Flying South(ern California) for the Winter

It seems that January has become the traditional month for us to go on a vacation. We started in 2014 with our honeymoon to Kauai & Oahu, and then we visited San Francisco in 2015, and this year we visited San Diego. Each year as we plan when and where to go, January seems to always stand out as one of the quietest months in both of our professions--less real estate for me to pour over (by the way... I need to update you all on my new gig in another post!) and less BBQ events for John.

We have a long list of places we want to go, however we've been trying to stick to shorter trips (around 4-5 days), so that limits us to the US. We're further narrowed by the type of weather in January, because places we'd love to go like DC or Portland or Seattle aren't going to be nearly as fun in the winter as they would be otherwise. So, this year we found ourselves back in California, and it was marvelous!

Just like our trip to San Francisco, we decided to segway. Say what you will about it looking silly, we just know there's no better way to cover ground and see the sights! And, sights aside, it's fun! We saw huge areas of the city this way, and it's great because you're out and about with a guide who's teaching you the lay of the land. We lucked out on this trip and managed to be the only people on our tours, so we got to go wherever we wanted rather than sticking strictly to the regular plan. We segwayed all through Balboa Park, Mission Bay and Mission Beach, and all over La Jolla.  

Seals at La Jolla 

La Jolla

Sea Lions at La Jolla

Botanical Garden in Balboa Park

During our tour of Mission Beach we came across a group of about 200 people doing a group yoga class outside overlooking the ocean. Our guide told us that the instructor lived right across the street from this spot, and that the city was getting after him for not having a license for the yoga class. What they were more upset about than anything was his pet pig who co-instructed with him. They made him give up the pig, but the yoga class lives on...

Mission Beach

While waiting for one of our guides, we stumbled upon a race in Mission Bay. It started out with kayakers, then came the stand-up paddle boarders, and next was a group of people lying down on the boards and paddling with their arms. Is there a name for that? Who knows. All I do know is that the water was super cold--58 degrees to be exact--and I can't imagine being in it! We were freezing just watching them because the wind was fierce! All in all there were probably 300 of them that went by. They just kept coming and coming.

We also had some yummy food. We had dinner one night at a restaurant called Puesto, and we got to sit next to the kitchen. I watched this gal make a ton of corn tortillas.

Almost all of the tacos had "crispy cheese" which was basically cheese cooked on the griddle. You can see it in the left and center tacos.

One of our favorite places, while not foodie at all, was Hash House A Go Go. Oh my. 

This place started in San Diego and now exists in some other cities as well. We had no idea it was going to be so huge (this picture doesn't do it justice) so we definitely should have split something. Oh well! I had bacon, onion, avocado, and cheese all melted and mixed together over crispy potatoes, and John got fried chicken benedict. Yowza!

After eating enough food for 6 people, we headed to the zoo. The one thing John really wanted to do was to go on the "Morning with Pandas" tour, so we paid extra to do that and it was so worth it!!

We learned a tremendous amount--all things we never would have known if we had just gone and toured it on our own. For example, each animal has its own "bedroom" that it can go into each night. This is basically a private space that guests can't see, so the zoo as over twice as big as what meets the eye. In the morning, the keepers open the door from their bedroom back to their enclosure, and the animals get to decide if they want to come out for the day into their enclosure. If they don't, they just hang out in their bedroom--no one forces them to come out.

We also got to see some of the pandas that weren't visible to the rest of the public. One of them, their male panda, is named Gao Gao. Did you know that all pandas, all over the world, are owned by China? We were interested to learn that! Even the ones that are born in other countries belong to China. 

Gao Gao was born in the wild and was disrupting some farmers, so he got sent here as kind of a "reject" panda because we needed a male and he is very little and unimpressive looking. No one had very high expectations of him, and he's actually turned out to be quite the stud! The tour guide at the zoo said they all know that "Gao Gao knows how how to do the wow wow." Bahaha.

Chowin down on some bamboo

Did you know that pandas eat bamboo that's so hard it would break a wood chipper? Their jaws are so strong and muscular that their ears wiggle a whole bunch when they chew.

We also got to see tons of other exhibits at the zoo, including a... golden retriever. Yes, that's right. I was confused when we went by an exhibit with a dog in it. As it turns out, pairing cheetahs with a dog helps them stay calm and feel confident. Nuts, huh? Here's proof in case you think I'm crazy.

