The City of Angels

All my life, I've always lived just outside Los Angeles. I was always about a 20-minute drive to the downtown area (which is what's usually portrayed in media). As a child, I went reluctantly - my parents would buy fancy perfumes/colognes/jewelry and sell them in the small towns we lived by. As a kid, I wasn't so aware of what was around me. I was often bored since I couldn't go off and explore and such (such is life of a kid in the 90's). As an adult, I made a string of excuses as to why I didn't visit the city - "I don't know how to get there; It's too far; I don't have any time/money; I have no reason to go..." Well, you get the idea. 

In another class (different from the one with the pretty lady), I was tasked to visit the downtown area: to survey the land (and how the land is used) and to take note of some of the history of LA and some of the currently existing landmarks in the city (I learned that some were demolished for more modern buildings). So, I had to go (this assignment is worth about 10% of my total grade! It's one of the bigger ones). 

So let me give you the TL;DR version of my trip (Too Long; Didn't Read - you can thank Reddit for that):

1) Everything's pretty packed together - you can see just about everything that's in LA in about 3-4 hours. Now exploring Los Angeles...that's a lifetime.

2) John Parkinson - the influential architect that helped shaped Los Angeles to be the magnificent metropolis that it is today. 

3) It's pretty awesome and interesting how we can just walk inside some of the buildings (like the Bradbury Building and Biltmore Hotel), but others are closed off to the public.

 Finally, here are some photos that I took  throughout my walk in Los Angeles:

"American Psycho" @ Eat.See.Hear. (Late Post #3)

Minutes away from the main show!

On July 19th, I had the awesome pleasure of watching American Psycho on a big screen at the Autry in Los Angeles (I'm close to LA. Obvious, isn't it?). The show is part of Eat.See.Hear's summer-long film festival showcasing some of the cinema's brilliant contributions...or not. It depends on the individual, really. Anyhow, it was great to watch a film outside in a park. It's something that I've been wanting to do since I've seen others do it as well as a setting like this seems to be quite popular in movies. 

American Psycho seems to be one of those films that are inherently difficult to comprehend, even with extensive conversations with friends in trying to interpret the meaning of the movie. While it's satire and providing commentary on the Wall Street culture of the 80's, Psycho follows Patrick Bateman's adventures (so to speak) as a serial killer. Yeah. That's all I've got. I've seen this film twice, and I still struggle to understand the message and meaning of the movie. I'm told that reading the book is more impactful than the movie.

The Bridge to Nowhere

On the 19th of March (a Thursday), my brother, one of my best friends, and I ventured into the San Gabriel Mountains to find The Bridge to Nowhere. Like our second hike a whiles back, we also decided to bring Nanuk along for the journey. Rather than spending time describing it all, I'll let the photographs that we have taken show you our journey instead! Enjoy.