California Cactus Center

Blink and you'll miss it as you drive down Rosemead Boulevard. It's inauspiciously tucked into a nondescript pocket of East Pasadena (some might say the word "nondescript," and even the word "pocket," is redundant), near a handful of fast food joints and furniture shops, across the street from a fortune teller, and next to an air conditioning supply and repair shop. Nonetheless, however unpromising its neighborhood may look, California Cactus Center is worth the trip.
I first popped in because I needed a small bag of cactus mix to repot a plant that had been knocked over (the cat is a prime suspect). I parked on a side street and had to pass CCC's aforementioned neighbor, Air-Tech. It appears that CCC has furnished Air-Tech with some plants. As a result, Air-Tech has a beautiful little cactus garden in its small entryway. I was especially taken with a lovely succulent with a rosette of pink-tinted leaves, the echeveria.
Inside, the relatively small space teems with drought-tolerant life. Quite a few aloes and agaves live in the entryway space, which is uncovered. Marlene especially admired the "Black Beauty" (also called "Schwartzkopf") plants we found in this space. A few steps further inside the property and you enter a covered nursery space that has row after row of plants and a greenhouse.
Highlights of the space include the strangely beautiful lithops or "living stones" in the nursery and greenhouse the Giant Saguaro in the front. The shop also has a selection of handsome pottery and a small space with books (more than a bookshelf, not quite a bookstore). I found my cactus mix--the shop has bags of 3 different sizes (the workers will help you load the largest bag). My bag, the middle size, was a reasonable $3.
I'll be back, I expect, to buy some more cactuses or succulents--an echeveria or two for me and a Black Beauty for Marlene.

Find the California Cactus Center at 216 S. Rosemead Boulevard (near Del Mar), and on the web at http://www.cactuscenter.com. Open 7 days a week, 10 am - 4:30 pm. 626-795-2788.

Transit options include Metro Bus 266 (Rosemead and Del Mar), and Foothill Transit 187 and Metro Bus 181 (both have stops at Rosemead and Colorado).

Pepe's Finest Mexican Food (Temple City)

Pepe's Finest Mexican Food has locations in Alhambra and Covina as well as in Temple City. This blog refers to the Temple City location.

Pepe's is a very, very good taco shop, in business since 1964. It serves what you might call "old-school" taco shop fare--hearty food that's more mildly seasoned than the "street tacos" you might buy in Tijuana.
The hard-shell tacos may be the best thing on the menu. These are the real deal, full of tender shredded beef and cheese, tomato, and lettuce.
Their burritos are good, too, and packed-to-bursting with (for example) chile verde pork or seasoned eggs and potatoes.
Bill Coburn's San Gabriel Valley Menus website has a number of photos of Pepe's offerings along with his review of the Temple City location.

Find Pepe's Finest Mexican Food at 5829 N. Rosemead Blvd., at the corner of Hermosa and near Las Tunas. 626-286-3055. Sun-Thurs 9 am - 9:30 pm; Fri. and Sat. 9 am - 10:30 pm. Closed major holidays.

Transit options include Metro Bus 78 and Metro Bus 487. Montebello Bus 20 stops at San Gabriel Boulevard and Hermosa, about a mile west.

Lafayette Park

Jimmy Webb never wrote a song about Lafayette Park, but maybe he should have. Less famous—or perhaps less notorious—than its neighbor to the east, Lafayette Park nonetheless offers a good deal of charm. Flanked by the imposing Superior Court building and the impressive First Congregational Church, Lafayette Park bridges the neighborhoods of Koreatown, Pico-Union, and Rampart/Westlake.
Its best feature may be the handsome Felipe de Neve Branch Library, which stands on Sixth Street at the corner of Hoover Street. (The park bisects Hoover, which starts again at Wilshire and continues south.) What the De Neve lacks in its collection, it makes up for in its architecture, which resembles the brick structures that populate the UCLA campus. The library has a patio; unfortunately, this patio does not open out onto the park or onto the space around the nearby fountain. This may be due to vandalism--indeed, the fountain itself is closed off by a fence, and the website Public Art in Los Angeles notes that the statue that once stood in the fountain may have been stolen.
The City of Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department maintains the facility and organizes activities. The park features two new Nike-built futsal fields (futsal is a variation of soccer similar to what we call "indoor soccer"). On any given night you can see adult rec league teams battling for supremacy on the pitch. The basketball courts are also a popular draw, and there's a playground for kids.
Arnold Foerster's 1937 statue Marquis de Lafayette stands near the southeast corner of the park. If you cross Wilshire, you will find two tennis courts and the 1934 statue The Power of Water. Standing opposite the statue, the famous and beautiful Bullocks Wilshire building (now part of Southwestern Law School) shines to your left.
As mentioned above, there is vandalism, and the park is often dirty, but it still offers a shady, quiet place (insofar as a place can be quiet when Wilshire Boulevard runs past it!) to play sports or read a book.

Find Lafayette Park along Sixth Street between Commonwealth and Park View in the Wilshire Center district of Los Angeles. Wilshire Boulevard bisects the park; most of the park is north of Wilshire. Tennis courts and a small patch of grass south of Wilshire are in the traffic triangle created by Wilshire, Hoover, and Lafayette Park Place.

Transit options include the 20 Rapid Bus (Wilshire and Vermont), Metro Red Line (Wilshire and Vermont station), and the 320 Bus (Wilshire and Hoover).