Boo At The Zoo

We took Clementine to Boo At The Zoo, an annual Halloween event at the San Francisco Zoo, just several streets away from our house.  Boo At The Zoo is an event for little kids to get dressed up and trick or treat while seeing the animals get their treats as well.  There were candy and snack stations held all over the zoo grounds, plenty of food and drinks for the kiddies in costume. 

There was a petting zoo area where the farm animals walked free amongst the children.  The animals were super gentle and calm, very accustomed to unpredictable toddlers. Clementine had a great time petting them & feeding them. 

Clementine is getting very interested in animals, and she plays with her animal figurines all the time.  We tried to get into the Big Cat House so she could see and hear the tigers & lions roar - unfortunately, she was asleep napping in her stroller when the Cat House was opened up.  Even the tiger's loud roaring didn't wake her!

Click HERE for our pictures.

Academy Again... with Lola!

We visited the Academy of Sciences again, and this time around we took Lola Julie.  Unlike last visit when we went in the morning, we arrived in the afternoon this time which was MUCH less crowded, and after Clementine's naps/feeding.  After wandering around the aquarium, we had a late lunch at the food trucks parked by the museum.  Lola had the famous Lobster Roll and the super yummy Clam Chowder from the Chowdermobile.  What a fun outing we had!

Click HERE for the pics.

Checking out the fishies

Russell and I have been members at the Academy of Sciences for some time, and it's one of our favorite places to go since it opened a few years ago.  So of course we're going to take our little girl here too!  It's never too early to get the kid interested in science & nature, and we thought she'd like ogling fish in the gigantic aquariums too.  Pretty much every parent has the same idea, as the Steinhart Aquarium at the Academy is always packed full of babies & little kids! Clementine loved it and stared at EVERYTHING, just soaking it all in.  Yep, we'll be taking her back here again real soon.

Click HERE for our pics.

Soupe L'Oignon

We miss France.  We miss France a LOT.
I made Onion Soup (Julia Child's recipe via Smitten Kitchen), one of our staples while we were in Paris.  I didn't realize it would take so long to make.  But it was OH SO WORTH IT.

Royale with Cheese

Russell played an opening set for our friend Sheilani Alix and her backing band The Kurt Ribak Trio at Cafe Royale. Some of our friends showed up to support, and to hear him play for the very first time.


Russell played a few originals and a cover. My husband is a rock star! Or rather, a singer-songwriter-star.

Sunny Day at Stow Lake

The sun was shining warmly for the first time in a loooooong while, so we took advantage of the weather, packed a picnic lunch, and headed out to our playground, Golden Gate Park. Or more specifically, Stow Lake.

This is one of our favorite spots in Golden Gate Park, and we even took some of our wedding shots there!

Of course, we had to have the requisite Icee and Pink Popcorn snack. No visit to Stow Lake is complete without it.


Corser and I had a wonderful time relaxing and enjoying the scenery


While Russell did all the hard work


After the boat ride, we walked over to the lawns near the De Young Museum & Academy Of Sciences, and basked in the sun.


What a great way to spend a warm February afternoon!

For more pics, click HERE.

On the Road in October

Russell, Corser, and I took a roadtrip from October 27 through November 2 up the Pacific Northwest to visit his parents in Walla Walla, Washington. The route took us through Bend, Oregon, then Walla Walla, WA, then off to Portland, OR for a few days, then back down through Ashland, OR to California.









For more pics of our trip, click HERE.

Birthday show in Berkeley

Our friends from Ukulele Underground Aldrine Guerrero, Ryan Esaki, and Aaron Nakamura were in the Bay Area to play a show on September 24th, the day before Russell's birthday. Russell was also one of the opening acts, and he recruited his pal Grumpy Coyote to join him onstage for a few songs. What a great birthday gift!




Aldrine puts on an amazing show. Thanks for the opportunity, Aldy!

Release The Cor-aken! In Carmel!

