exploring | loveliness. | Page 3

Category: exploring
- asia sf
  
  Posted at 8:04 pm by jasminedesirees, on April 10, 2014
  
  I’ve been wanting to go to Asia SF for ages, it’s basically a San Francisco rite of passage and I knew it would be a really fun night out, I just needed the right person to go with.
  
  Asia Sf is a bar and restaurant where all the waiters are in drag, and they do cabaret/burlesque style shows on the bar as you eat.
  
  I took my sister when she was in town last week, and we had a blast.The show was great, everyone was there to have a good time, and the waiters looked amazing, one of them had the best legs I’ve seen on anyone, period.
  
  The food was delicious as well, which was a pleasant surprise, and their lemon drops were divine.
  
  I would definitely go back there with anyone visiting the city, as they say at Asia SF, “welcome to San Francisco, where the women are strong, and the men are beautiful”.
  
  Posted in California, exploring, San Francisco, USA | 1 Comment | Tagged Asia SF, burlesque, drag, drag queens, exploring, restaurants, San Francisco
- niagara
  
  Posted at 6:50 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 26, 2014
  
  The first thing we did when we arrived in Toronto, after a feverish race for the nearest Tim Horton’s (they didn’t have Nanaimo bars there, and I was very sad) was rent a car and head for Niagara Falls. We had no idea where we were going, our phones didn’t work, but we were just hoping for the best.
  
  It was a freezing cold, extremely icy day, we’d had to sit on the runway for an hour after landing because it was too cold for the ground crews to come get us off the plane, and as we drove toward the Falls there were vehicles in the ditch left and right.
  
  I was pretty nervous and wasn’t sure if we were being stupid to try to get down there, there is something to be said for seizing the moment and taking advantage of your situation when traveling, but there is probably an argument to be made for not being unnecessarily reckless, which is one I’m still not usually able to win with myself. If I want to do something, I’m usually doing it, regardless of consequences or changes in circumstance, but we made it there without incident.
  
  I had to be back later that night for the bachelorette party, but we had a solid few hours to spend creeping around and checking out the Falls. I imagined us strolling around the walkway and taking in the view from all angles.
  
  Those plans evaporated almost immediately once we set foot outside the vehicle, even though it had been a few hours since our plane landed, and it was very sunny outside, it was still bitterly cold. We raced down to the overlook, took some pictures and enjoyed the gorgeous view for as long as we possibly could, which was all of 10 minutes.
  
  Still it was amazing to see Niagara Falls in person, it was especially neat to see parts of it frozen. I would have been sad if we’d been so close and wouldn’t have made the short journey, even if it was a bit treacherous.
  
  Posted in Canada, exploring, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged adventures, Canada, frozen, Niagara falls, traveling, waterfall, winter
- favourites
  
  Posted at 5:54 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 25, 2014
  
  A few things that are making me happy right now:
  
  This list of countries that Canadians are eligible to work and live in via working holidays visas. There are so many amazing places in the world, I want to live everywhere. And if you want something bad enough, you’ll figure out a way to do it. There are a lot of opportunities out there if you are interested enough to seek them out, and brave enough to take advantage of them.
  
  The fact that it is officially spring, flowers are starting to bloom and I can wear dresses and sandals without freezing to death.
  
  Cherry blossoms on my neighbour’s tree on a beautiful California day
  
  I came across The Dictionary of Obscure sorrows when I was creeping around the web one day. It is a dictionary of made up words that aim to define feelings or occurrences that have no real definition.
  
  This amazing Eyeko eyeliner is life changing. I couldn’t use liquid eyeliner before because it took so long to get the tiny, wispy little strokes even, and I usually ended up looking like Derek had punched me in the eye. Eyeko has a nice, thick tip so it’s like drawing on your eyeliner with a Sharpie. It is way easier to get a consistent line, and it stays on all day.
  
  Sometimes I get free samples from Sephora, and it reminds me that the world is a lovely place full of wonderful people
  
  Posted in exploring, favourites, travel, Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Tagged canadian, dictionary of obscure sorrows, eyeko, eyeliner, favourites, sephora, work visa
- lady liberty
  
  Posted at 8:19 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 21, 2014
  
  On a bitterly cold morning in NYC, at the crack of dawn basically which seemed like a good plan when I was planning our trip, but didn’t take into account the drinking into the wee hours of the night before, we loaded onto a boat to go see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
  
  We stood up at the very front of the boat, outside, to get the best view, but we were completely alone. Everyone else was inside the cabin, warm and toasty and looking at us like we were nuts. My mother pointed out that she lives in Canada and it’s way colder there. I reminded her that I’ve been living in Hawaii and California for the last seven years, and helpfully offered to push her in the water so she could remember what it felt like to be freezing.
  
