Los Angeles: Mar 25: Santa Monica, LACMA, and Korean (x2)

This was a big day, during which time I took lots of pictures. The pictures dive into a lot more detail on some things that this post mentions only in passing. Di Yin also took many pictures. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #46). When you see a picture of a Korean taco truck (picture #102), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

First, we headed down to our hotel's breakfast. As we sat in the large eating area over our basic breakfast spread, we planned our day. Then, off we went to Santa Monica.

We explored the Santa Monica pier, its beach, and its amusement park. It was a beautiful day to be outside, if a little cold. I learned the government tried to demolish the pier in the 1970s, but popular opposition to the plan saved it.

We wandered through downtown Santa Monica. I'd previously wandered up and down Santa Monica's main pedestrian street, 3rd Street, before. It's still nice.

We grabbed a huge lunch at Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery in Santa Monica. The sandwiches were tasty enough that we finished them, and so filling that we didn't need to eat dinner until after 8:00pm. It's an extensive deli. In the deli counter cases, I counted seven types of pasta salad and a huge selection of antipastos including four different artichoke ones. Photographs were prohibited inside. :( I guess I can kind of understand: the place was so bustling that it would be crazy if people were stopping at random places to take pictures.

After lunch, Di Yin and I wandered into my company's secondary satellite office in Santa Monica. I knew we had a satellite office in Santa Monica but I didn't know we have a second one. There we met a friend, B, who gave us a short tour.

Finally, off we were to a museum. On the way there, we by chance drove through Little Ethiopia. It has lots of Ethiopian restaurants on its main block. Ah, the diversity of L.A.

We spent the rest of the day at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). Don't judge it by its name--it's a shockingly extensive museum that's worthy of any top tier international city. It covers European paintings from the 15th through 20th centuries (including religious art), American art (with a focus on California), Latin American art (covering all eras) (the western Mexico sculptures were especially neat), Pacific islands sculptures/carved art, Luristan art (middle east), Islamic Art, South Asian sculpture (tons of them: Hinduism, Buddhism), including Tibet, Japanese art (drawings, sculpture, ceramics, scrolls, screens), and Korean art. There are Assyrian reliefs, sketches by Grosz, and various Diego Rivera pieces. There are also plates, sculptures, relics, and even axe heads in the art of the ancient world section. *take a breath* Many styles are represented: impressionist (some nice Picassos, Monets, Cezannes, and Renoirs), cubism, the Bauhaus school of art (Klee, Kandinsky), German expressionism, abstract (some of which I like), modern, contemporary (lots of Warhols, Koones), surrealist, and even what's known as bay area figuration. I can still recognize Renoirs from across the room. Also, I noticed Rembrandt is good at 3-d-looking portraits.

Basically the museum has everything from the world over except Chinese art. Di Yin, who given her background and her research knows about the state of museum collections, says that the LACMA has one of the best Latin American collections in the U.S., one of the best near east collections, and also one of the best (and only?) Korean collections. Indeed, LACMA has a whole wing of Korean art, and I can't remember seeing much space devoted to Korean works in any other museum.

The museum is spread over multiple buildings and encompassed by a nice outdoor space. People relaxed there in the sun a la how I saw people relax at the Getty Center.

We also visited the special exhibits: a photography one on Larry Fink, one on human nature, and one on European fashion 1700-1915. The last, covering both men and women, had interesting labels explaining the evolution of style, how technology made fabrics easier to create and manipulate, and how fashion responded to the need of practicality. Regarding the first point, example excerpt from a label: "from the 1860s, skirt volume shifted to the posterior." :) I found the section of the fashion exhibit that discussed textiles and such less interesting.

We spent 4.5 hours in the museum. It has few informational plaques except room-level descriptions; most of the time was spent viewing things, not reading.

Incidentally, Di Yin observed that all the museum guards are Filipino.

It was a good thing we ate a big, late-ish lunch. By now it was 8pm or so and we weren't yet particularly hungry. For the first part of dinner, we drove downtown to rendezvous with one of Kogi's Korean taco trucks. On the way there, we happened to pass through Koreatown. The taco truck was a good (tasting) stop. For part two, we headed back into a different part of Koreatown for KyoChon Korean Fried Chicken. It was delicious--another success! We drove through yet another part of Koreatown on the way back to the hotel. K-Town is large!