My photographs cover the day's activities fairly well.
Di Yin took pictures too. The link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #182). When you see a picture about us stopping by Greg for Burn Notice (picture #213), you're done with her pictures for the day and for the trip. I'll link the other pictures in the album at another time.
The three of us began the day by heading down to Gjelina in the neighborhood known as Venice for brunch.
After brunch, we walked around the area, in particular up and down Abbot Kinney, the main road in this part of town. It's an alternative, off-beat retail strip. I think the name of one store we spotted perfectly conveys the aura of the neighborhood: Mystic Journey Bookstore.
On the way out of Venice, we drove through nearby streets. Some were gentrifying, with new buildings next to old mom & pops.
It was early afternoon. E parted ways with Di Yin and I and we drove north, heading home. This time we didn't take a crazy detour as on our last time. We did detour once from the 5 to get around the one-lane section we observed on the way down, but that worked out fine, probably because it was a detour CalTrans told us to take.
Halfway up highway 5, we passed a cattle farm: thousands upon thousands of cows covering hills made entirely of dirt. It was bigger than the farm near L.A. Scary. I never noticed this one before.
Los Angeles: June 26: Venice
Los Angeles: June 25: A Motley Assortment
On Saturday, Di Yin and I did a motley assortment of things. I of course took pictures. Din Yin did too. The link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #133). When you see a picture captioned "Checking out Venice with Edison" (picture #182), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link the following pictures in the next post.
First, we drove across town to Eagle Rock to see C and her new baby. C is a friend of Di Yin's; we attended her baby shower months before.
After visiting, we planned to stop by Galco's Soda Shop because it was in the neighborhood. We enjoyed it on our previous visit to L.A. but had by now drunk the bounty from that visit. C and J, despite living in the neighborhood, had never been to Galco's so they came with us and we showed them around.
I bought quite a haul: various ciders (most from my favorite Vermont cidery), a nice pile of Mr. Q. Cumber sodas, and an assortment of Hot Lips sodas in various flavors, among others, including some for E.
We then headed to Monterey Park to meet E for a late lunch. He'd selected Huge Tree Pastry, a joint he loves for its Chinese breakfasts (served all day). We ordered and ate too much (because it was good). Details as usual are in the pictures.
After a quick stop, we returned to E's place. I like how most of traffic in L.A. was going in the opposite direction both in the morning and after lunch. I guess we have good timing or good karma.
We relaxed for a while at home. Some people napped. In late afternoon, Di Yin and I decided to go for a walk. After a bit of research, we decided to explore Beverly Hills and Beverly Gardens Park, a two-mile-long green strip of park-land along Santa Monica Boulevard through Beverly Hills. E warned that parking might be tough in the area so we took a bus.
We walked alternating between walking in the park and walking through the residential streets of Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills is nice. We enjoyed admiring the houses, many of which have wings. The park is also nice. Basically, it's a long promenade interspersed by big green areas. In one of these, I climbed a tree! It was fun; I want to do it more often. There are also a rose garden and a cactus garden.
Once we reached the end of the park, we hunted for a bus back to E's place. It took forever to come. I think the bus that was supposed to come before the one we took had something wrong with it and didn't come. All the passengers were grumbling. By the time we were on our way home, night had fallen, and consequently we missed out stop. By about five stops. Ugh, what an unpleasant bus experience. Finally we got home.
By the way, parking in Beverly Hills looked fine. We should've driven.
You may notice in the pictures a lack of photographs of dinner. This is because we didn't eat dinner. Our lunch was so large that this ended up being a one-meal day.
Los Angeles: June 24: Driving to and Eating in L.A.
Di Yin and I visited Los Angeles (yet again) from Friday, June 24, 2011, to Sunday, June 26. My main reason for the trip was to play board games with my friend E and to see another touristy sight in Los Angeles. Although I didn't end up really doing either, it was a fun trip regardless.
