Accommodations for Asian Festival, Traditional Chinese Shopping and Best Chinese Food
 

My 21 yr-old son and 16 yr-old daughter wish to attend a fairly big Asian music festival for young people in Pasadena on August 20 & 21. My daughter is bringing along a 16-yr-old friend who will arrive in Los Angeles on August 18. My son & daughter are half-Chinese, so there is no real issue with them fitting in at the festival. I graduated from high school in Santa Barbara (now live in Ohio) and have little interest in doing much in LA. My daughter and her friend are fairly typical teenagers who would like to get a taste of Hollywood and celebrities as well as attending the festival. Will be in Los Angeles, at least the 18th through the 22d. (Arriving in Santa Barbara 8/14) I am the father, so I would like the 2 girls to have their own separate room and may have to get adjoining motel rooms so they will have their privacy. I am thinking that an Airbnb might be a more effective solution in terms of privacy and would like any suggestions people might have with respect to that.

Will add that my son has friends in LA as well as other connections, so his logistics are easy. He can stay with the family or go his own way. Just mentioning him as background. Also, will add that I am not financially strapped, but want to avoid spending a very large amount of money on accommodations. Would welcome any suggestions or insights that people have.

Almost anywhere near a Red Line or Gold Line station would probably work well - they wouldn't need a car if they're going to go off separately from you for part of a day, and you can get to Hollywood on the Red Line. But, FWIW, Hollywood is a bit on the dumpy side and anticlimactic. I tell that to visitors, they go anyway and report back that it's dumpy. In 25 years here I haven't really run into celebrities on the street. Cap'n Crunch once in a bar. Got seated at a table with a famous Hong Kong actor at Din Tai Fung (I wouldn't have recognized him, but my film-editor friend did). A few are regular bike riders, but with bike riders you can know someone a decade and not know what they do because you just talk about bikes.

Pasadena has a few of the major chain hotels reasonably close to the Rose Bowl (Courtyard, Hilton, Westin, Residence Inn, etc and at least the Marriott properties are in categories that don't cost outrageous amounts of points), and then a bunch of motels (rooms open onto upper level walkway or parking) further east on Colorado. The motels aren't fancy, but I've had visitors stay in them and they seem to be ok. I last stayed in one 25 years ago when I moved to Pas. Airbnb's look like they're mostly in decent parts of town, but I don't know of any in particular. It's a little early in the year for summer-intern rentals to be ending, but there might be places near Caltech and PCC that are reasonably priced that are opening up around then.

I couldn't agree more and I tell people and they still go too!! Lol. The "celebrities" are people dressed in Elmo, Superman, Wonder woman costumes outside Mann's theater who charge for photos. The rest is dumpy souvenir shops, dumpy restaurants etc. And there is a Hollywood Wax museum if that is your thing.

Definitely agree with above posters; staying in Pasadena will be the best, and it actually has interesting things to do. Hollywood is nowhere near as glamorous as it's made out to be as well, but I guess the kids won't care and they'll go and be disappointed, but such is life.

Re: Comments about Hollywood. We visited Hollywood about 3 or 4 years ago, so I know how dumpy it is. On the other hand, I very much enjoyed the Paramount and Warner Bros. tours.

One quick question. Are the La Brea tar pits worth visiting?

Thanks very much for the suggestions above.

The tar pits and Page Museum are my #1 place to take people from out of town. It’s a nice outdoor park that’s both totally normal and quietly alien if you’re from a place that isn’t rolling in oil. You can do the whole museum in 60-90 minutes and it’s laid out as a circuit so you see the whole thing. LACMA is right next door if you like art museums and has a lot of good stuff in a nice space. And there’s decent food in the vicinity.

And the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is right next to LACMA on the other side.

I was a bit underwhelmed with that one. Did you like it?

Haven't been there yet.

Great pasta restaurant a block away if you do go...not much to look at & small menu but amazing pasta. Plus they validate at the garage next door.

https://uovo.la/locations/location-mid-wilshire/

I've been at their location on Montana, plus, I just noticed that they have a new one, much closer to me, at the Sportsmen's Lodge shopping center.

The closest to me is the Marina. Odd that they would have one on Montana and I think there is also one on 2nd street in SM. I really need to try one besides Wilshire.

Daughter swears by Pizzeria Mozza. GMaps indicates 2.5 miles from LACMA.

David

It would appear as if they no longer have a location on Montana, I suppose that it was replaced by the one on 2md Street. If I remember correctly, it's owned by the same people who own HiHo Cheeseburger. They are located in close proximity both in Santa Monica and Studio City.

I love that place as well as Osteria Mozza, the fancier of the two. Also a favorite in the LACMA vicinity is Republique.