philly

Above is a gigantic fig tree. It's Balboa Park's Moreton Bay fig tree and it's almost 100 years old, 60'+ tall, 120'+ wide. You can see, for scale, the people in front of it. We spent most of the day lazily strolling through Balboa Park. We walked through the Botanical Building, listened to a performance on the gigantic Spreckels Organ (one of the world's largest outdoor organs), walked through Palm Canyon (58 different species of palm) and each of the International Cottages tasting treats from 31 different countries along the way.

The layout of the park was quite interesting. It's got a large walkway with beautiful buildings on each side. Museums are found dotted throughout the park. It was all of a 15 – 20 minute walk from Lady's sister's place too making it quite convenient. All of the things listed above were free too making things even cooler. The museums are moderately priced, but we chose to stay outdoors and in the "free" zone. It took us a whole day to get through all of this anyways – going to the museums and the zoo would've taken another day at least.

We had some gourmet pizza at Zia Gourmet Pizza in Normal Heights (3311 Adams Ave). It was Afghani! The dough was whole whole wheat with cornmeal on the bottom as a release agent. I had a turkey pastrami slice and a spinach slice. The group had the following: The Eggplant "Our fabulously oven-roasted eggplant with scallions, tomatoes and a variety of herbs, topped with cranberries, fresh garlic, and mozzarella and drizzeled with our savory yogurt sauce"; PAPAY "Our delightfully seasoned baked spinach combined with mozzarella, scallions, fresh garlic, and capers and drizzled with our savory yogurt sauce"; The New Yorker (I couldn't resist) "Our tasty and lean turkey pastrami combined with scallions, pepperoncini, light cream cheese and fresh basil and topped with mozzarella"; and Veggie "A tasteful combination of artichoke hearts, feta, kalamata olives, light cream cheese and topped with mozzarella". You'd assume that cranberries on a pizza wouldn't fly, but that eggplant is the best gourmet slice I've ever had.

For desert, we went to Extraordinary Desserts for some seriously extraordinary desserts. The four of us got a total of 3 slices of cake to share – the Lemon Ricotta Torte, Torta Misu and Triple Chocolate Mousse Torte.

Lady wanted a nice view of downtown San Diego so we took a drive down to the marina with a view back SE towards downtown and due south was Coronado Island (where we saw the fireworks).

Just dropped off the first of the many rolls of film I shot while in CA. We're back in Philly now, still adjusting to the time difference after a full day of traveling from SD to LAX to Philly. Good god did the east coast humidity smack us in the face upon our arrival at PHL.

To start off our second full day in San Diego, I made cheese and onion omelettes and home fries for everyone. It was weird working in another person's kitchen for the first time in awhile. I've cooked meals at my parents' home and my sister's home, but it was the first time in Lady's sister's kitchen. No disasters though – everything turned out tasty. We were full and headed off to Kobey's Swap Meet, basically a large flea market open Friday through Sunday each week. $1 gets you in on the weekend (50¢ on Friday), but they also have half off coupons. It was oh so much fun for me being a lover of all things junky. We spent a couple of hours there and I took lots of photos on film. I've been taking fewer and fewer digital shots on this trip with each passing day, so there will be a lag in uploading shots from most of our adventures.

Our next stop was Old Town San Diego. It was interesting to see the start of California and how very different it is from the start of Philadelphia back east. There were people dressed up old school Western style and even a guy showing people how they used to gamble back in the day playing hi-lo with dice and beans to bet.

The big meal of the day was from Don Carlos, a hole in the wall Mexican spot in La Jolla. We ordered food to go and headed to the La Jolla Cove, home of the La Jolla harbor seals.

We found a spot atop the cliffs about half a mile from the cove and the seals. We did have our own wildlife though – little ground squirrels that would scamper right up to you expecting food. Those suckers didn't get their paws on any of my 5 rolled beef tacos under a mound of cheddar and guacamole. Those were the best tacos I've ever had in my life. Add to the flavor, the incredible view and it was perfect. If only the hot sauce was hotter.

After scarfing down our food and shooing away some more ground squirrels, we walked down to check out the curved pier and the harbor seals. We made our way down the not quite 3' wide pier to see 6 harbor seals playing in the shallow waters just off the beach. I took a bunch of shots on film of the seals including one pup which was especially adorable. Walking a little further down the beach, we saw a large rock with another 40+ seals sunning. It was incredible to see so many wild seals. It was the first time for me to see seals, let alone so many. I really wish I had my 80-200mm with me, but such is life. I got by with my 20mm, 50mm and 105mm. Take a look through the Friends of the Seals website – there's a fight to keep the seals at the cove.

