In the vast and varied country of the United States, fellow residents tend to misunderstand each other as much as they have a tendency to misunderstand the world beyond. It’s disconcerting to see how many people form concrete opinions of other places based on very little knowledge of and experience in those places.

I discovered my own habit of doing this during my travels to the South. I’ve had enlightening experiences there where found that I liked that part of the country more than I imagined I would. I realized that my negative opinions on it were based on stereotypes, politics, and history rather than personal experiences with the current people and places.

Recently, I’ve also eased up on Los Angeles. In California, there is a little tiff between SoCal and NorCal, and more specifically between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It’s a microcosm of larger issues in the country and in the world and while it’s not detrimental, it can be petty and counterproductive.

While there are still stereotypical and true characteristics of Los Angeles that I don’t like, I’ve found many other things to appreciate about it. I’ve accepted the city for what it is and opened myself up to discovering its more awesome aspects, and that has been a good thing.

Here’s a collection of things that have made me happy on my recent visits to Los Angeles:

» Warm Weather

I love San Francisco, but its weather is not the jam. It has its hotter times, but it tends to hover around highs of 60 degrees Fahrenheit year round, give or take about 10 degrees. I actually prefer to be in warmer climates and I’m not a fan of bundling up. LA is more capable of making these partialities feasible. When I go there, I can pack light and give myself a break from restrictive outerwear.

» The Diverse Array of Cultures

Los Angeles goes far beyond the typical subsections of American cities. There is Koreatown, Thai Town, Little Ethiopia, a sizable population of Hasidic Jews, and areas that make me feel like I’m in Mexico. As a fan of traveling, I really appreciate this cultural mix up all in one location.

» Food

The awesome weather combined with people from all over the world make for an excellent food culture in Los Angeles. There are year round farmers markets everywhere and an abundance of international restaurants and food trucks. There is often an emphasis on food that’s produced locally with respect for the environment and the people who will consume it.

» The Laid Back Atmosphere

Something I noticed on a trip to LA last year is that people there give off an air of being on vacation in their own town. I really enjoy the very city-like energy and feel of San Francisco, but I appreciate the more relaxed nature of LA as well. It’s a nice break from my typical surroundings.

» Hiking to the Hollywood Sign at Sunset

This was the highlight of my most recent trip to Los Angeles. The day after Thanksgiving, we got off to a late start on this hike, but it turned out to be great timing. The lighting was gorgeous on the way up, and when we reached the top, we had a 360 degree view of the Los Angeles and beyond, all aglow in sunset light.

» LACMA

Last summer, I had an afternoon to myself where I happened to be within walking distance of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and it happened to be a free entrance day. I decided to take advantage of that. LACMA is impressive before you even walk in; there is a wonderful light sculpture at the entrance. Once you’re inside, there is an amazing collection of art from around the world. The exhibits are presented in a way that really enhances the art and gives you a sense of the periods and places they come from. The curation at LACMA is artistic excellence in itself.

» Day Trips to Santa Monica

Santa Monica is such an interesting place. With the beach, the boardwalk, the Third Street Promenade, and surf city atmosphere, it’s the California of a lot of people’s dreams. But there is also a very apparent desperate and gritty side to it. These aspects combined make for a truthful dose of Americana.

» Secondhand Shopping

When I’ve gone secondhand shopping in LA, I’ve found some good stuff, I think partly because styles change so quickly and people often get rid of barely worn items. If you’re not caught up in following trends closely, there is good stuff to be found. Beyond the shops, last summer I came across the Melrose Trading Post, a hipstery weekly flea market that has all kinds of little treasures that reflect many different periods of LA. I saw wacky furniture, vintage travel and movie posters, tons of antique knickknacks, and some great jewelry.

» Strange and Passionate People

Venice Beach has its fair share of the LA counterculture, but there are a lot of unique individuals throughout the city. It’s a city that attracts people from all over the country, a lot of them with personalities that were probably too large for Small Town, USA. While there are a lot of people in Los Angeles chasing vacuous and vague dreams of stardom, there are plenty more who may still be enticed by stardom, but have a true love and passion for their art. Los Angeles and San Francisco seem to be equally full of people who are endearingly odd and steadfast about expressing themselves.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough.  We want something else which can hardly be put into words–to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”
– C.S. Lewis.

A month ago, I took a weekend trip down the coast to Santa Cruz to visit a friend and escape from the city life for a couple days. On Saturday morning, I found myself on my own in Carmel-by-the-Sea with a few hours to spare. I walked down to the beach and walked along the shore to one end of it. On my way back, I stopped to just stand still and look at the ocean.

