Location | New York City

Well, back to New York on an awful red-eye flight. (Don’t fly red-eyes, it’s so not worth it). On my last day in San Francisco (Monday) I woke up at Anna & Eric’s place and put everything away for them. Then I headed out to have breakfast with my friend Albie at a Crossroads Cafe, which was near my friend’s apartment.

The weather was bad – torrential downpour – so Albie and I opted to take public transportation to the Ferry Building so that Albie could meet our other friend and I could meet up with my college friend, Justin (whom I refer to as Twurtleson, don’t ask).

After parting ways, I went to Blue Bottle and ordered coffees and more granola (so damn addicting) and was picked up by Justin. We drove to a Taiwanese restaurant called, Spices, located in the Inner Richmond area of San Fran. We had lunch and then headed to the California Academy of Sciences. Can I tell you, it was pretty sweet.

Justin was in control of my camera, so I don’t have full artistic integrity over these photos, but the boy wanted to play with a new toy. So the ones w/o him in them, are photos taken by him.

There was everything, a lot of fish, I touched a sea urchin (weird), jellyfish, alligator, stingrays (you’ll see one of the photos he took at the end, I highly suspect that was his favorite part since I found a million stingray photos), butterflies, fossils… and just a lot of cool things.

We also checked out the roof top, despite the rain.

After all of this, we went to pick up my friend Eric, go pick up my baggage, then head to meet my (other) friend Angel for dinner. We just had some food and Justin and I parted ways while Angel drove me to the airport.

Overall, it was an amazing trip. I was so happy to be able to hang out with Ngoc and company, as well as see old friends and make new ones! If you’re interested, full set of photos here.

Location | SoMa, San Francisco

The morning began in a slight frenzy. I found my friend, whom I call Panda, in his room practicing guitar. I got ready and we went to have brunch with our two friends, Angel and Andrew. They met us at a restaurant called “Bill’s Cafe” in San Jose. After polishing off our food (we are kind of beasts with food… we’ve known this since our time together in Taiwan), Angel, Andrew and I headed to Palo Alto to check out Santana Row, an outdoor shopping mall and Stanford‘s campus. Panda headed off to church.

Santana Row was ok (and unaffordable). We ended up going to Stanford’s campus pretty quickly and just walked around. The campus was eerily quiet, but they were in the midst of finals (plus it was the weekend). We hung out in the oval lawn in front of their main campus building.

Panda met up with us again, but we had gone to downtown Palo Alto by that point (we were sitting at Starbucks eating a crepe I had bought across the street and drinking iced tea and coffee). Panda drove us to San Francisco where we met up with some of his friends (one was Jeremy Lin‘s older brother – random coincidence) and we had really good Vietnamese food at Turtle Tower in the area of Outer Richmond (not the one in the Tenderloin). I hadn’t had good Vietnamese in a very long time, so it was especially nice to have good spring rolls and a hot bowl of noodles.

We headed out to Humphry Slocombe, one of the most unique ice cream places I’ve been to. They only have a few special flavors a day, but flavors included things like Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee, Chocolate Sea Salt, and Strawberry Balsalmic. I chose the Chocolate Sea Salt and Strawberry Balsalmic (so good!). My friends were a little freaked out by the flavors, but I loved it.

After wards we hung outside for a bit, doing some awkward dances (thanks to one of Panda’s friends) and then I was dropped off at my friend’s apartment near the Embarcadero.

Location | South Bay, San Francisco

We went to Alcatraz, despite many of us being hungover (not I apparently). Ngoc’s sister and I actually woke up early and walked down to the Ferry Building (which is NOT a short walk) and got coffee and the absolute most wonderful yogurt and granola combination that I’ve ever had in my life. I’m absolutely addicted to those flavors. The yogurt was the lemon flavor from St. Benoit, a local French-style yogurt. The owner was selling the yogurts in these adorable ceramic containers in the farmer’s market. Combine the yogurt with the delicious granola of Blue Bottle and you have yourself the most winning combination. You would not believe the flavor. It is an absolute MUST If you’re in San Francisco to combine the 2 flavors.

Alcatraz was interesting. It seemed almost TOO CLEAN for a prison. I think it’s because I went to the State Penitentiary in Philly last year, so this one wasn’t as interesting because it wasn’t as dilapidated. Ngoc and James went completely though the whole audio tour. I think I got through about track 26 of 40 something before I couldn’t listen anymore.

After Alcatraz we went back to the Embarcadero where we said goodbye to Ngoc’s older brother who was flying back to Vegas. We then walked around all the piers and went to see the sea lions at Pier 39.

We were picked up by Justin at Boudoin Bread at Fisherman’s Wharf. He was taking us to dinner, but the original place we wanted to go to was packed, so we had to settle for another option. Furthermore, Eric and Anna had a nightmare bus situation, so they were very late in meeting us. It was fine, we ordered some delicious Middle Eastern food before we ran back to Justin’s car because it was freezing. Justin dropped me off at the BART and I was on my way to the South Bay while he took Ngoc and James to the airport.

In the South Bay, I was picked up by my favorite Panda, Eric Chang! And he took me back to his house where we sat around chatting into the night until it was time to pass out.