China Friends, the Zoo, and The Drive of Death

Thanks to our digital age (both email and social networking), I have been fortunate enough to be able to keep in touch with a lot of the students that I have had in the past--both here in the States, and also from when I was a teacher in China.  While my dad was going to be here, I saw that one of my students, Iris was going to be in town.  Iris goes to Harvard, and was on a fall break.  Natually, I wanted to see her!  Iris was in my favorite class my very first year in China.  In fact, a couple of my other classes weren't as fun, and if I hadn't been able to teach Iris' class, I might not have stuck around for another year.  :)  I was blessed to be able to tutor Iris and 3 of her classmates once a week during my second year in China.  I was able to see her get better and better at English, and we also became friends.  I have enjoyed watching her grow up (virtually), and follow her adventures as she went to high school and now college here in the States.

She came out to CA to visit Aaron, one of her classmates, and another of my students from my favorite class at Ren da fu Zhong.  Aaron is at UCLA, getting his doctorate.

I have said it before, and I will say it again.  My Chinese students were SO SMART.  The only reason I was qualified to teach them at at all, was that I was a native English speaker.  Wooftie, they are brilliant people.

We went out to lunch at a Korean restaurant near UCLA.  It was delicious!  And we got to reminisce a little bit about RDFZ and good Chinese food!  Aaron, anytime you are making xihong shi chao jidan (西红柿炒鸡蛋), call me!!

Of course we had to do the Chinese peace picture!

Only downside: We took such a long time getting the picture (I didn't put a memory card in my camera--fail, and dad couldn't figure out the settings on his), that I got a ticket!  I missed the traffic enforcement guy literally by 5 minutes.  Grr.  That's $58 I will never get back.

After lunch, dad and I drove to the Old Los Angeles Zoo.

Unfortunately, it looked VERY different--there was a company that was setting up a haunted house all through the old zoo areas.  Dismembered heads and skeletons are not my idea of a good time.  But I think dad got the basic idea.  And we enjoyed pretending to be monkeys for a little bit. :)

Dad decided he wanted to swing upside down on the top of this cage.

Then he pulled a muscle in his butt.

After we went through the zoo, Nick met us at Griffith Park, and we drove up to the top of Mount Wilson.  This peak is part of the San Gabriel Mountains, which border the eastern part of Los Angeles.  No matter where you are in Los Angeles, you can see the TV towers that are on top of Mt. Wilson.  In order to get to the top, you have to drive up the Angeles Crest Highway.

This is a map of the Angeles Crest Highway (follow the 2, then the smaller line down to Mt. Wilson):


View Larger Map

This is me, after the drive up there:

Yeah, I don't do well with curvy roads.

Once we were up at the top, and I was able to take some I'm-not-going-to-puke-right-now breaths, the view was spectacular.  The summit is at 5,710 feet (1,740 m), and the grade of the mountain is pretty steep, so you are pretty much able to look down directly over all of Los Angeles:

We got up there right as the sun set, so the colors through the smog were really pretty.

It was also cool to look up.  Mt. Wilson is referred to as a metro-media center, because it helps to relay the broadcasting of radio and television for the Greater LA Area.

I was not excited about our trip back down the mountain, so I closed my eyes and prayed for sleep.  Thankfully, I was able to nap a little, and didn't feel as bad going down.

And as a bonus, we ate in Burbank at my favorite, FRONTIER WOK!!  That's a pretty good way to end a drive of death, if you ask me. :)