A Two-Day Hollywood Vacation

Kyle and I had such a fun weekend in Los Angeles! Where to begin? We packed so much into a one and half-day vacation - a concert at Bar Sinister, sushi in Beverly Hills, the Museum of Death, tons of shopping, and even a strip club!

We took off early Friday morning and arrived at our hotel around 4:30 p.m. I couldn't believe we didn't hit any traffic. I felt really spoiled because normally we choose to stay at a crappy hotel in the central Hollywood area, but instead we stayed at a four-star Hyatt in Beverly Hills (thanks undisclosed hotel deal website)!

Check out this view from our patio!

After getting all dolled up and changing clothes, we headed out to the Beverly Hills shopping and restaurant area for some dinner. I really wanted some fancy sushi.

Wearing: New Rock boots, chiffon tunic tank top, faux leather crop top with shoulder cut-outs, and curly extensions

I had no idea Kyle was taking a picture and apparently I was already drunk before having any alcohol? I just can't figure out why my leg is all crooked like that. Anyways, this photo is an amusing  shot of me stumbling down the hallway looking all uncoordinated, so I included it.

We wound up eating at a place called Yojisan and while the sushi was good quality and fairly priced (so surprising!), dessert really stole the show. I picked out the fanciest dessert on the menu - green tea chocolate lava cake with caramel gelato. It was amazing. Even Kyle liked it!

I mentioned that dinner was affordable, but I apparently can't read street signs, even though I checked before we parked, so we ended up with a $65 ticket. Yuck. So really, dinner was quite an expensive affair after all. :(

My sushi rolls, Kyle's salmon teriyaki (he doesn't eat real sushi), and the green tea chocolate lava cake dessert

The decor in the restaurant was very modern and minimalist. I loved it.

It was a half hour drive to Hollywood Blvd on a Friday night (7 miles but 30 minutes due to traffic) and we had a destination in mind - Jumbo's Clown Room. It's a go-go bar where the chicks are supposed to be alternative. While it was a fun experience and I'm glad we went, I was overall disappointed because the girls weren't really all that alternative. Having a few tattoos does not make you "alternative" these days. That isn't to say the girls weren't talented though. They were quite acrobatic and I can only imagine how in shape they have to be to prance around and do all those upside-down pole tricks.

Saturday afternoon we headed to East L.A. to meet up with our friends Krystel and Jonathan at a little Mexican restaurant called Manuel's Original El Tepeyac Cafe. I had the biggest burrito I've ever seen in my life. Krystel told me that Manuel's has been featured on "Man vs. Food," so that explains it I guess. Needless to say, I couldn't even eat a quarter of it.

Next the four of us headed to a bar with retro arcade games called "82." Parking was a bitch, but it was totally worth it. The bar was located in dual warehouses (one with pinball machines and one with arcade games) with an outdoor patio seating area. They had a DJ playing 80s tunes and the drinks were named after games and gamer terms! The building art was also pretty neat. We left wondering why this hasn't caught on and thinking we should open one in Sacramento or Davis…I mean, who doesn't love booze and video games?

Top right: exterior of the bar; Top left: interior of one warehouse building; Middle right: bar area; Middle left: Krystel, Jonathan, and Kyle playing Doctor Who pinball; Bottom: examples of the games available to play

Drink menu at 82

Saturday evening after some shopping on Melrose Avenue (more on that in a separate post), we headed back to Hollywood Blvd to visit the Museum of Death.

Sign at the entrance to the Museum of Death

The museum was very interesting because it was creepy, informative, and of course, very morbid. There were some areas that were hard to look at, such as the hallway full of car crash photos. To me, those pictures were the worst because it's not very likely you'll get murdered by a serial killer, but you have pretty decent chances of dying in a car crash, even if it's not your fault.

The last room in the museum is a tribute to G.G. Allin. This is significant because one of the employees told us that the owner is getting his "body," whatever that means. In case you didn't know, Allin died of a heroin overdose just over 20 years ago, so I imagine there's not much left of his "body" at this point if he wasn't cremated.

After a brief Italian dinner, we got in line at Bar Sinister for the Julien-K show. On our way inside while we were waiting in line at the merch booth, Kyle was accosted by a very drugged and drunk Mikey from Coal Chamber, a band that we both like. He was entertaining to say the least, literally taking his pants all the way off at one point and talking about the glory days of Coal Chamber and how you shouldn't give your money to Amazon. In his words: "Fuck Amazon." Ah, the joys of booze and drugs and being a rock star. Kinda gross in my opinion.

Me and a very intoxicated Mikey. You can see I'm amused but also somewhat frightened by him. He was very grabby with Kyle and I didn't want to be next on his "grab list."

I'm not a huge Julien-K fan, but Kyle really does love them. I appreciate the old school Orgy stuff that Amir and Ryan worked on far more. But those guys sure do know how to put on a show. It was a tribute concert to their first album, "Death to Analog," and I think that they actually sounded better live than they do on the CD. In person, the music has a more rock and roll vibe to it, whereas on the record it's more synthetic and electronic-sounding. My favorite song they played was "Technical Difficulties."

All I've got are some blurry iPhone pics of the show. Videos came out great, but photos….not so much.

I'd never been to Bar Sinister before, so we checked out the actual club proper after the concert, which ended at like 1:00 a.m. I'm such an old grandma - I was so tired I didn't even want to stick around and dance till the club closed at 2:00. A quick walk-through was enough for me. I would very much love to go back and dance on a future occasion though.

Be sure to check out my upcoming post on all the shopping we did on Melrose Avenue.

Until next time!