family

Joshua Tree

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My parents didn’t wanna spend a lot of time in the car, but they’ve aslo never been to Joshua Tree and I kind of like this place so I had to take them. 

It feels like most of the time I take the route from north to south but a friend of mine told me to stop by for lunch in Pioneertown so we did south to north this time.
Since we had a bunch of coffee in the morning everyone was eager to use the restroom, I just wanted to stop by this weird little cactus forrest, as its fun looking and very local.

These are mean bastards, signs said they were hazardous and not to touch.

Right around here though, my father couldn’t hold it and had to take a leak, only to accidentally be poked by a cactus and got two dozens of spikes in his arm. These cactuses were not messing around, they were almost impossible to remove.

Fun was over, get back in the car. No more stops, and please do not touch anything.

The city of Joshua Tree seems a little beige, I’m glad I don’t live here.

We found the place for lunch in Piioneertown.

Dad got to drink a beer from a jar so he was happy!

Queen Mary

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Queen Mary has been on my list of things to do for many years so I was excited to finally pay the old boat a visit.

The day started out great when my technically averse father had to take a photo of a tourists family, we could feel his panic from ways away! He did a great job!

I learned my grandfather was a passenger on Queen Mary once, that’s super cool!

We stopped by the El Segundo Brewery on the way home, it had changed a lot since the last time I was there. Much more commercial, still really cool.

Christmas Day

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Pretty happy to have my parents here for a while. We went for a walk around Culver City and then hit up the ocean front by Venice Beach. The ocean front is usually pretty cool, and I have never been as ashamed of it as I was today. It was super filthy with a lot of homeless/drug addicts. It really looked like Skid Row, I’ve never seen it like this and it made me sad. 

Beach looks clean, woudn’t really wanna walk on there with no shoes though, dunno what could be hidden in the sand.

Celebrated Christmas eve with dinner and White Elephant at Fandyland.

The Bund

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Last day in China and I only had one request, I wanted to go down the Bund. I wonder if people that live in Shanghai think of the Bund like I think of Hollywood and Beverly Hills – try to avoid it at all costs, but if you’re visiting from out of town, you should definitely go check it out.

Be prepared to go backwards if you have to use the restrooms.

We had brunch at M on the Bund. We were the first ones to arrive and when we got seated they were already out of tomato juice for our Bloody Mary’s. That’s hilarious because they just open, but also OK, because I am not a huge fan of that drink anyway. Halfway through our meal they must have sent a runner out to the grocery store and they gave us Bloody Mary’s on the house! The Pavlova however was definitely the highlight of the meal!

Since I am really good at getting lost and don’t know left and right, I have learned to pay attention to signs around me that give out some sort of clue of where I am or where I should go. I noticed this sword like Chines character quite a bunch and asked the people that’s been living in Shanghai for half a decade if this is the character for China. They didn’t know but we did some research and yes, it means China/Chinese. Ha, give me another week in China and I’ll be able to read simplified Chinese fluently!

We went to a Beatles exhibit since it was right around the corner.

It was fairly inexpensive to get in and you had the option to buy a guided tour English. I opted out, thinking I’ll just read the signs. Turns out all signs were in Chinese, but since I read all biographies of the Beatles my local library had in my youth, I could kind of figure out what they were trying to say anyway. The fact that they could not spell out their names correctly just made it a little more exciting.

The Beatles had 14 songs on Billboard Top 100 on April 11, 1964.That’s pretty impressive!
Drake had 14 songs on the same list March 7, 2015, but I don’t think that’s as impressive because he’s just got a bunch of “Some other artist, feat. Drake”.

The Swedish Club of Shanghai had their weekly Saturday drink at Skyli’s. I wanted to hang out with my hosts so I tagged along. I don’t get to talk a lot to other swedes that live abroad anyway so it was fun to hear different stories from another part of the world. Uncle Bo still think I am that quiet 12 year old that sit in a corner being bitter and don’t want to talk to anyone, so he was watching every move I made. I bought him a beer so he could relax a little and enjoy himself.

