Posts Tagged 'SAN FRANCISCO'
Some travel pictures of San Francisco. We spent the weekend walking through a lot of the city, and played Ingress, Google’s intriguing augmented-reality game. It’s a game that is still in Beta mode I believe, so you can only play by invite right now. Essentially, the game makes you walk around the city on a semi scavenger hunt for public art and monuments. Once you find the item, you’re supposed to claim it by taking energy from it….if you have enough power to take it! Since we’re level 1, and didn’t have enough power to take a lot of stuff, but it was really fun trying to find each item as we were walking through the city. We even found one at our favorite cafe called Cafe Prague! I think we walked easily over 10 miles this weekend…and we got lifts from our friends, taxis, and the metro often too!
The first set here is in black & white. In the hotel we were staying in, there were a lot of black and white photos of the city from years back. That inspired me to take some architecture and city photos while we were walking, and the photos were my inspiration
Yes, the kid wanted a birthday at the house…with bun rieu, one of my most favorite Vietnamese dishes. Logan turned 10 this year and he was such a good kid. He didn’t ask for much, just a dinner and cake. We gladly obliged.
Lights at Union Square and the Macy’s tree. The ice skating rink is incredibly small but it’s cute and easy to get into.
Spent the day shopping and pampering. Well, we went to Mission Beach Cafe first, and had the most amazing breakfast of all time…and also the most amazing bacon of all time. We then walked the half block uphill to get our nails done at my favorite salon in SF: Bijou Nails. It’s like stepping into a small Parisian salon it’s so small, but incredibly cute and cozy. We also stopped by Japantown to buy Rilakkuma and went to Daiso to stock up on $1.50 toys!
I made plans to go visit one of my favorite girls in San Francisco and it turned out to be the biggest eating frenzy with friends from all over meeting up! Lillian is in SF, but I called Tien, my cousin to see if she would be down for a fun trip and join us. She of course said yes, which is already enough to make me so happy. First things first: dim sum. I never go to SF without eating dim sum. It’s what we do. In Orange County, you can’t visit without eating Vietnamese food because that’s what we do well. In SF, you eat Chinese food because that’s what they do well. Shanghai Dumpling House is now my absolute favorite place for dim sum right now, mostly for the egg puff pastry. I can eat about 10 of those in one sitting, it’s so good. I also love love the spicy wontons, lionshead meatballs, green onion pancake, and of course, xiaolongbao.
Delicious egg puff and spicy wonton with peanut sauce
The biggest boba cup I have ever had. Oh, and there’s milk pudding inside as well. Yummers. We need one of these in Orange County…and one is probably popping up as I speak.
On top of that, right before the trip, I found out my girl Tam from law school is visiting family in SF as well!! She flew in from DC the same day as me, and got our other friend Erica to come out as well. We met up at Kokkari Mediterranean Restaurant and basically tore the place up by being at least 5 octaves louder than all other tables around us. Oh, and 3 free desserts is the cherry on top.
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I took a spontaneous trip to San Francisco, again! We are trying to get all our visas together for the trip, and Russia refused to take any applications via mail, so we had to go in person to the consulate office! We drove all night, and got to the consulate at 7 am [they don’t open until 9]. The building is in the Civic Center area with gorgeous multi-million dollar homes surrounding it. I forgot to take a picture, but i was just too tired and grumpy to do anything but lower my seat back and put my head down to rest.
We slept in the car for about half an hour when randomly, a group of people with a trainer started sprinting up and down the street, and then started doing push ups next to my car! Needless to say, it felt really weird to have people were working their asses off while looking in my car as we nap at 7 am. We decided to go back down the hill and look for some breakfast. At 830, we drove back up the hill to the consulate, waited half an hour for the one window to open, only to find out that we need to run back out to get a Fed Ex prepaid envelope in order for them to send our paperwork back to us [this is actually great bc we don’t have to come back in 6 days to pick it up in person!]. So back down the hill we go to find a Fed Ex, back up the hill, wait at the window, and THIS time, everything was accepted. Six days until we get our passports back, filled with visas to beautiful countries we will see in the next 3 months!!!
Tired but happy, we set out to find our hotel to take a much needed nap. Odd little boutique place called Hotel Mirabelle in the Mission. We put our stuff down, and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Here are some pictures of the breakfast room. I sat here chillin’ on the net for a bit before dinner.
the back patio
yummy california wine
halibut with mandarin oranges
vanilla ice cream with amaretto and biscotti
grapefruit granite
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I haven’t been to SF in a few years, and this was an opportunity to see so many people I haven’t seen in a long time…all in one place! My law school best friend graduated and moved back home to SF, my cousin flew down from Seattle to join in the festivities, my friend from ATL made the trip as well, and even a long time friend from Taiwan flew out on pure coincidence! The trip was amazing, and the blogs below are memories from it!
oh, and this was the song of the trip. It was played a million times, and we got addicted to it. Bom Bom Pow by Black Eyed Peas.
@ Le Garage in Salsalito…lunch on the waterfront
overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge in Salsalito
god, the wind
We squeezed in the Museum of Modern Art [MOMA] into the last part of the day on Sunday. In two hours, we managed to go through all the floors, and take tons of interesting pictures.
Vitruvian man
The exhibit is the blue horn. It just so happened that this father daughter team was standing there, and their outfits were perfect for the pic. The whiteness of the walls and natural lighting make this a perfect shot. This pic reminds me of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
We tried a million poses with this statue, and they look so stupid. This is the only one that made the cut.
This is also a random pic I happened to catch. The wind was strong and her hair was going in all sorts of directions. I snapped it on a semi fast shutter, and it looks so cool. Classic SF weather: wind.
Classic Me: reviewing pics while planning dinner