After an unusually good lunch at work, Di Yin and I drove south. (Lunches at work are usually good, but this was unusually so.) On the way I took out my camera and began snapping pictures. We made good time despite highway 5 narrowing to one lane for several miles, which caused a long backup that took perhaps thirty minutes to get through.
Di Yin, by the way, also took pictures. The link goes to her first picture from this trip (picture #80 in this general album of summer activities). When you see a picture captioned "Visiting Carmel's new baby - Rio!" (picture #133), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link the album's other pictures in other posts.
Immediately before L.A. we stopped for a while at Pyramid Lake, a sight that we've admired from afar multiple times from the highway. For reference, Pyramid Lake straddles Los Padres National Forest and Angeles National Forest. We had time to explore it. We had a good time, partially because it was rather nice in temperature, which was surprising because the valley was 90+ degrees F.
Later, we met E at his place and headed out to dinner in K-Town. For our first stop, we dragged him to KyoChon (which we visited before) to convince him the Korean fried chicken there is better than his favorite place, O B Bear (which he had us visit before). I think he admitted that his previous impression of KyoChon was in error, but he wasn't yet ready to admit defeat.
From KyoChon, we decided to walk a ways through K-Town to get to our next eating place. However, as the place we intended to eat the rest of dinner at was closed, we continued straight to dessert at the third place on our itinerary: Hwa Sun Ji, a traditional Korean tea shop. During this walk we passed a cinema makeup school. Only a few places in the world can support such a place; L.A. is one.
Still wanting more real dinner after dessert, we headed back to KyoChon for more. With food in hand, we returned to E's place.
Los Angeles: May 1: An Indirect Route Home
After a small snack at home to tide us over, Di Yin and I headed to the day-after-the-wedding brunch at The Peninsula in Beverly Hills. It was a good spread at another fancy, expensive venue. I was impressed they served freshly squeezed grapefruit juice (in addition to fresh orange juice of course). We chatted with all the other guests we'd met the previous night, plus the people in the wedding and the wedding party who were too busy to talk with us the previous day.
After brunch, we began heading home. We drove north on 405 to route 5, but route 5 seemed backed up as it entered the hills so I took the road labeled "14N highway 5 truck detour" under the assumption it would rejoin the 5 later. This was a mistake.
We drove for a while and soon found ourselves in the desert. The landscape was flat, with lots of short, dry grasses and sagebrush, quite a contrast to the green hills one passes through on 5 in the national forest-land north of Los Angeles. We stopped so Di Yin could take pictures of the desert with the San Gabriel mountains in the distance. I wasn't in the mood to take pictures, and didn't end up taking any the entire day. We also passed a field of poppies, the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve, as well as multiple orange fields.
At one place we stopped on 138W (on our way back to the 5), we ended up beset by small bugs. We noticed them only after we returned to the car and discovered many on ours pants' legs. We got out, brushed ourselves off everywhere, and got back in. Over the next ten minutes we killed a dozen and a half more that managed to remain on us--that's a sense of how many must've been there originally. Di Yin said they were weevils.
Here are Di Yin's pictures. The link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #89 in the album). When you see a picture of me in bed, you're done with the pictures from the trip.
Once finally back on highway 5, we headed straight home, stopping for a late dinner in Gilroy (where we discovered a tasty frozen yogurt shop). It appears our detour took an hour longer than the direct route not counting the stops we made to take pictures. Though it was neat to see the desert, I wouldn't have made the trade-off given the choice.
Los Angeles: Apr 30: Encino and Wedding
This day was allocated to attend a wedding. I took few pictures, mainly because I didn't feel like taking pictures at the wedding. Di Yin took similarly few photos. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #80 in the album). When you've passed the wedding pictures and see another brunch picture (picture #89), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.
For breakfast, B, E, Di Yin, and I drove to their local downtown in Encino for brunch at More Than Waffles. Indeed, More Than Waffles serves lots more breakfast items than just waffles, but almost everything is served with a Belgian waffle. And, yes, they make their waffles well.
From the drive, I noticed Encino is a hilly, pretty area filled with large estates (all different) and wide sidewalks. Once back at the house, we took a stroll around the neighborhood and admired the houses and gardening. The weather was the same beautiful weather as the previous day.
