California Dreaming - Day 2

Friday - California trip

After a very large complementary breakfast at the hotel, we found the hall where the America's Got Talent auditions would be on Saturday and explored.  We had gotten the low down from the Starbucks shop on the corner and they said go on in! The hall was attached to their shop.  

Meri sang her auditioning song of Bette Davis eyes in the bathroom there.  If only the judges could be brought in the bathroom for her audition...  oh well.

After admiring the building we headed to downtown.  We found the neighborhood where there is an apartment that Meri wants to rent this next fall.  She'll be on a waiting list shortly for a room there.  It used to be a hotel but now it's been converted to apartments, but the best part is that it's affordable! 

The area was beautiful and had a Target store on the corner.  Oddest little Target I've ever been in.  We walked for a while and saw some amazing buildings.  This one reminded me of the apartments in the first Ghostbusters movie.  I sent our FB Family group a pic and Robb guessed why I took the picture immediately.  He gets me...

During our walk, of course I got paged and had to walk back to the car.  We felt comfortable enough with the area so Meri explored on her own while I took care of my business worky stuff in the car.  

A guy on a motorcycle drove past her after I'd gone and shouted "Beautiful!" to her.  What a boost!  She texted me immediately to let me know.  You just don't get complimented like that in small town Iowa... 

Then we drove and explored all over Korea-town and moseyed over to Los Angeles downtown proper.  We were meeting Abby in the fashion district that afternoon and we were a little early.  We found a parking ramp and walked around.  

Got lunch at a Hawaiian corner restaurant before heading back to the parking ramp to meet up with Abby.  Meri got shrimp and I got thinly sliced breaded beef.  The sauce was fantastic...  Soy sauce/vinegar and some Hawaiian sauce mixed.  YUM...  

I tried to mimic it since coming home and using Bulgogi sauce as a replacement of the Hawaiian sauce.  The amounts will need to be tweaked.

The three of us explored and shopped all over in that district.  There were little fabric shops with tons of fabric bolts lining sidewalks.  A majority of them only cost $1 a yard...  The guy working there would measure out the yardage with his arm, so a "kind of" yard measurement.  

We didn't have much room in our carry on luggage, but Abby had a trunk!  So anything we didn't need for a couple months was tucked into her car.

If Meri gets on AGT, we have the crepe backed satin for a fab dress for me to make her.  That got brought home with us and I'll get going on that soon.  If she doesn't get on the show, she has other plans for it.  More on that later.

There was so much white satin and fabrics for wedding gowns!  If I ever have another wedding gown to make, THESE are the places to go!

Plus one of the places was selling tiny baby turtles.  Yeah.. no. That won't fit in our luggage...

After a little bit of shopping, Abby confessed that she was starving so we ducked into a pizza joint for her.  

Then we found a shop that several of my sewing friends had recommended.  While it WAS huge and had a fantastic selection, it also had realistic pricing.  We had gotten spoiled with the $1 a yard stuff...

I found a tiny shop with tons of fold over elastic in every color you can imagine.

And I can imagine quite a bit...

For only 25 cents a yard!  So I stocked up.  If I buy it online it's more than that and I'd have shipping costs.

If I asked, several of the tiny shops were willing to ship the fabric to me, but they only estimated $3 or $4 to ship it.  I really think they don't want to lose money when the weight of the fabric alone told me it would be at least $10 - $15 to ship it...  AND who's to say they'd actually ship it if it cost more than what they estimated?  Eh - we'll send it with Abby.

We stuck around town for a few hours, then headed back "home".  Meri and I stopped by a grocery store and picked up a few things for an early breakfast and the smallest amount of honey we could purchase for a calm throat for singing.  After we got an early supper, Meri introduced me to the tv show Impractical Jokers.  What nuts those guys are!  We hit the hay early.  

It would be a BIG day tomorrow!