La La Land (otherwise known as Los Angeles)

Chung King Road art galleries (Wednesday to Saturday), Chinatown
Bergamot Station art galleries, Santa Monica
The Brewery Art Colony (http://www.breweryartwalk.com/)
Friday nights at Largo's, 432 N. Fairfax Ave. - Jon Brion performs live, and it is amazing (MUST show up before 9pm)
4100 Bar, 4100 Sunset Blvd., Silverlake.

Quick Tips:

If you plan on driving, or if you just want to really understand LA, check out the Not For Tourists Guide (http://www.notfortourists.com/).
Pick up the LA Weekly or City Beat for weekly listings.
Find online info at LA.com, digitalcity.com, seeing-stars.com, lablogs.com, or ladad.com.

Best Way To Get Around:

Make use of a rental car (or if you're lucky, a good friend who has time on their hands). LA is spread very thin, and you may find that a place you'd like to go see may only have a handful of other places of interest surrounding it. If you really want to explore the city and not be stuck in touristy Hollywood, you will need a car. The public transport system is very limiting.

This place is so much fun! I actually approached them about doing a photo shoot at the hostel, and this is not your average hostel. It's very hip; has a pool table, foosball, and a full communal kitchen; and is right in the middle of the Melrose shopping strip. The people there are from all over the world (workers and guests) and are extremely fun. I ended up recruiting a very good-looking Swedish traveler to model for me while I was there.

Delicious! Numbero Uno became a favorite the day we moved to Los Angeles. Pupusas are a traditional El Salvadorian dish, a thick corn tortilla filled with any combination of melted white cheese, loroco herbs, roasted ground pork, or beans.

The chips and salsa that they serve while you decide is fantastic! The salsa is mild but very rich in flavor, a perfect blend of tomato and spices. They will always refill your salsa and be sure to get more to go with your food. I'm going back in next time to ask if they will sell their salsa for me to take home.

Their beer selection is pretty small, but the Jamaica and Horchata are both delicious. I usually avoid them, as they can be very sweet, but at Numero Uno, the mix is usually nice and subtle.

We always order (and tell everyone we're with to order) two pupusas, one chicharron (pork) and one queso con loroco (cheese with loroco herbs). The pupusas are huge and can be quite filling, so plan on sharing them. I recently took a friend there who tried the new pupusa de arroz (rice is used instead of corn), and she said it was amazing.

I think my favorite entrée is still the bistec encebollado, a tantalizing dish of tender ranch-style steak slowly cooked with onions and rich seasonings. Although, the salpicon (top sirloin steak chopped and prepared with radish, mint, and lemon) is an equally tasty.

And if you're still hungry for something sweet, try the empanadas, sweet pan-fried plantain shells filled with Salvadorian milk pudding. The last time I took a Spanish/Brazilian/American, she insisted that empanadas were empanadas and these were not Empanadas. But she ended up fighting me for the last one. What can I say?

As far as service goes, it's very relaxed. If you speak Spanish, the wait staff is very friendly and willing to talk about how their food is made. The decor is, well, cheesy. The music selection tends to get stuck in your head. I always walk out of there fat and happy.

Gelato parlor opened by Tai, a Korean art-house chef. Everyday at the store, Tai makes new flavors - interesting combinations: Roasted Garlic, Cranberry + Dill, Corona + Lime...
And of course he serves up the almost usual suspects, Guava + Peach, Lime + Mango, Brown Bread (a regular staple), Strawberry Cheesecake. And for the health conscious, everyday Tai has 2-3 Vegan flavors.

But the part that I love the most about Scoops, is Tai himself. He loves what he does and it's infectious. He'll offer you tastes of all the new flavors that he's made, grinning proudly as you tell him how good it is. And as you get to know him, you'll find he has a strictly neighborhood small business model that he believes in. If he gives to the community, they will stay loyal. And that I have.

I went to see the Melvin Sokolsky: Paris 1963 exhibit in January and loved it! He is one of my favorite fashion photographers, and the Fahey/Klein Gallery did him great justice.

