I stumbled upon a video on public speaking on YouTube and I am a sucker for business and self-improvement lectures, book, etc. The video is titled “How to Speak by Patric Winston”. It is a fascinating lecture by this professor at MIT, but the part that struck me the most was when he went into one of the reasons for wanting to be an effective speaker: to be famous. Before he discussed this, I dismissed it as something I’m not interested in and only wanted to hear about the other reasons.
When he came to the topic of being famous, he provided an anecdote about him sitting at a table with Julia Child and having many people approach her and wanting to meet her. He turned to her and asked her, “do you like being famous?” To which she replied, “you get used to it.” Professor Winston then told his audience, “you get used to being famous, but you never get used to being ignored.”
I have never thought of fame from this perspective and to my ears it was a profound statement. I would still never in a million years wish to be a celebrity, but I think most of us would like to have a certain level of fame that will elevate the platform and influence of our words and ideas. I would most certainly love to improve my position to maximize my influence and make a significant contribution to this world. You want to be in a position to deliver ideas and make them memorable.
If you have the time, I would recommend watching the below lecture.
There are two travel adventures I fantasize about: backpacking through Japan, and Camino de Santiago.
I fell in love with Japan and want to explore as much of it as possible for a month or more. Traveling from one city or town to the next be train and they get lost walking through the streets with my camera in hand. An observer of local life and trying as much variation of foods as possible.
The Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage that runs along northern Spain from the Pyrenees to the Catedral de Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. It is nearly 500 miles long and takes about a month to complete on foot. I’ve seen parts of this pilgrim trail in my time in Spain and even a few pilgrims. I have desired to do this pilgrimage since I first heard about it in Burgos.
Both of these travel adventures will be ambitious, but I’ve got time to plan. 🙂
Los Angeles has its very own Venice canals, but by Venice I mean Venice Beach, not Venezia. You won’t find any business or tourist attractions here, just some beautiful walkways weaving alongside the canals and in front of some beautiful and eclectic homes. I originally wanted to write some tips and a little narrative, but I think the pictures speak for themselves. I love how some of these canals look just like a normal street would with homes having a walkway from their front door, through their front yard, and out through a gate to what looks like an ordinary sidewalk. Except of course that the roadway has been replaced by a waterway.
You can spend 15 minutes here or an hour, it’s really up to you. At a later date I will put together a little day trip itinerary to see some of the nearby sites and sample some of the eateries around here, but for now please enjoy these photos I took during our exploration of these canals.
I recommend coming here and just go up and down the canals at random, cross a bridge or two, and maybe with down the community lending library and read along the water’s edge. Don’t come with an itinerary, just walk, relax, and enjoy. You can access the canals from multiple points so I would just recommend heading down the the Venice or Marina Del Rey areas and then find the canals.
I came across this restaurant while exploring a cute little area of Los Angeles that I will post about tomorrow. The restaurant entrance has a very tropical feel to it and seems like it would be a beautiful place for a date around the sunset hour, and a great place to catch up with friends or family during the day.
The three most popular dishes seem to be Pad Thai, Pad See Ew, and Green Curry. I am particularly interested in the green curry as it seems to be more popular than my favorite, yellow curry. For some reason, I think most people would be inclined to go for a yellow food rather than a green one…or perhaps it’s just me who thinks this of other people.
Looking through their menu, I also see a couple of other dishes that are not as popular, but seem quite interesting: Spicy Mint Noodle, and Panang Curry. The other thing I want to try is the Mango Sticky Rice: my favorite Thai dessert.
The restaurant has over 1,100 reviews on yelp and an average rating of 4 stars. On Google is has 272 reviews and 4.3 stars. Not what I would call excellent reviews, but very good nonetheless. It’s a $$ restaurant so it’s quite affordable. Not sure if I’ll make the drive down there for takeout during the pandemic, but definitely somewhere I’d like to come back to once it is safe to dine in a restaurant.
