Getty Villa

Getty Villa is L.A.'s version of Hearst Castle. Practiced using the 'P' and 'M' modes on my camera. Still a lot more to learn, but here are the pictures that I liked the most:

Star leaves on wood cast concrete found along the entrance walkway to the museum. Some super nerd* told me that the architects that designed the walkway wanted the user to feel as if he or she is in an excavation dig site. If you ever take this route, you will notice that you don't see the actual Villa until the end of the walkway. By doing so, the walkway enhances the history and the exclusivity of the Villa.

Loved the typeface throughout the museum. So simple and clean.

Staggered stone wall

Girl has the whole Roman Greek Goddess look going on.

Dizzzyyyy

Borrowed idea...but wrong time of day

When I buy a house, I want my backyard to look like this:

Interesting landscape, who dat??

From the herb garden and I don't think it's that kind of herb.

*Christopher Yee...haha!!

Heritage Park

Some more pictures....@ Heritage Park in Cerritos. Fun times with Vee...thanks for the pointers!

Chillin' by the water

Now it's the ducks doing yoga.. insanity.

Umm, I'm sorry Vee, but I think you're too tall for the play area.

Crazy echo....echo....echo

I love lines.

Until Later!!

Cerritos

"What's the point of a 10-year High School reunion? Everyone at Whitney knows what everyone else is doing already." -Maggie Hui

True...I agree. But everyone doesn't know what everyone else looks like, unless you are an avid Facebook stalker. Then, shame on you... then I guess, shame on me. Going back to Cerritos is always nice; you get away from city life and city traffic. Pure, blissful suburbia. However, it definitely puts you at a higher risk of running into someone you don't want to see. These are generally the people that are probably way more successful than you or have miraculously transformed into models.

Potential Scenario : It's a bright beautiful weekday (because you've been laid off, thanks to the economy) and you're at the local park walking your dog in your old high school club t-shirt. You bend down to clean up after your dog and mid-rise *BBBAMM* who do you see? Your high school crush with some hot chick jogging your way. What do you do then? Run away like you did when you saw your ex-boyfriend for the first time after 6 months or stay put and quickly think of a witty story of why you're at the park when you should be at work. Neither! You curse Cerritos for being such a small city with too many nice parks for its own good!

Luckily, I have an internship and I'm still going to school and I don't have a dog (well that's not so lucky). When I went back to Cerritos recently, I took advantage of the nice parks to practice using my camera. Since I had a legit reason to be at the park during the daytime, I took my chances of running into someone and shuttered away.

One of the parks I went to was Regional Park located at the south end of Cerritos. I was accompanied by Maggie H, not Q, and her lovely dog, Bebe H.

Smelling the roses

Cute duck butts. Lookin' for some grub.

Bebe sniffing a puppy with shoes. with shoes?

A grey goose doing a yoga pose

The cafe we went to for lunch had a doggie menu.. so cute.

Maggie and Bebe

Feels like an imagix picture

More photos to come, seriously!

Downtown Los Angeles

Went on a walking tour of Downtown L.A.'s public plazas and spaces yesterday. Forgot how fun it is to walk around downtown. Picked up a ginormous $2.50 taco at Grand Central Market. I lost the rest group but it was totally worth it!! Nothing beats eating a taco while speed walking in downtown.

Can't get enough of the old buildings!! Here's one of the oldest buildings in L.A.:

Was a fire station, now retail/commercial use.

It's a shame that most Angelenos don't walk around the city and are forever attached to their cars, including myself. I gotta change that this year! I'm determined to take a bus somewhere. And I call myself an Urban Planner? Sheesh! Some more pretty pictures of the random things in Downtown.

"Bright, Lucid and Clear" at Maguire Gardens

Redeveloped green space near the stationary Angel's Flight. Look familiar?

Nighttime Downtown L.A. while driving. (don't worry, I was quick about it)

I Love LA.

My Affair with Cameras

Although I walk around sometimes with my huge ass camera like I know what I'm doing, I really don't. My relationships with cameras have been sparse. I got my first camera at the end of High School in 2003. It was a digital canon power shot that boasted 3.2 mp. At that time, when people were slowly transitioning from film to digital photography, it was considered pretty cool. It looked something like this:

Remember??? The screen was maybe the size of a quarter...but I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. This baby lasted me 3 years and died when I was studying abroad in Korea. I was trying to record my friends dancing and then all of a sudden my screen turned black. It was a pretty sad moment.

Since 2006, I always relied on my friends to take pictures. I'd be the one in the big group screaming, "post it on facebook!!" Let everyone else do the work and enjoy the pictures as you're being tagged. It was nice having friends that always carried a camera around. Especially when you're going out at night and you're wearing a dress and carrying a purse that fits just a phone, credit cards and lip gloss. I never had to worry about accidentally dropping a camera or worse, losing it. I guess I was attracted to the mobility of not having anything to carry around. For a while I thought I could go my whole life without a camera. When people asked why I didn't have one I said, "Oh, I don't really like to take pictures, I prefer to enjoy the moment."

This mobility started to become a nuisance though. I would have to always borrow a camera if I needed to take pictures for work or for school. Then I thought, okay, I'm going into real estate development, I'm going to have to get a camera sooner or later. That's when I made the decision to get one of my very own. See, when normal people decide to get a camera, they lean towards small compact ones, but my overambitious ass decided to get a Nikon d3000. Somehow, I convinced my parents that I really needed a camera with reasons A, B, C, D etc..the reasons don't really matter...I justified it by saying that it would be my Christmas/Graduation gift. HAH! Who am I kidding???

You know how with a nicer camera, it's easier to take nicer pictures? Not really. I guess it's been a while since I've been behind the lens. It's so much more complex than I thought but I would have to admit, when you take that one good picture after taking 100 bad ones, it's a great feeling. Here are some of my favorite pictures so far:

Two of my favorite people!

On a hiking trail in Virginia

At CSULB Japanese Garden.

Ducks or Rabbits?

On the flip side...I've taken many more horrible pictures. Too many to post, in fact. But sometimes, really bad pictures can look sort of cool, like this one:

I thought I was taking a picture of people, but I guess not. Still looks cool, seriously!

Yes, I Am So Serious!

Why would I, Julie K. Shin, start a blog? What in the world could compel me to start writing?

I wanted to document this important phase in my life. I'm currently an Urban Planning graduate student at UCLA (go Bruins!) with only 5 months to go until graduation date. Post grad school, I want to venture into the burgeoning world of sustainable building in densely populated urban environments like Los Angeles, San Francisco and the mecca of all, New York. In 2008, at the start of my graduate school career and the economic decline, I was patting myself on the back for deciding to go back into school. I figured that by my graduation date in June 2010, the economy, more specifically, the real estate development market would be back to 2007 standards. I thought two years would be more than enough of a time cushion. Well, my optimistic predictions were off, WAY off.

This brings me to the current day with about 5 months to find a job with a decent salary, in a field that's shrinking like a wet sponge hung to dry. This blog will help me track my progress in job searching and keep me accountable as well. Along the way, I'll probably go down some side paths and talk about my other interests in life such as friends, food, photography, shoes and architecture. All I need now is a good cup of strong tea and some food to start off my day...at 1:30pm. I hope this isn't a bad start!