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. 🙂
Dan and I were both in Southern California this weekend, although we arrived separately and were in different parts of SoCal and didn’t see each other for much of the time. Dan and his film buddies were in Pasadena to shoot a short, and they drove down on Friday night, whereas I flew down on Friday morning and stayed in Irvine and Torrance to spend time with my friends from college — our plans just happened to fall on the same weekend, so we ended up both being down there but ironically separated until it came time for us to drive back up to the Bay Area.
Dan may blog about his shoot a little later, but this post will be all about my adventures this past weekend. 😛
My good friend Mariko lives in Irvine, and I hadn’t seen her since last June, so I was really happy to have a chance to go spend some time with her this time. Our friend Shun from Virginia Tech is moving back to Japan, and he was stopping by SoCal for the weekend before flying to the other side of the world, so it was a good chance to see him as well, before he left the U.S.
We spent most of Friday in the Los Angeles area and Saturday in San Diego. Here are some photos from Day One in Manhattan Beach and Irvine….
Prosciutto & Mozzarella di Bufala tartine with sun-dried tomatoes & basil pesto from Le Pain Quotidien at Manhattan Beach. Delicieux!
Mari had a warm organic turkey and cheddar tartine. Also very yum.
Outside Le Pain Quotidien. We were pretty stuffed at this point. Thank you for the lunch, Mari!
We decided to walk it off with a stroll along Manhattan Beach.
Mariko being her usual adorable self.
Mari and Misono on Manhattan Beach!
It was such a gorgeous day to be at the beach!
Amazing sky, sand, and sea... stretching far into the distance.
We started getting a little giddy with the gorgeous beach and the lovely weather and started taking some silly photos.
What are we doing? I'm not quite sure myself... but they are amusing, no?
We hit up Pinkberry, the original tart frozen yogurt.
I love froyo, and it was my first time having Pinkberry. I liked it! 🙂
Original tart with mango and mochi toppings.
After we picked up Shun from the LAX, we drove to Irvine to have some late dinner at BCD Tofu House.
Quite a feast!
I don't like tofu, so instead of soon dubu, I had some of this bulgogi goodness. I hadn't had bulgogi in a few years! I used to have it all the time when I lived in NoVa.
Shun-chan eating froyo for the first time! Must capture moment...
Mari and I at Yogurtland, having froyo for the second time in six hours...
Looking at the photos, it looks like all we did was eat, scamper around the beach, and go eat some more… and more… and more…. which I suppose is essentially the gist of what happened. There’s just so much good food in the area, I end up wanting to eat everything I see. It was really nice to spend time with college friends and reminisce on our days back at Tech — sometimes I wish I could just go back and experience it all over again. (I believe I suffer from a bit of Peter Pan Complex.) But it’s comforting to see that your close friends from those days have never really changed that much, and that you can always pick up right where you left off with them. It really makes me grateful for the friendships I made and have been able to carry with me.
Stay tuned for Part II, in which we encounter giant sea creatures and scale treacherous rock cliffs. (Sounds so epic!)
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!
