The original plan for December 24th was to start the day off at Miceli’s for lots of Italian carbs before going on a long hike.  However, Miceli’s wouldn’t open until noon, which would be 3pm parents’ time, so that was a little too late for a brunch.  Instead we went to More than Waffles in Encino before heading to Runyon Canyon. 

On Wednesday the air (at least in the valley) was clear of smog, which meant the view from Runyon the next morning would be great.  However, there were apparently a lot of morning travellers as there was already a blanket of smog (see photo) settling over Los Angeles by the time we got to the trailhead (around 11am). After hiking for three hours up and down the canyon (some paths more than once) we headed to Silverlake to visit the Soap Factory/Wacko/Luz De La Jesus Gallery.  The bookstore was packed, apparently a lot of goths and hipsters needed some last minute christmas gifts.  There weren’t a lot of new pieces in the gallery – and most of it was dedicated to some sort of holiday poster show.

We left the hipsters and headed back on Hollywood Blvd. to Thai town, first to Out of the Closet so my mom could buy me a special pot for the christmas cactus she brought with her, and then to dinner at Ord Noodles.  I frequent Ord withSam because I like the soup with angel hair pasta.  Our waitress however wasn’t so hot on the little nuances of the Englishlanguage, and so even after stressing that we’d like the “small/tiny/angel hair noodles” she brought out three piping hot bowls of duck soup with regular sized noodles.  Oh well, guess I learned I can’t go to Thai town without an interpreter and expect to get what I want.

To finish things off we headed southeast to Robertson Blvd. to be the last customers of the day at Al Gelato Llc., which, in my limited experience, has the best gelato (better than ice cream) anywhere.