The Return of Dunkin'

If you haven't heard the news yet, Dunkin' Donuts just made its debut back into the West Coast through its first store in Santa Monica (it's on Wilshire Blvd. so it's pretty hard to miss). I grew up eating Dunkin' Donuts in the Philippines so I'm glad that the well-loved doughnut shop in the East Coast is gracing us with its presence, right here in sunny California!

Word to the wise: Don't go during the weekend, the lines are insane.

Luckily my brother and boyfriend checked it out again on a weekday and the line was significantly shorter.

Guess how many doughnuts I can eat in 60 seconds?

These are freakin' awesome...but where are my Munchkins? Hmm...

Toodles! :)

Fruit Travels: A Day in San Francisco

I can't believe I actually forgot to blog about this one amazing day when my family and I took a spontaneous day trip to San Francisco. We were attending to other things somewhere in Northern California but we were fortunate to have a full day to do whatever and my Papi-san always wanted to go to the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi in North Beach, San Francisco.

So, off we go to San Francisco!

We got to the shrine a little too early that we had some time to kill. There was a coffee shop right across the street so we decided to chill there for a bit instead of risking death by intoxicating car farts. We went in there, got some croissants to fill the belly and got some extra quarters to pay the parking meter since I only had like 50 cents worth in my purse (this is why I live in the suburbs, so I don't have to worry about parking meters). Writing this post now, I'd like to take a moment to bang my head on the wall for NOT realizing that the simple little coffee shop that we went into called, Caffe Trieste, is in fact, a historical place for being the first to introduce the espresso in the West Coast back in the 1950's. Caffe Trieste is a favorite spot among famous poets, artists and writers---some of their famous patrons are Francis Ford Coppola, where it is said that he wrote most of the screenplay for The Godfather in this quaint coffeehouse, and Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman, where he gets his coffee fix frequently.

So yeah, I didn't take a picture of the place. What I did take though, was one picture and one picture only. I went to use their restroom and I thought, Hey that's pretty poetic to be on a restroom door.

numb to my heartbeat
feel time I can not

keep.

By the time we walked back to the car, the shrine had already opened. We had the shrine to ourselves for a good hour so I was able to take proper pics. I get shy when I take pictures inside a sacred place since I don't want to come off as being disrespectful to others while they are in prayer.

 Relics of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare of Assisi

La Porziuncola Nuova, a scaled replica of Saint Francis's Porziuncola in Assisi, Italy.

Being always the designated food strategist (absolutely made that title up), I had my mind set on a restaurant just around North Beach to grab some lunch. I was so worried, wondering where the restaurant could be and hoping that it wouldn't be a pain to find parking, especially that it was like 20 minutes 'til noon after we came out from the shrine.

Uhm, yeah. Call it luck but damn, I was outside Caffe Trieste and I somehow wanted to peak through the other corner of the street and ...Oh Em Gee, I found it! The restaurant was just a couple of shops down from the coffee shop.

The House

The House is a small restaurant but we were able to grab the last available table in the nick of time. Five minutes after we were seated, there were at least 5 other parties that were waiting to get a table. Phew!

A simple yet ingenious idea for their place mat.

The menu was simple, so we were able to order right away. I was totally blown away by the flavors, this is definitely a hidden gem in the neighborhood (well, not really since it's like, all over the internet now) and I highly recommend this place. The best time to visit would probably be on a weekday, right before noon or if you wouldn't mind waiting, you could maybe grab some late lunch.

Warm Wasabi House Noodles with Grilled Salmon--holy moley this was effin' goooddd.

Curry Noodles with Grilled Chicken

Grilled Sea Bass with Garlic Ginger Soy on the side.

Fried Chicken Sandwich

To burn off that sumptuous lunch, we decided to head out to the quaint (but very expensive) little town of Sausalito. Sausalito is located right next to the Golden Gate bridge so you could make this place into a nice little detour after you're done cussing at the fog for ruining your travel photos.

Call it pre-meditated but every time we get to visit this place, we always seem to park right next to this shop that serves fish & chips, ice cream and all sorts of comfort food.

So uhm, yea. After just having lunch, can we consider this as a light afternoon snack?

Fish & Chips

Pistachio ice cream

It's always fun to walk around a small town like Sausalito, 'coz you can always keep yourself entertained by finding niche shops.