As for their house itself, it can rightly be called an estate. B and E invested heavily in the house because they want to raise kids there and eventually grow old there. Everything is 50%-100% larger than a "normal" house. Even the hallways are wider as well. It has four bedrooms plus a "maid's room"/den, a sizable pool, tons of patio plaza pool space, and a huge kitchen (six burner range, large island, large stove). In fact, the pool area reminded me of the pool scene in Octopussy. Admittedly, their pool area isn't as large or extravagant but it gave me the same feeling as the setting in the movie.
I especially liked two features of the house: the plantation shades and the recessed lighting. I hadn't seen many plantation shades, but now I know I like them. As for the lighting, I generally appreciate recessed lighting, but I liked this more than usual because the lights are also skylights. You can't tell by looking at them, but the light coming from the recessed area during the daytime is filtered sunlight. It looks like the lights are on even though they're not.
We hung around the house until it was time to go to the wedding.
Di Yin's college friend B was marrying S in the Calabasas Hills. These hills felt like ranch country. It's almost entirely nature, with cactuses and mountains, and the farmland is bounded by post and rail fences.
The wedding and reception were at Saddle Peak Lodge, a hunter's lodge nestled in the mountains. (This is the Santa Monica chain of mountains, by the way.) A cactus garden served as the immediate backdrop to the ceremony, with the mountains visible beyond.
Ironically (given the setting at the hunter's lodge), there were sushi hors d'oeuvre, plus cocktail shrimp. More apropos, elk was one of the dinner choices. Both Di Yin and I had it. She said it was like seared tuna in the sense of being raw in the center. It tasted meaty, like jerky, but was a really tender version thereof. It came with butternut squash puree, brandied cherries, stuffed mushrooms, and ciopinni onions (I love those).
Along with the main course, we ate asparagus soup, salad, bread pudding, and cake. The salad, made with endive, watercress, and apples, included St. Agur goat cheese, one of the few varieties of blue cheese I like. I didn't like much else about the salad however. On the other hand, I definitely liked the banana huckleberry bread pudding served as dessert.
It was clear the wedding was more for the parents than the couple. Indeed, we talked with one couple who'd only met the bride once or twice and didn't know the groom at all but were there because they're friends of the bride's parents. Also, music and dancing weren't a priority either; the dance floor was small and nevertheless barely used.
After dinner, we enjoyed the photo montage of the bride and groom together. I think more weddings should have one.
Los Angeles: Apr 29: Huntington Library/Museum/Gardens, and Food
I took many pictures this day. Di Yin did too. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #9 in the album). When you see a picture of us having brunch (picture #80), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.
It began with us driving across L.A. to Pasadena. Surprisingly, on 110 near the center of the city, we passed through a series of tunnels. (A hill attempted to block the highway.) Pasadena is pretty, with tons of trees. I say this not in contrast to the rest of L.A.; there's just a lot of trees, period. It's a wealthy area. The residential part of it has fancy single-family houses.
We detoured to the neighboring town, San Marino, for lunch at Julienne. Julienne is in two-block-long commercial street in a residential area. We walked up and down it after lunch. As for lunch, it was very good; for details see the pictures.
From San Marino, we drove to the The Huntington Library/Museum/Garden, passing by/through CalTech on the way.
The Huntington is part botanical garden/park, with many themed gardens. We wandered through many (but not all) of these: the desert garden, the subtropical garden, the rose garden, and the herb garden. They were all very pretty; I took a ton of pictures. The Rose Garden was particularly notable because it was entirely in bloom. It's nicer than Portland's Rose Garden (supposedly world-famous), which I visited last year. We also stopped by the Japanese Garden and the Chinese garden but these were mostly closed.
It was a perfect temperature for strolling slowly with a hat to protect against the sun--a temperature that neither felt warm nor cold on your skin but rather neutral as if it was skin's natural temperature.
