Los Angeles - Day 1

We decided to kinda roam around in LA today - no agenda, just go around. We started the day with dim sum at a place called Elite Restaurant in Monterey Park. We found this place via a recommendation from my co-worker. It's a decent dim sum place ~ taste-wise very comparable to the ones in SF - the choice menu was a bit tight, but I guess their most popular dish is this Rice roll Chinese donut. Their point of differentiation is this donut is stuffed with shrimp paste. It tastes rather good. Different.

LA is known for their traffic, and today's drive was no different. After being stuck in traffic for a good 10-15 minutes, we got to Hollywood's Chinese Theater. We walked around the Hollywood & Highlands stores, the Walk of Fame area - it was crowded and warm. We kinda wanted to join those tours that take you to the celebrity homes, but later decided to go against it. Ok, we're lame even to think about going...

We ended up doing the next touristy thing, which is to get a chili dog at Pink's. This place is advertised like crazy as one of "LA must-do's," kinda like visits to Hollywood & Disneyland. So we went... and... the line to Pink's snaked around the building.. No kidding!

We waited for 1 hour... yes, ONE long hour for our chili dogs! I was quite surprised that SQ was willing to wait because he doesn't believe in waits for any food. But we waited and finally got our chili dogs. SQ got his with sauerkraut. With a couple of root beers, we're good to go! Now, are these chili dogs good? Yes, absolutely. Are they 1-hr wait-long good? No, probably not.

After Pink's, we drove around the LA downtown area and then ended up at Beverly Hills/Rodeo Drive. I've been here before but don't remember much about it. When we drove along the street this time around, I recognize so many of the brand names there (working at a luxury retailer) obviously got me informed. Cartier, Hermes, Chophard, Bvlgari, Chanel...every designer brand name one can imagine. Wow. It's crazy.

In addition to Pinkberry, the other Southern CA hip thing is Sprinkles Cupcakes. Sprinkles still has a limited distribution right now - the closest one in the Bay Area is in Palo Alto. But they started at this Beverly Hills location serving cupcakes to the rich and well to do. They have different flavors each day of the week with a handful of flavors being baked everyday. We ordered the most popular flavors: Red Velvet & Black/White.

Have you noticed that our trip is mostly about eating? Well, because we both love eating! We gained like 5 lbs from this trip! No joke! Because we not only ate a lot, we also vegged a lot. After Sprinkles, we went to the Santa Monica Pier/Beach. SQ went for a swim and I sunbathe and people-watched.

After laying around for a couple of hours, we met up with my friend, EW, for dinner at Baby Blues BBQ. It is in Venice, only a few minutes away from Santa Monica. This place is a hole-in-the wall type of restaurant (literally, there are holes in the wall!) Very run-down, but serves a mean BBQ baby-back ribs. I ordered 1/2 rack A la carte (since I was still full from all the junk I ate throughout the whole day). The ribs were huge!! There must be like 6-7 rib bones in that 1/2 rack! They were so tender they literally can fall off the bone. The home-made BBQ sauce was also very yummy. We got engaged in our catch-up conversation, that I actually forgot to take pictures of the food and our gathering!! Good times...

Santa Barbara

Wed, 7/22, we drove further south to Santa Barbara. This time we wanted to stay a bit longer in 1 place...because we felt like we were constantly moving about. The drive from SLO to SB is about 1-1/2 hours (90+ miles or so). We got to SB about 11am or so, and decided to visit the UCSB campus. My sis and brother in law are alums there, but I've never visited them when they went to school there. I loved UCSB - it reminds me very much of Davis. The campus was filled with bikes, green grass and nice buildings. We, for some reason, ended up in the dorm area, which opened my eyes! The dorms were right by the ocean (though no beach access)...how can one study when you can stare out to the ocean all day? The dorm area had a beautiful courtyard, almost brand new buildings...just very nice and modern! I have to say that Ryerson Hall, Bixby, Gilmore, and the other "Segundo" dorms in UCD all look so dated compared to these here at UCSB. Judge for yourself!

