Budapest Day 46/ Los Angeles: A return...

pic left: Budapest airport

pic right: London airport

My last day and final time in Budapest for a while. I got up bright and early and enjoy my likely last breakfast at Medosz hotel and what was absence was the abundance of cake selections. I will miss them.


I did a bit shopping at the airport and spent 35 dollars on Budapest t shirt and said my goodbyes to this wonderful experience of a lifetime. I arrived in London and had a delicious lunch at Gordon Ramsey's Airport restaurant. The long flight took me back to Los Angeles and the weather was just perfect and the freeways lined the landscape and palm streets doted the cityscape. Finally, I am home, once again.

Day 4 in Vienna June 16th- Utopian confession

It was a great day today here in Vienna and I decided to visit the Architecture Museum based on my thoughts yesterday and after the visit my thoughts on Vienna are more defined and refined. I love it here but for some reason I really miss Budapest and can't wait to be back on Wednesday. I can't help but to draw more comparisons between Budapest, Vienna, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. LA really stands alone on this one because it's not your typical utopia, it's not even a good tourist destination and aside from it's major problems (dependence on automobile, lack of a true urban center and void of a good mess transit system) but it's a wonderful place to live. SF bay is really LA under it's facade but one has to choose: looking at the beautiful facade everyday or live in a wonderful climate. I don't think I can live in the cold climate of the bay area nor would I want to be in beauty constantly where i would loose the sense of appreciation. I think in all cases NYC is the perfect city in that sense but it's far proximity from nature is just too negative for me.

I love city life, where world class culture activities are just within your reach but we are human beings and need places to escape/ reflect and Central Park is simply not enough and 5 hours drive to get out of the city is not acceptable. This is where Budapest comes in; it's an ideal place; wonderful city life, and nature is just a bridge away; LA is that way too but the political climate and the under developed democracy makes Budapest not a suitable place for many to relocate.

Vienna is the perfect utopia in theory (or in appearance?) but very much like Communism it's wonderful in theory but humanity would not allow it and it's a wonderful fantasy. I also don't know how a middle class person would live in Vienna and it is only a utopia if you can afford it. I also feel the constant flow of tourist in Vienna is a bit tiring and the city should have a tourist containment zone (interesting architecture theory project).

After a few days in the city I do realized that If i ever give up on myself and need a third career to fall back on I should be a prostitute because there are 3 men so far, talked me on the street and made kissing sounds at me in Vienna. I now understand some women can feel totally harassed, I just want to give these guys a finger and said F you.

I also realized that my "big" sun glasses doesn't work here in Vienna and being Asian doesn't work either.... everyone dress so well here even older people. People are very fashionable without being cheap looking (like another european country i did my residency in, i won't give out any names) I can pin point whom are the locals and visitors especially Americans, they always wear shorts and a t shirt.

I miss Budapest because it has an authenticity that Vienna doesn't (or tries hard to hide or clean up).

Day 1, 2& 3 in Vienna June 13, 14 and 15th- Reflections

If there is such thing as a perfect world Vienna would be one; cultural, clean, beautiful, historic, and wonderful art scenes. everything thing that people dream about. I really love Vienna as a tourist just like how I love San Francisco as a tourist; at the first glance both cities are picturesque but the perfection of Vienna scares me a bit. Like many Americans dream of having that perfect white picked fenced yard, 2.5 kids, a dog and 2 mini vans. It might be someone else's reality but it's all too unreal to me. My first 2 days here have been wonderful!


Unlike in Budapest I no longer have to allocate time to schedule for peeing before being in public for a prolong period of time, public toilets are free and the Austrians are obsessed with cleaning. There are people and street washing trucks constantly cleaning washing the street all hours of the day. It seem like it's a impossible task but the city looks amazingly clean the cleanest metropolitan cities I have visited. People are so orderly here and I feel completely safe and there is no such thing as over charging here. It feels like i am in mega Mulberry st... that's what's so fake about it.
Can people be so perfect? can perfection exist?

I like Los Angeles and New York because it feels real but here not so much, this feels like Disneyland. I spent 5 hours at the Ludwig museum one day and viewed a wonderful special exhibition called "bad painting, good art" I really enjoyed it, i found it very humorist and understood the artists messages or the lack of.

It's a 9 story museum the architecture itself its ok and the interior was lacking other than the connecting catwalks. First floor was my last stop (entry level is on 5th floor) and now I really understand where the term "basement art" came from, Shocking!!!!!

I have never seen art like this in a major institution, photos of killing dogs and use its body parts as art and bodies on people's private parts.... ewww. videos of people eating, peeing and pooping at the same time (with zoom on the pooping part)... videos of self cutting and bleeding allover the place... photo of pretend death with animal body parts. All done in the 50-60's vienna no special effects, all real.

I don't think I have this much pressure and negative emotions viewing art. It's faces of death video! I did get the underlining message from the art works. It showed a tremendous amount of anger, social unjust, confusion and a strong desire and hopelessness to move away from the tradition and classical art form Vienna is known for. It's a painful message for the world to see but I am glad its documented.


I think this is why the perfection of Vienna scares me... The museum visit was symbolic: everything is nearly perfect until you reach the besement and for now I want Vienna to stay perfect in my memory so this time I won't venture down the basement.