San Francisco 2k15

me and 1/4 of the golden gate bridge

This past weekend I went on a mini-break to San Francisco to meet/visit my all-time favorite crafter, Twinkie-Chan (aka Stephanie). When I left Phoenix it was 115 degrees and I was wearing a crop top and shorts. When I arrived in San Francisco it was 66 degrees and WINDY. AS. HELL. It took a while for her to find me since I'd never been to this airport before and wasn't really sure where I was but eventually she found me. The funny thing about being friends with someone online for so long is that when you meet them irl you kind of already know them so it's not exactly the same as meeting someone for the "first" time. As soon as we started talking I felt totally comfortable around her and that I could just be myself. Since I hadn't eaten since lunch (and US Airways gave me no peanuts OR a cookie) I was STARVING when I arrived so we went to a place called Indochine Vegan cuz mama needed some protein in a bad way.

After dinner we went back to her house and I got to meet her doggies Bibi and Bunny and they were soooooo cute! We ended up talking about anything and everything and I don't think I went to bed til 2am (zoinks!). Stephanie's roommate happened to be out of town that weekend so I even got to sleep in a bed. Party. Bonus. The next day we both got dolled up (I even curled my hair) and we drove over to the Golden Gate Bridge. The traffic was kind of a nightmare so getting there took 1,000 hours. When we actually got there we could NOT find a parking space! It was suupppeerrr busy since A.) it was Father's Day weekend and B.) it was a Saturday so we drove around and around until eventually we found a free lot and snagged a space. The moment we got out of the car it was windy as HECK and my curls were instantly blown out. :(



Twinkie Chan and Iggy Starpup

After we'd about frozen our buns off on the bridge (and after I'd petted the most beautiful husky) we headed over to Alamo Park to see the Full House house. Driving in downtown San Francisco was totally terrifying to be honest. The hills were so steep that you couldn't see 15 feet in front of the car and you had to just pray that nobody on a bicycle went flying in front you. We stopped at a few stop lights and the car would lunge backwards a bit when you'd hit the gas. Seattle was the same way and I had a massive anxiety attack every time I had to drive downtown. The weather in SF is pretty cuckoo because by the time we got to Alamo Park it was sunny and nice. There were lots of doggies playing in the park and it was just lovely. We walked over to where the Full House house was and there were all of these fancy people standing in front of it. Welp, it turns out they were having a wedding there so I'm probably going to be in the background of all of their photos taking pics of the house. Whoopsies!



You got it, dude!

The painted ladies were so beautiful but it kind of made me sick imagining how expensive they are. We were taking pics on the steps of the pale blue one and Stephanie was like, "Is is okay for me to sit here? Are they gonna come out as soon as I sit down and yell at me?" and I was like, "NO WAY!" The second after I took her pic like, 3 people came out of the house and we were like OH SHIT! and scurried away :p We had made plans to meet her family in Palo Alto at 5pm for Father's Day dinner and it was about 3pm by then so we decided to hit the grocery store before we headed over so we could make Cap'n Crunch Crispy Treats later.

We got to Palo Alto around 5pm and met her family at a French restaurant called Zola. Being vegetarian I was a bit worried when Stephanie told me we were getting French food because I do know that the French looooove them some meatz. Luckily, there was one vegetarian entrée on the menu so I got the ricotta gnocchi. Her sister in law ordered us some carrots as an appetizer and I remember thinking, "Carrots? Really?" but the carrots turned out to be AMAZING! OHMYGOODNESS! My gnocchi was very good as well, especially these tiny little mushrooms in a brown butter sauce. Mmmmmm...My favorite part of the dinner was getting to meet her nephew. He was sooooo cute and really smart (he could even pronounce my name). I'm not usually a big fan of children but I couldn't take my eyes off him.

When we got back to San Francisco we watched one of my fave shows "My Mad Fat Diary" and made the Cap'n Crunch Crispies. When I make Rice Crispy treats at home I always use 5 cups of cereal instead of 6 like the box says because I think it makes them too dry so when Stephanie and I were making them she asked me to put 6 cups in. I was like, "You're a six cup person? Whaaaa?" and she was like, "That's what the box says." and I was like, "Nah, girl, that's just the suggested amount." Well...as you can imagine they came out HELLA GOOEY. Stephanie was majorly grossed out by the stickiness but it didn't slow me down one bit (truth be told I ate all of them the very next day).

