S&M Liquor

As we continued up Main Street out of the city limits through Lincoln Heights we passed the LA river and then spotted a mural of the Virgin Mary and S&M Liquors. We had to stop. When we pulled into the parking lot, we immediately met Rico. He asked me if I’d seen the fire down the block and warned that this was one of LA’s craziest corners. Before he had even finished his sentence, a woman in cut-off jeans shorts with stringy bleached blonde hair shot out running across the street while screaming at the top of her lungs at a man who has picking up the pace as she gained on him.

“See?” said Rico.

As we drove a few blocks further, we passed a wonderful, stoic, smiling older man selling peanuts and rainbow umbrella hats.

He smiled at us when we drove by.

Main Street crossing the LA river.

This very well might be the longest Main Street in the country. It spans from the northeastern edge of the city through downtown and then straight south almost all the way to Long Beach. We started our short tour downtown and made our way north towards the LA river.

Food warehouse along Main Street.

Up past the freeway overpass, we noticed a wild, decaying mural advertising some form of Wholesale market. We knew we had to stop. The parking lot was packed with people bustling in and out of this giant warehouse. Amidst the traffic, we noticed a man with a fishing net engrossed with a tiny coy pond cut out of the concrete sidewalk. It was unclear whether he was really trying to get a coy fish to eat (can you even eat coy?) or just practicing his own form of relaxation amidst LA’s chaos.

Surprising place to fish in a coy pond.

After walking past this man, we entered the largest wholesale food market we’d ever seen. It felt like a mega Wal-Mart shipping warehouse that served all of the larger LA’s regions Asian food establishments. People were traveling on forklifts between massive freezers and rows and rows of large boxes. In the meat freezer, you could buy an entire frozen pig head. In the dried food aisles, there were heaps and heaps of mushrooms and salted fish.

Inside the warehouse.