Our lives are definitely about travel these days. After a great stay in Philadelphia for Thanksgiving, we each went home for a very full month before seeing each other again late December, including another trip to Europe for Dan the week of 12/12.

He came in to Sac late on Thursday, 12/22. We enjoyed a really nice 4 day Christmas weekend, which was a nice balance of time with friends, productive planning and just pure veg time. (We binged on “3%” a new Netflix series – only 8 hours – which we highly recommend.) This time also included our “2nd annual” walk to the Fabulous Forties to see the lights on Christmas Eve. It was a nice brisk 5 mile walk in total in lovely 36 degree weather. At least it wasn’t raining like it was last year! We also went out for dim sum for brunch on Christmas Day which, albeit a bit cliché perhaps, might need to be a new tradition. Whenever Dan is in Sac we tend to focus on Asian food since there’s a nice variety of decent quality restaurants there compared to Raleigh.

I went to work on Tuesday and Dan kept himself busy working on some of our other projects. We drove to LA that evening, leaving a little before 4pm and getting to the hotel before 10pm. We are staying at a Hilton (of course) DoubleTree in Torrance. It was cheap, close to the airport, somewhat central to things we would be doing here.

I didn’t take any extra time off and worked on Wednesday and Thursday from our office in downtown LA. Dan went into the office with me both days and worked himself from a small conference room. There was hardly anyone there, it was very quiet and we both got quite a bit done. He also went out for lunch continuing his quest to get good Asian food, which is even better in LA compared to Sac, especially Korean. I ordered Indian in on and Wednesday and powered through on a protein bar on Thursday.

A classic shot of downtown LA, Dan took this on one of those days while I was working and he was in search of Asian food. The iconic USBank building is what helps id opening shots of movies and TV shows as LA. Between that and the palm trees, it’s hard to get more LA than this.

The Westin Bonaventure, the largest hotel in LA. The first time I came to LA for work with my present employer I wandered into this trying to get to somewhere else and it’s a very confusing building. But very interesting architecturally. It is famous for its outside glass elevators, and has been used as a location in many movies and TV shows, including True Lies and LA Law (which to this day is one of my favorite series of all time).

 

Los Angeles City Hall, another iconic building. Built in 1928, it’s a great example of Art Deco style. Also used in many movies and TV shows including LA Confidential and Dragnet.

A nice advantage of traveling with family is there were lots of options for others to take photos of us which, if you follow our travel blogs, doesn’t happen a lot. This one courtesy of Alvin at the top of City Hall.

After City Hall we were going to go to The Broad, a free contemporary art museum. The line was RIDICULOUS – with workers saying it was 4-5 hours to get in. What we couldn’t figure out was why anyone would wait 4-5 hours for anything. Given that it’s modern art, which we have an ambivalent relationship with anyway, we didn’t pause for a second to think about that. Next!

We went for lunch in Koreatown, to 8th Street Soondae (not ice cream!), where Dan had lunch on Wednesday and liked so much he wanted to go back. Soondae is a type of blood sausage. You know you’re in trouble when that’s the name of the restaurant :) Blood sausage is one of those things I keep trying for Dan, each time him saying “this one’s different, you’ll really like it.” And each time my reaction is the same: not so much. What’s the definition of insanity? The things we do for love I guess.

A big heaping plate of soondae up by Dan (with tendons and liver just to balance it out!), and all of the side dishes typical in any Korean restaurant, which I like a lot. Below is the soup I got. I will admit, while I didn’t care for the sausage by itself, when partnered with the soup and the rice/bean combo, it was pretty good.

What is this?

 

Everyone got together for dinner at Chosun Galbi, a Korean BBQ place in “K-Town” as they call it, Koreatown. I’d been looking forward to this all day. We came here last year when Dan and I were here for Thanksgiving. Great food, and they put us in the same semi-private room we were in last year. From left to right: Judith, Emily (Irene and Alvin’s younger sister who didn’t join us today), me, Paul, the oldest brother, his wife Tammy, Dan’s Mom and Dad, Jacob, brother #2, Alvin, Dan, Irene (who suddenly got flu-ish on the way to the restaurant, yikes!) and Janelle.

We had a great day!