Since completing my Japanese minor last spring, I’ve dreamt of nothing more than visiting Japan. Flickr in some ways both satiated and exacerbated this wanderlust, with its hundreds of thousands of breathtaking photos. Below are some of my favorites (click image for source).

My friend Lindsey of Blood Like Milk recently visited Japan, and has a wonderful series of posts with her own photographs!

If you’ve ever been to Japan, where did you go, and how long did you stay? Whenever I’m able to make my trip out there, what are the attractions I must see?

The below photos I managed to capture with my Digital Rebel and ƒ1.8 50mm lens. The blue gradient towards the top is a result of the window tinting of the plane. The only post-processing involved was some contrast and color correction to add more red and yellow.

Also, I didn’t realize it until recently, but someone made a bloglovin feed for my blog, and for those of you who use it, add me~

Shortly after visiting Squeeze, we drove out to the Marfa Prada boutique, located about 30 minutes west of Marfa, and about 2 miles west of a dejected town called Valentine, Texas. I’ve known about the Marfa Prada piece for a while, so seeing it in person was a bit surreal and much more of an experience than seeing it online or in photos. The Prada boutique is actually an art installation, aptly situated in the middle of nowhere, accessible only after passing through a small town that is literally falling apart. The store is stocked with actual Prada merchandise, I believe from the 2005 collection.

On Sunday morning, before returning to Dallas, we stopped by the Austin Street Cafe, which incidentally, is only open on Sundays from 8am to noon. This family-owned restaurant is situated in a beautiful remodeled house (see the website for its history). The woman who owned it was extremely hospitable, and very obviously loved her cafe and vested a lot of interest in her visitors. What a charming place – definitely a must-visit for anyone stopping through Marfa!

My boyfriend ordered the pecan waffles and I ordered the ham (prosciutto) and egg meal. So delicious – I could eat prosciutto for every meal, no problem.

Despite Marfa’s small size, with a population of about 2000, the town is famous throughout the country for its food, art, and oddities. Although we didn’t get to do everything, we did manage to check a number of things off of our checklist (including the Marfa lights mentioned in the last post).

As soon as we settled in, we visited the Hotel Paisano. Built in 1930, the Hotel Paisano’s architecture celebrates a classical Western style. In 1955, the hotel rose to fame when Warner Bros. decided to film Giant in Marfa, and chose the Hotel Paisano as the location at which all of the stars, including James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor, were to stay.

In the back left corner is a table and a whiteboard that has information on all of the groups that meet at the Hotel Paisano.

The Hotel Paisano also houses an art gallery, a diner, and many small boutiques that sell local products such as books, photos, art, clothing, and these bath goods.

After the Hotel Paisano, we walked around the corner to Squeeze, a smoothie shop. I ordered the “Mango Tropics” smoothie, which was made with mango, pineapple, and banana. Although it was a bit expensive for its size, the smoothie was extremely thick and creamy. The cafe was adorable – tucked away behind a private garden in what seemed to be an old house. The staff was extremely friendly as well, and the owner made conversation with me about my camera!

They also sold German chocolates, which unfortunately I didn’t try!

I tried condensing everything into two posts but with so many photographs and details it just wasn’t happening. Within the next few days I’ll be making a third and final Marfa post!

We stayed at the El Cosmico campgrounds, which turned out to be more of an adorable commune, really. My boyfriend and I rented the reasonably-priced safari tents for $60 a night, which came equipped with a platform bed, lighting and electricity outlets, and towels. The amenities included toilets, showers, hammocks, a community kitchen (with a fridge, grill, and more), and an outdoor amphitheater for local music festivals. The staff was very accommodating, especially considering our 3am arrival.

The El Cosmico lodge

A few of the yurts and tents (mine is the safari tent in the back)

The interior of our safari tent. The lantern was made out of recycled cans

The El Cosmico community kitchen

For the first day, we hit up several of the local attractions (to be covered in the following post), and at around 3pm we retired to the hammocks. Unlike most of Texas, Marfa’s temperatures hover around a bearable 90° during the day, and fall to about 50-60° during the night. Everyone grabbed their summer reading books (mine was The Stranger by Albert Camus) and laid down to read and nap. Just as we began, however, a summer shower moved in. We put away our books but continued laying in the hammocks as cold rain filtered through the treetops and cooled us off. I ended up falling asleep, and woke up about an hour later with a light sunburn across my face, chest, and arms (which has since turned tan, thankfully).

