LASA LA

[Retroactive post - 6/26/20, heh heh]

We made it to our hotel in Burbank to unpack and freshen up....

LA's Chinatown looked so close on the map, but traffic was going to make this "fun"...

Birthday Highlights - I'm now 25 x 2

Well now...

I remember when my parents hit the half century mark...

D's Bday Crawl - Return to Mae Ting's, LAX-C, LA's Chinatown + Dinner on Convoy St. @ Hui An Garden

Funny..this post is being written on 10/22 but backdated to 8/26...

I'm trying to finish D's birthday crawl posts and this one...

Velveteria for our holiday photo

No trip to LA is complete without a visit here...

one of our favorite musuems, Velveteria.

It's been a year and a half for me...

Lao Tao, Endorffeine + return to Ten Ren's Tea Time

The parking lot was the same one we've always parked at...it's just a few steps away from our eventual destination Velveteria, the Museum of Black Velvet Paintings...

But first, a lite lunch (or snack if you will) at Far East Plaza...

Chinatown by way of Hi-Fi

Leaving Silver Lake...

we headed over to Chinatown...

and passed through Hi-Fi..

Nick's Cafe

On the edge of LA's Chinatown is an eatery we'd seen during prior road trips...

I remembered the super old signage and the pig in the front...

LA Road Trip Day 2 Highlights

Bright and early on this slightly cooler day...

We drove by Griffith Park into Los Feliz for breakfast...

Little Jewel of New Orleans

Like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, the nattily dressed Carl Baldwin led us down the street to one of his favorite new eateries in Chinatown...

the newly opened (at the time) Little Jewel of New Orleans...

which he and his wife raved about. We couldn't pass up on their recommendation especially since po'boys were on the menu...

Velveteria revisit + Chinatown storefronts, January 2015

Slowly but surely, I am wrapping up loose ends from earlier this year, such as our first road trip of 2015 in which we did a musuem two-fer in LA. Firstly, the JANM for the Hello Kitty retrospective exhibit..

Secondly, it was the return to one of our favorite museums...

Pho Broadway

Across from the Broadway Gate in Chinatown was a row of businesses featuring upturned roofs...

We wanted one last snack before going home...

Return to Chinatown (Chego, Queens Bakery) & the Velveteria

Cathy and I were able to find parking in the lot across from Velveteria (lots are usually $4 or $5). She made the keen observation that the "fourth" parking spaces were empty (the number four is unlucky for Chinese because it has the same sound as the word "death").

We wandered a bit on Broadway before hitting up one of the plazas in LA's Chinatown...

There are two gates in Chinatown; This is the Golden Dragon Gateway towards the southern end...

Scenes from Chinatown

During our visit back in late May, I snapped a few shots while on our way to see the Bruce Lee statue at the Cultural Plaza, passing by interesting signs such as this...

I bet "United Foods" looks really cool at night time...

One of the coolest things I saw was a giant rooster..

Bruce Lee Statue @ the Cultural Plaza

During our recent road trip to LA in which the main goal was to visit the newly reopened Velveteria, I had a list of places to see and or/visit...

As you can see, we pretty much hit up most of them. Anal much? Why yes!!!  That's how I roll...

Wandering Chopsticks mentioned that there was a Bruce Lee statue somewhere in Chinatown so of course we wanted to check it out...

Scoops Chinatown

Also in the Far East Plaza complex was the fairly new outpost of Scoops ice cream, fittingly called "Scoops Chinatown"...

As you can see, it was pretty sparse inside with hardly any decor save the primitive painted ice cream stencils, their trademark spoon mobiles and no seating whatsoever. Of course, we had to stop in...

Ten Ren's Tea Time

TC was up for some boba...

Caren from the Velveteria gave us a few recommendations we planned to follow up on such as this boba place...

Chego's Sriracha Bar

After our lunch at Philippe the Original and our brief visit to the nail polish heaven that is Skyline Beauty Supply, we walked on Broadway, one of the main streets in LA's Chinatown...

Caren from the Velveteria gave us a few recommendations we planned to follow up on such as this boba place located at this shopping plaza...

The Velveteria is Back!

Last month Bert, TC and I made the very necessary trip up to LA to revisit the newest incarnation of the Velveteria, a musuem of black velvet paintings.

We first met Caren Anderson and her husband Carl Baldwin in 2009 during our Portland trip and were thrilled that they relocated in Los Angeles...

Highlights from our LA Road Trip

Yesterday, we took an impromptu mini road trip to LA...

Our particular destination was Chinatown, but not for Chinese food or trinkets or such...