After the UCSB visit, we grabbed a couple of sandwiches from South Coast Deli and drove to the Alice Peck Memorial Gardens, in the heart of Santa Barbara's downtown. I absolutely LOVED this park. There are beautiful lawns, blooming flowers, trees, butterflies, humming birds, a little pavilion over looking a lake filled with water lilies and turtles ... We even enjoyed a little impromptu picnic here! Just perfect!!

We headed to Stern's Wharf, which is the beachfront area in SB after driving through State Street, a street popular for hip stores and nice restaurants. We rented a couple of beach cruiser bikes and rode along the beach, onto the Pier, and around a nearby lake.

We biked around for about 1 hour - everything was going great until ... when we set our camera on self-timer to take a picture of both of us, our camera fell to the ground and broke! :( Our lens shutter broke, but luckily nothing else was damaged. We were still able to retrieve our pictures and able to take pictures. Our camera just looked "naked" without the lens shutter. We didn't let the camera incident dampen our spirits. We continued our bike ride for another hour.

Tired and sweaty, we wanted something cold to cool us off. We remembered passing by Pinkberry on State Street so went back to try their yogurt. Pinkberry started in Hollywood and is "supposedly" the originator of the whole yogurt concept. They are the first to make it hip and trendy. Copycats are ALL over the place now...of course. I ordered their original yogurt with unlimited toppings (my choice: mango, pineapple, and strawberry) for $3.50. I have to say that their yogurt is darn good!! It is not as tarte as the one they have at Quickly's. I really like it...Yum! Too bad they don't Pinkberry here in the Bay Area.

It was about 5pm already and time to leave Santa Barbara. :( The drive to LA is about 2 hrs away and we didn't want to drive in the winding Highway 1 after nightfall... so we must get on our way.

We got to LA around 7pm and immediately went to dinner at Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐) in Arcadia. They are famous for their Shanghai soup dumplings. And yes, yes, yes ~~ their soup dumplings are to die for!!! Probably one of the best that I've had. Apparently, Din Tai Fung started in Taiwan and quickly expanded to many parts of Asia, and eventually to the US (only in the LA area). They are so addicting. We ordered 1 first, and then ended up with 2 orders of the soup dumplings. We also ordered some other items off the menu, but the dumplings were the best!

After dinner, we checked into the Sheraton Pasadena Hotel. After a few days of motels, I was ready to be comfortable in a nice hotel. I had booked this hotel using my Starwood points, so the next 3 nights were "free." When we checked in, they upgraded us to a Club room, which meant free breakfast in the morning and free evening hor'devours. We never made it to take advantage of the hor'devours though! Overall, a very comfortable stay... ahhhhh.... time to relax and chill out!

Hearst Castle, Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo

We continued our Pacific Coast Highway road trip down south and visited the Hearst Castle on Tue Jul 21. We got there around 10am and joined their "Experience Tour." Our guide was very knowledgeable and funny, making the tour very interesting. The mansion was built by Architect Julia Morgan (who is the 1st woman architect to graduate from famous Ecole des Beaux-Arts school in Paris) for newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. Hearst started and ran the San Francisco Examiner. The mansion, like many other mansions, was huge and elaborate. Tons of space, rooms, expensive materials, guests houses, etc. The most famous part of the Hearst Castle is the Neptune Pool. The pool itself was expanded 3 times to accommodate the growing size of the family.

The Hearst Foundation donated this mansion to the California State Parks. It's a pretty nice place to visit. Apparently, there are 3 other tours that one can take to see more parts of the mansion. One good method to keep the visitors returning and earning some $$. Yeah, CA definitely needs the extra dough.

After Hearst Castle, we stopped by Cambria for lunch. Cambria is a very small town - so small that Main Street is literally the main street. We ate a restaurant called Robin's - I had a good roasted veggie sandwich, though SQ's fish tacos weren't that impressive.

We travelled further south to Morro Bay. This was a fishing community (at least it used to be) but now, the waterfront is just a tourist attraction. Think a rundown, much smaller version of Fishermen's Wharf, filled with little shops and restaurants. The Morro Rock is connected to the wharf which is kinda interesting. We drove along a narrow street and then we ended up on Morro Rock itself. Morro Rock is a 176m high volanic plug. Everything was so beautiful here EXCEPT for those 3 ugly stacks (right of picture). It is part of a Power plant. Yes, an energy power plant. How disgusting to have a power plant right in the waterfront. Gross. All the beauty of the wharf, the Morro Bay, the surrounding beaches just got ruined! Sad.

