Palm Springs

I went to Palm Springs this weekend. It's about 2hrs north of San Diego, in the middle of the desert. Building luxury condos is a big thing, as are boarded up buildings. It looks as if one type of people have left, and another type is coming in, or at least they're hoping a new type will come. Lotsa casinos, things for the old and rich. It's a good place for cosmetic surgery too. There's this main street with restaurants, all that serve the same food (but I'm sure it's good food). There's a Kobe beef restaurant that doesn't serve kobe beef. And we got dinner at a bbq place that served me a super sweet super alcoholic mojito!

The main thing was the 110 degree heat. It's like having your skin seared off. Our car almost melted. We went to the Palm Springs Tramway, which is this tram that takes you way up this huge rocky mountain. There, you can go hiking. The tram's really popular among tourists and hikers. We saw a bunch of koreans...they brought a box of inari to eat.

We also visited a Palm oasis. It's really not like the oases in games, it's not clean, the water's not clear and blue, there are no pristine sand dunes. It looks overgrown and full of dead palm trees. The water is shallow, filled with tiny little fish. And it was HOT.

Today on the way back we went to the Cabazon outlet center, which is absolutely huge. Again, tons of Koreans. It's a good place to get polo shirts. I didn't get anything...nothing fits me =\

Palm oasis


Palm oasis again


View of the parking lot from the top of the mountain.

Tiger's Mouth

Sometimes it's easy to forget what Tiger looks like.

Monterey

Somewhere before the del mar fair and after the LA trip, I went home to visit mom and dad. We went to Monterey too. Early June, perfect time to go, it's super beautiful and not too cold. We didn't go to the aquarium, but we took a long walk around town.






Here's mom and dad at mission monterey right before they stole some roses....

Del Mar Fair

We went to the Del Mar Fair.

Saw fuzzy cows, goats, llamas, and sheep. Also saw the dog herding contests, dogs herding sheeps, and later dogs herding cows. Herding the cows doesn't really work out, its one border collie against 5 small cows. The cows kicked the dog =\

So my weekend started on Thursday night...went and saw xmen-3 at midnite. Disappointingly no one dressed up, and the theatre wasn't especially crowded. It's not really a movie town. Watched xmen 2 and 1 the next few days. I saw the series in reverse order...3 - 2 - 1. I'd say two was the best, three messed up the dark phoenix saga and just plain didn't make sense.

I spent Memorial Day weekend in Los Angeles.

On Saturday we went to South Coast Plaza. It's this super expensive absolutely huge mall in Irvine. I've never heard of half the stores, because normal people don't shop in those places. We had lunch at the wolfgang puck cafe. I still don't like his restaurants. Next we went shopping on Melrose St. I wore my Japan goth uniform, but everyone else dressed in Cali ultra casual crazy layering. I tried on a $400 dress at the used clothing store. They discounted it to $50, but it was peach and I'm kinda peach =\ All the stores are owned by Chinese people, and all the clothes kinda look like failed experiments from sweatshops. Nonetheless people buy the clothes. I got this cat ring and necklace. It's just beads...cheap shiny jewelry.

On Sunday I got a tour of chinatown and japantown. We went to a store that sold live chickens and rabbits, you ordered and they killed. I also saw a pet store that sold baby chicks for $2.50/each. Chinatown has so many restaurants, but it's kinda ghetto, I wonder if the restaurants actually serve as gang headquarters. Tokyotown is ok, but the new tokyotown near crispin's house is a lot better. We got shabushabu for dinner one night, and it was super good. We also got this really smooth sake. It was called....bishonen, or pretty boy. We've also had yakitori and sushi there, eventually I hope to get ramen store.

Got to take the LA subway, and went to Hollywood again. Hot + crowded. They built a mall there too, attached to the Kodak theatre which is where they hold american idol. That mall, also totally crowded.

On Monday attended a memorial day party at crispin's parents' house. Crispin got stuck grilling the sausages and making us midori margaritas. He's the family cook. That left me to talk to people I didn't know. Most were either really old. A few were wannabe european we're better than you I wont talk to you types. And the rest liked to focus on my non-whiteness. It fascinated them. Most people stayed about 2hrs, got food, and left. Kinda like the parties we have, except they didn't have a table cloth. Our parties there's either a million kids or a bunch of people who only speak chinese. I guess the only good parties exist in my mind.

Some flowers in Tokyo town...crispin's walking away.


a jewelry store named for me.


in the hollywood mall, looking up.


fruit vendor in mexico town, near the mission of los angeles.


right outside the hollywood mall, packed!


crispin's new tshirt pattern. from the giant robot store.

Las Vegas

This is somewhat massively out of order. So on Friday we went to Las Vegas. 5hr drive or so, long and empty drive, gets longer each time. First stop was the Las vegas outlet center! Not the ghetto one on the state line, but the good one in the actual city. I got some clothes at Banana Republic =) Stayed at the Venetian this time (beautiful hotel). For dinner we had reservations at Mix, which is this awesomely beautiful restaurant on the 64th floor of the Hotel at mandalay bay. It's white with fake bubbles hanging from the ceilings and you get this awesome view of the strip. For some reasons my pictures didn't come out, or at least they're not even on the camera. It's the type of place best committed to memory I guess. Any how that pic of us is us at dinner in the restaurant. And ya, it was expensive. I ate a squab. It's a free range organic pigeon. Tastes like duck, but concentrated.

