Los Angeles: Return to New York

Our flight home leaves at 12:40, so we have just enough time to pack and eat breakfast leisurely.

We decide to walk up the hill they call Palm Street to Sunset for breakfast. Once up the hill, we reject the counter-style coffee-and-pastry places and realize we don’t have time to wander far.

The walk downhill is much easier and I enjoy the palm trees and the simple red flowers I’ve seen all over Los Angeles. I’m not sure what they are called. Close up, they are simple, but clusters of them create a magnificent swath of color.

I will remember those flowers, manicured lawns and the landscaped yards as the classic Los Angeles image in my mind.

Burbank, California: Warner Brothers Studios

Gene and I eat breakfast in the Le Petite Hotel’s roof garden. The dainty buffet counter offers lox, dill and capers on tiny bagels, scrambled frittata with mushroom and zucchini, muffins, and fruit.

A muffin made its way onto my plate—during the few seconds I blacked out—but it wasn’t the sweet, dessert kind. Vacations will do that to me—I wouldn’t touch a muffin with a ten-foot pole in real life.

Cousin Bill invites us to visit Warner Brothers Studios today where he is working. Our names are at the special visitor’s gate and we are instructed to park in special Parking Lot V. Having a Parking Lot V implies there are Parking Lots A thru U and underscores the vastness of Warner Brothers.

Bill and his colleagues are waiting for a revised version of the movie he is working on, so the version he received yesterday is useless. In his hurry-up-and-wait vocation, Bill has time to walk us around the lot. When we were in LA a few years ago, we took the official WB tour, but now we get a behind-the-scenes tour. We see the ER sets being torn down, since the final episode just aired.

Bill shows us the parking spaces belonging to the bigwigs. To a WB employee, this hierarchy is important to know. Bill points out the former offices of the Hollywood mogul and studio founder Jack Warner, and the bungalow where Clint Eastwood works, and of course, Clint’s parking spaces.

After Warner Brothers, we do some quick shopping at the Beverly Center, a huge mall just a mile from our hotel.

Bill recommended a Japanese restaurant to us, but we are tired and decide to go to the rooftop one more time for dinner. We have a cocktail shaker of Calamari with a sweet red sauce, and tomato-and-mozzarella skewers. I have Penne Pomodoro and Gene has a slab of Ahi Tuna with a sauce of avocado bits, olives and tomatoes in a vinaigrette sauce. This meal is worth replicating at home, if we can.

Los Angeles: Babimbop in Koreatown

Gene and I are meeting his cousin Bill and Bill’s girlfriend Aura in Koreatown for dinner. The restaurant is seven miles away and we decide to take a taxi so we can enjoy drinks with dinner.

The Beverly Hills Cab Co. taxi waits outside our hotel behind a long, gray limo intended for the couple we shared the elevator with. The blonde girl spoke of the scenes she has to shoot tomorrow and I wonder if she is a big actress. In Los Angeles, anyone or everyone may be an actor or star.

As we ride out to Koreatown, we pass “malls” look like office buildings, reminiscent of many buildings we saw in South Korea. Each mall level has signs all around the perimeter of the building, but no display windows.

We meet Bill and Aura at the Beverly Soon Tofu House, decorated in Korean-rustic. They are waiting for us with a spread of side dishes on the table. Aura offers us some of her jug of Barley Tea. I order two Sojus, but I forgot that Soju is the strong vodka-like drink and not the semi-sweet wine drink I thought it was. “(Bek se ju” is the Korean wine drink that I couldn’t think of.)

Aura asks me if I like Babimbop, and I think it is the dumplings we got at the little Korean storefront in Changwon. Turns out, Babimbop is a big bowl of salad fixings with a fried egg on top. I copy Aura as she adds a sweet red sauce, rice and soy sauce to the salad and tosses it up with her chopsticks. We also get a bubbling soup in which the waitress cracks a raw egg, one-handed. We ordered it medium-spicy, but it is still too spicy for our taste.

Gene and Bill spend the dinner riffing from topic to topic, making segues that only make sense to them, but they are having so much fun, it is great to watch.

Los Angeles: Burke Williams Spa

I have waited five years to return to Burke Williams, the sumptuous California spa chain. Five years ago on my birthday, I scheduled a basic $99 facial at Burke Williams on Sunset.

The experience was finer than any facial I’ve had at Bliss or anywhere. On the bed with a cooling mask on my face and my parrafim-waxed hands inside terry oven mitts, I thought I must be getting the deluxe package. Whatever this cost, I would pay it. It was my birthday, after all. But the mind-blowing pampering was the $99 facial after all.

Today I make an appointment for a basic facial (now $105) and a half-hour Japanese Shiatzu massage. Only my second massage, I’m not sure the difference between Shiatzu and the massage I got at Milk and Honey in Austin.

I am led down the carpeted corridor and into the lush spa area. I am given a robe and slippers and I consider a dunk in the Jacuzzi, but a nude woman leans against the wall with her feet in the water. I can’t see what she is doing with her hands.