The permanent collection also had a print by Diane Arbus called "Twins." She is the photographer who's inspired me so much that I decided to become a photographer!

This stretch of La Brea has many more art and photography galleries that are worth checking out.

This is a tiny art gallery on Chung King Road, which is known as an up-and-coming area for local artists. I am probably biased, but I love this road. It's privately owned and will seem awfully quiet if the galleries aren't throwing a shindig, but definitely check out the area. Your best bet will be to go Wednesday to Saturday between 12 and 5pm.

The LMan gallery showcases interesting art that makes sense in its Chinatown surroundings, with nothing too glitzy, traditional, or kitschy. When I went last month, I fell in love with Kaoru Mansour's "Plants and Faces" series. And Lawrence (who runs the gallery) was able to tell me what the artist's objective was, and upon finding out that I have an interest in painting, he explained to me the techniques used in Mansour's paintings. Not only did I not have to read horribly written artist bios, but I had real life interaction with someone who new about the art. Love it!

Oh, and to add to the already creative space of the gallery, Lawrence has his architecture office in the gallery!

These historic Victorian homes were built in the 1800s and serve as reminders of LA's past. Many of the homes have been restored. Interest in doing so began around the 1970s, and the current efforts can still be seen as you drive around the neighbourhood. It's a surprising find, tucked away from the main Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, and a beautiful, casual stroll for history lovers.

First off, if you want to go, you HAVE to make a wee bit of effort. And if you do, it'll be worth it. If not, it'll be miserable.

Jon Brion performs every Friday night. Be there at 8:30pm and find a space at the bar for drinks, or get a table for dinner ($15 food minimum per person). Make sure you get a spot with a good view of the stage, and then you can relax for the rest of the night. If you get there after 10pm, I guarantee that you will have a hard time getting in when he's performing, especially now that A Life Aquatic has come out.

If you're really on top of things, Largo's recommends making dinner reservations 3 weeks ahead for Jon Brion's shows. I tried making one 2 weeks ahead, but they never called me back. I got there and it was full. Lesson: If they don't call you back, you don't have a reservation.

But once you're in, you're in. Jon Brion is a brilliant musician and an even better performer. His instruments are worth going to see, including a fully customized organ that he has rewired for his own purposes. He combines well-known tunes with other well-known tunes to his own lyrics to make completely new, and strangely enough, well-known songs. It's very clever, complicated, and oh-so-much fun. Oh, and on occasion (well, at least before The Life Aquatic), celebrities will show up late in the night and jam with him, which is incredible to watch.

It is really worth it to try to go here once. Just plan ahead if you can, or else you'll be sorely disappointed.

It's dark, loud, and crowded. It's like many bars in the fact that you still have to yell to get yourself heard, you have to prop yourself up on the bar and propel your body high and out to try and make yourself the most noticeable person there to get a drink, and you still have to somehow push and squeeze to maneuver yourself through the crowds.

But I like it there. It's not a Hollywood bar; it's much more like a Hong Kong bar. It makes me feel at home, I suppose.

I think it’s because there are enough dark corners to hide out in and just talk to your friends, but at the same time, the people that frequent the bar tend to be a little more down-to-earth than your average Hollywood types.

It's not a booty-shakin' place, there's no dance floor, and good luck trying to dance anywhere except maybe when you're outside smoking a cigarette.

It's a Silverlake favorite, especially towards the end of the night when the locals stagger in for just one last drink to give them just what they need to make the short trek home.

It's February, and it's miserable, cold, and raining in Los Angeles. My rather unfortunate friends have come to visit from London and have been met with weather that much resembles what they had left. We decided to spend the day at Glendale Galleria to get shopping out of the way in the hopes for some sun in upcoming days.

On our way there, we got a call asking if we wanted to go to Universal Studios for free. If it ever stopped raining. Oh great, Universal Studios. Woo wee. But if they want to go (which I hope they don't), I guess I should go. But GOD, I hope they don't want to go.

