there’s two places my sister and i visit in a new city : chinatown (if there is one) and universities (because we are unabashedly complete nerds).
visiting these places gives us a sense of how our own ranks amongst others. the l.a. chinatown is old and extremely grubby. i tried to capture that in the photos i uploaded to flickr tagged “chinatown”.
at the gates, i found a set of characters. one for harmony and one for wisdom (zhi). actually, the common word(s) for wisdom is zhi hui (“zee wai” in canto) and hui/”wai” is my name hence i have to take a picture at the chinatown gates!
yesterday (tuesday), we went to the “opening night” first taping with a live audience for a show that premieres this fall called freddie. it stars freddie prinze jr. and brian austin green (remember him from “beverly hills 90210”?) as best friends and the other details you can get from the website. it appears to me to have some promise but i say that partly because i invest (if that is the correct word) four hours of my life to providing live-audience-laughter. little did i know (not being a follower of pop culture of the hollywood celebrity kind) that he is married and that means we had the thrill of seeing sarah michelle gellar arrive to watch her guy do his thing. i noticed s.m.g. before the “buffy” and “i know what you did…” fame when she played the part of “kendall hart,” illegitimate daughter to the diva erica kane back in… ’93….!
after the past few days, it has become undeniably clear that it is not possible to live (happily) in l.a. unless you have a car. the buses suck suck suck. we got blamed for something when we were in the right today but that is a story for tomorrow, i guess. we’ve been stranded twice with the bus stopping its route and we don’t have all the resources to know this, requiring us to pull off hair-raising stunts like walking past a cemetary with a freeway next to us in the dark and aggravating things like calling a cab and waiting over twenty minutes for it to arrive.
a frozen custard in a waffle cone from lickity split is the best way to go when you’re walking around all day in the sun.
the getty center is an amazing place. the architecture is amazing – sprawling and like a white, white house. the exhibits are varied. and we shopped a storm up for prints at the museum store (fodder for another post). at 4.95usd, we couldn’t limit ourselves to just one!
(it’s also fortunate, i think, to have made some purchases. i’d hate to return to vancouver and have to say, “i went to l.a. and all i bought were gap jeans.” i might yet get gap jeans, but the point is the gap is ubiquitous and not at all unique like something from the getty center museum store.)
finally, we went to the grove, an open-air shopping mall with a glamourous touch… like a live band playing on a stage in the quad, glitter, lights, statues, a great big american flag flapping on a tower. canadians are just more conservative and an open-air market would be closed half the year due to rain (in vancouver) or inclement/icy/cold weather in the rest of canada. =P
i’m also getting these DIY (do-it-yourself) project ideas while out everyday. i’m excited to get back and start on some of them but will provide more details later. (it makes me wonder if i’m not a latent arts-type person but never got encouraged to pursue it….)
alright, i still have to consider who to do my next rotation with and other stuff. contrary to how it sounds, it’s not all play over here….!
Sounds like you’ve been spoiled by Vancouver’s excellent transit (although people here still complain about it – unbelievably!)
An unrelated travel question for you… Where did you guys stay in Seattle? I have a conference there in October and am looking for budget alternatives to the conference hotel.
I don’t know how the hell I’d cope in LA, as London is public transport driven and I don’t even have a drivers license. It sounds like you’re having a good time though!