  Once we got to Liberty Island, we climbed up about 250 stairs to the top of the platform. The Statue of Liberty is definitely smaller than I thought it was going to be, it looks absolutely enormous in all of the movies and shows I’ve ever seen, but it was still really neat to see it in person.
  
  I was also surprised and a little worried that I was the only person I could see to have posted an upskirt shot on Instagram. You learn new things about yourself everyday, apparently, like the fact that you are a kind of a pervert.`
  
  As we were leaving Liberty Island, we noticed an empty tour boat heading to New Jersey that nobody was on. We asked the guy where we would get tickets, thinking we might go over and have lunch in New Jersey, and he gave us the strangest look and said “New Jersey? You don’t need tickets for New Jersey. Who would pay to go to New Jersey?”. He was not wrong.
  
  Posted in exploring, New York, travel | 3 Comments | Tagged exploring, New York, statue of liberty, tourists
- top of the rock
  
  Posted at 5:56 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 19, 2014
  
  One of the coolest things we did in NYC was go up to the top of Rockefeller Plaza and look out at the city. We actually had tickets to go up right before sunset so we could see the day, the sunset, and the night views, but we had some issues with the hotel we were at so we ended up having to go later.
  
  The view is really amazing from up there, you know there are a lot of people in New York, but seeing all of the lights stretching out for miles and miles in each direction is pretty humbling. It was a pretty warm night so we stayed up there for quite awhile just marveling at the beautiful view and taking pictures.
  
  I was fairly devastated when I saw this a few days later. It was on The Tonight Show on Monday, and we were up there on Saturday, so it was likely filmed sometime over the weekend.
  
  If we would have made our earlier ticket time, it would have been me he was photo bombing, and then I could have been in a photo with, and possibly met Jon Hamm. And then I would have probably just jumped off the roof and ended it, because there is really no where to go from there but down.
  
  Posted in exploring, New York, travel, USA | 1 Comment | Tagged city lights, jimmy fallon, jon hamm, New York, photo bomb, rockefeller plaza, top of the rock
- central park
  
  Posted at 9:41 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 17, 2014
  
  We flew into NYC at 5:30 am last Friday. After a few hours of creeping around trying to figure out where we were supposed to be going, we found our hotel in Midtown, dropped off our bags, and set out to explore the city. The very first place we stopped was Central Park.
  
  It was a gorgeous day, apparently it had been cold for weeks before we got there, so the park was full of people running, walking and playing hockey. It was amazing to see the huge, beautiful park surrounded on all sides by towering skyscrapers. We climbed up on top of one of the big boulders and just sat there people watching and sunning ourselves like lizards.
  
  One of the things I liked most about New York was how easy it was to get around everywhere, either on the subway or just walking. We walked about 10 miles a day every day we were in the city. If I lived there, I would have legs of steel.
  
  We visited Central Park several times on our trip, and just spent hours walking through and looking at all of the sites, including the Belvedere castle which I thought was in my imagination since we walked all over the park and couldn’t find it, but we eventually made it there on our last stroll.
  
  There were lots of great things about our time in New York, but those first few hours in Central Park were definitely one of my favourite things. It reminded me so much of spring time in Canada, when you finally feel the sun on your face after months of bitter cold, and even though there is still snow on the ground you can finally feel the end in site. Everything smells fresh and clean, and you just want to go play outside.
  
  Posted in exploring, New York, travel, USA | 2 Comments | Tagged Alice in Wonderland, belvedere castle, Central Park, exploring, hockey, life, nyc, travel
- manhattan
  
  Posted at 3:45 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 11, 2014
  
  Our time in New York is going so fast, only two more days and we’re off to Toronto. It’s been such a busy, fun week though.
  
  I worked from our Manhattan office today, it was really nice to finally meet a bunch of people in person that I’ve been talking to every day for months.
  
  Also, I found a place that makes really good lemon drops so I’m pretty much all set.
  