We took our little domestic terrorist to unleash his wrath on the unsuspecting denizens of Carmel for the weekend. The 3 of us stayed at the Adobe Inn, checked out "Yappy Hour" at the Cypress Inn, and had dinner at The Forge In the Forest (which offers a doggy menu).

Corser makes his mark on Carmel.

Carmel-by-the-sea has a reputation for being one of the country's most dog-friendly places to visit. And it's true: there are doggies walking around everywhere with their people, being welcomed into stores and cafes and inns, getting ooh'd and aah'd and coo-coo'd over by puppy-loving passers-by. It was apparent that the pooches strolling about the town LOVED the attention, sitting and heeling like Good Dogs, wagging their cute little tails while getting their heads petted and ears scratched. And as usual, Corser had his fair share of admirers, people asking how old our puppy is, or reaching to pet him, or bending down to make their acquaintance with His Royal Highness.

The light you see in his eyes? That's pure unadulterated EVIL.

The problem with taking Corser to a dog-friendly town, it turned out, is that Corser is not a dog-friendly dog. He snapped at the server, argued loudly with the restaurant manager, and rebuffed the sweet shop owner who tried to ply him with sausage treats. We offered our apologies and received stinkeye in return. Yet, we love him just the same.

Click HERE for the weekend's pictures.

Holidazed

Every holiday season, my family makes a pilgrimage to this house on 34th Avenue & Quintara, a few blocks away:

picture from http://sunsetstyle.blogspot.com/2008/12/merry-chirstmas.html

It's a delightfully animatronic winter wonderland, replete with tinny xmas music and ice-skating teddy bears. Whenever we drive up and pull over to park, there are at least 3-4 other carloads of families doing the same thing, gawking from the car &/or walking up to stare at the house in awestruck wonder.

I got that picture from a blog, SunsetStyle, which chronicles the quirky personality of our little beachside neighborhood. It's a pretty brilliant blog, and there are a TON of crazy-looking homes within a 3-block radius of ours. Ah, the Sunset...

A Winter Wonderland

St George Spirits in Alameda is truly one of the most magical places on earth. It's a craft distillery located in an old air force hangar (next to the Mythbusters shop), where they make the most exquisite small-batch hand-crafted spirits, including eau de vies (which are like grappa) and liqueurs, single malt whiskeys, and Hangar One Vodka (we are huge fans). Last year they debuted Absinthe Verte , the first absinthe legally made in the United States since 1912. We have a bottle of that too, and it's incredibly smooth and oh so delicious.

They recently released their handmade agave spirit, Agua Azul, otherwise known to most folks as tequila. However, just like how all "real" champagne has to be made in France's Champagne region, all "real" tequila must be made in Jalisco, Mexico - otherwise one cannot call it tequila. Just like the rest of the St George stuff, it's made on-site in their hangar (with agave pinas that they exported from Mexico), and thus can only legally be called an "agave-based spirit".

St. George hosts Open House events a few times a year, and this time around the theme was "1980s Winter Prom". For $40, they gave attendees tickets for 4 cocktails, 1 absinthe cocktail, 1 photograph at the photo station, and unlimited (ahem) "tastings" of all of their spirits. It goes without saying that there was also plenty of water stations to keep everyone hydrated, and plenty of hearty yummy food to keep the spirits in check.

Russell, Alden, and I had a blast. For more pics of the debauchery, click HERE.

Booze Cruise

Some very cool friends recently got us the gift of boozin' and cruisin' with Hornblower Cruises. So we took off on a beautiful clear weekend morning to enjoy a champagne brunch on the seas. The unlimited pours worked their magic, and we couldn't discern whether it was the boat swaying or whether it was us.
For more pics, click HERE.

Eat Real Food. Drink Real Beer.

We checked out the Eat Real Fest in Jack London Square on what was possibly the hottest day this summer. The organization was "created to inspire eaters to choose tasty, healthy, good food. Through a vibrant, local festival in Oakland, CA, and a focus on delicious and sustainable “street food,” Eat Real puts eaters in contact with the real people -- the farmers, chefs, and producers -- who make our food." This also gave us a chance to meet some of our rockstar street food vendors who've been making waves in SF this year, see them in action, and sample their goodies.

