With this post, I resolve never to leave my Christmas shopping to the last minute ever again.

I knew today would be madness at the mall so I treated myself to an Organic Roots lunch and coffee to start my day with a little zen. Then went to Tin Box on Whyte Avenue. Happenstance led me to Holt Renfrew on 25% off day. And while I now have half of my CaRMS interview outfit, I also have bruises from a few errant elbows. Self-preservation kept me far away from the Louis Vuitton and Tiffany counters. Needed to get away from the craziness for a while so escaped to find a cup of tea and ended up finding a blend very similar to the one I loved in SF. Returned to Whyte Ave to visit one of the music stores (where my sister also happens to have an employee discount) and ended up chancing upon some period jewelry. I am undoubtedly poorer but it was the kind of shopping day that brings maximum satisfaction, you got almost everyone on your list and you can still afford to pay your rent this month and best of all, you didn't have to step anywhere near the war zone that is West Edmonton Mall.

Shopping -> over
Eating -> just begun
5 more days of work and I'm free!!

It's a tough time. But friends are good, food is good, wine is good. And my boyfriend rocks. And I'll be ok.

Days 6 and 7: Parting is such sweet sorrow...

So following the Golden Gate Bridge, we were frozen right through and needed to head back to our hotel to re-charge. Like 80 year-old grandmothers, one of the things we loved most about this place were the afternoon tea & cookies. One day I'll have to hunt down that particular tea that they brewed, very dark and strong with just a hint of berry. Following this, we'd usually nap, surf the net or shower and rest before we headed out for dinner.

On that particular night, we wanted to go to Cow Hollow to a little Mexican place we'd read loads about, Andale Taqueria. It was fish burrito time, and I was not disappointed. We were stuffed like turkeys and next to the world's greatest Chinese meal at Chef Jia's it was the least expensive meal we had. Plus, the fresh fruit juice is only $2 and bottomless!


Next day, once again was dark, foggy and gloomy. We had planned to go to see the Redwoods, but the bus we had planned to take wasn't running that particular day, we didn't have a rental car and we were too late to join any tours. Boo =( Instead, we went to the Land's End Trail. A quick 2.5 km hike along the edge of the Pacific. And this time, the weather added to the beauty of the trail. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:



Once again, frozen right through, we went in search of some grub. In all my research beforehand, there was one place that came up over and over and over again, Swan Oyster Depot. They promised us it was absolutely the freshest seafood to be found in San Francisco, caught that morning, served that afternoon and gone by the time the shop closed in the evening. So we ordered a clam chowder to warm up, a HUGE seafood salad and some oysters on the half shell. And they were right, it really was the best seafood I've had in a long, long time. It will continue to be the seafood I dream about for a long time, the standard to which all other seafood will be compared. It has ruined mediocre Edmonton food forever.


We were lazy that afternoon and lounged all day in the hotel by the fire with our tea & cookies. That night we got ourselves another good seafood meal in Chinatown. Normally, I would rave about it, but I had just eaten at Swan Oyster Depot.

Last day. We went to the Exploratorium, billed as the 'best science centre in the world' according to Scientific American. We took turns being geeks. We ate one last burrito (shrimp this time) at Andale Taqueria and then it was time to return home. Until our next adventures in Las Vegas later this month!!! Muahaha!!!

Labels: San Francisco Trip

Day 4 (con't) and Day 5: Chinatown and Golden Gate Park/Bridge

Hm...so when we last left our heroes, we were all shopped out and about to go sushi-ing. So we made our way down to Cow Hollow (the 17th Ave/Whyte Ave of San Francisco) to a place called Ace Wasabi's Rock 'n Roll Sushi. We were not disappointed =) The roll on top is their scorpion roll: mango, avocado, rock shrimp, pecans, very tasty. The one below was their Ozzy: jalapenos, tobiko, crab, avocado, spicy mustard. This one was a little too hot for our tastes, with all the chilies you could barely breathe never mind taste, so we picked off all the jalapenos and it was very good after that.


Next day, we used the morning to explore Golden Gate Park. The weather was finally nice and the gardens were really beautiful. The rest of the park is just as beautiful, just as interesting as the Japanese Tea Garden but for whatever reason, that's the only part of the park they charge admission for. And then they charge you even more for their over-priced jasmine tea. All so you can pretend to be living in samurai-era Japan while dressed in your hiking boots, khaki shorts, San Francisco T-shirt and visor and imitation Chanel sunglasses. Aiy.

