It’s become tradition for me to throw one big party every year to mark my birthday. Somehow it has become my annual belated birthday party. 50% on purpose and 50% procrastination. So in any case, we’re on for Saturday September 30th. If you happen to be in town that day please feel free to drop by.

Breakfast! King’s Hawaiian Bakery and Restaurant in Torrance. Good stuff. Afterwards, we headed a little further south to Little Saigon, an awesome Vietnamese community with excellent shopping, and an awesome mall that almost makes you believe you’re shopping in Vietnam. Last year we saw a Buddhist monk who was doing somekind of meditation infront of a large bush in the parking lot. We saw him there again. Apparently he is always there. I wonder if its some sort of pennance.

We did some shopping then returned to Andre and Miriam’s to hang out and relax. We got in touch with my brother and got ourselves invited to a birthday party in West Hollywood. After dinner at a Thai Restaurant, they decided to stay home, so we drove back into LA to meet my brother.

We hit the East West bar. Pretty popular place and quite busy. After some cocktails we moved down the street to The Abbey, where my brother had taken us last year. Overall it was a fun evening.

Kristen’s former ballet student Jaime turned 15 yesterday. Her family is from Mexico. So we were invited to her Quinceañera. This is a big deal in many latin cultures. Basically a coming of age ceremony for the daughter as well as an opprtunity for the family to show off a little bit as well!

Here’s the wikipedia definition:

“The Quinceañera or Quince Años (meaning fifteen years) is, in some Spanish-speaking regions of the Americas, a young woman’s celebration of her fifteenth birthday, which is celebrated in a unique and different way from her other birthdays.

In the Mexican tradition, if the quinceañera is Catholic, the festivities begin with a Thanksgiving Mass (Misa de Acción de Gracias), at which the quinceañera arrives in formal dress (usually white to symbolize purity and innocence), often resembling a wedding dress, accompanied by her parents (padres), godparents (padrinos), a number of maids of honor (primevaras) and chamberlains (chambelanes) ranging in number anywhere from seven to 15 couples. After the Mass, the younger sisters, female cousins and friends of the quinceañera pass out party favors and the quinceañera leaves her bouquet in an altar to the Virgin Mary. The Mass is followed by a party either at the quinceañera’s home or in a banquet hall leased for the occasion. At the party, the quinceañera dances the traditional first waltz with her father and male relatives. Then her boyfriend, or male friend, dances the remaining part of the dance with the birthday girl.”

It was quite a celebration, and the first either of us had been to. Makes me appreciate the cultural diversity of the Bay Area!

A very slow start. But that’s ok. We watched my brother’s place while a handyman came over to work on some renovations he’s doing to his place. Afterwards, we rolled over to the Los Angeles Farmer’s Market. It’s pretty big, and is surrounded by other shopping venues and the CBS television studios.

Inside you can find tons of food shops, bakeries and restaurants. We ate at a little place called Singapore Banana Leaf. Awesome food! And best of all, when I asked for spicy…they gave me spicy!

Eventually we made our way south a bit to Torrance. We hung out at the Del Amo Mall for a bit (parts of Quentin Taratino’s “Jackie Brown” was shot there) and eventually made it to Andre & Miriam’s house.

After spending a mellow morning at my brother’s condo, we headed across Los Angeles towards the Pacific Ocean. LA’s freeway’s are crazy and infamous for its bad traffic congestion, but at around 1pm it wasn’t that bad. We made it to Malibu in about 30 minutes.

We had a huge lunch at Fiesta Feast. Fantatastic Mexican food! Strangeley the owner apparently met Ronald Reagan somewhere, and there’s an autpgraphed picture of him with Ronald Reagan.

Anyway, after an excellent lunch, we finally made it to our destination, The Getty Villa. (continue reading…)