[6/29/07] PWC San Jose Fun in the Sun Event
Erik invited me to his Fun in the Sun event at the Santa Cruz Beach board Walk. I even got to go kayaking even though I don't work for the company. That part was pretty fun expect when I got stuck in the water because of all the kelp. Trying to paddle when there's tons of kelp doesn't work very well and I always already having some issues with steering a bit since my legs were too short to properly push the rudder peddles. I had a lot of fun though. Afterwards, we played some beach volleyball till my arms got soo bruised up that it hurt to return the ball so I quit. Even though I'm still scared of rollercoasters I went on a few and had fun. The dropzoneish ride was pretty fun but a little too short.
[6/28/07] Watching Live Free or Die Hard
Jia is leaving the Bay to go to grad school in San Diego so I had to see her once last time before she left. Jieun and her wanted to go watch Live free or die hard in Emeryville. I picked them up from the BART station then headed over to Bay Street. We went to CPK for dinner and then headed over to the theatre early to get good seats. I really enjoyed the movie actually and normally I'm not that into action flicks.
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Jia
and I at CPK |
AMC's
display case with Jia and Jieun |
[6/18/07- 6/24/07] Hanging out in Minnesota with Erik's Family
Erik hasn't been back to Minnesota for probably about two years so we decided to go hang out with his family and see Lake Superior and the state parks nearby. I took the red eye and got into Minneapolis at 6am then proceeded to take a short nap before hanging out with his family the rest of the day.
Day 2: On Tuesday we drove our rental car ( a PT Cruiser) up north about 4 hours to Lutsen and hiked around Cascade Park. The river cut into the rocks and created erosion of the rocks alongside the river and since the water has iron inside it looked like root beer. We hiked the Superior trial and saw some waterfalls. Afterwards we hit up Grand Marais and walked along Lake Superior. Erik told me the water would be freezing but I had to at least stick my feet inside for a picture and to be able to say I put my feet in Lake Superior. After we froze our feet off and finally got feeling back in them we decided it was dinner time and hit up Angry Trout. The food there was all local and organic and super tasty. I got a fish sandwich and discovered my love of tarter sauce. Too bad it's not that healthy ... drat all the good stuff is always bad for you.
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A
river in Cascade Park |
Erik
tying his shoe lace |
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Information
plaque on the river water |
Both
of us with the river behind us |
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Grand
Marais little ponds next to Lake Superior |
The
light house along the lake |
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Me
and my 20 secs in Lake Superior ... my feet were sooo cold |
Erik
hanging out by some water pools in Grand Marais |
Day 3: On Wednesday we went to Temperance River State Park and hiked around for a little bit. Since we were both still a little bit injured from the Yosemite hike we decided not to push ourselves and head out too far. We then went to Tettegouche State Park hiked around there for a bit before going to the Baptism River and sun bathing for a little bit. Once it started getting a bit cooler we got up to head over to Gooseberry State Park. I made a souvenir penny there =D. We didn't stay at Gooseberry for very long either because we wanted to go try to find the pink rock beach Erik's parents told us about. We ended up finding it and it's named Iona Beach after the lady who donated to the land to the state. There were pink and blue rocks all over the beach. We ate dinner at Grand Superior Lodge in Two Harbors out on a deck watching the sun set. I had a yummy shrimp pasta while Erik ate Walleye ( a local fish that's white flesh with a very mild fish taste ... very yummy) with some wild rice. Minnesota grows a lot of wild rice. I even saw some gas stations selling it.
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The
river cutting into the rocks |
Temperance
River State Park |
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Ohh
no we fell into a cave |
Us
hanging next to the river |
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Small
waterfall |
Baptism
River |
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Me
standing next to a waterfall at the Gooseberry Park |
Iona's
Pink Rock Beach |
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Shadow
puppets on Iona Beach |
Erik
writing stuff in the beach with blue rocks |
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Posing
with our rocks |
Swing
batter batter swing |
Day 4: On Thursday we stayed in Duluth and went to the downtown area. We went to Canal Park and saw the lift bridge. There was a nice beach on the other side of the bridge where we hung out and rested for a bit. The weather was really warm which was unusual for Duluth and we both actually went all the way into the water. I almost lost one of my contacts doing that but luckily it stayed in. After the beach we went to Hayward, WI to have dinner with Jim and Marilyn (family friends of Erik's parents). Hayward is a small town that is very rural. They lived right on a lake and so we went out on their boat for a little bit before eating dinner.