After dinner (grilled bratwurst, chili, beans, and beer), we drove east of Marfa to witness the Marfa lights. For those unfamiliar, the lights are a famous phenomenon reported about 30 times per year, usually during the summer, since the 1940s. Despite their sporadic occurrences, we were very lucky to catch a wonderful display of them. After dusk, the lights appear along the horizon in the mountains. The size, frequency, color, and behavior of the lights vary: some blip in and out in the same spot; some fade out very quickly while others burn for minutes at a time; some are yellow, others red or white; some move and some are completely stationery; some are large while others are very faint. Although many of them can be dismissed as automobile headlights, many of them still remain unexplained (though scientists postulate that they result from atmospheric pressure). The lights can be viewed best from the official viewing platform – a deck out in the countryside devoid almost COMPLETELY of light pollution, about 20 minutes from any town.

Those who don’t get to see the lights will see a BEAUTIFUL display of stars from the viewing platform. We saw two satellites orbiting earth, the Milky Way, Pluto, and an alignment of Venus, Mars, and Saturn. Also, in the large ranch field in front of us, we saw a shooting star probably about half a mile out. It burned bright green before bursting into flames and disintegrating. The display was so beautiful that all of the observers applauded.

After the Marfa lights, we returned back to the campgrounds to play drinking games and celebrate summer.

Resident spider (there were so many of these huge, hairy ones around – I’m not sure of the species)

More to come within the next few days!

On Monday, my boyfriend and I ventured out to Santa Monica to visit the beach while we were out in California. It was a bit overcast, but compared to our muggy North Texas weather, the chilly seabreeze was certainly welcomed.

Last time we visited the Santa Monica Pier, we ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp, but this time, I was hoping for something a little less touristy and more importantly, something much cheaper. As per the recommendation of Urban Spoon, my boyfriend and I staked Wokcano, a pan-Asian restaurant chain, and were lucky enough to catch happy hour! My yellowtail sushi was incredibly fresh and our spicy crabmeat roll (for an insanely cheap $5) was delicious.

The decor was minimalist but inviting

My shrimp tempura roll and Kirin beer

Enjoying my Miso soup, blurry photo courtesy of my boyfriend

The restaurant has a two-story setup. A couple sitting below us had a pretty good-looking dish.

Mark

After we finished dinner, we visited the Third Street Promenade, which I found a bit underwhelming. Not only was it flooded with people, but I was disappointed to see that they no longer had a French connection. I did, however, enjoy looking at peoples’ pups! While I was away, I missed Momo so much!

I’m so glad to be back in Texas!

Upon arrival my boyfriend and I staked out the closest In-N-Out and had our first In-N-Out meal in 2 years. So incredibly satisfying.

Homoerotic Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Bowser

My “convention face” two days in: runny makeup, breakouts, and messy unbrushed hair

It has been brought to my attention by a commenter that my paintings/descriptions of them could be construed as offensive, mocking, or exploitative. That is not at all the intention of this series and I apologize for any offense it may have caused. I intentionally chose to eliminate the background/passersby (and replace them with the subject as a triptych) because I did not want this to be about the novelty of my experience, but rather about her grace and what she sexually identified herself as – regardless of how others perceived her. I was not aiming for shock value (as for the third part of the painting, I felt like it was an important piece of information), nor was I trying to be cute or edgy. Honestly, this is one of the things I truly LOVE about New Orleans – that anyone of any gender identity could be directing traffic in fishnets and a miniskirt on a weekday, and it would be the “norm.” Now onto the images!

The painting is actually a triptych in three separate pieces, digitally collaged together here. For your reference and mine, I photographed my process!

Momo always stays up late with me on Sunday nights to watch me paint!

Some of the original photographs:

Photos by my sister, Lulu!

This house is a historical marker within the French District, and I couldn’t get a full shot since I was shooting with my 50mm ƒ1.8, but I had to take a picture because it actually belonged to one of my ancestors! My family is related to the General Beauregard from the Civil War, which is funny to think about considering my family (my parents, especially) are so incredibly liberal. See the second name? “Parkinson”? That’s my surname! But the weird thing is, we’re not even related to Beauregard through our Parkinson lineage (I guess that just pays testament to the inbreeding that went on back then). Anyway, I had to take a photo and share!

I loved the hanging plants off of all of the balconies

The subject of my next painting

I’ll start out with one of my favorite New Orleans attractions: The Farmer’s Market!

My favorite object, which I sincerely wish I had bought, was a frog that croaked when you hit the ridges on its back with the little mallet. At this particular stand, they had dolphins, crickets, owls, and many more animals – all handmade.

This little darling was dancing in front of a huge crowd of people to an African band that was playing right outside the market.