Pretty much all of the vendors are on Twitter, and there were a few that I was determined to try. We noshed our way through Phat Matt's BBQ, the Adobo Hobo, 4505 Meats, and succeeded in finding Steve of Gobba Gobba Hey, creator and purveyor of delectable Gobs and Gobbles. We were pretty much stuffed by the time we made it to the Beer Shed to guzzle a few servings of local microbrews.

Pictures of the sweltering (but satisfying) summer day: HERE.

The Hood

I just discovered http://theoutersunset.com/ which gives a pretty good visual description of what it looks like in our neighborhood. A few more things:

• The Outer Sunset is also sometimes called The Parkside, and it's totally different from the Inner Sunset (which is East of 19th). The Inner Sunset is a bit more Old Money and also includes the 9th/Irving St strip (aka the New "Chestnut Street"). The Outer Sunset is rougher around the edges and is more old-school working-class Irish & Asian, many of whom have been here for generations.
• Everything in the Outer Sunset displays a distinct patina of rust & salt corrosion, thanks to the thick, omnipresent, and salt-laced fog.
  
• It's pretty quiet out here. We often hear the waves, & can sometimes smell the ocean, from our house. On warm/sunny days, it's a crapshoot whether the fog will actually lift from our neighborhood (and for how long before the fog rolls back in), even though temps are soaring everywhere else in the city.
• There's really no rhyme or reason to the house colors & design. Anything pretty much goes in this neighborhood. The most entertaining street has to be 48th Ave - the seaward-facing homes have the craziest nautical themes.

I wouldn't trade living here for anything in the world.

Haute Dawgs

Lauren and Charles held a DIY Hot Dog Barbecue Party at their place today. Lauren has her own successful catering business (she makes a kickass award-winning chocolate-chipotle chili), and she put together some creative gourmet twists on these regular old turkey franks.



Ahhhh so many fond memories of partying with our girl Lauren. It's no surprise why we love her so.


More pics HERE. Congratulations to Charles and Lauren on your engagement!

Ukelele all-a dayday

Some friends spent the weekend with us in San Francisco for some nonstop ukulele madness

Garden of Eatin

We spent Sunday afternoon gawking at our friends Tung & Lisa's backyard garden in San Leandro, which they've been attending to all summer. It's their first garden in their first year at their first house, and it's growing like gangbusters.

In one corner of the yard, they are growing different kinds of tomatoes, Chinese gourd squashes, cucumbers, melons, eggplants, snap peas, and various Vietnamese herbs & mints.

And along the fence, they've got several hot chili pepper & bell pepper plants, different basils and more herbs, a row of corn, and and apple tree.

Lisa's kids Nathan and Isabelle are enthusiastic gardeners and veggie eaters too. Seeing them care for the plants, talk so enthusiastically about their gardening, and munching down heartily on the healthy food harvested from their back yard is just the coolest thing ever. Tung generously gave us a little chili pepper plant to take home (along with his instructions), and we hope that it survives the cold San Francisco beachside weather.

Riptide

There's this cozy dive joint about a dozen blocks down the street from our house. Called The Riptide, you can smell the salty ocean air as you stand outside its door, shivering in the misty Ocean Beach fog. They host Open Mic Mondays, which we occasionally check out due to the amazing talent displayed at this particular event. Back in March we were treated to the four-part vocal stylings of Chairman Wow. Last night we were blown away by Kerry Wing and The Love Dimension. Yes, actual pros masquerading as amateurs.

Such an eclectic range of styles and instruments, it's not unusual to have a ukulele classic-rock tune followed by a barefoot a-capella french chanteuse followed by a roots-reggae-soul-singer followed by a psychedelic garage rock band followed by a crazy-haired accordianista followed by something like this:

A day in Jinguashi & Jioufen / Goodbye

Back in Taipei, Tammy took us to this hidden hole in the wall for a Taiwanese breakfast of sweet & savory soy milks and fried things. Now with fuel in our bellies, we took the train to Jinguashi and Jioufen, both on the northeast coast of Taiwan.

