Heading Out

We left Wednesday morning, January 2nd. Our across the street neighbor, Matt Weppner, gave us and our four suitcases and 2 duffle bags a lift to the airport. He and Anita, his wife, took care of Saki, our 14-year-old Shiba Inu, while we were gone. In addition to three adorable kids (Hannah, Erin, and Brennan), they have three dogs, two bunnies, and a cat. With the presence of Saki, their house was a veritable zoo!

As I mentioned in the previous post, we spent the night in Los Angeles. Mostly we worried about being able to make connections in a timely matter. Our last big cruise (Panama Canal on the Crystal Symphony) we woke up to find Buffalo totally fogged in. Two hours before departure we went online to find out that conditions were clear in Rochester, 60 miles down the road. Two one way tickets and a mad dash later we were on our way -- and made it on the ship just half an hour before sailing from Caldera, Costa Rica. Much too close for our comfort zone!

Los Angeles was good. We had hoped to get soba in Manhattan Beach but the place was closed so that evening we headed to Little Tokyo. Komasa, which we had wanted to try last trip, was full so we went a few doors down to Hama Sushi, which was small, incredibly authentic, and just plain fabulous. The follow up visit to Yamazaki induced the usual sighs of delight.

Next day we continued the exploration of Los Angeles we'd begun in April and continued in November. This time we did the Beach Cities: Venice, Marina Del Rey, Vista del Mar, El Segundo, Huntington, Manhattan, Hermosa, Redondo, ending up with a tour through Palos Verdes Estates and down to Long Beach, before doubling back on the PCH and heading back to Little Tokyo for a second round at Hama and Yamazaki.

After lunch, we visited the Japanese-American National Museum, a very poignant reminder that there is a lot about American history that (even now) we don't get taught in school. The racist quote from Ben Franklin emblazoned on the wall made me squirm, just as it should have done. (Not that I was particularly surprised; I was mostly squirming that I had to go there to have read it!)

Then it was off to The Grove, the shopping haven adjacent to Farmer's Market, for some window shopping and some eye candy. Then back to LAX to check in our luggage with Air Pacific. And then to Encounter for dinner with Tom.

Encounter was a hoot. The elevator played Jetson-inspired music, the restaurant itself, still done up for the holidays, twinkled, sparkled, and oozed, in true Lava-lamp fashion, and whenever someone ordered a beer on tap the dispenser produced a chorus of chirps, whoops, and wails reminiscent of the bar scene in Star Wars. The price tag reflected the killer ambiance, not the quality of the food, which was quite good but nothing extraordinary.

We boarded the plane for our 10-hour flight to Fiji well-sated (views, food, and a friend!) and ready for more!

The Big Trip: Overview

We departed Buffalo on Wednesday, January 2, 2008, for our Big Trip, a 2-week cruise to ports in New Zealand and Australia aboard the Celebrity Mercury. Our itinerary included:

Jan. 2-3: Buffalo to Detroit to Los Angeles via Northwest. Toodled around Little Tokyo, the Grove, and the Beach Cities. Had dinner Thursday night at Encounter, the cool restaurant in LAX’s signature building, with our friend Tom.

Jan. 3-5: Los Angeles to Nadi (Fiji) to Auckland (New Zealand) via Air Pacific, the national airline of Fiji. The flight to Fiji was 10 hours but because we crossed the International Dateline going east to west Jan. 4 disappeared entirely!

Jan. 5-6: Checked out Auckland (on foot and a private tour) before boarding the Mercury, docked at Princes Wharf, adjacent to our (ultracool) hotel, the Auckland Hilton. Mike of Mike’s Garden Tours was knowledgeable and charming and Auckland is beautiful!

Jan. 7: Tauranga, New Zealand. Tour of the town plus Kiwifruit Country. We learned more than we could possibly have imagined about kiwi fruit. I told the owner / tour guide it was the best agricultural tour I’d ever been on.