Next we hit Chinatown. Dim sum with two people is always a challenge. The perfect number is 4. When we were little, my family would dim sum and because there are 5 of us, each of us would cut a small morself off each one of our dumplings and give them to my little sister as her share. The dim sum was really decent. Hot, fresh char siu baos, where the white dough is just sweet enough and not at all soggy and the filling was just right. The lo bak gao was to die for! We browsed Chinatown a little, then decided that seeing as the weather was right, we would try to walk the Golden Gate Bridge.

We tend to travel a fair bit and use transit a lot when we travel, so we were getting kinda cocky about how good we were at using the transit system. Little did we realize that getting to the Golden Gate Bridge would be a very different affair. It's a separate transit system that wouldn't accept our passes, required cash only and provided no change. And of course, I had no small bills. Unlike the municipal system it doesn't list the stops at the front of the bus and the driver was MEAN! So yes, we ended up going over the bridge and being afraid to get off until we hit a small town (all the other stops were at the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere) so we could change buses and go in the opposite direction.

Never mind, 45 minutes and many large billls later, we had made it. The weather unfortunately looked like this:



So picture-taking opportunities of San Francisco and the bay were limited and instead, we occupied ourselves like this:

Day 4: Alcatraz

Gloomy, rainy, cold day today. Probably not the greatest day to visit Alcatraz as most of it is unheated. We huddled under the awnings as often as possible, donned multiple layers, gloves and hats and still, I shivered. But it was neat all the same. And due to the less than fantastic weather, there were few other tourists to contend with.

On a side note, prior to leaving Edmonton I had the bright idea to go and cut my hair short. My hairdresser assured me it would be absolutely adorable if only I remembered to straighten it everyday and for 15 minutes each morning it probably is. Problem is that the humidity that we're missing so much at home, plays havoc with my hair here. Within minutes of stepping outside the door, it flips itself right out and stays that way for the rest of the day.

Following Alcatraz, Kev was beat and ready to collapse so he came back to the hotel to nap while I shopped Union Square. Would like to buy myself something cute and overpriced from San Fran to commemorate the trip =) Right now, am debating between beautiful Tiffany ring and equally adorable Coach bag =)

Labels: San Francisco Trip

Days 2 and 3: Gilroy and San Francisco

One of the main things I wanted to do while we were planning this trip was to make a trip out to the factory outlets at Gilroy. In fact, planning our side trip to Monterey was simply an evolution of our decision to make the drive down to Gilroy seeing as the factory outlets are halfway between the two cities. We were not disappointed =) Banana Republic and BCBG were cheap, cheap, cheap =) What amazed me was how over-run the name brand stores were by Asians. Coach and Polo Ralph Lauren were simply packed. Asians, no matter where in the world we travel to, seem to be drawn to the big, international brand names. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Burberry are like street lamps for moths. I was elbowed by multiple, tiny little Asian women (my grandmother's size or less) during my 5 minutes inside of Coach. I soon gave up in favor of less famous, less hazardous stores.

After our sojourn in Gilroy, we made our way into San Francisco to our hotel. Very cute, charming little place. Really highly recommended by Frommer's and by multiple people via the Internet. Our room however, granted probably the least expensive one in the hotel, is scarcely bigger than our bed. In fact, I'm doubtful about whether or not it could fit a king-size. Never mind, it's a great location, the coffee they serve in the morning is fantastic and they serve tea & cookies each afternoon.

For dinner, we made our way to Chinatown to a place called 'Chef Jia's'. Wow. A place I would bring my grandmother to any day without reservation. For starters, it was as cheap as can be. Dinner plates for $5.50. Kevin ordered shrimp and green beans and the shrimp were large, plentiful and fresh. I ordered a spicy garlic chicken and the flavor was just fantastic. Their walls are covered in awards and reviews and one of the reviewers recommended their deep-fried curried crab cakes which we promptly tried and were not disappointed. For less than $5 we got 6 very fresh, very crispy deep-fried dumplings STUFFED with crab. This is not your KFC-style sort of dumpling where whatever small amount of stuffing is rolled around in so much batter you have so squint to see the meat. These things made my night.

This morning, we woke up early to return our rental car before heading out for the day. While the drive to and from Monterey was a dream, driving within San Francisco itself is a tad nightmare-ish. Seems almost every street is a one-way and many of them forbid you to turn when you really need to turn. Add to that loads of pedestrians and cable cars that stop in the middle of an intersection, very aggressive drivers and directions that were a little less than accurate...yeah, it wasn't too fun.