French Concession

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Amy was cooking dinner today so we stopped by the Avocado Lady for groceries. The Avocado Lady is apparently pretty famous among the expats in Shanghai and people come from all corners of the city with their shopping lists. I got excited over the store sign, don’t need to do more sightseeing today. I am easy to please.  

I suggested Chicken Feet for dinner, didn’t get any positive feedback from the crew.

Every time I drive around Los Angeles on my dinged up scooter I am gonna remember this. I am not having it so bad after all.

I love these trees in the French Concession!

Still no chicken feet?

I wish I had the guts to eat from street vendors, but is it safe to do so in any country?

Shanghai day 2

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Woke up to another day of smog, but hey, you can still see pretty far!

Me and my brother went to the fake market. I had nothing on my shopping list, but it is fun to just walk around and look at junk. My brother was in the hunt for new sunglasses.
He is however very cheap and also very firm with his price. I have to be quiet and can barely stop myself from cracking up in the back. The girl behind the counter went on and on about how she was gonna cry because of the price they agreed on and she started to get on my nerves but it wasn’t until she called my brother a mean man that I had to step in and put my foot down, I’m not having any of that. Listen girl, if it’s gonna make you cry because your boss will be on your ass for not making enough profit, you should not do the deal, we don’t have to buy from you, and if you still want us to purchase the sunglasses, just be quiet and ring us up.
She shut up.

Once we were done with the sunglasses we moved on to hoodies for the kids. I realized they were all overpriced and I can go to the outlets in the US and buy better quality for the same price or even cheaper. The ladies still wanted us to give them an offer and when we said it’s not even worth it they said “give me your best price”. My brother said his best price which was fair compared to the US outlet prices.
The lady got super mad, chased us down the hallway and screamed FUCK! I am really digging their selling technique.
We were done with being yelled at, it’s exhausting. Moved on to the fabric market to pick up some shirts my brother had ordered a few days ago. They had made the shirts to small and it was a bit of back and forth with that before everyone was happy. I was definitely ready for a beer!

It’s my brothers birthday so we all went out for dinner, it’s so much fun to hang out with cellphones! To be fair though, I did the mistake of showing them the Siri feature on their phones last night.

The food was delicious, just wish they wouldn’t put cilantro in everything.

Went for after dinner drinks at the Waaden Panadiee, which is how you spell Wooden Paradise in China.
LiKe is too shont to dnink Bad wine. Yes, yes it is!

Mr Bo was starting to get out of focus so it was time to go home!

Shanghai

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I thought the 12 hour train ride was gonna be a drag, but it wasn’t all that bad and I woke up to a beautiful sunrise!

My brother met me at the train station. It was just past 9am and we both agreed that breakfast would be a good thing, but we couldn’t decide on what we wanted so we went to Skyli’s for a beer!

I’m happy to be in Shanghai with and a change of scenery, but the weather here is brutal! It takes a minute to get used to the humidity but once you realize it’s the same for everyone, and all of us are sweaty and stinky, you kind of just go with it.

It’s my bothers birthday tomorrow so we had a little pre-birthday celebrations, they had arranged for egg & bacon cupcakes!

Adorable!

I love it when you can sit outside and have drinks on the sidewalk and have people behave like normal. What happen to the rest of the world where you have to sit inside a fenced area like you’re a mad person? Baby Jesus, is that what happen?

Last day with my brother

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Since it’s Easter weekend, my boss let us leave work early. I met up with the boys for lunch down by Venice Beach. My brother wanted to send our mother a Happy Easter postcard from her favorite restaurant.

I’d never been to a First Friday in Venice before and it was quite crowded. Lots of food trucks and lots of young kids.

We didn’t want to stand in line to get into bars so we headed back to Culver City. Patrik wanted to sing karaoke.

You know it’s a good night when it ends in a photo booth!

Meet in Paris

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I love this place! I have lately kind of realized that the all you can eat is not really worth it, I get full after just one bowl so it’s better to just buy the regular mussels and then share them all.