Got back from L.A. today, visiting Vanessa’s relatives. It was fun.
Went to the beach, briefly one day and stopped at Seafood City (an Asian
supermarket) which was next to a Chow King fast food place where we got
lumpia and a frozen green drink with tapioca balls in the bottom.
The lumpia came with a free brown slushy which I we thought was pretty
nasty, but Vanessa’s mom liked it. Had the roasted pig (lechon) yesterday
at somebody’s house. Huge potluck. More meat than you can shake
a drumstick at. But there were also come yummy fruits like persimmons
and pummelos. Vanessa’s mom went crazy picking the calamansits off
of a bush out there. 
That’s like a tiny sour orange. 
Eat one and see if you can keep a straight face. Filipinos seem have
nicknames for everybody. Vanessa is Bing. Heard a lot of the
“Filipino-synchronized-woman-laugh.” Somebody tells a joke (in Vesayen
in this case) and all the women in the room do this shrill laugh from low
to high as though they were telepathically linked. Today, on the
way back tot he airport, Vanessa’s cousin took us to Santa Monica.
We saw a cool toy store out there.
Many people seemed very fashion-conscious. We saw a few girls that
looked like they were straight off of the set of Clueless. The amount
of driving you have to do to get around in L.A. is pretty sick. We
spent most of the day in the back of Uncle Junior’s van…The smog was
really amazing. We reenacted the “Everybody Hurts” video by REM while
stuck in traffic under a bridge on the interstate. 
Just
before the airport, we did the obligatory trip to In-N-Out Burger 
…which
made us late to the airport. We rushed past the long line to get
in and tried a self-serve automated check-in…no go…it said we were
too late and had to go to the gate. We went to the gate and were
too late…we got a later flight though and everything came out ok.
Some old guy on the plane seemed like he was going to go air-rage but he
didn’t. Seat belt light was on but the guy was getting up to go to
bathroom. Attendant said sit down. When we got off, the guy
was talking to pilot or something about how he was going to call America
West. I forgot my glasses so my face is about a foot away from the
monitor right now but mum-in-law will bring them back when she returns
tomorrow. I think Vanessa also has an update!