May! A.k.a. wedding month, when we had our wine country celebrations. More on that at some later time, but here’s a look at the rest of the month in the Bay Area. Mom is in town! I took her to eat lobsters and to visit the Apple Park visitors center. They give you an iPad…
Channel Islands was the eighth out of California’s nine national parks that I’ve been lucky enough to visit. Armed with our newfound immunity, we planned a road trip in June down to Southern California, where we could take a ferry out to the islands. There are actually five channel islands, and we visited just a…
Alaska: the final frontier. A while back, my friend Amy told me she’s been wanting to go to Alaska, and I responded that Alaska has been on my list too (then again, everything is on my list). Soon enough, we were planning a trip for this summer. Since Alaska is a gigantic state, four times…
After my cousin’s wedding in Vancouver, some of us hopped on a ferry and headed to my aunt’s house in Victoria. It’s the capital of British Columbia and located on Vancouver Island, so the only ways to access it are by boat or by plane. I, for one, love this ferry ride! I managed…
I headed to Vancouver with my mom and other family members in order to attend my cousin Teh’s wedding. In fact, this was the first time I’ve ever been the family at a wedding, not the photographer or a friend. It was a quick couple of days in Vancouver, and since I’ve already visited a…
Wow, June feels like so long ago, and I crammed so many Bay Area Gems into that month! If you missed it, there have already been three posts on my June adventures: Lavender Festival at Araceli Farms, History Adventures in the Bay, and A Boat Tour & A Train Tour. Now for the rest of the fun! First,…
A boat and a train ride! Two more fun adventures from my Bay Area Gems in June. We kick it off with a free harbor tour of the Port of Oakland. They offer these twice a month in the summer, but you have to jump right on the tickets when they go on sale the…
We continue the series with more explorations around Sydney, including a quick visit to the coastal shores of Bondi Beach. We start off again in Surry Hills, the neighborhood where we stayed for our three-night visit. Our airbnb was cute, but the windows did not have screens and I got eaten alive by a mosquito and…
After a whole lot of anticipation, we finally made our way to Sydney, Australia. There was quite a bit of hype for the city, considering our friend did fall in love with it, quit his job, and move across the world to live there. And then he met a girl, fell in love with her, and…
We bid our early morning farewells to New Zealand and headed to Australia; specifically, Hamilton Island, a small resort island near the Great Barrier Reef. It’s the kind of place where golf carts are the mode of transportation and housing comes mostly in the form of timeshares and hotels. On our agenda: SCUBA diving in the Great…
In mid-July, I found myself taking a spontaneous trip to Chicago to meet Jesse who was there for work. We then commenced with lots of eating and even a bit of boating. Meal one as soon as I got in from O’Hare: Boka, (located next door to Alinea, but we’ll be back for that next…
It was a gorgeous Saturday morning– sunny and seventies– and it was perfect for sitting in a boat in the middle of the Bay. The irony was, the air was so nice, warm. and calm that there was zero no wind for sailing. Undeterred, we slowly motored along from San Francisco’s Pier 40 toward Angel…