LA & Monterey Weekend July 10th-13th

July 10th-12th

Ilya and I decided to spend a long weekend in LA and see my parents (who were both in LA on tours) and some of Ilya's friends from UCLA. The drive down was actually not bad and took a lot less time that we thought. Hopefully Ilya will find a car so we can continue to take road trips. We stayed in North Hollywood and spent our first day visiting the Getty museum with my dad, meeting up with my mom in Manhattan Beach for dinner and dessert (very cute candy and ice cream shop), and then a birthday party in Venice. Sunday we had brunch with some of Ilya's friends back in Venice. Monday we wandered around LA shopping and looking at yard sales; we saw some strange things for sale including a crazy monkey painting. We also checked out the Grove and Santa Monica later having dinner in Thai Town.

Thai Town was nothing like what I expected and very disappointing. I assumed that it would be like Japan Town in San Francisco but I was very wrong. The restaurant we went to was overpriced (extremely expensive for anything that wasn't a very basic noodle or curry dish) and there was an hour and a half between the first person's dish arriving and the last. Thai Town itself was just a few Thai restaurants in a strip mall. Regardless, the LA trip was enjoyable but too much time was spent sitting in the car. It is difficult to spend so much time driving around and not really getting anywhere. I enjoy being able to jump on the subway and getting to wherever I want in usually an hour or less.

July 13th

We left at the crack of dawn to drive to Monterey and check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  I haven't been to Monterey since I was little but the aquarium was just as beautiful as I remembered with tanks filled with jellyfish and a touch pool of manta rays. There was a special exhibit up on seahorses that was really exquisite. I don't know why people don't pay as much attention to sea creatures like sea dragons; they are one of the most amazing living things that I have ever seen. I could have stayed for hours just looking at these amazing little guys (video here).

As it was, we stayed at the aquarium for over three hours looking at sharks, a variety of fish, and penguins. One exhibit was about flamingos and the fight to save the environment. At the end of the exhibition was a wall where people could leave their comments addressing climate change. Some of them were amazingly funny: "Use more alcohol -Famous 6," "I think I would add polar bears," "Fish are preety," "Drink Party Blaze." Walking around Fisherman's Warf we came across a group of very lazy and sleepy sea lions sleeping in some docked boats. I got pretty close and they never budged from their comfortable spots in the sun. 

We were lucky enough to be around for the Old Monterey Market and had delicious samples of yummy foods until we were stuffed. It was a lovely weekend and an enjoyable trip.