After exploring the gardens, we ventured into the Huntington art gallery. It presents European art (mostly eighteenth-century) in the Huntingtons' historic mansion, furnished and decorated according to the period. There was a free audioguide available but we didn't take the time. We were so short on time that we explored only the ground floor of the museum's two floors. We also skipped the American Art Gallery and the gallery housing changing exhibitions, both in other buildings.
We reserved a chunk of time for exploring the Huntington's third major facet: its library. We first explored its collection. Its old books include an old Chaucer, a Gutenberg Bible, a first-edition Paradise Lost, first-quarto and first-folio Shakespeare, early versions of The Life of Samuel Johnson and Gulliver's Travels, Audubon's huge book, various hand-written manuscripts, and much more, including some American documents. For instance, it has some Proceedings of the Continental Congress, a hand-written 1702 treaty between American settlers and the Mohawk Indians, and an original hand-written version of the thirteenth amendment. There was lots of info about each item. The collection reminded me a bit of the British Library (see visit report). Lots of items are the same (Gutenberg Bible, Audubon book, etc.).
We looked at the library's special exhibits. The exhibit on the regency didn't make much sense to me. In contrast, the history of science exhibits were rather good. One presented the history of astronomy through original texts by Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Einstein, Hubble, and others. Another showed the history of biology/medicine through anatomical atlases and many other books, including for instance an early printed edition (sixteen-century) of Hippocrates's sayings. A third room explored the history of light with original texts by Kepler, Faraday, Volta, Newton, and more, and also items such as early light bulbs.
In these history of science exhibits I didn't have anywhere near enough time to read everything I wanted to. We got kicked out because the library was closing. I wonder how much longer we could've stayed in the gardens before being told to leave. (Everything is scheduled to close at the same time, but it looked like no one was patrolling the gardens.)
By the way, Di Yin observed that the organization is so wealthy that not only are its objects of high quality but also is the setting they're presented in. For instance, the astronomy room has constellations painted on the ceiling, the art galleries have period decoration, and the history rooms have numerous animal paintings.
Three hours was too short for the Huntington complex. I probably could spend another three while only seeing things I didn't see before.
After closing, we drove back across L.A. to meet E at his place and began a food crawl! Details are on the pictures.
After the food crawl, we returned to E's, then Di Yin and I left for our other friends B and E to spend the night at their place in Encino.
Los Angeles: Apr 28: To L.A.
We returned to Los Angeles in late April, this time for a wedding of one of Di Yin's friends. We stayed there from Thursday, April 28, 2011, to Sunday, May 1. This trip didn't change my previous impressions of L.A.; I have nothing to add to that post.
We followed the same route to L.A.--down the 5--as before, though this time it was sunny. Also, this time we didn't stop to enjoy the views (we enjoyed them only from the moving car).
Some observations from the drive down:
- We spotted two burning vehicles: a car on highway 152 and a truck on route 5 near the grapevine. The latter burned so hot we felt the heat from it as we passed it three lanes over. Contrast this with the tire tread coincidence from our last drive down.
- We spotted the industrial cattle farm that we somehow missed on the previous drive.
- Pyramid Lake, just off the 5 in Los Padres National Forest, is pretty. Maybe we'll stop there sometime.
There, we relaxed a bit. Then, hungry but lazy, we decided to walk to a restaurant, Nook, near E's condo. It had a long wait; we decided to do take-out. The food we got was good. Di Yin remarked that she appreciates restaurants that use few spices and thereby allow the quality of the ingredients to show through. So do I. For details on the food, see these pictures, the only pictures I took this day.
Di Yin took more pictures during the day. The latter link goes to her first picture from this trip (picture #1 in the album). When you see a picture captioned "Day one" (picture #9), you're done with her pictures for the day. ("Day one" is the first picture from the following day.) I'll link to her later pictures in the following post.
Eventually E returned home and we chatted for a while before nodding off.
Los Angeles: Mar 26: The La Brea Tar Pits, Soda Pop, BBQ, and more
After breakfast at our hotel, we decided to use the morning to visit The La Brea Tar Pits. Funnily, these turned out to be next to LACMA, where we were the previous day.
