kitsch – Page 5 – thosecoolkims

Southwest Roadtrip Day 1: Laughlin, NV

retroroadtrip

So, our long awaited road trip is finally here! Carrie and I decided this year for our annual anniversary vacation that we’d take in some of the amazing sights we’ve got within our own border. And how best to do that? Road trip!!

We will be spending the next nine to ten days driving around the Southwest, primarily Arizona. We won’t give you spoilers as to where – you’ll just have to keep checking back over the next ten days to see where we’re at!

Anyways, we started off our trip literally during rush hour after work. We packed the car the night before and went to work this morning. After work, I drove to Carrie’s office and picked her up, and off we went towards Arizona. And where did we spend the night tonight before our “real” journey starts in the morning? Laughlin, Nevada.

Neither of us have been here before. Think of it as a “Vegas Lite”, but with more kitsch. As you can see in the pictures below, kitsch is the name of the game here. We are staying overnight at the Colorado Belle, a hotel shaped like a steamboat on the bank of the Colorado River. Hey, for $22, we’re in.

After checking in, we went downstairs for a little video poker action. After losing our $20, we walked around the facilities and found that the Colorado Belle sure loves its murals. Here’s me picking an argument with two gentlemen:

Tomorrow morning, the real journey begins as we hit Route 66 eastward and explore a wonderful, bygone era. Stay tuned!!

Walking in LA – for real!

So yesterday, Ed had to take the car in for its service in Fullerton which meant he’d be carless for the day. So what to do? How about something really novel for us Southern Californians – take the train and use our feet! On top of that, Ed would be walking in a place where walking happens so seldomly that there’s even a song about it – that’s right, LA! Downtown LA, to be exact.

Fortunately, the shop was really close to the Fullerton train station.

And here’s Ed’s train!

Being in the train felt like Europe – not just because Ed was in a train in the first place, but also because half of the people Ed saw were Europeans about Ed’s age or younger!

From Union Station, Ed took the Red Line to Pershing Square in downtown. It’s easy to forget that there’s an increasingly expansive subway system in Los Angeles!

Walking around downtown, you quickly realize that it must have been very glitzy and glamorous back in the day. There are so many intricately detailed facades on the buildings and they must have looked very impressive years ago. But today, much of it is run down and decrepit. Several years ago, Downtown LA began a resurgence of sorts, and there are plenty of signs of it throughout downtown – art galleries, hip shops, restaurants, lofts, etc. Still, there’s some ways to go.

The Toy District: full of discount toy sellers, specializing in knockoffs!

This was undoubtedly the strangest and funniest sighting from the day: Obama dog tags! The funniest part is how the banners advertise them (grammatically incorrectly) as if they’re the hottest thing right now – “YES – We make dog tag!” If nothing else, it shows how happy so many different worldwide communities are about Obama coming to power.

This car was just cool:

Something totally unexpected in LA – an outdoor skating rink?!?

Here’s Ed resting his weary legs – he walked at least 9 miles that day!

You can see the whole album by clicking below.

Downtown LA Walking Tour

Old School Vegas!

We were lucky enough to head out to Las Vegas this weekend with Eric & Shirley. Thanks to Carrie’s parents, the four of us had a 3-Day/2-night stay in Vegas and tickets to the Terry Fator show (our big surprise Christmas present this year! ). Needless to say, we had a blast!

The two of us hadn’t been to Las Vegas since 2001, and neither of us had ever spent any time Downtown. It was super fun – really old school and kitschy, just the way we like it! We loved all the old signage and neon…it seemed more like the Rat Pack Vegas than all of the new monstrosities out on the strip. And Downtown, you can play $4 roulette! (We’re high-rollers!)

We also got a kick out of visiting the Liberace Museum. He’s the King of Bling!

All in all, it was a blast – thanks Mom & Dad for a great trip!!!

See all of our pictures:

Vegas Weekend

A Brief Distraction from Paradise

Well, we’re back from Miami, and sadly, we didn’t blog as much as we would’ve liked! But we can’t say we thought too much about it…if there was ever a place that could tear us away from the computers and hecticness of everyday life, it was Miami. It’s a beautiful and exciting town – and we made a pact this would be the first of many trips!

This is just a little bit of what we saw once we got out away from The Standard. We wanted to see a little bit of architecture. And that we did. Some highlights…

This crazy “living room” was an art installation that sat on an intersection down in the Design District. Looks like we missed it in it’s glory, as you can see that there’s some kind of construction going on – it looks like items have been removed and there’s a fence around it now, but it is quite something to see. We like that we caught a man walking in front of it, you can get a sense of scale.

Also near the area on Biscayne Blvd., there are old, run-down 1950’s motels with some pretty cool signage. It’s probably better at night, as thy’re neon signs, but you get the general idea (and again, Carrie’s got a thing for cool signage):

After we saw all the poor, sad motels of yesteryears, we saw a classier lady – the Bacardi Building. Pretty amazing:

We weren’t exactly sure what this was right next door to the Bacardi building, but it sure looked cool:

That concludes our mini architectural tour. We could absolutely kick ourselves, as we didn’t capture any of the most amazing parts – and that was the Art Deco! Seriously, South Beach almost seems like a movie set, the buildings are all pastel and colorful – and they are so well maintained that they almost look like facades. They were amazing.

This was by far our favorite though:

This is the exterior of the Standard Miami – it used to be this old spa called The Lido. It’s so cool they kept the exterior unchanged, it’s pretty groovy.

p.s. This one is for the Subcat crew: we caught a shot of the famous tattoo shop, Miami Ink (for those who do not know, Miami Ink has been a show running on TLC for 4 seasons now). No tattoos for us, but the place sure was hoppin’ and lots of people were hanging outside trying to get a peek in:

SF, Day 1.

We made it! We arrived after a hassle-free flight from LB to SF on Jet Blue, and boy was it nice. No drama! We barely had time to finish our celebrity-trash magazines before we hit the ground, talk about quick transportation!

Ed even found a place where you can rent a hybrid, so in the spirit of blending in with the crowd up north, we hopped in our Civic Hybrid, and headed off to the city. Ever seen the South Park episode where San Francisco is suffering from SMUG – not smog – because of all the righteous hybrid drivers? Ha. It’s a good one. Ed also scored a portable Navigation System that he is evaluating at work, so we brought it with us and now we can find anything anywhere – it’s gonna be a good weekend!

We checked into the hotel and decided to grab a bite to eat. We walked down the street and stumbled upon this gem:

Yum. This place was old school and had a nice kitschy vibe to it. Our table sat in front of this cool fake foresty area – very similar to the Train Ride at Disneyland when you cruise past the era of the Dinosaurs.

Staying true to their name, they even managed to delicately place an odd old ship amongst the fake greenery in all it’s glory…

The food was delicious – we had yummy guacamole, a few margaritas, and the fave of the evening – tasty Mexican Soup.

Tomorrow is SF MoMA (among others)! Can’t wait to check out this city!