It may be regarded as a bit of an anti-climax if I didn’t go to any famous LA shopping hotspots. But jetlag and lack of personal transport meant that it was just more convenient to go to the local suburban shopping centre. But what a mall!

My serviced apartment (Staybridge Suites Chatsworth) was in or around Woodland Hills. It’s in the San Fernando Valley – yes, *the* Valley. It’s far from the LA city centre. Given how seedy Downtown is though I don’t think that’s much of a bad thing (more on that in later posts). Either way it was sterling example of suburban Americana and fascinating in its own right.

Dan lives and works in the vicinity so he came by early that day and partook of the free hotel breakfast. There was some strange mashed potatoe and what tasted like canned corned beef combination. It was completely tasty and awesome.

A word about my serviced apartment – it was really rather good. The design was sort of California/Spanish/Mediterranean style villa. The main building was surrounded by the apartments in separate 2 storey buildings that hold about 4 apartments each. I paid about US$65 a night for a 2 bedroom apartment both with ensuites, full kitchen and a separate living room sofa bed. There’s also free wifi. Highly recommended.

The timing was such that I had to be dropped off where the mall was about 2 hours before it actually opened. It drizzled intermittently. Typical. I pick the one weekend where it’s actually cloudy and rainy in LA! I wandered around Staples (like our Officeworks), either a Circuit City or a Bestbuy (small and uninteresting), found a homemaker centre with Bed Bath and Beyond and a Petsmart, which was quite good fun. It’s about as big as a Big W and has every single pet thing you can think of. It also has a pet grooming centre, vet service, day care, and hotel. You can actually bring your pets into the store. And would’t it be fun to be the person who gets to play with puppies all day! There was a little greyhound puppy there which was soooo adorable. It is so elegant and nimble-footed. I think if I ever got a dog I’d want a greyhound now.

Best of all, I found a Nordstrom Racks. This is like the clearance store for Nordstrom’s, one of the more premium American department stores. I bought 2 pairs of shoes and a cute light green three-quarter sleeve jacket. I tried on a pair of Burberry low cut boots which made my legs look like they go on forever. Unfortunately even with the mega discount it was still about $400. -tear-

I managed to pull myself away from Nordstrom Racks only after I was satisfied I had scoured the whole store for the best deals. After getting slightly lost I got to Westfield Promenade Woodland Hills. Ironic that I travel halfway across the world and I’m still shopping at a Westfield.

I met up with Alice later in the day. We had some California rolls for lunch, because one HAS to have California rolls in California.

Highlights probably include the Abercrombie & Fitch and Ruehl stores. I’m not a fan of the preppy jock look but the store design and layouts are amazing. The sexy masculine fragrance they have pumping throughout the A&F store helps. They have these huuuge wall-sized images of these all-American completely fit models too, which also helps. Alice tells me they only hire cute guys too. That certainly helps.

Note to self: a Tokidoki Trenino bag is useful to go shopping with. It’s roomy enough to pack all your shopping without having to use a plastic bag while still small enough that it could pass off as a handbag.

I was variously complemented on my red glasses, Diesel metal wraparound watch and Tokidoki bag throughout the day. Australian SAs should take a page from American SAs because it makes me, the customer, all warm and fuzzy even though I know it’s part of their job.

By request, we met up with Dan’s friend, a Mexican food specialist, who drove us to whoop whoop. I was envisioning some underground bikie Mexican bar, like the one my family frequented in Amherst, MA (to this day the image of this little Asian family in the middle of all those rough types amuses me). La Barca Jal Restaurantes actually turned out to be a family type restaurant with some of the most authentic food north of the border. I can’t personally attest to that but I can tell you it was SO TASTEEEE.

Those nachos make Doritos taste like cardboard. I had horchata, which is a cinnamon rice drink, and their molcajete a la Mexicana, which is like the Mexican version of a Korean chigae. It comes in this stone bowl which is traditionally used to pound corn to make nachos. It comes in this red stew with chicken, top sirloin, chorizo, cactus, onions, pieces of melted cheese and especial sauce of molcajete and is served with ranchero beans and soft tortillas. And at $12.99 it is a bargain! It was HUUGE. It could easily feed two. The cactus was interesting. The jalapenos looked deceptively mild. I cried.

After that we went to this Spanish-themed bar at the top of a hill that overlooked Universal City. The parking lot is lower down the hill and you have to take a shuttle to the top. The appletini was delicious and the view impressive. It’s too bad it had been drizzling (yep, I did pick the one weekend where LA ISN’T fine) because the outdoors areas, which normally has open fires, were closed.

Dan then drove us through Rodeo Drive and Sunset Boulevard but I was already doing that one second conscious and talking the next second passed out thing.

There was a power failure at Staybridge that night. It wasn’t so funny because Alice was midway through her shower then. We then commenced drinking IBC rootbeer and playing big2 in the dark with only the light from our mobiles, Dan’s camera and his EEE pc.

It’s what I call a value-for-money day.

P.S. Big shout out to Picasa 3. That retouch tool is going to see a lot of use from me. No need to open up photoshop to get rid of those zits now DD