Twas a great Memorial Day weekend! It first started off with a friend’s good-bye party at 5A5. I feel like I’ve heard of this place many times, but it was the first time actually hanging out there. I meant to stay only an hour or so since there was a lot planned for Saturday, but… I didn’t. The important part here is that I got home (eventually), and was up and ready for Saturday’s activities.
I’ve wanted to go sailing ever since I moved to SF and saw all the white sails boats floating around the bay. I finally got around to putting something together and it turned out even better than I had hoped. First of all, I was afraid the weather might suck because it was an afternoon sail, but the weather was perfect! It was an unusually warm weather throughout, and no fog! Almost everybody made it out, and the two that couldn’t make it had a good excuse. It would have been awesome to have them join us, but everybody else was a good sport and pitched in for their cost (thanks again guys!). Capt. Kirk & crew were as nice as the yelp reviewers claimed, and everybody that wanted to drive the sail got a turn!
The Disney Family Museum before sailing was also blast. Even though we saw a lot of kids, I felt the museum was more for adults as it chronicles the life of Walt Disney; the usual struggles & triumphs and how he eventually created the Disney we know today. It’s a very famous museum… only to the people outside of the bay apparently… so I highly suggest a visit if you have a chance!
A summary of the day could be found in the video below:
The busy weekend continued Sunday with a spontaneous trip to the neighborhood park to throw around the baseball. Luckily one of the softball fields were empty so Chris, Gene, and I were able to get some good exercise. We hit the ball a couple times and disrupted the game on the other field, and although an old man came running and threatened to call the cops on us (the COPS… really?), we just kept on playing because we’re super bad asses like that.
I then headed over to Dolores Park in the Mission District for a relaxing picnic with Will, Brian, Soojin & friends. We drank a little bit of wine/beer, smoked some hookah, was amused by some REALLY drunk people, and was offered pot many times. Where else but Dolores Park?
Those kettles were filled with… pot!
Pascale & friends. The hookah felt authentic since she is Lebanese ^^
Brian & Soojin checking out pictures from Caranaval earlier in the day.
Night time quickly fell, and I was off to another good-bye party for a friend. This night also turned out to be a much longer night than planned or anticipated. But of course, I made it back home in one piece and was up and ready for Sunday’s activities, albeit a little late…
We started the final day of the long weekend at Half Moon Bay Brewery with good food and drinks (sans the drinks for me, other than soda), then headed over to a McD’s nearby for dessert! I’ve forgot how awesome their frozen yogurts are! So creamy and delicious. Chris, Doug & I were then off to golf at the HMB Ritz Carlton’s Ocean Course.
Mmmmm! Seafood yum.
This course was really amazing, and I kept on telling Chris that I felt like I was in Scotland. The views were incredible, and there was even a trail for people to walk around. Even if you are not a golfer, this trail is definitely one place you should check out next time your down in HMB.
I want to go back!
This weekend is the second week of a string of very busy (albeit fun filled) 8 weekends in a row. It’s going to be a challenge to keep up with these blog posts, but at least I’ll have something to write about every week. James Chung is making a week long visit to SF before we head together to LA for some socal fun. We started the weekend with a trip to Toyose, then on to some other bars in the mission area. I was incredibly tired as I usually am on Friday nights and it was a relatively calm night for all of us.
The next morning, we headed up northeast to the city of San Rafael for golf at Peacock Gap GC. It’s always fun to play at a new course, and this time was no exception. The last time the four of us played together was in San Diego, and playing at a new course under warm weather made me feel like I was back in SD. The course was well maintained and fun, but the putting greens were a bit ridiculous in terms of difficulty.
The next morning started with brunch at Stacks and we ordered way too much food as usual (I blame one particular person, whom I shall not name). It was also the day of Bay to Breakers and since Stacks is near the route, we got to see a lot of people in funky costumes or a lack of clothes in general. I think I saw at least 5 butts, all dudes. I love SF -_____-…
After the picture session, we headed to church, then for some ice cream at bi-rite, then a tour of Twin Peaks and Fisherman’s Warf, then finally picked up dinner at Little Star and ate at home to cap off the day. Phew~ I didn’t realize so much was possible in one day. Now I do.
The title is a bit misleading, because I didn’t do anything this weekend related to Mother’s Day… but nevertheless, it was still Mother’s Day. The weekend started off with a visit from my old friend Chan. He had a corporate party in SF so I got to catch dinner and some drinks with him. Steve hosted a BBQ on Saturday, and it turned out to be a little more beer happy than I had anticipated. The food btw, was amazingly good.
