Travel Through Photos: San Francisco Part 2

Hello all! Welcome to Part 2 of my San Francisco trip. This section will include pictures from our day trip to Monterey Bay and the 17 mile drive. This tour also included an hour stop in Carmel, but I didn't take pictures :(. I totally feel like kicking myself for not taking any pictures there, but my mom has a couple snaps that I may include later. Until then, please enjoy these pics from Monterey!

This is the AT&T Stadium where they were having a baseball game that day. I'm not into baseball, but I do believe it was a semi-final or final game between the home team and someone else.

This was along the road to Monterey. It's called Restless Bay or Beach because the waves never calm down. It was quite windy!

              

(left) The jellyfish display at Monterey Bay was very lovely. I thought that they were beautiful and luminescent against the lighting. The little baby jellyfish were super cute too! It reminded me of the one from Finding Nemo hehe! (right) I absolutely love the avian life too! I already thought that penguins were cute but I also found the puffins and other marine birds to be cute and pretty. Actually, when I took a picture of the marine birds, it looked like they were fake instead of real lol.

I think sea otters are the cutest things ever! We caught them during feeding time and the lady explained that these sea otters couldn't be released back into the wild due to health or behavioral problems. She also mentioned that they de-shell their food before giving it to them because they will go up to the window and try to crack it open against the glass.  Also, they stick the food in this red container, as shown above, and they shake out the insides to get their meal.

The sea horses were an absolute joy to watch. While they were quite idle, their beauty was something to admire. I took a close up of these little guys who are actually quite minuscule. I love how they like to attach themselves to the seaweed branches.

I think the Leafy Sea Horse is one of the most beautiful creatures ever. I never thought they'd be this beautiful because I always imagined them to look like rubbish because of the seaweed camouflage. Instead I found them to be very graceful and lovely to view.

The view of Monterey Bay from the Aquarium.

Check out the otters feeding time at Monterey Bay Aquarium!

This was store nearby the aquarium. I was super tempted to buy a shirt just because I found it so adorable!

 I think this was called Seal Rock or something along the lines of that. It was quite stinky because of the direction of the wind. I thought there were seals on top of the rock as well, but I think they were sea gulls. If anything, I think it was the sea gulls that made the area stinky hehe.

This was along the 17 mile drive to Carmel. There were lots of redwood and beech trees. We were planning on going to Muir Woods, which has some of the tallest redwood trees, but because we saw so much trees on this drive, I decided against going hehe. Maybe next time!

This was one of the most interesting stops on the 17 mile drive. It's the most photographed cypress tree because it's a 250 year old tree growing out in the middle of nowhere. I found it to be quite eerie! Our tour guide told us that not too long ago, some kids tried to burn the tree down. Luckily, they were unsuccessful and people tied ropes on the tree to help support it due to the damage it incurred.

Thanks for reading!

-LAUREN

Travel Through Photos: San Francisco Part 1

Hello all! I was in San Francisco for the first time from May 22nd to the 29th. I must say that it's really nice to have traveled somewhere different besides Las Vegas or Japan, the only two destinations I've been traveling to for over a decade lol.

San Francisco was, amazingly, a culture shock for me! Yes, it's America, but there were so many things that made me go "what?!" To be honest, I understood Japanese culture better than San Fran culture! Anyways, I'd go again in a heartbeat. There are so many things to do in this city that I don't think a week suffices. I felt like we did a lot of things yet my cousin, who is studying at USF, mentioned all these places that we didn't even hear of. Probably because we did all the touristy stuff that we never heard of it hehe.

I think I might have to make one or two more SF posts because I took a lot of pics. So enjoy!

 

On the far left is my mom standing in front of Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. The tower was donated by Lillie Hitchcock Coit and the tower is supposed to look like a fireman's hose nozzle. It was something like firefighters saved her life when she was young, so she wanted to show her appreciation such. The other picture is the view from Coit Tower. It was a lovely day, as most of our days were!

Of course you must go to Pier 39 to visit the sea lions! It was windy so the stink wasn't that bad hehe. I visited these guys 3 times because I adored them that much! I especially love the chubby ones that lay on their backs and sunbathe. I affectionately call them the "orkies" due to the sounds that they make :).

Random picture of a carousel at Fisherman's Wharf.

I seriously thought we'd never get to ride these damn cable cars because there's always a long ass line to get on them. Luckily, we ended up catching them in the not so crowded areas. It was actually a cool experience! I was glad that I always got to sit down because I'd imagined myself slipping off the pole hehe.

I was excited to visit Ghirardelli Square. Literally, this entire area smelt of chocolate! While I'm not a major chocolate lover, it was a cute area and they even had a little area to show how they make their chocolate. Yes, it's quite touristy, but I remember this place being mentioned in my retail marketing class so I had to visit it!

Stay tuned for the next batch of photos!

Thanks for reading!

-LAUREN

In the Kitchen: Beef Flavor Ramen w/ Fresh Veggies

Hello all! Welcome to another episode of In the Kitchen. Now I know this isn't really cooking but I thought why not do a little show-and-tell about how I like to prepare my ramen. By all means, ramen isn't the most healthy thing for you. It's packed with a lot of sodium but it's such a convenient food to make in minutes. Plus, it's also like comfort food! Now, I usually like to use the Japanese Myoji brand ramen because the quality of the noodles is quite good and the broth tastes like it has more oomph in it compared to your usual Ichiban Ramen brand. Since I'm in a bit of a Korean mood of late, I decided to try this 5 pack of Sam Yang Beef Flavor Ramen from Palama Market as pictured below. The flavor is quite nice and has a bit of spice to it. I can't have anything that's too overly spicy since I have a sensitive stomach, but fortunately this was bearable!

This time around, I used won bok or Chinese cabbage (left) and kai choy (right). I thought I had picked up choi sum, but only realized it was kai choy when I started chopping it up hehe! Actually, I don't think I've really ever eaten kai choy, but I'm glad I got it. To me, it's not as dense as choi sum, although I do love choi sum. Below, I have pictured the amount of veggies I decided to put into my ramen. I like to put an ample amount because the veggies do tend to shrink.

Finally, after waiting 4-5 minutes, it is finished! I like my veggies al dente so I put them in a minute or two after the noodles have been placed in the boiling water. Then afterwards, just pour the contents into a giant bowl, or just eat it out of the pot, and enjoy!

Another tip to making this an even more healthier meal is to not drink all the broth. I usually just eat the noodles and veggies since it has soaked up the flavor. Maybe I might drink a couple spoonfuls but not more than that. 

出来上がる～<3
-LAUREN