Point Fermin & the Sunken City

Well, long time no post, so hopefully I'll make up for it with a few updates over the coming days -- starting with our trip to Point Fermin Park in San Pedro. We'd originally gone to do a hike around the Sunken City, which is essentially the remnants of a wealthy cliffside neighborhood that began slipping into the sea in the 1940s. Our day hike guidebook describes as "a jumble of rolling land with palm trees, isolated slabs of the old road, tilting sidewalks, streetcar tracks, remnants of house foundations, and sentry-like chimneys along the surf-swept rocky seashore. Exploring this surreal landscape is like entering the 'twilight zone.'"

Sounds like a fascinating historical snapshot and maybe even the window to a cool Indiana Jones-style adventure, right? Except: the book gets a little vague about how to get into the City to do the hike, which turns out to involve the highly-illegal maneuver of either jumping or finding a hole in a chainlink fence, then ignoring the 'Trespassing' signs you encounter thereafter. Seems like some Yelpers have figured out how to do it, but since we weren't in the mood to risk getting arrested, we had to content ourselves with glimpsing what little we could through the fence.

(Better photos from more adventurous souls here and here).

Still, the day wasn't all lost, because what we've started to learn about this town is that even if you're initially stymied, there's usually something interesting and/or beautiful to check out nearby. We started with exploring the Korean pagoda we saw perched on the hill overlooking the park, which afforded a mini-history lesson all its own.

It turned out there's a massive bell inside the pavilion, given as a gift to the U.S. by the Korean people in the 1970s as a memorial for U.S. Korean War veterans, and as an act of solidarity between the two countries. (Seemed like kind of a random spot for such an auspicious memorial, until I read that the pavilion was built on "the knoll overlooking the sea gate from which U.S. troops sailed into the Pacific." Cool.).

Then, about a half-mile north of the park, down some steps and past a crazed fleet of territorial, cliff-dwelling California Ground Squirrels (!!), we found a great little pebble beach and some excellent tidepools teeming with crabs and weird plant life.

And we have plans to head back to Point Fermin this weekend for Shakespeare by the Sea!