Living in America

It has been a month and a half since we arrived in LA, about midway through our stay and perhaps time to put down some thoughts about what living here is really like. A lot of people think the grass is greener on the other side, and USA (especially California) is seen as paradise on earth by many. One can certainly appreciate the great weather, the availability of all kinds of goods at ridiculously low prices (especially for those who earn US incomes), the public facilities (free beaches, parks, libraries etc), the 500 TV channels, and the general convenience of being able to do almost everything online. And yet something is missing and it is difficult to pinpoint. Despite having more control of my time I feel that I have less time to think. Despite having opportunities to achieve more I feel I am achieving less. Despite having all the facilities at my fingertips I feel I am not sufficiently making use of them. Despite having more people around me I feel I am not able to really connect with them.

It is difficult to explain this because it is a state of mind and not necessarily a characteristic of the geographic location. Maybe it is me holding back because I know that our stay here is temporary. Maybe it is a search for quality over quantity. Maybe it is just plain laziness. I feel that I am surrounded by people who somehow manage to have gone to the gym, thought deep thoughts and put in an hour or two of meaningful work by the time I drag myself out of bed each day. Maybe this is the difference - there is an abundance of choices and opportunities here that makes me feel guilty living at the pace that I'm accustomed to. It's like being told that this is my last day on earth and still choosing to spend a third of it sleeping.

Maybe the grass is indeed greener here (well, the sprinklers ensure this!). But it's also more artificial - there would be no grass at all if it weren't planted and irrigated. So perhaps the question I should be asking is "do I like grass and is green my favourite colour?". Thinking about it in this way may give a very different answer. Maybe in a very roundabout and unnecessarily lengthy fashion what I'm trying to say is "less can be more". And perhaps the most important thing to appreciate is that not many people get to try living on both sides of the fence before finding out which side they prefer.

Long Beach, Universal Studios and Rodeo Drive

This is a catch up post covering 2 weekend outings - continuing with our goal to eventually cover all the beaches within an hour of LA we went to Long Beach and made a quick stopover at Redondo beach on the way back. Long Beach has a lot of attractions such as the aquarium, Queen Mary, a mall and of course the beach itself. We did quite a bit of walking, all the way from the aquarium parking lot to the beach (we decided to skip the aquarium itself since it was perfect weather outside, OK - actually because we were too cheap to spend $20 on a ticket!). Anyway, it's a good thing that Lucas still enjoys all the free things (like sand) more than expensive stuff...that will change so we're taking advantage while we can!

On the way back from Long Beach we decided to check out the famous Pacific Coast Highway or PCH as the locals refer to it (reminds me of Singapore, all the roads there are 3 letter acronyms as well). Unfortunately we chose the section of PCH that is nowhere near the coast. So it was quite a boring drive through a series of strip malls and tire shops until we got to Redondo beach. This takes our "beach count" to 5 now, so we decided to take a break from the beach the following weekend.

Instead we thought it would be time to be tourists and go to Universal Studios Citywalk. Again, we were too cheap to actually go in ($60 per ticket!) but we got our free souvenir photo outside the entrance :-)

Actually we did have a reason to go to Universal Studios without entering the theme park - we collect Hard Rock Cafe shot glasses everywhere we go, and HRC in LA is actually located in Universal Studios Citywalk. So we paid the outrageous $10 for parking (not to mention sitting in a jam for 20 minutes to get into the parking lot) just to get our shot glasses! Well, mission accomplished and next stop Rodeo Drive!

What a fantastic place! While Yean Lin went window shopping, I just feasted my eyes on the road. Ferraris, Bentleys, Jaguars, a procession of luxury cars cruise by. Mercedes are a dime a dozen here. Our Pontiac certainly is out of place and safely hidden from view on a side street (yes - we managed to get street parking!). Anyway, while I'm ogling the cars, a white Range Rover parks right in front of me and a little lady emerges, who turns out to be Paula Abdul! I know this is the real Paula Abdul because it took her 5 tries to park properly and she's tiny! So that's my first LA celebrity sighting!

Business is mission

It's been a long week on the project, with several full days of workshops - there are some difficult decisions to be made which have a high impact on the shape our project will take over the coming years. Without going into details, this is really about the vision that World Vision has for their people as well as for the communities in which World Vision is "invested".

In a typical organisation, this decision is not easy, but there are standard measures that can be used to guide the decision such as financial impact, risk, availability of required inputs such as infrastructure and skills, etc. However, for World Vision there is another aspect to take into account which is that of ministry - does this strategy benefit the people that it impacts directly or indirectly? For example - if we were to build a capability in a remote village which requires us to build infrastructure and train people in that location over the long term, is that preferable over building it in a location where the required skills and infrastructure already exist, leaving more money to help the remote village in other ways? It all comes down to what the vision and mission are, and that is what we have been trying to get clarity on this past week.

