Trump's Way

Day 3
Location: Trump's Golf Course, Rancho Palos Verdes
Entertainment Cost: Free

Food Cost: Free if you have awesome friends by the name of Lisa and Gus. (Thanks for the chips, granola bars, drinks, and, of course, the PHO!!)

For those that can't afford $300 dollar tee off at Trump Golf, an alternative way to enjoy the prestigious ocean view of the Pacific Palisades is to walk alongside the lush greens and peachy sand dunes coating its trails. Although a 12 mile course round trip, there is a shorter route you can sneak off to that leads you down a crooked dirt path to the tide pools of the Pacific coast. There is where you will find the many sea creatures such as purple shelled crabs with pink tinged corners hiding behind sea green and almond brown coral, starfish, sea anemones, shelled crabs crawling furtively between nooks in communities where both sea life and plant life coexist in the biorhythm we call mother nature.

Not many Californians can say that they enjoy their commute. I know I certainly begrudge the idea of driving--especially when we are conditioned to sit through traffic on our way to work or to pick up some groceries by way of many stoplights, turtle drivers, and overcrowded roads. However, driving the five mile winding hillside that looms over the coastline, its fresh breeze, open road, and crystal clear oceanside view felt more like a cruise. Now I understand the essence of the word, "cruise", simultaneously reliving the term "joyride" from back when we were still teens, when we were still eager to find any excuse to be behind the wheel. On our left side, we saw the infinite ripples of the ocean, only smoothed out by the silver lining that separates the optic departure between water from sky. The nuance of that lining is so slight that to the untrained eye, one might even believe we are on a rock floating above the sky. To a fanciful imagination, we could well be living in James Cameron's Avatar world.

Two seconds into the trail, we (Josh, Kathy, Cynthia, David, Gus, Lisa, and I) all noticed how smooth and wide the pavement is. It felt like trails for the rich--well quite literally considering that the mega mansions behind us are most likely the routine joggers. Next, I noticed how diverse the native plants flourished. Now I'm definitely not a biologist, botanist, ecologist, and anything of the nature (get my pun? HA!), but just from a cursory glance, one can notice the color scheme layered artfully against the backdrop of the cliff and PV mansions.

By the time we crossed the wooden bridge that connects the botany with the beginning of the descending dirt path towards the shore, we were all caught by the breathtaking view of the kelp scattered throughout the beige, pale blue, and algae green colors of the waters. I could distinctly smell the salt and seaweed of the Pacific Ocean bidding to us to come closer. By the time we were at the bottom, there was a community of creatures galore in every step we took on the coral reefs and tide pools. If we had a bucket, we would've all had crabs for dinner tonight for it was plentiful. A couple of our guys easily picked it up by the torso and back shell while the other sea anemones and starfish creatures we found were protected by the fickle tides that teased us with sporadic moments of high and low.

 

 

Like many SoCo natives, when it comes to exercising, we often gain more than lose do to our ability to eat more calories than we burn on a particular event. In any case, by the time we headed back, we all sweating, hungry, but most of all feeling wholesome. Pho at Saigon Bistro was a perfect way to celebrate a  "Trump" victory to another nice, fulfilling day.

Garden of Earthly Delights

Moneta's Nursery
Location: 13633 S Vermont Avenue, Gardena, CA 90247

Entertainment Cost: $14 (3 peppers at $1.25 + random exotic tomato and pepper seeds)

Food Cost: Negative (-) since growing your own veggie garden is an investment.

Whether you are there as a gardening fanatic or as a curious onlooker, hands down this is one of the most lush gardens to buy your flowers, fruit trees, vegetables, bonsai trees, and agricultural accessories. Expansive in their 20 acre lot, Moneta's Nursery seduces the casual observer to tilt ever closer--if not for the beauty of the ripe color blooms, then for the organic perfume wafting through the cool summer's breeze.

The scents of four five dozen rose species spread across a wide bed for our olfactory's whim and fancy. It was like kids walking through Candyland. We (Gus, Lisa  , and myself) ran around the nursery in which wherever direction, allowing our eyes to navigate our next destination. It was definitely a sensory overload, but I had to keep my mission in mind: Which flower among all the flowers shall I choose for my front yard? It reminded me of a book I read in elementary school, Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag, where there were just millions of pretty cats to choose from, the ole man decided to take all of them home. Well, I don't want to give any spoilers (a big SoCo No No), but here I was confronted with so many beautiful life energies waiting to grow its roots on a warm (well in this case PH friendly, nutrient rich, temperature ready) bed of soil, so what did I do?

Well like any other self-respecting, rational and responsible Californian girl, I walked into the nursery with the mindset of getting flowers for my front yard, and walked out with three exotic peppers and an idea: one Caribbean Red Hot, one  Chili Piquin, and one Floral Gem. Then, I got to thinking about creating my own mini paradise of different spices~ since I am a SpiceAddict..I'm seriously thinking about starting my own website on spices...I would create a web page titled http://www.spiceaddict.com/ , but apparently if you click on this link, it's already been taken, the web page preoccupied with some fragmented message in a faded gray font that darkens when the cursor is over it, sends a message that is simple but doesn't quite make sense-- a little on the creepy side for all the complicated and ADHD Californians like me. It's got me thinking about cults and hidden messages of life behind the spice when I rather would just go back to talking about all the potential florals I can grab from this paradise.

