ESC fig is comin' to the 808...

Day 12, time to wrap it up...

So it was time to wrap one killer vaca in Cali,

So I spent the majority of the day packing up and kickn' back.  My friend picked me up and we headed to The Soup Plantation before heading to the airport, pretty killer place to go to if you want all you can eat soup, salad, etc.

It was time to say my goodbyes and wrap it all up so there I was at the airport.  My flight was delayed by an hour because Mr. Obama stopped by in California to do a rally speech at USC.

Made it on board and back to Hawaii safe and sound.  At least the airplane food this time wasn't too bad, ham sandwich and brownie, yum yum.

I gotta say, it was one solid trip got to make memories with my friends and their family, and meet up with my Cali friends, good times, good times.  So big thanks to my friends and their family for allowing me to travel with them and for staying at their folks' killer crib, thanks to my traveling Cali buddy for staying at her crib for the remainder of my stay, thanks to my Cali buddies and their awesome family for the grub, the vinyl figure and the Kikaida performance and a HUUUUUGE thank you to my Cali twin for taking me around and being an awesome hostess, I hope to be back up there soon.

Day 11, shoppin for the crib...

Before day 11's adventure,

Had to get some morning grub, this time, my friend took my to Dinah's, oh man, killer food there.  I had me steak and eggs and a Belgian waffle...

We then hit it to my fav place to shop for my crib, Ikea.  That place is the bomb diggity, super cool stuff, for good deals...

We did more shopping and then met up with another bunch of my Cali friends, and to no surprise, we ate again, lol.  This time it was at Lazy Dogs.  For pupu's we had nachos...

And for din din, I had this shrimp stir fry thing, pretty killerz...

We then headed back to my friends' crib and kicked back for a bit.  My friend and his son did a Kikaida performance for me and my other friend, sooooooooo awesome!  I swear I have the coolest buddies, lol.  (Thanks man for the figure, he'll look awesome with my collection!)

You would think that would be all for the day right?  Big negative, haha.  After cruisin with my friends, we then hit it to the nearby hometown aka Korean Town, aka K Town for some late night dessert.  The latest thing that's a craze in Cali are these food wagons, which serve anything from Korean kalbi tacos, to dim sam and the list goes on and on.  The one we went to, called Get Shaved, if I remember correctly serves shave ice, yup you heard it, shave ice Hawaii style with all of the flavors including li hing mui, haha awesome.

And another thing they make are these icecream sandwiches, oh man, it was sooooooo good.

Day 10 cont'd...

So after some minor shopping,

I hit the streets and took some graff n street art pics.  JLed hits up a post at the closed down Bape store...

Where the Wild Things are graff style...

Someone hit up this garage door, awesome...

In La Barracuda parking lot...

Outside of La Barracuda building...

I thought this was pretty killer...

The back street of Melrose blown up...

 

Right before leaving Melrose, I saw this perfect opportunity to snap this pic, the irony of it all, a houseless person's shopping cart parked next to a Mercedes, AWESOME!

After Melrose, my friend and I hit up The Grove...

And we saw my homie Mario Lopez, lol...

Later that night we hit up 50's Diner for some shakes.  But man, the decor of the place was pretty mean, old school comic books, Monroe pics, 50's music, good times...

Day 10, A day to conquer...

Another day of expedition and adventure,

On this particular day, the mission was to head on out to Melrose to see what goodies they had there.  My friend and I started the day off with some grub n grinez.  We booked it on over to John o' Groats, a kinda semi fancied up bistro, where they use nothing but the finest ingredients for their dishes.  My friend ordered up some pancakes, bacon and poached eggs.

Meanwhile, I had me a waffle and...

The best mocha shake in the world.  I mean the BEST, it was sooooooo super killerz, made with icecream, some fancy shmancy coffee and Ghirardelli chocolate, oh man, just the thought of it makes my mouth water.

After the feast sesh, we booked it on over to Melrose.  In true urban fashion I hit up Kidrobot...

Suru L.A...

And Munky King...

They had a few stuff up for display, and one of the things that caught my eyes was the Omi displays which were painted during SDCC.  There were Omi's done by Yosukay...

 A collab from Ledbetter and David Flores...

And Hawaii's very own, Woebots...

After checking out a bunch of shops along Melrose, I hit nearby locations and took some shots of killer street and graff, super sick stuff, I'll be posting pics in a continuation entry to this blog...

Day 9, what a super unreal day...

Today was one of those days I couldn't wait to happen,

There were some killer adventures for the day ahead.  I had a little free time to catch up on some stuff and then saw my friend's dogs and decided to make them my supermodels, lol.

Up to bat first was Lani, she kept her composure and kept poised...

And then there was Lucky, who kept it cool and collected...

My friend picked me up and then we went to get some grub, so we stopped at Rutt's, who's famous for Hawaii style local food.  When we got there, right next door to the restaurant I saw a graff'd up truck, killer.

 So I was hella hungry and had one of those moments when your eyes is too big for your stomach.  I ordered me a char siu saimin and a teri burger.  I thought I was gonna explode.

So after I feast, we booked on over to Toy Art Gallery, aka TAG to check out one of the most unreal urban figures and paintings and kaiju collections in the world.  You have no idea how excited I was to finally see this place in person, I was full on like a little kid going to Disneyland for the first time.  What was even more unreal was that I got the invite from the head boss of TAG to get a tour of their corporate headquarters, man it was so hard to keep my composure.  When I stepped through the doors, it was hella friggen unreal, I mean hella unreal.  There were TONS of pieces including 1 off figs and paintings, I was trippin big time.  What was even more super cool was that the TAG team was super cool, and super friendly.  Man, as I write about it now, I'm still super stoked.

So after I regrouped for a bit, I got my own little private tour of the TAG's Jouwe Custom show, which is based off of my good friend Marine's Jouwe Tummy figure.  To see these customs up close and personal (literally) was mind blowing, the pics you see from online barely capture the vividness and details of these awesome pieces.  I was seriously in heaven.

I gotta give mad props to the TAG Team, it was a HUGE honor to be able to meet the team and check out the stuff that I saw, man, I can't believe it.  Upon leaving the TAG crib, I got a view of the trademark Hollywood sign.

So after that whole adventure we headed back to my friend's crib and I got a super quick power nap and then got ready and headed for Hollywoodville.  One of the stops we hit up was Wacko Toys/La Lus de Jesus Gallery, that place is crip.  There's ALL kinds of goodies to see in there.  The prices for urban figs aren't too bad in my opinion, I was able to get me a pair of Pete Fowler figs from there.

After Wacko, we then headed to Pandegus to watch "The Phantom of the Opera".  I gotta put it out there that this was a performance I've always wanted to see since high school.  I thought the music score was hella killer and I often would think what the show would look and sound like in person.  That moment finally came.  All in all, the performance was KILLER, from the singing, the costumes, the sets, the effects, etc.  I was totally into it from the beginning to the very end.

I had to crack up to myself, when I got into the theatre, I observed a whole lotta peopz were dressed up for the evening.  Me, I kept it real in true HaynMade fashion, Adidas track jacket, polo shirt, Kangol hat, jeans n Kicks, haha.

After the show I saw the opportunity to snap this pic...

After the show we headed on over to Mel's Diner to get some evening grub.

Winnah, winnah, chicken dinnah...

And my friend got a ruben sandwich with chili fries...

And you know dessert had to happen, hot fudge sundae baby...

I thought it was hella cool too that Mel's had bottled mustard.

Man, it was one super unreal day, can't believe what a day of positivity it was.  What's even more trips is that there's still a few more adventures lines up.