As usual, I took pictures. Di Yin also took some. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #103). When you see a picture of the Pismo Lighthouse Suites (our hotel) in the morning (picture #147), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.
The Tar Pits, twelve thousand to forty thousand years old, are the world's richest deposit of ice-age fossils. We wandered around the grounds, finding them a bit stinky (which added to the ambiance), and explored the associated museum. Both were mildly entertaining.
As we walked by the tar pits, I observed that the people inside the nearby LACMA building were viewing art, mainly created by now-dead beings, while we were viewing fossils, another product of dead things. Furthermore, most of the art is made of oil, a by-product of the breakdown of animal matter; meanwhile, the fossils are also a by-product of the breakdown of animal matter.
We strolled through the sculpture garden between the tar pits and LACMA, then entered the Page Museum, which is basically a natural history museum displaying fossils from and information about the tar pits. I learned that over a million bones from six hundred species have been recovered from the tar pits, including animals such as mammoths (with a hip bone more than five feet across), mastodons, dire wolves, horses (an extinct variety of Western horses), and saber-tooth cats. Enough animals got buried that paleontologists have samples of bones from the same species at different ages.
First thing in the museum, we watched the museum's hokey introduction cartoon video. It was overly dramatic with an over-the-top plot, using expressions such as "it was becoming another death trap" and "and then a pack of dire wolves appear." In contrast, the video we watched before we left, a behind-the-scenes movie, was quite well done.
We also played with an interactive exhibit that showed how hard it is to pull oneself out of tar.
After the museum, we headed to visit a baby shower / birthday party for some friends (C and J) of Di Yin. (This was nominally the excuse for our trip to L.A.) They live in a hilltop house by Eagle Rock in Glendale. The house is nicely designed, renovated by a previous artist tenant, and has amazing views of the surrounding valley. Sorry I didn't take pictures. I could live in a house like it.
After staying at the party for a while, we bid our adieu and headed to a place I've always wanted to visit in L.A.: Galco's Soda Pop Stop. The shop is conveniently in Glendale, so we decided to stop by. It's basically a fun market devoted entirely to soda, also with a good selection of beers and unusual alcohol. I bought a lot: lemongrass soda, rhubarb soda, cucumber soda, honey wine, Asian pear sake, and four kinds of hard cider by a manufacturer (Woodchuck) that we tried and liked in Tarrytown but I hadn't seen since.
With bottles clinking in our trunk, we drove on 101 north to Pismo Beach, the town where we were to spend the night. 101 along the coast passes green hills sweeping into the ocean. We also drove along Santa Barbara's waterfront, pier, and beachy park lined with palm trees. We took 152 west from Santa Barbara, which goes through Los Padres National Forest and a vast mountain range. One bridge made us feel like we were driving in the sky. Along the drive, rain showers came and went, and were sometimes heavy. On the other side of the range, we weaved by some hills with trees that seemed artistically scattered. I later noticed these hills were used as grazing lands, and the trees were probably placed so they're spaced evenly enough that the cows wouldn't neglect any of the grass, even on a hot summer day.
Once in Pismo Beach, we checked into our hotel, the Pismo Lighthouse Suites, researched nearby restaurants, and headed out to eat. Our hotel, by the way, was remarkably nice. I'll post more about it in the next day's pictures.
We ended up eating an enormous, terrific dinner at Alex's BBQ (technically Alex Bar-B-Q). Details are in the pictures.
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!
Los Angeles: Mar 24: To L.A.
After eating breakfast at work, we started our drive to L.A. in intense rain. After an hour the rain lessened, allowing us to enjoy the views of green hills near 101 and especially along 152. The wind took longer to let up; it jerked the car around a bit. Incidentally, despite the dampness, Gilroy smelled strongly of roasted garlic.
On the drive on 101, we spotted (and thankfully avoided) a tire tread in the fast lane. Then, 30 miles later, we spotted another one in the shoulder. Then, by a pull-off on 152 an hour later, we found lots of shredded tires. How odd.
