Well, I guess not that strange, but the truth is that I never really knew where Pacific Palisades was before. What is Pacific Palisades? Of course, I knew the name. My friends and I knew it existed. But we guessed in other areas and not exactly where it actually was — north of Los Angeles proper, along the coast and just west of Malibu.

We went hiking in Temescal Canyon. While the trail was quintessential California wilderness–dry, desertlike and etc, the view from the trail was something out of the tropics. Up on the peak of the trail, we looked over Los Angeles proper and the green, verdant cliffsides of Pacific Palisades.

(The following post has been sitting around in the draftbox for awhile, so why not put it up even if incomplete? The ending: We hiked. It was fun. The scenery made Los Angeles seem like a landscape from Laos–mists rolled below hilltops that were green, green and green. Wait. I remember Laoitian mountains as purple. Scratch that and substitute Thai hills instead. )