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:

We love 3-day weekends.

Yesterday we ventured out to Yen to have Japanese food on 2nd Street. We’re sad to report that it was expensive – and it didn’t taste so great, either. We were very underwhelmed and say if you’re gonna get sushi on 2nd, stick with Apengo.
Yen does get points for presentation though…
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And they also get points for a sunny outside location that makes you feel like it’s summertime…
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We then decided to venture up to MOCA to check out the Poetics of the Handmade exhibit. It was very, very cool. This exhibit featured all Latin-American artists who made things by hand – and it was really fun to see. 100’s of lipsticks carved into intricate chess pieces, giant atomic structures hanging from the ceiling that you could walk through made of glue and q-tips…it was fun…

Downtown LA is cool though – but there’s always this really eerie feeling about it, because it’s always seems deserted. “Nobody walks in LA…” isn’t just a catchy song, we suppose.

Just a few pics from the day…

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SF, Day 2

Today started off with a bang. We got up relatively early with plans to explore. First, Carrie got to indulge in a little retail therapy at a bonafide Benefit Cosmetics store. Benefit is from San Francisco and Benefit is Carrie’s favorite!

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So cute. Carrie loves Benefit makeup!

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Next we headed up (um, down) Lombard Street because a) it’s the curviest street in the country, and b) it just wouldn’t be a vacation if Ed didn’t have to go on some crazy driving mission. It was cool though, and it gave us a lovely view of the city-by-the-bay. Ed was very excited to drive down this famous street!

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After Lombard Street, we hit up SF MoMA. Wow – it was perfect. They had this really cool student exhibition there – California College of the Arts at 100: Innovation by Design – it was AWESOME. We were so impressed by the collection. It was our favorite exhibit of the day, without a doubt. L.A. should be ashamed of itself, MOCA doesn’t even come close!

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We shopped around in the museum shop, oogled all the fancy modern merchandise and decided it was time for a cocktail, so we cruised around the corner to the W Hotel for our usual martinis…

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Speaking of swanky, now we have to go get ready, ’cause we’re going to fancy dinner at Frisson

Check this place out!

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