After Morro Bay, the drive took us to San Luis Obispo. I never knew how small SLO is - it's quite like Davis, a small college town. We drove around Cal Poly to look at the buildings and the campus itself. I didn't feel like it was a big campus at all...kinda reminds me a bit of SFSU. SQ's faint memory has it that Pismo beach was nearby. So we drove and drove - little did we know that Pismo Beach was actually 12 miles away from SLO! But it was worth the visit ~ Pismo Beach is beautiful! White sand beaches and clear blue waters. What was especially nice was that they had a pier that took us all the way out to the waters. In this pic, we are staning on the pier - that explains why we have the beach on our left.

We enjoyed a nice Japanese bento box dinner at Gosh-i. The meal included a choice of meat (chicken, beef, or salmon), rice, tempura, miso soup, California roll, mixed green salad, a seaweed cucumber salad, fruit cocktail, AND watermelon. All for a grand total of $17!!! What a steal!! No wonder this place got so many good Yelp reviews!!

Monterey Bay, Carmel, Big Sur

SQ and I have been wanting to go on a drive down the CA coast since February. But the weekend we wanted to go, it was pouring rain in CA, left, right and center. We ended up abandoning the idea and went to LV instead. But this week, we went. Knowing us, we had very loose planning - in fact, we called each day to ask for lodging vacancies as we travelled along. We didn't know where we would end up and it was a good thing that we did that because by days end, we were "off" by 1 city destination. We ended up staying mostly in Days Inn or the equivalent, and most of them were fine.

We started our journey a bit late on Sunday 7/19...didn't get out of the house until 10am. We stopped by San Mateo for lunch, stopped by Santa Cruz, which was packed. We ended up in Monterey for a short stroll along the beach and saw these sea lions up close and personal.

The next morning, we went kayaking at Two Lover's Point in Monterey Bay. It was my first time kayaking and especially not being a swimmer, I was a bit afraid. But it was fine. The kayak was very stable and best yet, the water was very calm and there was hardly any wind at all. My biggest fear though, was that there were a lot of sea lions coming in and out of the water. They just come out all of the sudden and my weak heart can not take the surprises!! They were quite close and I was a bit afraid that one would knock over our kayak... but thank goodness that never happened.

We saw a couple of sea otter families, just lounging in the waters. They were so relaxed and so very cute. Sorry this picture are very far away because they are protected and we can not get too close to them. Can you see them? All those "brown" stuff in the water is kelp.

After kayaking, we did the 17-mile drive. I must say that it was somewhat disappointing. Maybe because the weather was a bit foggy or maybe because I expected it to be much more scenic. It was and it wasn't. The coastline was nice, but why do we have to pay to see that? It was basically the same coastline as we were driving along Monterey. SQ thinks the charge was to pay for the maintenance of those fancy golf courses along the way! But I did like the Lone Cypress on Pebble Beach.

The end of 17-mile drive took us to Carmel. There is just something about Carmel that is so charming. Don't know if it's just the small-town feel or just the way the local boutiques line up?? Either way, I love Carmel. I've only been here once I think, and I've always loved it. We ate a late lunch at a restaurant called Dametra that serves Mediterranean food. We got hummus, a chicken shawarma, and chicken and pesto pizza.

The owner is super nice and hospitable. It was someones birthday so he brought out his guitar and an older guy from the kitchen sang everyone a touching, romantic song. That was a nice treat. Then the owner also comped us with a Mediterranean dessert called Baklava. Yummm...

We continued our journey down south along the coast. We drove and made numerous stops to enjoy the Big Sur scenery. One word: WOW. Indescribable beauty..

These and many more. The photos probably don't even do these scenes justice. The real scenery was much more impressive!! We ended our drive at San Simeon. There are not much there in terms of touristy attractions other than the Hearst Castle, which we would visit tomorrow. But the sunset at San Simeon was probably an attraction by itself!