*I am experimenting trying to write posts about places I would like to try and things I’d like to do, so bear with me as I fine tune this to be more useful and entertaining. 🙂
I meant to write about another little area of Los Angeles to explore; however today proved quite stressful with a couple of work deadlines so instead of rushing through a little travel post, I am relaxing while enjoying some Gershwin.
One of the most beautiful experiences for me is listening to Gershwin at the Hollywood Bowl every summer. Listening to the silence of the crowd pierced by the piano, orchestra, and some crickets. Sip a little on your glass of wine and feel the cool summer breeze as you glance at the stars and moon above you. I am feeling incredibly nostalgic and saddened that this summer the Hollywood Bowl sits abandoned and the beautiful sounds of the Los Angeles Philharmonic exist only in my imagination.
It wasn’t my intention to give a teaser, but I didn’t have quite enough time today to finish a post I was working on. There’s another cute area in Los Angeles that I want to write about. If you’re not familiar with the area, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what you can find right in the middle of this city.
Our reservation was 5:30 pm, the restaurant’s opening time and we were eagerly awaiting on a bench outside the restaurant. I love walking into a restaurant as soon as it opens because you get to see all the empty tables set and ready to welcome guests and it feels a little exclusive when you are seated before anyone else is. The restaurant has only eight or nine tables so it feels very cozy and intimate. You can fantasize about being transported to your favorite French or Swiss town, or you can be happy and content that you are on this charming little island in Orang County called Balboa Island.
The restaurant opened punctually and all the staff seemed friendly and polite from the start. The table was set beautifully and I loved the napkin rings with their little fork, knife, and spoon. We were brought our menus and without skipping a beat asked what we would like to drink and soon thereafter brought out the amuse bouche and with that began this wonderful French-Swiss culinary adventure.
Amuse bouche – Feta Toast: The wonderfully crispy toast with the feta and briny olives had me salivating while hearing the crunchiness as I bit into it. Like every good amuse bouche, it was a tease and had me wishing for more.
Soup Du Jour – Mushroom asparagus: The soup of the day was a creamy mushroom asparagus with a very well-balanced flavor. Nothing was overpowering and it was not as salty as a lot of creamy soups out there.
Soupe A L’Oignon – Swiss onion soup gratinée with gruyère toast: The onion soup was one of the best I’ve had. It was also great on the salt and the bread in the soup gave it a great texture.
Sea Bass: This was the fish of the day and it was cooked perfectly where the fish feels almost buttery and the creamy sauce was light enough to not overpower the fish.
Steak Au Poivre – Grilled New York steak, black peppercorn sauce and baby vegetables: The steak had a goo flavor on its own, but the black peppercorn sauce is what really brought this dish to life. The vegetables were very flavorful as well. Often these are relegated to just being some extra fluff next to a juicy piece of meat, but this was not the case here: these veggies were great. The mashed potatoes on the dish were good, but I could have used about another bowl or two of these: they were quite good, and I liked that they seemed to have been squeezed out of some nozzle and topped with basil flowers.
Coq Au Vin – marinated, braised chicken, egg noodle and burgundy wine: I heard the name of this dish once when I was a child and I felt so fancy telling anyone about it. In the many years since I had a few versions of this dish and even cooked it myself (thank to Julia Child). I am therefore quite inclined to opt for this dish when I see it on the menu and this particular on was no disappointment and quite interesting. I’ve never had it with egg noodles before and it ended up being a very delicious addition. This too was also decorated with basil flowers.
Crème brûlée – This is a pretty standard dessert and one of my favorites. No matter how many times I’ve had it, I still get a tremendous joy out of breaking through that burnt sugar and digging out a spoonful of delicious creaminess with some bits of broken sugar and brining it to my mouth. This dessert here did not disappoint, but there was nothing unique or remarkable about this particular version. It was pretty standard and I am grateful for that.
Meringue with strawberry ice cream – This dessert was definitely more unique and I would highly recommend it! Given the choice between the two, I would still choose my beloved crème brûlée over this, no matter how standard and boring.
