So what have I done with the four full days I have here? Quite a bit. I wanted this to be a relaxing break, but I've been very busy. It has been nice to be busy with fun things though. Where the only things to be worried about are what to and eat next. Where I say what I want to do and other people drive me around. Thank you so much everybody for giving me some of your time. I know how busy you all are with work and there are other people you want to spend time with.
The visit didn't start off too well. After a five hour wait for my flight to LA, my plane ended being an hour late due to a late arrival. Then, they didn't give me any free food so I was starving by the time I got to LA! I completely forgot how bad service was on American Airlines. Luckily my aunt was there to pick me up, and take me down to Little Saigon for pho. mmmm. I had made a plan not to eat anything but Asian food out for the visit, and this was a great start. *grins*
Saturday was spent with one of the guys I met at UCLA while I was on exchange and his girlfriend. It could have been very awkward since I had never met his girlfriend, but it wasn't too bad. We started our time together with a late dim sum lunch, which was very tasty and totally within my Asian food plan. *smiles*
Then we went to Griffith Observatory, which I wanted to go to in the past, but it had been under renovations for years. Being free, there weren't too many fun hands-on exhibits, though there were heaps of rotating spheres explaining day and night, seasons, tides, moon phases. And there was the newest wall showing a small part of one of the sky surveys, which was cool. It is amazing that we only see a very small fraction of what is actually out there with our own eyes, and some of us don't see anything most of the time anyway due to weather or light pollution.
But the exhibit that I actually learnt something from was a very simple one. They had a wall, with information about each of the planets, with a set of scales for each one, showing what you would weigh on the planet. Now, it was a little misleading since they also only gave how much more the planets weighs compared to Earth and it's volume, but not it's radius. And it turns out that only on Jupiter would you feel substantially heavier than you do on Earth, everywhere else, the weight of the planet doesn't scale as it needs to do much the radius, since gravity is proportional to mass divided by radius squared. Even more amusing, while we were going around and trying to figure out why we were so light on the other planets, another guy kept telling us that "weight doesn't have to do with mass, but with how fast the planet is rotating". We had to work very hard to keep straight faces as he told us this for the third or fourth time. *grins*
The other reason I wanted to go to the observatory was for the view over the LA basin. Here it is in all it's glory. Isn't the urban sprawl and smog lovely? I couldn't even see the ocean! You could see hills and the Hollywood sign in the other direction though, which was kind of cool. It is kind of scary how dry and barren the hills are though. I guess it's to be expected since the area is a semi-desert.
After the observatory, we hung out at a coffee shop before it was time to go to the next attraction, which was the LA production of Wicked, the musical. I've wanted to see this ever since my sister and I were in New York and it was playing there, but it was too soon after it was opened so it wasn't possible to get half price tickets yet and there were so many other shows on that we wanted to see. Then it just opened in Melbourne as I was leaving for Switzerland last month, and I was worried it wouldn't be playing by the time I got home. I quite enjoyed the musical, despite going with two people who had already seen it before and for whom the story wasn't surprising and kept comparing the performers to the recording and other production. I liked the twists and turns of the storyline, which I won't discuss here in case I spoilt it for anybody, but was slightly disappointed in the quality of the performers (not really in tune) and the production (microphones levels were off). I was also having issues staying awake due to the lack of sleep during the previous couple of nights.
Phew. That was only Saturday... Still three more full days to go!
Sunday was family, which started with a late breakfast, even though all of us were up early, none of us realised the others were up. We then went kayaking in the Naples Canals, starting at the bay.We rowed to the end of a canal to see the moon jellyfish which like to congregate there. Just like in Finding Nemo, the tops of their bells aren't poisonous, so you can reach down and touch them. I even picked one up! But I think that might not have been a good idea as it didn't move again once I put it back in the water. But then, it didn't sting me, like it's supposed to, so maybe it wasn't alive to start off with... *blushes*
It was so nice to be in the sun and on the water. I had forgotten how hard rowing was, particularly against the current, but luckily for me, my Uncle wanted his exercise and was happy to do most of the work. *grins* On the way back, we saw his brother out with his little sailing boat, and I was able to get a ride.