Cole Haan

I usually wear shoes with heels at work just because most of my dress pants are hemed a little bit longer to accommodate for the heels. I only wear these shoes at work, on carpet, and no where else. Because they are, afterall, not that comfortable for walking on hard concrete floors for more than a couple of blocks. But I just found THE most comfortable dress shoes EVER. It is a Cole Haan shoe. Yes, it's true that they are on the pricier side. But if you get them on sale, they are a deal! So I got a pair of sandals (similar to the one below, the one I got only had about 2-1/2" heels) and wore them today. I basically walked everywhere with it and my feet didn't feel sore at all! You may question why such a shoe can be comfortable - they sure don't "look" comfortable. The reason is the Cole Haan is famous for incorporating "NikeAir" technology into their shoes. Yes! you know those Nike Air gel cushions you get from Nike running shoes? These shoes come with an extra cushion where the balls of the foot are. That part usually take the biggest brunt of the body weight, especially when the shoe has a high heel. So clever! I love these shoes!! I love Cole Haan. They are so damn comfortable that I don't think I can buy any other brand besides Cole Haan from now on. I just need to be on the lookout for those sales!

Miette Cupcakes

I am not much of a cupcake eater - my friend Sylvia is a big cupcake fan. Quite frankly, the ones I've eaten so far are mostly those made from a Betty Crocker box. So I didn't know what a "real" cupcake tastes like...until I ate from Miette Cakes. OMG! Their cupcakes are divine! I got a chocolate one today with Vanilla buttercream frosting and it was really really really good!! It was great! The cake itself was moist and the frosting creamy. Not too sweet ~ perfect! There are a handful of other flavors like a raspberry frosting, which I shall try next time. There is a Miette Cakes in the Ferry Building...close to work ~ Dangerous!

Spoiled

When it comes to traveling, I must admit that I am spoiled. Having travelled mostly for work, I usually travel in luxury. To start things off, I have a dedicated travel agent who will book everything for me - down to details like airline seat and meal preferences to hotel non-smoking bed sizes. Only dates needed and everything is taken care of. And then I get to fly on business, take advantage of airport business lounges, stay in nice hotels, dine at fancy restaurants, call room service, take taxis everywhere and tip generously.

BUT then when I have to plan for my personal travel, I get soooo lazy. I dread having to plan where to go, where to stay, what to eat, and what to do. I am spoiled. I am spoiled rotten when it comes to travel planning. I wish someone can do it all for me....research for the best airline fares, the best hotel for the best price, everything. I guess I seriously need a butler, or like a personal assistant. Oh yeah right, what are the winning lotto numbers again this week?

Food-Filled day!

The Fourth is definitely a Food-Filled Day! SQ and I woke up late today, did some garden clean-up and went for a late lunch at the Outerlands. It is a nice, sweet little cafe in the Avenues (Judah and 45th). I always like to patronize our local eateries whenever we can. The Outerlands has an unique decor - their walls, tables, chairs, benches, and floor are all made from re-claimed wood. It not only has a very rustic feel to it, it is environmental-friendly. Since today is a holiday, the cafe served a limited menu selection. We shared a corn chowder, which was really really good. Not too heavy, filled with fresh sweet corn, potatoes and my favorite, roasted bell peppers. Yum! It was so good that the bowl was gone before I remembered to take a pic of it! We also ordered a Roasted turkey open-faced sandwich, complete with cheese and granny-smith apples. It was delicious! I would definitely come back to try some of their other dishes... Yelpers said that their Mac and Cheese is to die for!
As if we didn't already have enough food, we ended up going to Bi-Rite Creamery for their specialty ice cream. They have the best ice cream in town...yes, IMO, even better than Mitchell's. I got the Balsamic Strawberry and SQ got Toasted Coconut. Both flavors are first timers and keepers! Enjoyed the ice cream with a free show at Dolores Park.

Bi-Rite Creamery is also associated with the Bi-Rite Market on 18th & Guerrero. They are very well-known in the neighborhood, because they promote and sell only organic and locally and sustainably-raised meats, poultry and seafood. It is actually a very small market, but check out their cheese selection!

While in the neighborhood, we would be shot if we didn't stop by Tartine Bakery. It was close to 3:30pm by this time - and we were both very stuffed, but we still managed to chow down their famous bread pudding and a cup of latte. The peaches are in-season and extra-delicious! I am not a big fan of bread pudding but this is indeed quite good. SQ loved it!!! Next time we have to come back on an empty stomach.