Once you’re done with your lovely meal, just enjoy the atmosphere of this cozy little restaurant and walk off your meal through the cute streets of this lovely Balboa Island.
Coastal California towns are my favorite to explore. They have a refreshing small town feel where life is more relaxed, the people are friendly, and their streets are dotted with small businesses selling local apparel, lovely smelling soaps, art, home decor, etc. Balboa Island is no different even though it is still within the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
My favorite way to reach the island is to go to Newport and enter the Balboa Peninsula and continue driving until you reach the Balboa Pier area. There are lost of shops and restaurants to explore there as well, but today I will focus only on the island. Near the pier, but on the opposite side of the peninsula you will find the Balboa Island Ferry. There you can hop on the ferry on foot, on your bike, or in your car. Only about four cars fit on the ferry and it’s quite fun to drive onto this tiny ferry. I recommend trying to be the first car on (especially in a truck or SUV) because when you pull all the way forward you will only see the water beyond your hood. It’s quite fun when especially when you start to feel the gentle floating on the water. If you’re prone to motion sickness, don’t worry about it as it is a short ride to the island.
Once you’re on the island make your way towards the main street. It’s a small island so if you get lost, you will still end up on the main street with all the shops. Parking on the main street may be difficult so try looking for parking on the side streets as well. Everything is walking distance and you’ll want to be walking by as many stores and restaurants as possible.
Shopping
As I mentioned before, in the shops on the island you can find local apparel, lovely smelling soaps, local art, and unique home decor. You’ll find only boutique shops here and I love it. I can’t comment much on apparel, but we did buy some great soaps and few unique items for our home. If you go later in the fall you will find lots of beautiful seasonal items. A part of me wanted to buy everything and turn my home into a Christmas wonderland. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, this would be a great place to buy unique gifts for friends and family instead those plastic rectangles everyone seems to exchange these days.
Restaurants
The island has about a dozen restaurants, and of those the list below are the ones we were most interested in trying.
Shanghai Pine Garden Restaurant
Basilic Restaurant
Balboa Island Baking Company
Picante Martin’s Mexican Restaurant
Ciao Italian Restaurant
All of these seem pretty self explanatory in terms of what cuisine they serve except for one. Basilic turns out to be a highly-rated French-Swiss restaurant which also ends up being the most expensive restaurant on the island. The first time we were tried to eat there, but they were booked for the evening so we agreed to come back to this restaurant for my mom’s birthday and make a reservation. So I will leave you on that cliffhanger as I will write about our dinner at this restaurant in tomorrow’s post!
However, in the meantime I will leave you with a few pictures of the neighborhood from our walk around the island.
I am enjoying this daily writing exercise even though I don’t think the quality of each post is all that great. Eventually I want to spend days working on a single post to perfect it, but I remind myself to be patient and that completing this 365 project will eventually help my writing. Already it is starting to become a routing that I need to write something ever day, but unfortunately I usually try to quickly type something in about 20 minutes before the clock strikes midnight. Yesterday, I started to write something earlier, but then scrambled again close to midnight to finish it up. I am resolved to get myself into the habit of writing much earlier, working on it throughout the day, and hitting that publish button at the latest by 10pm.
Part of the reason I don’t write on here until late at night is because I am usually not doing something that I think most people will find interesting. At the moment there is of course no travelling, food is squeezed in between work duties, and my beloved classical music concerts were cancelled for the rest of the year.
But I do write. I write in a disorganized way here and there about places and foods that I find interesting. These are little research notes and scribbles that live on some notebook pages, post-it notes, and computer notes. I can use some organization to these scattered notes and I know people will find some interest in my little research here and there. I feel excited just thinking about doing this. I will post things I want to do, foods I want to eat, and places I want to see and organize them in some way. That way when this pandemic is over I will have plans ready to go.
I am not giving up on writing on past travel experiences, but these posts merit more effort in curating my many pictures, notes, and memories. Once I develop a habit of writing earlier, I am thinking I will have past travels post in the works and publish on the weekend once I am happy with it.
Emantable 