What does the title say above? Any guesses?
So anyways, last weekend was the last weekend that Meghan was going to be home, so we took an overnighter trip to the Bay Area and used up all our last Marriott Points as well. “Blow them all!” Shelley was heard exclaiming from another room as I was booking the hotel.
Friday we drove down to San Jose via the “Windmill Freeway” and it was a windy day and the windmills were actually working!
We went to the Tech Museum on Saturday and got there right when it opened. We basically had the place to ourselves. We hadn’t been here in many years, but the kids always refer to this museum as the one that has the robot that spells out your name. You type in your name, and it moves blocks that seem to appear as if they are randomly laid out (but the robot knows what block is where) and then the robot quickly arranges the blocks to spell your name.
They had this cool light wall that you could press and make music. We all spent some time making our little tune and then we would turn it up loud and blast it all over the museum.
We walked the line using “drunk” glasses
Played the submarine game
And everyone tried the lunar landing chair that floats on air and you have to use air controlled thrusters to get the lander in 3 different spots to get points.
It was so nice to be almost the only ones in there! By the time we left, it was starting to get busy.
Then it was on to our first night’s hotel in Capitola, just down the street from Santa Cruz. The hotel was a mile away from the beach so it was really nice. The beach was partially under a huge cliff that was straight up (or down) and looked like it could come crumbling down at any time.
There was a section of the beach where people, mostly kids, were learning to surf. The waves were small and it was a nice cove to learn. We watched them for a while, and the Meghan and Marissa decided that they’d never tried it, and would probably be a long time before they had the chance to try it again, so they went and tried it!
It wasn’t as hard as they thought, but it was tiring. They both got up a few times, and although the waves were small and short, it was the perfect place to go to learn.
We then went to the Boardwalk (we’ve never been) and it was just closing, but it was fun to walk around and see what it’s like. I like how this pic turned out.
The next day was Sunday, and we wanted to take it easy since it was Sunday, so we went to the Redwoods and learned about God’s creation. We happened on a volunteer and he offered to give us a “private” tour since we had a “big” family. Edgar was his name, and he LOVED his trees! He told us all about them, and the 20 minute self guided tour took us over an hour because of all the stuff we learned.
We even got to all go INSIDE one of the trees that used to be used as a HOTEL! It’s pitch black inside but back in the day, it had a small kitchen, fireplace and bed.
Edgar took us on a little side trip to walk across a train trestle and he guaranteed us that the redwood train wouldn’t be coming for about an hour. It was a nice little bridge and a fun side trip.
We found several geo caches along the trail as well, and one was even inside the tree we went in. We didn’t find it though, and as we were looking around for it, Edgar asked us what we were doing, and if we were looking for something. We told him we were looking for petroglyphs and then he said, “Oh, they are over here” and actually showed us some! He kept talking and we kept looking, but we never found that geocache.
After the redwoods, we headed up the coast to go to the 2nd night’s hotel which was in San Ramon. We went for a little hike at a close park and found another geocache up a little hill. The view at the top of the hill was out over San Ramon and the sun was starting to go down. It was a very pretty city.
Now we are at Monday. Wouldn’t you know it, a weak storm came in for Monday and it drizzled in the morning, but we were not going to change our plans! A little drizzle isn’t going to hurt us! We have been to Six Flags Magic Mountain in a torrential rain storm, it’s just water!
First stop of the day was a tour of the USS Hornet near Oakland. We have always wanted to go see this, and when a Groupon deal came out a few weeks ago, we snatched it up!
The USS Hornet was an Essex class aircraft carrier built during and after WW II. She is one of the most decorated ships in the US Navy. The USS Hornet participated in WWII, the Vietnam War and the first moon missions. HUH? Moon missions? Yep, in 1969 the Hornet recovered the Apollo 11 space capsule and the first men to walk on the moon. A few months later, the ship also recovered the Apollo 12 capsule and it’s crew.
The ship was on the front lines of WWII in the Pacific and was attached 59 times, but never hit by a bomb, torpedo, or Kamikaze aircraft. Hornet pilots shot down a record 62 enemy aircraft in one day and 255 in one month.