I wonder if we will skip dinner tonight, having eaten more than we can possibly eat? Chances are, probably not! We love food too much!

Others go out of town on the 4th. Others BBQ. Others go watch the Fireworks. For SQ and me, we chow down on the 4th!!

Too close for comfort

It is very disturbing to me that things go missing and things appear in our front yard mysteriously. I think people are getting a little too close to our house… A few months ago, we were seeding some California poppies in 2 small plastic containers. The leaves have sprouted but there weren’t any flowers in bloom yet. We left the containers outside on our front yard planter for some sun. Then one day when we came home from work, the containers disappeared. Someone has taken them / “stole” them. They were just gone, without a trace…

The other day, we came home and noticed a suspicious plastic carton behind our trash shield. Inside the area where we keep all our trash/recycle bins, we saw this blue plastic square carton. Inside the carton was an empty Tide laundry detergent container, an empty apple juice container, and other miscellaneous recyclables. We had NO clue who left it there and why. They just appeared out of the blue. While it is no big deal for us to recycle these things, this is really too close for comfort … and to think about how close to our house this person got when we’re not there, and what else they could have left in front of our house?

So this morning, as I do every Saturday morning, I watered the flowers we have in our 2 planters outside. The flowers are growing quite nicely and we want to keep them alive. But today, I noticed that one of our lavender plants was missing. Yes, missing! The entire plant was gone, pulled out of the dirt. I could hardly believe it. How can a plant gone missing? Yesterday I vaguely remember it was still there. At first I thought the culprit was a gopher, who might have dug from underneath and pulled the entire plant downwards. But Sean said that the traces of dirt & mulch show that the plant was pulled from the top. Then I thought it was probably a dog. If it is really a dog, then the plant itself and the dirt would be messily scattered around the planter. But nope, we didn’t see any of that. Now we believe that a human had done it. Someone shoveled it out. I am sick to my stomach if this is true. Why would anyone do that??

These series of events are both disturbing and annoying. I don’t understand why we are being targeted. Since we are living in the middle of a residential area, and our street is not a main thoroughfare, we think the person(s) responsible are some of our neighbors. Maybe not the “immediate” neighbors but someone who lives closeby. We think we might have to set up cameras… we need to catch these people!

A Short Course on Relationships

I ran across a random blog on Wordpress and saw this - thought it's very cute (and true) so I want to post this "short course on relationships" here:

The six most important words:
I apologize, I made a mistake.

The five most important words:
I am proud of you.

The four most important words:
What is your opinion?

The three most important words:
Can you please...

The two most important words:
Thank you.

The one most important word:
We

Up

Holy Cow, did you know that movie tickets cost $11 now?? 2 adults + popcorn + drink = $30. Holy. Things are getting pricey out there! The last theather movie SQ and I went to watch was Wall-E. (1 year ago!) Yesterday night we had a movie date to see Pixar's newest movie, Up. Ok, you probably got the gist that we like to watch Pixar films...





I briefly heard that Up was good, but don't know anything about the storyline or the plot. I guess that's sometimes a good thing - I go in with no expectations and get a nice pleasant surprise. I really like Up. The story does a great job tying everything together - it actually made me cry a few times! I know, how can a "cartoon" make someone cry? Watch it for yourself, there's a deep love story in there. The Asian boy, Russell, in the movie, was actually quite adorable - though maybe borderline annoying in some scenes. But overall, it's a good movie - thumbs Up from me!

New Beauty Skincare Products

Below are some of the hot new products in the Beauty world! I was able to try these products and think that they are quite nice. Unfortunately, I haven't used them long enough to realize the benefits of their beauty claims! P.S. General rule is that you have to use the product religiously for 30 days before you can say if it works or doesn't work...

Clarins High Definition Body Lift

Clarins High Definition Body Lift redefines the hips and thighs, minimizing the appearance of cellulite.

Retails for $65

Lancôme Genefique Serum

Lancome Genefique Serum is a Youth Activator that boosts your genes' activity to stimulate the production of youth proteins.

Retails for $78

La Prairie Skin Caviar Crystalline Concentrate

This luxurious serum contains plant extracts, peptides, amino acids and even diamond, mica and quartz crystals to give your skin youthful glow, to make it firmer and increase skin’s elasticity, and to soften appearance of wrinkles.

