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Washington, DC (Day 2)

Monday, August 20th, 2012

Day 2

Amy and I started the day with some morning hot yoga at Down Dog. Yoga kicked my butt, but it was a great way to start the day. After cooling off, we headed to get some delicious chirashi at Kotobuki.

We rented bikes from Captial Bikeshare, which is this genius bike sharing service and biked from Georgetown to the National Mall. I really enjoyed the scenic ride along the Potomac and through the national monuments.

We stopped by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. It was neat to visit a museum purely dedicated to American history and seeing things that I’ve only read about in history books. My favorite exhibits were on the First Ladies and Presidents’ children.

For dinner we ate at La Tasca where we got tapas and sangria. The small plates were sort of overpriced for what they were, but the cava sangria was amazing.

To end the night, we stopped by PS7 for some delicious hand-crafted cocktails. Amy got the Gnome’s Water, and I got a beer cocktail called Optimus Mandarin.

Tags: DC, Washington
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Washington, DC (Day 1)

Monday, August 6th, 2012

Last week, I headed to Washington, DC for a Supplier Quality conference. It was my second time in the nation’s capital, and it was a real treat to be able to see one of my college roommates, Amy while I was out there. It is trips like this that make me thankful that my job allows me to travel. I usually end up in random cities, but on occasion I get the opportunity to feed my itch to travel and explore.

I stayed the weekend, and I had such a great time that I thought I’d share what we did.

Day 1

My co-worker, Tejal, and I headed out via metro to Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, VA for some amazing burgers.

Then we headed off to the National Mall. Our first stop was the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History where we saw the famous Hope Diamond and the 2011 Nature’s Best Photography exhibit from the Windland Smith Rice International Awards. Tejal had overheard a co-worker’s wife say that she saw Van Gogh paintings at the National Gallery of Art, so we made sure to stop by. I absolutely love French impressionism paintings, so I was happy to bask in air conditioning and admire these beautiful paintings. They also had Degas, Monet, and Renoir paintings.

Later in the evening, we met up with Amy! She picked us up from the metro station, and showed us around the Georgetown neighborhood. I must say, Georgetown is absolutely adorable, and I totally understand why people are in love with DC. A part of me fell in love with DC this past weekend. Between the cute row houses, preppy style, boutique everything, historical buildings and landmarks, well developed public transportation and intellectual atmosphere… who couldn’t fall in love with this city? Perhaps the only thing holding me from never leaving is the humidity.

We walked around Georgetown University for a little bit. What a beautiful university!

The buildings are so old that you get this sense that you are wandering through another time. We wandered into Rigg’s Library. This gorgeous cast iron library in the heart of Healy Hall.

photo credit: Georgetown Libraries

Finally, we ended the night with some delicious pizza and beer Pizza Paradiso on M Street. Pizza Paradiso was the first place that I’ve found one of my favorite beers, Hitachino Nest White Ale on tap.

Stay posted for the rest of my DC trip!

Tags: DC, Washington
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WEST COAST ROAD TRIP: OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK (DAY 4)

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Well, this is probably the world’s slowest blog recap of a spring break road trip. (Here’s day 1, 2, and 3 of the west coast road trip Kelvin and I took.)

We spent two days and two nights in Olympic National Park. This was our second day in the park. We had spent the night camping in the car at the Mora campsite in Olympic because it was hailing and storming all night. Having visited Rialto and Second Beach the day before, we headed out to check out the rest of the beaches and a took a trip inland to hike around in the rain forests of Olympic.

In order to get to Third Beach, we had to hike out a few miles from the road. The sun came out for a little, and I loved the way the morning fog scattered the rays in the forest. When we finally got the Third Beach, the tide was rising and the logs on the coastline were really slippery, so I didn’t get any good pictures of the beach.

There is a native american reservation in the middle of Olympic National Park (just north of First Beach), and we drove through the small town to get a view of some sea stacks.

Kelvin and I drove inland to visit the Hoh Rain Forest. It was a drastic scene change from the coastline. Olympic National Park also has a mountainous area, which we weren’t able to visit because everything was snowed in.

The scenic drive towards the rain forest. Olympic National Park is divided into two parts, an inland rain forest and mountain area and a long stretch of Washington coastline. In between, the land isn’t protected. I was sad to see that there was a lot of land that had been logged and cleared.

In true rain forest fashion even the phone booths were covered with moss.

Our first hike was the Hall of Mosses loop.

I felt like we had gone back into the Jurassic period. The forests looked old and mysterious.

A photographer couple catching a photo of a moss covered tree in the rain.

I’m pretty sure I would be scared if I found myself in one of these forests alone at night.

Next, we went on the Spruce Nature Trail, another short loop. It was cool to see all these trees growing out of the fallen remains of another tree.

There were lots of interesting types of mosses.

More moss.

Kelvin!

Ruby Beach

Tide pools at Ruby Beach.

We spent a lot of time at Ruby Beach looking for sea life in the tide pools. I was excited when Kelvin pointed out this purple starfish.

Ruby Beach

Our view from the Kaloloch Campsite. Advantages of visiting Olympic in the off season are no crowds and a great pick of campsites.

