Tag Archives: san francisco

san francisco treat

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A few random notes:

1. I want to see Angels and Demons this weekend. It’s already better than The DaVinci Code because it has Ewan MacGregor. LOVE HIM.

2. I just found out that stamps went up $0.02 again. WTF USPS. Didn’t you JUST raise the price last year? *sigh*

3. Last one… So You Think You Can Dance STARTS NEXT WEEK. (Yes, it really does deserve to be in CAPS). So excited. Seriously, this show is so much better than American Idol. I swear.

Anyway.

If you follow my Twitter, you’ll know that Rob and I were in San Francisco a few weekends ago. My sister-in-law Susie was graduating and we wanted to be there to celebrate with her. Too bad flying United made it such a pain to get in and out of SFO.

On the flight out of John Wayne/OC airport, I found out that United now charges to check-in bags. Originally we were going to pack 2 separate carry-on bags but decided at the last minute to combine our stuff into one check-in bag. Bad move that cost us $15 each way. Really. UGH. Then as we headed to our gate, we found out that our flight was delayed an hour due to rain in SF. Ok fine, so the delay wasn’t United’s fault… whatever. Luckily we were staying with Victor (Rob’s brother) and Susie and they had a really comfy Airbed for us to sleep on. I love those things. Although I discovered that on hardwood floors, it is REALLY LOUD. You move even slightly and it squeaks like crazy.

Saturday was Susie’s graduation on the USS Hornet. Yup, a ship! The ceremony started at 10am but since we were tagging along with the graduate, we had to be there at 8:30am. I think I woke up at about 6:30am to start getting ready, which is the earliest I’ve woken up in a loooong time now that I’m working from home. HEE. It was a good thing we had to be there early because there was already a long line waiting to get on the ship. I think they were doing security checks. You can see a tiny bit of the line on the left of this pic…



Just look at the ginormous ship! It was amazing.

The ceremony was 3+ hours long. !!! The beginning was filled with too many long and forgettable speeches so I played games on my iPhone. Don’t judge.



Finally, Susie was called and this is all we got to see of her! The stage was in the middle of the hangar deck (I think) with the graduates seated in front and all the guests seated to either side. Super awkward arrangement.



Victor and Susie!



After the ceremony, the chairs were cleared out quickly, which gave Rob the opportunity to give his own inspirational speech. Heh.



It finally stopped raining long enough for us to go outside. It was so overcast we could barely see the city across the bay. Boo.



Even more Rob silliness.



We were STARVING but had dinner reservations in just a few hours so opted to get Happy Meals from McDonald’s. YUM YUM chicken mcnuggets with sweet and sour sauce. But the best part was seeing Smush go crazy when he smelled the french fries. Hehehe.

Our day ended with dinner at Tsunami, watching the Pacquao fight at a local filipino restaurant/bar, and I even talked a couple of my good friends into coming into the city to hang out. 😀

Our flight back on Sunday was supposed to leave SFO at 12:45 but again, we get to the airport and find out it’s delayed 1.5 hours. They didn’t give us a reason. When it got close to boarding time, the flight was delayed yet another hour so we wouldn’t be leaving until close to 3:30. This time they said it was because the bathroom on the plane wasn’t functioning. I don’t know if that was the only reason. Still. It sucks. This was the fourth United flight in a row that I’ve taken that’s either been delayed or cancelled. GRRR. Rob called United to let them know about our experience and we managed to get a $200 credit. Hopefully we don’t have any problems when we try to fly United again.

It was great to see San Francisco again – I can’t wait to go back!

As for this weekend, I’ve got a whole lot of TV watching planned. AWESOME.

birthday weekend

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Ahhh, I left work at a reasonable hour today so I finally have time to sit down and blog. I know it’s halfway to the weekend already but I never got the chance to blog about what I did last week on my birthday! 🙂

Here’s a very quick recap —

Wednesday
Diesel got neutered. Poor little guy. He was so sad when we took him home from the vet. Look:



He had to wear that “Elizabethan collar” so that he wouldn’t lick his wounds. 🙁
In other Diesel news, he has learned to roll over! Awww.

