Grand Ave Festival

Brownie and Winnie says:

Today is a hot Sunday. We are planning to go to the Grand Ave Festival held at Grand Ave. We wake up quite early; and after our breakfast, we walk over to the bus stop in front of USC to take a Dash bus to downtown LA in order to reach our destination. Upon reaching around First Street, we alight the bus. There is still some distance to walk before we can reach our destination. The first hurdle is to walk up Bunker Hill, the long flight of stairs as shown below in the picture. Actually, there is an escalator for the physically challenged :)
The festival is held at 3rd St to 1st St, at Grand Ave, so it is really at the CBD of downtown LA. We walk past BOA building, KPMG, Mellon Bank, AT&T (all shown below) and many others...



Before long, we reach the entrance of the Grand Ave Festival with big red blockades. The road is closed for the day for the festival. Cannot wait to go and enjoy the day :p

See the Grand festival sign hanging up, and Walt Disney Concert Hall in the left side of the photo.

There are a lot of stalls set up to promote certain places of interest. More and more people start to gather as it gets later in the noon.

We even get to put our thumbprints as a memory, of the event.

The blue and green love-shaped prints...

Of course, no visit to Grand Ave is complete without a visit to the Walt Disney Concert Hall... And since today is cultural festival, there are free mini-concerts to see and hear inside the Hall.

Queuing booth for the free tickets...

Since our concert timing is 330pm, so we just walk around for lunch and to see the on-goings of the festival. There is a whole row of tents selling food of LA, from the restaurants and food outlets nearby the area. And you can see people queuing up for the food... Most are just grab-and-go food, so you can sit on the floor and eat... Cannot be too fussy...
We get ourselves a pepperoni pizza and cookies from California Pizza Kitchen... And just find a cozy place outside the Concert Hall to eat and get out of the sun. The pizza is good, just like CPK in Singapore, full with cheese and meat...

After the enjoyable lunch, we walk around. See that the walkway is beautifully painted, and even children are allowed to draw on the pavement, using chalks. And a group of artists, from a local art group called Red Cats, are drawing their creations on the walkway...

They just started on the drawing, so we will drop by before the end of the day to see their masterpiece...


There is a stage setup for singers to perform to the audience. And this is a group of Brazilian entertainers, with their Samba songs.

On the other end of Grand Ave, near 1st St, another performance is taking place "Drum Town". But this one involves the audience to drum along the music.. So of course we participate :)

Concert time!!
We walk to Walt Disney Concert Hall for our performance.

Inside the Concert Hall...

OMG, the performance is good!! The lady singer has a very nice voice, and she can really sing. Together with other musical instruments, like guitar, violin, piano, harp and even R&B DJ... It is so smoothening.


Of course, as promised, before we go home, we drop by the Red Cats to see their masterpiece...

And we are on our way home...

Mid Autumn BBQ with SSA

Brownie says:

It's Sunday, and we are having a BBQ cum mid-autumn celebration with fellow Sporeans tonight at one of their home... It's funny how fast time flies... 1 odd month in US already.

We came across big pumpkins at the Smart-&-Final supermarket... for Halloween, and that is 1 more month in 31 Oct. Halloween is a big event in US, and lots of people celebrate by converting their homes to Haunted Houses for kids in the neighbourhood... That's fun, and we will be participating in a friend's Haunted House as monsters.... Eaaahhhh...

We meet at VKC to get a ride to the BBQ premise, and se what we get on photo... Spore flag. The crescent and its 5 stars...

The premise is at downtown LA, one of the many high-rise condos there. And of course, condos in US comes with gym, swimming pool and BBQ pits, like those in Spore. But this one that we go to gives me the feeling of a hotel... just look below, looks like hotel but it's not... Funny feeling :@

But it has a nice view of downtown LA...

Fellow Sporeans...

After the BBQ food and mooncakes, it's time for lanterns carrying... SLF (Spore Labour Foundation) provides the lanterns from Spore, for Sporeans far from home to feel some warmth that we are wanted and thought of back home... We carry our lantern around the condo, for a short trip, before returning home...

Guotiao noodles

Brownie says:

Today, we have another culinary breakthrough... we have our first bowl of Guotiao noodles for lunch... Though it is a simple meal, with just fishball, mushroom, sausage and Guotiao (of course) but it's full with love... and it is good, comparable to those in Chinatown... So looks like we can save quite a lot eating at home, instead of Chinatown...

Thanks Winnie for the Guotiao :-*

Mid Autumn Festival

Winnie and Brownie says:

Today is lunar calendar mid-autumn and it's mid-autumn festival... Yaah... Our first festival in a foreign land, just that nobody is here with us to celebrate together. Oh well, SSA has the BBQ cum mid-autumn celebration this coming sunday, so that will do...
Meantime, since today is the actual day, of course we must celebrate today, so we bought (in advanced) some mooncakes and egg-roll from Chinatown, and bring them to USC for mooncake eating and watching the moon... Hehe

Brownie has to go for lecture first, so Winnie needs to go Leavey Library to play her Big Fish game. Meeting at 30pm at Trojan Grounds to just relax and enjoy the mooncakes... We find a spot behind the School of Film & Cinematic, and settle down to enjoy the day. It is a good spot, among the trees and greenery, and with 2 squirrels running around us looking for their acorns. And students walking around, wondering why there are 2 people sitting in the middle of nowhere...

Playing with the squirrels for a while, we are hungry, so we settle down to eat our egg-roll and mooncakes...


We have a lady with us as well, she is busy studying and look stressed... So Winnie offers her a piece of mooncake, but she bo-chup Winnie!!!




Anyway, after having fun with everything that we see and can lay hands on (including the painters), and enjoy peaceful and quiet time... we look satisfied... :)

Of course, the sky gets dark soon, and seeing the moon so bright and round, we chop chop go home, less it gets too cold...

Mascot dog for USC Trojan Football

Moon bright bright...