adventures in photographs

Yesterday I had a little adventure downtown. First on a walking tour of Little Tokyo, which is a place I've been to a few times before. But it's nice to get a formal tour. We started in the Japanese American Cultural Center Plaza, which looks like a 1970s urban renewal project--and guess what, it was! Okay, fine, one of the buildings has a Japanese flair, but it's still brutal concrete. You can see my photos here (it looks better than if I embed them in the blog).

On my way home, I visited my cousin Miriam at her new swanky (faux) loft downtown near the Staples Center. I took some photos of the courtyard, which includes a cool view of the downtown skyline.

Did you know that new apartment housing no longer uses traditional metal keys? They're now swipe cards like hotels! I bet this has probably been going on for awhile, but I just didn't know since I hadn't visited places. Andrew's campus housing has this too. It's kinda weird, isn't it? What happens when the power goes out?