Malaysia: The Unexpected Awesome of Langkawi

Fact: Langkawi is the most beautiful place I have ever been.  Ever felt like you stepped on to the cover of a Conde Nast Traveler magazine?  I felt like that every day I was in Langkawi.  Pristine white sand beaches, bright blue water dotted with lush, verdant islands, and contrasted with rich, earthy 550-million year old limestone formations.  My breath was taken away so frequently, I could barely breathe the entire time.   I was so consumed with Awesome on the day we arrived, all I could do was throw my sandals off, and run to the water, shouting for joy from the intense beauty of it all.

But first, a little geography for you:

There are 14 states that make up Malaysia.  Langkawi is a district of the state of Kedah, the northern state that borders Thailand.  Formally called "Langkawi, the Jewel of Kedah," it's an easy name to understand once you're there.  It's an archipelago in the Andaman sea made up of 99 islands (wikipedia says 104, but all the locals tell me 99, and I'm assuming they know better).  Only three of those islands are inhabited--which means fulfilling that dream of finding yourself on a deserted island is totally possible here.  

It lies in between Thailand, Indonesia, and mainland Malaysia in a piece of water specifically called the Straits of Malacca.  From the main island (the one with the biggest city, Kuah) you can see Thailand across the strait--a fact that, on the first day when it was pointed out to me, made me tear up a little as I realized just where in the world I was.  

Sometimes traveling can make you feel so gloriously small.

To say that Langkawi is a paradise is an understatement.  It's a beach-goer's dream.  It takes "tropical island" to a level that this Wisconsin girl has never understood before.  But at the same time, it's way more than the beautiful beaches that bless its shores.  There's a population of over 60,000 people here, a culture rich with legends and tradition, an economy based off of rubber tapping, rice farming, and fishing, and a UNESCO mangrove geopark that is filled with monkeys, crabs, and eagles.  If you don't want to sprawl on the beach all day, there is plenty to see and learn and do.

Which is good, because (sigh) we were technically there to work, and sitting on the beach all day does not make interesting educational programming.  

Sure, the beaches may look like the Caribbean, but driving through Langkawi tells you a completely different story.  Rice paddies line the roadside and stretch into the distance, dotted with oxen waiting for their time to plough.  Humble mosques rise out of the horizon and most women wear the hijab, reminding you that Malaysia is a predominantly Muslim country, while at the same time welcoming Hindus and Buddhists and Christians as the other prominent religions.  Signs are in Malay, the official language of Malaysia, which looks and sounds a whole lot like Indonesian, if you happen have that as a reference point.  Since Malaysia is a former British colony, people do speak English here--especially in the service industry--but, unlike Sydney and Singapore, English will only get you so far in public.

(Side note: Due to the heavy tourism from both the Middle East and Japan, Malaysia is the first place in the world where I've been able to use both the weird languages I know to read signs at the airport.  I couldn't help but geek out a little.)

We stayed (go ahead, roll your eyes) at the Four Seasons Langkawi, a place that was so immaculately decorated and impressively designed I felt immediately unworthy of its attention--but oddly welcomed at the same time.  Man, this place is cool.  The architecture and design are Awesome, but it was also the diversity of guests that got my attention.  Sure there were Europeans and maybe a few Americans, but also couples and families from the Persian Gulf.  Ever seen a woman in a full burqa enjoying the pool next to a woman in a bikini?  Not at your average Caribbean resort, I bet. 

What I had originally thought was going to be the "break" time in this Round-the-Globe excursion--a time for "work" while I secretly snuck daily trips to tan on the beach--turned out to be a jam-packed few days of Awesome.  To be fair, there was a day in there where it rained so much we ended up filming spa treatments for the resort's promotional use (rain delays have never been so relaxing), but otherwise there was way more to the island (and the resort itself) than I had taken into consideration. 

If you're bored during a stay in Langkawi, you're not talking to the right people.

We toured the Kilim Karst Geoforest Park, a mangrove forest that is protected as a UNESCO world heritage site.  It's got eagles, macaque monkeys, brightly colored crabs, mudskipper fish that walk on land (our guide called them "Living proof of evolution!"), and brightly colored birds.  Mangroves grow in super-salty tropical climates, where rainforest meets ocean.  Most plants would die in these conditions, but through a series of impressive adaptations (those crazy roots being one of them), Mangroves thrive in this incredibly weird environment.

Our guide for the day, a man name Aidi (pronounced I.D.), added a lot of Awesome to the mix.  We started off before the sunrise, on a somewhat choppy semi-covered boat ride that took us deep into the canals of the mangrove forests.  Despite a super wet mid-morning downpour, we ended up with an absolutely gorgeous day to admire the ecosystem.  I'm pretty convinced Aidi knows everything, and he is also one of those people that lives life with a passion that commands respect.  "Now you can understand why I love this place," he said as the sun came out and monkeys started to appear. "To me, this is life.  It's real.  My friends in Kuala Lumpur tell me to go and get a job in an air conditioned office.  I won't."  And he laughed at the very absurdity of the thought.

I just love people like that.

The next day, we took a trip into the nearby market with the chef of the Four Seasons, a man named Adee Affende, who is from Langkawi and learned to cook first by practice growing up, and later by putting himself through school after he had worked a variety of kitchen jobs.  The market was bustling and a bit overwhelming--but Awesome, because I think markets are one of the best ways to learn about a new place.  It's an interesting peek into how other people live; something that seems so average to a person who lives there is almost always a sensory overload to a newcomer.  

We went a wet market, meaning it was selling fish and poultry and meat, not just veggies and fruit and herbs.  The term "wet market" implies everything you think--I wouldn't wear open-toe shoes or pants that drag on the ground to this one.  Fresh fish were still being unloaded and packed with ice, a rhythmic chopping kept the beat of the crowd as butchers broke down chicken carcasses with certainty, livestock hung from hooks.  We picked out some tiger prawn (Chef Adee explained to me that the color is what tells you the freshness as he expertly sifted through the bin), and then headed to the back where the vegetables and herbs were being sold.  He picked through the different leaves, offering me new things to taste and smell (Ever had bitter leaf?  I hadn't.).  This is the market where he usually shops and he seemed to know most of the shop keepers well--which was great, because filming in a market can sometimes be super difficult as an outsider.

We took our ingredients back to the kitchen at the resort and Chef Adee prepped everything to be ready for the camera.  We cooked Udang Gulai, basically a prawn curry made with coconut milk, spices, tomatoes, sweet potato, and that bitter leaf I tried earlier.  Major yum.  While we cooked, Chef Adee explained to me some of the basics of Malaysian cooking--that it's all about balancing the sweet, salty, sour and spicy.  My favorite thing he told me, however, was how Malaysian cooking has changed a bit, since recipes used to be handed down from generation to generation not with measurements included (one gram or half a cup, that kind of thing), but with quantities by price (one ringgit of tomatoes, five ringgit of prawn, etc.).  When prices started to change, however, recipes had to be retaught based on concrete measurements.  He's still translating some of his family's recipes as he cooks new things.

