Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Sunday afternoon and A. and I are full of takoyaki, Sapporo Black, and nachos with kalua pork and cheez. (Yes, it was topped with cheese of Velveeta consistency, thus the spelling.) Japantown is celebrating the Cherry Blossom Festival this weekend and next, and we couldn't pass up good fun and tasty foods! Not to mention giving me a reason to pick up my latest manga tankobon at Kinokuniya. [Seriously, you should read Nichijou for its wonderful bizarro ridiculousness.]

On one of the side streets there were craft vendors of all kinds, and we stumbled upon one called Ukiyo-e Heroes that made absolutely stunning giclée prints...we ended up buying a Spirited Away print and a Kiki's Delivery Service print. A bit expensive, but they were so worth picking up. You have to see these up close...they're gorgeous.

Speaking of art, on Saturday we went to the de Young Museum in the park to check out their Summer of Love exhibition, and I have to say it was FANTASTIC. It was quite neat to look at the prints and the clothes and the pictures of the history that took place less than a mile away (the Haight-Ashbury District is a short walk through the park from there). I'll be honest, I didn't really grok the whole hippie/summer of love thing until we moved out to SF (and only then because it's fun to read history books about the places you live in), but now I'm fascinated by it. There's even a bit of local radio history worth checking out too, which had a few mentions at the exhibit -- look up KSAN, which was one of the first FM stations in the US to play rock music exclusively.  Suffice it to say, I'm sure we'll hit this exhibit again before it closes.

And to to top it off, after we returned home yesterday, the rain had cleared and the sun was out, so we took a walk down to Baker Beach, which isn't that far from our apartment. It was a lovely if quite windy day and a lot of great pictures were taken.  And we ended the day with our Netflix copy of The Five Doctors (a rather silly but fun Dr Who episode, considering they shoehorned everyone in there, including the Second Doctor's yeti). 

So yes...a busy weekend, but a fun one! :)

We flew up to Seattle for the long weekend as a sort of mini-vacation, and had quite a bit of fun. It's a lovely city to visit--on a good day the summer weather is very similar to how it is here, and it's very easy to get to and from Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Highly suggested.

I'd made a mental note that we weren't even twenty-four hours into our trip and I'd already declared it awesome. I'll say part of it was due to the view from the airplane, being that I lucked out and got a window seat. In the span of two hours, we flew over Mt. Shasta (California's fifth highest peak and a New Age mecca), passed by Crater Lake (a place I've always wanted to see/visit since hearing about it in college), saw Mt Hood nearby (Oregon's highest point) passed near Mount St. Helens (which was unexpected!) and saw exactly how enormous Mt. Rainier is (at 14,411 ft). Pure awesome, seeing all those geographical wonders one right after the other.

We landed just as the sun was setting so the sky was a gorgeous dark blue and creating a sepia haze over the land and all the streetlights were coming on. By the time we caught a cab it was getting dark, so Seattle came into view just as the stars were coming out. It was quite stunning to see. We got to our hotel (Five stars to the Hotel Monaco on 4th and Spring Streets--Kimpton once again came through with an excellent place to stay) and crashed, with no real plan in mind for the next day, other than checking out Pike Place Market, maybe finding a yarn store and a nifty bookstore, and taking pictures. We weren't planning on heading up to the top of the Space Needle, but it wasn't too far so we could at least walk to it. The only other addition to the short list was the fantastically modern Central Library, which was right across the street from us. Yes, we're nerds.

And it just occurred to me now, that with the random coffee we had in Seattle, not once did we actually have any from Starbucks. :p

So! Without further ado, here are some nifty pictures for your enjoyment of our mini-vacation!

( Pictures of the Emerald City )

So yes...I would DEFINITELY visit that city again! :)

New commercial for the city's newly rebuilt Academy of Sciences in GGP. It's right across the music concourse from the de Young Museum, and it's just a little shy of two miles from our apartment. And yes, we have a membership! :)

Definitely worth checking out if you're in town!

Taken at the aquarium section of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. They just recently reopened it after doing some major refurbishing (read: tearing down and completely rebuilding it), and it's pretty impressive...and a lot bigger and more fun than I expected! (BTW, I joined in early and bought a membership, so A)we went in the "member door" and didn't have to wait in a long line, and B)we don't have to pay the nearly $25 per-adult price!)

So what did we do after that?

We drove down to Pescadero for sandwiches!! :p Well, we originally wanted to go to Duarte's, but there was a 30 minute wait I didn't feel like sitting through, so we went to the pizza/sammich shop up the street instead. So yeah, lots of driving today. We're tired now. :p