“Anywhere except Chinese food,” Jake told me as we made dinner plans. A tourism industry veteran, Jake was traveling for business and staying in the heart of Chinese-American culture in Southern California: San Gabriel. If you’ve heard of gentrification, imagine Chinification. Nearly every restaurant, café, store, establishment, etc, was created by and for the Chinese […]

LA is a massive city. Less of a city, it’s simply a massive area. I live and work in Pasadena, and while Santa Monica is an easy 30 minute drive with no traffic, this time can double, triple, or even quadruple based on traffic. So I take my trips out to Santa Monica very seriously. […]

It was Rachel’s fourth time in Japan this year. Fourth time staying at this hotel, the Royal Park Hotel Shiodome. And she raved about everything at the property… except their food. She was right: ignoring her advice, nearly every item I tried from their café was a letdown. While the Japanese creations in the exclusive […]

SXSW is a nonstop event. It’s hard to describe the experience, but essentially, major mainstream/well-known b2c “tech” companies (and I use the word “tech” loosely) have events throughout the city over a 10 day period, and visitors hop from one destination to another, absorbing as much as they can. Half a million attendees, lots of […]