Happy Birthday, PillowMan

And we're the same age now :) Yes, the Pillow is a little bit younger than me by months and he is my first boyfriend to be younger than me. He may be younger yet he is very mature. 

Gosh I love you.

"You put your arms around me and I'm home" - Christina Perri

We couldn't celebrate on the day of the birthday (I was off but he had to work) so we decided to spend some time in Los Angeles over the weekend. It's nice to spend some quality time together with your other half in another place, out of each other's comfort zone. Being local tourists is a fun way to explore your city, and also a cool way to explore your love between each other. 

We had dinner at Water Grill on Grand St on DTLA. The vibe is chill yet classy. Mainly seafood, the food choices are brilliant (if you love seafood), from oysters to lobsters to fancy fishes. Oh and the wine list is exquisite. Crazy. The service was good and our waitress is so cute with her squeaky voice. 

The Pillow's appetizer. I hurled.

Meanwhile, I chowed down a nice bowl of Clam Chowder. Seriously, this thing was business. So good.

I ordered Fish & Chips and it was yummy, while Rob ordered Halibut.

We also had brunch at Pete's Cafe & Bar on Main St in DTLA. I really love the art deco of this place. Tall ceilings with black & white pictures of Los Angeles hanging on the walls. There is an outdoor patio too if you care to enjoy the street views of DTLA.

I ordered Santa Barbara Smoked Salmon Benedict that was AMAZING. The combo of the smokiness of the salmon with the creamy hollandaise sauce plus the melted egg yolk was phenomenal. PillowMan liked it a lot. 

The Pillow ordered Coconut French Toast. I didn't get to taste some (I was crying inside because I have been bad by eating bread the night before; going GF here...), he said it was delicious. It look delicious to me. Damn.

Then we decided to walk around downtown. Enjoying the nice fall breeze. It's pretty awesome to see the "quiet Sunday" side of Los Angeles. Seeing old buildings always fascinates me, making me think on the history of each building. 

Angel Knoll's/Angel Flights, home of that famous bench from (500) Days of Summer. It looked pretty dead because of the no leaves due to Autumn.

Pershing Square.

I'm glad that we were able to celebrate The Pillow's birthday. We were this close on not celebrating at all because he was supposed to be in Switzerland again for work. At least we celebrated one of us's birthday together this year (we didn't celebrated mine because he was overseas this past April).

Well, my Boo, thanks for being you. For being in my life. For being an amazing person. Happy Birthday.

xoxo,
Rima

Hollywood

Oh yes. The benefit of living nearby big cities, especially Los Angeles, you are within driving distance to some famous Landmark.

I've lived in SoCal for over than 10 years and yet I haven't hiked up the hills to see that infamous Hollywood sign. And of course I had this lyric in my head when I saw it, "Look to my right and I see the Hollywood sign" *cookie points if you know what song I'm referring about*

So the Pillow & I decided to do so this past weekend. My thighs are still sore -_-

For a non-hiker like me, it was doable but I did had to stop several times. The first part was a pretty hike (then again, I am a weak-sauce) but then it was flat surface. And the wind was pretty breezy, so twas nice. There were tons of horse poops laying around but it didn't bother me at all. Playing local tourist is fun. We need to do more of these local touristy stuff :)

I used this website for information to hike.

Are there places in your town that you haven't visit yet?

xoxo,
Rima

I'm starting to get that local nomadic itch

I live nearby El Lay, Los Angeles, City of Angels, La La Land, LA! Yet I loathe going to LA because of the traffic. 101 HWY sucks ass.

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Well actually not that nearby... More like a 40 minute drive WITHOUT traffic. With traffic, depends... 80 - 100 minutes average. Yuck.

