USA | loveliness. | Page 10

Category: USA
- waiting
  
  Posted at 3:27 pm by jasminedesirees, on April 3, 2014
  
  I am sitting at work waiting everrrr sooooo patientlyyyy for 5 o’ clock to get here. My sister is coming to spend the weekend with me and I’m so excited.
  
  She’s never really been here before, she came out to do the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer with me in September, but we were pretty much walking and suffering the entire time so it wasn’t an all around fun experience.
  
  I’m taking her to AsiaSF for supper tonight, I’ve been wanting to go there for ages but the boy is not keen on the idea, I can’t imagine why.
  
  We have lots of big plans, and the weather is supposed to be nice, plus I’m taking the day off to cavort around the bay with her tomorrow.
  
  I’m lucky because even though we live far apart I get to see her pretty often, but it’s usually with my whole family all together.
  
  I was thinking about it, and I’m pretty sure the last time we did something just the two of us was when I flew to Calgary to hang out with her for my 18th birthday, so this is long overdue.
  
  So now I just have to make it to 5 o’ clock. Did I mention I was waiting patiently?
  
  Posted in family, life, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged Asia SF, avon walk for breast cancer, family, life, San Francisco, sisters, visit
- 911
  
  Posted at 6:34 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 24, 2014
  
  Most of the things we did in New York were pretty surreal, I’ve wanted to go there all my life, and it was neat standing in front of places that I’ve seen millions of times in photos and movies.
  
  The most surreal thing was the 9/11 memorial. It’s such a beautiful, peaceful spot now with the water flowing and spraying in the wind, and people gathered silently around looking at the memorials and taking pictures. It’s very hard to picture it as the site of such a horrible thing.
  
  I really tried to just stand there quietly and take it all in, and tried to imagine how it must have felt to be there that day, going from feeling safe and secure, in a familiar place you go to every single day, to horrible pain, terror and uncertainty in a split second.
  
  I’m sure you can’t fully appreciate what it was truly like if you weren’t there, but I’m glad I was finally able to visit the site and see all of the names. Watching so much coverage of the attacks on the news, it almost felt like watching a movie, even though I knew it was actually happening. Being there in person reminds you that those were real people who died that day, somebody’s family, somebody’s friends. It could have been any of us.
  
  And seeing the pools in the shadow of the new World Trade Center 1 tower reminds you that people are resilient, and that even if they’ll never forget, they will always rebuild.
  
  Posted in life, New York, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged 9/11, life, memorial, New York, rebuild, world trade center
- 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
- chef
  
  Posted at 12:02 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 12, 2014
  
  Last week we had an onsite work training that our whole team flew out for from all over the country. At the end of the second day, we did a cooking class as a group for something fun to do together.
  
  It was at Jordan’s Kitchen in San Francisco, and it was amazing. It is a full scale commercial kitchen, but they only do group cooking classes, so we had the place to ourselves. The staff were super friendly, and really knowledgeable.
  
  We arrived, and they had trays of cheeses and smoked meats for us to snack on, and they were handing out wine before we even got our jackets off. We made mushroom risotto, flank steak with fingerling potato salad and chocolate mousse with sea salt for dessert.
  
  Our group got to do everything, they taught us how to chop vegetables, season everything, and prepare, plate and garnish each dish. The food was delicious, mushroom risotto is one of my favourite things in the world. I may have gotten a little too deep into the wine because before I knew it I had nominated myself as the grill master of the group, and was picking up the flank steaks with my bare hands, and expertly (ish) maneuvering them around the flaming grill.
  
  The chocolate mousse was delish, and we had a post-dessert mini-booze bottle pinata, which is not something I’ve done before but may well become a part of my supper routine every night. It was a really fun activity, and we got a copy of all of the recipes we made so we can re-create them at home. Not promising I will, because even though it was delicious it was a lot more work than boxed mac and cheese, but still it’s nice to have the option.
  
  Posted in food, recipes, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged cheese, chocolate mousse, cooking class, flank steak, food, friends, Jordan's Kitchen, mushroom risotto, recipes, risotto, San Francisco, wine, work
- 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
- bird by bird
  
  Posted at 3:35 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 6, 2014
  
  I just finished reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamotte. It’s a book about writing, why she does it, how she does it, and how she teaches about it. I really liked it, it was funny and informative, with lots of quotes and poems from other writers.
  
  One of my favourite passages: “One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places, to explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life as it lurches and tramps around.”
  
  In it, she describes writing characters and plot as similar to taking Polaroid pictures, you think you know what you’re focusing on, and what you want the end result to be, but it’s only as you are writing and watch what develops that you really see what the image is that you’ve captured. And often, it isn’t at all what you thought it was going to be.
  
  I had just read that chapter, and was walking down the street in San Francisco trying to describe the scene around me in my head, and take note of the little details that I usually breeze right by, when I noticed that someone had written LOVE on the back of a walk light that I walk by, just underneath, everyday. The sky was very blue, and I thought it would make a good picture, so I quickly snapped an image before dashing across the street, as the seconds counted down on the cross signal.
  
  It was only afterwards, when I was looking at the image, that I realized there was an sticker of Henry Winkler, aka The Fonz from Happy Days, stuck on the light post beside it.
  
  Posted in life, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged Anne Lamotte, Bird by Bird, writing
- L.A. wanderings
  
  Posted at 12:54 am by jasminedesirees, on January 25, 2014
  
  Just a few more pics of our trip to L.A. last weekend. We ended up doing everything I had on my list, and lots of other things, like spending the day cruising down the PCH and checking out Venice and Huntington.
  
  We were there for four days, and didn’t have any real concrete plans so it was very relaxing. We ate lots of yummy food, and found hoards of 49ers fans in Huntington beach to watch the football game with on Sunday. The niners lost, but it was a beautiful day, and it was $3 mimosas so I wasn’t too upset.
  
  Also I read Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) on the trip and at the beach, and loved every second of it. Mindy Kaling is my spirit animal.
  
  It made me endlessly happy that there is a restaurant called Pink Taco and that their sangria was basically the nectar of the Gods
  
  Santa Monica pier at night
  
  Kt von D’s tattoo shop. I was very excited, her eyeliner makes my life complete
  
  Grauman’s Chinese theater, the Harry Potter cast
  
  Posted in beach, food, Los Angeles, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged beach, California, L.A., Los Angeles, macarons, Venice
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