Sixty Hours in LA

I haven’t written on here in quite some time — but, somehow, I got the inspiration to give writing about my last weekend a go in the style of a former post about hopping through Europe in 2017.

On this particular weekend, I went in with only two set plans — dinner on Saturday and dinner on Sunday, and the goal to fill in the rest of the time doing whatever popped up.

For a recount of which way the wind blew me over 60 hours in LA, read on!

Friday #

Locations: San Francisco #

Initially, the plan was to fly out on Friday night after work.

But, a friend was putting on a dumpling making night (to follow-up on our previous weekend’s sushi making) and when I did a cost-benefit analysis, I decided to stay in SF for Friday and bump my flight to the earliest possible one on Saturday morning. I wasn’t going to do much getting into LA after 21:00, anyway.

Exhibit 1.1. Dumplings (not ready to eat)

So, my LA weekend really started with a night of dumplings and Avalon (and later boba) in SF, which was lots of fun. A 2022 goal for me is to level up my cooking skills so I couldn’t miss this, and the company was great too, with one of the friend groups I’m most grateful to have in SF.

Exhibit 1.2. Playing some post-dumplings Avalon

Saturday #

Locations: Venice Beach, Malibu, Santa Monica #

On Saturday morning, I got to SFO bright and early, had some avocado toast and a latté at the airport, and hopped on a plane.

A blink of an eye later, I was landing in LAX. As soon as I got there, my good friend Leo scooped me up from the airport and we headed to Venice Beach — where we walked around, caught up, and tried two spots I had gotten recs for, Great White and Menotti’s Coffee Stop.

After hanging out in Venice for a bit, we decided to go to a museum and showed up at the Getty Villa. Because we didn’t have reservations, we got shoo’d away. Instead of giving up, we opted to go a few miles up the highway to Adamson House, which was a less-rich-but-still-rich person’s former home, and still a fun place to spend an afternoon. We got a tour from a docent who explained lots of the history of the place. I have recently formed the opinion that paying for tour guides in touristy places is always worth it. This might be a painfully obvious insight but talking to expert humans is probably the most efficient and enjoyable way to learn about something.

Exhibit 2.1. Chilling on the Adamson House lawn w Leo

Once our tour ended, we were getting hungry again, so we drove a few more miles up the road to yet another place that I wanted to try, The Malibu Seafood Fresh Fish Market, where we split some snapper. This was the third place we got food, and the third one which my friend Kevin recommended to me. Clearly, Kevin is a recommendation genious.

By the time Leo and I got back to Santa Monica, it was 19:00, and we had a dinner plan with two of my old high school friends, and their respective crews — Sean brought his GF and Erica brought her closest UCLA Law friends. It was a great sampling of the LA social scene. I was happy to be able to fill a table for eight.

Exhibit 2.2. Dinner w Erica, Sean, Leo ++ other cool new LA ppl

Note: everyone looks a little funny because it’s a panoramic photo.

After dinner, the whole group went out for drinks and to experience the nightlife in Santa Monica. It was a lot of fun. The crowd in LA was a bit more put together, more hip, and (in my subjective opinion) better dressed the average in SF (which leans more counter-cultural). The particular place we went to was also much cleaner and more spacious than what you get in SF, too. No knocks on SF here; it has its own charm.

Exhibit 2.3. A taste of the party scene in Santa Monica

By the end of Saturday, I was very tired after a long night out — it had been more than 21 hours since I got up for my flight, and I was running on four hours of sleep from the prior day.

I feel really lucky to have a network of high school friends to this day — it’s been nine years and I have hardly ever found myself in an American (or other Global) city without bumping into someone who’s welcoming and down to hang.

Sunday #

Locations: Pasadena, Chinatown, Koreatown #

Predictably on Sunday morning, I slept in until it was high time for brunch. Leo and I went to a brunch spot in Pasadena and had some avocado toast and lattés. Astute readers will note that I ate the same meal on both days, perhaps in the theme of identifying as a California Boy [1].

After brunch, we had no plans, but we saw a train station and decided to spontaneously take a 22 minute train from Pasadena to Chinatown. It was my first time riding on public transit in LA — not bad. In Chinatown, we bought some fire crackers, went to a cake themed art gallery, and finally got a big bag of fortune cookies. A weird mix of activities, indeed, but it was all good fun. I would say this block was the most spontaneous part of the trip because we truly had no plans or constraints, just wandering through the city.

