Skinny Legs and All

more traveling...

2010-11-20T00:07:00.000-08:00

since my last post which was more than a year ago... hubby and i have done the drive up the west coast to san francisco, staying at big sur on the way. we've also gone to new zealand, where i checked off some things from my bucket list, such as skydiving and bungee jumping in queenstown and going on a helihike (helicopter and hike) on franz josef glacier...the best 3 days of my life! we saw new zealand by driving the north and south island. we went to the waitomo caves, which were featured on planet earth's caves, and went into 2 caves, one which was the glowworm cave. we got stuck on the road with thousands of sheep crossing. we saw the most beautiful lakes ever, lake tekapo and others, they were turqoise in color and almost looked like glass, something with the sedimentation and glaciers that makes the color. we experienced the maori culture, by seeing where and how they lived which was very interesting. we went luging in a park and got flung back and forth like a rubber band on this ride (have a hilarious video). this was definitely one of our most memorable trips! u got to love them kiwis! Sweet As and No Worries as the locals would say...

we just came back from a 10 day trip to australia, so while it's still fresh in my mind, here is a summary of what we did...

sydney (3 days) - paddington market, oxford street shops, hike from bondi beach to coogee beach (sculpture by the sea), chinatown (had taiwanese dessert), circular quay and the rocks, darling harbor, captain cook harbor cruise, watson's bay, hyde park, opera house, harbor bridge climb (3.5 hours), king's cross and potts point

on to cairns, but our flight was cancelled in sydney due to weather so we actually had to spend another night in sydney and move our reef trip a day

cairns (1 day) - stayed at the shangri-la hotel on the marina, passions of paradise outer reef trip, intro scuba diving - 2 dives at paradise reef and michaelmas cay (the cay was awesome, saw lots of fish, turtles, and a sting ray), ate moreton bay bugs at paw prawns- so deliciouso!!

great ocean road (1 day) - rented a car in melbourne which i drove almost the whole time, it was a huge mission to get to our cottage in the dark, but we finally made it! stayed at the eastern reef cottages, so cute, and wish we had just more than 1 night. in the morning, started driving the great ocean road back, rock formations we saw were the grotto, london bridge, the arch, loch ard gorge, 12 apostles...all amazing! saw tons of koalas residing in trees on the way to the lighthouse, which we never made it to because it had just closed when we got there, but the koalas were worth the drive. went to a wildlife farm, which was totally deserted, but actually turned out to be awesome because we saw a mother koala and baby up close, fed kangaroos, wallabys, emus (snatched the feed right out of my hands), deer, goats...

melbourne (2 days) - driving in the city was scary, driving right next to the monorail and have to stay on the left lane to turn right (keep in mind, i am driving on the left side of the road and the driver's side is on the right), shopping is awesome, eating is awesome, chinatown, botanical gardens, queen victoria market (huge market with food, wine, souvenirs, everything you can imagine) it was here that i bought my didgeradoo (not sure if that's the spelling), southbank area, sunday arts market

some facts i learned...

they don't drink Fosters! they drink VB (victoria bitter), XXXX gold...

going to the whoop whoop means going to the outback lol

the aussies say "no worries" for everything....bye, thankyou, your welcome, see you later...

TONS of asians! even coming from california, it's a culture shock! lol

the weather from cairns to melbourne is so drastic! cairns - hot and humid, melbourne - rainy and cold

our travels so far...

2009-06-01T23:42:00.000-07:00

Third post in a row...I'm on a roll!!! Quick one though. Hubby and I have gone to san diego, palm springs, san francisco, and yosemite these last few months. Yosemite is awesome by the way and one of our goals is to train ourselves to hike up half dome...look it up...it is pretty scary!

Places we still need to go are: santa barbara, catalina, portland, seattle, vancouver, mammoth, lake tahoe, napa, big sur, coast drive from LA to san fran...i'm pretty sure i have a longer list than this. We almost planned a trip to alaska, but that will have to wait for now.

Just getting back from Yosemite memorial day weekend, we are taking a break from traveling (we'll see how long that will last), as we have found a hobby. Yes a hobby finally!! Hubby and I are taking sailing lessons. We love it, but we hate it. Can't really explain it, but we both agreed that it's a really cool hobby and we are enjoying ourselves and at the same time we can't wait until the lessons are over and done with! It is some hardwork, no you just don't sit there shooting the breeze, basking in the sun, you actually have to sail and do some manual labor...what is that?!? lol At least I know the 100 vocabulary words that comes with sailing!

my favorite topic...eating...

2009-06-01T23:14:00.000-07:00

It's been almost 10 months since I've moved out here to california. Hubby and I have found our favorite breakfast joint called Eat at Joe's, it's a family style sitting that looks like a hole in the wall from the outside, but is always packed with lines on the weekends. We strongly recommend their onion rings, I get them as a side for breakfast every time, it's heaven!!! And people next to you will literally be jealous watching the plate of heavenly onion rings placed in front of you and them. Trust me, we've offered them to people and they've actually taken some off our plate AND dipped them in our ketchup so they can try them...it's that good! Ok enough about onion rings... We haven't found our local fave sushi joint yet, which is quite disappointing, so the search continues and meanwhile we still go to RA on a regular basis. We did find a great chinese place called W's china bistro down the street and it is very yummy (their tuna poke and duck is what we get every time we go).