And still, there was more to do in Langkawi.  We visited the Laman Padi rice museum, something I never thought existed in the world but am totally glad it does.  A functioning outdoor series of rice paddies, Laman Padi (literally meaning "rice field" in Malay), is meant to help tourists understand where rice comes from and how it is planted, grown, and harvested.  The state of Kedah produces half the rice in Malaysia, something they are (rightfully) proud of.  The museum has a rice paddy at every stage, and has people working the fields to show how it's all done.

There is nothing fake about it, either.  There are fish jumping around the submerged plants, and an oxen stands on call to plough the fields.  I got in to learn how to spread the sprouted seeds, but only after applying a citronella balm to my feet and ankles to "discourage the leeches."  Comforting.

During the time we weren't filming, I rock climbed and learned archery, took a boat out to an uninhabited island to hike up 1000 steps deep into the rainforest, and even jet skied for the first time (less cultural maybe, but still Awesome).  I didn't lay on the beach once (although I would have, had I not been working).  I left feeling as if Langkawi had taught me a lesson--not the kind that necessarily sticks with you forever, but more of a "Don't you dare go back and tell people I'm only just a pretty beach" kind of lesson.  There is a depth to the flavor of this place that goes way beyond the crystal blue water and fine white sand.

The people here believe Langkawi was cursed by a maiden that was executed long ago after a dispute with her mother-in-law left her accused of adultery.  She is said to have doomed the archipelago for seven generations of bad luck, leaving the people here to constantly blame her for a lack of prosperity.  However, most people believe that the curse has finally been lifted, since the eighth generation has just begun.  Tourism, they hope, will boom in the coming years.  

I, for one, fully support that.  Langkawi is Awesome.  Truly Awesome.  And the brief taste I had has left me convinced that Malaysia, as a whole, is a country deserving a lot of attention.   

Singapore: A Giant Luxury Tree House

I'm gonna be honest about Singapore: I wasn't totally excited to come here.

I've been to Singapore once before, over a year ago, on a 24-hour layover with my brother.  It was a fun day, of course, but Singapore didn't really stay with me in the way other places in the world have.  There was no grit, no feel, no overwhelming sense of place.  I left thinking, "Well, that was nice, but I don't really have to come here again."

Wrong.  Turns out second looks are a blessing.

In the last few days, Fellow Awesome Seekers, Singapore has really blown me away.  I haven't been blogging because there has been just so much to do and so many things to see.  It makes sense--Singapore is a city (country? city-country?) of over 5 million people, all crammed into a finite piece of land.  It's a churning sea of different cultures, a place that's still finding its own identity while being proud of its history.  It's young, while old, and people seem excited by the idea that they can still define what Singapore is to the world.

It's also probably the cleanest place I've ever been, which is what I remembered most about my last visit.  Singapore seems to have no dirt, but still has a lot of trees (HOW DO THEY GROW??).  In fact, if you asked me to define Singapore with one adjective, I would quickly respond: shiny.  This place glows, sparkles, creates an aura of breathtaking Awesomeness, day or night (but especially night).

Berna, my friend and producer on this trip, had a pretty accurate first impression: "It's like a giant business lounge, built into a jungle."

Truth.  Singapore is oozing with wealth, commerce, and greenery (more on this later).  It basically shoves an upscale shopping mall down your throat every other block and beckons you inside with the promise of air-conditioning and shade (this place is a heavy-sweater's nightmare; stepping outside is like having a large man breathe hot air down your neck non-stop).  The cars are clean and new, the buildings boast modernity, the sidewalks have no cracks, and the business district screams Fortune 500.

I feel poor just looking at the city.

And maybe that's why it rubbed me the wrong way the first time I was here--in the same way I don't go to Beverly Hills on days I want to feel good about myself, Singapore seemed to celebrate the haves while completely ignoring the have nots.

But what I should have realized is that a 24-hour layover will never tell you the full story about a place, even a small city-country kinda place like Singapore.  Turns out, there's a whole lot more to Singapore than its initial giant-shopping-mall impression.

This city is cool, but you have to work to find its flavor, its essence of what makes Singapore truly Awesome.  It reminds me of Los Angeles in that way; Awesome is not handed to you, you must make it, find it, create it.  You must listen to locals and stray off the nicely landscaped boulevards.  You must want to like it, and not simply expect to.

Which is great in Singapore, because it's so safe here that even walking down a dimly lit back alley at night really doesn't raise the same alarm bells it would anywhere else.  (One cab driver explained it well: The punishments are so harsh in Singapore, no one even really thinks about committing crimes.  This place still canes people regularly, on top of jail time.  You know, he said matter-of-factly, six months, six strokes. Um, what??)

Example: Berna and I followed a local ex-pat's advice in a search for genuine dim sum.  "You want the real deal?" he said, and then jotted down some serious taxi directions on how to get there when we nodded.  It was in the red light district of Singapore, he explained, but just so good, and there were durian stalls right across the street.  Lots of them.

Dim sum? Hookers?? Durian???  Sold.

The dim sum was Awesome. We were absolutely the only non-Chinese people there, deciphering a menu that thankfully had pictures. (Shark fin soup and fried frog legs??  We didn't quite go that far, but we could have.) It was also just cool to be able to leave, wander the "red light district"--hookers and all--as two super-foreign women, and feel 100% safe.  And this is coming from someone that takes her safety pretty darn seriously.  High five, Singapore.

Since we're on the topic of food: Singapore has a lot of it.  It's known for its hawker street food stalls, which serve up a pretty wide variety of grub from the melting pot of cultures that make up Singapore.  We filmed a segment on the different street food to be found in Singapore, led by Singapore's Food Ambassador, Violet Oon.

Dear god, it was interesting, and (mostly) delicious.  A totally eclectic mix of stuff filled my belly.  I managed to cram down mutton-filled murtabak, chicken curry, roti prata, a veggie spring roll, rojak (a veggie and fruit salad covered in shrimp paste and tamarind), fried oyster omlette, and a red-bean-filled-condensed-milk-covered snow ball for dessert.

That whole vegetarian thing has been forced to completely disappear on this trip, at least on camera.  But I guess that's the job, huh.  It felt good to overcome food fears--like oysters, for example (this was my first)--because, well, I kinda had to.  You don't really keep this kind of job if you can't appreciate the different food for your audience.