Day 5: Friday we slept in after all the days of traveling we did earlier that week. Erik's little brother John was flying in at night so we hit up the Mall of America before picking him up from the airport.
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Me
posing with a Lego man |
Mall
of America rollercoaster rides |
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Lego
Land |
Mushroom
rollercoaster |
[6/16/07] Family Dinner at Darda Seafood Restaurant
My parents came back from Taiwan a couple days ago and since everyone's been so busy with their own things we decided to all get together and grab dinner at Darda Seafood Restaurant in Milpitas. It's a Chinese Muslim restaurant and the food is pretty good. We go there ever so often maybe once in a couple months. The parking lot was a mad house because it's next to a Ranch 99. We got to the restaurant at the perfect time and got the last free table. Afterwards, when we left there was a crazy long ass line.
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The
family minus me |
Jenn's
the photographer for this picture |
[6/13/07] Grabbing Lunch at Cafe Madeleine with Lauren
I needed to go to the Ferry Building to buy presents for Erik's parents so I figured since I hadn't seen Lauren in a while that we should grab lunch and catch up in person. We went to Cafe Madeleine in the Financial District. I thought the food was alright La Note is definitely a lot better. Cafe Madeleine is known for its desserts so of course we had to try one. We split a strawberry cake that was really good. Lauren just got back from a bachelorette party in Vegas so she was telling me about the Chippendales show that she saw. I wanna go to Vegas for a bachelorette party now heheh too bad none of my friends are getting married any time soon.
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The
floor of the restaurant |
All
of its yummy desserts |
[6/7/07- 6/9/07] Yosemite Half Dome Trip
Some PWC partners always go to Yosemite every year to hike up to Half Dome and Erik got invited by Regina his manager at work. Me and Erik met up with them at their house and her husband Bafu drove us up to Yosemite. On the way up we stopped by at Sonic's in Tracy because Regina was craving the food. I've never been to Sonic before and the food was ok not that great just normal unhealthy fast food. For some reason the GPS couldn't figure out where we were staying so we ended up taking the long route up. There was one part were we were driving curvy roads with no guard rails and the road was really small and had a huge drop off to the side. That was on Erik's side so I didn't see how scary it really was. I passed out most of the way as I normally do on car trips.
Once we got to the cabin we met Elanie, the wife of the partner Dan, and discovered that me and Erik were staying in the Tree house cabin that happened to be up the road on the left. There were no street lights so the first night walking back to our cabin after dinner was pretty hard. It was soo black outside that you couldn't see a foot in front of you. The stars were gorgeous thou. I met Carrie (Erik's coworker) and her fiance Ryan and their friends Jen and DJ.
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Us
in the loft on the twin bed we shared for trip |
Our
living room with stuff bears everywhere |
Next morning we woke up around 6am to get ready for our hike up to Half Dome. The cabin we were at was at 6,000 feet elevation so we had to drive about 30 minutes to get to Curry Village (aka Valley Floor) where the start of the trail was located. The trail started at Happy Isles and when to Vernal Fall trail head. Shortly after leaving the trail head, we reached the Vernal Falls Bridge (4,400', 0.8mi). This is the the last potable water on the trail so it's a good place to fill up your water bottles. It's also the location of the first toilet on the trail. This enabled us to make great time up the Mist Trail to the top of Vernal Falls (5,040, 1.3mi). Climbing the steps next to Vernal Falls were super slippery and pretty steep I wouldn't recommend doing it without proper hiking shoes. We continued on the Mist Trail to the intersection with the John Muir Trail (5,960, 2.5mi) where the second toilet is located. From there we continued to the popular backpack camp, Little Yosemite Valley (6,120', 3.7mi), and continued along the John Muir Trail. Little Yosemite Valley has the last toilet on the trail. The trail along Little Yosemite Valley gives you great views of the backside of Half Dome. We walked along the backside of the Half Dome for a while before we reached some stone steps. The steps were pretty larger and wounded back and forth at one point I started getting really scared and just climbed up the steps with my hands and feet haha. On the steps we saw Clay and his wife already coming down the mountain. The partners really were in better shape than the youngens. The stone steps just ends at one point and you have to basically walk up the mountain the rest of the way till you reach the cables. I don't have any picture of the crazy cables because I was too freaked out at this point and I just wanted it to be over and done with. Once you're at the cables you have to pull yourself up and walk up the top of the mountain. DJ was in front of me on the cables and Erik was probably about 2 people behind. I didn't really feel like looking back down the mountain. While we were on the cables someone started freaken out and curled up in a fetal position and wouldn't move. I was getting pretty frustrated because my arms started getting sore and if your arms give out you basically fall backwards and create a domino affect making everyone else fall. We finally actually made it to the top and I was sooo tired I just wanted to sit there and not move. We got to the top around 12:30ish.