I opt for a few minutes in the Quiet Room instead. The long, narrow Quiet Room holds a row of pods with plush seats the size of a first-class airline seat with rounded seclusion barriers. I sink into the end pod and start writing in my journal. The stillness reminds me how infrequently I experience true quiet and I am able to write quickly. But too soon, it is time to go into the main lounge and meet my facial technician.

The main lounge is like a dark, cozy living room with plush couches and a fireplace. Melka, my technician, retrieves me after only a minute or two. She examines my skin and notices a little dryness, a few broken capillaries, a little sun damage on the sides, but overall I get a favorable review. She talks me into a peel ($20). Under the warm blanket and hearing her expert, soothing voice, she can talk me into anything at this moment.

She advises a separate moisturizer with an overlay of sunscreen no less than SPF 30. She also suggests a Vitamin C serum. After the pampering (I am blocking the few extractions she did), I go to my massage.

The masseuse, a small Japanese man gives me a choice of pressure. Like picking the heat of your salsa, medium always seems a safe choice. The Shiatsu feels good, a lot of pressing on a single point. After the service, I shower and step into one of the Jacuzzis since the busy nude woman and everyone else is gone.

After another great spa experience, the California sunshine feels like it is warming a worthy being. Leaving Bliss in New York and hitting the crowded noisy sidewalk, some of the newly purchased bliss gets left behind.

Los Angeles: Le Petite Hotel

We move at a crawl down the long Santa Monica Blvd, looking for our turn-off, San Vincente. We booked a room at Le Petite Hotel, a boutique hotel on residential Cynthia Street, a few blocks from Sunset and close to Lily’s apartment.

The hotel entrance is framed by a semi-stained glass awning with floral curves against clear glass. The garage door is hidden behind a blanket of ivy. The actor/desk clerk stands behind a rich, dark-wood topped counter in a tiny lobby. He wears a vaudevillian jacket of black and white vertical stripes. Wooden cubbies—old-fashioned room key holders—line the wall behind the desk.

Original paintings, one after another, fill the walls going down the corridors, which are painted with gold-leaf curlicues. The room doors are covered in puffy orange leather and the room numbers are branded onto a leather rectangle.

Our room has a dining nook with a refrigerator, sink and counter top. The sunken sleeping area is a step down and a tiny wrought-iron railing separates the two, making the room feel like an apartment. The bathroom is tiled in tiny squares of green shades. The bathroom vanity is the only piece that doesn’t work for me, painted a distressed blue-green with yellow knobs.

Lily comes by to pick us up for dinner and to have a look-see at the hotel. We walk up to the roof of the four-story building. We walk around the elevated saltwater pool and its orange lounge chairs, white umbrellas and some orange cushioned chaises as large as double beds. There is a sunken cocktail level area that has heat poles for chilly nights.

A garden restaurant runs along one side of the building.

California: Foggy Santa Barbara

We are 240 miles from Los Angeles and we are eager to get there early to spend time with Gene’s cousin and our friend Lily. We fortify ourselves with the complimentary breakfast at the Pelican Cove Inn, serving hot food as well as pastries and toast. Though not fancy, the Pelican Cove Inn takes good care of its customers.

We drive past the Harmony Cellars Winery in San Luis Obispo and remember the lovely wine we had last night.

We plan to have lunch in Santa Barbara today, but it is too early to eat when we approach town. We will just walk down the pier, we think. Getting off the highway is confusing. There is Carrillo, Cabrillo and Castillo streets.

We park in an open lot and start walking toward the pier. The weather is cold, foggy and clammy and we are not getting an impression of the real Santa Barbara. Under the fog is a beautiful seaside town, but it is not making an appearance for us today. At this point, I just want a bathroom and a Starbucks. We settle for a gas station for both needs.

On the highway near Ventura, we see a huge shopping mall. So huge, the mall is more like a little city. We are trying to get back on Highway 101 after the gas stop, but we end up on the service road that parallels the highway. We wind through the mall-city.

We wonder if this Ventura Highway of the 1972 hit song by America. Is it Ventura Boulevard? Ventura Avenue? Ventura Street? Most likely, it’s Ventura Freeway.

We are coming upon LA fast and, anxious to get there, we decide to skip Highway 1 through Malibu. I may regret the shortcut later, but today I am tired and focused on our destination.

The Getty Museum

Conde Nast Traveler recently named twelve iconic architects and their most iconic buildings. Of the list of twelve buildings, I have seen three.

I visited one of the three, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, in December, 2001. (Click on the photo for a larger image.) Not a single photo could capture the essence of the place. But this photo is my favorite, though it only shows a slice of the building.

The museum is high in the hills and you take a train from the parking lot to get to the museum and gardens. The Getty is almost more about the gardens than it is about the art. In fact, I didn't look at one piece of art inside. We just enjoyed the beautiful outdoor surroundings on a warm, late December day.

Architect Richard Meier also designed Avery Fisher Hall and the Museum of Television and Radio, both in New York.