Photo Friday: Under Pressure

Little trinkets and gadgets have always interested me. I love how mechanisms work, on the smallest level, to make bigger things work. So I always find myself gazing around the queue of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, seeing what used to make the old iron horses and steam machines work. After all, these were once real props. They're not just thrown together. Disney bought old machines that used to be apart of mining equipment to help with the theme of their attraction.

Photo Friday: The Back...or Frontside of Castle

Sleeping Beauty's Castle is probably one of the most iconic buildings in the world. A recent statistic showed that Disneyland is the most instagrammed place in the world. So it goes without saying that this building has seen its fair share of photos taken, especially from the front. 

However, what not a lot of people know is that back when Walt Disney was in the process of building Disneyland, he and his imagineers had originally planned on having this side of the castle be the front. But, as fate would have it, the top half of the castle model they were using got flipped around by accident, and they loved it so much, they kept it, and built it as such. So, this photo's dedicated to the original front of the castle, a side of it not often appreciated. 

Photo Friday: Closing Time

Club 33 is a place revered by Disney fans. Some have been lucky enough to know a member, and were able to venture beyond that green door. Now, the club's taken a beautiful new direction, and has a new entrance. But the door still stands, tribute to its long history of exclusivity within Disneyland. 

Date Day! Chocolate Chicken, Old World Grocery's and Smoggy Views

Sometimes in life, you just need to go. Get out of town, even for a few hours, and explore new places. Enjoying the world around you for all of its beautiful glory. I've always been impressed by the ads that inspire adventure. From trekking through mountains, to surfing coast lines, to just exploring cities. This world is too amazing not to take in, and even something so simple as this last weekend was thrilling to me.

I wanted to plan the day. Hailey didn't really know what we were doing, all she knew is that we had to leave at 9:00am, the only stop she knew of was, was going to Ikea to return a shelf part (we accidentally got the wrong one).

So, we took off at nine, and headed south. Los Angeles has far more to offer in regards of things to do, places to see, etc., so we find ourselves there a lot. This time around, I was taking her to a little bit of everything. Places she's been to, places I have been to but she hasn't, and places we both haven't been to.

IKEA's got this awesome sign that promotes unfortunately not actual size hot dogs. 

We hopped on over to IKEA, returned what we needed to, wandered around, got a frame for my degree to hang up, and started to head out to our first stop.

Galco's Old World Grocery in Northeast L.A. 

A friend of mine let me in on this place not too long ago, and we HAD to check it out. 

So get this, you can make your own flavored soda! 

First, choose your level of carbonation...

Then grab any variety of flavor you want. There's so many to pick from! 

Grab a bottle cap...

And press it onto the top of your glass bottle! 

Yes, Hailey's says 'Lavender'. You read that right. 

There's more than just this aisle, and there's SO many different flavors! 

You can pick up a 12-pack, and grab any flavors you want! We got some pretty unique flavors we've never heard of. In this case we acquired a blueberry soda, a rose petal soda, and even a mint julep soda! Others are some titles you might have heard of before, such as Kickapoo Joy Juice. 

This place really is awesome, and definitely a place we're going to come back to. The owner of the store is an amazing guy, with a severe love of soda, and small companies that just don't see the light of day to the public, because Coke and Pepsi run them out of town. How do we know this? He's got his letters from Pepsi and Coke's lawyers asking him to stop selling Mexican Coke or Pepsi, because it might cause 'confusion'. 

Personally, I think it's awesome he's got these hanging up right in the heart of the store. It's a tribute to his desire to give small business soda companies a chance to stand up to the big guys and let them know they're still here and not going to go anywhere. 

After we got our sodas, we headed back across the valley to a spot Hailey hasn't been to before. 

The Griffith Observatory! 

A selfie, Mr. Einstein. 

Pendulum! 

Beautiful ceiling work. 

Big places we've never been to. 

Einstein phone home...

Soon enough, we'll be traveling down there for dinner!

But first..

Big old zoomy space thing! See nerds, this is your payoff for using a magnifying glass to look at ants and stuff. You keep on zooming, all you science kids. 

While we're at it...

Look at how cute she is! 

Boo to all you locals who want this torn down. San Franciscans don't get all butthurt about the Trolly system cloggin' up their roadways, why should you get all butthurt about a sign?

Artsy? Artsy. Or just a random photo. You decide. 

Moving on. 

Okay, so Downtown LA's architecture is cool, first off. 

Second off, my mother in law found a list of 28 junk food and drool worthy places to eat at in L.A. So, Hailey and I now have donned the challenge to eat at ALL OF THEM. Someone's gotta do it, right? Might as well be a bunch of kids with clean arteries to clog. 

This is our second stop on the list (we already had been to Diddy Riese before we found out about the list. Yea, we're that hipster).

But Jake, I can't tell what that place is! It just looks all urban and cool, and quite like a place I would love to visit! What ever is the name of said restaurant? 

CHOCO. CHICKEN. 

You read that right. ChocoChicken. This place rocks. It's chocolate fried chicken, accompanied with glorious things like a bacon biscuit, or white chocolate mashed potatoes...or DUCK FAT FRIES. Goodness gracious, this place was delicious. 

I mean, LOOK AT IT. How good does that look?! 

Well, not very good if you're vegan. But if it makes you feel better, we learned that this chicken they use here is grain fed and organically grown on a farm that doesn't have giant warehouses with little cages and all those bad dirty things they teach you at PETA-School. 

But back to this place. We absolutely loved it. It's a great menu of food choices, for a little bit higher than normal price (my sandwich above was $14), but we promise you, you  get what you pay for. 

So after this, Hailey knew we were going to see a movie, and she thought we were going to go to a AMC in the North LA area. 

Just kidding! We drove down to Downtown Disney to see Guardians of The Galaxy, and end the night inside the parks to watch the fireworks together. For some reason, on some of our LA dates, we've ended up going as a spur of the moment thing, so I figured it'd be fun to keep up that tradition. 

All of those were shot on my canon, and without a tripod. Still trying to toy around with that 50, and what looks good. 

And, to end this blog post, here's the final stop of the night, which was also the third stop on the food list! 

Pellicola Pizza. Known for their Nutella pizza! 

This spot is yet again in downtown LA, and a few blocks from the Staples Center. Gotta say, that pizza didn't disappoint. It was slightly crunchier than I expected, but still incredibly delicious, and for $3 a slice, who can argue with that? 

This place is a throwback style to vintage film stuff. They've got old theater lamps around the place, and then..

Classic movies playing on the scrim on the window of the restaurant!

Places like this really are amazing gems, and far better than any chain restaurant could ever provide in regards to quality food and great style. After getting home at 1:00am, we were worn out. We both can't wait to get down here again to try out more places on the list, and explore even more places. If I could leave you readers...if anyone is actually reading this, with one thing, it's this: get out. Go explore, and see what's around you. I know, I know. Your comfortable wake up, go to work, go eat, go home, sleep, rinse repeat life is all comfy, but please. Your life is short, and your world is small. See what you can, and find things that aren't deemed popular. Maybe you can make it a popular place by sharing your findings with everyone else. You never know. But for now, I must bid adieu, and be off to search for more places that Hailey and I can explore.