And so appreciate I did.

Now, real quick, before I've lost all you Awesome Seekers in the obscurity of a blog post that is far too long (and perhaps much too general), let me just leave you with maybe my favorite part about Singapore: The trees.  Ugh, I love the trees.  The Director of PR for the Four Seasons Singapore where we are staying (IT IS GORGEOUS, BY THE WAY) called our rooms our own "luxury tree house," and at first I laughed before realizing it's pretty spot on.  Looking from above, Singapore is covered in a blanket of trees.  It's like a giant park that happens to have a city in it, instead of the other way around.

We took a trip to the Urban Redevelopment Authority to find out a bit about city planning and urban development in Singapore, and what I thought was going to be some stuffy, dry room full of unimpressive city models turned out to be one of the coolest displays of Awesomeness I've seen in a while.  A full-fledged, super-detailed, million-dollar scale model of Singapore covered the floor of a huge gallery, and interactive displays described the growth of the city in the last century and into the future.  I'm not much of a nerd for urban planning, but I could not get over the coolness of it all.

All the trees were finally explained as well.  Turns out Singapore, with its space limited and land at a premium, has developed a rule based off the Japanese city of Yokohama. Any land that is developed into a building, must be replaced by the builders in the form of a park somewhere within the building, whether in a courtyard, on a roof, wherever.  And not just any park, but a publicly accessible park, so that major developments can not take away public park space from the people and the city.

I LOVE THIS IDEA SO MUCH. 

I could continue to geek-out about the intense (and thoughtful) planning going on with this city, but for now, let me just leave it at this: I'm excited to see where this city goes.  With its seemingly endless budget, its multi-cultural population, its attention to eco-friendliness, and its interesting uses of space and architecture and design.  There are some seriously Awesome things going on here.

And, let's not forget to mention this sign from a restaurant I ate at a few days ago:

Stay Awesome, indeed, my friends.

Australia, The Final Days: Beaches and Boomerangs and Boats

Whew, five days in Sydney sure flew. right. by.  

Sad, too, because I could get used to life in this city.  The people are Awesome.  The food is Awesome.  The beaches are Awesome.

Wait...did I just say beach??

There hasn't been an Awesome blog for a few days (probably ruined your weekend, right?) because yesterday, on my last full day here in Sydney, I had four hours of free time.  The choice then had to be made: write blog or go to beach (Manly Beach, to be specific).  

What would you choose??

Um, duh:

For the first time in (my) on-location history, I went to a beach in my bikini and got in the water.  I even got tan lines.  It was a big moment.  A glorious moment.  An oh-my-gosh-I-actually-feel-like-I'm-on-vacation moment. An equalizing moment between me and the real vacationers who I usually just glare at for days.  For an all too brief hour, we were one.

But let's back track a bit, and convince you all that I do get paid to be here for some kind of reason.

I skipped breakfast Saturday morning.  Why?  We were off to film a cooking segment with a chef here in Sydney and he had tweeted at me the night before that we would be cooking the "beef dish" on the menu.  Vague enough, but I also knew I had my work cut out for me.  I've been a vegetarian for a good fifteen years, so beef and I aren't real good friends.  I knew this day would come, though, and I've been training.  A good thing about having a meat-eating boyfriend is that it's relatively easy to steal bites off his plate during dinner, in an attempt to reacclimate your body (and mind) to meat without committing to a whole dish. 

Thank you, Cesar Flores.

Friends, it was delicious.  I didn't just have one bite; I had like seven.  The (apparently super great) Australian beef tenderloin was pretty fantastically cooked (in butter, none the less), and then served over fresh local veggies and handmade (by me!) potato gnocchi.  YUM. MAJOR YUM.

Chef Barkham couldn't have been nicer too, or more fun to film with.  Overall a really rad way to spend a morning.

We hopped in car after that and drove about an hour outside of Sydney to the Muru Mittigar Aboriginal Cultural Center  where an Aboriginal guy named Anthony had the unfortunate task of teaching me how to throw a boomerang.  Anthony learned from his dad when he was five years old, and claims to have mastered the skill in two weeks.  I probably needed about two years.  Especially for someone who wants to throw everything like an ultimate frisbee, throwing a boomerang (well) is not an easy thing to do.

Anthony, however, could throw it and have it come right back to him to catch it.  As a result, we kept the camera on him a lot.  The magic of editing might even make it look like I had some grasp of what I was doing.  Wouldn't that be cool!

Either way, it was a blast.  Anthony makes the boomerangs himself (his dad taught him that too), which I thought was seriously Awesome, and he plays the didgeridoo.  I learned, though, that women are forbidden from playing the didgeridoo (it's actually a law in Aboriginal culture), because it's believed that the muscles women would need to use to play the instrument are the same used in childbirth, and they could wear the muscles out before being able to have a child.  Interesting.

We only had two hours at the center; I could have been there for an entire day.  Super nice people, really cool information, and it was just fun.  As if that wasn't enough, to top it all off, an orphaned possum made a surprise appearance (he's being raised after his mom was hit by a car up north), and I got to hold him.  I gotta say, Aussie possums are way cuter than stateside possums.  

Saturday ended (whew, these days are packed sometimes) with a giant fireworks display.  I suppose I haven't mentioned it yet, but this week is International Fleet Review in Sydney, and approximately 1.5 million people are in town to celebrate.  It's nuts.  There have been all kinds of tall ships and war ships sailing into the harbor the last few days, and they were in full force for what had to be one of the largest fireworks displays in history.  Fireworks were shooting off of naval ships, off barges, and raining down from the Sydney Harbor Bridge.  The opera house was covered in projections, and the harbor was glowing with a laser light show.  

Holy crap.

We had media passes to the whole event, and therefore pretty much the best view ever.  Not a bad way to end the day.

Australia, Day Three: A Climb, A View, and a Walk

One thing I really love about this gig is that it allows me to be the ultimate tourist.  The kind of tourist I roll my eyes at when I'm out "experiencing the culture" and "living like a local."  The kind of tourist that does things like climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge and take silly pictures at the top.

Oh my goodness, it was AWESOME.

Until recently, I had no idea that this whole BridgeClimb thing existed.  I got an email about it from my director a few weeks before the trip, and I think I replied something like, "Sweet, sounds good!"

What I should have replied is:  "OHMIGOSH REALLY WE'RE GONNA DO THAT THAT IS SO COOL I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!"

Hindsight is always 20/20, am I right?

The Sydney Harbor Bridge is almost the longest steel arch bridge in the world (if New York hadn't built one 6 centimeters longer).  It's the longest in the Southern Hemisphere, though, so we'll just stick with that.  Either way, this thing is tall; it towers 44 stories high over the harbor.

