To that end, Rob and I decided to spend our Sunday in San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles and Rob’s preferred jumping-off point for Catalina Island. We won’t be catching the ferry, however—today we’re staying put and seeing where the day takes us within town.
First stop: Mishi’s, for some leisurely tea and cherry strudel. With Hungarian strudel, the dough is supposed to be rolled so thin that you can read a newspaper through it, ensuring the flakiness of the pastry. Flaky, I can confirm, but honestly, I was too busy tucking into it to verify its transparency. Guess I’ll just have to come back another time to do that—I’m thinking I’ll have to test the blueberry. Or the apple-walnut. Maybe both, just to be absolutely sure. That’s scientific method, right?
Tea and strudel finished, it’s an easy roll down the hill to Angel’s Gate Park, where we find the Korean Bell of Friendship. This was South Korea’s gift to the U.S. on the Bicentennial, to honor both our Korean War veterans and the warm relations between the two countries. And if you don’t think seventeen tons of copper-tin alloy signify a serious commitment, I don’t know what to tell you.
There’s also a pair of jangseungs—carved wooden posts meant to keep evil spirits at bay—possibly best known in the States from a 1976 episode of M*A*S*H. But usually they’re carved to look conventionally scary and intimidating, not...dementedly happy.
Probably just as effective, though.
Anyway. Closer up you can see the detailing on the bell as well as the ornate decoration on the pavilion that houses it. Instead of a clapper, the bell is sounded with a suspended log; however, it’s only rung on certain holidays (New Year’s Eve and both countries’ Independence Days among them) and the log is chained in place the rest of the time. Not that it, uh, crossed my mind to try anything anyway.
The other notable feature of the Korean Bell? The view. Well, some days more than others—today we had the gloomy marine layer that SoCal gets in the late spring/early summer. It’ll burn off later, but for now you almost have to take my word that that’s Catalina looking like a mirage across the water.
Moving on, we swung by the other side of the park to see the Marine Mammal Care Center, a nonprofit that specializes in treating injured seals and sea lions as well as educating the public about our pinniped friends. You can watch whatever’s going on in the half dozen saltwater pools, but don’t expect any performances—this is strictly a veterinary facility, and its patients are bound for release rather than domestication. Well, not every species is cut out to be an urban critter like I am.
As it happened, that day the center was having its Annual Seal Day fundraiser, with food, music, vendors, and carnival games. We chipped in a few bucks for the raffle—didn’t win anything, but seal rehab’s always a worthy cause, I suppose.
There were also a couple of educational tables with marine specimens to show off—these are the teeth of the silky shark. Eep. This is why you never see a rabbit in the water, at least not without a speargun. And depth charges.
Hey, Rob, he followed me home! Can we keep...it’s already a no, isn’t it?
Then a stone’s away throw from the Care Center is the Fort MacArthur Military Museum, built on one of the batteries that the fort—named for Arthur MacArthur, Doug’s dad—occupies. The grounds have been through a few incarnations over the last 125 years: Originally a Spanish public landing, by WWI it was a training center that was expanded to a Pacific defense station in WWII, and later it served as a peacetime reservist camp, a Cold War anti-aircraft base, and, eventually, a city park, although some of the facilities have been transferred to the Air Force and are still used for housing and administration. But for simplicity’s sake, we’ll concentrate on the museum area only.
Can I drop the arm down and do the “You shall not pass!” line now?
Actually, Fort MacArthur is said to be the best-preserved example of an American coastal-defense gun emplacement, as most of the others have been completely gutted for parts; this, on the other paw, is still intact, right down to the dog cemetery that commemorates the first sentry K-9 Company unit being formed here. Only some electrical equipment and the original guns—which locals considered more of a windows-shattering nuisance than genuinely practical, their twenty-seven-mile range notwithstanding—were removed, but the replacement guns still draw draw the eye first upon entering. Ain’t no gophers gettin’ in my lettuce patch!
Inside the battery—which is buffered by concrete walls twelve feet thick—there’s a whole array of historical displays, including photos, old military gear, internment notices, a radio room, and this wall of war-era newspapers. The headlines are what you’d expect, but what’s great is that some of the ads are preserved as well—1941 meat prices were unbelievable! Yeah, I’m aware the inflation rate since then is like 1350%, but still.
Wander deeper into the access tunnels and you’ll see more military relics of the past, including a mess hall and even unused ordnance, such as a Nike anti-aircraft missile, a mine, and, well, this. Of all the days to leave my cowboy hat at home, right?
But one on-site feature that still works: the speaking tubes that crisscross the base, for lack of an intercom or anything higher-tech. So if you happened to be at Fort MacArthur the same day we were and heard someone singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the distance? That was me.
And where do those speaking tubes go? Well, all over, but especially up to the battery commander’s station, the low-lying surveillance booth at the top of the parapet. From here, the commander had a pretty good view of the harbor without the hazards of being in a high-profile watchtower...
...and the docent on duty may even set up the scope so you can scan the horizon yourself. He also let me borrow his hat for this shot. All clear, Los Angeles! The sheep of Catalina will not be invading today.
The afternoon, however, is winding down. Still, there’s just enough time to duck into the Maritime Museum on the way to dinner. Ahoy-hoy!
Housed in a onetime ferry terminal building, the museum crams quite a bit into a fairly compact space: exhibits on the history of the port, local fishing and canning, commercial diving, nautical equipment, even displays of rope knots and ships-in-bottles. Not to mention a huge number of boat models, from sampans and schooners to modern oil tankers and Navy vessels. Though of course, nothing trumps the appeal of a good old-fashioned dragonboat!
But my favorite item in the museum might just be this—the original 1913 lens from the Angel’s Gate Lighthouse, which sits at the opening of the harbor breakwater. A magnificent fourth-order Fresnel lens comprised of fourteen separate prisms, lighthouse keepers had to be well-versed in several different disciplines to maintain such a powerful yet delicate piece of equipment; it served San Pedro for over seventy years before being replaced and donated to the Maritime Museum in 1990.
I just wanna see the Bat-Signal you could run through this thing.
On to dinner! We stopped off at Baramee because I was in the mood for some crying tiger beef, but it was the dessert that left the real impression on me—fried bananas with fresh berries and vanilla Thai ice cream! That alone might’ve been a great end to the day...
...except that we had one more stop, this time at the Fanfare Fountain near the foot of the Vincent Thomas Bridge. If you’re reminded of the Fountains of Bellagio, you’re exactly right—same designers and everything.
And just like Bellagio, the Fanfare is a musical fountain that performs a choreographed show every thirty minutes—or every ten during peak hours—to a range of classics from “’O Sole Mio” to “Dancing in the Streets,” with a mixture of waving, swiveling sprays...
...and vertical water jets that explode upward like fireworks. I don’t recommend watching downwind of the fountain if you’ve got fur, but upwind, what a perfect ending to a summer evening.
So that was our Sunday. Unfortunately, our San Pedro excursion happened right before the USS Iowa opened to the public, so we’ll have to come back another time. But oh well—you can only do so much in one day anyhow.