Another interesting aspect of working on this project is the element of faith. In coming to some of these difficult decisions, there is a recognition that us mortals will ultimately only succeed if God is with us (I am paraphrasing here, you can substitute God with a higher power or destiny) - meaning that in the end there is no right or wrong decision, just the best decision we can make based on our abilities and that we need faith in God/higher power/destiny to succeed. The concept of business is mission is that faith and money in themselves are not "good" or "evil", they are just different sides of the coin. If your business is to help the poor, and you need money to do so, then being "business minded", i.e. acting like a for-profit organisation is part of your mission because you will be more effective in helping the poor by being effective in making money.

I find this a difficult concept to wrap my head around because in history this has been subject to a lot of abuse. It is impossible to tell the difference between pure good intentions and greed in subscribing to this concept of business is mission as the visible actions arising out of these opposing philosophies may well be identical.

The other highlight of the discussions we've had in the last week is the concept of "the tyranny of or, and the brilliance of and". In all business decisions, there is a trade-off between different options and ultimately there is no perfect solution. However, this has been challenged - if one goes into a decision saying that there will be no compromise or trade-off, that is, we will not sacrifice one benefit for another, what would the solution look like?

Certainly it has been enlightening and I find myself having to consciously keep an open mind in order to prevent my 20 years of university and business experience from rejecting these concepts out of hand!

Camarillo and Ventura

Last weekend was our first weekend at Pasadena Gateway Villas (our "permanent" home) so we decided to stay in on Saturday and enjoy the pool and jacuzzi. We bought Lucas some "swimming pampers" (the things they have here!) and he had a great time in the pool - I think he is going to enjoy swimming, he already does a pretty good dog paddle.

On Sunday we then went our most ambitious outing to date - a full 8 hours trip to Camarillo outlet mall and Ventura beach. After trying to live frugally on $50 a day for the last 3 weeks, we kind of went crazy and spent about $800 in one day - of which $600 were gifts and a suitcase to put them in. Our rationale for this was that everything we bought was so much cheaper than in KL, especially things like dinner sets and childrens clothing.

We're finding that goods are very competitively priced compared to Malaysia, as per the following list (admittedly most of these are considered "luxury goods" in Malaysia):

Item	LA price	KL price
Tropicana Pure Orange Juice 1.9L	$3	$5
Haagen Dasz Ice Cream 473ml	$2.50	$8
Local beer per can	$0.50	$1.20
Import beer per bottle	$1	$3
Villeroy&Boch 16 piece dinner set	$100	$300?
Toyota Camry 3L engine	$17K	$45K (2.4L engine)

Unfortunately, what happens is we end up spending more because we drink a lot more OJ and beer and eat a lot more ice cream compared to when we are in KL!

The flip side of the above is of course the high price of services here compared to KL, e.g. eating out at restaurants or getting a haircut is 3-4 times the cost in KL. So you will see that our hair is growing wild here...

Anyway, back to Camarillo - it seems there are people who actually fly from Europe and Asia just to come to Camarillo and stock up on reasonably priced branded goods, to the extent that they "save" more than their airfare and hotel costs. Spend to save! It was a very pleasant shopping experience and definitely a place to take our visitors (if we get any) to!



From Camarillo it was a short 20 minute drive to Ventura beach. The 3rd beach we've checked out and all three have such a different character - Santa Monica was a typical holiday beach which good clean family fun activities at the pier and upmarket hotels and restaurants, Venice was edgy and trendy with tattoo and piercing parlours and lots of street vendors, and Ventura beach was pretty deserted for a Sunday afternoon. This is a purist's beach, no shops and restaurants to distract from the sand and waves. We also went to the harbour which is very pretty and we went for our first "posh" dinner at a restaurant since arriving in LA - we had a lobster dinner at a seafood place by the harbour, and Lucas allowed us to enjoy it!

Moving day again!

On Monday we moved to our "permanent home" (well, 3 months, which feels permanent after staying for 3 days at the hotel and 17 days at the Fuller Guest House). It is very nice and Lucas was of course very excited to be someplace new again! Our apartment is fully furnished and even has a DVD player, stereo system and around 500 cable TV channels. There is a TV set in each room, microwave and dishwasher, all of which we don't even have in our apartment in KL!

You may be wondering what one would do with 500 TV channels - after all, even channel surfing 5 seconds through each channel would already take more than an hour and a half! Well, this is what I learnt yesterday just by surfing channel no.900-950 (music channels) - I now know that:

- Franz Shubert was born on January 31, 1797 in Vienna
- 288 million CDs were sold in the US in 1990
- A popular early synthesizer was the Moog, named after it's inventor Robert Moog- Contralto is the term given to a female singer with the lowest voice range

All this while listening to the related genre of music!

On the project, our team is growing - we are now 3 strong (welcome Emily!) and in a couple of weeks we will have a fourth member. Dan brought a French press today and we had some incredibly strong coffee. We also attended the weekly chapel session at World Vision, and it was a better experience than I had anticipated. There was a lot of humour, including this joke, and there was also a very moving service for a member of WV who had passed away last week. I found it very touching that there would be a eulogy performed at the workplace for a departed colleague. The eulogy itself was very well delivered, and the key message was that the most important inscription on a tombstone is not the date of birth or the date of death, but the dash in between - for it is in that dash that the person's time on earth and all the moments of his/her life are captured.