Since the weather was cold and drizzly, we pretty much had the ship to ourselves! Normally, it’s a self guided tour around 75% of the ship, but since there were so few of us, (about 15 total people there) we got to have a personal guided tour of about 90% of the ship by one of docents that actually served on the ship. He LOVED his ship! He took us to places that the public normally doesn’t get to go like the kitchen, the brig, the ammo storage area, the engine room and some other spots.
We loved it! It was a very cool place to go and we were so glad we continued with our plans to go!
This was their Leatherby’s – it was the ships Ice Cream Shop!
Part 2 of our day was to go to Chinatown in San Fran. We’ve never been there and just wanted to walk around. Not the touristy places, but the real Chinatown. We downloaded some walking tour maps to the phone, and set out. First we had to get past the street or two of tourist traps (shops), and then kept walking and soon found ourselves in the real Chinatown. At least we thought we did. We loved the streets and how they were decorated. Even the light poles were not your normal street lights. This first photo is all the older men sitting at a plaza playing some kind of card gambling game, and chess and checkers. Because of the weather and it being a Monday, it’s wasn’t very crowded.
We went to a fortune cookie factory that was about as big as our living room and the ladies make the cookies by hand. They charge you 50 cents to take a photo.
As we were looking at our maps and wondering where to go next, an older Chinese man came over to us and asked if we were all one family and what we were looking for. He asked us if we were looking for something to eat. And in fact, we were. He said, in his broken English, that he would show us a good place to eat if we wanted to follow him. He told us that it wasn’t a fancy place. It didn’t have table cloths, or nice chairs, or nice decorations, but that it was a real Chinese place and authentic. We all looked at each other and said why not. (Another of those things that you probably won’t get to repeat or do again for a long time), so we followed him. We turned a corner and suddenly we were in the REAL Chinatown. No more white people ANYWHERE! Yep, we felt a little out of place, but we kept walking. Our little tour guide talked to us as we walked, asked us where we were from, etc. Someone had on a BYU sweatshirt and he told us that he spent some time in Provo and knew in China the Mormon missionaries came to his house a few times. We walked past shops were there was shop keepers yelling over the noise and people yelling back buying and selling food. After several blocks, and everyone staring at us, we came to a small hole in the wall restaurant. He sat us down at a table and went to get us some food. We wanted to wash our hands so he took us back into the kitchen area to the one small bathroom in there. He brought over an assortment of things to eat, none of which we really knew what we were eating. We told him we didn’t want any fish and just wanted chicken and beef. We nibbled at the selections he brought us and kept telling us to eat up and wouldn’t let us be done until we had eaten most of the food!
As we were eating, he told us a little about him. He has no TV or internet, and lives in a 500 square foot apartment. He studies and reads the bible daily for hours. He told us all scriptures that we needed to read and keep in our lives. We asked him to show us how to write our names in Chinese and did so.
After we were allowed to leave, and we had satisfied his requirement to “Eat up” we said our goodbye’s and made our way back to Normal Town. On the way back, I spotted some very good looking cherries someone was selling in one of the shops for an absurd price of only 99 cents a pound! They are $4.00 a pound here in the store! They were huge and so bright red. All the ones in the stores here are small and not too good. I went up and pointed and said I wanted 3 pounds, and they dumped some in a bag and I had to go inside the store to pay. No English was being spoken, and the my three pounds I wanted ended up weighing 6 pounds, but I didn’t mind spending $6 for that many cherries! As we kept walking, we all tried some the cherries. They were so fresh! Plump! Juice! and HUGE! They were so good! Now tell me, how super fresh big cherries that don’t grow anywhere near San Fran, end up in Chinatown and are the best cherries I’ve ever eaten?
MMMMMM Those cherries were so good! Didn’t even come close to the cherries we have in the store! The only thing the same that the Chinese San Fran cherries did compared to the lame English cherries I found in the grocery store was they both would cause uh hmmm.. extended toilet sitting down time if you ate too much (which I did). It was worth it!
Anyway, we had a great 3 day weekend, and headed home Monday evening. We did lots of “Firsts” on this trip and had a great time!
Oh, the title of this post says, in Chinese, “I’m Think I’m Turning Japanese (or Chinese)” in referring the song titled, “I’m Think I’m Turning Japanese” by The Vapors.
1 comment:
Totemo omoshiroii yo!
Domo ogarimashita. Mina wa genki desu ne!
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