hamada orient express: existentialism a go-go

by rameniac | 28 Feb 2008

At an age when most of my peers were earning valuable life experience while face down on the carpet at a fraternity or sorority house, I was pretty much downing beers at my preferred existentialist watering hole - the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX airport. Had I more of a stomach for seemingly disposable (but in retrospect, now absolutely imperative) fun, I might well have become a different person altogether. I might be happily married, pushing papers in an office and angling to buy a sectional sofa or a dinette set. On the other hand, I might never have set foot in Japan, and thus never known the joys of sipping from a leaden bowl of Nagahama ramen - with soup the consistency of freshly churned concrete - while locking fingers with someone who has fifteen Pochacco dolls dangling off her mobile phone straps.

And while I’ve yet to fully experience that very last part, the Tom Bradley at LAX still maintains a bit of its allure. A fading edifice at the West Coast’s most overcrowded and outmoded airport, the terminal is sorely in need of a good remodel (looks like they’re finally on their way). But cosmetics aside, it will always be that one place in town where nobody is ever “at home,” where one’s sense of un heimlich - of comforting familiarity - completely vanishes into the jetstream of shifting winds and time zones and reverberating p.a. announcements in multiple languages. Loiter around long enough, and you just might find yourself a bit euphoric, completely attuned to the world at large.

Parking is only a few dollars for short term visitors. Sadly, the central observation lounge - prime real estate for watching the 747s and Airbusses taxi - is currently closed for repairs. Still, one can find a decent vantage point on the 2nd floor landing overlooking any number of ticketing counters, confused, departing passengers, and misty-eyed relatives, either in front of Hamada Orient Express or that incongruous outpost of corporate nu-Ameriacn sloggery, the Daily Grill, just across the way (I’ve never eaten there). I would avoid sitting in front of McDonald’s, although the Mexican restaurant (I forget its name), maybe your last chance for a decent, quasi-authentic taco depending on where you’re headed out of town, that is, if you’re actually going somewhere.

Notice I have yet to mention a single thing about the shoyu ramen at Hamada Orient Express. It’s a perfect bowl of noodles and it goes good with Asahi, assuming you’ve a passport and a boarding pass in hand.