The sights off 152 were so pretty that we stopped four times, three times in view of the San Luis Reservoir. This is when I started taking photos. Our last stop was at the San Luis Reservoir State Recreation Area's Romero Overlook Visitors Center.
Incidentally, Di Yin took more pictures than me this day. The link goes to her first picture from her album for this trip. When you see a picture of me taking a picture of a parking garage machine (picture #46) or of Santa Monica's pier (picture #47), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.
Because of the clouds and lighting, we enjoyed the sights not only on highway 152 but along the whole drive. Indeed, as Di Yin said, "It's a good day to drive to L.A. The landscape is fully dramatized."
Once in L.A., we checked into our hotel, Hollywood Hotel, which was perfectly decent.
We headed out again to meet our friends B and E for dinner. The rain returned, dangerously so.
B and E selected Palmeri, an Italian restaurant near them. It was good. I appreciated that the chef was light-handed (i.e., not heavy-handed) in making the dishes. Sorry I didn't take pictures at dinner.
We had good seared scallops and a roasted potato and sausage dish as appetizers. I also tried the fried zucchini flower special; it was zucchini flowers stuffed with lots of creamy cheese, deep-fried, and served in a bowl made from fried parmesan. The parmesan complemented the flowers well, but I was nevertheless disappointed with the dish--I'd hoped for a lightly fried dish of zucchini flowers, not a rich, cheesy deep-fried thing. (I should've tried the other special which also sounded intriguing: a salad of finely sliced raw artichoke.) Di Yin tried the beet salad, which was presented in an unusual form: beets were chopped and pressed in a mass a la pate or cake.
For mains, I had the tortelli, a delicious, light pasta stuffed with pork (technically amatriciana) and tossed with a bit of spinach and asparagus. Di Yin's lasagna special was similarly light. B's pillowy gnocchi special was dressed with truffle oil.
Our waiter was humorous, and gently ribbed us.
Di Yin observed the restaurant was filled with "pretty L.A. people" and wondered if the whole city was like this. We also spotted a group that looked like mobsters.
After dinner we walked to Yogurtland, one of L.A.'s many joints that sell frozen yogurt by the ounce. I tried and liked the vanilla. The pistachio was fairly good too. The devil's food cupcake batter flavor was really chocolatey.
Los Angeles Overview
Di Yin and I drove to Los Angeles on Thursday, March 24, 2011. We left L.A. on Saturday, March 26, and, after stopping in a central Californian town for the night, returned to the bay area on Sunday, March 27.
I've been to Los Angeles four times before: once on a road trip with B to visit E (2002?) (unrecorded), once with S and Oj in 2005, once on a company trip to visit Disneyland in 2008, and once to again visit E in 2009.
Los Angeles is a city a la how the bay area is a city. (Notice how I said the bay area--as a whole--not San Francisco.) Much of L.A. feels like dense suburbia, not like a city per se. There are corner strip malls packed everywhere. There are also both squat apartment buildings and single-family houses, all placed together with often little space between. Furthermore, Los Angeles is huge, probably the size of the whole bay area.
Los Angeles has a remarkable diversity of tasty food. From my experiences this trip, I have no doubt one can find a good version of any cuisine, any dish, that one wants.
However, my main memory of L.A. will be its drivers. They're aggressive; they drive too fast and don't signal. This really came home to me the times I had to drive in heavy rain (unusual for L.A., I think)--people sped past me as if there was perfect visibility, while I was driving ten (or more) under, straining to see out the windshield. The lane markings practically disappeared.
L.A. tried to kill me twice! Both times were as cars in one lane that were stopped (because someone ahead in the lane was waiting to make a left) jumped into my lane without looking or signaling. Loud honking and rapid braking ensued.
Also, L.A. has many red-light runners. I don't mean the typical thing that when a light turns red the first car will sneak across. Indeed, L.A. is filled with unprotected lefts, but I'm not complaining about red-light runners for those--you need to run those if you're going to get anywhere. But the runners in L.A. take it to extremes, with three or four cars crossing against the red to make a left. This even rubs off on how drivers go straight through intersections; sometimes, cars clearly enter it after the light has changed.
