On one of our days while we were staying in San Jose with Dan’s parents, we took a drive down to San Juan Bautista and Monterey. I’ve been to Monterey before, but it was nice to visit again as well as to visit the Spanish mission at San Juan Bautista for the first time. There’s so much history behind the mission that it was really fascinating to tour the grounds, and it was extra interesting to me because it was where they filmed some of the most memorable scenes in my favorite Hitchcock films Vertigo!
Mio with her grandparents!
Walking hand in hand with Grandma
Another nice picture with Dan’s parents.
Mio and Grandma looking at each other. So cute!
A child’s bedroom with toys at the mission. The amount of detail on the toy kitchen and dollhouse is amazing! Complete with creepy dolls…
A statue of Fray Junipero Serra
Mission San Juan Bautista, established in 1797.
The vibrant interior of the church at Mission San Juan Bautista
After spending about an hour at the mission, we continued down south until we arrived at Monterey, where we walked down Cannery Row and checked out the ocean from there.
The beach by Cannery Row.
Gazing into Daddy’s eyes
Another great photo with Dan and his parents.
Mio distracted by the dogs as we walk down Cannery Row.
After exploring Cannery Row, we moved onto walk around Lovers Point Park!
Mio coming face to face with a squirrel. 🙂
Mio is all smiles!
Statue of a boy at Lovers Point Park
Going out onto the rocks at Lovers Point Park.
I touched a live starfish for the first time!
Mio seeing a starfish for the first time. She was very curious!
It was a very laid back, memorable day trip where we got to see a lot of sights, both new and familiar! 🙂 California has so many beautiful sights to see, and it was so nice to have some time to go visit some of them during our visit!
The other weekend, Dan and I spent a Sunday afternoon in Piedmont. It’s a small affluent city surrounded by Oakland and is known for its beautiful architecture and trees. I’d never been to Piedmont before, so we stopped by a park and walked around. There was so much green, I loved it! The area reminds me of my hometown of Vienna, with its lush foliage and manicured lawns. I miss the East Coast….
One of my good friends from college came to visit this past weekend. Mimi is a couple years older than me and has always been like the older sister I never had — when I kept getting sick freshman year, she always brought over soup or jello to help me feel better, and she would frequently invite me over for yummy home-cooked Korean meals. After she graduated, I hadn’t had many chances to see her, and it’s even harder to meet up now that we’re on opposite coasts. The last time I’d seen her was over a year ago, at my wedding. This time, Mimi and her friend Cindy decided to take a trip out here for a little over a week to go hiking and camping around Yosemite and Tahoe, making stops at Santa Cruz and Monterey along the way. They arrived on Friday night and spent Saturday with us before embarking on the rest of their Northern California adventure Sunday morning.
I’m always uncertain about where to take friends when they visit the area, since for having lived out here for two years, I still don’t know the area too well, especially San Francisco. But Mimi made things super easy for me because she did a whole bunch of research and talking to Bay Area natives back in Richmond, Virginia before she flew out. When she got here, she had a whole list of places to go and things to eat before I even had to come up with suggestions. She’s been to the city before, so she knew the streets of San Francisco much better than I did!
We spent a good amount of time in both Berkeley and San Francisco on Saturday, making it a full day. It was fun being a tourist in our own city! Here are some photos…
Breakfast at Bette's Oceanview Diner in Berkeley
corned beef hash and cream scone... a satisfying start to the day.
pie in the sky: a giant pie hanging from the ceiling
reunited with Meems!
Indian Rock in Berkeley... never heard of it until Mimi told me about it.
Enjoying breathtaking views of the bay from Indian Rock.
The ladies on Indian Rock! (It was rough scaling that rock in a dress.)
Big thanks to Mimi for telling us about this place!
Cindy and Mimi meet Diesel for the first time.
Ice cream stop at Ici.
Enjoying refreshing treats from Ici... my current favorite is the raspberry lemon ice cream sandwich, flanked by gingersnaps.
Driving in the Russian Hills in San Francisco.
The zigzagging roads of Lombard Street. This was actually my first time there! I've always wanted to see it.
Visiting friends always want to stop by the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park.
obligatory Japanese bridge photo.
Dry-fried chicken wings from San Tung on Irving Street.
They were seriously the best chicken wings I've had in my entire life.
Shrimp and leek dumplings... delicious.
Spicy seafood noodle soup (Cham Pong) - pretty hot but soooo good.
Back in Berkeley, finishing off the day with bubble tea from Tapioca Express in downtown.
(See more photos of our Berkeley/San Francisco excursions on Flickr.)
Dan and I had a great time with the girls (although Dan only accompanied us for the Berkeley portion of our adventures), and we wish them a safe and memorable trip around NorCal before they return to the East Coast.
The Nichi Bei Times announced yesterday that it would be closing on September 10. The oldest Japanese American newspaper in Northern California, its board of directors stated in their letter that they reached the decision with “great sadness.” I, as well as many others within the Japanese American community and media industry, was shocked at the news.
Since 1990, Nichi Bei Times had experienced a steady decline in circulation as well as a decline in their advertising revenue, and although they changed to a bilingual daily format with a new English Weekly in 2006, they saw only a modest increase in subscribers and it was not enough to sustain operational costs. I remember interviewing for their graphic design position when I first moved out to Northern California almost two years ago, and they told me frankly that they could not offer me the salary I asked for due to the fact that they, like many other newspaper companies, were struggling financially. The movevement of readers to online sources of news have beset the entire newspaper industry, and caused many papers nationwide to cut back or shut down completely. Their struggle has also no doubt been exacerbated by the recession of this past year.
Since it was established in 1946, the Nichi Bei Times has achieved its purpose to help revitalize the Japanese American community of Northern California, and today, we can see that Japantown has more community-based organizations than ever before, reflecting an active cultural and service-oriented community. And despite this sad news, there’s still a glimmer of hope — community leaders are rally efforts together to help Nichi Bei be reborn as a nonprofit organization, the Nichi Bei Foundation. You can read more about it in the letter, “Out of the Ashes, a Rebirth.” You can make donations to the foundation on the site, which will assist in their startup costs as a nonprofit.
On a more personal note, the closing of Nichi Bei Times really brings the recession close to home. Both of the two places I interviewed with before I arrived at my current company have gone out of business and closed down within the past year — Nichi Bei and Elephant Pharm. Although it saddens me that they’ve closed down (Nichi Bei Times is a great newspaper as well as an irreplaceable community organization, and I loved shopping at the oh-so-hip Elephant Pharm), I am breathing a sigh of relief for having not gotten those jobs, and am grateful that I still have one. We’ve been swamped with work lately and although it’s stressful, it’s better than having no work at all.