Next day we checked out the new Wynn hotel. The pix of the chandelier and the restaurant door show off its beautiful decor. It's got a red and gold theme, with arabesque flowers painted on the ceilings. And they don't allow you in if you have a stroller (anti children).

For dinner we drove out of the strip to this really ghetto area...kinda of like Las vegas chinatown. We went to what was supposedly the best thai food restaurant around. Check out the huge grilled catfish we got! You should have seen the lookcs on everyone's face...they thought we were so awesome. And it was so spicy!

Saw 'O' at the bellagio...it takes place in a pool. The stage is just a giant pool. Lotsa diving, somewhat uninspired compared to the other cirque du soleil shows. We also tried to get into the two hottest nightclubs in town (mostly for celebrity spotting), but the lines were too long =| And now I'm back here....

Spring Break 2

So on St Patrick's day, we went to ShamROCK, this huge block party put on by the city of San Diego. They closed off the gaslamp quarter and had DJ's + live Irish rock. We checked out THIN, a cool little lounge in downtown. It's got a sleek modern look that comes off as cheap, but hey this town loves clubs. We had free admission to a bunch of other bars, but they all had long lines. And again, I don't really find drinking shoulder to shoulder with strangers appealing.

On Saturday I went to Malibu! Tried to find David Geffen's house, but the celebrities actually live down the hill next to the ocean, in a way that's inaccessible for the ordinary person. They seal off the roads to their residences to all except residents. Malibu itself is a city defined by the coastline, it's long instead of wide, and everyone's got a view of the sea. Here's Pepperdine U. Lotsa people from my law school wanted to go here, but were too dumb.



This is me on the Malibu beach. Ya it was really cold and windy, remember it rained the day before, and would rain the day after.



The real reason for the Malibu visit was to check out the remodeled Getty Villa. It's like Hearst Castle, although instead of going retro it goes modern with an emphasis on long lines and geometry. It's also a museum, with a huge collection of Grecian vases.





Then we checked out 3rd street promenade (my 4th time there!) and had dinner in japan town at this conveyor belt sushi place! I overdosed on toro and two other types of tuna. Ya, I had to pretend to like raw fish.

Today I went to La Jolla cove! Check out the seals. It's pregnant seal time. Mom seals + baby seals, which are grey and look like squirrels.




I also went to a cave in the cove, you pay $4 and go down a long flight of stairs. You emerge in this water cave, filled with nesting pigeons. Here's some pigeon eggs


Came home today with 100pgs to read and all the usual terrible things that plague me, and I've gotta go back to school tomorrow =(

Cheddar soup

Brief post break between spring break 1 and 2.
Crispin made cheddar soup.
We went to whole foods last week and he saw the recipe, it stuck in his mind. Anyhow, I get to eat it now. I hope its good. My whole house smells like cheese =\

Spring break part 1

I had spring break last week, although it wasn't much a vacation. I spent most of my time catching up in school and writing my outlines. I still think I won't have much to show for my efforts, but I do it anyways. Last weekend we checked out PB to shoot some pool. We found all the bars completely packed. Our pool hall was empty. Pool isn't as popular as binge drinking I guess. I felt really left out, like I always do in clubs/bars, etc, like I don't even belong in this country. This country's emphasis on drinking culture, further emphasized by the law profession's endorsement of these areas as places to "network" makes me feel like I've chosen the wrong field, and indeed, perhaps been born into the wrong country. But that wasn't the point of the weekend, the point was PB is packed Friday nights, and we sucked at pool.

I tried pool part 2 on Wednesday at a Korean pool place where they don't serve alcohol and the lady serves milk to regulars, and allows them to smoke under the "do not smoke sign." Boy did I suck. And I got ripped off twice, once at dinner (never go to places that don't print prices on their menu), and again at the pool hall when she added on 30min of play time that did not occur. But how can you argue w/old Korean women...

Last weekend I went to LA and checked out the tar pits. You can't actually see the tar (sad) it's under water in this lake. But I saw this really cool display with 1600 dire wolf skulls. And we also went to the Museum of Tolerance, which is about the Holocaust. It's hypocritical in that by tolerance, they mean sticking you in a room and forcing you to watch videos about Jewish people and how they suffered. It's a complete video tour, but they pretend its not because you need to move from room to room to see the videos.

Tar pits w/ sculptures. The tar is under the water in the lake.


1600 dire wolf skulls.


This last week, and this weekend just plain sucks. Way too much schoolwork. And it'll continue into next week, even more schoolwork, plus the week after is the deadline for job hunting. So I've got my hands full. I wonder if I should have dropped out. If all this work, which takes up all my waking hours, doesn't amount to a decent job that I like, why not stop now?