To pick up where I left off from Part I of our trip to Southern California, we drove down to San Diego from Irvine in the morning to go to Sea World San Diego! It was my first time at any sort of marine mammal park/oceanarium (I’ve never been to Sea World or Marine World before), so I felt like a little kid marveling at all these cool sea creatures that you don’t get to see at your regular aquarium. After Sea World, we drove over to gorgeous La Jolla Cove… it was so stunningly beautiful, I didn’t want to leave.
Once again, I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking….
We stopped by 85°C Bakery Cafe in Irvine for breakfast before hitting the road.
So many yummy bake goods!
These looked amazing, but I knew better than to substitute dessert for breakfast.
My first time at Sea World and my first time seeing a killer whale in real life!
Shamu is so adorable....
We rode this water ride...
...and got completely soaked! 🙁
Flamingos! This may have been my first time seeing them in real life, too.
The sea lion show! A sea lion dancing the tango.
Mariko with the sharks.
Cotton Candy!
Adorable penguins...
This polar bear was passed the fuck out. å¯æ–¹ãŒãŠã‚„ã˜è‡ã„ã—・・・。
You can't tell, but we're in a polar bear cave.
A beluga whale... they are so cute.
The three of us in the souvenir shop, posing with Shamu.
Mari and Shun with stuffed animals. Cute!!!
Arriving in La Jolla.
It was quite the gorgeous view!
Attempting to spell out "S.D." for San Diego... fail.
Ready to jump!
駿ã¡ã‚ƒã‚“ã€ã™ã”ã„ï¼He got a lot of air!
I'm pretty proud of this photo I took of Mariko on the cliff. Doesn't it look like epic?
The waters crashing below.
Such gorgeous blue waters and skies. I gotta admit, the mid-Atlantic beaches I'm used to don't even compare.
Lovely Mariko against beautiful La Jolla Cove.
Waves crashing onto the sand...
View of the beach from the other side.
Shun-chan pondering the meaning of life.
Taking a photo of Mariko taking a photo of Shun.
Sea lions splayed along the shore... so attractive.
Watching the sunset on the Pacific.
Love you Mariko! ♥
That night, we drove to Mariko’s parents’ house in Torrance after a delicious Mexican seafood dinner. The next morning, Dan and company came to pick me up and we made the seven-hour long drive back up to the Bay Area. (It wasn’t too bad — I slept about 80% of the ride, and spent much of the remaining 20% munching on various snacks.)
The trip down to SoCal had been pretty last minute — I had only booked my flight down less than two weeks beforehand — but it was really fun to spend some time with old friends. I was glad that I got to see Shun-chan before he moved back to Japan (although we’re hoping he’ll be back Stateside soon), and I missed having some good girl talk time with Mari. A huge thank you to Mariko for her hospitality and for driving us everywhere! Hopefully it won’t be too long before we get to see each other again. 🙂
The weather has been amazing for the last week here, and this past weekend was no exception. It’s regularly been sunny and 70 degrees, and it really feels like spring has finally arrived. I am not a huge fan of rain, so I couldn’t wait for the rainy season to be over. (The weather in the Bay Area is pretty nice all year round, with the exception of about eleven straight weeks of rain, during which I am miserable.)
Dan and I decided to spend Saturday in San Francisco, since we had tickets to go see the Tutankhamun exhibit at de Young museum in the evening. I’d been wanting to see the exhibit since it came to San Francisco in June of last year, and it happens to be ending next weekend. (Talk about waiting until the last minute, huh?) We spent the afternoon walking around Baker Beach, which sparkled under the California sunshine. The beach also has a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
After the beach, we drove through Golden Gate Park and headed over to dinner, past the rolling hills of San Francisco…
…and arrived at San Tung! The dry-fried chicken wings here are out of this world! I’m usually not that crazy about wings because they are so messy to eat, but these are the best I have ever had. Ever!
The shrimp and leek dumplings are pretty yummy, too…
Plus the seafood noodle soup! Yes, we ate all of this between the two of us.
Full and content, we headed over to de Young Museum to see the exhibit “Tutankhamun and The Golden Age of The Pharoahs.”
I realize that my blog post title is a little misleading, because we didn’t actually see any mummies. King Tut’s mummy and his three nested coffins and stone sarcophagus have actually never left Egypt, and he continues to rest in the Valley of the Kings. I wanted to see the gold mask of King Tut (which apparently travelled around the world for different exhibits back in the ’70s), but the Egyptian government no longer lets it travel outside of Egypt, as it has been declared a national treasure (and rightly so). Still, the exhibition at de Young was very impressive, showcasing over 130 outstanding works from King Tut’s tomb, as well as those of his royal predecessors, family, and court officials. It’s incredible how intricately and artfully crafted those pieces were, when they were created over 3,200 years ago. During my four years of taking art history courses in college, I remember studying some of those works in my archaeology course with Profess or Knoblauch so it was sort of surreal to see them in person. I feel really fortunate to have been able to catch the exhibit in its last week. Although Tutankhamun is leaving San Francisco at the end of the month, it’ll be making its way over to New York, Toronto and Denver in the coming months, so I definitely recommend it for anyone who is interested and lives near one of those cities!
Last night, my sister and I went to watch UTADA in concert at The Fillmore in San Francisco.
