Los Angeles Explored: Laguna beach

I’m back, and more inspired than ever. I realize now that if I am ever lacking blog inspiration, all I have to do is tell myself that I can’t write in it for about 1 week, and by the end of this week, my brain is just overflowing with new ideas, concepts, realizations (and photography) to share with you.

Get ready for a plethora of photography posts from the “Explored” section of my blog! I seriously took so many photos on this trip that it is incredibly difficult to pick my absolute favourite and share them with you- but I will do my best.

This is Los Angeles – Laguna Beach. Explored.

I took this photo in our hotel room in Bellingham, where we stayed the night before  our flight to LAX the next morning. The kids fell asleep after the 4-5 hour drive, and they both looked so cozy and snuggle-licious in the late night lamp light.

 Sleepy head wrapped up in the covies with “Rabbi” her bunny. Devaki and I had a discussion one day about languages and she said “I speak 3 languages. English, malayalam (our mothertongue) and rabbit.”

One thing I know for sure is that life gets a little bit easier when this guy is asleep, believe me 😀 His father said to me “Malu, you don’t know this yet because you don’t have children, but when you do, life gets a little bit more complicated. Just a little bit.” Amen.

Experimenting with the ambient lighting and my shiny legs 🙂

I made sure to pack the essentials. I finished both books, barely wore the sunglasses (sunglasses look ridiculous on me), and used up the highlighter pen. I like to underline and highlight interesting things I read in books so that I can revisit them later. It’s kind of dorky but it feels great.

And we are away! I really love airplane photography now – I can’t believe I never really did it before. What I would love more is to take pictures of the passengers on the airplane (sleeping, staring, reading really interesting things, on their laptop, listening to music, cuddling, holding hands, talking, arguing) but that would be too awkward.

Los Angeles

Downtown L.A. I think cityscapes and skylines are very pretty.

Landed and ready for our vacation! the LAX airport was undergoing major construction, or a “facelift” (there was a billboard that said: “This is L.A. Even the airports need facelifts.”). You always hear about LAX in the movies and the news so I was expecting some bang for my buck, but I was a little disappointed. All I got was open ceilings, wires and huge pipes.

But hey, it’s just an airport.

This was pretty neat.

It was lovely and hot hot hot in L.A – with its subtropical mediterranian climate. I watched three children playing with water hoses, and water slides and water guns at the corner of their neighbourhood.

That evening, we explored Laguna beach. It was pretty and a nice place to visit for a couple of hours (unless you’re one of those people who can spend an entire day on the beach) but I did not think it was as awesome as you expect it to be (yes, after it was on the MTV show laguna beach :P). Venice beach was much cooler!  There wasn’t many people on the beach, yet there was so much traffic getting there, and trouble parking. Apart from a couple of  photos of the known backdrop (as above), it was fun to just play in water and sand with everybody 🙂

Little hands in the sand.

♥

It was Ishaan’s first time in the ocean!  He was nervous of the water, but gradually became braver and braver.

Hey, doesn’t this remind you of Kamloops (Aberdeen in particular)? Seems to me that Kamloops may be the upcoming slightly less glamorous L.A of Canada 😛

I just thought this was TOO cute. Devaki and my brother were playing in the water, and she was scared and my brother was brave – so she kept clinging onto him and hugging him for support – but he just felt so awkward that every time she tried to wrap her arms around him, he would just hold her at a bit of a distance. Oh, kids!

A classic beach shot. How could I not?

🙂 Happy memories!

Ocean hair.

Of course, no day at the beach is complete without gelato! Yes please.

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Before I leave you for now, I want to share a message with you. 

No matter how difficult, challenging or heartbreaking the road is that you are on now – no body can promise you a fairytale ending, or that things will happen exactly as you expect them to unfold, but I sincerely hope you can find comfort and assurance in knowing that at the end of this road, what you will get is a chance to catch a glimpse of yourself – and that to me, will make everything worth it.