Exhibit 3.1. Chinatown Cake World vanity selfie

Intermittently throughout the day (read: whenever we were in Leo’s car), we listened to Lex Friedman’s recent conversation with Ray Dalio — which was a podcast we both enjoyed. After we got back from Chinatown, Leo dropped me off at a car rental place, where I picked up a two door BMW.

I needed a car to get to the airport the next day. Leo had a soccer game to go to so couldn’t chauffeur me around. And I enjoy sampling nicer cars!

For dinner, I headed over to USC Medical School’s campus, picked up my friend Jenny, and we went to Koreatown. There, we enjoyed… waiting in an hour long queue for Quarters Korean BBQ, but it was a good chance to explore Koreatown and catch up. When we finally got seated, the food and company were worth the wait!

Exhibit 3.2. KBBQ at Quarters w Jenny

After dinner, I went back to Pasadena, and picked up Leo. We’d end the night with a drive up into the 2 (Angeles Crest Highway), where we took turns driving (we also literally took turns because it was a windy road ha-ha) and some photos overlooking LA.

Monday #

Locations: Pasadena, LAX, SFO #

Monday was less eventful because it was a workday.

As soon as I woke up, I drove down the street to a nearby coffeeshop and wound up taking my morning meetings from the passenger seat of the car. It was actually a pretty comfortable place to work — I had the A/C running, some coffee to sip on, a slice of lemon cake to munch on, and used the car stereo to listen to my team’s Monday meeting.

Exhibit 4.1. WFBMW on a Monday morning

After I finished with my morning meetings, I went back to Leo’s, and rallied him to grab sushi in Pasadena for lunch. We settled on the third option we had scoped out, after the first was closed, and the second was way expensive.

Once we finished lunch, we went back to Leo’s place to work work work. Leo was doing rocket design things (he works on rockets that go to space) and I was writing a doc about a migration (I work on machine learning infrastructure that goes to … definitely not space). Who’s cooler? 🤫

Before long, it was time for me to go home. I packed my (very small amount of) stuff and headed off to the airport. With the LA traffic, the drive from Pasadena took more than an hour, but I didn’t mind at all. I enjoyed listening to more podcasts along the way (including one from Hubberman Lab about socializing and relationships and another Friedman podcast with Kevin Systrom).

At LAX, I was sitting at my gate when someone in a mask said hi to me — it turned out that a gal I had met in Hong Kong, who now lives in SF, was also on my flight! We caught up briefly before boarding. What a small world!

When I landed at SFO, I picked up some takeout from the airport (at the same place that I got my avocado toast on Saturday. This time I got a Korean chicken sandwich which very mediocre; I didn’t expect the chicken to be fried and I don’t really enjoy eating fried food) and got a ride back home to Cupertino.

I got back to Cupertino with enough time to unwind before going to sleep, which was great. After having been in LA for just a few days, home felt more crisp than usual (and by that I mean, the air in the Bay is noticeably cooler).

And that concluded my SF—LA weekend!

Thanks California for being home to so many cool people, places, and things.

And thanks, Reader, for reading about my weekend!

Footnotes #

[0] There was just one way I can think of that this weekend fell short — it involved too much eating and drinking, and if I had more time and willpower, I would have tried to weave in some exercise. One of the last times in LA, we went to the beach and played some volleyball and also kicked a soccer-ball around a park in Pasadena. This time, the only exercise I got was walking around, which doesn’t quite count as proper exercise if you ask me.

[1] In the course of my recent introspection and after circling a good part of the world, I now squarely identify as a Mediterranean Boy (and a California Boy). My 23AndMe results confirm at least the former. One could argue that California is basically the Nouveau Mediterranean because of the climate and culture.

These are the two parts of the world that feel like home more than anywhere else. Enough of my formative experiences happened while I was anchored in these two parts of the world at this point that I doubt I’ll stop identifying with them regardless of where I wind up.

Going off that, I feel that Southern California feels pretty comfortable, too, despite not having spent much time there — much like how even totally new parts of the Mediterranean still feel homey and familiar to me. It’s still California, after all.