living, thinking and writing
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| PRACTICE living, thinking and writing |
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Saturday, June 25, 2005  Lost in Santa Cruz I love watching ‘curb your enthusiasm’. Life is filled with so many embarrassing moments, and you are guilty of innocent crime any moment. One of the biggest embarrassments, I find, is the “emperor’s gown”. We are forced to follow some inexplicable social norms and fashions, so we don’t look stupid. In one of the episodes, David Larry was dragged by his wife to beach front to spend the day. He was so reluctant and said ‘I feel anxious here because I don’t know what people are enjoying’. Well, this blog is not about the TV show; what David Larry said is just how I felt about Santa Cruz, though I do enjoy a walk on beach most of times. The hotel for the weekend was sold out at some insanely high rate. The price we paid for this small inn can buy any a 4-star hotel in any big city, but the quality is outrageous poor (what about ragged and ropey blanket for $170 a night, and NO air conditioner). We assume the place outside hotel must be somewhere like heaven to level this price. Then we got really anxious when we drove around the little town looking for miracles. It was colder than LA’s winter, literally. Cliffy beach has tall pine-trees with long-reaching boughs. It is quite picturesque and has much more natural appeal than Santa Monica, but not as good as 17-mile drive at Monterey. Cloud was so thick at dawn that not only view of sunset on sea is not possible but the falling sun can not even paint a slight color on the clouds. That’s a big turnoff to us the sunset chasers. Bin joked that the hotel room here is like real estate in Los Angeles-any crappy room can be a hot buy because everyone buys for the fear of losing something big. And who knows what that ‘thing’ is. We are told by a local student (who looke hurt when we said, mistaking her as a conference attendee, we felt the city was overrated) that Santa Cruz is a city with natural wonder and steer of commercial vain. And we were told by the others that this city is like a home or resort for high brows in Silicon Valley. For those who hate the idea of home in San Jose and who are very rich, they buy a home here. For those who hate the idea of home in San Jose and who are not that rich, they come here for weekends as gateway from that hideous place(actually, we have felt hotels in San Jose are always best deals and incredibly comfortable). Santa Cruz is said to be a great place to get outdoorsy if you are outdoorsy type and good at those expensive recreations (golf, surfing…). When you get here, hopefully, you are automatically a member of the Yippie club who tried to escape from the hectic city life and stressful jobs with handsome pay. If you get that feeling, you get it and you will not feel Larry David’s anxiety, I guess. UC Santa Cruz is hidden deep in the mountain. They say campus buildings are not allowed to be seen from the city; so when you drive onto the out ring of campus you see, on the one side, giant grassy plains with a couple of cows wandering and on the other side, a magnificent view of the town by the sea. When you drive really deep inside, you start to spot small industrialized-style architectures sitted in the woods. Behind the engineering building, there is a warning sign detailing tips about how to react when encountering violent animal such as lion: like raise your hands and make yourself look bigger and taller, or fight bravely. Certainly it is a very special campus. posted by lmeimei @1:42 AM| permanent link| | |
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