I have no idea why it took up to one week for me to write the second entry about my getaway. I am such a &*^&*% lazy ass.
The first thing we have done on the second day morning was to visit UC Berkeley -- a college that I thought of applying (just for 2 seconds, however) a long long time ago. It's hilly, it's tiny, it's green and it has the best clock tower view -- from the top of their clock tower I witnessed the shocking nice view of downtown Oakland, SF and even Sausalito! Another amazing thing about the tower is that they have installed an elevator. Why can't Cornell do the same thing!? Anyhow, I still like to view of Cornell's Clock Tower more, just because. Yes because. Oh, FYI, Asian cute gals were absent the day I visited the campus.
Right after our short visit to Berkeley we were honored to have Kwan brought us to an excellent French restaurant -- Chez Panisse. God, the
food was just too good to be ignored. According to Kwan, this place is
incredibly hard to reserve a table for dinner, and all
dinner menus are pre-fix. Good food, Great chat, fun times.
By the end of our meal it was already pretty late. We then had to
rushed into Napa Valley to begin our short wine tasting journey. To my surprise Napa Valley is far more commercial than I thought. I remembered several years ago when I went to Sonoma it was a totally different story. Because of time constraints we were only able to stop by 3 wineries, and only tasted two -- Robert Mondavi, Sterling and Rombauer. We could not taste the wines in Robert Mondavi since it was overcrowded. The winery was also the least attractive among the 3.
Rombauer was our second stop. It was not located along the main road of the valley, and therefore the tasting room was really tiny. Still, crowds packed the whole place. We kinda liked the wines there, and we loved the view and the settings more. We were pretty close to getting couple bottles there, but we could not agree on one, so.... next stop.
Sterling Vineyard is simply wonderful. Although the tasting fee is the most expensive among all, it still worths more than everything else. When they have their own private cable car to babysit you uphill to their terrace for wine tasting and scene viewing, how much more can you ask for!? We bought 2 bottles there, and I am drinking one of them right now. I swear I will go back again if I have chance to visit Napa for a second time in the future =D By the way, we bought a bottle of Malvasia Bianca and Pinot Gris. Both are more than decent!
I will continue to write about the rest of the evening along with day 3... just because I am tired now...
It has been 2 weeks since my getaway weekend in SF, but yet I still haven't posted anything about it. So here we go.
No matter how close the exam is, or how many projects I have to follow up simultaneously, I still need a break once in a while. Since I am saving my vacation says for my 2 major trips this year (liar, I actually have more than enough days to use), I could only afford to go to San Francisco for a weekend. After all I really should not complain much as hotel was free and my flight was also nearly free (mileage owns!).
Since we were renting a car Joanne randomly picked an Inn close to the airport. I actually could not sleep well there because the walls were not sound proof. Again, it's free and so I didn't have the right to complain...
Day 1:
We left the hotel late because Joanne needed to dial in to couple conference calls. We first went to Half Moon Bay, located 20 min west of SF International airport. It's a very touristy small town, where you can find all kinds of gift shops and restaurants and more importantly, the ocean is within steps away. We went to an Italian restaurant called Pasta Moon for brunch. The pasta was surprisingly good. That was definitely one of the better, if not the best, Italian meal we had in quite a while.
After stopping by a marina nearby in Princeton, we drove north along route 1 to the city. The scenes along the way was nothing less than spectacular. Disappointingly, there was no earthquake (see pic below).
We arrived Golden Gate Park afterwards. I surely remember this place -- last time when we visited there we were planning to cycle through the trails but the fun was cut short because of heavy rain. This time, at least, I could see the sun. By walking and slowing driving through the park I wondered why I hadn't moved to California instead...
By the time we left the park, it was already pretty late. We were able to rush to Alamo Square and had a walk before going for dinner. Alamo Square is a park paved on the top of a hill, accompanied with a luxurious paranoia downtown view of San Francisco. Surrounding the square is a domino of rainbow colored houses. One may notice that many SF postcard pictures are actually taken here. We tried to create our own postcards as well =P
We stopped by the Golden Gate Bridge observation area (I have no idea how I should call it) while we were on our way to Sausalito. Again, it was our second time stopping by this place -- I guess I never get bored.
Sausalito is a small tourist town just north of San Francisco, on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. It owns excellent views of the SF AND Oakland skylines. Once the sky became completely dark we went to a restaurant called Spinnaker right next to the pier. To be honest it was the 3rd time we went there -- three years ago, when we first visited SF, we went to that place twice and we just fell in love with the place. This time the food was still good but then I ordered something that I didn't really want. Nonetheless the restaurant reminded me a lot of good memories.
天啊,如果你從來唔沖涼同埋換衫,唔該你唔好喺繁忙時間坐地鐵!! 攪到個車箱成陣屎除, D人要走去其他車卡避難, 包括我在內!!! 仲要唔止一次within last Month!!! 正PK
Sorry I dun rant very often but the smell was totally unbearable. People should at least be a little considerate, no matter you are sick or homeless or whatever.
