Coasting Over the Bay

Wow, what a weekend! I had (sort of) surprised Mas with a flight lesson for his birthday. The sort came from me being too excited to wait and I also needed his weight haha. He had worked with an old co-worker who runs a flight school, California Airways, and is a pilot himself. I thought okay, even though I’m not totally on board for the whole flying thing I knew the conversations about flying were starting to occur more and more often.

Mas woke up with a huge smile on his face and peaked his head outside to confirm that the sun rays shining into our bedroom did in fact mean amazingly beautiful weather. We headed out to the Hayward airport and when we arrived Mas dove right into the plane video game that they had setup in the waiting area to get warmed up.

When it was his turn for the simulator practice, we were both amazed by the room, it had HUGE tv screens and the simulator environment was of the Bay Area. It’s a good thing Mas has such a great sense of direction. I should mention that I was there as support but had decided that I didn’t really want to ride as a passenger aka I was freakin scared! After the simulator though and talking to Mas’ old co-worker I felt like I would totally be missing out on a beautiful day coasting around the bay, so I rode as a passenger. :)

Mas, his old co-worker and myself headed out to the plane and for some reason my nerves appeared to be much less than when we took the helicopter ride in Hawaii (yikes! I haven’t posted these pictures). They checked out the plane and then we boarded, went through the checklist and …. took off!

Words can’t describe the view, we literally coasted all around the bay area with Mas flying like a pro. We flew over the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, the coast, Palo Alto and back to Hayward. The flight was very smooth and I actually felt safe oddly haha.

I never thought that I would say this but I’m looking forward to Mas getting his pilot’s license. :)

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New Adventure in the City

Hi Everyone! Guess what?? I think I’m actually going to have time now to update issho-ni and that puts a big smile on my face! I started a new adventure (job) in SF and actually have the mornings to get my day started at a leisurely pace. I met my new team yesterday and couldn’t be more excited and assured that things do happen for a reason.

So my day now starts at a cute, quaint cafe in SOMA, Caffe Centro. The environment is so calming and the view outside the open windows is of a beautiful little park (South Park). The weather has been amazing so it is a perfect place to sip on a morning coffee and people watch.

caffe centro 1

caffe centro 2

 

 

Golden Gate Park & Japanese Garden (San Francisco, CA)

Since we were in the area we decided to hop on over to see Golden Gate Park. Now I had this discussion with Mas, but whoever called this place a park is crazy, this is a forest!! I couldn’t believe how close it was to the ocean and how there were little bits of grass areas for friends and families to hang out all over. In the middle is a place for concerts, an art display, science exhibit and the Japanese Gardens. I wanted to visit the Japanese Garden so bad, so we stopped and it was really cute. There was a restaurant in the middle that overlooked the garden, Mas and I stopped and had tea with some treats. There’s also an amazing bridge that is seriously so steep. We had fun climbing over it.

Golden Gate Park and everything inside is a must see for those who haven’t!

Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco, CA)

The Golden Gate Bridge was on our list of to-dos and with the weather being so nice this weekend we thought it would be the perfect time to go. No words could describe the views and the air was so crisp and clean. We admired the sailboats floating in the distance and watched a wind surfer get some major air. We alsoooooo drove by the Painted Ladies! For those who don’t know they are the famous houses that were filmed for Full House. Mas was able to see where DJ Tanner lived, so he was pretty happy hahahaha.

Fun Facts:
1. Marin County - Sausalito is on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge.
2. The Golden Gate Bridge is 1.7 miles.

Date Night in the City (San Francisco, CA)

This date night restaurant was a recommendation from one of Mas’ co-worker’s. 25 Lusk was a couple of streets away from Giant’s stadium, down a little street/alley. I was totally thrown off by how nice the restaurant is and questioned why it was in the area that it was in? Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be there when it’s dark haha. The interior was built of natural dark wood, but had a modern feel. It reminded me much of a spa with the tranquil decor and lighting. Each table was set and had a small lit candle in the center, I don’t know what it was about having every table set with glassware that reflected off of one another but it set such a elegant tone throughout the restaurant. Below the restaurant was the lounge area, this too was decorated with similar elements and lent itself to a great place to get together with friends.

Mas had the flat iron steak with arugula and risotto and I had a white fish dish with lobster sauce (I can’t remember the name but went for it because it had lobster haha). The presentation was beautiful and they both tasted delightful! We followed up with mint ice cream on a hot brownie, that too was very yummy.

This place felt like a restaurant straight out of a magazine, overall very enjoyable and will definitely want to go again!

Date Night in the City - Chinatown (San Francisco, CA)

Last week seemed to go by so slow, by the time Friday came around I was totally ready to have date night. We decided to go to Chinatown since the last time I went was YEARS ago and Mas had never been. We were both in awe of the streets and streets of restaurants and stores. I certainly didn’t remember Chinatown being so big.

Mas is the official Yelp’r, so he found a popular restaurant that was known for its deep fried, salt and black pepper crab, it’s called R&G Lounge. What was different about this place was that the whole crab was deep fried and had the seasoning all over, it made you want to bite right into the shell! It was amazing and we both truly enjoyed the meal.

SF Giants Game

We were invited to our first Giants game! My work kindly invited both Mas and I to go out to a Giants game with the Beyond team and their significant others, it was a blast!

We walked to the stadium (yes! it was that close) and met up with my co-workers by the pier. We caught some of the most amazing photos of the surrounding areas, I can’t believe that a stadium could be so close to the water!

It was Irish night and with our tickets received a chia pet of Brad Wilson, you just put the mixture on his beard and watch it grow! haha. I’ll post pictures once we take him out of the box.

 

Japantown (San Francisco)

Boy was I excited to visit J-Town! It was our first drive into the city and it only took 25 minutes! The view driving down the mountain was breath taking as we looked out upon the entire bay. PRICELESS.

Taka gave Mas an awesome list of places to visit, one of those places being in J-Town and it just so happened to be Tanpopo - my favorite J food….RAMEN! It was delish and I quietly ate straight through the whole bowl of ramen (I usually get a 1/2)…it’s serious business when you eat ramen.

While we were exploring the different shops and food places we came across a sushi joint - Isobune Sushi that was selling Pray For Japan bracelets, we stopped to buy one and while we were waiting it was quite entertaining to watch sushi on boats float around a moat while people would grab the sushi boat they wanted.

We were also able to stalk up on some much needed melon J snacks at the local J market. :-)