Potholes are a pretty bad problem in L.A., more so than anywhere else I recall. We found a couple so deep (six inches) that they're shocking, and they jostle the car dangerously.
Overall, it felt more dangerous driving in L.A. than anywhere else I've ever driven.
Los Angeles March 2009
I have a close friend, E, in Los Angeles who I hadn't visited in way too long. One weekend in March (Saturday morning the 14th through Monday morning the 16th), I decided to fly down to L.A. to hang out. It was a fun trip, filled with conversations and board games.
I took a few pictures on Saturday and Sunday, but the pictures don't cover everything I did this weekend.
Saturday
E picked me up from the airport and we immediately went to lunch at Father's Office. Father's Office is both a bar with an enormous beer list and a restaurant with good food and even some gourmet items on the menu. It has a feel that's somehow casual and cultured. I really like the feel, and I usually don't like the atmosphere at places that are commonly called bars. It's the kind of place I could see myself going every week with friends for drinks and a meal. (And, yes, the burger I had this visit was good.)
In the afternoon, we decided to go hiking in Will Rogers State Historic Park. We happened to arrive when a tour of Rogers's home was starting. We joined. Although the tour guide was pretty unengaged, I nevertheless enjoyed seeing the house. It didn't feel as large as it was (31 rooms). Rogers clearly had taste in designing the house, as exemplified by his nice library and the large picture window in the living room.
Finally, onto our real purpose: we hiked up to Inspiration Point. It's pretty. Incidentally, we discussed flirting with a tourist who also toured the house.
For dinner, we ended up at Sakura, a pleasing and rightly popular Japanese restaurant / sushi joint.
In the evening, we walked from E's condo to another condo to join some of E's homies to play Power Grid. I'd always heard the game disparaged as a test to see who can build the best minimum spanning tree. While the observation is apt, I still found it to be a fun game as each player attempts to balance expansion and resource acquisition.
Sunday
After a late and lazy morning, E and I went out for lunch. E brought me to a good, secret Persian joint (Atari).
Later, some of E's coworkers came over in the afternoon for gaming. First we played Modern Art, an auction game where I found that all the economic analysis instincts I learned in college led me astray. Then we collaboratively learned Agricola, an overly complex game in the style of Puerto Rico. After the lengthy game of Agricola, we went out for a decent dinner at All India Cafe, then returned to finish up the evening with some Rock Band.
Monday
On Monday I flew home, a nominally unremarkable activity except my one-hour flight was delayed two hours.
Disneyland & Disney's California Adventure
I was in Anaheim from Monday, February 4, 2008, to Wednesday, February 6, 2008, in order to visit Disneyland. I took a few pictures and videos on this trip.
I didn't do anything the day I arrived. Although I'd planned to do something, the hour-and-a-hour bus trip from the airport (Burbank) to my hotel (Embassy Suites Anaheim South) drained my energy, making me not want to get on a bus to go somewhere else. And, having only eaten a bowl of cereal, a yogurt, and a pack of peanuts, my low blood sugar likely contributed to this lack of desire. Instead, I remained in my hotel. I ate what I'm sure was a 2000+ calorie dinner (judging by the size of the chicken sandwich and the pile of fries) at the restaurant in my hotel. Mostly, I relaxed in my hotel room, a pretty snazzy two-room suite on the sixth floor.
Tuesday I had breakfast in my hotel (eggs, sausage, bacon, roasted potatoes, french toast, and lots of fresh melons), then headed to Disneyland.
- Disneyland Railroad. A relaxing way to sit and see some greenery.
- Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. The best non-roller-coaster attraction I rode. You have a gun and you're supposed to shoot Zs as you sit and ride around a Buzz Lightyear battle scene. It keeps score. Think about it as laser tag practice.
- Star Tours. A relatively lame simulator-based ride.