There I am, balancing on the front of the boat. I was quite worried about it capsizing, since both of them told me that that was a real possibility with the extra weight at the front. Luckily, that didn't happen, and I stayed relatively dry and didn't even get hit by the boom. It was fun, I kind of would have liked to try steering the boat myself, but we didn't really have the time to and I didn't want to wreak the boat. I felt quite spoilt really, getting driven around in my Uncle's MX5 (Miata in the States) with the top down *grins* then going on a shiny new sailboat.
After the fun was duty time, and we went to visit my grandparents and cousins. This is always an awkward visit for me, since I can't communicate properly with my grandparents, I can understand their Vietnamese, but they can't understand me, since they don't know English and I speak very little Vietnamese. Nevertheless, it was nice to see my grandmother and my grandfather again, who just had a stroke a couple of years back and is slowly recovering, but has trouble talking and walking. They both looked happy to see me, but they definitely weren't as vocal about it as my cousins, who remembered who I was and were glad to see me, at least the younger two at any rate. They were surprisingly older and taller than I remembered, and so were less annoying. I think they were glad for some new source of amusement since they had been stuck at home all summer holidays, and kept inviting me over to play later. I kind of wish I could have, but I already had plans for my other days in LA. I don't think I would have had the energy to keep up with them though.
After dinner with them and some of my other relatives, my relatives dropped me off at another friend's parent's place and we drove to his place in Santa Barbara, which is where he now goes to physics graduate school. It was quite a contrast going from his parent's place to the his place, which he shares with four other physics grad students, going from neat and clean, to not so neat and clean. We played some Rock Band, which was quite fun, particularly the drums. Unfortunately, I didn't know most of the songs, meaning that I couldn't do the singing part for many of them.
Monday was basically spent at the beach, two different ones, with a lunch break between as well as a tour of UCSB. Situated between a small mountain range and the coast, Santa Barbara is a very pretty place, with Spanish influenced architecture in the download area and lots of palm trees. But I wasn't there for the place, I was there for the beach.
So we started out going to the beach nearer to my friend's place, where you park at the end of the road and take a walk through some trees and shrubbery until you reach a small cliff and look for a non-eroded path down. The area was very pretty, bad the beach was a little disappointing due to the morning mist, which hadn't cleared off yet, so the water looked all grey and the oil rig and boat in the distance wasn't very picturesque at all. We hung out there for a while and I amused myself playing at the water's edge, trying not to get wet and watching a group of birds doing the same, though they weren't playing, they were trying to eat bugs in the sand in between waves. They looked quite funny running up and down the sand all the time *grins*
On the way back to the car, we took a different path, which took us by a whole group of eucalyptus trees, and I couldn't help taking this photo because if I didn't know better, I would have thought it was taken in Australia somewhere. It is kind of weird being back in LA. It's at the same time familiar and foreign.
We then tried to find a Japanese place with was open for lunch after 2pm, which I thought in the US wouldn't have been a problem, but I forgot that we were in a small town. We eventually found one open and snuck in before they closed, and then ate so slowly that they kept hinting for us to leave, which we mostly ignored.
After lunch, we went to UCSB. I do not know how anybody does any work done there. The campus has the best location. It has its own beach, is bordered on three sides by coastline and has it's own lagoon. And since it's in Southern California, it supposedly only rains ten days a year. This is reflected in the building design. The normal physics building actually has balconies for corridors, which would not be possible in anywhere wetter or colder. The university also has a separate Institute for Theoretical Physics, which has a very impressive building situated almost right on the edge of the cliff. The building is built around a courtyard, with the academic's offices facing out and the postdocs and students facing in. There are random backboards in the corridors and a very nice 'contemplation' room facing the ocean. Quite a difference compared with the normal physics building where my friend doesn't get any natural light in his office.
After driving around and looking at the ocean from inside, it was hard to resist its call, and it was time to go to the beach again. This time, one which was easier to get to, the one right next to the university campus. See those buildings in the background of the photo? That's the uni! People must get desensitised after a while and the beach isn't so special anymore.
So that was Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday were fairly quiet, driving back to LA, with some factory outlet and ordinary shopping along the way, Korean BBQ dinner with my relatives (yum!) and meeting up with my friend again, before coming here where I'm about to board the plane.
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