Living in Downtown LA

This post is another of a continuing series related to apartments and apartment hunting.

When I was growing up in suburban Chicago, living in the city as an adult was like a dream: most weekends I would go into the city of Chicago with my parents and see the beautiful lake shore and architecture and fantasize about getting away from my no-name suburb(sorry, Darien, IL!) and make it to the bright lights of the big city. This dream was reinforced during high school when my dad and I put bikes in a van and drove to one end of the lake shore and biked to the other end and back. One of the best experiences of my young life and a chance to experience the entire Chicago shoreline. In fact, I wish I could do that now.

Anyway, my childhood kind built me up to wanting to live in an urban environment. After moving around a bunch during college, I finally got to realize this dream by renting an apartment in downtown Los Angeles. Downtown Los Angeles, though, is not like downtown Chicago. There are no bridges, there are no rivers, there are no boats, ships, coastline. There aren't even that many buildings, although the new Intercontinental Hotel on top of the Korean Airlines building is plenty impressive. It's certainly a different kind of downtown for sure, but there's peculiar aspects to living in downtown L.A.


1.) Lots and lots of dog owners everywhere. In Chicago the business district has
2.) The Staples Center hosts an event almost every night, whether it's the Kings, the Lakers, the Clippers, the Sparks, etc., there's always something festive going on and fans wearing the team colors.
3.) I remember about 10 years ago when i first came to L.A. to attend law school, downtown wasn't in great shape. Lots of parking lots, a sparse amount of office buildings. Nowadays
4.) You can always watch "Heat" and see so many areas of downtown if you want to see what downtown L.A. used to look like (or still looks like now).
5.) You can run to a lot of different places! Believe it or not, there are some people as crazy as me who run around downtown LA! (Although, watch the traffic, there have been an increasing amount of pedestrian deaths!) Dodger Stadium, Little Tokyo, Korea Town, even USC is within reach if you just go a little further.
6.) The NUMBER ONE best thing about living in downtown LA is working in downtown LA and cutting the commute. Sure I still live a mile away from my primary workplace, but that's like a short bus ride away or subway if I'm lazy, or I can even choose to skip and hop to work like Joseph Gordon Levitt after his first night with Summer in "500 Days of Summer." (one of the best movies depicting Los Angeles!). The point is, not dealing with road rage, congestion, the act of driving itself, and having to wake up at certain times to beat traffic. It might have saved me
7.) MJ chimes in here: "There's a Whole Foods now in Los Angeles!!! Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!"
8.) There's not THAT many homeless people if you know where to go and which roads to take.
9.) Grand Hope Park- the starting line of Amazing Race 29. I go by there every day on my way to and home from work. Inspriational.
10.) Watch for dog poop and mice. We need to get some cats up in this city!

Slight rant: the stock market is rigged. Just when you think you have everything figured out about stocks (which I don't, but at least thought I had an idea) they throw in this element of "after-hours trading" that happens after the market closes. Yes, the market closes, but you can lose money during this time while you have to hopelessly watch your money disappear (and admittedly, yes, sometimes watch your money inflate significantly). This is why the market can close at a certain price level on Tuesday night but be SIGNIFICANTLY different the next morning when the market closes, without you even doing anything about it. That's what Jim Cramer and all the financial analysts don't tell the common investor, along with the fact that personal investors are just little pawns in the game for the institutional investors who control much larger amounts of money and insight about the market, what news might occur, basically get the cheat codes to the game and not share it with everyone. We, as the sheep personal investors, can only follow the rise and fall of the markets and try to get some of the scraps, like the lowly peasants of kingdoms whose leaders battle it out and enjoy all the fruits of war. It's a powerless feeling, and makes me feel less inclined to invest in stocks. Today, for example, the market did great, amassing large gains during the open session!.........and then gave those gains right back after the market closed, and then some, because President Trump tweeted out $100 billion tariffs on China. Massive selloff. Panic ensues. My portfolio takes a massive hit, I go to sleep tonight a little upset but just generally jaded at being such a weak bottomfeeder in the game that is life.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan