A Quick Weekend in LA
Last week, I mentioned to a friend that I was “just heading to L.A.” for the weekend, and he sarcastically responded, “Oh, is that it? No big deal.” To me, it’s just hopping home, the city where I grew up, for the weekend, but there are probably some of you who haven’t been, so I’m going to recap my quick two days there and share some of my favorite places. And by the way, there isn’t any board gaming in this post. Stay tuned for next week instead!
Los Angeles is a 5- to 6-hour drive from Phoenix so it’s easy to make a weekend visit. For this trip, I wanted to hang out with family and my best friend, who was in L.A. for a work trip. She arrived Saturday morning, and we had lunch with my family at Shabuya, a shabu-shabu place. For those who don’t know what shabu shabu is, it’s an Asian restaurant where you order thinly sliced cuts of meat and/or seafood, along with vegetables and noodles, and you cook it in a yummy broth of your choice right at your table. You can also hit up the sauce bar to mix and match a bunch of flavors to dip your cooked meats into. It’s fabulous.
My bestie and I then visited the Getty Museum. Admission is free at the Getty; you only pay for parking, which is $15 — or $10 after 3 p.m. We arrived after 3 p.m. and stayed until closing at 9 p.m. Upon parking, you take a little tram to the top of the mountain, where the Getty sits. The views from up there are spectacular. You can look west toward Santa Monica and the ocean, and if you look east, you can see all the way to downtown L.A. There’s a large central garden that separates the buildings where you can just lounge on the grassy knoll and take in that sea air.
The big exhibit right now is “Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World,” which included a bunch of ancient pottery, a sarcophagus and a mummy.
When the Getty closed, we drove back to downtown L.A. to visit The Last Bookstore. I love, love bookstores and try to visit local places every chance I get. The Last Bookstore is a gem. Tucked away in the heart of downtown, this two-story story has new and used books alike. The bottom floor is large and wide open with couches spread out across the floor, while the second floor is built like a labyrinth of random nooks and crannies opening up into more hidden rooms.
Parking for The Last Bookstore is usually street parking, but on a Saturday night, spots were nonexistent. So we ended up paying $10 for lot parking a few blocks away. Since we paid for parking the whole night, we decided to walk to Perch for some drinks. Perch, right next to Pershing Square, is a two-story French restaurant with a rooftop lounge and bar. The views here were also excellent.
The crowd was pretty eclectic, so you know that the place was fun and didn’t cater to one type of clientele. We drank Spicy Concombres, which had Damrak Gin, St. Germain, lime juice, cucumber and jalapeno. They were strong and spicy!
We called it a night after some drinks, and some even later late-night pizza at a random joint in Little Tokyo. The next day we drove into Orange County to hit up Newport Beach for some morning sun and freezing-cold water. And we saw dolphins!
Around noon, we grabbed lunch at Barley Forge, a brewery in Costa Mesa. We ordered food and a flight to sample their beers, as it was my first time going there. The highlights: the Non Nom (a hefeweizen with hints of mango, which is so refreshing!) and The Patsy (a stout that is brewed with coconut. Amazing, if you love coconut!).
And with that, it was time to drive back to Phoenix. I had a lovely weekend with my bestie. She lives in Texas, and our yearly girls’ trip got canceled last year because of Hurricane Harvey, so it was nice to catch up again this weekend, even if it was a short — but action-packed — trip. So if you made it down here, I hope you enjoyed this quick recap of some of my favorite places in L.A. Back to your regularly scheduled board gaming entries next week!