Jan. 8: At sea

Jan. 9: Napier, New Zealand. An earthquake flattened Napier in 1931 and the citizenry rebuilt in the trendiest architectural style of the period, Art Deco! As a result Napier has the largest concentration of Art Deco style buildings anywhere.

Jan. 10: Wellington, New Zealand. Our tour of the Karori Wildlife Refuge resulted in our meeting Desmond Smith, a Karori tour guide and one half of the first couple in New Zealand to receive a Civil Union license!

Jan. 11: Christchurch, New Zealand. Rough crossing through the Cook Strait the night before (fortunately, we’re both impervious to motion sickness.) Nice tour of Lyttleton (Christchurch’s port) and Christchurch itself before heading up into the Southern Alps for a short walk about Arthur’s Pass and then a scenic train trip back to town on the TranzAlpine Railway.

Jan. 12: Dunedin. A tour of the town plus a visit to the Otago Museum.

Jan. 13: Cruising the New Zealand fjords. We entered Dusky Sound in the morning, while I was still asleep, and skipped Doubtful Sound because the water was too rough (insert joke about needing a “Backup Sound, beep, beep, beep!” here!), and then on to Milford Sound. Wow! It rates right up there with the top of Mt. Hale’akala as one of the most spectacular bits of scenery I’ve ever seen!

Jan. 14-15: Crossing the Tasman Sea from the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. HEAVY seas both days, with swells up to 15 feet! Much too much for many of our fellow passengers but I loved it!

Jan. 16: Coach tour through Melbourne (pronounced “Melbun”) up to the outlying town of Healesville and the Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary. Kangaroos, koalas, and platypi, oh my!

Jan. 17: At sea.

Jan. 18: Newcastle, New South Wales. We’d originally planned on doing the “baths and paths” tour but opted instead to do a private tour of the Hunter Valley wine region with some of our tablemates, and just as well—Newcastle was very much under the weather!

Jan. 19-20: Sydney. Wow! What a beautiful city. A nice enough coach tour through the city center and nearby eastern suburbs, including spectacular Bondi Beach, and, best of all, a visit to and tour of the Sydney Opera House. Better yet, our friend, Nicky, a fellow passenger on our Panama Canal (Crystal Symphony) cruise, picked us up and took us on a 3 ½ hour car tour of, including a stop by her parents’ house to pick up her dad, who was kind enough to drive us across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Jan. 20-21: Flying back to Buffalo. We departed Sydney Sunday afternoon and arrived Buffalo about the same time Monday afternoon—36 hours later! Going west we had lost Jan. 4; going west to east we got to experience Jan. 20 twice!

Altogether, a truly fabulous trip with a hundred memorable events! More postings about individual episodes before long...

Out and about in Southern California

[Naoyuki and I spent 10 days in Los Angeles and Palm Springs at the end of October / first part of November. Previous reports show up in my November entries; this is the last one on this topic. -- rpj]

Sunday morning in Los Angeles I went to Farmer’s Market for about five minutes. I probably would have hung out a bit longer except that most stuff was closed. For me it’s one of those iconic places. I first became aware of it when I was dating Janet and met her Aunt Boo (actually, Maybel Lyon, ca. 1900-1989), who came to visit Janet’s family (Aunt Boo was Janet’s maternal grandmother’s younger sister) in Pensacola from her home in Park LaBrea. She was already 80 by the time I met her and spent part of every day at Farmer’s Market.

The same day we had Hakata Ramen in Rosemead Naoyuki and I drove up to La Canada-Flintridge to visit Descanso Gardens. Occupying a natural “bowl” in the San Rafael hills, the gardens were established in the late 1930s when E. Manchester Boddy (pronounced “Boh Dee”) purchased the land and started importing camellias, Descanso’s signature feature, by the thousands. We were there at sort of an in between time but it was quite lovely even so.

