Jan 22 2008
US visit brief recap
FYI when cutting into the biscuit top it looked like I was renacting the sinking of the titanic…
About my trip - I suspect it’s very apparent that I had a wonderful time and was very busy laying around and eating given I haven’t posted anything. We went one weekend-like time to a beautiful beach near Hearst Castle and stayed in a room with big sliding glass windows that looked out onto the ocean…you could actually lay in bed and see it from there…We also ate large quantites of food, including the following:
sushi, non-vodka, seafood (oysters rockefeller, whitefish, shrimp scampi, scallops), a frozen hot chocolate as big as my head with a shot of espresso and with spices that was probably my caloric intake for the day, peking-ish duck, cannolis, tiramisu, eclairs, scones, latte after latte after mocha, philly cheese steak, salads (omg, at least 4 times), brats, chorizo and eggs, lamb stew, the best tacos in LA, a chili relleno that looked like a jelly donut and was sad, other mexican food, garlic naan and chicken tikka masala, pizza, goat cheese, juices, spanikopita, a gyro, smoothies, americanized chinese food (orange chicken, crab rangoons), chinese bbq (and chinese broccoli!), dim sum, bubble tea, cuban food, calzone, pad thai, popcorn, multi-layer bean dip, baklava, and bunches of christmas cookies sent to us.
Aaand…I’d say virtually all of that is not available in Khovd, and maybe 3 of the above items are available in UB. It was *amazing*. Sadly, though, I ran out of time to eat either donuts or in-and-out. And of the above, I pretty much only ate each item once when I was capable of eating em so much more often…
Much of this food list comes from the ALA conference in Philadelphia. There is a market downtown next to a metro station that is unreal - thus how I could eat spanikopita, peking duck, and cannoli in one meal then a philly cheese steak and an eclair in the same day later. They also sold produce and every sausage, dry and fresh, known to mankind, I think, and there were Amish stalls on saturday. People there don’t seem too mean like further north, and the downtown at least is cute, historically beautiful, and walkable. And I don’t think it’s that cold all things considered. Bonnie thought so too, so maybe we’ll visit again sometime to just check things out.
We saw the venice beach’s new year’s fireworks from her rooftop patio while sipping champagne. Very cool.
I also got to ride my bike a lot - from Bonnie’s place down to Marina del Rey and back, which we guessed was about 15 miles. But my ass certainly hurt afterward. I’m afraid I kept Bonnie from jogging too much, so I hope she can get back up to speed for her 10k, but we found out there’s a marathon and half-marathon in the Gobi in Mongolia, so maybe Bonnie will do that around the time I wrap up 
Random note: the cut-out cans I use for biscuit cutters could double as crumpet cooking containers as long as I didn’t mind making only 2 crumpets at a time…
I also saw UCLA’s campus, which is really neat and has cool features - like, say, an arcade with DDR Supernova 2 or Extreme or something. Across from the Jamba Juice, no less. Bonnie’s coworkers are nice and competent, and thus it was nice to meet them too. I’m glad she’s working somewhere where they encourage working beyond the status quo and I think she’ll have some great mentors there. Plus some of em bake cupcakes.
Overall the time went by far too fast - with my 2 day delay from even getting out of UB, I think I could’ve really had more quality time, but even then I bet I’d wish I could stay longer.
