October Sonoma Trip

Here some pictures from our trip up to Sonoma.  We drove up to Healdsburg, CA the second week of October during the crush.  It was my last weekend of living in San Francisco and we really made the most of it.  We rented bikes and rode to the Michel Schlumberger winery for a winery tour and then stopped at a winery on the way back into town.  I wish we had more time because we kinda had to rush up there to make the tour and then rush back to return our bikes before the shop closed. 

We ate at Charlie Palmer's Dry Creek Kitchen which was way, way nice but you'll have to take my word for it since I forgot to take any pictures of the restaurant or the food, though I did manage to take pictures of some sick! cars outside the restaurant.  I do remember that I had this huge steak and a bunch of other delicious stuff such that I was so stuffed it hurt the next morning.  We stopped in Berkeley on the way back for lunch.  It was more underwhelming than I had expected which I guess is fine since I didn't take any pictures of it anyway. 

Lunch @ Marina Submarine

Woohoo! My first mobile post from my smartphone. Lets see if this works.

I can't believe i just waited 20 mins for this beautiful italian sub and now i am fooling around with posting a picture of it on my blog.

Down in the Haight, 7/27

Here are the other pictures from that weekend.   We went down to check out the Haight on that Sunday and it was every bit of hippie-stoner-craziness that we had hoped for.  After strolling down Haight St., we decided to walk through Golden Gate Park where much to our surprise there was a magical free feast which turned out to be just the Festival of India.  We left the park and ran into a parade of hippies encouraging us to brush our teeth (i need to post the video I shot of this).  Then we saw some funky houses and we finished the day appropriately with some Ben & Jerry's waffle cones.

Pictures from Santa Cruz, 7/26

I have been meaning to post. Honestly, I have.  I was on a pretty good streak until I went on this great trip to Seattle which I really enjoyed (kayaked at Bainbridge Island with my girlfriend, saw Microsoft friends, etc.) but unfortunately I lost my little Canon Powershot 750 (as well some great pictures of Seattle from the sound ferry), not to mention that I got extremely sunburnt.  So I was in no mood to post, then I got really busy at work, eh eh excuses, excuses.

So here are some good photos from my sick new Panasonic TZ5 (with 10X optical zoom!).  We went down to Santa Cruz with Brad and Amy to do a little beach day.  It was way fun.  I remembered to wear sunscreen.  We went to a restaurant on the beach called Margaritaville, and you guessed it, had margaritas.  Got back late and saw Dark Night which was awesome.  Christian Bale is a fave.

Got more pictures from that weekend coming up, but need to hit the sack now.

Point Reyes + Stinson Beach

Another great day with the SLF.  Cooked breakfast for once, cantaloupe and a delicious omelet (try it: spinach, mushroom, olives, feta).  Then we headed north across the bridge and into Point Reyes National Seashore to explore California's rugged coastline.  Afterwards, we stopped at Stinson Beach on Hwy 1 for our first beach day of the summer (Pebble Beach last weekend doesn't really count).  If you make it to Stinson Beach, try getting lunch outside at the Sand Dollar Cafe.  My Sand Dollar Club really hit the spot and she loved her Crispy Tofu and Avocado Sandwich.

Yeah and to clarify, the kid in the pictures is not ours.  He was just super cute so I shamelessly snapped a little shot of him.  Hope his parents don't mind...

July 4th in SF

Here are some pics from my 4th of July I spent with my super special lady friend from Seattle. 

For breakfast, we hit up this spot on Chestnut, The Grove Cafe (not pictured).  It was ok, but honestly, right off the top of my head, I can think of four breakfast places in Seattle (Coastal Kitch, THE Continental, CRAVE, Portage Bay) that are better than this place and the 2-3 others in SF I have tried so far.  If you have some solid suggestions, please, please comment.

We then took the bus to SFMOMA which unbeknownst to us, was closed for the holiday.  So after cursing the patriotic docents conspiring against us, we proceeded to wander around the city until we found ourselves back in The Marina, where my place is at.

Good music at sushi...

After working from 6a-7p, I grabbed sushi with Jeff.  Naked Fish is moderately good sushi restaurant on Chestnut St. in the Marina district of SF.  The sushi is good for quick weekday meal but I wouldn't recommend it for a nicer weekend dinner.  But tonight, I was satisfied and I got my omega 3s for the day, plus their music was pretty cool.  They played a song I recognized from KEXP Seattle and after asking about it, I was told it was "Young Folks" by Peter Bjorn and John.  The song is from their 2006 album, Writers Block which is almost done downloading now.  Check it out...