's until i approach the line, in front of me was a old asian granny, in front of her was an asian businessman, in front of him being checked was what seemed an asian student probably postgrad, right next to this person was a korean family. Everywhere I looked asians, everybody he let through without hesitation, white.

wtf, seriously.

Another weird event occurred when i was walking around Long Beach, I see a cop car on the other side of the road, I pull out my map slowly. It drives off up the road. I think, hey look its a cop car just like the movies. It does a U turn. I think, hey look its a cop car doing a Uey just like the movies. I proceed to open my map. Cop car pulls up short about 10m in front of me and a cop gets out. I'm like wtf, am i gonna get tasered now... just like the movies? By this time I have my map fully open and am visibly fumbling as if looking for where I am.. 2 seconds later the cop does a 180 gets back in the car and it speeds off, does a Uey, and then speeds off again into the distance...

wtf, seriously.

Otherwise, it's fine. Girls at the reception seem nice =)

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

muzza.. haha. reception chicks are nice everywhere! (esp @ southern century tower :P)

11:23 PM  
Blogger noodles said...

when i say nice.. i mean under 22, pretty and also nice =)

5:03 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

get her number! maybe she likes climbing too!

(chuckle: Phillipians? I was wondering why the Bible reference....you mean Phillipines.)

My experience with "american culture" - was at Orlando Bus Station. Now I've got like 2 hours to kill, and I set my camera up to take a photo of ME. like...it was point at ME. and then the security asks me to put that thing away. wt?
a bit later i tried to covertly take a photo of my bored expression and then this old lady snitched on me and started yelling "hey! he's trying to take photos again! he's trying to take a photo!"


oooooo.....and i'm going to send these happy snaps back to my terrorist organisation, because we're such a secret organisation that we use big SLR cameras to do our spy-work.

that got me down for a full hour.

11:35 AM  
Blogger noodles said...

ahah yeah.. id be too much of a cheap skate to call her. There really is no point in getting people's numbers, i aint got no moves or motivation =)

phillipinos? i figured that but to me sounds like slang. Where you come from? Phillipines. Oh you can be Phillipinos... along with the Malaysios and Singaporeos...I was trying to upgrade them to Phillipians =)

sheessssh. yeah, it's definitely a weird country here. So advanced yet so.. American.

7:08 PM  

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