I watched the water come forward and rise and circle towards itself and recede. There is something miraculous in the curvature of the waves. And there is a release of tension that can come with the assurance of the cycle. To really be present at the ocean or in the nature of your choice is a kind of therapy.

As I stood there reveling in the scenery, I remembered how I used to do the same thing as a kid in warmer climates. Except my feet would’ve been in the water. And as the water repeatedly washed over them, my feet would slowly be buried in the sand until I was grounded in the earth up to my calves. I’d eventually pull my feet out and start again.

A woman walked by me and brought me out of my memories. “Did you see them?” she asked me with a huge grin.

“See what?”

“The dolphins… there they go again!”

I missed them. But it was just moments before they resurfaced, their fins momentarily poking through the top of the sea in unison. They were so close to the shore. I watched them, mesmerized, until I couldn’t see them any longer.

Dolphins never interested me as a kid. My thoughts of them somehow were limited Marine-this or Sea-that where sea animals do tricks for you for the payment of fish. There was a day camp I would go to where we would visit one of those places once a summer. It was a field trip I dreaded. I can’t really say why I felt that way back then, but I hated marine parks. It wasn’t until I saw dolphins in the wild that I started to really love the creatures.

A little over a week ago, I was on a boat in the San Francisco Bay to celebrate the marriage of two friends. We started near the Bay Bridge, passed huge military ships that were docked for Fleet Week, went past Alcatraz, and underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. But as we returned to the center of the bay, before it could become entirely a tour of man made feats, we spotted dolphins.

At first, I thought the guy who was trying to point them out had visited the open bar one too many times. But then I saw a school of fins appear in the distance, headed in the direction of the shore of the Presidio.

Dolphins in the wild aren’t guaranteed to jump out of the water and do tricks. They can be elusive. You may only get to watch them for a minute. But to see nothing more than the graceful backs of dolphins emerge in unison for a few moments can be immensely special.

On that evening, they were a beautiful sight during the winding down of a lovely day. And a nice reminder that the wild can be closer than we think.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

Dear Readers,

Like many others with a zealous inclination towards peregrination, when I am at home, I try to find ways to maintain the traveling spirit that invigorates me when I am abroad. This involves road trips, weekend excursions, and seeking out new spots to visit in San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area. I often bring my camera along with me.

Some of the photographs I take of my home state are my favorite. There’s something about shooting where you live that adds an extra layer of freedom to your photography; there’s no attachment to capturing typical postcard images.

But I often push aside sharing my pictures and stories about California on this site to focus on writing about the more far flung locations I experience. My neglected photos needed a separate place to shine. So a couple months ago, I had an idea to create a home for my more local photography; a blog with larger pictures and snippets of stories or maybe a quote. Instinctively, the title “Other Californias” seemed right.

I pondered creating a new blog as I’ve done twice before – once when I started travel blogging on wordpress.com and for a second time when I decided to take a step further and transfer it all this blog: Do I have time for this? What exactly will it be about? Who’s going to care?

Then, last week, I had a just do it moment. So I did it. And I’m excited to see how it will evolve. Please take a moment to check it out and subscribe. I also decided to create a Facebook page for Girl, Unstoppable, so while you’re at it, please “Like” my blog if you feel so inclined!

Happy viewing and reading,
Ekua

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

Though the pain that comes from losing a loved one is infinite, the immensity of it does dim with time. But special events and holidays can re-magnify the loss and make you recall simpler, happier days when all of the dining table chairs were full.

My mom read somewhere that when a family member dies, it is better to begin new holiday traditions instead of dwelling on old ones. 2008 was the year we began recreating our holidays. That year, we went to Hawaii, and the following year, we spent a few days in Santa Barbara. This time, we visited Santa Cruz. Our trips have been getting closer and colder, but the bittersweet new tradition of glorious sunsets, makeshift Christmas trees, and the sea has continued…

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

It’s just before 8am on a mid-May Sunday morning in San Francisco. People celebratorily stumble down the streets as if it’s Saturday night. You see a group of people in coordinated gladiator costumes role playing as if it’s Halloween. As you walk towards the bay, you see little corn tortillas covering the ground as if several tortilla-filled trucks collided and spilled their contents all over the street. What the hell is going on? It must be Bay to Breakers.

Bay to Breakers (B2B) is San Francisco’s annual race from the bay to the ocean. After the real competitors take off, it is one of the city’s most notorious “WTF?” events where people congregate to celebrate and indulge in absurdity. After years of not making it to the event, I finally attended my first B2B this past weekend. Now that I’ve been, I concur with the masses that it’s a great idea to experience it at least once. Here were some memorable parts of Bay to Breakers 2010:

Naked people

The Bad:
You’ll see exhibitionists at any large event in San Francisco, but at B2B, they are sometimes running.

