Monthly Archives: June 2012
27/06/12 Unrequited love for San Francisco
It’s been such a long time since my last post! But currently I am writing this in Yufei’s and my new apartment in San Francisco! After a couple of weeks, we finally have all of our furniture (almost entirely from IKEA), appliances, and other stuff. We were lucky to secure this apartment the first day I arrived in the city. It’s on a beautiful quiet little street in the Lower Haight neighbourhood:
We live in a small townhouse with only 7 units, and our apartment is bright and airy with lots of light from the south-facing bay windows in the bedroom:
The living room:
And the view from the other side (you can see the fireplace and the French doors separating it from the bedroom):
And I finally have my own kitchen!
Some more details… the walls in the living room conveniently have this shelf built into it, which is perfect for displaying photos…
…and Yufei’s every growing shot glass collection:
In keeping with the green and neutrals color scheme and to make use of a badly super glued broken bowl, I made this centerpiece for the coffee table with a candle and some seashells I have:
And there you have it, our first apartment! But before we moved into it, we spent a week in a hotel in North Beach, and the weather was amazingly beautiful and summery, so unlike the typical chilly San Francisco summer. We took the opportunity to explore some more of SF.
Japantown:
On the way to Coit Tower:
Coit Tower:
Ghirardelli Square:
Our adventure time was cut short last week because Yufei has started working at Twitter. They’ve moved to a new office in Mid-Market and I had the change to visit a couple of times. It’s in a beautiful Art Deco style building:
(Speaking of Art Deco, I am so so excited for the release of the Great Gatsby film later this year. It’s one of my favourite books ever and the trailer looks amazing. Cannot wait til December when it comes out! I will also probably want to host a Gatsby party then too!)
Back to Twitter. They also have this lovely rooftop garden:
And that’s where we had lunch one day. The cafeteria is AMAZING. Check out my lunch:
Chicken and waffle, salad from a great salad bar, grilled veggies, roasted swardfish, and tofu. Everything is all organic and gourmet and there are a ton of choices. We also had breakfast where I had a ton of frsh fruit, scrambled eggs with cream cheese, potatoes, 2 kinds of sausages, and freshly made banana pancakes (needless to say, I was stuffed that day). Twitter really spoils their employees.
Anyways, although I’ve been loving this beautiful city so far, it doesn’t seem to love me back quite as much, as it seems to refuse to give me a job. Sigh. This is the only thing that’s been putting a damper on my time here right now. Let’s hope things will turn around soon… come on, show me a little love and mercy, San Francisco!
Tags: career, food, home decor, san francisco
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- Posted under Food, Future, Home decor, Places, San Francisco
03/06/12 Graduation trip to the USVI
As promised, here is the post about the trip to the US Virgin Islands Yufei and I took after graduation!
We stayed at Sugar Bay Resort and Spa in St. Thomas, and despite the mixed reviews on Tripadvisor, we had a wonderful time there. We chose the all-inclusive option, and it was fine for us since we only stayed 4 nights and didn’t rent a car; if we had stayed longer the food might start to get repetitive. The grounds were beautiful and well-kept, and it is a cat-friendly resort so much to my delight there were many kitties running around!
We arrived in the afternoon so we just took it easy that day and rested. The next morning we took a taxi to Red Hook in order to take the ferry to St. John. It was quite cloudy that morning, but by the time we arrived in Cruz Bay in St. John, the sun was peaking through the clouds.
From there we took another taxi to Trunk Bay. We hadn’t planned on where to go when we got to St. John, but Trunk Bay looked nice on the map, wasn’t too far away, and lots of people seemed to be going there so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be the best beach I had ever seen! The water was so clear and the sand so soft and fine, and it was not crowded at all. There was a $4 per person charge to get into the beach area, but it was well worth it!
We swam in the ocean, went snorkeling (and even saw a stingray!), enjoyed the sun on the beach, and had an overall lovely day.
The next day, we decided to just take it easy and stay on the resort. The morning was spend swimming, lounging by the pool reading and having tropical drinks, and watching the iguanas trying to steal lemon slices from people’s drink cups.
After lunch, we went to the beach of the resort. The beach, while lovely to look at, was actually quite rocky and the waves were a bit rough, so it wasn’t so great for swimming and snorkeling. But lying on a beach chair watching the ocean wasn’t bad either.
To take full advantage of everything on the resort, we even played mini golf! It turns out we were both pretty bad at golf and I even lost a ball in the pond, but we still had fun.
The day after was our last full day on the island, and we went to Charlotte Amalie, the capital city of the USVI, after brunch. We were dropped off at the top of the 99 steps, and the location offered gorgeous views of the sea below.
Walking down the 99 steps:
It turns out downtown was mostly a shopping area (TONS of jewelry stores), and since we didn’t plan to spend any more money on this trip, we just walked around and enjoyed the charming allies before leaving the area.
Coki Beach was our next destination. The beach was quite small, but it was great. Again not very crowded, beachy reggae music, and the best snorkeling ever!
The next morning we checked out of hotel, went to the airport, and reluctantly left St. Thomas. We had a wonderful time on our trip, and this Caribbean experience was quite different from what we had before in Mexico. I would love to come back in the future, maybe stay on a different island or even the British Virgin Islands!
Tags: beach, st. john, st. thomas, travel, usvi
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- Posted under Places, Travel
