Weeks 8 & 9: Hollywood & Mitsuwa Marketplace

Pretty soon we'll have an east-to-west adventure to write about so I figured I better catch up on what we've been doing the past few weeks! Time has truly flown.

Week 8
Because everyone would ask about it, we finally made the trek to the Hollywood sign. We went via Mulholland Drive, which is a scenic highway in the Santa Monica Mountains, which run kind of through the middle of the city. It was pretty, in its own California kind of way.

In this picture you can see WB Studios, and I think Disney studios too.

This sign informed us that there is no good reason for people to settle in LA. (I think we already knew that. No offense, citizens of LA.)

The sun is in Patrick's eyes but waaaayyy back behind him you can see the skyline of the city proper.

Note the haze/smog. It's like this all the time.

Here is the Goodyear blimp:

Then we headed to the Hollywood Reservoir. We were going to hike around it, but it actually wasn't that pretty because the reservoir is fenced in. It was cool to see the dam.

And then we finally made it to the Hollywood sign.

It is very hot and dry inland. Where we live on the shore, the wind keeps it cool, but as soon as you go a couple miles inland, the temperature rises fifteen degrees. It never rains here. I think I've seen actual rain once this summer.

Here are some pictures of "downtown" Hollywood. We were underwhelmed, so we just drove through.

After this we had dinner in Thai Town at Pa Ord Noodle. Patrick had a super-authentic dish called boat noodles. It tasted kind of like a weirdly spiced pot roast with noodles.

To finish our evening, we headed to Griffith Observatory, which was probably one of my favorite experiences here. Believe it or not, you can see the stars up here! 

The exhibits were really cool, but my camera's not awesome in low light so I don't have many pictures. One of the coolest things we did was watch the sunset through a pinhole camera, and we were able to witness the phenomenon of a green flash. Because green light bends differently than other light, you can see this little tiny green 'spark' at the top of the sun. It was also a special weekend where amateur astronomers brought their telescopes out to share with everyone. We got to see Saturn through the telescope and we could see the rings on it! That was so awesome. It looked just like it does in the textbooks.

Oh. Here's Patrick hanging out with Einstein at the observatory.

Week 9

We went to test drive a Mazda in the Torrance area on Saturday...not too exciting. What was exciting is that we found a Chick-fil-a and I convinced Patrick to let us eat lunch there. Mmmm. Delicious taste of home. Then we went to Sam's Club and spent the rest of the day laying around and being lazy.

On Sunday, we had the special treat of meeting up with my Aunt Sheila for dinner! Unfortunately I was dumb and forgot my camera, but at least Patrick captured the moment on his phone. 

We went to Mitsuwa Marketplace, which is a Japanese supermarket, and we ate at Santouka Ramen, which, yes, serves ramen noodles. It was delicious--dissimilar in many ways to the instant ramen. It was served with a few thin slices of pork. We opted for the combo, which also had pork fried rice and a boiled egg. After we ate, we spent some time walking around the shops, which was interesting.

Hopefully I'll get to weeks 10 and 11 tomorrow!

New car!

As usual, we are behind on our blog posting, but we did want to share the good news that we got a new car!! Patrick was sad to say goodbye to the ailing Rendezvous:

...but we are both happy to embrace our new Mazda CX-5 Touring! (PS: Laura, if you're reading, thank Chris for convincing us to get the bigger engine!)

...although it took us a while to figure out how to turn it on. Keyless ignition takes some time to get used to.

We're happy to have a safe way home. The dealer gave us a really good quote that made it less expensive than if we were to purchase it in South Carolina, taxes and all, so that's was the tipping point in our decision. Patrick was overdue for a car and we're really glad we could get something that he was happy with (and hopefully that he'll be happy with for the next 10-15 years!)

Overall the car buying experience was fairly painless since we went through USAA. The only surprise was that the alarm system was not included in the price because apparently car alarms are not factory-installed. We hated to pay for it but ended up opting for it since it's kind of a safety feature.

More news later, just wanted to post a quick update about the car!

Weeks Six & Seven: Halfway there!

Hi everyone! It's been a while so I thought I'd update you on what we've been up to.

Our sixth week was the most boring week we've had so far (well, at least I was bored)--Patrick had to travel to Washington, DC for work for the week so I was here alone! I'm not too comfortable driving his car, especially in LA traffic, so this meant me coming straight home every weeknight. But, I did order pizza one night, so that was pretty exciting! (Patrick can't eat a lot of pizza because of his stomach issues, so when he's out of town or I'm hanging out with friends I'll get pizza sometimes.) I also met up with a new friend from church for frozen yogurt on Friday night (which required bravely driving the Rendezvous through a parking garage)! It's kind of sad because I feel like we're just now beginning to establish friendships but at the same time already preparing to leave.