I'm a fan of San Diego. We've been staying at Lady's sister's place in the Hillcrest section of SD. I thought SD was going to be completely unwalkable, but we've been walking around a bunch (once we drive to where we're getting that is). Hillcrest is very neighborhoody and walkable. I've noticed that all of the electrical boxes in Hillcrest, and from what I can tell, the rest of SD are adorned with some cool original artwork presumably by local artists like the one above. It reminds me of Philly's Mural Arts Program, but on a smaller scale. I'd love to see something like this in Philly complementing MAP. Some more info on the boxes here.

After a good rest from our crazy journey from LA, we slept in and made our way over to a crazy spot called the Corvette Diner. It's a kitchy spot off of University Ave (the main strip in Hillcrest) with servers dressed up retro and the decor of the space more than matches. After being seated by our hostess with the mostess, we were doused with straws from two passing by servers. I settled on the All American Dip which wasn't the greatest, but it hit the spot. Lady's peppermint smoothie was the highlight of the meal and had several sips. The homemade, homecut fries (fried in fresh veggie oil) came in heaping helpings and took up most of the space on my plate.

We walked around a bit, but it being the Fourth of July, most shops closed up so it was purely window shopping. One of our train mates from the night before suggested we hit up Babette Schwartz. We walked by, but it was closed. How to explain it… it seemed like a local, funkier version of Urban Outfitters without trying too hard as Urban does.

Here's an example of some of the interesting street art I've seen in SD. There's a good deal of stenciling around the city. I haven't had my digital camera at the ready while passing by many of them, but I have taken a few shots. These CENSORED ones really caught my eye, especially this one on a USA Today box.

We headed to Coronado Island to watch the fireworks at night. We thought we had a good spot picked out by the bridge back to SD, but it turned out we were on the wrong side of the island. We quickly hoofed it to the clubhouse and picked out a spot on a bit of an elevated spot by a practice green. We saw some fireworks start off a little ways off, but the ones we came out for didn't start until after 9p. When they started, they were, unfortunately, shooting off on the other side of a gigantic tree. Oh well. We saw the really high and big ones, but missed most of the show. Such is life.

I've added some more shots to the CA 2008 flickr set starting here with this shot of a very cool car we stumbled upon while walking around.

On our last day in LA, we headed to The Getty Center without a car. The directions from the Metro site seemed easy enough: take the 2 bus to Church/405 and hop on the 761 Rapid right to the foot of the Getty. Well, we hopped onto the 2 bus from Sunset/Western and proceeded for a nice hour long tour of Beverly Hills, Bel Air and UCLA. We hopped off at Church/405 and the bus driver wasn't clear as to where the 761 stop was so we walked in the wrong direction. Stopping at a 76 gas station, after some back and forth between attendants, we were given walking directions to the Getty. We had to take a road behind the station a few blocks and there was going to be a sidewalk leading us to the Getty. Well, there was no sidewalk, just 18" of gravel on the side of the road. About a mile later, we reached an intersection and the foot of the Getty which, as you can see above, is beyond gorgeous.

The Getty is an absolutely incredible place. Even more incredible is that it's free! The only fee you'd pay is for parking (if you drove there, which is what 95% of their patrons probably do), which is $8 for the car no matter how many occupants. We went there seeking out the August Sander exhibit which was lovely. From the museum:

Sander believed that society was organized into a hierarchy of occupations. One section of his project is dedicated to the skilled tradesman, including master craftsmen, industrialists, technicians, and inventors. Subjects associated with intellectual or "white-collar" labor were usually photographed indoors in three-quarter-length poses, while master craftsmen were portrayed in their working environment with the tools of their trades. Portrayed as he emerges from the dark basement of a building, the coal carrier in the image above belongs to the lower ranks of labor and is symbolically associated with the bowels of German society.

He used a large format camera and made his images on glass plates making for some striking portraits. His portrait of a coal carrier was my favorite of the exhibit.

After a very quick sushi dinner with our gracious hosts, we took off running for the train to Union Station to catch the 8.30p to San Diego. We got there with seconds to spare only to see that our train was delayed. Oddly, the 5.10p to San Diego was also delayed. After going to the information booth and talking with other people worrying about the delayed trains, I found out that there was a fatality on the track just north of the station at Ventura railroad crossing earlier in the afternoon. A line of several hundred stretched from one end of the art deco station to the other before curling back towards the front again.

We were on our way by about 9.30p as everyone ran for seats on the double decker Pacific Surfliner trains which took off at around 10p. We got some seats in what turned out to be the drunk car. With some people waiting in the station since 4.30p and the Traxx bar just about the only thing open in the station, there were some drunks in the house. After a few more delays on our way, we finally pulled into downtown San Diego around 1a, July 4th.

