Esotouric invites you to expore the New Chinatowns

The New Chinatowns bus tour reveals the hidden history of the San Gabriel Valley

WHAT: Esotouric's THE NEW CHINATOWNS bus tour in the "Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles" architecture and urbanism series

WHEN: Saturday February 20, 11am-3pm

COST: $58, or save $47 on all four Esotouric February architecture tours with a Banham Bundle

WHERE: Tour departs from Philippe the Original, opposite Union Station in L.A.'s historic Chinatown

Start at the Old Chinatown downtown, hop on the 10 Freeway East, and within minutes you'll find yourself in America's most vibrant and sprawling New Chinatown, a place far different from the compact, urban bargain-shopping zone you've left behind.

In recent decades the San Gabriel Valley, long a sleepy suburban backwater, has been transformed by the injection of cash from Hong Kong and Taipei and an energetic pool of young business owners into something unrecognizable. The best Chinese food in the world is served in nondescript mini-malls, home values are solid and school test scores are strong. It's the Immigrant American Dream, laid on top of some of the Southland's most historic neighborhoods. These are the communities explored and explained on Esotouric's THE NEW CHINATOWNS bus adventure.

Esotouric's February architecture tour series includes SOUTH LA (Sunday,February 7), ROUTE 66 (Saturday, February 13), THE NEW CHINATOWNS (Saturday, February 20) and THE LOWDOWN ON DOWNTOWN (Saturday, February 27), with a $185 four-tour discount ticket that saves $47 off the regular price.

Get on the bus to explore the real Southland, as no one but Esotouric's Richard Schave can reveal it. Richard's unique expertise on unknown Los Angeles has seen him as a featured guide on television's "Globe Trekker" (Grand Central Market) and "Cities of the Underworld" (downtown's prohibition-era tunnels) and speaking at the Canadian Centre for Architecture and Hammer Museum. And each weekend in February, he'll be exploring a different section of the city, following in the footsteps of his mentor Reyner Banham.

ABOUT THE NEW CHINATOWNS TOUR
For many residents, Monterey Park, Alhambra, Rosemead and San Gabriel have always been Asian towns. They don't know about the early efforts to turn Monterey Park into the Beverly Hills of the East, how local gal Laura Scudder revolutionized the potato chip industry, about the failed 1920s oil boom or that great Wham-O brand toys like the Hula Hoop and Frisbee were invented here. And to many American-born San Gabriel Valley natives, the recent changes to their neighborhoods are baffling. This tour aims to put the San Gabriel Valley in context, from its suburban origins to its current boom time, celebrating the hardworking immigrant families (mainly Italian in the mid 20th century, mainly Chinese today) who have made the Valley their home and built its culture.

THE NEW CHINATOWNS is an entertaining and illuminating historical and cultural bus tour that rolls through Alhambra, San Gabriel, Rosemead and (mainly) Monterey Park exploring significant people, remarkable places and delicious delicacies, including:

1) Paradise Trailer Park (Rosemead), a picture perfect time capsule of gracious, tree-shaded mobile home living in the postwar Southland.

2) Site of the Wham-O toys manufacturing plant (San Gabriel), birthplace of millions of Hula Hoops, Frisbees, Superballs and Water Wiggles.

3) The Venice Room (Monterey Park), a groovy grill-your-own-steak bar, still family-run after forty years.

4) Browning Realty (Monterey Park), site of the 1920s oil mania and still a family enterprise after eighty-plus years.

5) El Encanto (Monterey Park), exquisite showplace of the failed 1920s luxury housing development intended as the Beverly Hills of the East.

6) Mission Superhardware (San Gabriel), still run by the Fabriano family after more than seven decades, and previously where Howard Roach built some of the Southland's first television sets.

7) Site of the Laura Scudder potato chip factory.

8) Pioneering purveyors of high quality Asian herbs, teas and notions Wing Hop Fung (Monterey Park), where passengers will enjoy a tea tasting and short shopping break.

Esotouric's REYNER BANHAM LOVES LOS ANGELES tour series is named in honor of host Richard Schave's college architecture professor, one of the greatest critics ever to analyze Los Angeles, and includes bus tours exploring the sad history of downtown's depopulation (THE MANY DOWNTOWNS), the offbeat wonders still to be found along the old Mother Road (ROUTE 66) and the underappreciated communities of Vernon, Downey and Santa Fe Springs (SOUTH LA).

These Esotouric bus adventures provide fresh ways of seeing the Southland and mingling with fascinating fellow travelers, and are a must for urban explorers, architecture buffs, San Gabriel Valley dwellers and anyone who enjoys turning over rocks to reveal the secrets beneath.

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour and special event schedule:

Sat January 23 ­ Weird West Adams crime bus tour
Sat January 30 - East Side Babylon crime bus tour
Sun Feb 7 - Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: South LA
Sat Feb 13 - Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: Route 66
Thurs Feb 18 ­ Jeremy Kasten presents "Spider Baby" with director Jack Hill
Sat Feb 20 - Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: The New Chinatowns
Sun Feb 21 - Joan Renner lecture "How the 'Bob' Changed History"
Sat Feb 27 - Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: The Lowdown on Downtown-The Secret History of LA
Sat March 6 - Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice crime bus tour
Sat March 13 - Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles
Sat March 20 - Maja's Mysteries: Rapture & Release (debut)
Sat March 27 - Raymond Chandler's Bay City
Sat April 3 ­ Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits' L.A.
Sat April 10 ­ John Buntin's L.A. Noir
Sat April 24 ­ Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's L.A.
Sat May 1 - Pasadena Confidential crime bus tour with Crimebo the Clown
Sat May 8 - Blood & Dumplings crime bus tour
Sat May 15 - The Real Black Dahlia crime bus tour
Sat May 22 - The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain's So. Cal Nightmare

For more info on Esotouric, please visit
http://www.esotouric.com

For discount tickets for all four tours,
http://www.esotouric.com/banhambundle

For more on Reyner Banham, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reyner_Banham

And the BBC documentary "Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles"
http://reyner.notlong.com