But we did get there eventually. We took the train to Embarcadero and the Ferry Building where they have some very high quality, very expensive artisan food. The foodies in my circle will be getting gifts from these shops this Christmas =) We picked up lunch and ate while we walked along the water towards Pier 39 and the sea lions then wandered around Fisherman's Wharf. Somewhat intimidated by the throngs of tourists and locals pandering to the tourists, we stuck close to the water and found ourselves following the bike path that leads to the Golden Gate Bridge. If you follow the path past the wharf you reach a beautiful park Fort Mason, which is infinitely more attractive than the zoo that is the wharf, plus the views of the bridge and Alcatraz are better.

A cup of hot chocolate later and we were riding the cable car up and down Powell St. back to our hotel. As we're young and many of the other passengers on our cable car weren't, we got to hang out the sides of the car. Kevin was quite taken with the mechanics of the car and spent a lot of time in nerdy conversation with the conductor =) But it was a very fun (and sometimes terrifying experience) as I was right at the front, holding onto the cable car with one hand and my camera with the other.

Lastly, dinner tonight. We had done some research and many of the websites recommended a place called 'Sam's Grill'. The feel is decidedly old-school, like the company restaurant in John Grisham's 'The Firm'. The servers are elderly and wear tuxedos. The wall panelling is dark. The meal started on a high note with a very nice clam chowder with tasty, large chunks of clam. Pretty much everything else was a disappointment though. When we came to eat in California, we expected Californian, fusion, organic cuisine and maybe this was our mistake when we chose Sam's Grill because the food, like the decor, is decidedly old school. Instead of fresh seafood cooked in such a way that highlights the taste of the meat, Kevin's 'Deviled Crab' was drowned in an ocean of butter, cream and cheese, and the actual pieces of crab were so salty that we just couldn't enjoy the dish. My own deep-fried oysters were much better and I enjoyed the lightness of the batter, but the rice was dry and the yellow squash had that bitter taste that comes with having spent 2 weeks at the bottom of the fridge. Dessert was a cold, 'baked apple' that in theory came with cream, but in reality came with a sprinkling of cinnamon and absolutely zero creativity. Hopefully, tomorrow's eats will be better as we're going a fair bit out of our way to try some Californian sushi.

Labels: San Francisco Trip

Day 1: Monterey

Yay!!! We're finally going. Unfortunately I was so pumped up about this vacation that I lay in bed tossing and turning until 2 in the morning. Then we had to woke up at the ungodly hour of 4:30AM to catch our 7:00AM flight to the airport. 3 cups of coffee later we were wide awake by the time we got to San Francisco. Then we rented a small car and made the 1.5 hour drive down to Monterey.

Beautiful, beautiful scenery on the way down. The highway winds its way along the coast and the landscape is much like that of Vancouver. Mountains coming right down to the ocean and lots of greenery. I was quite jealous of Kevin because it looked like a really fun highway to drive. Very swooshy.

Once we got here, we had a quick lunch and made our way to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for the afternoon. I touched a sea urchin! As you may have guessed, it feels spiky. A sea cucumber feels squishy and if you squish it too hard it blows water at you. Starfish usually feel hard because they tend to live by coastal areas and the waves crash on them. On the other hand, if you feel a starfish that tends to live in deeper waters, it too is squishy. Wanted to pet a bat ray but unfortunately, they were rather wary of people (must've been over-squished) because they were nowhere near the edge of the touch pool.

Following that we took a quick walk along the coast to see the seals and the scenery along the coast and then went to find dinner. Now I realize that walking into a busy restaurant on a Saturday evening without first making a reservation will probably require you to wait for a period of time. So we told the manager we wanted a table for 2 and then sat down to wait. In the mean time, lots of groups either with or without reservations were coming in and out of the restaurant. 50 minutes later, we saw one of the groups that we knew had come in after us and didn't have a reservation get seated a table, so I went up and asked the manager and wouldn't you know it, he hadn't written down our names on the wait list. One very snarky conversation later we were seated and eating some really tasty fish. Tilapia cancun for me and swordfish for Kev. Ooh, it was so very yummy. A nice. grilled tilapia fillet with a slaw of peppers, cabbage and onions on top and a bed of pesto underneath. Served with rice, black beans and some broccoli. It was so yummy and I was so hungry I ate a good quarter of it before I remembered to take a picture =) Just for you Tru!

Labels: San Francisco Trip