Tag Archives: beach
February 22, 2013 February Fun
Just some stuff I did this month that I thought I’d share.
Chinese New Year lunch at my parents’ house. This is the first time I celebrated CNY with my parents in 5 years! Year of the Snake, which is my sign, which apparently means that I will have bad luck this year. Yeah, I never understood that either.
After lunch that same day, we took a walk in the Hayward Japanese Gardens nearby. It was a gorgeous day and the ground were really pretty too.
Finally rode in a streetcar after living in SF for 8 month! Yufei’s parents were visiting us and I got to do a lot of really touristy things in the city with them that I never got to do, this being one of them.
Beautiful sunset by the ocean.
Stinson Beach!
Vista Point. A really nice place to view the Golden Gate Bridge from the north side.
Alcatraz! Another touristy visit.
Alcatraz offers some absolutely amazing views of SF. I like how you can see the streets go up the hill :)
We had some really nice warm sunshine last week, as you can see from the photos. But this week has been rather cold and yucky. I hope we get the sun back soon!
Tags: beach, food, parks, san francisco, travel
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- Posted under Food, Places, San Francisco, Travel
November 28, 2012 Half Moon Bay
For our 4 year anniversary last month, Yufei and I decided to go to Half Moon Bay for a nice little weekend getaway. I had just come back from New York and really welcomed the trip. We drove down from San Francisco on Friday morning. The drive was along the coast and the view was absolutely beautiful. We stopped by the Taco Bell in Pacifica for lunch – most scenic fast food restaurant ever! We also made a stop at another beach along the highway and took some photos.
We stayed at the gorgeous Mill Rose Inn, which was just so lovely. They had a beautiful garden full of blooming roses!
After checking in and dropping off our stuff, we went out for a walk in downtown Half Moon Bay. It’s such a cute little town! We were just in time for the annual pumpkin festival that was happening that weekend. We saw California’s biggest pumpkin:
The thing was humongous! Definitely can see it being turned into Cinderella’s carriage – ha! After walking around and getting ice cream, we drove to the beach.
We hung out at the beach for a while, then went back to the inn to rest a bit and watch a DVD. The inn provides tons of DVD’s that you can borrow and play on the TV’s in the rooms. Then it was dinnertime. I made a reservation at Cetrella, a restaurant within walking distant. It was a very nice place, great ambiance, with a live piano player and singer. Food and service were both excellent as well. It was very dark in the restaurant so I couldn’t really take photos (didn’t want to be that annoying person who keeps using flash).
After dinner, we walked back to the inn, which was equally magical at night. They had all these lights on their trees in the backyard – reminds me of Christmas!
The next morning, we had breakfast in the dining room (you can also choose to have it delivered to your room). They served champagne as well as a really yummy orange banana smoothie.
For food there was a pumpkin crumble, frittata, this nutty banana toast, and watermelon.
After breakfast we checked out, put our bags in the car, and went downtown to check out the art and pumpkin festival. There sure were a lot of people flooding into this tiny town! There were booths with artists and merchants selling their goods, food stands, etc. There was also a Halloween parade, where we saw this amazing Spongebob costume:
We had to get back in the early afternoon because I had work in the evening (boo). We had a wonderful time in Half Moon Bay; the weather was gorgeous, the Mill Rose Inn was lovely, dinner was decadent, we got to visit the festival, and most importantly, we got to spend it with each other and celebrate our 4 years together!
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June 3, 2012 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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December 4, 2009 Miami
Beaches, purple skies, our lovely Vizcaya estate.
I miss it.
Tags: beach, miami, photography, travel
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- Posted under Photography, Places, Travel