We checked out the historic town of Jinguashi first, which is an old Japanese-era mining town. They've preserved a lot of their historical buildings and have a museum about the area's history. Being that it's all built on hillsides, getting lost in this town was quite an ordeal since it involved a lot of walking up and down unmarked back alleys comprised entirely of stairs. Let's just say that we burnt off a LOT of that morning's fried breakfast.

We then took a bus to Jioufen, down the hill. This quaint little town is essentially one big market alley that snakes through small shops & food stalls. The food here was amazing, and we ate things that were so entirely foreign and bizarre and delicious. We would taste, eat, shop, taste, and eat some more. Wending our way through to one end, we rested up at the Jioufen Teahouse during sunset. We later took a train back to Taipei, and had a nightcap at the Taipei Bear Bar (yes, "Bear" in the gayest sense of the word).

The next day was our last shopping day, and we met up with Tammy's sister-in-law (who was also from/visiting Taipei) to do some street market shopping. Later that night, Tammy's friend Zoey took us to an all-you-can-eat Taiwanese barbecue dinner, at which we consumed an obscene amount of meat. Still reeking of delicious barbecue smoke, we headed to In House lounge where we met up with her other friends Nina & Peggy for a last night of drinks before going home to the US the next day.

Pictures can be found HERE.

Breath of fresh air (literally) in Hualien

We took an overnight trip to Hualien, which is a city outside of Taipei on the eastern coast of Taiwan. This region is breathtakingly beautiful, and is supposedly the place where the Portuguese sailors who first explored the area shouted the words "Formosa!", which means "beautiful" (or something like "well-shaped", as Marco explained) in Portuguese. Hence the original name for Taiwan: Formosa. One of the attractions here is Taroko Regional Park, and the area is also the native home of the Taroko people, one of the several aboriginal peoples of Taiwan.

We stayed at Crossing the Rainbow Bridge bed & breakfast, a "homestay" owned by a Taroko gentleman & his Taiwanese wife. There were also two resident dogs, "Ati" ("Little Brother", although she was a girl) and "Muffin". Upon arrival that afternoon, the hotel provided bicycles for us to ride to the Taroko Regional Park visitors center. They also provided us with afternoon tea, followed by a traditional Taroko dinner with all of the B&B visitors (who were all from Singapore). The owner had ferried the four of us in his car, and he took us to a shop afterwards to pick up some local Hualien pastries & mochis & of course, the local wines.

After a lovely alfresco breakfast, we went on a private tour with an English-speaking guide, who took us on an all-day tour of the park area. We learned from our guide that the B&B owner is actually a very well-known and highly-regarded Taroko member who has founded a lot of community services & organizations, has been highly-educated & a principal for 30 years and married outside of his group to a Taiwanese woman (all of which are very unusual for a Taroko minority), and has even spoken in front of the UN regarding minority issues. We didn't see him again that morning because he had left early to be a guest speaker at a university conference. Jeez... if only we knew what an importang guy he was, we would have asked him for a picture. And to think, all we did was ask him "do you know where we can get some booze around here?"

HIGHLIGHTS OF HUALIEN & TAROKO REGIONAL PARK:

• Discovering all sorts of crazy/cool-looking marble, quartz, and granite stones at Cingshui Cliff beach
  
• Walking the Shakadang Trail and wandering its riverbed... made of MARBLE
  
• Watching the birds swoop around the Swallow Grotto
• Lunch of indigenous Taroko foods at Buluowan Village hotel
• Seeing the Cihmu Bridge & the crown atop Frog Rock
• Crossing a swaying suspension bridge, Indiana Jones style
• Taking the rail equivalent of the "chicken bus": on the train ride back, our car also had several "country bumpkins" who spoke loudly, acted rudely, and snorted/spat their snot rockets without shame or aim. Gross gross grossness all around.
  

Pictures can be found HERE.