On Wednesday we went to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels for an organ recital. The Cathedral is an impressively modern facility taking up an entire city block bounded by Temple, Hill, Grand, and the 101 Freeway. Before the concert we had a quick lunch at the Cathedral Plaza Café (aka the Galero Grill.) Under the direction of the Cathedral organist, Sal Soria, the Cathedral regularly offers free organ recitals most Wednesdays at 12:45 p.m. (At this point I’m afraid I’ve misplaced my info about the Swiss organist who performed while we were visiting.) And , yes, it’s a very impressive organ!

Our last morning in Los Angeles we took in the Murakami exhibit at the Geffen Contemporary (a silly name, if you ask me; it’s the MOCA venue in Little Tokyo.) I wasn’t well acquainted with Murakami before the visit and I can’t say, having seen the exhibit, that I’m particularly fond of his stuff, which seeks to flatten the distinction between high art and popular culture. The best thing about it was our tour guide, who, per the way they do things at MOCA, was extremely interactive. (Their emphasis is on “dialogic” tours, not canned presentations.) So we learned a lot from him and he learned a thing or two about Japanese traditions from Naoyuki, who pointed out the in your face nose-thumbing of some of Murakami’s work.

On the way to Palm Springs Thursday afternoon we stopped in Cabazon for about half an hour or so to visit our favorite outlet mall. I say “favorite” but we’ve gone enough times over the past 4 ½ years that I think we’re almost over it. Selection at some of our favorite stores doesn’t seem to be quite as good as it used to be and another fave (Club Monaco) has pulled out of the outlet business, at least in southern California. On the other hand, the new Columbia Sportswear store was nice and we picked up some good bargains there. We went back a couple of days later (Saturday or Sunday) and it was so crowded that we gave up after about 5 minutes!

We did more IN Palm Springs than we usually do, mostly because we were there during nice weather when it was pleasant to be out and about during the day time. We went shopping at Gaymart on Arenas, took in The Living Desert in Palm Desert, and hiked Tahquitz Canyon while the Pride Parade was going on. We also took in the Caballeros’ performance at the Palm Springs Convention Center and went to their after party at Wang’s in the Desert; the latter was amusing mostly because a somewhat tipsy (and handsome) fellow was just all about me, which prompted Naoyuki to assume that the guy was a hustler (from my point of view, he looked like a high school drama teacher, but who knows?) I enjoyed having him show me his non-existent tattoo!

Last but not least, there was our near brush with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, who presumably was ensconced in the big luxury bus in the parking lot of the Palm Springs Art Museum, where he was scheduled to perform that evening at a big museum fundraiser. We got there an hour before closing and the desk staff assumed we were there for the event, although they figured it out when we said “Brian Who?” A very nice collection although we barely skimmed it.

All in all, it was quite a nice vacation!

California: Other Eats


With respect to Los Angeles, food was a determining factor regarding our choice of location. The Miyako isn't the greatest hotel in the world (in fact, our room was downright dumpy) but there are dozens of restaurants, plus a bakery and various dessert places, within a three block restaurant, most of them quite good.

In Little Tokyo, both T.O.T. (Teishokuya of Tokyo) and Sharin (text is Japanese but this link has video) had great sushi. T.O.T. is on 2nd Street between San Pedro and Alameda, Sharin in the same block on 1st Street. Both very small, both very authentic--one reviewer called their offerings "Japanese comfort food." Likewise, we visited Sushi-Gen, in Honda Plaza, corner of 2^nd and Alameda, for an early lunch our last day in Los Angeles. There were already 30 people in line in front of us by the time we showed up at 11 a.m. (the restaurant doesn’t open until 11:30), including three ladies in full kimonos.

In adidtion to sushi, we visited Kappo Ishito, in Weller Plaza (between 1^st and 2^nd between Los Angeles and San Pedro), for kaiseki. I’d never had kaiseki before, which is a multi-course Japanese meal prepared and presented in an almost religious fashion. (The chef was in a kimono with an apron obi and wooden clogs; his THREE assistant chefs basically bowed there heads and worked on repetitive tasks until called into service. Each course came on a different plate, each cup of tea was individually brewed. And for the first half hour we were the ONLY customers in the restaurant!)