I took a last-minute trip to Napa today to celebrate Parkie’s birthday. This was my SECOND time (almost feel like a veteran of Napa saying that) visiting wine country, and my first in a fancy shmancy limo! I got to hit up some new wineries, starting with V.Sattui for lunch + wine. DK was right, this place has really good food for a reasonable price with a beautiful garden to eat!. The garden reminded me of Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte!
After the wonderful lunch, we headed over to Artesa for a real wine tasting. One of the best part of this winery was the beautiful building/location itself! The wine tasting was also very unique (i.e. the chocolate cup shots of wine) and the wine was delicious too. Then we headed across the lot to Domaine Carneros to finish off the day with some champagne! Not sure if that’s the proper way to end wine tasting, but I sure liked it.
Before dinner could be enjoyed, we first had to golf. We headed east to San Leandro to play at Monarch Bay GC. I usually hate this course, because its long, and windy… and flat with lots of traps to lose balls. However, today was a beautiful day and no complaints were rendered!
Will suggested batting cages. I agreed. I thought it would be nice to pound some big balls (as opposed to little mini golf balls), and it sure felt good! Not sure if it was the bat, my terrible hand/eye coordination, or my girly weak hands… but the stingers were no joke. It was seriously painful, but it still felt good to let some frustration out here.
We got hungry after the cages so decided to hit up a Japanese restaurant on the way back up to the city. Had no idea where to go of course, but thanks to yelp we found a nice little restaurant called Kobe. The food was really good and the deals were also not bad. A side of warning… they give you a LOT of food.
Aaron, Chris and I decided to catch dinner together while Aaron is still in town. Aaron initially suggested a tapas place in Belden Lane, but we switched it up to a French seafood restaurant called 
I continued my birthday celebration over the weekend with golf at Stonetree GC in Novato, CA Saturday morning. I was a little nervous due to the way I was hitting balls at the range on Thursday, but was secretly hoping I had taken the rust off a bit and would hit better on Saturday. Nope. I played the entire course like I was hitting at the range… note to self, go to the range more. It was a beautiful course on a beautiful day nevertheless (with the exception of the cold front that crept up on us in the final two holes), and a day spent golfing is a day spent well. Thanks Chris for golf! And beer! And the hot dogs!
Back at home we prepared for the birthday house party. Guests quickly trickled in and I went from sober to… not so sober a little too fast. Let’s not drink so fast from now on, yah? Thanks to all who made it to the party, hopefully I gave you some alcohol and didn’t drink everything by myself!
After defeating death Sunday morning and afternoon, it was birthday dinner time at Local Kitchen! It was the perfect venue, primarily because some of us were starving to death and it was all-you-can-eat pizza night! Thanks everybody for a delicious dinner!
After two years in the bay area, the stars aligned and I finally got a chance to go to Tahoe! I got a special invitation to hang out with the Fluffies at their annual Tahoe trip- this year to Sierra. It’s been at least 5 years since the last time I went skiing, and I’ve gone at most 2 or 3 times in the past 10 years after going almost 60-90 times a year during junior and senior year of high school. When I got invited to the trip I instantly went on a mad search for all my gear… only to come up empty. I thought of it as a good excuse to buy new stuff but it was also very expensive. My rational is that I’ll just use the crap out of it.
Jane picked me & Will up from my house, and after picking up some more friends we headed over to Cathy’s in Emeryville for a quick reorg of the caravan. We then stopped by Sonic for a quick bite, and although I wasn’t hungry from eating 인절미 and spam musubi, I couldn’t pass up on Sonic.
After lunch is where things got interesting, hazy, unclear (depending on the person). Apparently a few people were allocated with a larger amount of the special juice we prepared the night before, and now that I think about it, decided it would be a great idea to drink it all. While they were drinking away, I made a promise to Will that we would go on 3 more rides with one hour of skiing to go. Bad idea. Why? Because on run 1/3 I could barely carve because my thighs and calves were dead. But promise is a promise and I went on all three runs, PLUS a bunny slope run so more like 3.5 runs.
It was dinner time back in the cabin for most of us… nap time for some others. Big thumbs up to our cooks of the night!! From there we eventually moved onto some ridiculous round of games. There were quite a few moments where I thought I was going to die laughing. I was also challenged to a push up contest somewhere during the night by JANE (yes a girl, thanks Ahsome for reminding me…) and lost. Not only were my legs sore the next day, my upper body was sore too, my entire body was mad at me. After a quick stop for Pho at a random town near Sacramento (random as in, these people had cows and donkeys roaming around in their back yard), we called it a weekend and headed our separate ways. Good job guys, and thanks for inviting me to an awesome trip!
