What would you do for a Pinkberry Green Tea frozen yogurt?

... walk to Little Tokyo, of course!

We recently discovered the Pinkberry in Little Tokyo following sushi at Tenno. This is part of the recently re-instated Date Night Friday's. Turns out Pinkberry (which I had been hearing about for a couple years now, but was waiting for the hype to die down) is situated on 2nd street around the corner from Tenno. I figured the green tea yogurt there was going to be about average- but to my surprise it is worth the hype! So now I am a fan. It only figures that when planning my walk for today- which was 9 miles- Pinkberry would cross my mind! I had been wondering how far downtown really was from where I lived now, in El Sereno, so I decided to map it out and then walk it.

My training is starting to wind down as I approach the final 2 weeks before the marathon. Gone are the LONG ASS walks that exceed 16 miles and in are the smaller jaunts that I tell ya- feel SO MUCH easier than they did at the start of this whole escapade. I was shocked that 9 miles felt as good as it did!

Before I get into how I managed to not only survive, but enjoy a 9 mile walk, let me tell you my route. I walked down the hill from from house to Mission. I took a right on Broadway and went over the hill into Lincoln Heights, passing Lincoln High School and all the small shops on Broadway. I drive past these shops everyday, but there is a different feel to walking it. I feel more a part of it on foot. Especially walking past the Korean/ Chinese Temples - since it was Sat and that is their "Farmer's Market" day. The smells of fish and over ripe fruit, was intense and the language was disorienting, but exciting. Less than a block from there I was walking past a Latino record store pumping Ranchero music and advertising "discos mas barato"! Its a common culture class in my neighborhood.

I kept walking down Broadway- past the 5 fwy and jaunted across Pasadena Ave to the upper section of Broadway. The view of downtown from this little bridge is awesome. I was above the Metro tracks and the Cornfield Park. The backside of Elysian Park was on my right and I was headed into Chinatown.

I started to hear drums as I walked closer to the Cornfields. This is a park that became a park in the last 8 years. It used to be a big open field that houses several homeless people who squeezed through, over or under the fence that locked other people out. It used to be that there were more shopping carts in that field than at the closest grocery store. I guess back in the 20's or 40's the land was dedicated to growing corn- hence its name. Well in the last 8 years they "cleaned it up" and put a few patches or grass, some benches and a sign in front of it that said it was a CA State park. They also started having events, security and paying people come to the park. I have seen an adult circus (Cirque Beserk) perform there myself.

Today was no different. There were big tented booths out, ready to make a buck and a cool looking tee pee. As I got closer, the drums got louder and I started to notice the people playing the drums were also chanting and in traditional Native American Garb. I walked past a painted sign that said POW WOW. I tried to record some of the drums on my phone- but the quality was bad- oh well. My memory recorded it.

I kept walking on Broadway and entered Chinatown. I walked through Chinatown, past all types of people who were there for Dim Sum, good deals on Chinese imports or just grabbing things from the Fish markets. The street was more crowded than I expected, with store owners hanging their wares outside for people to check out. There was one store I walked by the glistened in the light- radiating gold from ever item. It was like a magic store.

I saw a marker for "Little Italy" but nothing there that was still open or working to represent it. It was all Chinatown now.

I kept walking till I reached the gates of Chinatown, with the two dragons. A symbol I had driven under several times in my life. I cut down Cesar Chavez to Spring street and walked across the 101 Fwy. This overpass has been used when photographing the LA Fwys in almost every movie you see it in. I think my impression of what LA fwys would be like was created from that overpass. The traffic was unusually light for a Sat mid-day. I could see the new Cathedral to the right and the cool mural art on the fwy to my left. I kept going down Spring street and passed City Hall and the Courthouse where everyone goes for Jury Duty. Then I passed the new Police Station and turned left on 2nd street. I was in Little Tokyo.

I took a look at my Nike+ to see how many miles I actually went to arrive at the door of Pinkberry before I paused the workout. 4.88 miles/ 1hr and 17mins. Woo hoo! Half way done and at my half way point!

I paused my workout and walked into the cool storefront. I ordered a small green team yogurt to go. The guy behind the counter must have seen my power pack with Gatorade and my sweaty brow when he said "to go huh? do you want an ice pack?" I was like "you can do that? SURE! I have a long walk back still!"

I quickly took this break to update my Facebook status: "Noelle walked 4.88 miles to Pinkberry in Little Tokyo. Yes... Its that good." Moments later my name was called and I was handed a little bag which included a big ziploc filled with ice! Yes! The stop was less than 5 mins and I was back on the road.

I continued down 2nd street to San Pedro and cut over to 1st street- right in front of the Japanese American Museum. I crossed Alameda and went up and over the 1st street bridge. This bridge means a lot to me. I used to live in a loft right next to the bridge from 1998-2000 with my husband before we got married. We've taken band photos on this bridge. The train station under the bridge was where two of our cats were born and rescued from. I have a lot of history here. And now that history is changing. The loft we lived in has been demolished. The loft building itself has been cut in half. The band is not together anymore and the cats are happily El Sereno cats now. Plus they are expanding the bridge so that the Metro train can run from East LA into downtown. This is a whole new bridge and a whole new experience with it.

I walked on the tracks on the bridge- because I knew this might be the only time I would get to do it. Once construction is done, there will be a train on those tracks!

I made it across and hung a left onto Mission, pass the "Projects of Beverly Hills" the El Pato Hot Sauce plant and under the 101 Fwy this time. I continued on Mission past the glass repair places (where we took my old Toyota when the back windshield was broken back in '99. Someone had thrown a big rock from the bridge into the car- we suspected it was someone from the glass repair shops), past the USC County General Hospital (where my husband once went for a cancer biopsy when we were broke back in '00) and past Lincoln Heights DMV and Park. I was in the home stretch. I was starting to feel more fatigues, so I chewed on some Powerbar gummies and drank the rest of my Gatorade.

I started carrying my Pinkberry from the bottom of the bag so my swollen hands had the ice right on them. That felt really good. My feet weren't feeling numb like they had on the long runs and my knees weren't hurting too much either. I could tell I had some rash starting- but was excited that I was almost home.

I passed by the Macy's furniture showroom, then by Broadway and finally to Turquoise street where I ascended my last hill (which is always the hardest) and finally arrived at home. I think I had gotten concerned about my pace along the 2nd half of the walk. There was part of me that was thinking about past walks and how long they had taken. I wanted to make sure this didn't take me 3 hrs- because then my pace would have dropped. But overall I kept my pace pretty steady- 17.10 min/ mile and finished 9.11 miles in 2hrs & 36 mins. I walked in at 3pm.

I chugged a bunch of cold water, put the Pinkberry in the freezer, climbed in the showed, was pleasantly surprised that i barely had a rash on the back of my right knee and then I sat around in a towel after the shower for about an hour, enjoying the breeze from the back door of the house and watching the cats. I didn't even dig into the Pinkberry till 4:30p because the walk itself was satisfying enough.