Monday, January 23, 2006
Finally...
This wrap-up of our California trip is woefully overdue, so I’ll be brief just to get it over with. Over our last 4 days in California we spent time in Carmel, drove to Napa, spent a day in Napa, and then spent our last day in San Francisco. Here are the highlights:
Point Lobos – We went hiking in Point Lobos and took lots of really nice scenery shots. Unfortunately, we started our hike in a less scenic portion of the park so we didn’t spend a lot of time in the really nice areas.
Monterrey Bay Aquarium – The Monterrey Bay Aquarium was recommended to us by a lot of people and I think it was definitely worth visiting. I’m not usually big on touristy stuff, but the aquarium had a lot of cool hands-on exhibits. Jie and I were so inspired that we went on a search for fish tacos afterwards, which we found at Turtle Bay Taqueria, a local chain of restaurants I would highly recommend.
Napa Valley – As part of the Section G Charity Auction last spring Jie and I won a personal tour of Napa Valley with one of my sectionmates. He’s an employee of Gallo, so we had the opportunity to purchase wine at a discount in addition to being chauffeured around Napa and treated to lunch. We visited Cakebread, Beringer, Louis Martini, and Grgich Hills. Cakebread and Beringer both had cool tours (Cakebread was better), Martini was for drinking (it’s a Gallo winery, so unlimited tastings), and Grgich was mainly to buy a few bottles to bring home. In fact, I think we’ll be breaking out the Grgich dessert wine tomorrow to celebrate our 3 year wedding anniversary.
San Francisco – We spent the day in SF tooling around Union Square and then having dinner in Chinatown (at King Tin Restaurant, which was pretty good). One notable event occurred at the Golden Gate Perk korean bbq restaurant/coffee shop with free wi-fi, where I broke one of their Ikea-like chairs. It bore an uneasy resemblance to that scene in Shallow Hal, though in my defense the chairs were really crappy.
Point Lobos – We went hiking in Point Lobos and took lots of really nice scenery shots. Unfortunately, we started our hike in a less scenic portion of the park so we didn’t spend a lot of time in the really nice areas.
Monterrey Bay Aquarium – The Monterrey Bay Aquarium was recommended to us by a lot of people and I think it was definitely worth visiting. I’m not usually big on touristy stuff, but the aquarium had a lot of cool hands-on exhibits. Jie and I were so inspired that we went on a search for fish tacos afterwards, which we found at Turtle Bay Taqueria, a local chain of restaurants I would highly recommend.
Napa Valley – As part of the Section G Charity Auction last spring Jie and I won a personal tour of Napa Valley with one of my sectionmates. He’s an employee of Gallo, so we had the opportunity to purchase wine at a discount in addition to being chauffeured around Napa and treated to lunch. We visited Cakebread, Beringer, Louis Martini, and Grgich Hills. Cakebread and Beringer both had cool tours (Cakebread was better), Martini was for drinking (it’s a Gallo winery, so unlimited tastings), and Grgich was mainly to buy a few bottles to bring home. In fact, I think we’ll be breaking out the Grgich dessert wine tomorrow to celebrate our 3 year wedding anniversary.
San Francisco – We spent the day in SF tooling around Union Square and then having dinner in Chinatown (at King Tin Restaurant, which was pretty good). One notable event occurred at the Golden Gate Perk korean bbq restaurant/coffee shop with free wi-fi, where I broke one of their Ikea-like chairs. It bore an uneasy resemblance to that scene in Shallow Hal, though in my defense the chairs were really crappy.
