Pasadena is a beautiful little town very convenient to Los Angeles due to being well-serviced by the metro. With less than 150 thousand residents, it maintains a quiet, pretty, relaxed lifestyle even with it’s proximity to America’s second largest city, ten miles South West.
Pasadena seems to have a good amount of cultural activities for locals to enjoy. The only disappointment I found was the dominance of multi-nationals in the lovely shopping district, a 21 block area of downtown known as Old Town Pasadena. I had expected to find more interesting independent stores and boutiques, instead I found all the major players found in every North American shopping complex with just a few home-grown shops in the mix. People want what they know so I guess it’s impossible to escape the supply that follows demand. There were many great independent coffee shops and restaurants though, which is always a delight to see. And taste. Frequent your local-owned businesses Pasadenans, don’t let the chains entirely take-over and remove the remaining local flavour!
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Beautiful trees and flowers seem to be everywhere in Pasadena.
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Clean and well-organized. Easy to find your way with these tasteful direction signs.
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I do love tree-covered streets.
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The central shopping district of Old Town was very pleasant, although sadly you will find many of your favourite stores here.
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This was one thing I found funny in Pasadena after spending some months in busy cities. Traffic was very quiet on the weekday I visited this town. Watching some pedestrians waiting at a red traffic light downtown, standing patiently waiting for their walk light, I could not even hear a car let alone see one in either direction. This I witnessed several times and I found the patient orderliness to be comedic, almost to be from a bygone era. I’m just so used to seeing people rush everywhere, and ignoring walk lights when there are no cars coming. I should have taken a photo of that. (I later was told there are very strict J-walking fines.)
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A little map sign outside one of the metro stations.
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I forget what this is. But, I also forgot to mention above that Pasadena is most famous as being the annual site of the Rose Bowl. Very fitting for such a pretty town to have such a pretty parade.
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Glorious mountain views crown this little haven.
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I guess I should have taken some photos of picture-perfect houses, but I was feeling anxious to get back to a bit more diverse chaos. Pasadena is mostly an affluent, up-scale residential area, not the kind of place I generally travel to see. But, it is very easy to get to from Downtown LA so it’s worth a trip to take a walk around, have some lunch and grab a real coffee.
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