BridgeClimb came into being 15 years ago, but since it was the first such thing in the world, it took almost a decade to realize.  When you see this operation in action, it's actually shocking it took only decade, because it is a SERIOUSLY well engineered and thought out deal.  If you're gonna take over 3 million tourists up and over an iconic landmark, you'd better make sure the safety involved is Awesome.

And that they did.

It's crazy.  Not only are you tethered a metal cable running along the bridge the entire time but everything on your body is tethered to you (and therefore the cable and therefore the bridge).  You would have to try--like really try--to drop something off the bridge while you're climbing.  And if you fell, well, it could only be assumed a suicide because of the effort involved.

First, you are given a breathalyzer test to ensure you aren't inebriated.  Smart.

Then, you are given a (stylish) regulation jumpsuit.  On the jumpsuit goes a belt with a whole bunch of hooks and pockets and cables attached.  And then they supply you with a handkerchief (in case of the sniffles) that hooks and clips around your wrist, a baseball cap that hooks on to your suit, a fleece (in case it's cold) that hooks to your back in a pouch that is sewn into the jacket, and even special sunglasses that attach to a cable on your suit.  They even have an intricate system of screws and cables and harnesses that allow film crews (like ours) to take cameras up top (which is usually forbidden).

It's impressive.

The actual climb was crazy cool.  We took the path through the bottom level of the bridge, up a ladder of sorts to the apex, and then back down.  Climbing through a commuter bridge, with traffic rushing underneath you, is a rush.

And then the view.  Oh, the view.  You guys:  Sydney is a gorgeous city.

Throughout it all, our guide, Richard (pictured below), was kind of the best. guide. ever.  This man was not only afraid of heights before he took this job, he's also afraid of birds (which, as you can imagine, live in the bridge).  But he's a phobia-tacklin', life-is-Awesome kinda guy, and it was just so much fun to be in his care for an afternoon.  We couldn't have hit the guide jackpot more.

If I can leave you with one thing from this whole praise-filled post: Do the Sydney BridgeClimb if you come to this city.  It's expensive, I'll warn you, but it really is a super Awesome once-in-a-lifetime, go-ahead-be-a-tourist thing to do.  Worth it.

As if that wasn't enough coolness for the day, we finished off Day Three with that Aboriginal heritage walking tour I told you about on Day Two.  The late afternoon was spent walking along Sydney Harbor, learning the old Aboriginal names of places from the Gadigal tribe (I wish I could remember some of them, but you'll have the pleasure of hearing me try to pronounce them in the videos), and what the harbor may have looked like 300 years ago before "first contact," or colonization.

Gabby, our guide, dropped a lot of really interesting knowledge on me throughout the walk, but an important take home fact for me was that the Aboriginal people have been here in Australia for perhaps up to 60,000 years.  In the Sydney Harbor area, they know people were living here for at least 8,000 years before Europeans landed.  The country of Australia is just a tiny blip at the end of a very, very long history for this piece of land.  It's crazy to think about.

Ugh, there's just so much learning to be done in this wide, wide world.  I feel like my head is going to explode sometimes.  I love it.

Australia, Day Two: Koalas and Wallabies and Kookaburras, OH MY!

Today was day REAL one.  The day I actually had to work.  But let's still put "work" in quotes because, seriously guys, this job is just so cool.

We started off at WILD LIFE Sydney, a zoo of sorts located right on the harbor that, from what I can tell, houses a lot of animals that wouldn't necessarily survive in the wild--you know, kookaburras that had been in car accidents, one-eyed koalas, that kinda thing.  Pretty cool, if you ask me.  They were Awesome enough to let us film inside the koala exhibit, close to the koalas.  

But any dreams I had of actually holding (or touching) a koala were quickly shattered.  Why?  Well, koalas are somewhat delicate animals that require a whopping 20 hours of sleep a day on average.  When tourists come in and hold or touch them a lot, waking them up from their slumber, it can stress them out so much they start to lose hair, the ability to breed, or even die.  

Dude, I get it.  I get messed up when I don't get sleep too.

I'd never want to knowingly play a part in animal destruction, so I got close enough for a couple of selfies and a few quick video bits with koala fun facts, and then we let them slumber on in peace.  That's not to say, though, that the koalas weren't all-stars.  Considering we were there right at nap time, the koalas we were working with (I believe their names were Jay and Bill) did a fantastic job hamming it up for the camera.  They awoke, ate, climbed, yawned, groomed, and gave me quite a few annoyed blank stares (koala stink eye, if you will).  

But let's just take a second to discuss HOW AWESOMELY COOL THESE ANIMALS ARE.  And cute.  So cute.  (I think Bill would prefer ruggedly handsome, but I don't care, the dude was cute.)  They sleep 20 hours a day, poop 100 times a day (yeah, think about it), eat only leaves, and carry their young ones in a pouch.  And they have two thumbs on each hand!  I kiiiinda want a koala's life.

(I was corrected, however, that koalas are not really like sloths, even though it may seem like that at first glance.  I guess they move pretty fast and can even jump from limb to limb.)

The koality time (ha! Thank you to friend Skye for that fantastic pun--wish I woulda thought of that on camera...) ended with a torrential downpour into the enclosure, but we still got everything we needed.  The poor koalas, however, got drenched.  Curling up in a Eucalyptus tree isn't the best way to stay dry in the rain, I suppose.

Our next segment led us to an Aboriginal heritage tour of Sydney--but unfortunately the downpour was such that it made any kind of outdoor filming impossible.  So, we sat down and interviewed a young Aboriginal woman named Gabby, and then she agreed to walk with us the next day instead (the people here are just so nice).  The interview was still interesting, though, because I know pretty much nothing about Aboriginal culture.  

One of my favorite parts was that each Aboriginal tribe has a unique connection to a specific plant or animal (called a totem), and they protect that living thing.  It steams from the belief that no living thing is superior to any other living thing (beautiful), and they won't eat or kill whatever their totem is.  In this way, animals and plants are conserved throughout the country, too, because if each living thing has someone else looking out for it, then ideally over-farming or over-hunting won't happen.  I love it.  

Each person is also given a totem at birth, and it is their personal job to protect that living thing throughout life.  Gabby said, however, that this tradition is in the midst of a rekindling.  Since the Aboriginal culture has been historically squashed under colonialism, many traditions didn't get passed on from generation to generation as they were before.  If you see the movie Rabbit Proof Fence, you'll kind of get the idea.  A lot of kids were taken away from their culture early on, in an attempt to assimilate Aboriginal people into colonial culture.  Sad, and unfortunately not unique to Australia.

