Tuesday 26/06
Wake up at 7am to call the director of St Hubert. We got excellent news: both girls are accepted in the school! That’s a very good surprise. We’re very happy. It’s a big relief for us.
The kids can sleep late today. They wake up around 9-9:30am.
We take a nice breakfast, with cereals (even Rice Krispies, which have been very hard to find in South America, if not impossible) and lots of fruits (8 different kinds).
We walk to the Broad Museum. It’s not a great walk; there’s no shop in this district; just large avenues.
Isabelle booked our visit, at noon, so we don’t need to queue. We register to see one of the Infinity Mirrored Rooms of Kusama; our turn is in 2h30… We visit the very nice museum, admiring the pieces of art from Koons, Murakami, Liechtenstein, Basquiat, Haring, Warhol… We see also the ‘Longing for Eternity, 2017’, one of the 2 Infinity Mirror Rooms by Kusama in the museum: we can look through porthole-like windows into a mirrored chamber filled with dazzling LED lights
The Broad is definitely one of the nicest museums of the trip; small but with great pieces of art. It is housed in a superb new building (the museum opening took place in 2015), designed by architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro. With a location adjacent to Frank Gehry’s iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall, the museum’s design is intended to contrast with its bright metallic perforated exterior. It has a porous, “honeycomb-like” exterior.
Two of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms are currently on view at The Broad. We were about to leave the museum without seeing the second one ‘The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away, 2013’ since it was already 1:30pm and we had to wait another hour for our entrance slot but when I told one of the docents that the kids were hungry, he pushed us up the list (on his iPad) and we could go directly in the room! That’s cool! We enter this immersive installation with LED lights reflecting endlessly inside a mirrored room.
After the museum, we walk to one of the 5 Poké restaurants that I want to visit in LA: Ohana Poke Co. It’s located in an open-air mall (FIGat7th); 20’ walk. The bowls are not the best ones we’ve had, especially for Jules who ordered the fish ‘spicy’.
We then do a bit of shopping, in H&M and Zara. And even in Target (sunscreen…).
We continue our walk in Downtown district. We take mainly Broadway where we see the old theatres.
We walk to Union Station, passing by the Grand Central Market, the Bradbury Building, the Los Angeles Times Building, the City Hall and El Pueblo de Los Angeles district (the historical centre of the city) with Olvera Street. From there we take a Uber to go back to the apartment. It’s already 7pm.
We chill a bit and then I prepare the dinner: a salad, with strawberries for dessert.
Isabelle and I work until 12am.