 Aptly named Soxalito, the store sells all sorts of---you guessed it right---socks!

Sadly, I don't see so much of this brand's retail shops around but I still love you, my first fashion love, Benetton!

I went inside this novelty shop (of course, I forgot the name of it) that had some great souvenirs like these below.

They got some Lip Sh*t in my flavor...Asian Pear!

"Don't have UGLY children" 

"Coffee makes me poop"

Anyone interested in buying right-foot shoe lasts?

Oh my Lawdy, it's Rin Tin Tin! I want to collect ALL OF THEM!

Just the way I like it, some fog and overcast skies. It's perfect for a The Notebook type of love story or a The Conjuring sequel. You can get a great view of the San Francisco skyline (when it's not foggy or hazy, which is rare) while sitting on one of the benches.

Before we headed back to the car, I crossed the road (to where that guy above is standing at) to get a better view and look who popped up to bid me goodbye! A cute sea lion! You'll normally see them swim around the water, getting pestered by the seagulls.

Speaking of seagulls...there was this odd one in particular that was just staring at me, as if it was saying, "Go ahead, take a picture of me but make sure it's not my fat angle." It must have been used to a lot of tourists since it never flew away even if I was THIS close to it.

Do you know that I got mugged by a seagull in Sea World, San Diego a few years back? Yeah, it was kinda traumatizing but they can be conniving feathery bastards when they want to be. Not hating...like, at all.


Toodles!

The Reluctant Road Tripper: Day 14

Nevada→California

This is it! We are on the final leg of this amazing trip and you know where the final stop is going to be...home sweet home, California! Coming out from Laughlin, there’s a narrow road that you would pass through and if you are feeling a little bit insane and ruin your car, you can go a little bit faster to feel the rollercoaster-like, uneven road. The engineer who built this road was definitely on some good shhh or he was a toddler...or a toddler on some good shhh.

See how freakin' uneven the road is? Man, I hate rollercoasters.

And here we are cutting across the Mojave desert.

Did you know that there are actually volcanoes located in the Mojave desert? They have been dormant for thousands of years but you can clearly see the vast land filled with dark lava rocks. I really had no idea that volcanoes existed in deserts. What the heck was I doing back in elementary? Playing Nintendo, that's what! Listen to your teachers, kids!

If I am not mistaken, this is the Pisgah crater.  The lava rocks make quite a contrast against the sand of the desert.

Thinking that we were in the middle of nowhere, I was really surprised to see some trailers and small houses scattered around (like, yeah, in the middle of the damn desert). And I can’t help but wonder…where the heck do they get their supplies? There are no establishments within 60 miles or so and what if they forgot to buy toilet paper on their last trip to the grocery store? Do people visit them during the holidays or family gatherings? What if the Texas Chainsaw massacre guy paid them a visit, where will they run to? What if they get the munchies and they ran out of Doritos? I'm sure you were thinking the same thing too, right? No? It's only me? Mmmk.

We were so close to home but we decided to do a quick pit stop at the Barstow Station where they had the usual fast food haunts such as McDonald's and Panda Express...they even had a little kiosk that served Filipino cuisine, what a sweet surprise!

And tadaaaa...

I AM FINALLY HOME! I'm so happy to see this big baby but I'm not sure if he's happy to see me, he looks mighty comfortable on my bed, non?

I’d like to make a special shout out to Skyler’s dog sitter who took special care of Sky for two weeks. Thanks a lot for keeping my baby alive and healthy! I hope Skyler didn’t give you any more headaches than you usually have and I hope he only kicked you out of the bed once! Hehe!

My overall experience with the road trip was simply awesome and I understand now why a lot of people in the U.S. like to do it too. The interstate roads are well-maintained, there are plenty of clean rest areas spread across every state and they even have huge grass areas for your pets to relieve themselves and get a little bit of exercise. I recommend bringing a GPS system with you for easier navigation and make sure to check up on the weather so you'll know if there are any storms, tornadoes, hurricanes that you need to watch out for.