Patrick's flight was supposed to come in Saturday morning, but unfortunately it was cancelled and he didn't get back until Sunday afternoon. So on Saturday I went to the mall...and remembered why I hate going to the mall on weekends, haha. But I did get some new shoes and it was nice to get out of the house a little bit. I went to church on Sunday then picked Patrick up at the airport (which was another brave feat, with me driving his car). Patrick was really tired so we just spent the evening resting. I was kind of bummed to have not done anything interesting all weekend, but then again, I was looking forward to the next weekend!

This past week, we had a 3.5 day week--they gave us a half-day on Wednesday and we had Thursday and Friday off. So, Patrick and I decided to plan a trip to go to San Diego. We really enjoyed our time there, and mostly it was nice just to get out of the city for a while and see some trees.

The worst part of the trip was the drive there. A normally two hour drive took us four hours because of the traffic on 405. People really aren't exaggerating when they talk about how terrible the 405 traffic is. But once we got onto Highway 5, the scenery was quite beautiful and the traffic was fine.

On the 4th, we spent the day at Sea World. We didn't take too many pictures because we were too busy enjoying everything, and we had left our camera in the car for part of the day so we could ride rides and everything. We got there about 10AM and didn't leave the park until midnight, after the fireworks and the late night "Shamu Rocks" show. Patrick even convinced me to ride a roller coaster with him!

We happened to get there when they were feeding the flamingos:

Also, here is what a penguin sounds like:

We were really tired on the 5th so it was more of a laid back day. We stayed in the hotel room and watched cartoons until probably eleven or so. Then we went to Cabrillo National Monument, which was pretty awesome.

Here is Patrick dressed like Mr. Cabrillo (the Spanish explorer who discovered California):

Here are some views from the top of the monument, which is on a point that sticks out into the bay:

There's also an old lighthouse there.

To finish off the day, we met up with my dear friend from high school, Marty, who is in the Navy stationed at San Diego right now. We had dinner on the rooftop of a restaurant called George's at the Cove.

On the 6th, we went to the San Diego Maritime Museum, since Patrick really enjoys boats and sailing. It was cool because the whole museum is on an old steamboat, and then there are several boats and two submarines that you can go into and explore. We also did a harbor cruise where we got to see the aircraft carriers and some San Diego landmarks.

We also spent a little time walking around in Balboa Park, which is a really big park/garden/museum center in the city. We had originally planned on going to the San Diego Zoo, which is in Balboa Park, but since we had just been to Sea World and had recently been to the museum/zoo in Arizona, we decided to pass on that. But the park was still a nice place to visit.

When we arrived at the park, there was an organist rehearsing for the concert the next day. It was really neat to get to hear him play.

The rest of the architecture was pretty cool but apparently I neglected to take any pictures of it :(

We met up with Jonathan, a friend from Clemson, who recently moved to San Diego for dinner that night--unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures! But we ate at this awesome Russian/Georgian restaurant called Pomegranate. Mmm, so delicious. I think the highlight of our evening was the pomegranate sorbet for dessert!

Sunday was another laid-back kind of day. We checked out of the hotel around 11 and headed back to Balboa Park, where we visited the San Diego Railroad Museum, which was really interesting. I guess I thought model railroad makers just made whatever railroads they wanted and drove their trains around. But it turns out that it's really intricate and technical. These model railroad clubs made their railroads according to aerial photographs, placing tracks, trees, and landforms precisely where they should go according to scale. And all the switches and traffic coordination that happens in real life also happens in the model railroads! We also visited the Botanical Buidling (pictures below).

We had a picnic lunch and then started heading towards home. But on the way, we stopped and Patrick test-drove a Mazda CX-5, which is the car we've been keeping an eye on. It was a nice car. We're still weighing our options of what to do with his car and how we should get home.

Instead of taking the interstate all the way back, we took a bit of a detour and followed the Pacific Coast Highway for a while. I think it's prettier north of Los Angeles, but we still saw some really nice views of the ocean, and got to see a partial sunset over the water!

Time is marching along! We're beginning to count down the days (28!) until we can come home. We miss our family, our friends, and our church. And I'm ready to be back in our home with its luxuries (air conditioning, dishwasher, more than three pots to cook in!) and into our normal school/work routines. Working here isn't bad, but I do enjoy my work at Clemson more, mostly because I have more invested into it.

You can be praying that we make a wise decision about how to get home. We're seriously considering buying a car, which would be expensive, but is an investment we'd probably have to make eventually, and would solve the problem of us and our stuff getting home. One big thing that's up in the air is the tax laws. If we have to pay California tax, it would be about $3000, while South Carolina tax would be about $300! So, if we have to pay CA tax, buying a new car is out of the question--we'll mostly likely rent a car and drive home, either selling or shipping Patrick's car back. If we didn't have so much stuff here it'd be a viable option to fly, but with all the checked baggage and the things we'd have to ship or get rid of, the cost would be way more expensive than the car rental.

As I write, week 8 has already passed! Hopefully I'll have some more time to sit down and write on Monday or Tuesday night. After being in front of a computer for 8 hours every day to work, it's hard to come home and spend more time in front of one, even if it is for fun.

Take care everyone, and we'll see you soon!