Thursday
BIRTHDAY! I didn’t want to go to work (I mean, it’s my DAY!) but my managers brought me a yummy raspberry cake and presents and I got to leave early, so that made up for it. 😀 I went home to rest before dinner and whaddya know, the fire alarm in my apartment building goes off and I had to stand outside in my sweats. ARGH. (I think one of our neighbors burned their dinner and that set it off). When the fire department finally turned the alarm off, Rob and I dropped Diesel back at home and went to a yummy Vietnamese place for dinner. Mmm. And of course, I had the famous cupcakes for dessert. Finally at around midnight, Riz (my cousin) rolled into town. YAY.

Friday
Riz and I spent the day walking around downtown San Francisco in the pouring rain (!) to visit a couple of bridal salons. She’s the bestest. 😀 First we hit Bella Bridesmaid where I had her try on TONS of dresses. Mwahahaha. We picked some definite contenders that I’ll share here on the blog once I get the chance to take my other bridesmaids to see them as well. I also dragged Riz to the Bridal Galleria to visit the 2 Monique Lhuillier dresses that I’m considering for myself. (I don’t think I’ve posted any updates to the dress search so I’ll have to do that when I get closer to making a decision — guh, it’s so HARD!). She liked both dresses so that didn’t help my indecisiveness at all. :/

The rest of the weekend was really low key. Riz and I didn’t have any other specific plans… we did some shopping, went to IKEA, ate lots of filipino food, sat around in front of the TV. It was so much fun. I haven’t spent that much time with her since Christmas so it felt great to catch up.

Finally, I have to thank Alie SO MUCH for the thoughtful birthday present… she sent me the Rubber Stamper’s Bible from my Amazon wishlist. It was a wonderful surprise — THANKS again!

I have to write up a TV post soon!

macarthur maze

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OMG. Look at what happened to a piece of the Macarthur Maze today.

It freaking collapsed. A tanker truck overturned and caught on fire, causing the ramp above it to buckle. CRAZY.

The Maze is the Bay Area’s busiest freeway interchange… and one of the most congested. 3 major highways (80, 580 and 880) converge there. And now 2 of its sections (westbound 80 to southbound 880 and eastbound 80 to eastbound 580) are closed until those connectors can be rebuilt. I’m *so* not looking forward to my commute to work tomorrow. TONS of people are going to take mass transit since they won’t want to deal with the headache of finding alternate routes. *whimpers* I suppose I should leave for work earlier. Boo. 🙁

Rob and I actually drove by the collapsed freeway earlier as we were out running errands (the crash site is technically in the city that we live in). It’s totally eerie to see it decimated like that.

movies, movies, movies

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So I had a pretty fun weekend — I was out and about for most of it. 🙂 On Friday night after work, Rob and I ate at this really great barbecue place in Oakland called Everett and Jones — sooo good. Then we decided to have a Blockbuster night so we rented Don’t Say A Word. You know, the one with Brittany Murphy and her now-famous I’ll never te-ell” line. It was… okay. Nothing special — just your basic thriller. Jennifer Esposito played this really annoying detective — grrr. Plus, she was a completely useless character.

Then on Saturday, we woke up early to go to the city (San Francisco). Through my occasional work at KGO Radio, I get lots of tickets to amusement parks, museums, etc. Anyway, I had free passes for the Bay Cruise and the Aquarium of the Bay so Rob and I decided to spend the day in the city and do the “tourist” thing. We took the BART (it’s like a subway/commuter train) to downtown SF and then rode a cable car down to Fisherman’s Wharf. The cable car ride was really cool — it’s just like in the movies where you can stand on the side and feel the breeze. ::sigh::

After we had gotten our fill of calamari and clam chowder (yum!), we went to the SONY Metreon and saw Men in Black II. I thought it was really funny — Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones have this weird chemistry going. But I really loved Frank the Pug. Waahh — I miss having a dog! *sniff*

And finally, on Sunday, Rob and I went to see Road to Perdition — that was one of the most amazing movies I’ve ever seen — seeing powerful men of the mob bow to the pressure of relationships, loyalty, business and profit — wow. There was one thing that distracted a bit from the movie — and that was knowing that this was Sam Mendes’s follow-up to American Beauty. So of course, I kept noticing things that were similar in both movies, even down to the music. But it was really refreshing to see Tom Hanks in a role where he’s not the typical “good guy” — I think people needed to see him portray someone who’s not a “hero.” Plus, I was really grateful that the violence wasn’t gratuitous because I have a hard time with violence on screen — it disturbs me. ::shivers:: But I definitely recommend the movie — it’s well worth the time and money.

