Blogging Social Differences in LA- Week 5

This week I decided to visit Little Tokyo in Downtown LA.  I have been here lots of times before but I never before noticed how out of place Little Tokyo truly is. The transition is not slow like that of Korea Town (2nd week response), but fast and dramatic.

As you can see not so clearly in the picture (Do to me driving and taking pictures at the same time), the apartments on the left are white and without color. These are the buildings that you see coming in from Boyle Heights. They suddenly change to the apartments that you will see around Little Tokyo, colorful and lively. There is the warehouse district separating Boyle Heights from little Tokyo, though is not as predominant in 1st street (which is where the above picture was taking) as it is further South of Little Tokyo. Basically you will see buildings and street like these:

However, Little Tokyo itself is very vibrant and lively:

 Full of Japanese history and art all throughout the streets of Little Tokyo:

Speaking of which that is what caught my attention the most this time around. Their graffiti. It is very representative of things that one might think of when thinking of Japan, Hello Kitty and Animation.

If you look closely you can see the Hello Kitty in the Picture

Godzilla? The red circle symbolic to their flag? Most likely

I simply thought this was adorable.

The Following is a pretty large Bumble Bee (From Transformers) possibly getting ready to fight the giraffe!

Little Tokyo is full of Japanese restaurants, retail stores and even their own Markets (Where you will find candy and other goodies only sold in Japan!) But it also contains some Korean and Hawaiian restaurants (Which are not that surprising due to the history that the Japanese have with these two places). What was surprising was the fusion between two unlikely nations:

The sticker says: "Mexican Japanese Fusion".

Though a bit surprising I suppose it does make sense due to the large Mexican population in the region. I guess my biggest curiosity  is what do the tourists  (because there seemed to be a lot of Japanese tourist here) an Mexican population think about this addition to their cuisine. Is it accepted by either, or both? I think that this particular growth in cuisine is an obvious example of organic solidarity at play. Though there seems to be a huge number of homogenous businesses (those strictly Japanese), there appears to be some room for integration of other cultures and ideals. I found this to be both refreshing and a bit comical.I personally love both Mexican and Japanese food, however never in my wildest dream would I have ever thought of combining the two.

I did not taste the food here, but plan to do so next time I visit.