At Carmel-by-the-Sea

Kelly gave me a 5 day treat to North California. Essentially Kelly fly up for work weekly so why do I say this is a treat? Cos I get to meet up with my only friends in US, who all stay in the North. WHY?! And instead of me tagging along on Monday, we flew in the day before and took a loooong drive to Carmel-by-the-Sea.


Carmel-by-the-Sea. I love how poetic it sounds. Carmel is a small charming coastal community by the Monterey Peninsula. The natural coastal beauty draws the crowds to its beaches.

Chilling, surfing kids, beach volleyball, dog walking and...

CAM-WHORING!

We left the beach to walk around and found a sculpture exhibtion in the park.

Can you believe this is a mall? Looks like an European inn.

I love the downtown. It's got a quaint feel, almost like a cross between Hobbit land and Fairytale village.

A funny scene we saw. The sign outside this inn states NO DOGS but one is obviously lying in full view. I hope the dog is sunbathing and not shot dead from trespassing.

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At Campbell

After a relaxing Sunday, it was back to work for Kelly in San Jose while I visited friends. Who had an active baby and hyper kid. All that kiddo-holding left me with no hands to take pictures. The only pictures I took was during my short trip to Campbell. Nothing to do with the soup.

Campbell's distinguishing landmark is a huge water tower.

It was a very very quiet town... nothing happening.



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At San Diego

Some friends were visiting San Diego and invited us to join them. [ Psst, you might know these friends too! ;) ]

The big attraction in San Diego is Seaworld where you can see killer whales perform acrobatics and lots of cute sea animals. Since we had visited Seaworld before, Kelly and I decide to check out the historical Gaslamp Quater in downtown. This neighbourhood was named for the gaslamps that lined streets during the late 19th century.

Beautiful old architecture

All that walking around left us thirsty and we stopped at a cafe for some drinks. Turns out to be a shisha cafe. Shisha costs $25 a pop here. Freakin $25!!!!



If only we discovered this earlier! We can get around on this trishaw-bicycle thingy. Can put leg up somemore.

But we saw of the city by walking. Funny bar signs. I love the last!



Kelly and I decided to stop (again) to drown our sorrows with beer and onion rings.



We were still waiting for our friends to finish their tour of Seaworld. Very hungry by now. Order nachos while we wait...and wait...and wait...

Finally I got a call telling me to meet at Joe's Crab Shack which was in another city. After much driving around, getting lost, walking a lot, we found the place!


It was a Verigy reunion. I only know Don, Adrian and his family. The lady in green used to be Verigy. The man in Red is an engineer from Verigy China. I am sitting next to Jabelle, Adrian's wife.


And this is Adrian's kid, Kaydeon! Last I saw him was at his first month party! He's a big boy now.


Kelly doesn't take seafood. The only thing he could eat in the restaurant was (yet more) onion rings. But I made him wear the big ugly bib anyway. hahaha!

At LA Airport


I met up with my friend Xin (right) and her colleague (left) at the airport. They were in transit at LAX and we decided to make use of that time to met up! I last saw Xin 6 months ago so I was super happy to finally see her! Thanks for lugging my shampoos and wedding gift from Singapore! Xin and my other good friend, Min, gave me a jigsaw and cartoon model of Kelly and me. The model got a bit damaged during the flight. I will post a picture of it when I fixed it. Thank you gals! Muacks!


I took them to this (supposedly) revolving restaurant at the top of a tower in the middle of the airport. WTF. The restaurant never so much as moved an inch. And there was no view. See behind us. All carpark lor. Seriously?!



Xin and her colleague were so well fed during the flight that I ended up ordering lunch for myself. While waiting for my food, we saw an airplane spraying letters in the sky!


Very hungry so no pictures of the food. Wasn't nice anyway. And the waitress keep coming back to ask if we want to order anything more and didn't refill our water. She probably thought that since we didn't order much, the bill would be small and the tip small too. So why bother with good service right? WTH. Anyway, we succumbed and ordered 2 desserts cos they looked good on the menu. But it was so so only. Next time won't bring visitors here.

Still got 3 hours to waste so I decided to play tour guide and bring them to Santa Monica! Thing is I don't know my way around so I had text Kelly a lot, asked people at the airport and basically blur blur figure it out. But we made it! Thanks girls, for bearing with me.


Frozen yoghurt was really big last year. Miraculously it ceased being a fad and became here to stay. Of course there were many imitators but my favourite is a store called Cefiore cos they got green tea flavour with red bean and mochi toppings! The girls chose something else though.


After all that cake, we only had stomach for one frozen yoghurt or fro-yo as the locals call it.



Santa Monica beach and the tiny amusement park at its pier.



This is what we saw when we got back to the aiport: Tori & Dean. Promotion for a new reality TV show based on Tori Spelling (90210) and Dean McDermott, Tori's husband.

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Graduation Party


It is Kelly's cousin's graduation's party and I am ashamed to say that we didn't take any pictures of the VIP. But after hanging out at the party for a few hours, we decided to stretch our legs and walked to a nearby park.


This is Camping 101. Why would anyone camp in a park? Where's the fun? Maybe the tent is just for family members to take afternoon naps in between picnicking.


Lighting wasn't conducive.


See how my hair is flying? It's so windy! Good thing I borrowed a sweater from Kelly's cousin.


Doesn't help that I was wearing shorts. And yes, I am oblivious to signs.


I wonder why someone would built a little shack at the edge of a cliff. How would anyone get there?! And what is it? It looks a toilet but why build one where no one can reach???


Kelly is posing in front of a historical Queen Anne-style cottage in the park.


I look like a 阳光少女! Muahaha!



My serious 老师 pose. This girl walked past, saw me and started laughing.

Damn paiseh!


The signboard says Walker's Cafe, so why the murals of bikers?

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Movie Screening at a Cemetery


My favourite summer thing to do is going for an old movie screening at the cemetery! It's first come first serve and there are limited spaces so people always come early to chope a place in the queue. Even though the gates open at 7.30pm, there is already a long time when we arrive one hour earlier. As you can see, people turn it into a picnic. The group next to us (guy in yellow shirt) brought along a non-standard picnic item - Marijuana. Ha!


Look at the sizes of these! You will never find a mausoleum in land-scarce Singapore.


The waiting time is HORRRENDOUS! It's almost like a wedding dinner. We settled on our spot at 7.45pm and had to wait till 9pm before the movie started. There is a good reason to keep the audience waiting. The organisers needed the sky to turn dark for the projected movie to be seen. But can't they open the gates later then??! Good thing I had Vogue to keep me occupied.


While Kelly browsed the news on his PDA.


Taken through my sunglasses. I love how Californian this picture is.