This pretty much concludes the Road Tripper series and all I can say is that I enjoyed every single feet-cramping, pee-holding, junk food-bingeing moment of the journey, and I couldn't have enjoyed it with anyone else but the company of my family. I hope this journey has inspired some my fellow readers to plan their own little adventures once in a while despite having a bustling, busy life and see the world with all its wonders. No adventure is too great or too small, it's all up to you to make the journey worth remembering.

And to all you wide-eyed wanderers out there...

May your travels be filled with wonderful surprises and sumptuous food, and may you be blessed with a newfound perspective in life!

Toodles!

The Reluctant Road Tripper: Day 1

DAY 1 California→Nevada→Utah→Colorado

I don’t seem to remember whose bright idea it was to do a road trip from California all the way to the East coast and how the heck I bought it because here I am, crammed in a huge SUV with excess luggage, plastic/paper bags of random stuff like toothpaste, plastic forks and phone chargers poking me on every part of my body. Mind you, this is the first real interstate road trip I’ve ever been on. Add that with my parents and two of my siblings joining in and well…let’s just say you will have to get creative to withstand the 15-hour drive per day.

In between bickering about who ordered the large fries with what in the drive-thru and listening to the same songs played over and over on the satellite radio, I promise to document as much as I can as I go along.

A 2-week long road trip diet consists of mostly one thing---big, bad junk food. Naturally, I am appointed to pick the junk food to carry for the trip---(tough job, I know).

Some of my faves from Trader Joe’s:

The must-try's are the Kettle Cooked Olive Oil potato chips, Sea Salt Butterscotch caramels and the Chocolate crisps.

Ready or not, here we come.

We headed out at 5 am in the morning and managed to cross from California to Nevada then to Arizona then to Utah and ended the day in Colorado. Take note that we left right after my little sister’s graduation so my family and I were totally beat without enough time to recuperate from all the craziness that comes with graduation ceremonies. We didn't have time to stop over the main cities of each state since we were literally just passing through but the scenery was still phenomenal. I took some naps in between but I tried to stay up and take some interesting photos. 

The ones that really caught my eye were of the natural rock formations as we crossed from one state to another.

You can easily spot high-end homes as well, just hanging right on cliffs and mountains.

The view from this house must be amazing...and the bathrooms too. Tee-hee. I think I spotted this house while we were passing through Utah.

A great scenic view here in Colorado.

Colorado is usually flocked by tourists and locals alike during winter season, having Aspen and Vail as the go-to spots especially for celebrities. I'm not really the outdoors type of person but I think it would still be fun to hang around these resorts whilst drinking hot chocolate, watching people get knocked off their @sses in the snow. Amen? Amen.

Due to higher elevation, the potato chips were all puffed up that one of 'em popped! So when you're traveling through the Colorado Rockies, make sure to secure your chips in a paper bag to save yourself from a messy situation.

With having to endure 24 hours of not being able to take a shower, a pair of sunglasses and some Dior lipstick will automatically be your best friends. OMG, I KNOW it’s gross but I just couldn't get myself to wake up and take a shower at the crack of dawn before we left for the trip! FYI, I showered right when we got to the hotel so I’m so fresh and so clean, clean whilst typing this post.

Yes, that is a roll of toilet paper in my hand. Staying classy.

By the way, it’s always a bad idea to bring Chinese food if you know you’re going to be on the road for the whole day. Lesson absolutely learned.

 a) You're going to stink up the car and b) something will act up---rhymes with towels.

Hello Panda!

I can’t resist but share this really amazing feature of our Ford Expedition rental:

A legit power socket! No more smashing your head against the dashboard for not remembering to bring the car charger! Of course, this was my first time to see such a thing on a vehicle so I was gawking at it like a cave woman. Oh and speaking of car features, make sure to get a rental that has a satellite radio or have a music device plugged in---you'll breeze through those long winding roads if you've got your fave songs on.

For accommodations, I greatly recommend the Marriott group. No matter where you are, the standards are pretty consistent and the rooms are clean and decent. They also tend to not be situated in shady areas, so that kinda gave me the peace of mind, especially that we're not familiar with the places that we're going to.

This was my room in Colorado. I forgot if this is in Courtyard or Residence Inn.

Anyhoo, I’ll keep mum about the final destination of this long excursion to myself until I get there. And no, you can’t really guess what it’s about because for the first time in history, it’s NOT about me. Just kidding. It’s always about me. Mwahahaha.

Toodles!