Retails for $375

Airplane movies

SQ and I haven't watched movies in ages - there is really nothing showing in the theater that interests us all that much and rentals are kinda blah at the moment. When we had Blockbuster, we did watch a lot but now we're kinda on a dry spell.

However, on my recent Transatlantic flights, I had nothing better to do than to watch a few movies. Between the 2 long flights, I watched 4 movies:

1. Confessions of a Shopaholic

This movie is adapted from a book by Sophie Kinsella, which got quite popular. Poor acting, bad plot, everything is so stupid. Not even worth a DVD rental. This girl shops and maxes out her credit card. She gets a job, and then she impresses everyone with her silliness? Who cares? Her character is annoying. Kinda reminds of Legally Blonde but at least Reese Witherspoon can act.

2. He's Just Not That Into You

In addition to the fact that there are tons of big stars in this movie, the movie itself is very good. It is totally a chick flick, but I loved it. I find it very funny and heart-warming. I especially liked Ginnifer Goodwin's character. She's very cute and portrays so many girls out there - dreaming of finding Mr. Right and trying to read & overanalyze very little "sign" the man gives out.

3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Ok, one word to describe = BORING!! This is the stupidest movie I've seen. Very poor acting by everyone in this movie! Brad Pitt nominated as best actor? You've got to be kidding! Cate Blanchett was also bad. The movie consists of flashbacks as Cate's daughter reads a diary left by Benjamin Button to the dying Cate in the hospital. So really boring and stupid.

4. Coraline

This is a 3-D animated show based on Neil Gaiman's novel. While the computer graphics were amazing, the plot is only so-so IMO. Dakota Fanning, of course, does a fabulous job being the voice of Coraline Jones. Despite it being animation, this movie is quite dark and scary. It's not really a young kid movie - teenagers yes, kids under 10, no.

United 747 Business Class

United Airlines just recently rolled out new business class seats on their Boeing 747 airplanes. They are currently only available on 3-class International flights. On my way to Paris via Frankfurt, I got onto one of these new planes. There are a lot of business class seats – because there is an “upstairs level.” I’ve been on the 2nd level on Singapore Airlines before, but this is the first time on United. The upper deck has 26 business class seats. 1/2 of them are back-ward facing (kinda like BART), so that was new. I didn’t like the backward facing seats – when you’re airborne, you don’t feel much since the airplane is so still, but on the takeoff and landing, you notice the difference.

The new seats are very comfortable – they lie FLAT. The ones on Singapore Airlines recline but is not a 180 degrees flat.

Each seat comes with a 15 inch screen and can play movies, TV shows, music on demand. You can play, stop and rewind anytime. So that was nice. The only bad part is that if you sit inside (window seat), it is very difficult to get out to use the bathroom if the person near the aisle has his/her seat reclined. You literally have to hop over and it’s a very TIGHT space. There is also a center island between the 2 seats that hold beverages, so as if it’s not hard enough to get out, you have to make sure you don’t knock anything down!

Musée d’Orsay - Paris

I spent my free Saturday roaming around Paris. There is really nothing not to like about this city. Tons of museums and places of interest. Today I went to the Musée d’Orsay, which houses French Art of the 1800’s, picking up where the Louvre’s art collection leaves off. This means Impressionism. The Orsay has the best general collection of Monet, Renoir, Degas, and van Gogh. I saw the famous paintings below.

Claude Monet – Garden at Giverny

Edgar Degas – The Dance Class (1873-1875)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Dance at the Moulin de la Galette (1876)

Vincent Van Gogh – Self Portrait (1887)

I don’t pretend to love Art and don't exactly know how to appreciate them like some people, but it’s nice to walk in and learn a little bit of history on these famous paintings. I feel like it makes me a little more knowledgeable about the Art culture.

It's a toss-up between the Louvre and the Orsay. I like Impressionist artworks so that part I like about the Orsay, but the Louvre has so many more "famous and well-known" artwork and sculptures like the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo so it's a must-go. I went to the Louvre last time, but would love to go again. I think one can spend 3 solid days there and still won't be able to see everything.