We finally made it to the Stinkin' Rose where all is garlic...enough said! I had the 40 clove garlic chicken and kept pouring the garlic on my dish if 40 cloves weren't enough. I tried the garlic ice-cream, couldn't tell whether it was garlic flavored at this point since everything I stuck in my mouth tasted like garlic. We all had a rough couple of days afterwards....will not elaborate, but all in all it was quite a garlicky experience...yum!

Lastly let me tell you about the mexican food and how addicted I have become to tacos. It is all things mexican here! We even had awesome tacos from a man that calls himself the TacoMan, apparently he does weddings, bar mitzvahs, birthday parties, special events, etc. I would know, I asked for his business card. He came to Target and stood right outside of the employee entrance with his own grill, cooking away, taco after taco for 300 employees and boy were they good! There are random taco stands that have tons of people waiting in line when you drive by, it is awesome! Tacos and beer...perfect combo!

One more thing that trumps the east coast, not that i'm all of a sudden a west coast gal, is the fast food joint In-N-Out. They have some seriously good burgers and fries and that's all they have on their menu. This is their menu: hamburger, cheesburger, double cheeseburger, fries, done! But for us californians or wanna be californians, there is a hidden secret hush hush menu, that's what I like to call it. Just order your fries animal style next time and see what you get :)

My first earthquake...yikes!!

2009-06-01T23:05:00.000-07:00

Since my last blog, which was months ago, my famous last words were "no earthquakes yet". I have since experienced my first earthquake a few weeks ago on May 17th...yikes! I had no idea what was going on until it was over. I'm sitting on the couch going through my facebook as usual, and the whole apartment building just shook really hard for about 2 seconds. Penny lets out one bark (she never barks by the way), Pepe flies out of his cage (his cage door was opened) and flies across the room, so that got me all panicked even more. I run to get Penny who is trying to hide under the couch and opened my door. I see one guy that ran outside down the hall and some murmurs from another apartment. So I am wondering what just happened, so I call the hubby who is at work and he immediately asks me if I was okay. So he did feel it and it was a 4.7 earthquake. He rushes home and that was that. About 2-3 days later, another small earthquake (4.1) happened in almost the same spot. This time it felt like a small tremor. So there was my experience...

our new puppy penelope...

2008-11-27T17:04:00.000-08:00

since being here, i have missed my puppy roxy back home a lot! so the hubby decided to surprise me with a new puppy for my birthday and there she was when i came home from work, little head popping up between two couch pillows. we went through so many names (ginger, flower, olive, koffee, noodles...) but we finally found the perfect name... penelope, we call her penny for short. she was 3 months old and 4 1/2 lbs when we first got her, now she is about 3 1/2 months old and a little over 6 lbs. she is a handful!! she took to the puppy pads almost instantly, so we thought our job would be a lot easier, but that is not the case. let's just say she has her off days. i still miss roxy and maybe one day when we own our own house, roxy can move over and her and penny will become fast friends. i have tons more pictures on my camera, i will post them later! off to eat some thanksgiving dinner somewhere...

attempting to start a blog...

2008-11-27T02:36:00.000-08:00

this is the first time i am attempting to write a blog, so here goes. it is approximately 3:00 am pacific time, yes pacific time. after living on the east coast all of my life, i am currently adjusting to life on the west coast. i constantly have to watch myself being aware of the time, being careful not to call people too late or making sure if a preview to a tv show says 9 pm that it doesn't mean eastern time or if it does, to switch it to pacific time... you know... the little things.

so what's new with me? except for the fact that i just moved across the country about 2 months ago, i will go back to sum up my life in a nutshell. after graduating pharmacy school in maryland, i moved back to florida to work for target and live with the parents. and during the 2 years i was down in florida, i went to europe three times, got engaged in italy, then went on to get married in hawaii, which leads me here in california, finally settled down and all grown up. yes following the hubby and his job... good thing my job is pretty flexible.

so i've been here in redondo beach with the hubby for almost 2 months. we have an apartment right on the pier by the beach... we absolutely love our location and our view of PV "aka palos verdes" is gorgeous... we just wish we could have more friends and family here to share this with. it is just the four of us... me, the hubby, hubby's bird pepe, and the newest edition to our little family, our shitzu puppy penelope, penny for short. we both work a lot... i have a lot more responsibility now that i am a pharmacy manager. when we are not working, we watch our tv shows and eat out a lot. we are working on finding our local favorites and of course everyone that knows me, knows that i love trying new foods! that's what is so great about out here, so many great places to eat! the only disappointment for me is my favorite sushi place is still a place back in florida... so the search continues for a great sushi joint. as for us venturing out further, we haven't explored too much, but we did go to vegas twice and that was a blast!

the weather is great here, it's really nice during the day and it gets a little chilly in the mornings and nights. we've just entered into a little bit of a rainy spell, but that is very good here since it never usually rains. i'm sure you've all heard about the bouts of brush fires in and around LA lately. and no experience with earthquakes yet! well that's about it for now, off to sleep. i will make another attempt tomorrow and make a turkey! happy thanksgiving!!