Little Tokyo Marketplace

 

Marukai Market in Little Tokyo...what's not to love? A large multi-ethnic Asian market in the heart ofLittle Tokyo that has everything you could possibly need to make yummy Japanese cuisine. Good

Koyasan Buddhist Temple

An active religious gathering place in Little Tokyo, the Buddhist temple serves as both community center and cultural ambassador. The Temple is a relic of the first days of Little Tokyo, and was left virtually untouched by the 1960s redevelopment of the area.

Little Tokyo’s Aoyama Tree designated a monument

The 60-foot tall Moreton Bay Fig symbolizes the founding of the Koyasan Buddhist Temple in downtown Los Angeles in 1920.

The Frying Fish- Revolving Sushi Bar

  

The Frying Fish, America's first kaiten-sushi restaurant, is also one of the first businesses established in the Little Tokyo shopping mall complex. It's owners, the Akimotos, have a long history with the neighborhood. Mr. Akimoto opened the restaurant in order to provide his Issei wife with a comfortable Japanese workplace. However, with recent changes in the cultural makeup of the neighborhood, Mr. Akimoto says that he is unsure about the future.

Museum of Contemporary Art: MOCA

Founded in 1979, MOCA is the only museum in Los Angeles devoted exclusively to contemporary art. It is committed to the collection, presentation, and interpretation of work produced since 1940 in all media, and to preserving that work for future generations. In a remarkably short time, MOCA has developed one of the nation's most renowned permanent collections. Now numbering over 5,000 works and steadily growing, this invaluable cultural resource provides extensive opportunities for education and enjoyment to thousands of national and international visitors. Today the museum is housed in three unique facilities: MOCA Grand Avenue, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, and MOCA Pacific Design Center. 

Japanese American National Museum

The Japanese American National Museum opened its doors in 1992. The museum is located in the Little Tokyo area near downtown Los Angeles, California. It is devoted to preserving the history and culture of Japanese Americans. The museum is home to a moving image archive, which contains over 100,000 feet (30,000 m) of 16 mm and 8 mm home movies of Japanese Americans from the 1920s to the 1950s. The museum also contains artifacts, textiles, art, photographs, and oral histories of Japanese Americans.

The museum contains over 130 years of Japanese American history, dating back to the first Issei generation. In 1997, the Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center was established by Robert A. Nakamura and Karen L. Ishizuka, to develop new ways to document, preserve and make known the experiene of Americans of Japanese Ancestry. In 1999, the Manabi and Sumi Hirasaki National Resource Center (HNRC) was established to provide access to the museum's information and resources, both at the facility and online, and documents both the life and culture of the Japanese Americans.

Any Izakaya

   

An izakaya is a type of Japanese drinking establishment which also serves food to accompany the drinks. They are popular, casual places for after-work drinking. The name "izakaya" is a compound word consisting of "i" (to sit) and "sakaya" (sake shop), showing that izakaya originate from sake shops that allowed customers to sit at the premises to drink.^[1] Izakaya are sometimes called akachōchin (red lantern) in daily conversation, because these paper lanterns are traditionally found in front of an izakaya.

Weller Court- Multi level Restaurants

The Weller Court shopping mall has several restaurants, karaoke clubs, and a Bubble Tea cafe. For tourists visiting from Japan, there are a number of shops specializing in expensive name brandproducts such as Coach handbags. There is also a large bookstore, Kinokuniya, that is part of a well-known Japanese chain. They have a large selection of Japanese-language books, magazines, music CDs, manga, and anime, as well as a selection of English-language books on Japanese subjects and translated manga and anime.