• Saturday the 27th: Little Tokyo and Hollywood with Aaron and Annie. In Los Angeles' Little Tokyo, we ate ramen and udon for lunch at the Mitsuwa Yaohan Plaza, leafed through fashion magazines at the Asahiya bookstore (including Fruits), bought blueberry cheesecake imitation Pocky and other treats at the Mitsuya market, and sampled mochi ice cream in the village. We drove up to Sunset Boulevard and spent some time at the Tower Records (discovering Kahimi Karie, Fela Kuti and Papa Wemba in the world music section), checked out who was playing at the Viper Room, the Roxy, and the Whiskey-a-Go-Go (nobody special), caught dinner at Baja Fresh and spent a few minutes at the new Borders bookstore, and finally settled for watching Lost in Translation at the Dome theater, a pricy but nice experience: no pre-movie ads, the soundtrack to the movie playing in the background, an introduction to the movie by a real live person (like in Ann Arbor), an employee in the hall for the first ten minutes to check image and sound quality, and wide, comfortable seats.

• Sunday the 28th: biking, dinner and movie with Dave and Alisa. After lunch with the grandparents, Dave and I drove over to his mother's fiancee's house with my own bicycle and borrowed a couple more bikes for him and Alisa. Unfortunately, our bicycle ride was cut short by a flat tire but we had a nice chance to chat on the walk back. Dinner at the Mad Wolf Mongolian BBQ, the Mongolian BBQ with the nicest atmosphere in Orange County. At Dave's house we looked at photos of his mom's trip to visit him in Kazakhstan, and watched Kill Bill.