  Posted in exploring, life, New York, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged lemon drop, Manhattan, New York, travel
- ny
  
  Posted at 4:23 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 6, 2014
  
  I actually can’t believe it even as I’m typing this, but we are leaving for New York tomorrow. Also I haven’t even started packing, so right on schedule then.
  
  Some of the things I want to see are:
  
  Statue of Liberty : This one is pretty obvious, I think it’ll be pretty neat to see in person after seeing so many images of it all my life. Or maybe it’ll be super underwhelming and actually be like 10 feet tall, like the Mona Lisa is apparently very tiny and unimpressive.
  
  Metropolitan Museum of Art: I’m really excited to visit The Met, and my mom is a painter, so it’ll be really fun to go see it with her.
  
  9/11 Memorial: I remember exactly what I was doing when I found out about the attack on the World Trade Center. I was sitting on the bathroom vanity doing my makeup, and I heard my dad yelling from upstairs.
  
  Central Park: I’ve always wanted to visit Central Park, especially Belvedere Castle. Even though it’s just going to be one big snowball, it’ll still be awesome to see. Actually I’m pretty excited about the snow, it’s been too long.
  
  The Plaza hotel: I’ve wanted to visit the Plaza for so long that I can’t even remember when it started. I suspect that it was when I was about 9 years old, when I started reading The Babysitter’s Club books my Ann M. Martin. Stacey was my favourite character, and her favourite book was Eloise, a story about a young girl that lived in the Plaza hotel. I’ve never even read Eloise, I guess I just assumed that if Stacey liked it, it was probably amazing. It probably is.
  
  And tons of other things. I know it’s all super touristy stuff, I’m also just excited to creep around and do some exploring, but I want to have a list just in case we do have some free time, we won’t waste it trying to think of what we want to do.
  
  We’re going to be staying with a friend in Brooklyn for most of our visit, and I’ll be working out of our Manhattan office, or as is more likely, getting lost on the subway and crying on a street corner.
  
  I’d love to hear any suggestions that anybody has for fun places to visit, or great restaurants!
  
  Posted in exploring, life, New York, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged Brooklyn, Central Park, Chicago, explore, Manhattan, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, statue of liberty, Times Square, travel
- cowgirl
  
  Posted at 7:18 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 21, 2014
  
  As soon as I found out we were going to Point Reyes, and I started telling people in Hawaii, the one thing I heard over and over again was that I absolutely had to go to Cowgirl Creamery, a local dairy and cheese making business. They are located right in downtown on main street, and their cheese is amazing.
  
  I’ve gotten some from the ferry building in San Francisco, my favourite one is called Red Hawk, but I’d never been there before last weekend. We were cruising around Marin exploring some of the little towns, and we stopped at Cowgirl and one of the other cheese makers in the area.
  
  We bought cheese and freshly made ice cream (vanilla bean, caramel truffle and bitter sweet chocolate) from Cowgirl, and the other place, The Cheese Factory, just outside of town had lots of cheeses out to sample and chilled wine for sale, and a beautiful picnic grounds with a pond to sit and eat.
  
  I ate apples and Red Hawk every day for lunch this week, and I loved every minute of it.
  
  Posted in exploring, food, life, Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Tagged cheese, Cowgirl Creamery, exploring, marin county, Northern California, Point Reyes, wine
- bolinas
  
  Posted at 4:49 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 18, 2014
  
  This last week was kind of a strange one, I just couldn’t muster up the energy to do anything, and I’ve been really tired. The long weekend helped a bit, especially since we got out of the Bay and went for a day trip to the Marin county coast, touring around Olema, Bolinas and Point Reyes. It was kind of cold to be out at the beach, but it was so nice to just be outside and to be surrounded by trees.
  
  One of the things I noticed when I lived in Honolulu was that sometimes I would just get really grouchy and lethargic, without a real reason why. Then we would jump in the car and leave the city, head to North Shore or Lanikai for the day, and I would instantly feel better. Being surrounded by people and buildings and cars all the time is just not great for me, and sometimes I need to get away from all of those things and recharge.
  
  We stopped for lunch at a cute little restaurant in Olema, did a bit of wandering around on the cliffs at Bolinas, and made our way to Limantour beach, which was gorgeous, but freezing. We finished off the day in Point Reyes, with a visit to the Cowgirl Creamery.
  
  Posted in art, exploring, life, travel, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged beach, bolinas, Cowgirl Creamery, exploring, hiking, limantour beach, Marin county coast, Northern California, ocean, Olema, Point Reyes
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