Yen had a work conference in Long Beach, which is south of LA, so I tagged along for the free hotel toiletries. Woo!
I had high hopes for LB. It's apparently often used for a lot of shooting (like for the O.C.) to stand in for other parts of the world, because it's close enough to LA but in a cheaper zone to film. Maybe I was there in the off-season but on first glance: meh. Great Art Deco architecture, but everything downtown was a bit too pretty. Gentrified out of all character.
I had high hopes for LB. It's apparently often used for a lot of shooting (like for the O.C.) to stand in for other parts of the world, because it's close enough to LA but in a cheaper zone to film. Maybe I was there in the off-season but on first glance: meh. Great Art Deco architecture, but everything downtown was a bit too pretty. Gentrified out of all character.
So I braved the more ghetto-looking streets to find something less bland. One of the cute finds was the accurately monikered secondhand bookshop, Bertrand Smith's Acres and Acres of Books.
With one gigantic room each for fiction and non-fiction it's a veritable time-swamp in there. I nearly didn't even go to Nordstrom's Rack because of it! (nearly is good as not right?)
Now I know no one reads this, y'all only wait for the food pix, so here ya go.
Heart-attack-in-a-bun from Pink's the legendary hotdog stand:
Fantastic pub-style Korean food from a restaurant with entirely Korean signs and menu. I love that I have no idea what we ate! it was goood.
Then, some culture at the Getty Center. It's a massive white structure atop a hill that's more akin to a fortress from the front, but inside has lovely home decorating ideas for me:
Ol Bert wasn't foolin'
With one gigantic room each for fiction and non-fiction it's a veritable time-swamp in there. I nearly didn't even go to Nordstrom's Rack because of it! (nearly is good as not right?)
Best bookshelf ever
With the maze of shelves and the musty smell, looking for a book isn't so much a bibliographical search as an archaeological expedition. So. awesome.
Two other things I didn't know about LB:
1) It's home to the second largest Cambodian population outside Cambodia.
2) It's also home to Ferris Bueller's house (so rad!)
Then came the trip to LA proper. It went like this, but less fun-looking.
On our first proper day in LA, I was eager to see some of this beach culture everyone keeps talking about, so of we went to Santa Monica. It took bloody ages to get there of course and parking is a nightmare. And there's a lot of panhandlers. Even more so I think than SF. Why did we come here again?? Oh yeah, we saw the skate-boarding dog of Youtube fame being filmed by a Japanese crew at Venice Beach. Excite!
With the maze of shelves and the musty smell, looking for a book isn't so much a bibliographical search as an archaeological expedition. So. awesome.
Two other things I didn't know about LB:
1) It's home to the second largest Cambodian population outside Cambodia.
2) It's also home to Ferris Bueller's house (so rad!)
Then came the trip to LA proper. It went like this, but less fun-looking.
On our first proper day in LA, I was eager to see some of this beach culture everyone keeps talking about, so of we went to Santa Monica. It took bloody ages to get there of course and parking is a nightmare. And there's a lot of panhandlers. Even more so I think than SF. Why did we come here again?? Oh yeah, we saw the skate-boarding dog of Youtube fame being filmed by a Japanese crew at Venice Beach. Excite!
Heart-attack-in-a-bun from Pink's the legendary hotdog stand:
Fantastic pub-style Korean food from a restaurant with entirely Korean signs and menu. I love that I have no idea what we ate! it was goood.
Then, some culture at the Getty Center. It's a massive white structure atop a hill that's more akin to a fortress from the front, but inside has lovely home decorating ideas for me:
I wish!
Things we didn't get to:
• Hollywood sign
• the Chinese Theatre
• Sidewalk of fame
• any kind of star (being the weekend of the Sundance Festival everyone was in Utah) :(
• a Bitten(Sarah Jessica Parker's real cheap line of cute clothes) store that wasn't ravaged already. I am STILL bitter about this one :p
• Hollywood sign
• the Chinese Theatre
• Sidewalk of fame
• any kind of star (being the weekend of the Sundance Festival everyone was in Utah) :(
• a Bitten(Sarah Jessica Parker's real cheap line of cute clothes) store that wasn't ravaged already. I am STILL bitter about this one :p
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