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A
river |
Vernal
Falls |
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Us
posing next to Vernal Falls on the slippery steps |
On
top of Half Dome ... yay we made it |
Going down the cables was a bit scary too especially at this one point when the pole actually came out of the ground. Erik went down in front of me and I had these two older guys behind me cheering me on. Erik hurt his knee so he found two branches and used them as hiking sticks. He ended up going down the top part of the mountain pretty slowly and I just waited for him at the end up the stone steps since I wanted to get down as fast as possible. Everyone on the trail is pretty friendly and I chatted up with a good number of people while we were hiking. I ended up spraining both ankles on the way down because there's all these rocks and the path is uneven. We decided to take the John Muir Trail back instead of Mist Trail because it was supposedly less steep and we wouldn't have to cross the slippery stone steps. We ended making it back to the car around 7pm. I was sore and tired of walking by that time. Our next vacation is definitely not going to be something this insane.
The four of us got to dinner kinda late and even Bafu came over to check in on us since the partners weren't sure we were okay. Jackie, Kendell's wife made some great food and we all chatted for a while. Me and Erik went into the hot tub for a bit hoping that it would make us less sore the next day.
[6/3/07] Hiking in Los Altos
In order to prepare for the Yosemite hike me and Erik decided to go hike on the PG&E trail at the Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve in Los Alto. At first we decided to run the PG&E to really push ourselves. That got really old for me fast, because I felt like I could just walk up just as fast as trying to run it. You can get an 8.5 mile loop with a 1600 ft elevation in the first 4 miles. Yeah I definitely wasn't too happy in the beginning. At the top of the trail I got a big freaked out with all the bugs and brush on the dirt trail that seemed to curve at every corner. I swear I walked for like 10 minutes and I didn't see anyone else. That was kind of scary especially since I didn't know where Erik was either. On the walk down we took a different trail and it was pretty chill. I learned to tell which direction we were walking by the sun and saw some bunnies and purdee birds. We broke in our new hiking shoes and tried out our camel backs. Those are pretty useful as a light water supply.
[6/2/07] Vodka Tasting at Hangar One
Stone heard about Hangar One this micro distillery in an old military hangar in Alameda. Eunji and I thought it sounded like a fun idea so we grabbed as many people as we could find who would want to taste test vodka. Me and Erik got lost getting into Alameda because my stupid GPS told us to take the tunnel back to Oakland after I made a wrong turn in Alameda. We were a bit late but was still able to get into the tour. Stone and Marcus were both already there. Eunji and Tim got there later. For 10 dollars you get to taste about 10 different spirits. The tastings are each about 1/3 to 1/2 of a shot of liquor, and we had an opportunity to taste just about all of the various liquors - brandy, vodka, whiskey, dessert wine, etc. The variety of vodkas was much broader than you could imagine - they have the typical fruit infused vodka (mandarin blossom, lime kafir, etc.) but they also have white tea vodka and black tea vodka...and chipotle vodka. I realized by the end of it I don't really like vodka straight up and it taste a lot better in mixed drinks. The dessert wine was really good ... hehe what can I say I like sweet stuff.
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Hangar
One distillery |
Buddha
Fingers |
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White
Qi Vodka |
Pear
Vodka in front of the Tasting Menu |
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The
crew - Erik, Me, Tim, Eunji, Marcus & Stone |
Me
and Erik waiting around for vodka |