Before Too Much is Enough

Playing around outside of the hotel




In the car heading to Beverly Hills

Palm trees :)

Cobbled stone :)

Lol... this guy was very interesting.

This art gallery was one of the best one's I've ever been to. Pop art yeaaa <3

So amazing. Carved from cement.

I would. I had to.
Beauty.

Delicious :)

Infront of the king of pop's home

Bev hills!


...makes me go crazy.




Love

Day Three

Destination – Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Michael Jackson’s House, Playboy Mansion, Babyface’s house, Melrose

   We woke up roughly around 8AM and went downstairs for some breakfast. We reserved a driver from our hotel to bring us to Beverly Hills (specifically Rodeo drive) and Melrose so we could do some shopping. Our driver was from El Salvador and he was a friendly fellow to converse with. He suggested places to visit during our stay in Los Angeles which was very nice of him (he even opened our doors to get in the limousine. Now… that’s the life. Lol). As we approached Rodeo Drive – I think both of our jaws wouldn’t close back up, it kept dropping and just dropping… It was like a shopping heaven. Any upscale brand you could think of, it was probably there. Oh I wish I could’ve gotten myself a pair of pumps from Jimmy Choo – yeah right, maybe when I make some real money when I’m older.

   I was about to purchase a Louis Vuitton purse for my mother though – since I haven’t really gotten anything for her birthday since I had my final exams. But anyway, I was in awe! There were so many palm trees, nice restaurants, fancy stores, and coble stoned streets (I love the atmosphere of that). So we walked around and stopped for some Japanese crepes at Harajuku Crepes. This place is delicious! You can customize your own crepe batters ranging from original, earl grey, buckwheat, green tea, and choose from a variety of fruits and add whip cream and some nutella. I got a green tea batter with strawberry and nutella with whipped cream and it tasted heavenly. We strolled around some more and guess what? We saw a celebrity! Rush Hour 2 and Entourage fans… we got to see Jeremy Piven actually filming at Domenico Vacca.  

     Afterwards we wanted to take the cab to Melrose to do some shopping that we could actually afford and visit the many vintage boutiques (my fave). We hopped into a cab (I cannot stress how expensive cabbing in LA is !@#$) but anyway… this guy wanted to make some extra cash probably and offered to show us Michael Jackson’s house, the Playboy Mansion, and Babyface’s house. I have to admit, it was pretty cool and definitely something to visit while you’re in LA but we had to leave as we saw the pricing meter spiking up! Grr. During the drive, our cab driver did tell us some stories. He mentioned that George Michaels was arrested for homosexual behaviours at the Beverly Park. Pretty random. Anyway, we stopped in Melrose and oh-my-god… MARC JACOBS, ALEXANDER WANG, DVF, BETSEY JOHNSON… so many more to name. I purchased a Marc Jacobs clutch, a Marc Jacobs lipstick pen, a couple rompers from some boutiques, and a lacey-bralette and two nail polishes that I absolutely love (Office and L Esprit) from American Apparel. 

         We walked for blocks and blocks but all we could see was stores and boutiques – there were no restaurants in sight and we were starving. It was quite weird actually. We were starving and finally found a nice restaurant called Taste. It was so beautiful inside and the environment was so warm. It was dark and with candles lit up everywhere. The menu looked delicious. I ordered a Cumin spiced pork chop with white truffle oil and Cajun sauce with the best baked macaroni and cheese I have ever had. was so much flavor to savour in the pork chop and mac n’ cheese!  After dinner, our driver picked us back up down the street and we headed back to the hotel.

Cities and Escapes

Funny story at Walgreens haha

*It's been sooooo long! I've been so busy with work and such - but here is Day Two of our LA trip :)


Day Two
Destination – Downtown LA, Staples Center, Santee Valley, Pershing Square, Macy’s Square

   We woke up very early to get ready for a day of exploring around LA. We went downstairs for some breakfast then tried to look for a cab continuously and eventually we found a cab (sketchy, just a little bit) driver. He asked where we were from, what our nationality was, what we were doing here in LA and what our names were (honestly very scared at this point). So then Veronica decide to give the cab driver fake names. Apparently she was Emily but I couldn’t think on my feet so I just told him my real name. We asked him to drop us off at Figueroa St. where the Staples Centre was located. The celebration parade for the Lakers’ championship was held there. We got out of the cab and could not help but notice herds of yellow and purple roaming around the streets causing scenery. People were cheering, honking their car horns, screaming, running around… there was just so much spirit. Always been a Lakers’ fan since I was young so I was super glad we came to the Lakers’ parade (perfect timing to visit LA). After the crazy parade, we had no idea of where to go, where we were going, how to get there – so, we just walked in the direction of the crowd. Somehow, we ended up in the Fashion district in Santee Valley (who knew LA split up downtown into a gazillion different districts  - there was the jewelry district, toy, bank, etc). There were so many cheap finds here and not to mention, an enormous amount of Mexicans and Spanish people. To be honest, this was probably one of the sketchiest areas that we visited in LA. Only because the area was far from what I pictured LA to be (palm trees, sand, and all that jazz). This area was culturally orientated selling different things ranging from foods to clothing. We did manage to find so many good deals. I bought a bunch of rompers and dresses for a pretty good price and we scored big time on the one dollar nail polishes (looove).

        While walking through Santee Valley, we found a frozen yogurt place that we looked sort of maybe like an outcast from the rest of the stores. When we walked in, it was fairly new and looked very modern. It was a self-serve frozen yogurt stand where you could choose from these two obnoxiously large sized frozen yogurt containers (they were huge). After indulging in some delicious frozen yogurt, we decided to stroll around some more and eventually wanted to find a cab to go to Hollywood. But, we ran out of luck – supposedly the cabs were not in the area we were in at all so we were told to walk north to the Jewelry district. So there we were, two Toronto girls who have never been to LA went exploring around downtown. Is that a little dangerous? Lol. Thankfully it wasn’t night time. We stopped for a quick bite at Subway (a familiar store, yay). We were also in search for a washroom and found out that most places do not even offer washrooms for customers (not even at Starbucks in some locations)! But… there was a filthy non-sanitized-portable-outdoor-washroom-with-a-30min-wait-long-line-up that every other citizen used that was available - joy.

       Next stop, we went intrigued by the gorgeous palm trees down at Pershing Square. We went to go camwhore a little (because that’s what girls do when they’ve never seen palm trees in their life before coming to LA. But mind you, this Pershing square we’re speaking of smelled like urine. How disgusting). Afterwards we dropped by Walgreens and met an interesting cashier… very, interesting.  Anyway, then we went over to Macy’s square to do a little shopping. When we got there, Veronica decided to run a little experiment. She went up to a lady that worked at Macy’s and asked where the “washroom” was. Apparently Americans get confused when us Canadians say the word washroom instead of restroom.  I did not know that – and well her experiment was successful because the Macy’s worker did give us a fairly weird look. We did some shopping at MAC – I purchased a new gel liner in black track and Veronica purchased a new lip stick in Vegas Volt (beautiful bright colour). After we left, I bumped into a representative from this charity/organization. I was actually very interested because in my student group I was hoping in somehow working with different charities doing different things so I was talking to the girl for about 15 minutes – sorry Vee haha. We went over to 505 Shops were we found these really interesting backboards for décor in the food court that each had unique quoting on them. We were exhausted and decided to stop for Starbucks and then we took the cab back to our hotel.