- Space Mountain. A roller coaster in the dark. Only (fake) stars are visible. I kept attempting to determine, given my guess at the planar way the stars were mounted, the location of panels and which way we'd go next. My engineering mind at work.
- "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience." A 3-D movie.
- Innoventions. An exhibit which included many interactive games, including many xbox games. It also had some exhibits on health. (I got my BMI read.) Shadow soccer (see picture) was slick.
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. A fun roller coaster. I liked this more than Space Mountain, perhaps because I also could take joy in anticipating the movements that would come.
- Haunted Mansion. Not scary. Nevertheless, they do cool things with holograms.
Then I went to the adjacent amusement park, Disney's California Adventure.
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Perhaps my favorite ride! In the dark, an elevator drops precipitously, giving one the temporary feeling of weightlessness. Somehow, despite liking this, I couldn't bring myself to get on the Maliboomer, which is a similar ride except outside in the daylight.
- Muppet Vision 3D. What can I say? I like 3-D. And I enjoyed seeing Statler and Waldorf.
- Mission Tortilla Factory. A demonstration assembly line showing how tortillas are made. Fairly neat. They distribute free tortillas coming off the end of the line, though sadly don't provide any toppings. (Perhaps that's because there's a Mexican restaurant next door run by the Mission Foods company?)
- The Bakery Tour hosted by Boudin Bakery. A demonstration sourdough bakery. Like the tortilla factory, there was a video. However, the factory itself was less interesting because not much seemed to be happening.
- Sun Wheel. A cute, huge gondola.
- Orange Stinger. Basically, a giant circular swing set. Simple yet fun.
- Mulholland Madness. I apparently don't like roller coasters that don't have banked curves. It just doesn't feel right.
When I returned to the park, it was reserved for employees from my company. I hit the rides I still wanted to try but previously missed. There was no or practically no line on any of them, though sometimes it took five or ten minutes to walk from the entrance through the winding waiting areas to get to the ride itself.
- Matterhorn Bobsleds. A great ride, nicely banked, entirely downhill. It had great nighttime views of Disneyland. I accidentally rode this twice because the people at the front of my cart asked to go around again. As there was no line, the crew indulged the request.
- Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. A simple yet satisfying ride of a car that dips and turns sharply, smashing open doors to reveal new scenes. I knew I rode this in Florida as a kid. The memories came flooding back.
- Indiana Jones Adventure. A pretty good ride in a jeep-like vehicle. I especially like how projected light made it look like rats, snakes, and spiders were crawling on the wall. I also thought how the ride made it seem like a boulder was rolling down at us, with us dropping into the floor, was well done and scary.
- Pirates of the Caribbean. A surprisingly sedate cruise on a boat past countless, intricate, elaborate scenes of pirates fighting, a pirate village, a treasure island, etc.
After the rides, I grabbed food. I appreciated the fact that food was free because the company had reserved the park and agreed to subsidize the food. This allowed me to try a lot until I got something that satisfied me. First I tried a bowl of gumbo, which wasn't really a gumbo except for the fact that it was a thick stew with rice and okra. It came with a pretty tasteless dinner roll. I threw most of these away. Then, at a grilled meat joint, I got a chicken skewer, which was served coated in an overly sweet sauce, and a beef skewer, which was too spicy and too tough in texture to eat. These came with a light, toasted bread stick. Though certainly better than the dinner roll, it wasn't particularly good. I ate about half of this meal before giving up. Finally, I chose a pulled pork sandwich, which was satisfying. It came with baked beans and a wedge of pickle.
After dinner, I briefly explored the dance area and party, decided it wasn't my scene, and grabbed a hot chocolate for the bus ride back to my hotel.
The following day was devoted to flying home. The flight attendant who made announcements was a comedian--he told fairly good Google jokes.
Los Angeles Weekend Trip
With two friends, I took a quick flight down to Los Angeles to go exploring for a weekend (July 16th and 17th 2005). I wrote a travel diary but only distributed it to my friends via e-mail -- it's not on the web. My pictures from this trip, however, are online.
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