Morning walk in San Diego
Once again, it was the same early-morning start for Bruce. After breakfast and showers, we took a morning walk in glorious sunshine, through downtown and the area around the Convention Center and Marina Park.
By train to LA
Today’s main activity was relocating to Los Angeles on Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner service. After checking out of the Hotel Indigo, we transferred to Santa Fe Depot in good time for our 1450 departure and went to a local 7-Eleven to buy what turned out to be surprisingly nice salads to eat on the train. We were first in the Business Class line and therefore the first able-bodied passengers to board. We ate our salads and got an Amtrak ‘Snack Pack’ plus a small bottle of white wine from the car attendant. The journey initially retraced our Monday route to Carlsbad, without actually stopping there. I have very few photos as the windows were dirty and I was looking directly into the sun.
We arrived into Union Station in Downtown Los Angeles (“DTLA”) a little before 6pm. We used the LA Metro to go two stops to Pershing Square and couldn’t believe how far downhill the system had gone in the two years since we had last used it. The train was disgustingly filthy. We were relieved to get off and walk the short distance to the Hilton Checkers hotel. We asked to move from our initially allocated room due to underperforming air conditioning, and in the process noticed that both rooms showed evidence of poorly vacuumed carpets. Overall, it seemed like a poor start to our short stopover in LA.
Things started to improve, however, when we each had a decent Manhattan in the lobby bar before heading out for a delicious gyoza-and-ramen dinner at Jinya Ramen, just a five-minute walk away on Wilshire Blvd. Proof of vaccination was required in order to enter.