You can imagine all of this was hard (and still is hard) for Aboriginal people to understand because, again, they believe that no living thing was superior to any other living thing.  

Think about it.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the walking tour.  Should be pretty cool.  Stay tuned...

We ended the day with some fantastic chocolates (yes, please!), and I found myself a bottle of Yellow Tail wine (you guys, it's FROM here, and still the same price. WHY.).  

Again, this is "work", I promise...

Australia, Day One: Bird Poop and the Four Seaons

G'day mates!

(I swear that's the last time I say that.  Probably.)

After a FOURTEEN AND A HALF HOUR long flight from LAX to Sydney, I have arrived in the Land Down Unda.  The flight was, actually, not half bad.  After the last week of visa induced ulcers and packing craziness, I managed to pass out for nine whole hours.  This has to be a record for coach-based sleeping.  I'm partially giving credit to my new Kuhi travel pillow (um, BUY ONE), but pure exhaustion (mixed with 2 mini-bottles of free red wine) probably played a role as well.

I filled the other five hours with People magazine junk reading (Awesome), two highly intellectual movies (The Internship and This is the End), and making conversation with the Syrian-born Australian woman sitting next to me.  She was seriously Awesome--and she had been EVERYWHERE.  Talk about a single woman who loves her some travel.  I can only hope to be that cool thirty years from now.

We arrived in Sydney at 8 a.m. two days after we had left the good US of A.  Time travel via the International Date Line gets me every time.  As a result, I have no idea what day it is--or time, for that matter--and have to constantly refer to my phone for guidance.

Okay, so here's the kicker guys.  I'm staying at the FOUR SEASONS this entire trip.  Yep, if you do the math, that's four different Four Seasons in four different countries (it's a sponsorship deal with the non-profit I'm working for here--so, really, hats off Four Seasons).  Life. Is. Rough.  And while this is not how I have ever traveled in my life usually (sleeping on the floor in Damascus, anyone?), I gotta tell you: walking into the Four Seasons, jetlagged, hungry, and confused is like coming home during college to a home cooked meal after months of microwaved ramen, then curling up in your non-dormitory bed and having your laundry done for you.

It just feels so nice.

That said, the Four Seasons here in Sydney is (as always) impressively out of my personal affordability.  For one thing, I constantly have to resist the urge to be waiting on the tables, not dining at them.  In my usual 20-something bartender lifestyle, five star amenities don't come around often.  So what do I do?  I soak it allllll in.

Cucumber infused water?  Yes, please.  A quick steam in the steam room?  Yes, please.  Turn down service?  Yes, please.  A man casually and happily playing the piano in a tux at 9 a.m.?  Yes, please.  Unlimited breakfast buffet with a whole table of ridiculously Awesome pastries?  Yes, please.  A TV programmed with my name on the screen?  Yes, yes, yes please.

Oh, and also, the view from my...er...suite:

Major yes please.

(Fun fact: Every Four Seasons is required to keep a certain number of fresh blooms in the lobby every day. It's pretty Awesome.)

And if I haven't done a good enough job convincing all of you that I don't actually "work" when I come on these trips (I do, I promise, just you wait...), Day One was spent--for the first time ever in my time on location--doing whatever I wanted.  Yep.  I had a free afternoon.

Well, not really, because we (that's me, and our assistant producer, Berna) had to pick up some press passes on the other side of the harbor.  But that errand brought us on a nice walk through the botanical gardens--and it was a gorgeous day.  While it's possible that I spent a little too much of the walk quoting Finding Nemo (P.Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sydney), it was still way fun.

Neither of us were aware that our trip was taking us ultimately to a Naval office with a strict dress code to get inside.  We showed up, jetlagged, ragged, typical-stupid-American-looking.  Whoops.  Apparently cutoff shorts, tie dye shirts, and flip flops are frowned upon in the Navy.  Luckily they were super cool about it, pulled us aside (not inside, mind you), and still gave us the passes.  Oh, the places you find yourself sometimes.

The rest of the day was filled with exploration, a couple of Aussie beers, some chips shared with seagulls--oh, and a gracious amount of bird poop.  I hear getting pooped on by a bird is good luck, though, and I'm looking for all the good luck I can get right now.  Three weeks to circumnavigate the globe is cray and something tells me it would be pretty Awesome to have luck on my side....

Name Change, Game Change, and a Change of Scenery

Hey fellow Awesome seekers, long time no talk.

Sorry for the hiatus.  A lot of you have (surprisingly) been asking me "What's next?" after 30 Days of Awesome ended, and for the most part, I've been quiet.  Why?  Well, mainly because September included a whole lot of TCOB (that's takin' care of business for you non-knowers out there).  I guess that's what happens when you spend a whole month focusing on Awesome and not, for example, car maintenance or personal health care.  (whoops...)

Also, I've been gearing up for my next adventure--which, honestly, might be one of my biggest adventures yet.  I've been pretty quiet about this too (unless you've had the misfortune of working at the bar with me lately, in which case you've been receiving a daily countdown), mainly because I never want to jinx these things before they happen.  With travel often last minute in the filming industry, I'm aware how quickly things can go from "certain" to "not happening"--and therefore majorly disappointing.

I don't want to get you all involved in any kind of disappointment.  That's just rude.

But with this trip now LESS THAN A WEEK AWAY, I suppose it's safe to finally shout it from the (metaphorical and digital) rooftops:

I'm heading off on a grand ROUND THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD adventure, hitting up Australia (Sydney), Singapore, Malaysia (Langkawi), and India (Mumbai) along the way (with a short stop--aka layover--in Paris for good measure on the way home).

My frequent flier miles are gonna be killer as a result.

I'll be filming it all with the crew from ProjectExplorer.org, helping spread the word to kids (and adults alike) that there is a big, Awesome world out there beyond their front door.  (Seriously, guys, I really lucked out in the job category of life thus far...)

The whole thing will be about 21 days long (it gets a little grey in there with that International Date Line thing), and will, I'm sure, be Awesomely exhausting.

That's the best kinda travel, am I right?

On the brink of such a seriously Awesome opportunity, I've renamed the "30 Days of Awesome" blog to a less limiting and more general "the AWESOME blog."  Here, I'll be cataloging all the Awesome I discover in the world while I'm away, filling you in on what I've been up to, and hopefully allowing you to come along for the ride in some way (without any of the jetlag, cramped seats in coach, or airplane food, too).

So, buckle up and cue some kind of Awesome music, because we are hitting the road!!!!

Awesome Day Thirty: Hittin' the Water

"Relax," he said as he helped me on board. "If you're tense, you're going to end up having to work harder.  You'll tire out faster.  It won't be as fun."

I suppose that's good advice--in both paddleboarding and in life.

