road trip - spring 2014, part 2

This is the part 2 of the road trip taken in the spring of 2014.


finishing off items on the pre-trip punch list - with some close examining i figured out how this latch failed

 i used the ultragauge a lot during the long trek

first stop was LA

sometimes pushing to gain distance i skip cooking - in all i ate 3 times of fast food during the month-long trip; this arby's has toilets on the outside of the building in which you have to feed it with $0.50 to use. I used the opportunity to empty the nasty brew of the toilet cassette

Speaking of the toilet in this long trip it is the proof of the pudding, so to speak, with many of the enhancements I made for Brunnhilde. The cassette toilet conversion and the simplified grey water discharge system are pleasure to use and efficient with the least amount of fuss. The iDevice mounts that serves multiple functions depends on the need of the situation. I used the iPhone for turn-by-turn navigation with the audio amplifiered by the Alpine system system via bluetooth. I would write up a post on the assessment of the performance on Brunnhilde's enhancements during this long trip which involves mostly "dry campings".

some historic buildings in Hollywood

pee wee on the monitors of this tour bus

an intersection in Beverly Hills

 always like to see Sprinters with uncommon setup

with the aid of turn by turn navigation of the iPhone finding pacific palisades was not too difficult

 i was looking for Eames house and eventually i could see it from the hill behind it

 i was so happy to be able to conduct an exterior-only tour; something i didn't possible

the workshop and office building

while I have seen a lot of photos of the house from books and magazines seeing it in person is a great experience; i get to see the true size and scale of the design as well as the siting of the structures with respect to the lot

this lounging area between the two structures is one of my many favorites

 the lot of the property overlooks the santa monica beach to the north

chinatown in LA is a disappointment - it looks like a bad hollywood set; i walk around the few blocks and left

 i went to koreantown and found this nice little restaurant which serves a very small specialty menu; in all there are no more than 8 order choices which made up of two or three basic dishes

i order a combo meal and was so surprised how many dishes it entails

 LA mass transit

the Getty Center

 richard meier's architecture though not exactly his signature design as in many of his residential projects

 i love these colonialism posters

 monopoly-like games but the objective is to hog up colonies - greed is good

Next I went to tour the Schindler's House. When you arrive it is not visible from the street nowadays. It is hidden behind thick foliage and the house is sited far back into the very deep lot. Looking around from the distance I immediately knew this is the lot.

 nice contemporary modern buildings adjacent to it

if you look really hard you can barely make out a house from the sidewalk

 this is view from the back of the lot

the communal kitchen

my photography does not do justice to the poetic elegance of this seminal design; you can see traces of Wright's legacy

i love the communal vegetable garden

japantown in LA

 all too stereotypical japantown for westerners that are foreign to the country's culture

it was early in the morning and the shoppers were waiting to get their favorite ready-to-eat box meals; i too picked out mine but in all honesty they were nothing to write home

with the exception of a few shops with very long history the japantown in LA is quite disappointing for me; i think the one in San Francisco is much better

During this trip I used three cameras and this made it very difficult to organize the photos chronologically. My main camera was my iPhone 5S which I used the most. Very often which driving the iPhone 5S is being used as turn-by-turn GPS navigator I would use my iPhone 4S. The third camera is my Canon 7D DSLR which I only use if I tried to capture a something special. It turned out the photos as well as videos taken with the 5S are really good. I used the panoramic feature a lot.