Geography & Travel

I've been thinking about places we've visited or where we've lived and how those places have changed.
.  I grew up in Monterey Park, CA, 7 miles east of Los Angeles.  When I lived there, there were rolling hills nearby, haystacks, cattle grazing and now and then coyotes.   Now, the cattle and hay or gone, the tops of the hills were cut down to fill the valleys and there are many Asian-Americans living in MP.
http://www.amazon.com/First-Suburban-Chinatown-Remarking-California/dp/1566392624#reader_1566392624
It is currently the only city in the continental United States with a majority population of Asian-Americans.
It is certainly a more interesting town now, with lots of excellent Asian restaurants.

Webster Street, Alameda, CA
There is a "United Nations" of restaurants and food shops withing walking or rolling distance of where we live in Alameda, CA. ... going from Central east on Webster, at Central & Webster there is a small grocery store which has foods from east India as well as the usual essentials, in the next block there is a Thai restaurant, and an Italian deli, Domenicos, and across the street there is a bar and restaurant, Crolls, featuring food from New Zeland; on the left side of the street is Califia where we buy tamales. On both sides of the street are 99 cent stores featuring Mexican ice cream bars; pretty good! On the left side of the street is Katsu Sushi & furthern down on the right, Everett and Jones barbecue; further down on the left, Otaez, a good Mexican restaurant; futher on the right, Aria which has fresh baked bread, eastern European style and other unusual imported items. There's more, (Asian, etc.) but at Webster and Atlantic at the Walgreens you can buy wonderful pralines! :)