juice & snacks

I have lived in California for most of my life with limited travel to other parts of the country. In fact, I’m quite sure that I’ve traveled to more foreign cities than US cities. I have quite a few Japanese colleagues who have been more places in the US than I have despite them living here for a much shorter amount of time. Pretty sad, but I hope to change that.

Diversity in the US can easily be taken for granted so when we went out to St. Louis for the MLB All-Star game, I experienced a little culture shock.

Though it’s only about a four-hour flight away, St. Louis is a very different place than California. Driving from the airport to my friend’s place, there were rows of quaint, cute brick houses surrounded by lots greenery. I noticed that on our way from the airport, we were forced to taking side streets—a result of a one-year freeway closure of the main highway. More surprisingly, these closures hadn’t caused any major problems with traffic or delays. Freeway shutdowns would be unthinkable in California, as they are nightmares already as it is.

Living in the Bay Area, I am spoiled with all the choices of varying cuisine. Just within a one-mile radius of our apartment, we can get American, Indian, Mexican, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Peruvian…the list goes on. In St. Louis, the selection is much more limited. Admittedly, we didn’t go too far out of our way, but our friend who has lived there for more than a year wisely suggested that we stay away from anything ethnic. We did find some awesome barbecue at Pappy’s Smokehouse. We also enjoyed frozen custard from the famous Ted Drewes.

The racial and political make-up in St. Louis is also very different from the Bay Area. Based on the reactions we received when we went places and the boos and cheers during the video clip of past presidents at the All-Star game, red doesn’t just represent their love for the Cardinals. Perhaps that was just in the area we were sitting, because on TV, the boos for the President were not quite as apparent as they were for us. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to criticize, it was just a shock coming from the San Francisco Bay Area where things are much different.

St. Louis is a great baseball city. It was awesome to see a city so unified in their love for the team. If anyone’s seen the attendance at A’s games this year, you know this is a shock for us, too. Everywhere we went we would see someone wearing Cardinals gear. It seemed like the whole city was off on the day of the All-Star game based on the masses of people present at the parade. It was really great to feel that energy.

Overall, we had a great time with our friends exploring St. Louis and all the sights and sounds that were there. It was nice to be able to explore another part of this vast country of ours.

Lifestyle

Our wedding was lovely. It was filled with fun, food, & laughter. To add fuel to the fun & being the big photo geek that I am, I thought it would be a cool idea to set up a self-run photo booth that our guests could use. It ran with a camera, two lights & a remote to trigger the shutter. Guests would stand within a laid-out box that I’ve marked on the ground, use the remote that was available to them, smile to the camera & press the big red button. To show a bit of dinner crowd & to express my love for candid photography, the camera faced into the dining area.

Above is a photo of my Auntie Remy & Uncle Raul. The creepy couple standing behind them in the shadows a couple feet behind them are my two good friends T-Bone & Molly. In case you’re interested, here’s a closeup of the background couple:

Closeup of the background couple

(I secretly composed my camera so exactly this would happen. I knew I could count on good ol’ reliable T-Bone.)

I’m still in the process of going through all of my wedding photos, but I couldn’t help but post this one up. It kept me howling with laughter for hours.

photography, wedding

The street leading up to the front of Busch Stadium was packed, lined up with fans. Only after elbowing through the crowd, these were the best photos I could capture. I got lucky with some of the photos!

Ichiro with wife

Tim Lincecum with interesting name crop

Catch the rest of this photo series on my Flickr feed:

MLB All-Star Game 2009 in St. Louis

baseball, photography

We’re back from St. Louis! A more detailed blogpost of stories to come. For now, this short anecdote will have to do.

Right after the gates opened at Busch Stadium on the day of the game, I made a beeline toward the field to take photos of any baseball players, possibly get an autograph. Of course, the athletes were busy preparing for the big game, but randomly, LL Cool J walks onto the field to be interviewed by the MLB Network.

I didn’t recognize him at first, but Cindy—being the huge LL Cool J fan—recognized him immediately. I hollered: “Yo, LL!” He turned, smiled & gave me the bro’s nod-of-the-head. That’s when the rest of the crowd confirmed it really was him. This photo was taken soon after that, when a fan threw him a baseball for him to sign.

As usual, I took a boatload of photos during my vacation, so it’ll be a while for the set to be fully uploaded. For now, maybe I can just upload & share these photos in small amounts, served as my random photos of the day?

Find this photo on Flickr:

LL Cool J with the media

baseball, photography

That’s right, we’re going to the 2009 MLB All-Star game in St. Louis, Missouri! It’s gonna be my first time out in that part of the US. Yay for summertime humidity!

Seriously, though…I’m extremely thrilled to be going. Vacation starts tomorrow evening at the San Francisco Airport, flying down to LA for Cindy’s cousin’s wedding on Saturday. Then we fly out of LA on Sunday morning to all the baseball-related festivities happening all throughout St. Louis! Cindy’s good ol’ friend June lives out there & we’re really excited to see her again. The last time we met was during our last Hawaii trip. We’re excited to see all the sites outside of the Gateway Arch & Busch Stadium.

Cindy scored us some awesome bleacher seats, seven rows from the field:

This year’s All-Star game will be televised nationwide on FOX with a lot of fanfare. There will be some big-name players who will put on a show & swing for the fences. We can only hope that multiple home runs will be hit in our area. In addition, I learned at one of my most recent A’s games that my fluorescent green jacket really works for visibility:

Set your DVRs/VCRs for Tuesday night on FOX. I’m gonna try my darndest to get some airtime on TV!

Outside of trying to act a fool on national television, I’m not exactly sure what to see/do in St. Louis. Any recommendations?

Lifestyle, baseball, sports