Thankfully, on the Final Day of Awesome, relaxation was easy.

I don't really live near the beach.  I wish I did, but it's about an hour away--and that's when the traffic is good.  It's just far enough away that I don't get there often (or ever).  Sadly, this was my first time there in almost a year.  (Wisconsin Me would be totally mad at California Me for this fact; when you grow up in the midwest, any beach that isn't days of driving away is a blessing.)

As someone who grew up in Wisconsin, my experience with water-based activities is limited.  I remember trying to waterski once with a friend's family at their cabin on a lake--that didn't go well.  My lack of upper body strength, balance, and general athletic ability created a combo that meant I spent most of the time flailing behind the boat, dragging in the water.  Not Awesome.

Still, I've alway wanted to surf.  And since I know that surfing and I would take days of lessons to become friends, I've always wanted to paddleboard as an (easier) alternative.  (Surfing is still on The List, I'm just saving that for a time when I have a multi-day beach vacation and a willing surf instructor.)

Awesome Day 30 was ridiculously hot.  Like Hottest Day of the Year hot.  Like 93 degrees at 10 a.m. and hard to breathe kind of hot.  Basically, it was begging for us to take a trip west, to seek ocean breezes and frigid waters and an environment where wearing as little as possible was acceptable.

To the beach we went.

We headed to Newport Beach, south of Los Angeles, for a paddleboarding excursion. Newport is full of canals and a harbor, making it ideal for paddleboarding since waves and wake tend to make balance pretty challenging.

The sky was a gorgeous blue, scattered with carefree clouds.  It was Awesome.  And it was still hot; people were saying it was maybe the hottest day on record, but I have no proof to back that up.  I know that by 1pm it was 95 degrees at the beach, which kinda never happens.

Paddleboarding was a huge success.  It was absolutely beautiful, and neither of us fell in, except when we wanted to.  I guess it was because we were relaxed--which is kind of the reason beaches exist,  I think.  It's impossible to be stressed out on a beach.  There's something about the vastness of the ocean combined with the reassuring gentle breeze.  The world is large, it seems to whisper, and you are just a drop of Awesome. Slow down and appreciate.

Which is what the whole 30 Days of Awesome has been about.

Awesome Day Twenty Nine: Coming Home

I travel a lot.  Not as much as a business person, I suppose, but definitely more than the average person.  I'm on a plane at least once a month--sometimes way more--and as much as I love that feeling of taking off into a new adventure, I really, really love the feeling of landing and coming home.

On Awesome Day Twenty Nine, I did just that.  I came home.

Now, maybe this doesn't sound so Awesome to some of you out there--but if you leave a lot, like I do, then you probably get it.  I love traveling.  I love adventure.  I love exploring new places and cultures and meeting new people.  For me, that is one of my favorite parts about life.

But travel is a funny thing.  While you're busy appreciating a new place, with all its differences and foreign wonders and new approaches, you also find yourself appreciating where you came from in ways you never have before.  At times, you find yourself longing for the mundane that you were excited to leave.  It's a great gift; if I never left, I would never truly appreciate all that I have in my life at home.

(And then when you get home, you miss all the Awesome you saw on your last adventure, and long to leave again--this is the endless cycle known as the "Travel Bug."  Once you have it, you can't get rid of it.)

On Awesome Day Twenty Nine, I wasn't returning from some mind-blowing trip abroad or any kind of backcountry camping adventure that left me longing for hot showers and soft beds.  I was just journeying down the coastline from a trip to San Francisco.  With my family, no less.  And it was a great trip.

Still, I had that familiar flutter in my stomach when I looked out the window and saw the Downtown LA skyline.  I soaked in the warmth of the overly hot late summer LA sunshine.  I immediately had an appetite for tacos served out of a truck.  I was even happy to go straight to work from the airport, smiling my way through a (pretty terrible) $40 shift at the bar after a five day break from it all.  (It's amazing what going away can do.)

I can't even explain the Awesomeness of returning home to my mini-family.  The warm hug from a boyfriend I haven't seen in days and the excitement of furry puppy-blurs zooming around the apartment was a highlight to the whole month of Awesome.

There really is no place like home.






In Other Awesome News:  My new passport came today!!  Kudos to the State Department for getting that back to me in less than the estimated time (it's only been nine days).  I guess I'm ready to leave again...

Awesome Day Twenty Eight: A Brief Trip to Prison

For me, Alcatraz has always been one of those places shrouded in mystery (I'm guessing this is probably true for most people).  Back when I was a kid, my grandparents got me a shirt as a souvenir from their trip to San Francisco that said "Alcatraz Swimming Team" on it.  When I found out what Alcatraz was, and why that shirt was supposed to be funny, I couldn't stop picturing what such a place would look like.  And why they would send people there.

Fast forward about 20 years.  I have been living in California for nearly a decade (dear god), but trips to  San Francisco have not been numerous.  It's a six hour drive; I don't like six hour drives.  So, despite living on the west coast--and in the same state--as the famed prison for years, it was not until Awesome Day Twenty Eight that I finally made the trip.

You guys, it is worth it.

Technically part of the National Park Service (news to me), Alcatraz has quite the history.  It was the prison of all prisons, the place a person was sent when regular prison just wasn't enough.  But before that, it was a military fortress, armed with canons to protect the newly developing west coast of the United States, and home to the first functional light house on this side of the country.  Later on, it became a military prison, and those military prisoners built the Alcatraz prison that still (mostly) stands today.

(It should also be noted that after Alcatraz was abandoned in 1963, a group of Native American Indians took over the island from 1969-71, hoping to create an Indian cultural center and a place for "Indians of All Tribes."  While this movement didn't last long, it's still pretty cool--and a lot of the graffiti and signage from the time is still preserved on the site.  Didn't learn that in history class.)

Alcatraz is creepy.  It's damp and dimly lit.  The footsteps of the hoards of tourists echo in the silence as everyone listens to his or her individual audio tour.  Take off your headphones and all you hear is an eerie percussive orchestra of the shuffling of feet and the laughing of the seagulls as they slowly reclaim the island.  Fog, of course, clouds the island for much of the morning; standing outside, it's hard to tell there is a world out there, even though San Francisco is only a little over a mile away.  (Later on though, when the fog clears, you can see a pretty stunning view.  The presence of the modern city must have been a rude reminder to the prisoners of how they were missing out.)

It's crumbling and clammy and cold.  It feels haunted, and it probably is.  A lot of people died there, or at least wasted a lot of life there.

That's why you go to Alcatraz, though--to get creeped out.  To see how people who do the worst deeds may have lived out years and years.  To understand just how bad it must have been.  