The Ugly:
Someone in a trench coat may appear to be dressed, but to your surprise, he will give you a full frontal reveal when he turns around.

Baby strollers without babies

The Good:
Baby strollers equipped with stereos and loudspeakers blaring upbeat music for everyone around to enjoy as they walk or run.

The Funny:
A baby stroller full of little jello shots to share with fellow revelers.

Bathrooms every block or so

The Good:
Most people are not at B2B to race, they are there to party. No one stands a chance against the Kenyans anyway. The people who plan the event know what most people are there for, so they put up Porta Potties every block or two along the way.

The Bad:
Even with bathrooms everywhere, the lines are incredibly long. And as you start to get close to the front of the line, someone in a viking costume might invite five fellow vikings to cut in line with him.

The race course

The Good:
The race is almost entirely flat except for one hill on Hayes Street that goes by the Painted Ladies of Full House fame. This allows the people who are not racing (the bulk of the participants) to put forth as little effort as possible and focus on what they came to do: party.

The Funny:
Many do not make it to the end of the race at the ocean. By the time you reach Golden Gate Park, crowds have dispersed and people have headed home to pass out or have gone somewhere else to continue the party.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

After spending a day hiking in Henry Coe State Park, I could not fall asleep. When I closed my eyes that night, the hues of the day lingered in my mind. In my delight in their memory, I embraced the vivid images and relinquished a bit of rest.

Verdancy with blankets of purple and orange wildflowers. Azure with flashes and swirls of white butterflies. Clarity and fluidity gliding over rocks and soaking my feet.

I held on to these visions knowing that in a short while, spring’s color show will have disappeared. The rain will stop falling and the summer sun will suck the grasses, flowers and creeks dry. But images of the fleeting shades of revival will give me something to look forward to until the sky water colors the land again.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

The first round of contestants come around the corner.

One of San Francisco’s secrets is that Lombard Street is not the city’s “crookedest street”. Vermont Street, between 20th and 22nd Streets, is the true winner of that title. But unlike Lombard Street with its highly manicured vegetation and showy homes, Vermont Street is largely unkempt, “out of the way” and hard to photograph. With not a lot of traffic going down the street, it’s a great location for San Francisco’s annual “Bring Your Own Big Wheel” Race (BYOBW) which was formerly held on Lombard Street.

The event happens every Easter, rain or shine. This year, it happened to be raining sideways on Easter Sunday. Relaxing in the warm indoors sounded like the most appealing way to spend the afternoon. But at the last minute, I decided I couldn’t miss out on the once a year event. So I bundled up, grabbed an umbrella and took advantage of the rain to wash off the mud caked on my shoes from the previous Monday’s hike.

Approaching Vermont Street, I could see that plenty of people were not deterred by the weather. Many were in costume and carrying their own plastic tricycles. Being Easter, the most common costumes were bunnies, but some other notable costumes were hot dogs, Wonder Woman, and of course, men dressed as women.

As soon as the race began, I knew I’d made the right decision to go. Words, pictures or even videos can’t fully describe the hilarity of it all. Try to imagine grown people in ridiculous costumes trying to navigate sharp curves in little plastic tricycles made for someone a fraction of their size. And some had most likely had a few too many mimosas at brunch earlier in the day.

Tricycles were not the only “vehicles” present– there were carts that looked like they were meant to be underbed storage, surfboards on wheels, and somehow a few were maneuvering around the corners on garbage bins with two wheels. The most important rule is that your wheels are not made of rubber. This allows for a maximum amount of wipe outs.

There are many different riding styles. Some racers are all about speed and getting down the mountain first. Some are more into the show and interested in playing the character they dressed up as. And others use the turtle’s motto, “slow and steady wins the race.” The stragglers were either heckled or encouraged with cheers as they timidly made their way down the hill.

BYOBW isn’t always a spectator sport. If you have a front row location, you’d better be on guard. I learned this the hard way. As I was taking a picture of some racers coming around the corner, one of them smashed right into me and I went flying. A bonus of having the festival on Vermont Street is that San Francisco General Hospital is right around the corner.

As if the rain was not enough, some people try to sabotage racers by spraying them with silly string and dropping bananas on the street. A woman dressed in a pink rabbit costume appeared to be innocently spreading bubbles with a bubble machine, but her main goal was to distract the racers and slick up up the road even more with soap.

The race didn’t seem to be for time, it was more like a race to the end. At the end of each round, plastic tricycle parts were scattered about. Some people lost key parts of their vehicles and had to bow out, while others started to exit the race as it began to rain more heavily. As I began to start dripping with water and my umbrella couldn’t resist the urge to flip inside out, I decided it was time to head indoors. I can’t think of a better way I could’ve spent the afternoon, and it was completely worth getting soaked for.