We also got to feed the giraffes which was fun since I haven't done it since I was a kid! I was one of the lucky ones who actually got to give them a snack before they lost interest. 

Hellooooo there!

One evening we went horseback riding down to the beach. It was super interesting because the path we took was very near the border to Tijuana. I had no idea that the border wall actually extends out into the ocean and then just... stops! I wish I had gotten a picture because it was a weird sight to see.

John's horse was Pokey, mine was Millie. Pokey was preoccupied with rubbing himself (and John) against bushes, while Millie insisted on tripping every 10th step or so :)

It was a great trip! As always, we were happy to come home and sleep in our bed and see our little dog. Nothing like a Sweet Olive to make you miss your routine! I wouldn't trade her doggy kisses for anything. 

The Golden Gate State

After our honeymoon last January, John and I had been thinking about where to go on our next vacation, and San Francisco has always stood out as the top contender. From what we read, we were expecting predictably unpredictable cold and rainy weather. I talked to a couple of friends who live in the area and they (plus every article written about San Francisco ever) said to wear layers because the weather can change really suddenly.

We must have been incredibly lucky because the weather was lovely the whole time! It was certainly chilly, but never cold, and it never rained. The ground was wet from time to time and it definitely got foggy, but we never needed an umbrella which was good... because I left it in the hotel room every time we went out! 

For the first time ever, I took my DSLR camera and didn't take one picture with it. The thing is, it's large. And, I was worried it was going to get rained on (even though it never rained at all). So, I weighed the cost-benefit and decided my iPhone was just going to have to cut it. Let me tell you, it was super liberating! That must sound silly, but it's tiring to have to constantly think about it. I think I enjoyed our time out and about a lot more without it!

We (I) did a lot of research before we went so we'd have our days planned in advance, mainly by geography. My preference is to always plan things around the way that we can see the most sights as efficiently as possible. Rarely do we stick to the plan--usually we end up nixing something in favor of doing something else, but it's nice to have an idea of what we'll be doing, knowing we can modify it however much we want once we get there.

Our luggage is so predictable: grey for me, UT for John.

We stayed at the Hotel Triton on Union Square and really liked it. It's a boutique hotel, and the only complaints we saw online were about the rooms being really small. Since we weren't planning on being in the room other than to sleep, size didn't matter to us as long as the bed was big! Indeed, there wasn't much space--just enough to set our luggage down... barely, but nothing we weren't prepared for.

Cute, right?!

To get around town, we bought two Muni passes which allowed us to use their public transportation as many times as we wanted. It was really mind blowing how convenient their system is. We used an app called Rover to figure out which kind of public transportation was nearest and fastest. It was free to download and worked unbelievably well. We'd tell it where we wanted to go, and it would give us some transportation options, sorted in order of which would be fastest. Once we chose one, it would tell us where to walk to catch the bus, how long the walk would take, how long the ride would take, and then where to walk to get to our destination. SO COOL. Every now and then we'd take Uber, but I think we only did it 4 or 5 times, two of which were going to and from the airport.

Another nice thing about the public transit is that it rarely dropped us off exactly where we needed to be, of course, so we got to walk around and see a lot of the shops and restaurants on our way.

This door speaks directly to my soul.

We went to the California Academy of the Sciences and really enjoyed seeing all of the exhibits, including a planetarium, aquarium, living rooftop, rainforest, and more I'm sure I can't remember.

Fishy

A bush with pretty flowers outside of the CAS

Our first meal in the city was at a restaurant called Zazie that a friend of mine recommended. The food was delicious, but the best part was their back deck! It was really gorgeous and felt super cozy.

For breakfast the next morning, we went to a famous place called Mama's, and stood in line for a little over an hour waiting to be seated. It's super tiny... probably 15 tables total, and when you get inside you stand in line to order before sitting down. As you wait, you get a really great view of a lot of the food, plus you can see the guys in the kitchen making everything. We I had a pretty serious case of my eyes being bigger than my stomach... let's just say that there's a long list of menu items I could tell you about from first hand experience, and they were all delicious!! John had sourdough french toast with a lemon and butter sauce and a slice of crumb cake. I had just about everything else.

After breakfast, we walked to Coit Tower which was a pretty steep climb. Doing that after eating twice as much as I should have was kind of painful, but we made it. The hill doesn't look nearly as steep in this picture as it actually was--in person it was really kind of amazing to look at the parked cars because it seemed like they should be tipping over and rolling down the hill!

View from the top!

