Entries tagged 'little tokyo'

aloha cafe just opened today at honda plaza in little tokyo. they are serving tasty hawaiian food at very reasonable prices — at 20% off for their grand opening. they relocated to little tokyo from monterey park after losing their lease and their original chef.

this completed my full weekend — going on the city hall walking tour, to the los angeles auto show, and finally to the japanese american national museum and the oshogatsu celebration. (oh yeah, and made a pizza.)

the taiko drum performance and rice pounding were both amazing. you aren’t actually supposed to take pictures inside the museum, but i didn’t notice that part of the sign until my second or third trip inside, so i took a couple of pictures of the drums in the exhibit inside.

i’m exhausted (both because of everything i did, and waking up at 4am today), but i hope i can keep coming up with things to pack my weekends with like this. maybe some weekend i won’t do all of it alone.

time to veg out.

at the japanese-american national museum in little tokyo, there is oshogatsu: new year family day festival on sunday, and it is also when the big drum: taiko in the united states exhibit closes. there’s also a concert on saturday night. i’ve been meaning to head over there for a while, i guess i’ll have to make sure to do so this weekend.

unlike the last one, this photo is not retouched or enhanced in any way. sometimes life doesn’t need an “enhance” button.

i got lucky this morning — i noticed dawn was breaking, popped open my window to see what i could capture, spotted these birds circling over little tokyo, and managed to grab a few awesome shots of them. here’s another of the birds against the orange sky, and one with a little bit of little tokyo visible. finally, a shot of dawn over little tokyo and city hall at dawn.

i leave for minnesota (late) tonight, so when i get back next week i should have some pictures that aren’t taken from my usual window perch. if i don’t freeze to death taking them.

i guess if i’m going to keep waking up before sunrise, i should take advantage of it. this morning i grabbed a few photos of the sunrise over little tokyo. here’s one with the zoom lens, and one with the kit lens.

it’s almost too easy to take an great-looking picture during sunrise or sunset. good thing, because there’s not a whole lot of time to be experimenting before it is over.

previously: full moon over little tokyo

some day i’ll read some sort of guide that will tell me how to really shoot pictures like this, but in the meantime, this was the best of the twenty or so shots i took out my window. the moon has been amazing the last few nights.

last night before heading up to hotel cafe, i went to the rock ‘n’ rights: rockin’ for the mentally disabled concert in little tokyo and took some pictures. it was organized by a group of students, and was to benefit lamp community, which provides services to the mentally-ill (formerly) homeless in several locations downtown.

the tofu festival was really cool, and the tofu tostadas were as good as promised. if you’re really nice to me, i’ll share the recipe.

the picture of these silent wind chimes really doesn’t do them justice. you need to see them spinning and catching the light to really get the full effect.

one of the things in the big tofu cookbook we got with the pre-festival package was a section on various dairy-replacement recipes that used tofu — and one of them was for tofu mayonnaise. real mayonnaise is already dairy-free. there was also a tofu pancake recipe that called for pancake mix. people who use pancake mix deserve a boot to the head.

the la tofu festival 2005 is coming up — august 13-14 in little tokyo. until august 10, you can get a festival package that includes two admission tickets, two raffle tickets, fifteen food tickets, and a festival cookbook, all for $30.