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| Hearst Castlewe took a nice road trip to The Enchanted Hill today. there and back in 12 hours - just like my parents. Hearst Castle is halfway between San Francisco and LA, so we basically went the distance of a full trip to LA today.
left Fremont just after 9 am. took I-880S to 101-S for 3 hours, then turned right onto CA-46, then onto HWY-1 north to the castle. we got to the foot of the hill of the castle just after 12 pm, but our tour wasn't going to start until 2:20 pm, so we tried to kill some time.
walked on the beach, drove up and down the street looking for a decent restaurant (read: Burger King, Jack-in-the-Box, McDonald's... something like that!), but ended up eating at some hotel-restaurant who had very disappointing crab cake sandwiches. ><" by the time we finished our lunch, it was time to drive up the hill to check in for our tour. since this was our first time to the Castle, we took Tour 1: The Experience Tour.
you cant really summarize the experience at Hearst Castle. the guy was a crazy genius - very progressive thinking and modern philosophy for his time, most likely thanks to his mother. man, what a woman his mom was too!
pictures are usually worth a thousand words, but this is something you've got to experience in person:
killing time on the beach
the tour bus dropped us off at the usual place where guests from back in the day were let off... and we're only going up to a guest house.
in front of a guest house
Neptune Pool. fresh mineral spring water.
breathtaking! the Roman colonnade was brought in especially from Europe. and the pool - the left end starts out at 3 feet deep and slides down to 10 feet on the right. but looking at it, you wouldnt be able to tell. Julia Morgen was an amazing civil engineer/architect!
a glimpse of the main house
garden
i thought this was an interesting looking statue
guest house entrance. we got to walk through the house: 4 spacious bedrooms, a large sitting room in between, and 4 his/hers bathrooms, with towels included.
handsome
another guest house peeping over the garden
garden outside the guest house we had just visited
oldest artifact on the grounds: 3,500 year old statue from the pyramids. some Egyptian god.
the main house
some pond in front of the main house where Hearst liked to let his dachsunds jump in and try to catch fish
and this wooden board is for said dachsunds to come out of the pond on their own.
bell tower 1
bell tower 2
mythological Spanish wild men guard the front door. cool.
basically, the whole place is a mish-mash of European cultures and artifacts. some might think its messy and there's no rhyme or reason to the method of his madness. but really, you have to appreciate the whole thing: the bits and pieces to inspire your curiosity and ignite a passion for cultures different from your own, to learn more about the world outside of where you live. what a genius he was!
a glimpse of the old-style that the castle started out as and part of a more modern style that was started
the room where everyone gathered before dinner
the dining room - inspiration for the dining hall in the Harry Potter films
example of how the table would be set for guests. paper napkins. bottles of ketchup and mustard. nothing fancy - "The Chief" was a very down-to-earth guy.
pool room
movie theater to screen the latest Hollywood movies
the Roman Pool. the yellow you see is 22kt gold. the pool is 10 ft deep and heated
back in his day, Hearst had the biggest privately owned zoo in the world. some of the herbivore animals still roam the lands: zebra, elk, cattle, turkeys, etc. this is the polar bear cage. and there are a couple other cages next to it for various other bears.
grapes and other vine plants used to grow on the cement pillars, providing shade for guests who wanted to go horseback riding - stretches around the rim of the hill up to the gate of the castle.
smoke from the Big Sur fires
The Enchanted Hill
the poultry farm
next time, Tour 2 (Casa Grande Upper Floors) for us! (= | | |
| Royal Bistroanother evening of laughs and history lessons with Paul Lee & Family, plus Cliff. 
but i think what makes this evening a bit more special than the other evenings was the youngest son, SLee.  the evening started out like this:
Nan: SLee, remember Cliff? why don't you say hi?
SLee, very shyly walks up to me, looking down, then waves. "hi..."
me: what the... SLee! i'm not Cliff!
Nan starts laughing.
a few minutes later while we were waiting for Paul to retrieve something from his car, SLee was playing on the curb when all of a sudden, he talks in the direction that Ken and i are standing. "we went to see a movie over the weekend..."
me: REALLY?? what movie?
SLee: the robot one - Wall.E.
me: how did you like it?
SLee: i liked it. it was fun.
Ken: OOOH... Evan said he cried watching it.
me: WHAT?! a grown boy cried watching a robot movie??
Nan: there were some sad parts...
SLee: it was a good movie.
i'm so proud of SLee.  i think this is the first time he ever started a conversation with us - i hope he keeps it up! he's such a funny kid... i liked watching him squish bugs on the window at Quickly's after dinner. hahaha...  | | |
| sky divinghttp://parachutecenter.com/tandem.htm
sky diving is fun but i'll never do it again (much to Ken's relief). 
as my dad said, "why do you want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane???"
as my little sister, Cathy, said, "whee!! i crossed off another thing on my college-to-do-list!! next, is hang gliding!"
Ken: what's that?
Cathy: uh... hrm... well, instead of jumping out of a plane, you jump off a cliff. and you glide.
Ken: seriously?
Cathy: yes. 
check out Facebook for pictures or my blog for a little bit more narration. | | |
| Slideshow
Enjoy this slideshow put together by our engagement photographers, Froggie Productions (aka, Benson and Jeremy).
Pictures were taken at Yerba Buena Gardens and an Ace Hardware wall in San Francisco; downtown Walnut Creek; and Lafayette/Pleasant Hill BART stations.
(if you pay attention, the slideshow tells a story... heehee... ) | | |
| pictures from Nov, 2007
Salina and me
i feel like an anime character - my eyes are so scrunched up... d=
the two guys on the left are two of the groomsmen (the one on the left is a best man, the one in the middle was our engagement photographer/is a groomsman).
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