Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, Malibu & Santa Barbara

We rented a Mustang convertible for a day to drive up the coast a little bit. Riding in a convertible wasn't on the top of my to do list, but when the roof came down and I felt the sun & wind on my face as we cruised along the Pacific Ocean, I had to admit: it was really kind of awesome.

We stopped at a couple of lookouts along the way, walked on the beach in Malibu, and had dinner at Neptune's Net, a seafood hut type thing looking onto the ocean.

Santa Barbara was definitely a highlight on this trip: a quaint Spanish town tucked away in the foothills by the ocean. We lucked out too as it was market day on the main street so we got to see lots of locals out walking around with their dogs and picking up flowers and organic produce for the week. There were cute little boutiques and a hippy band complete with harmonica and accordion singing covers of the 60s. Really lovely and I think I could probably handle living there full-time, if I had to endure that kind of lifestyle. ;)

But that's it for L.A. for now! We're packing back up for our 14 hour flight to Taiwan this afternoon (there's a 12-hour time difference so we get in sometime after 11pm local time or 11am Friday EST). So I'll be picking this back up on the other side of the ocean!

(p.s. Not sure how to control the order and layout of the photos, they seem to scramble when they get posted, the app has limited functions so you'll just have to bear with me)

Downtown Los Angeles

Yesterday we went out to do touristy stuff, got a picture of the "Hollywood" sign and looked at the stars on the Walk of Fame and the hand prints in the courtyard at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Not a whole lot going on downtown actually which was weird. I suppose it was the middle of the day on a Wednesday but still. The city blocks and metro stations were all kind of deserted apart from homeless people (there seems to be a lot of them here, I guess they all came for the good weather, just like us).

We walked a few city blocks and checked out the City Hall (didn't bother with going through the security, don't think it's visitor-friendly), the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels (apparently the third largest in the world, very unconventional-looking), and the Walt Disney Concert Hall (home to the L.A. Philharmonic, a beautiful sculpted steel building designed by Canadian Frank Gehry who also did the AGO).

On the way back to the hotel we stopped to have lunch on a patio on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and peered into the windows of big designer brands like Louis Vuitton, Versace, Dior, and so on. In true tourist spirit we also got a picture of a fancy Bugatti (probably belongs to a Saudi prince or oil tycoon or something).

The Getty Centre

Our hotel is a short drive up to The Getty Centre, a expansive and gorgeous estate designed by Richard Meier made up of large grids of unpolished travertine marble, metal and glass. It sits on a hilltop with panoramic views of the mansions of Brentwood and the city of Los Angeles on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other.

Though The Getty houses a lovely collection of artwork including Van Gogh's "Irises" and a beautiful exhibit of celebrity photographer Herb Ritts, for me it's always been about the architecture, how the light comes through the interior space, and the way the artwork is presented. The Getty Centre is now one of my top three favrouites and you can see why:

University of California Los Angeles

We flew in late last night and crashed at an airport hotel, got a good night's sleep and made our way to Brentwood, just west of L.A., where we're staying the next seven nights at "Hotel Angeleno" (4 stars + free WiFi + free "wine hour" + free shuttle within a 3-mile radius = pretty awesome).

The hotel's a 5-minute drive to Westwood where UCLA is headquartered. The campus is this massive sprawl of lush green lawns & ancient trees, stoned terraces & beautiful red brick buildings, all happily drenched in sunshine 300 days a year. There was something so very American about the campus and though I didn't quite know what it is, I liked it.

As we walked around the campus we finally began to realize: this is where we're going to live for the next couple of years -- in Cali-freaking-fornia. Pretty cool, huh? :)