We flew into LA on Saturday and drove to Newport Beach, about 1.5 hours south of LA. My parents had driven from Portland on Friday and crashed in Donald’s rent controlled studio and then the next day, headed to LA from there.
We found our rental and got settled in – Edda slept so well in our beach house. We were just a block from the beach.
On Sunday, Andy and Liz came to Newport Beach from Claremont. We went kayaking in the inland waterways, not the ocean side.
After the kayaking, we all headed to the beach.
After lunch, Dave came from San Diego. We went to the fun zone: air hockey, skee ball, etc.
Ferris wheel:
Dave stayed for dinner and we talked about ice cream – a lot. He’s doing a systematic review of all the Ben and Jerry’s flavors. My mother and Dave talked about their various fluid dynamics PhD topics.
Monday was San Gabriel valley day. We went to Caltech where we were lucky to say hello to both of our graduate school advisors. I thought professors went out of town in August, but they were both there having meetings with graduate students and post docs. The students all look so young! We reinacted our first kiss on the side steps of the department. Uh, slightly embarrassing.
Off to the Huntington Gardens.
To Rose Hill cemetery, the resting spot of my paternal grandparents. We swept the tombs and cleared them of overgrown grass. It’s a nice spot. We gave them some roses. Donald and I talked about our visits with them and our cousins during summer vacations of our youth.
To the Verizon store where we thought about converting my parents over to smart phones. (We are going to do it! Not now though. Thanksgiving.)
Went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant where we saw my cousin Caroline who was 15 at our wedding and is now an assistant professor at UCLA in urology. When did that happen?! Anyways, she’s doing a public webinar sometime soon where I can sign in and ask her questions on Twitter. I don’t have a Twitter account, but I might have to start one just to ask her all my important urology questions.
The next day, we went to the Getty with Charlotte. The Getty was amazing, I’ve always wanted to go but when I lived in LA, it was newly open and so popular, you had to make reservations way in advance. They have little iPods loaded with information, not only from the curators, but also sometimes from the artists themselvs. I only listened to a few of them because I wanted to talk to Charlotte, but someday I’ll go with nobody and just listen to the commentary and look at all the art.
We had a nice lunch in LA and then instead of going to the Science museum, we went and bought my parents a Tesla. OK, no, we didn’t buy them a Tesla. We just tried out a Tesla.
Then we ditched Donald at the airport so he could go home and do some work and make some money so that he can buy a Tesla for the rest of us.
The next day, Vince had a double ear infection, so we took him to the Minute Clinic. This is the third time this summer. He’s never had trouble with ear infections in his life and this summer, he just looks at water and both ears get infected. We are going to run through all the types of antibiotics.
I was worried that we were at the beach, but unable to go to the beach because our most enthusiastic beach go-er was down for the count and therefore, a bit at a loss of what to do, but the Minute Clinic was just 2 miles away from this Ramen place that had over 2000 reviews on yelp. At first, I was a little nervous because it was in the food court of a grocery store, but the minute we stepped in, it was like we were instantaneously transported back to Singapore.
Vince with his Asian pose and a Totoro backpack.
To-to-ro, totoro. To-to-ro, totoro.
That night, we went out to a restaurant in Newport Beach where we snagged dinner during happy hour. My mom got lost at the beach on Sunday and had to be rescued by handsome lifeguards in a pickup truck. This made her happy. I got her a lifeguard shirt which made me happy.
On our final day, we managed to squeeze in an hour-long visit with Julia and the kids hung out in her back yard playhouse on our way out to catch our flight.
Jeremy and Julia were excited to talk about bus rapid transit and the new Metro line nearby. LA has a subway!