Coit Tower

View of the city & the Golden Gate bridge from Coit Tower

On our way back to the bus stop, we walked by this awesome little mural. At first I thought they were real! Isn't this the coolest ever? I love it.

The next stop of the day was a segway tour. Sure sure, laugh all you want, but we've learned that segway haters have usually never even been on a segway! Everyone thinks it's soooooo lame, but it's not. I stand firmly behind that. If you like fun things, like golf carts, roller blading, or really any enjoyable mode of transportation, you will love segways. People think tourists go on them to see sights, and while that was partially true for us, I was so excited to go on them again just because they're unbelievably fun. It's a moving toy.

We took an advanced tour and ended up being the only two people on it! It was amazing. I wish I had gotten a picture of our tour guide--he's really what made the tour as awesome as it was. The neat thing about this tour was that it took us all over the city, including some lookouts and just regular old streets that were suuuper steep!

Goden Gate Bridge

One super cool thing we did while on the segways was to go down Lombard Street. 100% tourist move, but hey, when in Rome, right?! It was super fun, and also hilarious because our fellow tourist onlookers were actually taking our pictures in disbelief. Lots of finger pointing and oohing and awing. We couldn't believe we weren't dying during our descent, and neither could they.

Lombard Street

We actually did Lombard Street twice because of the route we took, so we hopped off to get a picture the second time :)

Lombard Street round two

One of my favorite stops was to the Exploratorium, and unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures inside, but I did get this one random selfie ;) The Exploratorium is basically a place with tons and tons (maybe a hundred?) of hands-on exhibits, most of which teach about science, but there was also a psychology section. It's technically geared towards kids, but everything we read online said that adults loved it too, and we definitely found that to be true. It's hard to explain specific exhibits because they were truly showing some phenomena that are surprising to see in person, so I don't think words would do them justice. Suffice it to say, this is a 100% must-see if you're ever in San Fran. My jaw was on the floor a good bit of the time.

On our last day, we had planned to rent a GoCar to drive to the Golden Gate Bridge. GoCars are these little three-wheeled vehicles, and they navigate and narrate based on where you go. It sounded pretty neat, but I woke up feeling really sick on our last day and didn't have it in me to have to drive the thing, or to be in charge of the map if John was driving. So, we hopped on a bus instead, and what a better choice that was! Sight-seeing with none of the work, and I didn't have to worry about being crushed by a regular-sized vehicle.

That day was the foggiest day... see the bush receding into the background? There's a slice of a cable used on the bridge that you can look at, and it's really pretty amazing to think about how many little cables are in one large cable (27,572 if you can't see it on the sign).

Golden Gate Bridge cable

Here's a closeup of what the inside looks like.

We originally planned to walk about half way across the bridge, but it was so foggy there wasn't any point. We made it a little ways across, snapped a picture, and headed back.

Golden Gate Bridge

See the gorgeous view behind us?! Yeah, neither could we.

The landscaping near the bridge was really pretty, and I loved this patch of succulents. I'm not sure if I've just never seen so many of this kind clustered together before, but I was in love.

Since we didn't walk across the bridge, we had a lot more time on our hands than we had planned. We decided to walk around Hayes Valley which is where a macaron shop I wanted to stop in was located. Umm, yum!

After that, we actually decided to go on another segway tour, this time through the Golden Gate Park. We learned a lot of really interesting things about the history of the park, and for someone that's not too fond of history, I was surprised I stayed engaged! Turns out the park used to just be a pile of sand, and everything on/in it is man-made and man-planted--nothing is native! You'd never know from looking at it that everything was brought in from elsewhere--all of the trees are very mature, and they don't look like they were placed in a specific manner. It's a really gorgeous park and I wish I had gotten a picture. Oops. We weren't allowed to snap any while actively segwaying, but it was nice to just be in the moment enjoying the tour. My favorite part was probably going through their redwood forest at sunset. Ahhh... dreamy.

As always, we're very happy to be back home. We missed Olive like crazy, and she's actually currently under the weather. Depending on how much better she gets by tomorrow morning, we may have to make our third trip of the week to our vet. If we do, it'll mean getting some imaging done to see what's going on in her tummy. We feel so bad for her! Luckily, she seems to be in good spirits. Not quite as energetic as she usually is, but she's still happy to go on walks and she wags her tail all the time, so she doesn't seem to be in any pain. Keep your fingers crossed she gets better tonight, ok?