Instax Pics

The next day we went to Japantown cuz mama needed to do some SHOPPING. First we went to Daiso (which if you haven't been, is a Japanese $1.50 store). I'd only been to a Daiso store once before in Seattle so I was really excited to load up on stuff. Oh, man, did I get a lot of stuff. I think I spent $30 so at Daiso that's like a million dollars. Next we popped in and out of various shops (each time Stephanie had to leave her Bobba Tea outside because every store had a "no food or drink" sign, haha). I couldn't resist getting some stickers and a Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma plush from a cute shop called Maido Fine Stationary and Gifts. My favorite part of Japantown, though, was a photo booth place called Pika Pika. I'd been wanting to go to a Japanese photo booth for ages so I was so excited when Stephanie and her bff, Manda, wanted to go with me. I'm glad that they'd been before because it can be pretty intimidating for a first-timer. You pay up front then you go inside a booth. As soon as you touch the screen the timer starts and you have to pick your lighting setting and backgrounds. There's a buttload of choices so you have to decide very quickly. Once it starts taking pictures you have 2-3 seconds between shots to change your pose. We hadn't really discussed our poses ahead of time but they came out pretty cute anyway. After you're done taking pics you get to decorate them. I think we decorated ours for like, an hour :p

Hello, boys!

Next we went downtown so we could get some lunch and also to check out the gianormous Forever 21. We got Chipotle for lunch and since it was right in the downtown you had to use a code to get into the bathroom. As proof to how intense my bathroom issues go, I can tell you two weeks later that the code was 4294. I was super excited to go to the three story F21 but for all those stories I think all I bought was a necklace and some hair bows. Everything I liked was either too pricey or not my size--boo! It was a bummer but since my carry-on was already jammed full of knick knacks it was probably for the best. While we were in F21, though, we stumbled upon another photo booth that was only $3 for 3 strips so we all three climbed in. I had wanted to see the seals in Fisherman's Wharf and ride the trolley but since I had to leave for the airport at 6pm, we just didn't have the time.

Babies <3 td="">

When Stephanie dropped me off at the airport there were lots of hugs and she said that next time I visited we'd do the things I didn't get to do this time. I was super happy that there would be a next time since I worry that I'm 100% annoying all the time. I went through security pretty quickly so I had a lot of time to kill before I boarded so I went in search of food. There weren't a lot of choices so I stopped at a coffee shop that turned out to have crepes! OMG! Tbh, I'd never really had a crepe before so I decided that today was the day. You had a choice between a sweet crepe and savory crepe and since I wasn't getting into Phoenix til 10:45pm I figured I should have a dinner crepe. I got mine with mozzarella, mushrooms, tomatoes and pesto. IT WAS FRIKKIN' AMAZING! I parked myself down and ate my yummy crepe as I scrolled through tumblr. While I was sitting there I felt really peaceful and reflected on how far I'd come with my anxiety. There was a time in my life when just the thought of going to the airport would cause a major meltdown and eating in one was completely out of the question. But there I was in San Francisco International Airport eating a massive crepe by myself cool as a cucumber. It's proof that people really can change and that life can get better. I'm so proud of myself and how strong I've become. <3 comment-3--="">

Well, thanks for reading about my little mini-adventure. I'm still counting down the days til my next one in October. I'll fill you in on that in my next post. Mwah!

National Lampoon's Disneyland Vacation

Just hook it to my veins!

This past week I went on holiday to Disneyland and California Adventure and had a fantastic time. I've been going to Disneyland nearly every year (sometimes twice a year) since I was 5 months old but this might be my best trip ever. I went with my friends Heather, Jackie and Maddie and we met up with their friend Krista who works at the park.

Jackie had made a Disney playlist for the trip so on the car ride over we had a 6 hour Disney sing-along (which had every track from the Lion King in like, 5 different versions, haha). The first night I went to Downtown Disney while everyone else was off doing their thing and did some perusing. Krista got a 40% off employee discount so I wanted to get an idea of what I wanted to buy later.



Giant Mickey-o-lantern

We got to the park Monday morning at 8am (my half-birthday btw) and would end up staying all the way til close at 11pm. 15 HOURS OF DISNEY. It was a LONG day but a really good one, blessed even. The lines were super short all day and we didn't have to wait more than 20 minutes on any ride; most rides we only had to wait like, 5 minutes. I had heard about days like this from other people but had never experienced one myself. I think the reason why the park wasn't so crowded was due to the fact that it was "closing" at 6pm for Mickey's Halloween Party which ran from 6-11pm (Krista had gotten us tickets to that too). We went on all the rollercoasters at least 3 times each and pretty much got to do everything we wanted to do. We even had time to catch a few shows, parades, and the fireworks as well. One of the major highlights of the day, though, was I saw my very first DISNEYLAND CAT! I had heard about the feral cats that lived at the park about 5 years ago and in all the years I've been going to Disneyland, we'd never seen one. That morning I had been telling Heather about them and said that anyone who spotted one got 1 million points. About an hour later we were over by Big Thunder Ranch Barbeque when I see this massive black and white tomcat!! I whipped out my camera just in time to snap a pic of him looking right at me before he scurried away. It was totally unreal!

