From the LA Streets to the Bering Straights

We carefully planned out our trip – we would land at LAX at midday and spend the afternoon in the lovely Marina Del Ray. But Delta had other ideas – why spend a chilled afternoon at the beach / marina, when you can have a 7 hour delay at SLC airport instead?! We received some food vouchers, but I didn’t think it was much considering that in Europe you get food vouchers if your flight is 2 hours delayed. My boyfriend did his usual act of seeing how long he could read a magazine in a shop before being chased out. It was a long 7 hours!

The good news is we did fly that day, and upon arriving at LAX in the evening, we decided to make the best of it and go to Marina Del Ray as planned. I was looking forward to seeing the beautiful marina, and waves lapping on the sandy beach. However, when we got there it was dark. We were on foot and it was a lonely walk from the bus stop to the beach. The only people around were the staff on the gates of the large posh gated apartment complexes (it was so posh that even the fire hydrants were gold!). The marina was nice but the restaurants were all very expensive and the roads were so quiet that it felt a bit creepy. I was disappointed, as if we had been there in the middle of the day with all the hustle and bustle of the beach, we might have enjoyed it.

We reached the small sandy beach which was pleasant enough but I didn’t feel very safe so we headed back to the hotel and ate petrol station sandwiches sitting on our bed. You can’t say we don’t know how to have a good time in LA! 😉

(Luckily we have visited LA before so we had already seen the touristy sights!)

Gold Fire Hydrant

We thanked our lucky stars that we had planned a decent gap between flights. Due to my ~~paranoid nature~~ careful planning, we had one day and one night contingency before our flight to China. Sadly a lot of our flight-mates had no such luxury and missed their onward flights to far-flung places such as Scotland. I was gutted for them. On the plus-side, they wouldn’t have to go to Scotland…. 😉

After a brief transit at Vancouver airport (home to a cute indoor garden complete with a bridge over a flowing stream, a massive fish-tank, and extortionate exchange rates) we boarded the plane. Just like my boyfriend’s in-flight Japanese lessons, he decided to practise the 5 nasal tones of the Mandarin language. Which is ideal on an 11 hour flight. I spent most of the flight admiring the beautiful views over the Bering Straights and trying to spot a polar bear. Quite surprisingly, I was not successful. Neither was he.

I’m not sure where the above photos were – I assume the Bering Straights or nearby.