Two days later, I was rudely awakened by warm, bright sunlight streaming through the windows. Before I could even acknowledge my surroundings, the phone rang with Edwina yelling down the phone about how the sun was out. And then, as I dreaded, the words "Universal Studios" came out of her mouth. Just get up, make a really big cup of coffee, and it'll be okay. Besides, it's free. I drag myself out of bed and mentally prepare myself for the day. When I get to the house, the two of them are sitting out on the front yard, lazily soaking up the sun. They've decided that today is the perfect day to go to the beach. And once again, I've been let off the hook. But on one condition. Oh crap. We were definitely going tomorrow.

I wake up the next day and go through my ritual of mentally preparing for the hot, claustrophobic, expensive cheesiness of the day to come. A strange, unfamiliar bubbling was coming from my stomach, but I summed it up as some strange form of being hungry. Besides, it wasn't going to be that bad. I would still be hanging out with Edwina and Mildred. So off we go to Universal City.

As we look for the will-call booth, we're surrounded by little people running around screaming, with pink sticky hands clutching onto fluffy poufs of cotton candy. They all started running in perfect birds-flying-South formation towards several strangely dressed, but oddly recognizable really big people. They must have been 6 feet 7 inches on average! And the bright flashing lights started. "Look! It's Shrek!" My heart started thumping as I spun around wildly looking for Shrek, my big green huffalump. I found myself preparing to cut in on the formation when another voice interrupted me. "Welcome to Universal Studios, what's your name?" The cold reminder of my whereabouts was enough for me to regain my composure. In exchange for my divulging our personal information and my driver's license information, we were each given a red-and-black square piece of cardboard with Gate A Priority Pass attached to a piece of string. This was to give us access to the park for free.

The first attraction to cross our path was Van Helsing: Fortress Dracula, a haunted house. We entered the fortress and were immediately plunged into darkness. Now, I don't know about you, but I hate not being able to see where I am walking. Maybe I'm distrustful of whoever builds pitch-black houses like this one, but after living in Los Angeles for 10 months, it's not exactly surprising that I expect floors and grounds to be uneven.

Before we go any further, I should probably really give you some time to get to know my friends Edwina and Mildred. We all grew up together in a land far, far away. They went to England to live, and I came to LA. Edwina is a bobby, a police constable, in London. She's seen a lot, and for the most part, does not find haunted houses scary. Mildred works at an ovarian cancer charity. She likes to laugh when other people fall over and she covers her eyes when she knows something scary is coming. Haunted houses do scare Mildred.

Back to the interior of Van Helsing: Fortress Dracula.

Edwina is nonchalantly leading the way as Mildred and I are cautiously trying to keep up with her. We are surrounded by many people in front and behind. Suddenly someone screams. A loud gurgly, mucousy throat noise startles me and propels Mildred's head into my arm. I start laughing nervously. We continuing walking through the darkness, Mildred and I clutching each other to... support ourselves (okay, fine, so we were scared) with Edwina a few steps ahead of us. From the pits of darkness, another terrifying scream, and an arm reaches out towards me. I scream and pushed Mildred over. Okay, so now I'm getting the hang of this; this is pretty funny. When I hear a scream, something will jump out at me.

We run to catch up with Edwina who is about to turn a corner of mirrored walls. At one point I see a red light illuminating a face of death appearing as an innocent tourist approaches. He looks scary, but he's on my side, what do I do? I grab Edwina just as we turn the corner and throw myself and Mildred behind her, just in time to see the face of death reach out. Edwina immediately ducks and thrusts herself forward onto the ground. Mildred and I burst out laughing. As I bend down to help Edwina up, I see from the corner of my eye a slight movement in the dark. I hold Mildred back, and as Edwina stands up, he jumps out at her again and she launches herself across the path into a wall, drops, and shrivels up into a shaking ball. This is probably the best live demonstration of one of many variations of stop, drop, and roll I have ever seen. At this point Mildred and I lost it, and we laughed hysterically at the sight of poor Edwina curled up in a ball. It's probably safe to say that we had successfully stopped all foot traffic with this dramatic display of police reaction training in the Van Helsing: Fortress Dracula and gave the face of death something to smile about. It was a great start to our journey through Universal Studios.