Big Thunder Railroad has been my favorite ride for a long time and I was so thrilled to get to ride it for the first time since its reopen. I loved the new explosion part near the end but was glad that they didn't change anything else. Being a Taurus, change isn't really my thing. My least favorite ride of the day, sadly, was Splash Mountain. I volunteered to sit in the front since no one else wanted to and I got more soaked than I've ever been. I think they raised the water levels on the ride when they renovated it because in 24 years of sitting in the front of the ride I've never gotten so drenched. It was like I'd had a bucket (a large bucket) of water dumped over me. It took the rest of the day for my to dry off. It was pretty miserable and I think that'll be the end of my days of sitting in the front on Splash Mountain.

The next morning we went to California Adventure, which I had never been to. It was perfect for a second day park but if I'm only there for one day, I'm going to choose the Magic Kingdom. They didn't open til 10am so we got to sleep in a little. Krista was totally on top of scheduling and getting fast passes. I was really impressed! We made sure we got our fast passes to the Cars ride since it's new and really popular then we walked over to the ferris wheel. This ferris wheel was cool because it has swinging carts; I'd never heard of swinging carts and it was really neat! Next was "California Screamin" which was their big rollercoaster. It was pretty intense and made me think of "The Demon" in Copenhagen.

One category that CA beats the Magic Kingdom in is FOOD. We ate SO well there. I had this delicious pesto 5-cheese ravioli with pine nuts for lunch, a frozen lemonade for my snack and a mandarin orange tofu rice bowl for dinner. Yum yum yum! Some kiddy rides that I enjoyed were the Toy Story Midway Mania, Ariel's Undersea Adventure, Silly Symphony Swings, and Monster's Inc. At dusk we went to see "Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular". Usually I don't go to any shows or watch any parades when I visit a theme park but I'm glad that Krista talked us into it because I think everyone really enjoyed them (plus it was nice to sit and relax for a while). The boy who played Aladdin was cute as heck too so that might have been the reason I enjoyed the show so much ;) I also liked Tower of Terror a lot. I'd been on it at Disney World but this one was better. Oh, and I forgot to talk about "Cars", which was awesome. The outside part of the ride where you race was designed I think to look like Zion National Park and it was just GORGEOUS!

My FAVORITE thing at California Adventure, however, was the World of Color. I hadn't heard anything about it so I didn't know what to expect but it was one of the most beautiful shows I've ever seen. It was a water and light show on Paradise Pier and they projected images from lots of Disney films onto the water. It was so lovely that I got a little emotional (I think all of us did). It just made me think of my childhood and how these films were such a huge part of my life ever since I was 5 years old. The Little Mermaid was the first Disney movie that I became absolutely OBSESSED with and it was also the same film that taught me how to sing. Next time any of you visit this park you MUST see this show! I demand it!

The last day of the trip we went to Newport Beach. I usually go to Huntington Beach when I go to California with my dad so I'd never been to this beach before but it was really nice. For it being October, the water wasn't really cold at all and I had so much fun playing in the sea. I just felt so happy and free. It was so wonderful. After the beach we met up with our friend Sharleen who's going to CalArts for graduate school. We hadn't seen her since August so it was so nice to see her face. I miss her a lot :(

I'd been a bit stressed about this trip since I'd never traveled with such a large group before but I'm happy to say that everything turned out great and I had a fabulous vacation. Now I'm super stoked about my next trip coming up in February. It hasn't been finalized yet so I'll tell you all about it once I have my plane ticket. Stay tuned!

Beware of Traveling Ghosts

On Tuesday I got back from having a lovely holiday with my dear dear Ashley. Lemme tell you about it!

We started our journey on Saturday morning. Ashley's little boy, Ben, had only been to Disneyland as a baby so he had no memory of going to the park so it was supposed to be a surprise for him. Me having a terrible short term memory managed to say "Disneyland" about 10 times on the drive there but luckily, Ben was too consumed with the I-pad to notice. Since Ashley and I don't get to see each other as often as we'd like, there was a lot of chatting going on in the car, so much chatting that we missed our exit to get onto I-8 and had to drive about an hour out of our way. Oops! We stopped for Chipotle in Yuma and I managed to eat most of my burrito without getting carsick! WIN!

