We have a date!

So we finally have a date for our moving to Libya: September 8th.

We'll take a 16 hour flight to London, and then from there, head to Libya.

Now, whenever we say that we are going to Libya, people generally freak out, so let me inform you a little of what we are going to.

First, check out their amazing flag.

Now, you might be thinking there's something wrong with your browser, but it really is only one color. That's it.

Next, it's the place where the hottest temperature was officially recorded at a whopping 136 degrees in the shade. (Although, this is official recordings. It may have gotten hotter elsewhere, but not officially.) I don't think we'll be experiencing that kind of heat since we'll be along the coast.

It also has one of the highest per capita income of the African countries, mostly due the loads of oil they have there. If we were going to be driving while there, it would probably be very cheap to fill up.

And there's lots more to know, but we don't know them yet. We'll keep you updated as we learn more.

A Beautiful Day in Our Neighborhood

We realized that with our leaving soon, no one was going to be able to experience our little neighborhood in Little Tokyo. So, we decided to take a Sunday stroll, and take you along...by camera.

This is a view of the shopping center that is just around the corner from our apartment. It houses one of our favorite places to stop: Yogurtland. It's a self-serve yogurt place with 16 flavors and twice as many toppings to mix and match to your pleasure. You pay by the ounce, so you can get as little or as much (in our case) as you want. And since it's yogurt, it's good for you. :)

This is view of a street around the corner from our apartment. A good place for a stroll.

This is a strange tree that we have lining the sidewalk to our apartment. It's pine-ish in the leaves, but the leaves are soft. Very strange, but neat looking and neat feeling.

We have a metro train station a few blocks away from our apartment. It would be perfect if it was running, but it's not quite done yet.

Here's just a view of the diversity in this little community.

And here's Union Station. You can kinda see the words printed on that white tower in the center.

Here's a better view of the entire building. We meant to go inside to get pictures, but we got distracted.
This was one giant tree. It's across the street from Union Station, and homeless people are usually sleeping around it, for an afternoon nap.

Also across from the station, there is a concert of sorts on almost every weekend. They have booths for food, live music, and shops to buy authentic Mexican trinkets.
Just a building we saw while walking. Not exactly sure what the building is.

A gate to a Buddist courtyard, we believe. Interesting, huh?

This is a neat sign they have randomly on the corner of a block. It shows the sister cities of Los Angeles, the direction to them, and the distance as well. So if I wanted to go to Taipei, I only need to head 6789 miles in --> that direction.

Here's another giant tree. Jacob's showing it's relative size.

These are the numbers for the Caltrans building. The numbers are huge and nearly unreadable when you are on the same block.

And here's the whole Caltrans building. Jacob sometimes has to walk here for meetings.

The LA Time building. We've never been in, but we've walked by it. Does that count?

This is the Friendship Knot. It's a sculpture that stands in a marketplace full of Asian food places. We can't quite figure how it's labeled friendship knot instead of square knot.

Here's a view of the skyline. The second tall building from the right is where Jacob works.

These are some strange little flowers that grow across the street from our apartment. They're furry, and yes, they are growing among barbed wire.

And we made it back to our apartment. There it is. You can't actually see our apartment from this angle, since we're on the opposite side, but that's our building just the same.

Hope you enjoyed this little walk around our neighborhood. We did.

Our Fourth of July

This is terribly late, but late is better than never.

This year for the Fourth of July, we went to a free celebration downtown at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. We found the location online, and thought, "Hey it's free, and it says the show is 60 minutes long." We figured that had to be an over-statement, but we were soo wrong.

Before the fireworks began, there was an ongoing concert and booths with food and such. And then the fireworks started. We got to use our new camera (we had just bought it that day) to capture some of the fireworks.

This one looks kinda like those seagulls you would draw far away in the sky when you were a kid.

We found out quite quickly that taking your own pictures of fireworks doesn't really turn out like those you see elsewhere.


It was surprisingly difficult to get pictures of the fireworks because you had to time it just right. We had plenty of pictures of blackness or afterglow because we had pushed the button too slow.

This one kinda looks like a dragonfly.

They had a variety of fireworks, including the double colored ones.


This one looks neat, albeit a little creepy, like hands or something.

If you could read that, it says Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The fireworks were shot right in front of this building, and we sat on the lawn in front of that.

Even though we thought the fireworks were going to be 20-30 minutes, the show actually lasted around 70 minutes. We were amazed. We both had never been to one that was so long. And for the price, you just can't beat that. We've decided that when we're back in LA for the Fourth, we'll go back there.