Like our Good ole Govna would say: Iy'll be Bach!

Premiere Life @ LA Film Festival

LA Film Festival 2010
Location: Downtown Los Angeles, LA Live
11th St and Figueroa St
Los Angeles, CA 90189Entertainment Cost: $50 Despicable Me Package



Includes: 2 tix to Despicable Me World Premiere Sunday + 2 vouchers towards any Indie film (if you purchased with Amex, you receive a complimentary pass to the LA LiveLounge

Food Cost: Free if you have an awesome BFF by the name of Amy Chang!! (Thanks!)

Planning is worth a million words--words of persuasion, confusion, and frustration that could be altogether excised if I had bought my tickets for Waiting for Superman just a bit earlier, or perhaps pinpointed the exact location on GoogleMap® for the Events Tent will call that would have bought us enough time to place for the first redeeming 20 sinners aka “non-planners” in rush line to watch the movie. I wouldn’t even be wasting words on this blog if it wasn’t for the fact that I was the 21st person in line.

The upside of it all? Of course there’s always an upside—I was at Hollywood’s front porch, gazing in wonderment of all the glam and glitz that goes with the hype of a premiere.

Waiting for Superman, a documentary about today’s failing public education school system, directed by An Inconvenient Truth’s David Guggenheim had a red carpet welcome, equipped with pricy looking pole lights beamed against the backdrop of the movie’s logo, with the press making small talk, drinking their lattes, and interviewing the occasional who’s who that strolled down the thirty foot red carpet. Thirty minutes before the showing, black Cadillacs periodically dropped off celebrities (?) while onlookers turned heads, policeman and security shut down the perpendicular streets making it a minor inconvenience for mortals like me to get Access.

Though I knew it was a documentary with none of the A-list actors there, the inundation of commercial seduction pasted across the tempered glass skyscraper of name brand buildings, the 40+ pedestrian fans waiting at the doggie side of the sidewalk, and the swarm of security, volunteers, and policemen that surrounded the grand entrance to the theatre, made me all the more eager and fanatic to obtain access to watch the movie. Sure, I could’ve YouTubed the doc, but it wouldn’t have been the same without the lure of city stardom. Just standing behind the line for the two hours made

 me feel the tingle of the many What-Ifs of the film making industry.

Though we didn’t get to see, Waiting for Superman, we still went inside Regal Cinema, though we had to tread lightly through the cautious watch of Waiting for Superman security standing a few yards from the entrance to our plan B indie movie, 1428, a documentary of the Sichuan Province’s earthquake aftermath. Subtitled in English, 1428 is named after the exact time the earthquake took place, 14:28 on May 12, 2008 , and at first glance seems to address the initial response to the emergency disaster. On closer look, the audience begins to see a bigger infrastructural system that needs fixing. The film was a raw glimpse into the poverty in that region and into the Communist Party’s real motive behind “rebuilding” the villages. Without any narration or any particular loyalty to follow any one character, the selection of what the director wants the audience to see reveals the dichotomy of government regulated industrial opportunism and the inadequacy of traditional methods for farm bred self sufficiency.

At the end of the movie, it personally made me feel more appreciative of what I have, especially walking out to a beautiful third floor view of the nighttime city.

Afterwards, we drove about 8 miles from LA Live Stadium to Thai Town, specifically in Thai Plaza, specifically Red Corner Asia, where we had Tom Yum noodle soup, raw shrimp dipped in a sleuth of mixed spices, and spicy curry over brown rice, finished with fresh mangos with sweet sticky rice coated with coconut milk. The restaurant was one in five shops that doesn’t close until the wee hours in the morning, the earliest at 2 am and the latest at 3:30 am (or shall I say earliest at 3:30? Or latest? Wait…I’m confused now).

There is a Thai bakery called Thai Desert House where we picked up baked coconut milk, angel hair sugar, and make-it-yourself Thai ice tea pouches. We came home around 1:30 in the morning. It was a sweet day.

And Let There be Light

So if you ask the many fabulous SoCo Residents on what they do for fun, you will most likely get a laundry list of places to shop, eat, and, like we said in the 90's, "kick-it" spots. If you ask for any specifics, most likely your answers would not include such places like Sunset Blvd, Hollywood Bus Tour, Griffith Observatory. Most of us have been there at least once in our lifetimes, but have we really explored explored all that SoCo has to offer us? I've lived in Los Angeles practicaly all my life, dreaming about getting away to hot vacation spots far, far, away. I even decided that I wasn't going to live here all my life--I need to diversify, putting all my bounded dreams into different baskets. Housing is cheaper, standard cost of living is lower in other states (Most other states at least), but if I left LA today, I would be missing out on many of the things that has attracted the millions of Californian residents to pay the extra mulah to stay here in the first place. My mission this summer is to explore the region that is Southern California, dancing the nightlife, strolling the sunny sandy beaches, milking the cultural carnivals, and poking through the mecca of metropolitan diversity, home to hundreds of nationalities thrown together that is our beautiful City of Angels, in all its ugliness and beauty, and all that falls in between. If you are resourceful, touring So Cal can be reasonably priced--It takes some Googling, some curiosity, and the willingness to take risks. I can't tell you if the payoff will be worth it yet, but I will share with you my experiences along the way to finding out =D