September 8, 2004 4

Carmel-by-the-Sea (Part 2)

By in Collection, Travel

DSCF0296.jpgDSC00625.jpgCarmel is like a seaside village out of a children’s storybook. The streets are filled with small boutiques, art galleries and antique shops inside quaint cottages. The pic on left is The Tuck Box English Tea Room, doesn’t it look like a Hobbit’s house? ^_^ Right pic is just a miscellaneous alley that’s everywhere in that area.

The photos here are all taken during my walk between 7th-8th Ave. My camera battery died when I get to the 6th- 4th Ave., which is a great pity because it’s more beautiful there (more posh with tons of galleries with amazing works in displayed).

DSC00616s.jpgDSC00619s.jpgDSC00620.jpg This French restaurant locates outside downtown in the middle of the residential area (across from our Inn). The only way to notice the business is this snell carved out of a tree trunk. I spotted the sculpture at night when our car drove back to Inn after dinner. Too bad we found out too late, it looks so much more charming~ 🙁
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Love this Bead Shore. The owner made all the bead necklaces herself. We bought 2 necklaces there.

DSC00634.jpgDSCF0299.jpgDSCF0305.jpg More cute cottages (check out the 2nd floor circular window on the left pix). The farest right one is a Mediterranean restaurant called Porta Bella.

DSC00626s.jpgDSC00640.jpgLeft: cute gingerbread man from a coffee place.
Right: Another woodcut from tree trunk sculpture as store sign. This one is a market (the only one too). The items inside are all exotic imports, local made or pricey organic stuffs (no cheap-ass brand stuffs).

DSCF0307.jpgDSCF0304.jpgLeft: Cottage of Sweets! On the sign you see a store called Fairy Tale, it’s this incredibly girly fantasy store with nothing but items featured Fairies (windchimes, glass sculpture, dolls, bookmarks…etc).

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Left: Crazy Alice in Wonderland collectible store White Rabbit, it’s right next to that Fairy Tale. Right: found a cute painting of tomato in sacred altar frame in one of the galleries! 😀

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This shop is CRAZY!!! It’s Cactus sells folk art from Mexico (look at the Day of the Dead stuffs!) Haiti, Guatemala, etc. The photos here are only one small corner, and the store is quite big and it’s packed with stuffs! You can spend a long time studying every little things there.

DSC00642.jpgDSC00643.jpgLook at all these Miu Miu shoes! Out of most businesses that’re on the quaint side, Girl Boy Girl totally stick out as a hip fashion boutique carries tons of Miu Miu, Marc Jacobs, Theory, Trina Turk, etc.

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There are too many galleries there, especially when a lot of the paintings are medicore. 1st pic: Love it!! ^_^ 2nd pic: I like the series of works by this artist which is an actual texture wall with painted shadows on them. The next two photos is from this gallery full of nice works from this artist who painted Jazz musicians.

Richard MacDonald, a famous sculptor, has his gallery there too (damn camera died on me). It’s quite amazing to see the actual sculptures. I just found out from his website bio that he is a fellow Art Center Alumni! (that made me wonder how many artists at the galleries there are from Art Center too?)

One of the galleries have a few Michel Delacroix‘s original paintings, but they’re his small unknown sucky ones but still cost $5xx,000+. The serigraph of his famous works were like $5x,000 and more.

There was a new agey bookstore, a zen home & garden selling lots of buddhist things whicn you need to walk through a narrow path of bamboo to get in, lots of antique shops. It’s just wonderful walking around there. The killer sun “forced” us going inside every shop. But there’s ONE sell-out plaza ful of brand stores like Louis Vitton, Banana Republic, Saks Fifth Ave. etc. -___-;; or there’d be hidden corp invasion like some unsuspecting lovely looking coffee house has sign saying “proud to serve Starbucks coffee”)

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4 Responses to “Carmel-by-the-Sea (Part 2)”

  1. seat says:

    I really like that cute little house!! Haha, it has to be rounder to look like a Hobbit house! ^^;;; L’escargo and Porta Bella look so cute and homely – kind of places that are likely to serve reasonable price but good solid home-made food. I want to try~~~~~~

    I like those ghostly figures wearing dresses and hats in “It’s Cactus”.

    Bead shops are really popular here too!! But it is mainly selling beads alone which you pick and do it yourself. From the pic, looks like the ready-made ones are huge with not-so-elegant colour coordination?

    Haha, I bet the Starbucks was packed with people. “Alien stuff overloaded~~!!! Help!! Where is starbucks??!!”

  2. Freda says:

    (Argh I have trouble posting comment on my own blog, I found that it might been a problem when I have multiple blogs with different time zone 0_o)

    I wished I had tried those homely country-side feel ones instead of the slick, overpriced “dating-couple” one that night.

    Haha the “elegantly design” bead stuffs are on the other side of the wall (out of frame). The colorful stuffs are daring but okay (there’s another beads/accessories store in the town but it’s awlful~)

  3. Freda says:

    So now it seems fix that I set my blog to Japan time as well…haha…

  4. seat says:

    Oh oh, you can switch mine to US time. I always update at odd hours anyway, it doesn’t matter what time zone it is for me.