The other key point I took away was that wherever in the world you live, you can make a difference in others lives, and you don't need microwaves, dishwashers and 500 TV channels to do so!

Lucas has certainly been making a difference in our lives, and we hardly remember what things were like before he came along. He turned 8 months old yesterday (sometimes it feels like 8 years!) and I am quite sure he will be walking before we know it. He is developing his character steadily - he is very curious and determined, and he loves apples but will not eat peaches. He hates bedtime because he thinks we are doing exciting things when he's asleep (haha - if only he knew!) and he has the willpower to keep himself awake until we fall asleep first! He is also very friendly to strangers and knows how to show off to them, so no one believes what a little rascal he actually is...and amazingly, I wouldn't want him to be any different (I just wish I was able to survive on less sleep and keep up with him)!

Monrovia (and Hollywood again!)

Our second weekend in LA we again kept to our formula of the previous weekend - spending some time in the town (Monrovia), the hills (Griffith Park and Runyon Canyon) and the beach (Venice beach). Monrovia has a charming town centre, what I had typically associated with small town America, with small family run shops and American flags on each lamp-post. We had planned on just doing some grocery shopping, but we ended up spending a lot more time (and money) there. It was worthwhile though, because I think we will have a nice memento of Lucas as a result!

It's a shame that Lucas isn't just a little bit older (although he's growing almost too fast for our liking) - he's too small for most of the attractions and he won't remember any of these experiences when he's older. We went to the old merry-go-round at Griffith Park but did not take a ride, and we also decided not to go to the LA zoo at Griffith Park as Lucas was asleep when we arrived there. With kids his age, one just has to be flexible! So we kept on driving, somehow ended up at the eastern starting point of Mulholland Drive, and Lucas woke up just in time to take in the close up view of the Hollywood sign. Then we took a long walk with him down the Runyon Canyon dog walking path, which turns out to be very scenic and we got nice views of the mansions with their swimming pools. Strangely enough there were no people lounging by any of the pools - I guess they were all at their summer residences in Paris, Sydney, Hawaii etc...

Today we got a late start as Lucas had a nap until 2pm, but we still decided to go to the beach since he liked it last week at Santa Monica beach. Unfortunately we got caught in a traffic jam and it took one and a half hours, with the last 45 minutes a tortuous drive due to Lucas' incessant crying. Unfortunately here in the US, there's nothing one can do but drive on - taking the child out of the car seat is a big no-no. Lucas will just have to learn to respect the law here! The moment we finally got to Venice Beach he was happy. Maybe we will have to relocate to the beach in the future.

Hollywood Stars!

Look closely for the Hollywood sign...

Sorry for the delay in posting - things were a little busy at work after the Memorial Day holiday. Anyway, on Sunday we decided to really go to Hollywood this time (we were sidetracked on Saturday and ended up at Santa Monica beach!) - we still took a very roundabout way, going on the Ventura freeway, getting off at Mulholland Drive and going via Beverly Hills to Hollywood. It was, in fact, a very scenic drive and I continue to be amazed at how hilly and wild some parts of LA actually are.


Anyway, from the wild canyons to the houses of the megastars to tourist central took a mere 15 minutes. Then we were at Grauman's Chinese Theatre mingling with the stars (actually stepping all over them!). We knew we were at a touristy place because we had to pay to take pictures! So I am putting this pic below because it cost me $2! It was still a relatively cheap day out because we got $2 parking for 4 hours at Hollywood and Highland (where the Kodak Theatre is located, venue of the annual Academy Awards and of course, American Idol). All you have to do to get the $2 parking is validate your ticket at any of the shops in the complex, so we went for an LA invention - the French Dip sandwich. Apparently a roast beef sandwich was accidently dropped in a pot of au jus, it was found to taste rather good (if a little soggy) and voila! The French Dip was born.

We drove back to Pasadena via the Pasadena Freeway (State Route 110), the first freeway built in California in 1940. It is very nicely landscaped and "only" 3 lanes each way, making it a small road by LA standards, but it is a nice drive - I could imagine a Formula 1 race on this road - lots of curves, hills and tunnels.

On Memorial Day itself we decided to take it easy (I had an 8 hour marathon call for the annual performance review session in the middle of the night to Memorial Day - the disadvantage of being in this time zone is that work typically starts on Sunday evening for me). So we just went to Memorial Park in Pasadena (how fitting!) and then took a stroll around Old Town Pasadena. In keeping with trying out all things invented in California, we decided to buy some dessert from the Cheesecake factory. I made the mistake of buying 2 slices - one Godiva chocolate cheesecake and one White Choc Raspberry Truffle (sorry no pics!). I say mistake because it took the two of us 4 days to finish those 2 slices of cake!!! Anyway, that's value for money!

Well that was the Memorial Day weekend and we certainly managed to cover a lot without getting too stressed out! With Lucas we can't really stay away for more than about 4 hours before he gets tired and grouchy, so we have been tackling all the sights in bite-sized chunks!