But beyond the prison life, another lifestyle existed on the island:  Kids grew up there.  Of course this makes sense if you really think about it, but the guards had wives and families--and they all had to live on the island.  A whole community was established on one side of the island, with a small grocery store and an area for the kids to play and everything, and that was how a handful of children grew up, right outside one of the most notorious prisons in history.  Nuts.

I will say it was a little weird to pay money to see how and where people suffered, to marvel at a jail cell that potentially consumed someone's youth, and then to visit a gift shop afterward.  Still, I had to keep reminding myself that a lot of those guys did some really bad stuff.  And the money goes to the National Park Service.  So maybe it's okay...

I can now also say that I'm thoroughly obsessed with the Great Escape of 1962.  I think those guys are still alive, living somewhere in South America.  I hope they are.  That's some badass, smart, crazy stuff they did--and they didn't hurt anyone in the process, like most escape attempts.

If my vote means anything, I think that's pretty Awesome.




In Other Awesome News:  We went to Chez Panisse Cafe in Berkeley.  The food was Awesome.  Our server was Awesome.  Alice Waters is Awesome.  The Slow Food Movement is Awesome.  Yum, yum, Awesome yum.

Awesome Day Twenty Seven: The One Where My Parents Took a Tequila Shot

I am wayyyy late to the game on Awesome Day Twenty Seven.  I blame it on the combination of a booze-filled night followed by an early morning family call time to get ourselves on a bouncy boat ride in the bay (ouch).

BUT STILL.  Here we go.

Awesome Day Twenty Seven was kinda all around Awesome.  Sightseeing in San Francisco, good food, good company, good weather.  Not. Too. Shabby.

But what really made the day Awesome came at the end, in the form of Trivia Night at a packed (and pretty Awesome) gay bar in the Castro--and then culminated with family tequila shots.

Yes.  Family tequila shots.

Now, some of you out there may have families that take shots together; my family is definitely not one of those.  In all my years on this planet, I don't think I've ever seen either of my parents shoot any kind of alcohol.  (Occasionally my dad has been known to drink the extra soy sauce after sushi like a shot, tilting his head back, all in one gulp.  That's the closest image my memory can match.)  And although my mom claims this was not her first, I've never seen any solid proof, so until then...

We didn't win trivia night.  We weren't even close.  There was a round where you had to name pictures of celebrity children, and none of us have kept up on People magazine nearly enough lately.  Our team name--"How do you cure a raging rim fire?"--didn't even win Best Name.   (But in all fairness, there were some creative names out there.)

By the end, though, we were all a little too hammered to even care.  Or at least I was.

Isn't it nice to watch new family traditions blossom?

Awesome Day Twenty Six: A Tour of Two Campuses

I kinda feel like I'm cheating on 30 Days of Awesome by traveling to a San Francisco in the middle of it.  Travel is just Awesome because it's travel.  It's new, it's something different, it's exciting.  The most mundane things are Awesome, and the Awesome things are Super Awesome.  For the next three days of Awesome, Awesome will practically fall into my lap.

So, yeah, I'm cheating.

That being recognized, let's discuss Awesome Day Twenty Six.

It involved two tours of two campuses: One in Menlo Park, and one in Palo Alto, both with my parents and my older bro.

First stop: Facebook.  Facebook was a kind of pilgrimage of sorts.  I love me some social media.  Judge if you will, but at least I admit it.  And even if you aren't as big of a fan of the social network, I'm sure you've wondered what it looks like from the inside.  I have.  Personally, I always pictured a bunch of people working inside a giant version of a desktop computer, hitting buttons and connecting cords like old telephone operators back in the day.

That's not really how it works though.

The thing with Facebook, though, is that they make you sign an NDA (a non-disclosure agreement) saying that you won't share or replicate or talk about or think about any potentially "ground-breaking" technological wonders you witness while on their campus.  So.  There's that.  It's a little hard to write a descriptive blog post after signing something like that with a major entity.  (As such, I could only take pictures of the outside of the campus--which is not exactly exciting.  Enjoy!)

What I will tell you is that the campus is pretty Awesome.  Basically a really nice college campus, the Facebook campus has the same laid back, do-work-but-still-enjoy-your-life feel.  It's got big open spaces and about a dozen different places to eat (most free, if not subsidized).  There's a barber shop and a dentist office and a gym and a clothing boutique.  You don't need to leave (why would you?) for anything (well, maybe to see your family, I suppose).

There are a lot of companies with this approach to working, and as someone who basically faces the opposite every day (working in the restaurant industry under employers who can't even offer us 50% off employee meals anymore, much less health care or full-time employment), it was really interesting to see the other side of it all.  Wouldn't that be nice, I kept thinking.

(On the flip side, I love that I can take weeks off work, have my days free, and am available to pursue a different career path on the side--all while still making a relatively decent living.  Who's to say what's really better in the long run, I suppose.  Ask me in ten years.  I'll probably know then.)

But man, that campus is pretty damn cool.  I would love to have a free salad bar at my disposal every day.  And a juice bar.  And free frozen yogurt.  And health care (did I mention health care?).  And to know that, in general, my creativity and ideas and intelligence were encouraged, fostered, and expected.  That would be pretty cool.  (Maybe I just miss college, now that I think about it...)

Anyway, I reveled in the meta idea that I was on Facebook while in Facebook (and, subsequently, Instagraming from inside Instagram too), ate some good food, and saw a lot of top secret things that I can never tell you about.  (Not really, but maybe kinda, but no, I didn't, don't worry.  I think.)  Pretty Awesome.

Stop two was to Stanford University (a place that rejected me eight years ago, and because of that, I was somewhat bitter while stomping around the grounds).  Not nearly as exciting as Facebook, Stanford was still really pretty.  I'll give it that.  Not a bad place to attain an education, I'm guessing.

We ended the day with tequila drinks and Sprinkles cupcakes (there was dinner in there somewhere too), and a rousing family game of Farkle (I rolled two Farkles in a row, which was kinda my Awesome highlight of the day).

Actually, being with my family was the real Awesome highlight of the day.  Family is really Awesome.  Really, really Awesome.

Awesome Day Twenty Five: The Awesomeness of Flea Markets

If you've been keeping up with 30 Days of Awesome, you know that I love markets.  And festivals.  And generally anything that brings people together outside.  So when Downtown LA (one of my fav hoods in this fine city) announced that it was putting together a flea market--well, you can only imagine my excitement.

