I finally decided to participate in the trip after 1 minutes' 'careful' consideration. It would be such a pity if I didn't take a tour around LA when I am living so close to it - only 381.9 miles away, especially with the Airbnb already booked and trip planned ahead by someone else. After all what could go wrong? Everthing

Dec. 25

Rail

My dear roommate Xin and I decided to take the Coastal Starlight to LA due to the same reason - take it or regret forever - which turned out that we actually accomplished both - we took it and regretted. Fine it's not all that bad, at least the train station was really nice.

And the first man in LA we met gave us a lesson - never be too careful with someone with too warm a heart - after we have been forced to pay for a ticket guidance service provided by the warm-hearted 'artist' at the train station.
Long story short, it was such a hard trip with lessons paid, storm raging on, Xin's metro card lost and an examination for engineer's ability to find the key to unlock the door to the Airbnb.
It was all good.

Dec. 26

Getty Center

Really a nice museum built (designed by Richard Miere) in 1997 and still giving a feeling of modern sense till today. I'd still love this place even without all its great pieces of art. The museum itself is a great piece of art and a master piece of engineering.
The Triathlon in GTA V was so impressed that I recognized the Getty as soon as I saw the white fence along the road. Nevertheless the Getty is much more magnificent than the model in GTA V.
Shame that I didn't made it clear that Monet and Manet were two different artist, though both being French and living about the same period in history. Impressed with the skills and color Manet use.

Another thing that really impressed me was that the guidance accept Chinese ID card over Passport as a proof of identification, besides California's citizen ID.

Had our dinner at Sichuan Impression. Nice Jelley. Reminded me of 韦雨杏.

Dec. 27

Universal Studio

2 pieces of advice write in advance

1. If you have passed your adolescence and do not have a girl/boyfriend or child, don't go waste your time, otherwise
2. Go waste your time and money elsewhere

Comment

1. 5 min fantastic Harrry Potter ride after a 4 hour queue
2. Butter Beer is good until you drank up all the milk, which is about 1/3 cup
3. Special Effects Show is humourous and educational

Griffith Observatory

Been lucky to catch up a recorded documentary host by Leonard Nimoy (Spork!!!), in Leonard Nimoy Horizental Event Theatre. Odd enough large part of the documentary is about the construction and reconstruction work of the Griffith Observatory, from land purchase to seismic design, from basement extension to concrete casting, litererally making it a Civil Engineering propaganda.

Live long and prosper.

The Observatory itself has a scenery even better than I expected. Much better than GTA.

Credit

Organizer and Partners

Peisheng He, Xin Chen, Yifan Wu