I’ve been a longtime fan of Utada Hikaru since she first debuted at the end of 1998 with her single “Automatic.” I was a junior in high school and was in my final year of chuugakkou (middle school) in Japanese Saturday School, and I remember the whole class was buzzing about her as soon as she came on the scene. She was an instant hit in Japan, and I remember having her first album First Love on repeat for months — it was one of those albums in which pretty much every track was good, and it amazed me that this girl who was one month younger than me was writing and singing these songs. What talent! She continued to churn out hit after hit in the coming years. The Japanese drama-holic that I am, I came to associate a lot of her songs with the dramas they became theme songs for. First Love with Majo no Jouken, Can You Keep a Secret? with HERO, Sakura Drops with First Love, Flavor of Life with Hana Yori Dango 2, Prisoner of Love with Last Friends, and more recently, Eternally with Innocent Love. (All great songs paired with great, addictive dramas… although now that I look back on them, with the exception of HERO and Hana Yori Dango, they’re all pretty dark, depressing “forbidden love” type dramas. But I digress.)
Utada is one of the few Japanese artists out there who have the English language skills to make for viable success in the international market, since she grew up going back and forth between Japan and New York. Even before Utada set her sights overseas, she was starting to attract international audiences and fans. Unfortunately, her first major debut attempt in the US with the album EXODUS sort of bombed (in my personal opinion), and for a few years, she seemed to go back to focusing on her already-hugely-successful musical career in Japan. She came out with a second album early last year titled This is the One, which seems to show more promise.
This month marked the beginning of Utada’s first official American tour. So far, she’d performed in Honolulu, Los Angeles, and Seattle before coming to San Francisco. I went to the concert under the impression that she would probably be singing mostly if not all English songs as her set list, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that she sang almost half and half in terms of English songs vs. Japanese songs throughout the concert. I think she understood that much of the audience was of Asian background and that there were some fans who had come from Japan as well, and so she catered to the hopes that she’d sing some of Japanese classics. Among the songs she sang were Sakura Drops, Automatic, First Love, Stay Gold and Can You Keep a Secret?. We were able to meet up with my fun coworker Estella and her brother at the concert, and we nostalgically rocked out to some of our Utada favorites.
I couldn’t take any pictures or video footage because cameras were strictly forbidden at the concert, but my friend Vince found this clip that had been taken at the concert last night and sent it to me. It’s of First Love. (Thanks Vince!)
There are some more videos online (although not of the San Francisco performance) that showcase more clips from the rest of her set list. I think they’re from her concert at the House of Blues in LA on the 19th.
From here, Utada will go on to perform in Las Vegas, Chicago, Boston, and then to her hometown here in the States, New York City. I hope that the rest of her tour is a success and hope that she can continue to break into the US music industry — I’m excited to see what the future has in store for her. I’m happy that I finally got to see her live, and hearing her sing took me back to the starry-eyed high schooler I was ten years ago. I feel like digging up that dusty First Love album from my closet and once again putting it on repeat.
Last Saturday, Dan and I went to a bonenkai at Zabu Zabu in Berkeley to celebrate the end of 2009 with friends. For those that aren’t familiar with what a bÅnenkai is, Wikipedia offers a good description:
A bÅnenkai (in Japanese, 忘年会, literally meaning “forget the year gathering”) is a Japanese drinking party that takes place at the end of the year, and is generally held among groups of co-workers or friends. The purpose of the party, as its name implies, is to forget the woes and troubles of the past year, usually by consumption of large amounts of alcohol.
The Japanese love bÅnenkais, and in Japan, it’s typical to go to several throughout December with various groups of friends, classmates, and colleagues. It’s a good excuse for them to do what they do best. 😉 This time, we got together with some friends from the SF Bay Area Japanese Language and Culture Meetup and celebrated over all-you-can-eat shabu shabu. It was fun to catch up with friends we hadn’t seen in a while, as well as meet newcomers and make new friends.
Dan and I both love shabu shabu and we stuffed ourselves so much that we were still very full for much of the day on Sunday. haha* But we’ll be going back soon enough — there’s only so long we can stay away from those savory thin slices of meat!
A huge thanks to Kyoko-san, who worked so hard to plan the bÅnenkai and made it such a big success!
group picture, stolen from Kyoko-sanIt was so nice seeing Kyoko-san again! It's been a while.Yasuko-san and 2 x Miki-sanGreat turnout!
Saturday afternoon, Dan and I went to see Cirque du Soleil’s OVO at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Our friends Yumi and Mark had a couple extra tickets, and they generously invited us and let us use the tickets. It was the first time for both Dan and I seeing a Cirque du Soleil performance, and it was truly amazing.
OVO showcases the world of insects, and the costumes were so vivid in color and intricately designed. The set was incredible, and despite being in a tent, they were able to seamlessly (almost magically) switch out different parts of the set. The music for OVO apparently has strong Brazilian influences, and was very well composed. The acrobatics were incredible, and they left me on the edge of the seat, holding my breath for every jump from the trapeze and swing on the rope.
I personally became an instant fan of Cirque du Soleil from that one show and I would love to see more shows in the future. The show was just so beautiful and visually stunning, I feel like I’ve been missing out not seeing Cirque until now.
A huge thanks to Yumi and Mark for graciously inviting us to our first Cirque du Soleil experience. 🙂