To understand the Awesomeness of this in full, I feel like we need to delve into a brief history lesson. Downtown Los Angeles (otherwise known as DTLA) did not used to be so Awesome.  Technically the oldest neighborhood in Los Angeles (it was settled in 1744 as a small pueblo over a century before California was even a state), downtown boomed in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s before the population began to sprawl out in search of other hot spots (in true LA form).  In an attempt to keep business (and people) in downtown LA, a building restriction that had formerly kept buildings in downtown under thirteen stories was lifted in the late 1950s.  This changed the skyline, but didn't necessarily bring back the nightlife or the economy.

Into the later part of the 1900s, Downtown LA was a financial hub of the city, busy with suits from 9-5, but otherwise void of a real population.  Deserted buildings and streets mean that Skid Row, or "Tent City," developed along the streets that had once been the city's finest, making Downtown a center for homeless and deviants and crack heads.  It wasn't exactly friendly.

When I moved to LA eight years ago, DTLA was not touted as a hot spot.  Occasionally, I'd venture into the fashion district for some cheap designer duds, but I'd quickly make my way back to the safe bubble of my college campus.  In the last five years, though, DTLA has been undergoing a kind of (very noticeable) revival.  There are things to do.  New restaurants and bars (some of the best ones in the city, no less) are popping up faster than I can keep track.  Sporting events and major concerts are happening almost daily.  People actually live in the apartment buildings and city lofts (the rent has skyrocketed as a result).  There is innovation and art and development.

Suddenly, everyone has realized the Awesomeness of DTLA, myself included.  Between the art deco buildings, the multi-cultural pockets (Chinatown, Little Tokyo), the various districts (there's even a piñata district, I kid you not), it is a great place to be a tourist.  If you ever have a free day in this city, it would be well spent wandering the streets of downtown (much more than the almost guaranteed wasted time you'll spend in Hollywood or Beverly Hills).

This flea market was just one more sign that DTLA is continuing on its path of unique Awesomeness.

The flea market had its first run last month (it runs the last sunday of every month), but I missed it.  This month, I was going to make it (big shout out to Cesar Flores for remembering it was happening!).  I even powered through a pretty potent hangover (thank you, Awesome Day Twenty Four) and 90 degree weather.   30 Days of Awesome is really keeping me moving.

If you've been to a flea market before, then there's probably not a whole that was different about this one--except the fact that is was sponsored by Red Bull, had a VIP tent, a live DJ, and a wide variety of food trucks (oh, LA...).  But all in all, it was your average assembly of vintage goods, salvaged materials, antique furniture, and handmade trinkets.  Like an interactive museum, flea markets are full of the kind of stuff you just want to touch and fiddle with and examine.

Flea markets are rad, too, because they are different all the time and really have no rules.  A treasure hunt through piles of otherwise useless junk, flea markets are one of the only places left in this country where haggling is widely accepted.  A skill that I developed while living in the Middle East, I was upset when I returned home and couldn't talk down the prices of t-shirts at the local mall or barter for a two for one deal that wasn't advertised (I got a lot of weird stares during that culture re-adjustment).

Flea markets are a safe haven for the die hard haggler.  And I can do it in English.  Awesome.

We left with two old tiki glasses, a set of vintage champagne glasses, some antique keys, a hand etched bamboo iphone case, and some homemade lip balm.

I'll also take this moment to mention that the last Sunday Sessions at Grand Park in Downtown was on Awesome Day Twenty Five as well.  Talk about another super Awesome event to make DTLA uniquely cool.  Free music all day with a great community vibe set against the backdrop of high rises and palm trees.  (My phone was dead, or I would have taken a picture; you'll just have to believe me on this one, or go see it for yourself next summer.)

Those of you on the west side are missing out on some serious Awesome on the east side these days.

Awesome Day Twenty-Four: Costume Parties

I don't dress up enough.  I kinda forgot how fun it is to be someone else for a night, or just to wear something crazy and unusual.  I used to be in plays and musicals and wear costumes and heavy make-up pretty often.  Now it's only at halloween--and even then, I've been out of the country for the last two years when halloween rolled around.  Super sad.

On Awesome Day Twenty-Four, however, our friend was having his thirtieth birthday party:  A thrift store costume party, meant to celebrate his insistence that turning 30 didn't mean you have to "get married and get fat."  Basically, it was an excuse to drink and celebrate while wearing Awesome clothing.  Can't hate that.

The party description pretty much tells it all.  We were supposed to dress up in clothing we bought at a thrift store, which is a pretty easy task here on the east side of the city.  Thrift stores are on every block; people generally dress in thrift store clothing daily.  I guess the asterisk was that we should get clothes that we wouldn't normally rock.  (And even then, on this side of the city, anything goes, so who's to say  it's a purchase made in vain?)

I found myself a nice marching band hat and a 1950s style tropical dress (they may not have matched, but they sure were fun to wear together).  Cesar got himself a janitor (Or was it pilot? Or maybe an astronaut?) jumpsuit.

We finished off the night at the Short Stop (of course) where photobooth ensued (of course).  And then we got tacos from my favorite taco truck (Ariza's in Echo Park, they are hands down the best.)

You guys, it was saturday night--and I didn't have to bartend for the first saturday in weeks.   

What else was I supposed to do?  

Awesome Day Twenty-Three: A Day Date in DTLA

This week in LA has been summer in full swing.  Sunny, hot, with cloudless skies, these are the kinds of days where you want to wear as little as possible, and preferably be either poolside with a margarita or at the beach sneaking ice cold beers out of a cooler when beach patrol isn't looking.

Would if I could.

But Awesome Day Twenty-Three was scheduled to be cut un-Awesomely short by work.  So Cesar and I improvised with a quick (but Awesome) jaunt around Downtown Los Angeles--not exactly a place to cool off, but a cool place to go nonetheless.

First stop was the flower district, home to the LA Flower Mart.  The largest flower market in the country, this place is practically heaven to me.  It smells ah-MAZE-ing, and the flowers are all wholesale prices (aka super cheap).  This is where all the flower shops around LA buy their flowers earrrrrly in the morning; when the public is allowed in later in the day (we were there at 1 p.m.), the pickings are a little more limited, but you wouldn't even notice if no one told you.  I like it because I can buy a whole bunch of flowers, and accompanying vases, for practically nothing.  That kinda stuff makes my day.

Next stop was kinda the real reason we went to downtown: Ice cream.  It's not quite the same as a pool or the beach, but real, homemade ice cream is the next best thing on a hot summer day--especially when it's bicycle churned and organic.  Yep, bicycle churned.  A new place in DTLA just opened serving up small batch homemade ice cream, powered by bicycles.  They even make their own waffle cones.  This place is totally Awesome, and their ice cream is reaaaallllly good.

You can even sign up to be a peddler for them, to help make the ice cream and get free ice cream in return.  (Of course we both signed up--I'm going to pretend it counts as a workout.)

Flowers and ice cream: The way to my heart.