SoCal Trip

[ Edited by: TNTiki on 2004-11-06 18:31 ]

Hey there TNTiki -- I'd love to meet up with you! The options here are just so wide open (between your being here for a whole week and there being a thousand different potential tiki places to visit) that you'll need to seed the discussion by letting us know what you're most interested in and when you're most available for a meet-up. The best way to get something rolling is to just pick a time you know you're going to be available during your visit and suggest a couple of potential meeting places in a thread in Tiki Events.

If you're staying in Pasadena the whole time, you won't be far from Bahooka, which is in Rosemead just to the south. Oceanic Arts is not too much farther and is a definite must-see if you haven't been there before. You would also be pretty close to Damon's in Glendale, which isn't my personal favorite, but I haven't been there at night yet. Tonga Hut up in the valley won't be too far away, but it's not the end of the world if you don't get to see it. It recently changed ownership, so there's been some curiosity about whether or not the place has changed. What you really, really MUST do, though, is visit Tiki-Ti. Early on Wednesdays you can count on meeting at least a couple of TCers or at the very least very friendly tikiphile characters. If you can't make it on Wednesday, it's still your best bet for meeting up with local types in the LA area. If you're interested in venturing further afield, there is also the Purple Orchid in El Segundo, Trader Vic's in Beverly Hills, and way further south there's Sam's Seafood. If you like something a little more hipster-y, there's Lava Lounge in Hollywood.

p.s. -- This is really just scratching the surface of local tiki. To get an idea of the extent of tiki in this area, take a gander at the All-Knowing Globe of Tiki. (Okay, it's not all-knowing, not even close. Would you allow A-Lot-Knowing?) Pasadena is roughly straight east of the red pin for Damon's, just a smidge north of the pins for Bahooka, Kahlua Apartments and Kona Kai Apartments.

I had it all backwards -- the best bed is the one that's stumbling distance from Tiki-Ti, or the Mai Kai, or the Lagoon Room, or the Alibi, or the Kon Tiki, or...
Critiki

[ Edited by: Humuhumu on 2004-06-29 16:53 ]

TNTiki,

If you find yourself in Huntington Beach, PM me before this Thursday (I only do Tiki Central at work) and I'll PM you my phone number. We can hook up for a Mai Tai at my bar.

If you're heading down to the Bahooka you're going to pass a number of the old Tiki Apartments on Rosemead Blvd. (the addresses & links are courtesy of DawnTiki):

Aloha Arms Apartments...5400 block of Rosemead Blvd.

Kapu Tiki Apartments... 5400 block of Rosemead Blvd.

Samoa Apartments...(where you ask? guess...)
5400 block of Rosemead Blvd.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=5862&forum=2&0

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=5845&forum=2&3

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=5021&forum=2&8

I know there're some other Tiki styled apartments on the way since I had friends who lived in them back when I attended PCC in the mid-'80s. I'll have to look the buildings up sometime when I'm back in the area...