Countdown to Hawaii: 1 month 😀

shop til i drop

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I had a great weekend with my best friend Robyn — I hadn’t seen her since Christmas (!) so I was really excited when she called me 2 weeks ago and said that she was going to drive up to Northern CA and visit me. Whee! I left work early on Friday afternoon (any excuse, right? ha) cause I knew she was arriving roughly at about 4pm. It was so good to see her again — with us, even if we don’t see each other or talk on the phone for months at a time, it still feels the same — like I can tell her anything and she’ll understand. Maybe that’s a product of having grown up together. Anyway, when she got here, I showed her my apartment and then we were lounging on the couch watching Moulin Rouge cause she’s never seen it before (the horror!). 😉 Then we went to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco cause we just felt like doing the tourist-y thing — you know, eating clam chowder and looking out at the beauty of the bay. After walking along the pier, we went back home and Robyn made a really yummy dip (cream cheese, sour cream, brown sugar, vanilla extract) that we ate with strawberries. SO good.

On Saturday, we woke up really early for our full day of SHOPPING (our mission was to buy shoes!) I can’t believe I woke up at 9am on a weekend — I’m usually in bed til like noon. heh. Anyway, we headed out to Haight and Ashbury — a quirky little neighborhood in San Francisco that has lots of cool shops, it’s very much like Melrose Ave., if you’ve ever been to L.A or Telegraph Avenue, if you’ve been to Berkeley. We got started at 10:30am and we were pretty much going inside every store — there were so many great clothes and shoes but I gave myself a rule to follow so I wouldn’t spend too much — I couldn’t buy it unless I could wear it to work (I hate the totally strict dress code we have — we don’t even have casual Fridays. grr). I managed to buy a really simple khaki skirt — I’ve been wanting one for awhile, I just never found one that fit quite right. Around 1pm, we had lunch at a really popular tapas restuarant called Cha Cha Cha. Their fried calamari and warm spinach salad are positively yummy. After lunch, we walked around until 3:30pm, but we still hadn’t had our fill of shopping so we decided to head downtown to Union Square and the SF Shopping Center. By the time we got back to the East Bay, it was 7 pm (!). For dinner, we met up with an old high school friend Mikey and had some really great Japanese food at a restaurant in Oakland called The Drunken Fish. If you’re ever there, go check it out.

And of course, all things must come to an end and Robyn left early this morning — now I’m back in my vegging mode. Watching TV, checking out my dailies, and trying to find pictures for a new layout (could it be?). I really should be doing laundry — hmmm.

my amazing Saturday

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So I had a *really* great day yesterday — Rob and I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary but we had a lot of fun just being together. We went to San Francisco — god, I looove the city — I know I see it every day when I go to work but there’s just something about it. Looking up at the huge buildings and looking towards the bay — ::sigh:: — it’s just so beautiful. I am so thankful that my college decision led me to such an amazing place. Anyway (whoops – going off on a tangent), we were just walking around downtown, going to various stores (I finally got a new pair of sunglasses – whee!), and we ended the day by watching Changing Lanes at the Sony Metreon (a huge entertainment center/movie theatre). What a great day. 🙂

Just finished watching Alias – Peter Berg (he plays Noah) is so annoying. I can’t stand his voice and the way his mouth moves when he talks. Gah. But wow, the episode was brilliant. I had no idea that Noah would be the Snowman. Poor Syd. Yet another guy she loved died. ::sob:: I loved all the scenes with Jack — Victor Garber rocks. He just exudes such emotion — when he was watching the video of his wife and he heard her say that he was a fool. Man, that’s harsh. Can’t wait for next week.