Anyways, a couple of weeks ago, I went to LA via Metrolink with my buddy, Helga, to apply for our Indonesian Visas. And I completely fell in love with the train commute. Yes, the amount of time spent in train vs car may be equivalent, BUT Oh dear... I don't have to worry about:

1. Traffic
2. Falling asleep in traffic
3. Looking for Parking
4. Paying for Parking and Gas
5. Dealing with crossing pedestrians
6. Yelling to the crossing pedestrians

You get what I'm saying, right? Meanwhile during that same amount of time in the train I can:

1. Sleep
2. Eat
3. Text and make a phone call, legally
4. Read and/or blog
5. Knit/Crochet/Cross-Stitch/Embroidery
6. Stare at the window and look at people's ugly backyards passing by
7. Eavesdrop into people's conversation and judge them without looking at them
8. Do a staring contest with the kid across from you

Pretty legit, eh? Maybe one drawback is you can't sing out loud like you're in your car...

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Especially when you're listening to your iPod and your favorite Backstreet Boys song comes out. Damn.

Anyways... I told myself, "GURL... You've been doing subways whenever you're on vacation, why not do it locally?" I was like, "gurrrlll you know whaaatttt..." *selfhighfive*

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So this past Memorial Day weekend, aka Sunday, I embarked on a quicky trip to Los Angeles via Metro. With $10 roundtrip, I can't complain. My friend, Nneka, tagged along. She was late to the station so she ended up meeting me at Union Station and we headed out for some foodie trip.

credit: rima 

credit: rima

My original plan was to just venture out in Little Tokyo. It was already afternoon and we was hunngggrraaaay so we searched for some Sushi. Mind you, we had "American" Sushi in our head so when we landed at Sushi Go 55, we were pretty bummed, esp. when we were starving. Nneka was craving some Mexican Rolls. We kinda forgot that we were in Little Tokyo. So their sushis are the traditional kind. Since we sat down and got water, we didn't want to be rude so we ordered Cali Rolls and Spicy Tuna Rolls & Edamame. It was good. I was so hungry, I didn't take a picture.

Randomly Nneka wanted to go to Little Ethiopia and I was like, "YEAH!!! Let's go!!!" as I munched on my rolls. Then she blurted out, "But I want Cuban..."So we opened up Yelp, and then I saw Mario's. I was like, "GURRRLLL you gotz to try Mario's on Melrose!!!!! It's Peruvian, though?" I showed her the menu and she was sold.

Before hitting Mario's, my ultimate goal for this mini foodie trip was to try out some "roti" (means bread in Indo) from Cafe Dulce in the Japanese Village. Go on and Yelp it. The pictures will make you drool. I opted for the Green Tea Roti and Green Tea Donut (which I gave to my lovely bro). Nneka got Snowball Roti & Strawberry Cream Donut. The roti was so good. Crumbly yet soft. If only I had a cup of coffee, I would dunk the bread... and eat 3 more.

Green Tea Roti & Green Tea Donut

credit: rima

Now Mario's... Mmm Mmm... Be prepared for some serious waiting-in-line... oh and parking hunt. We parked nearby another strip mall, hoping that we won't get a ticket. Mario's was one of the first "ethnic" restaurants that the Pillow took me when we first started dating. I believe he was trying to impress me with his foodie choices, and he did. Harhar. Since then, I've been hooked on Peruvian food (our favorite is in Costa Mesa called Inca Grill). So Nneka & I stood there in line for 45 minutes. We were thissssss close on giving up and wanted to head on to La Cienega to eat at Versailles (since she mentioned Cuban food earlier), thank God the host called our name. We were giddy. 

Of course, we both ordered Lomo Saltado. If you never had Lomo Saltado... Gurl, you must try! Stir-fried steak strips with bell pepper, tomato, onions AND french fries (yes fries!) with a side of white rice (I believe it's flavored too!) and squirt some of that spicy green sauce... and Inca Cola... You're good.

 Nneka said it was worth the wait. I was like, "hell yea". After making our bellies happy, we headed back to Union Station so I can catch the train back.

See, now that I'm full of shit, I don't have to worry about falling asleep behind the wheel, stuck in traffic. I get to stare at people's ugly backyards and doze off. Best feeling ever.

DTLA is FULL of restaurants and cafes, I'm determine to go back, AGAIN, by train, just to eat. Eat walk eat walk. Must compensate the calories I put in me, ya know?

bunny kisses,
Rima