Happy New year everyone!
I realize I dropped the ball on blogging towards the latter half of the semester. I had a few extracurricular commitments and school assignments (NATIONAL BOARD EXAMS!) that required a good deal of time. No more excuses though! This year I'll do a lot better with being regular.
I decided I would dedicate a blog post to some of the places I got to visit towards the end of 2016. One thing I'm not good at is getting good pics of meals... part of that has to do with my impatient nature and my tendency to scarf down food when it lands on the table. But again, I'll definitely work on that this year.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
This picture really doesn't do the infrastructure of Los Angeles justice. I took this with my iphone once i realized I hadn't taken any photos with my actual camera. THERE IS SO MUCH COOL STUFF TO DO IN LOS ANGELES, it actually doesn't make sense. So much food to try and so many places to go. On top of that, the diversity of people in Cali is heart warming.. I really can not recall a moment when I was out in Los Angeles and did not hear multiple languages being spoken. In fact, I made a few friends that I still keep in touch with because I randomly started a conversation with them in spanish.
I fell in love with RAMEN. I had it 3 times, and my favorite place was Manichi's, located in Little Tokyo. Man! It was delicious. Disclaimer, I did not take these food pictures. Copped them off google so you could get a good visual of the delicious food that entered my stomach. (again, I promise i'll do better next time).
Dessert options in LA are plentiful. Top choice for me (had it twice), was HoneyMees. Mannn!! I thought ice cream was pretty basic.... but there are clearly levels to it. The concept of HoneyMees is pretty interesting. They serve affordable icecream and offer it with a drizzle of honey (with a honey comb if chosen). My item of choice was the sea salt caramel milkshake. Again, affordable and delicious (not healthy, but I was on vacation so that was not a major criteria).
Because I love taking photos of people, I dragged my cousin and friend along with me to do a few photo shoots. It's hard to get a hold of willing male subjects, so I advanced on the opportunity once it presented itself. Both the shoots were terrific; one was done in Malibu (hence the beach surroudings) and the other in the Arts District, Los Angeles.
I didn't stay in Los Angeles for long, and i'll definitely go back. Los Angeles is quite the place if you want several places of food to choose from and really cool people to run into. The majority of people I ran into had normal 9-5's but also had something cool on the side that they were pursuing. It was often modeling, acting, singing, or photography just to name a few. I'm also really happy I could get this shot (left) of the sun setting on the city. Just blogging about this neat city has me wondering when i'll be able to visit again.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Chi Town! Definitely blessed to be offered the opportunity of going to Chicago for the ASDA NLC dental conference in November. Coincidentally, this was the weekend that the Cubs won the world series! We stayed in the Hilton, so the majority of our food experiences were in the conference center. The one time we ate outside of the hotel, we decided to visit a nearby deep dish pizza pizzeria (Lou Malnati's). Before this, I had never tasted a deep dish pizza before. It was Delicious! I didnt think I could get full off of two slices, but... evidently in deep dish world, that happens fairly quickly.
I'm starting to realize that I really appreciate the large city ambience. Chicago is beautiful during the day AND especially at night. After conference sessions, my colleagues and I would take a stroll outside of the Hilton and explore a bit. It was pretty cool and I got some solid shots of the people and city.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Alright this one may not count because this is where I call home. But what would a destination post be without one of your most favorite places in the world? I also wanted to find a reason to post this picture haha. Thanks for checking out this post and there will definitely be more hot spots to come.
-TGI