A storm trooper wipes out.

Contestants who've successfully made it through a round carry their big wheels back up the hill.

I never imagined I'd see a pig riding a tricycle down the street.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

“In the spring, at the end of the day you should smell like dirt.”

- Margaret Atwood

As I wrote last weekend, this past week was my Spring Break and I had no travel plans. So I contacted the awesome Lauren Quinn to see if she could take me on the Palomarin Hike she’d mentioned in her Top Three Travel Secrets post.

The day of our hike was super foggy. As we arrived to begin the hike, it wasn’t pouring, so we went ahead with it. Lots of winter rain allowed us to enjoy a few things Californians don’t take for granted– colorful wildflowers, incredibly green vegetation and an abundance of flowing water. Alamere Falls was a nice surprise, it wasn’t like any other waterfall I’d seen before. The water tumbles over the cliff and splashes onto the beach before draining into the ocean.

I used to hate getting dirty, now it’s something I enjoy from time to time. Partly it’s a throwback to my childhood and the other part of it is a sense of being close to the earth. After the hike, I was soaked in mud up to my mid-calf. I washed the jeans and socks I was wearing that day and they are still caked with mud. It was a good day.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

A couple of months ago I visited Yosemite National Park. I’ve been to the park before, but it was my first time visiting it in the middle of the sleepy snowy winter. It’s beginning to seem like spring is finally approaching and these pictures are long overdue:

The Iron Door Saloon in Groveland, a refuge for wackiness. Those are dollar bills covering the ceiling.

Whoever decorated the Saloon obviously had a dry sense of humor.

Silhouettes and early evening light.

New and old leaves make designs in the snow.

Half Dome through the branches.

Half Dome sprinkled with snow.

Bridal Veil Falls.

A snowy drive back to the city.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

It’s been awhile since I’ve done some serious traveling. When I am not distracted by things I have to do, stir craziness begins to creep up on me. I am hoping to find an affordable last minute Spring Break getaway, but in lieu of any concrete travel plans, I’ve been thinking a lot about where I can go in San Francisco and feel like I am in another place, even if it’s only for a few hours…

» Bissap Baobab & Little Baobab

The first time I walked into the Senagalese restaurant, Bissap Baobab, I knew immediately that I’d left San Francisco and entered West Africa. And true to West Africa, it’s full of friendliness, randomness, and hearty flavorful food. Little Baobab is Bissap’s sibling and is located just around the corner. They offer the same menu as Bissap Baobab up to a certain point and then push aside the tables and dim lights so you can dance the night away to the beats of West Africa and the African diaspora.

» Nonstop Bhangra

Bhangra is a type folk music and dance that comes from the Punjabi region of India. San Francisco’s monthly event, Nonstop Bhangra, fuses this style of music with hip hop, reggae and other genres. The event is fittingly held at a venue called the Rickshaw Stop, and at the party you can enjoy a dance lesson, music and dance performances, and plenty of time to shake and groove on your own. When it gets packed, it tends to get pretty hot and sweaty, but to me, that just adds another element of India to the event.

» 24th Street and the Mission

As the hipsters extend their adhesive jeans with saggy butt legs from the 16th Street part of the Mission to the 24th Street side, gentrification is on everyone’s mind. But there are still times walking down 24th Street when you can feel like you are in Central America as people live their lives on the sidewalks, Spanish is the dominant language, and the smells of pupusas, tacos, and baked goods waft out of the restaurants and panaderias. And of course, the Mission hosts some of San Francisco’s most interesting annual festivals like Carnaval and Day of the Dead.

» Clement Street

I was first introduce to Clement Street in the Richmond by a friend of mine who is a chef. It was pretty easy to see why she liked it– it feels like a culinary tour of Asia. Some of the restaurants on the street are delicious and well known, but I think the most interesting cultural experience is at the Richmond New May Wah Supermarket. It is stocked with Asian produce and products that are hard to find in the US. Chicken feet and other such things not commonly eaten in the US are vividly displayed with no hesitation about what would make the average American squeamish.

» BR55

My obsession with Brazil runs deep. After returning from volunteering there, I needed a regular fix of the genres of Brazilian music I find to be corny but incredibly endearing. I found what I was looking for at the monthly event, BR55, held at Shattuck Down Low in Berkeley. There are a few other Brazilian events in the San Francisco Bay Area that I really enjoy, but they tend to strive for a more cosmopolitan Rio vibe. BR55 serves straight up forró to two-step to and axé in all of it’s cheesy glory.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.