Clean socks! We had been hiking around in wet shoes and socks all day, so it was a great relief to finally put on clean dry socks.

This is how we car camped. The HHR’s back seats folded down nicely to create room for us to put our sleeping pads and sleeping bags down.

Tags: Olympic National Park, Road Trip, Washington
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West Coast Road Trip: Olympic National Park (day 3)

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

On our third day, we said good-bye to Seattle and headed over to Olympic National Park. Olympic National Park covers a wide range of terrains from the rocky Washington coast to rain forests to mountains. The weather was probably the worst on this day… it started hailing at one point when we were hiking. You can’t actually drive through the park, so most of the park (probably around 95%) can only be accessed by foot. I would love to come back for a backpacking trip… or even just to see the beaches again when the weather is better. Rain isn’t uncommon at Olympic National Park, but it was exceptionally cold and there were gale warnings when we were there. We had planned on camping at Olympic for two nights, but since the weather was so bad, we car camped in our rental Chevy HHR, which actually worked out pretty well.

Us and our rental car rode the Bremerton Ferry west towards the other side of Washington.

Driving through the mountains around Olympic, we stopped to take some pictures at Lake Crescent, an alpine lake.

Our first stop at Olympic was a hike to Marymere Falls.

Most of the older growth forest floor looked like this. Lots of fallen trees with moss and ferns.

Olympic National Park

Rocky beaches at Rialto Beach.

Rialto Beach.

I love how the forest comes right up to the beach. You have to hike out to most of the beaches in Olympic. It’s like discovering a secret place when you finally get there. Maybe because we were there during their off-season, but we mostly had the beaches to ourselves.

Second Beach.

Second Beach was my favorite beach of the day.

Tags: Coast, Olympic National Park, Road Trip, Washington
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West Coast Road Trip: Seattle (day 2)

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

On our second day in Seattle, we explored Gasworks Park and the Fremont and Capitol Hill neighborhoods. I love how all of Seattle’s neighborhoods are so walkable.

Will took us to The Five Spot for brunch.

Our first stop in Fremont was Theo Chocolate. We could smell chocolate from outside.

Since I’m not much of a chocolate fan (I know, I know), I mostly loved their adorable packaging (and logo for that matter). Heart garland made out of the wrappers decorated the fireplace.

There was an abundance of samples. You could try every type of chocolate they offered. A chocolate lovers dream.

An adorable house I spotted in Fremont. I especially love the colors. Seattle is filled with cute houses.

Cherry blossoms.

A vintage store front.

There really was some pretty cool “junk” at Peace.

I love globes and maps. Spotted at Peace.

The iconic Elephant Car Wash sign. I wish it had been a better day out.

Paid a visit to the Fremont Troll.

Seattle rains a lot, so there was lots of moss everywhere. This was on the railings of a freeway bridge.

Signs of Spring!

The view from Gasworks Park. Seattle is very picturesque. I love the colorful homes.

View from Gasworks Park.

There was a hill at Gasworks Park where everyone was flying a kite. They made it look so easy. This particular guy was doing the craziest tricks with his kite.

We ended the night with a fancy dinner at Rays. We had a beautiful view of the lake, but it is too bad there was no sunset.

Tags: Road Trip, Seattle, Washington
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West Coast Road Trip: Seattle (day 1)

Monday, March 28th, 2011

For Spring Break this year, Kelvin and I decided it would be fun to do a West Coast road trip from Seattle back down to Los Angeles. We flew up to Seattle, rented a car, and road tripped our way down stopping at Olympic National Park, Portland, Redwood National Park, and San Francisco/the Bay area.

The weather was pretty terrible (I swear we dragged a storm down the coast with us), but I had an amazing time. It was a great way to close out my final Spring Break. The best kind of vacations are the ones that leave you wanting to go back and explore more… the West Coast is so gorgeous, it would leave me in awe of nature. And I fell in love with the city of Seattle… SO cute! I can’t wait for our next adventure.

Our trip began with a hectic morning because our Super Shuttle picked us up 15 minutes early with a 1 minute notice. I had literally just crawled out of bed before I rushed out the door. Thankfully, we didn’t forget anything.

Kelvin playing Words with Friends, our recent obsession, while waiting for our plane.

I was excited to show Portland my bird backpack… I thought they would appreciate it.

We flew Virigin America up to Seattle.

Will and Angela hosted us for two days in Seattle. THANK YOU!

We got lunch at a Cajun restaurant with Will and Angela.

I hadn’t really explored Seattle before, so I had to make all the usual tourist stops. Loved Pike Place!

There were tons of cute stores all around the area. I love the packaging for these beans in a cute grocery store we visited.

Some decorations from an Indian spice store.

The first Starbucks! YAY!

Bought myself some Pike Place Special Reserve. Yum.

This deliciously smelling Russian bakery caught our sense of smell, so we stopped in to try some of their pasteries.

We got an apple cinnamon pastry. SO good.

Saw Rachel, the famous Pike Place pig, getting carried away for repair.

The market was partially under construction when we visited, but there was still a lot to see.

I’ve watched this motivational video on Pike Place Fish Market multiple times at school talking about how playing and being positive leads to success, so it was fun to see them really throwing fish around.