tomas_room2

a pretty hallway at the Grand Californian Hotel, next to the garden

so, for my birthday weekend (feb.9-10), we went to this fancy hotel at disneyland, to the california science center to see the space shuttle endeavor, and the getty museum!! it was a lot of fun and i love taking pictures of pretty places. hehe...

(THIS IS POST #1 because there will be at least 2 more posts
about places i went to/ things i did/ eat to celebrate my birthday MONTH. yeyyyyyy!! ~_~)

actually, even before and after my birthday, i got to go to a gourmet food truck fair and go eat ramen!! ~_~

this is what it looked like there. it was really cold and not too crowded but not too empty either. it was cool to see all the fancy gourmet food trucks. and i've never bought food from any gourmet food trucks before. the food truck on the right pic even has a tv on it (i pointed to it with a pink arrow. xD)

we bought food from a few food trucks. they mostly tasted pretty good. not super good, though (& they were expensive!).
the top pic, the food on the right, are 2 really small "Island Jack (jackfruit)" tacos. they tasted just ok, but i wanted to try them because people on Yelp were saying how great it was. the bottom pic: strawberry tea and sliders from the Burnt Truck. actually, i bought these for my brother who didn't come. he LOVED them. darn, i should have bought some for me too! actually the tea was for me, but it was just alright.

this is a nice pic of the Seabirds truck during the day. i knew about it because it was featured on a Food Network show about gourmet food trucks one time!! :) they were talking about the jackfruit tacos, and it looked yummier on the TV. haha...

and i went to eat ramen at shin sen gumi (1 of the best reviewed ramen places in our area)!! i love the wooden/traditional look. and it's a tiny place too, but the ramen is really good!

here's a pic someone took of the ramen. it looks plain, but it's really flavorful and delicious!! ~__~

for my birthday, we went to disney downtown (the shopping area) which is right next to the Disney Grand Californian Hotel, which has a beautiful lobby!!

it's really dark in there, so my pics aren't great. but here's a great pic of it that i found online!
notice that there's a man playing the piano on the left side of the pic.

the ceiling was so high...the 1900s style is so majestic! i almost felt like i was on a harry potter movie set or something. *__*

there was a man playing the piano when we came, and in the top corner, you can see the little fireplace.
i took this pic from the 2nd floor, i think.

i love these colorful stained glass lamps!

there was a really pretty area with purple and pink flowers. we stayed there and took so many pics. lol.
i wore my new dress and boots!! it was really cold, but i didn't wear tights because i think it looks better if my knees are showing.
i guess i'd rather look good than be warm. hahaha...

a round quad-like area outside of the lobby. it's kinda forest-like. =)
except right above the round area, a tram loudly goes by every 10 minutes or something. haha.

the next day, we went to see the SPACE SHUTTLE ENDEAVOR!!!!!
the exhibit was only open since oct.31. it was really cool!!! and big!!
i didn't see it fly by my city before it landed in LA, but at least i got to see it upclose. ^_^
they had a short educational film about it showing there. it has been used for 19 years, to go on 25 (?) missions!

you can kind of get an idea of how big it is, compared to regular people, in this pic.
you can actually touch it, if someone gives you a piggyback! i didn't try to touch it though.
i feel like we're just making it dirty if we touch it...

next we went to the getty center. we had to ride a tram up the hill...

this maze garden looks prettier in the summer, it should be all green.
it's actually in water and we can't walk through it!! =T the building in the background is a few of the museum's buildings.

there were a lot of pretty trellises like this around the maze garden. ~_~
but it was FREEZING. luckily it was half sunny and half cloudy, or else it'd be super super cold.

this is 1 of my favorite pics from there. the view is amazing! i guess it's the seating area of a restaurant there.

so, there's a lot of rooms full of art there. sometimes the wallpaper was pretty, like this one was pink-ish.
it was really quiet. i forgot how quiet it is in museums because i haven't gone in a long time. it made me a little nervous.
also because there were always a few security guards in suits standing in the room, making sure no one touched the paintings or even got too close!

they had rooms with beautiful furniture from palaces, too!

this red fabric wallpaper was really pretty!!

more people looking at art. some of the paintings were really big. some were really small, but still so detailed and pretty.

there were a lot of religious art

but i loved the ones with nature scenes the most

this one's colors were more vibrant than in this pic that i took. the green colors were really pretty. =)
it was a really small painting too. maybe the size of a regular magazine?

of course there were so many naked people in the art. lol.
it's kinda hard to tell in my pic, but this lady in this painting looked quite pretty.

ok, time to go home! i liked the view from here, too. we actually were hurrying to catch the last tram down the hill, or else we'd have to walk a long way, and it was really cold by then!! o__O