No day was complete without a trip to Yamazaki, the Japanese bakery in Little Tokyo Plaza, for pastries (danishes, croissant, fresh doughnuts) and coffee (at least once a day, usually twice!) Likewise, the day we went to Descanso Gardens in La Canada-Flintridge we went by way of Rosemead to check out the noodes at Shinsengumi Hakata Ramen. I think it's quite possible we were the first people from east of the Mississippi River to ever actually visit Rosemead on purpose but the noodles were more than worthwhile even if the shouted greetings and farewells were a bit of a strain on my mental equilibrium.

With the Roswell Park crowd, we ventured up to Glendale's BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse for a truly humongous. Now THAT was entertaining. Huge upscale sports bar, giant flat screen TV’s all over the place, lots of “ooh rah!” every time a favorite team scored a touchdown – and gay disco music blaring on the loudspeakers, which none of the presumably overwhelmingly hetero patrons seemed to notice! Football and Madonna and Abba and, well, golly! The food was rather overwhelming (and not necessarily in a good way.) Tons of pasta, pizza, bread, salad, it never really stopped.

I think all our other dining experiences were covered in the previous post, with the exception of Carrow's, a sort of Southern California version of Denny's, in that it has similar food offerings and draws (for the most part) a similar clientele, i.e., the elderly and/or the morbidly obese. Rather scary, actually, but we were dining with a certain someone who likes to eat BIG!

All in all, we ate quite well, so much so that Naoyuki begged off my suggestion to go have even more sushi at Yukiguni, our favorite sushi place in Niagara Falls, Ontario, on Thanksgiving Day. Instead we will be heading to another fave, the Peller Estates Winery Restaurant in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Yum!

In case you hadn't noticed, we like to eat!

Next: Other Adventures

California Trip: People

The nice thing about having free time AND a car was that I could get out and about. One day I drove out to California State University, Channel Islands meet my friend Steve Stratton, who is Head of Collection Development and Technical Services for the University Library.

CI is the newest branch of the Cal State system and, no, you do not have to take a boat to get there. The campus is actually in Camarillo, tucked away in between the low peaks of the Santa Monica Mountains, smack dab in the middle of Ventura County. Apparently the CSU chancellor decided "Channel Islands" was the best possible name for the campus, despite being on the mainland. (The school occupies the campus of the former State of California Mental Hospital, generically known as "Camarillo," so that wasn't going to work. Likewise, a land deal with Ventura County fell through, so that took care of that option!)

Thanks to Steve I was able to take a tour of their new library which is under construction and due to open in February 2008. In addition to Steve I met Steve’s boss, Paul Adalian, and one of Steve’s faculty colleagues, Manuel Correia. After the tour, Steve and Manuel and I went to a taqueria in Camarillo for a yummy lunch!

I was pleased to meet three online friends, all fellow bodybuilding fans, I’d never met in person before:

Doug lives in West Hollywood a and took me to Gold’s Venice, a place I’ve been fantasizing about (it’s the place they invented bodybuilding, you know) for at least 30 years. Mid-day Sunday apparently is NOT the time to go looking for celebrity bodybuilders, although Dougie did point out one aspiring porn star and I was quick to spot former pro-bodybuilder Tom Prince, who had to retire 2-3 years ago after suffering some illness (bypass surgery?) He is much smaller than he was back in his heyday but still very impressive! Afterwards Doug and I had lunch at the French Quarter Restaurant in West Hollywood. We were there about five minutes before I realized that I'd actually eaten dinner there in early 1994 with my friend Paul Camp, who works at UCLA's Biomedical Library.

Tom lives near LAX and works for a major airline. We’ve been chatting online for years. We got our wires a bit crossed so we didn’t have a chance to work out together but Naoyuki and I met up with him in Venice Beach for a cocktail at the Roosterfish and dinner at the C&O Trattoria. (Nice food, cute waiters!)

