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  • Tag: exploring

    • 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.

       

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      Posted in exploring, New York, travel | 3 Comments | Tagged exploring, New York, statue of liberty, tourists
    • 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.

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      Posted in exploring, New York, travel, USA | 2 Comments | Tagged Alice in Wonderland, belvedere castle, Central Park, exploring, hockey, life, nyc, 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.

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      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.

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      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
    • hello goodbye

      Posted at 10:35 pm by jasminedesirees, on September 25, 2013

      I still don’t know my way around here very well, probably because I’ve been so dependent on technology that I’ve never had to learn. My phone GPS is broken right now, so on the way home from San Jose last weekend, we ended up getting lost and going through San Francisco, which worked out anyway because I had a friend visiting and she wanted to see the city.

      It was a gorgeous day, not a lot of traffic, the sun shining and good tunes on the radio, and as we drove north on the 101 and came around the last curve and saw the San Francisco laying out in front of us, with it’s cute, colourful houses on the hillsides and the skyline off in the distance, I realized for the first time that I really love this city.

      It would be just like me to finally notice that just as we’re starting to get serious about planning where we want to go next, but you can’t have everything in life. The transition to living here was definitely rough, I’ve never been so lonely and homesick in my life, including when I moved to an island in the middle of the ocean without knowing a single person.

      It was a great experience for me in hindsight,  nothing helps you figure out who you are faster than no longer have anyone around you to tell you who they think you should be. It’s scary at first, but once you figure out that the only opinion that really matters is your own, even if it’s because there is nobody left around you to have an opinion, it’s very freeing.

      Looking back, I can pretty clearly see how each new place I’ve lived has changed me and shaped my viewpoint, and I know I’m very fortunate to have had the ability to live in so many wonderful places. I can’t wait to see what is in store for me when I get to my next new home.

       

      Posted in exploring, life, San Francisco, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged exploring, home, life, San Francisco, travel, wander
    • cave dweller

      Posted at 1:49 am by jasminedesirees, on September 12, 2013

      While we were in Oregon, and the boys were off doing bachelor things, we decided to embrace our inner adventurers, so a group of us girls set off to check out the lava caves near Bend. We obviously neglected to do any research beforehand, so we arrived to discover that shorts, tank tops and flip flops are not generally the clothing choices of spelunkers the world over, especially as it was below freezing inside the caves.

      We also failed to spend the $5.00 necessary to rent a lantern, deciding as a group that the lights from all 4 of our cell phones would more than compensate for the complete lack of light sources inside the caves.

      We set out merrily enough, dodging a hive of angry wasps and avoiding the judging looks of the other hikers in their closed toed shoes and winter jackets, with their lanterns shining smugly as they shuffled by.

      The first 100 feet went swimmingly, there were plenty of interesting rock formations that could just be made out by the light of my “World’s Brightest Flashlight App”, but things quickly went south. I felt a drop of liquid fall onto my head from the stalactites above that was almost certainly monster saliva (at your own peril will you suggest that it may have been only water).

      A few more feet inside, all hell broke loose. The leader of our little band of misfits also got monster slobber dripped on her, and as she turned her arm to wipe it away, something (likely the beady, red eyes of the creature) reflected in the cover of her cell phone case, and she screamed.

      That was all it took. The rest of us broke rank and sprinted for the mouth of the cave, every man for himself, as we stumbled blindly in the darkness, all of us hoping we wouldn’t be the one eaten first.

      We eventually all emerged from the darkness, bruised, embarrassed and with a stubbed toe or two in the group, but no worse for the wear for the most part. And that’s the story of the time I was nearly eaten by a monster in a cave, for real.

      Don’t let the camera flash fool you, it was absolutely pitch black inside this cave
      Posted in exploring, life, Oregon | 0 Comments | Tagged Bend, caves, exploring, hiking, oregon
    • Lava lands

      Posted at 1:21 am by jasminedesirees, on August 31, 2013

      I’m in Oregon for the long weekend for my best friend’s wedding. It’s so beautiful here and I’m having a blast so far. I could definitely get used to this view.

      Posted in exploring, life, Oregon | 0 Comments | Tagged Bend, exploring, landscapes, lava, lava lands, life, nature, oregon
    • tiburon

      Posted at 11:54 pm by jasminedesirees, on July 29, 2013

      The same day that I had my first adventure at the SF Ferry building farmer’s market I also took the ferry across the Bay to Tiburon, which is something I’ve wanted to do since the first time I came to visit San Francisco.

      We went to the wrong pier at first and almost missed the ferry and had to take a high speed pedi-cab ride to make it in time. Amanda was feeding the seagulls right off the back of the ferry and it was pretty neat until one almost took off her hand.

      We wandered around Tiburon, poked around some cute little shops and ate some sinfully delicious chocolate truffles, and laid out on the grass where we had a front row seat to a happy couple taking photos on their wedding day.

      We went to Sam’s for supper on the water, and just relaxed, it was a really great day.

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      Posted in California, life, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged California, exploring, ferry building, San Francisco, summer, Tiburon
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