Some more shots have been added to the CA 2008 flickr set starting here.

Now, a word on LA's public transportation system. Above is one of their hybrid buses (press release on their system) which are pretty cool. They're spacious, clean and these new buses (at least in LA) have live maps of the bus's location via Windows Live on several 15" LCDs throughout the bus (I think 3 on the standard length bus, that's the double length above). It's crazy. The metro system is clean and new. Upon initially hearing one of LA's trains pull into the station we were at, I guessed that they were using similar technology to that of DC's train system. After we got onto the train, I noticed that they were the same cars (minus the ridiculous carpet) so they were same.

But the good stops there. From our 3 day experience in LA, it would seem that 90% of the city is oblivious to the fact that one can take a form of transportation that is not a personal automobile from point A to point B. Asking for directions via public transportation is like asking for moon rocks. Asking for walking directions might get you slapped in the face for such a preposterous request. Being the east coasters we were, we persevered and got through 3 days in LA only riding in a car one time to Grifith Observatory only because we were headed there at sunset and they close the walking trails at that time. But, we did make the car trip in our gracious hosts' bio diesel Benz.

We were staying around the Hollywood/Western Metro stop and got to/fro the LACMA, Hollywood, The Farmers Market, the Getty Center and Union Station without a car. If you ever need to get to those places, or many places in between, let us know, we'll fill you in on the secrets of the LA Metro system because you won't get a straight answer from Angelenos from what we could find.

So, back to our adventures… On Day 2 in LA, we headed to the Farmers Market. But before we headed there, I had to make a pit stop at Freestyle Photographic Supplies (conveniently a quick <1mi walk from our friends' house) for some slower film. I had brought a bunch of 400ASA film with me to SoCal - bad idea. I had to grab a 5 rolls of Fujicolor Pro 160S. Even with that, I'm shooting at f/11 and up all day long. The Tri-X and Pro 400H will have to wait until I get back to Philly. If you're in LA and need some photographic supplies, head to Freestyle – they have film up the wazzoo. I'll be taking a closer look at their catalog when I get back to Philly to compare prices to the local shops and B&H.

The market is a nice and big open air market dating back to 1934 (Philly's RTM is from 1893!). It had tons of local food vendors selling tons of seafood, ice cream, donuts, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, French, burgers, pastries, hot sauce… But we only saw a single produce vendor. For a farmers market, they seemed low on farmers. No produce for us, but we did have some good eats at ¡Lotería! Grill.

I had a huge shredded beef burrito (served with fresh guacamole, salsa chipotle, and finely chopped cilantro and onions), Lady had bean and cheese enchiladas drowned in black beans. It was some of the best Mexican we've had. The homemade spicy salsas weren't as hot as I wanted, but very tasty. We washed them down with some fresh lemonade from a stand in another part of the market.

If in LA, I highly recommend a couple of hours wandering around this open air market. There were lines all over the place and the food smelled wonderful at every turn. But if you're looking for fresh produce and can't find what you're looking for at the single produce stall, there's a Whole Foods across the street and vendors on the street selling whole, peeled and sliced on request fruits and veggies including cukes, watermelon, mangoes, pineapples and melons.

More shots added to the CA 2008 trip flickr set starting here.

Lady was finally free from work and we started our vacation in Universal City. We got a great deal on a hotel. We spent the day lounging by the pool, some time in the gym and a relaxing post-workout hot tub soak along with some of the parents and their kids in town for Universal Studios ending with some delicious (and reasonably priced) room service. The shot above is from the 1st when we walked around Universal Studio's City Walk for a bit to see what was going on over there. Cheese.

The smog in and around LA contributes for some crazy sunsets. That's the view from our hotel room in the Hilton. We didn't have a downtown view, but our view NW towards Burbank was nice.

There's Lady at the Hollywood/Western Metro stop by our friends' house where we were staying for a few days. Taking the subway and the buses in LA was a trip. The stations are pretty cool with many of them housing lots of art. Photos, murals, tile work and installations all over the place. I'm proud to say that we beat LA. What do I mean by that? We didn't take a car at all to see the sights. We relied on public transportation and our own feet to get around except for one trip to a place which was not accessible, at all, by foot at that time of day. Day 1 in LA, we went to LACMA to see the incredible Philip-Lorca diCorcia exhibit. Incredible large format color prints about 30" x 40" of several different projects of his. We had some yummy Thai food for dinner in Hollywood before heading to bed after a long day.

More to come on our escapades in LA later (short take: I'm not a fan of LA). For now, we're lounging at Lady's sister's place in San Diego. Off to see the fireworks on the beach.

I've added some shots to the California 2008 flickr set with the new stuff starting here.