Dan is another long-time correspondent who lives in San Francisco. Dan moved to SF from the Dallas area where he was living when Jeremy and I arrived in Houston (1999.) It’s hard to believe it’s taken this long for us to finally connect! Dan was down in Palm Springs for Pride Weekend. We went out for a bite to eat our second night there (Friday), then he and I went to Gold’s Palm Springs to workout together Sunday a.m.

Likewise, while in Palm Springs we made a new friend, John, an erstwhile Canadian now living and working in Chicago. We persuaded him to join us for dinner at one of our favorite places, Haleiwa Joe’s, and explored a new one, El Mirasol, with him. El Mirasol goes on the list as another fave!

Next: Other Eats!

California Trip

I'll do this thematically. The basics:

Naoyuki flew out on Friday, 10/26, and I followed the next day. We spent five days in Los Angeles, five in Palm Springs. That was at the end of the week of the big fires but they were mostly contained by the time Naoyuki arrived and more so when I got there (it rained on Saturday, so that helped.)

Places

In Los Angeles we stayed at the Miyako, a hotel in Little Tokyo, about a mile east of downtown proper. Nice lobby and extremely convenient but our room was petite to say the least and not particularly up-to-date. On the other hand, the Japanese spa was nice, and, as they say:

Location! Location! Location!

The Miyako is right around the corner from Japanese Village Plaza and a block from Weller Plaza, both home to a large array of Japanese shop, eateries, and a bakery. Plus no more than 10-15 minutes (depending on traffic) from the LA Convention Center and easy access to the major freeways in and out of downtown LA.

In Palm Springs we stayed at La Dolce Vita, a relatively new gay men’s resort. This trip was the first time since I started visiting Palm Springs in 2003 (and this was at least our fifth trip since then) that I’ve stayed any place other than INNDulge. Unfortunately, because it was Pride weekend INNDulge wanted a five-night minimum and we only had four nights to spare.

A nice place, La Dolce Vita. In Deepwell, rather than Warm Sands, so in some ways a bit more convenient to restaurants and such. Plus we had a really nice room (suite, actually, with separate bedroom, bathroom, small-but-full kitchen, and living room.) Likewise, staff were very friendly. Drawbacks included the fact that there really was no central gathering area. Unlike INNDulge which has a central courtyard with a big pool and big hot tub right there, LDV has two pools and two hot tubs but they’re all separate and removed from each other. People did gather for the Happy Hour each evening but for the most part they were pretty standoffish, despite our best efforts. (Nice bar, though! They kept us well-supplied!)

Next: People

The California Trip

It was nice but not quite as nice as I had hoped (boo hoo!) The main thing was that the weather in Palm Springs was unseasonably cool (it was actually warmer in Buffalo!) and as soon as we arrived I came down with a bad cold (which was probably just a massive allergy attack but I was running a fever in addition to sneezing / coughing my head off.)

On the other hand...

In Los Angeles for the first time ever I had a chance to do some driving around, just for fun. I spent just one night with Naoyuki (at the Hilton Universal City) but even so managed to drive Sunset Boulevard from Hollywood all the way out to the Pacific Coast Highway, then back to West Hollywood to catch a bite to eat at the Beverly Center. The next morning while Naoyuki was finishing up at his conference I drove up Mulholland Drive and down Laurel Canyon before catching up with him at the convention center. Afterwards we went to Little Tokyo for sushi and a visit to a couple of different Japanese bakeries.

In Palm Springs we visited the Moorten cactus garden, had dinner at Copley's, made a return visit to Joshua Tree National Monument, and did a day trip down to Julian, an old goldrush town up in the mountains between Palm Springs and San Diego. Plus a trip to Cabazon, a couple of other nice restaurants (Edgardo's Cafe Veracruz) and a fair amount of time in the hot tub. Pleasant enough but not spectacularly so (as has been the case previously!) Maybe next time.