pork chop-y

one of the most famous things from macau is its pork chop bun. it's pretty much a big pork chop inside a hamburger-esque bun. it's simple and tasty. yummm...

so how does this relate to the above picture? look at item E...pork chop porky bun.

i love chinese to english translations.

the disney concert hall

the walt disney concert hall is an interesting building. i first heard about it because frank gehry designed it and he's a master architect. then i heard the curves of the building were reflecting light into the buildings around it and it was over-heating them. hmm frank, not good.

they managed to fix that problem by buffing down the contours that were reflecting light, so that's good for the suits that work downtown and don't want to be cooked while they work.

i just really like the building because it's so different from everything around it. it's fluid and has personality. lots of buildings downtown just seem to be rigid and bland. but the walt disney concert hall has pi-zzaz. here are some pictures i took:


the main thing i wanted to see when i toured it was the auditorium. i had read a lot about how the acoustics inside were amazing and how every seat in the house could get the same musical experience because of the auditorium's design.


it was really cool! i could completely hear our tour guide when we went inside and mind you, she was a small little japanese woman with a quiet voice. it was awesome...i bet it sounds even better when there is a full orchestra playing inside.

korean pizza really hits the spot

there is a restaurant in koreatown called mr. pizza factory. i first wanted to go there because i thought the name sounded cute. then i yelp-ed them and found they have sweet potato crust on their pizza! it was fate, i had to go.


the service was really good. the parking sucked. but the sweet potato pizza was amazing! i thought the toppings (nacho chips, sour cream, potato, bacon, cheese) were weird at first but upon first bite, i melted because it was that good. and when i got to the crust, it just blew my mind. sweet potato filling?! in the crust?! who ever needs to eat cheesy crust pizza?!

mr. pizza factory. i wonder if i could be mrs. pizza factory?

Ribs vs ribs

versus

gus's bbq ribs (from gus's barbecue restaurant in pasadena) versus my baked barbecued ribs...one's pro, the other is not. *sigh* oh well, i tried...and now i need to get a grill! i'm inspired by gus's ribs as well as the food network's grilling week! freaking bobby flay making ribs every hour.

in case you DID think my ribs were the winner:
1) thank you!!
2) it's a pretty simple recipe: just marinate overnight with one part bbq sauce with honey and one part ketchup. then bake for 40 minutes at 375F. then eat!

the tar pits

so for four years, i passed by the tar pits on the bus. just a big pool of tar, i thought to myself, not a big deal.


but it is!

it's a big pool of tar in the middle of a city...and before the city was built, it was a big pool of tar that trapped thousands of animals! wolves, saber-tooth cats, woolly mammoths, unnecessarily large ground sloths...it's really sad when you think about all the animal lives that were lost because they unknowingly wandered into tar. here is a re-creation at the tar pits:


the even weirder thing is that they lived in los angeles. it's just hard to imagine them here because when i think about LA, i think about hollywood and beaches...i can't imagine a woolly mammoth living in the city. what if i looked outside my window and saw one? i would probably feed it something, then ask if i could sit on its back. imagine riding on a woolly mammoth...that would be pretty sweet...


sorry that was a tangent. but anyway, the tar pits were pretty awesome. we walked around the tar pits, took a look inside the museum (free for SC students!) and then explored the grounds...and soon discovered that the tar is still very much alive and bubbling!

wanna hike?

the hollywood sign is a fixture of los angeles. everyone wants to see it. everyone knows it's there. and sometimes you just take it for granted that it's there. so i decided to pull myself out of this "hollywood sign complacency" and do something about it. i decided we needed to hike to the hollywood sign.


i went with a couple friends and this is at the start of our hike, at the bottom of the hill...when we were extremely energetic and ready to hike. i wish i could have said we kept up this attitude for the entire hike...

a view of the los angeles basin from the hill of the hollywood sign. yup, LA is really that smoggy.


this is when the hike took a turn for the worse...but it made it a fun adventure. as we were walking, we saw a couple guys take this shortcut...and being educated college graduates, we decided we would follow them no questions asked because maybe we could get to the sign faster.

wrong. shortcut = longcut. at least we got this great view of burbank out of it.


as we continued to look at this scene, i kept on thinking to myself that some buildings look really familiar. that's when i realized i was looking out at the ABC and NBC buildings! i saw them everyday when i worked at NBC last summer so i'm pretty sure my guess is spot on. if you want a nice view of the NBC lot, take a hike to the hollywood sign!

and this is when we made it to the top! one of the most photographed places in the world and we were there. behind it. hey, the back is just as important as the front, though not as attractive i have to say.

i'm just glad we made it to the top. our shortcut could have been disastrous. one wrong turn and we would have ended up at griffith park. i'm saving that for another day.

strawberries galore

i went to a strawberry festival last week! we don't have strawberry festivals in canada (at least not to my knowledge) so i was really excited. and more so excited about the wonderful strawberry treats i was going to encounter! the best thing there hands-down was the strawberry supreme, which can be seem below.


a layer of poundcake + layer of ice cream + wonderful scoop of strawberries + whipped cream = the most amazing strawberry dessert you will ever have!


i know festivals are normally very kiddish and they're just out to get your money...but when you put strawberries on top of things, it's very easy to get people like me to pay up! the strawberry cupcake in itself was $2.00, and the extra strawberry on top cost me an extra $0.50. it was worth it though...the strawberry was just the right sweetness.