Jean and I just got back from vacation in exotic Michigan. My home state! It was the first time I had been back in 15 years and the first ever for Jean (lucky her!). It was actually a great time...I forgot how beautiful it is there this time of year (spare the mosquitoes).
This should be the first of a series of blogs about our visit. Our first stop was Detroit and what a grandly bleak stop it was! First of all big big thanks to
Design Sponge's city guides. It was our saving grace after we chose to stay in an extremely sub-par hotel and were ill-prepared to find suitable eats, drinks, and sites. To sum it up we arrived late and was too scared to go back out, so we had couple of chocolate bars as our dinner (only edible thing we had). We put out some sheets we brought and went straight to bed.
In the eery abandoned ghost-town category, the city lived up to all our expectations and more. It's just incredible to walk on the empty streets knowing that this was the center of the industrial universe not long ago. There are literally ruins in the making every where you look - gorgeous art deco relics and fancy Victorian mansions now completely abandoned. Granted there are still people living there and doing some cool stuff, but I have to say...they're few and far between from a visitor's perspective (even though we had d-sponge to guide us). If numbers help put things in perspective, the city's population has gone from 1.8 million in 1950 to around 900,000 today. Very few modern cities can claim the loss of half their population in 60 years!
We were totally jazzed to be there though because we love good ruins and urban decay. Here are some our favorite spots:
Grand Central Station: An amazing defunct train station that must have been incredible in its day. Also see the site
seedetroit.com for photos of the inside (ultra creepy).
Victorian Mansions: There are entire neighborhoods of these elaborate homes left to decay. One of the most complete is Brush Park. A select few of these are slowly starting to be renovated, but most are being left to meet their doom.
The Heidelberg Project: A long ago neglected neighborhood in a not so nice part of town transformed into environmental art/political protest by artist
Tyree Guyton and his grandfather. Really an incredible thing to walk through considering how it transformed the neighborhood.
Avalon Bakery: Thank god for them and their delicious coffee, breads, and wi-fi. Not a ruin, just a really good cafe.
422 W Willis St
Detroit, MI 48201
(313) 832-0008
More Detroit photos
live here. More Michigan stuff to come. Stay tuned!
I found this fabulous etsy seller, Yokoo, who knits these great thick massive scarves that just gets me so excited about winter!
It's been super rainy and I'm trying to keep things positive by looking at fun cozy winter accessories such as these scarves and neck warmers. (especially that mustard one!) Alright! I'm ready for you....crappy Seattle weather....YOU!
I did a cooking post for Poppytalk today on a Greek-themed meal we made the other day using some recipes from the NY Times Magazine. My favorite is the bright pink fuschia colored beet tzatziki...and no....it's not just because of the color...it actually taste good, too! But that fuschia....it's just mesmerizing and pretty to look at...so bright...and pink....
This is a lovely cheerful little music video by Goldfrapp called "Happiness". One of my recent favorite videos. A young guy in a white suit, hopping through the quaint streets of London...How perfect. 
Her new album, Seventh Tree,has a really dreamy, free-spirited, and I-wanna-spin-around-in-circles-or-skip-and-hop-around-forever kind of feel to it...If only I have the time. Maybe I'll add that into my daily schedual and do a 10 min spin or hop around break. That's a great idea! In fact, I WILL do that! Yeah!!
I just found out that L&G got mentioned on one of my favorite blogs....SFgirlbybay! I was very close to meeting the lovely writer of SFgirlbybay, Victoria, but I missed her! She was at the SF Renegade Fair and came by Chikabird's Booth and snapped a photo for her review on the event. I was so close!
We also wrote up an instruction about how to build the wall grid. It's really simple. Depending on the material it could be around $50 or less. We used cedar 2"x2" and it cost us more like $75. and took us half an afternoon to put it together.
Jean and I just got back from vacation in exotic Michigan. My home state! It was the first time I had been back in 15 years and the first ever for Jean (lucky her!). It was actually a great time...I forgot how beautiful it is there this time of year (spare the mosquitoes).
This should be the first of a series of blogs about our visit. Our first stop was Detroit and what a grandly bleak stop it was! First of all big big thanks to Design Sponge's city guides. It was our saving grace after we chose to stay in an extremely sub-par hotel and were ill-prepared to find suitable eats, drinks, and sites. To sum it up we arrived late and was too scared to go back out, so we had couple of chocolate bars as our dinner (only edible thing we had). We put out some sheets we brought and went straight to bed.
I'm very excited to share with everyone about this new local Seattle creamery shop that recently opened up in Wallingford neighborhood, called Molly Moon. This has seriously been one of the great highlight for summer 2008. Molly Moon is the owner and creator of this stylish gourmet ice cream shop and is very proud (as she should be) to share that she uses all organic and local ingredients from Washington and 100% compostable bowls and spoons! How awesome is that!? 
Molly offers a great selections of unconventional and classic flavors that people of all age can enjoy. I couldn't control my curiosity, so I jumped on test tasting most of the exotic flavors such as the salted caramel, balsamic strawberry, cardamom, honey lavender, and thai ice tea...I was totally holding up the line, but I couldn't help it!! They were all SO good! Even the chocolate was excellent, rich creamy chocolate flavor where you can still taste the subtle bitterness of cacao....flavorful yet not too sweet.
They even make their own waffle cones! as you can see the boys anxiously waiting for their homemade waffle cones...I was behind them watching them make it as well. Mmmm...drool.
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