LA Birthday Trip Recap!

This past weekend was so much fun celebrating my birthday in LA with my sisters and friends! I realized I don’t get out to LA often enough! They have so many amazing spots so I wanted to give you guys a recap of my trip.

I went with my girls Melanie, Teresa and my sister Jasmine, and my sister Chantel also drove from San Diego to hang with us for a night [she recently tore her ACL and meniscus and just had surgery a few days before!].

When we first arrived, my sister and I stopped at Urth Cafe in the airport. I got a curry chicken sandwich which was kind of surprisingly delicious.

Teresa arrived at the hotel a little later and we three went out to dinner at Kazunori around 8 pm. Kazunori  is famous for having the freshest, most tasty hand rolls. We waited in line forever though!! I definitely recommend this spot, though if you can get there during the middle of the day like 2-4 pm you won’t have to wait though!

The next morning we got up and just grabbed a quick bite before we headed to Universal Studios. We saw Mario Lopez doing the intro for EXTRA which was totally unexpected and super cool! Our first stop was Harry Potter Land and it was just as amazing as I hoped. The second best part of the park was actually the Universal Tour, even though the wait was the longest. Our ride actually was cut short because someone pulled the emergency rope! I think it was just a bad joke, but they ended our ride anyways and it was so disappointing! Every food stop was actually incredible too, and I just can’t wait to go back. The crepes and boba tea we got on our way out were soooo yummy, I would go back just for those haha! I also really recommend buying your Universal pass at Costco.com because its the same price (around $135) but you get 3 passes for the year instead of one. Another tip: To save time, use the Single Rider line! The wait for most rides is around 1 -2 hrs, but with the single rider line it is around 15 min, and sometimes you still have a chance to sit together!

After Universal Studios, we went to Genwa, which is a popular Korean BBQ spot. I wasn’t that hungry but it was still good. They have a lot of unique sides. It’s also great they cook for you!! Not many Korean BBQ places do that.

The next morning was Saturday and we decided to get a late breakfast at Bottega Louie. It was my plan from the start to get a dessert because man – oh – man their desserts look GOOD. But by the time were done with our meals, none of us were simply in the mood for sweets. Next time!!

We then hung out on the rooftop bar at the Ace Hotel and that was so nice. The warm sun felt lovely and there was a nice breeze and a great view. We thought we might get some drinks, but ended up just going healthy with green and orange juices. 🙂

After the Ace Hotel we stopped at quite a few places. First we checked out the Last Bookstore. I have never ever seen a bookstore so dang crowded! I would have been tempted to get some books if I had had the whole day to spend there but instead we just walked around and took some cute pics haha.

We were hungry again by the time we were done so we walked nearly across the street to Onipoki. It has some pretty amazing reviews and I have to say, we weren’t disappointed! We got our food to go though, and it was sooooo good when we finally had a chance to eat it.

My friends and I also felt like picking up some boba tea and so we made our way over to a famous boba place called Milk-T. The line was decently long, and the boba tea was good but overly hyped. It’s kind of cool how you can put in your own boba/lychee/chia seeds etc.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the Westin. We really wanted to hang out by the pool, but it’s ridiculously small and all the seats were taken. So we just sat in this random area on some random chairs and still had a nice chill time. 🙂

Our evening plans were to bar/lounge hop but we ended up just sticking to the Standard for a few hours. It got pretty busy but we had a great time! Some people recognized me and I always think it’s amazing when people can recognize me in the dark lol… though it was strange, none of them actually tried to talk to me – I just saw a couple pointing at me and a guy walked past me and said, “Hapa Time” before disappearing into the crowd, leaving me a little bit stunned.

So that was our trip! Just a lot of good ole fun. 🙂 We all had flights to head out pretty early on Sunday so we didn’t get to do anything together other than say bye! My sisters and I did get to stop at this place called Sustainabowl, and they had the most delightful, heavenly, healthiest acai bowl and salad. I would die of happiness if I could eat there everyday. But since I can’t, I’m excited to do it all again next year!!