We stayed at her mom's boyfriend's house in San Diego and they had a gorgeous view (I saw tons of Anna's Hummingbirds and a Rufous Hummingbird too). That first night we decided to go shopping and got crazy lost. Her mom let us borrow her GPS and it had an Australian accent that was impossible to understand. Ashley got so stressed out trying to find Target. It was kind of hilarious (wouldn't have been if I was the one driving). When we got back home we ate fajitas, watched 10 billion episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" (one of my fave shows) and got to see Jupiter with a bitchin' telescope--yes, it was worthy of the word "bitchin'". The kitty who lived in the house was a sweetheart and we made friends very quickly. His name was Izzy and he had the cutest little fangs :3

The next day we had waffles then went to La Jolla Beach and saw the seals. It was super duper cool! Here's some pics!

The last time I saw seals was at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco when I was a wee lass. The seals at La Jolla looked so happy just soaking up the sun. There were lots of baby seals too that were sooooo cute! Loved it! I did a bit of wading too because I can't get that close to the Pacific without at least putting a toe in but I zoned out for a minute and my pants got all wet. Rats! We had sammiches for lunch then I took a big girl nap. When I woke up Ashley and I decided to make Pina Coladas (I don't normally drink but I was on vacation so I thought what the hey!) We went to this Vietnamese grocery store by her mom's house to get the ingredients that was so cool! They had stuff from all over Asia. We got a kick out of all the bizarre snax they had (ie: cuttle fish chips, pizza-flavored seaweed, milk-flavored Hello Kitty chews). I got some red bean moichi since people are always eating it in the mangas I read but it was too weird for me (Dad liked it). I had two Pina Coladas and they had no effect on me. Hmmm...


The next day we went to Disneyland. The story we had told Ben was that first we were going to the World's Biggest Grocery Store (he hates grocery stores) then to the Natural History Museum (boring!). He totally bought it...he bought it a little too much. When we got to the parking lot of Disneyland we asked him where we were and he said, "The museum!" When we got out of the car we thought all the kids in princess costumes would give it away but he still didn't catch on. We kept waiting for him to realize where we were and freak out but he never did. Even when Ashley bought his park ticket he was totally oblivious. Finally she shoved a map to the park in his face and made him read it. We got to see the lightbulb turn on in his head for about 2 seconds but there was no freak out. Later he got pretty excited but not what we'd been hoping for.

Our first ride was Splash Mountain and at first he liked it but after the big drop he HATED IT. He said, "I don't want to go on that again for the rest of my life!" He's a funny kid, he didn't really want to go on any of the big rides even though he was big enough to. Ashley and I had to go on Space Mountain and the Matterhorn by ourselves. I was sure he was going to like Indiana Jones but he didn't like that either! The only rides he seemed to enjoy were Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, the Tea Cups, Star Tours, and It's a Small World. Strange...

I made the mistake of asking if he wanted to check out Tarzan's Treehouse, which turned out to kill my knee again. My knee had never fully healed from my Florida trip and going up and down 200 stairs killed it. By about 5pm my knee nearly gave out completely. I had to limp the rest of the day but I still had fun. We got in the front on a lot of rides too. Space Mountain was probably my fave this time since Big Thunder is closed until November. I got a lanyard (finally) for my pin collection and a Donald Duck pin. I also got Ashley and I some mini mouse ears that were so cute! We got so many compliments on them. This trip I actually watched the fireworks show and it was AWESOME! It was narrated by Julie Andrews and they did a different theme for all of the big rides. For example, they projected ghosts onto the castle for the Haunted Mansion and shot off green and purple fireworks while playing audio from the ride. I got so excited when a live actress dressed as Tinkerbell flew all around the castle. At first I thought it was a puppet but then when she did a flip I was like "WHOA! That's a real lady!" It was great! I highly recommend watching the fireworks show in front of Cinderella's Castle. Oh, and one more notable thing, I saw barf for the first time at Disneyland! In the 28 years I've been going to Disneyland I've never seen barf. Mind you, it wasn't technically in the park but it was right outside the gates. Pretty wild! Anyway, here's some pics from our day at the park:

Grumpy Cats

The last day of our trip we drove down to Newport Beach but it was so windy and cold that we only stayed about 5 minutes. We got grilled cheeses for lunch then were back on the rode by 1:30pm. Ashley and I listened to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on the drive and now she wants to read the books this summer. YAY!

So in conclusion, I had a great trip and am looking forward to going on more trips with Ashley in the future since we travel so well together. 

Oh, and I have another interview on Monday so wish me luck on that!

Happy Friday!