MY WEEK IN PHOTOS: APRIL 23–29, 2018! (MY BIRTHDAY IN OAKLAND)

MY WEEK IN PHOTOS: APRIL 23–29, 2018! (MY BIRTHDAY IN OAKLAND)

Week three of my pottery class, wearing many of my mom’s knitting creations, and a four-day trip up to Oakland, California to see friends and celebrate my birthday.

Enjoy!

Happy Monday. The work gym has been closed and my carpool buddy is on a work trip so I’ve been left to my own devices.

Just slowly packing for the work day.

Beautiful blanket that my mom knit for me over the course of 4 months! I love it so much. She said I’m not allowed to let the dogs on it, so it’s in a special bag.

Changing into my pottery clothes at work.

Stopped at the Mitsuwa Marketplace for some mapo tofu at the food court.

Pirate Dog “Meet the artist that way!” WHERE. I tried looking for the the pirate dog artist, but no luck.

Trimming today

Granny Waldo, but wearing my mom’s sweet little sweater.

Using the audio guides with a persona in mind. Walking around the galleries enjoying myself.

Glenn gets a clean cage

Exploring on his own

Allergies or cold? Unsure.

Orchid watch, now I have three.

Can’t stop wearing knits

Dirty stove, but that doesn’t stop taco night.

Homemade guac

Doing some photo work in the evening before packing for our roadtrip to the Bay area.

Wildflowers on the road from Los Angeles to the Bay area

Five of us in Zach’s car, it was a clown car situation.

It’s not a roadtrip in California without In N Out.

Made it to where we are staying in Oakland. Cute place!

Taking the ferry from Jack London Square in Oakland to San Francisco’s Ferry Building.

Waiting for our ferry

Got some ferry rose for the 30 minute ride.

Like plants reaching their heads to the light.

Met up with Lauren at Izakaya Rintaro!

Let’s get this party started.

Delicious house made soft tofu and sashimi

Tonkatsu with cheese inside!

Gyoza

Carbonara udon

*Mix mix mix*

Finally gave Lauren the pasta illustration poster I made for her

Icecream from Bi-Rite.

Urban Putt, a bar slash indoor mini golf “experience” with creative macgyver-like holes that all fit in a small store space.

Underwater level

Ski run course

Painted ladies course

Back to the airbnb for face masks and chilling before our Friday in the city.

Good morning! Happy Friday.

After a long journey on the BART and bus, we made it to Inner Richmond by Golden Gate Park. Time for breakfast at Velo Rouge.

I got a breakfast sandwich with egg, bacon, avocado on an english muffin. Mmmm.

Zeen’s open face sandwich with potatoes.

Checking out the scooter scene.

Loving the flowers wherever we went.

Golden Gate Park jungle

Making our way towards the Academy of Sciences

Rays

And a Dory!

No pigment gator!

Going down into the aquarium level

Claude, the gator, from the aquarium level.

I’m a simple girl who is amazed by a simple giant lungfish

Anaconda!

Iridescent frogs, SERIOUSLY couldn’t stop staring at them.

Two finger touch

Penguin hall

Frogs hugging

The wonders of nature

Gems

Walking from Golden Gate Park to Haight

Amoeba Records

Burger

Afternoon punchbowl at Hobson’s Choice

Trying my new lens! Wow you can see my eyecrusties and everything.

Friieeends

Lyft back to the ferry building to catch a ferry

Sampling olive oils as you do.

In line for the ferry.

Gabby cracking herself up

That’s me, your fav stubborn Taurus.

Gabby talking about gummies. So passionate.

Bevmo run by the ferry landing.

Blind Tiger in Oakland!

So grateful for my beautiful, generous friends for celebrating my birthday with me. OH YEAH, it’s my birthday! April 27. 🙂

Oysters, curry fries, curry clams, pepper paste beans, and more.

❤

Nightcap

Saturday morning! Got ready and then left to pick up some hand cut noodles from Shandong in Oakland’s Chinatown.

TRY. THESE NOODLES. GET HAND CUT. TRY THE SESAME ONES AND THE SPICY ONES. Seriously craving the texture again. I miss!

Enjoying LIFE

Rachel brought some of her homemade olive bread.

World’s colliding

After all those noodles you just have to lay around.

Gabby and Kristen

PLEASANT. Rachel and Stu.

A pile of angels

Rachel winning Skulls and Roses.

Out at the park all afternoon.

Cuties on cutie

Aryn baby by Lake Merritt

Jump in Gabby

Thanks for coming, everybody.

Arrived in Alameda’s Pinball Museum. $20 admission and all the playable machines are yours to play all day.

The exhibit walked through the early iterations of what would become pinball machines as we know them today, and the advancements in technology, design, and cultural trends around the game.

You could play machines from the 1950s.

King of Diamonds, made in 1967. This was the first single-player game to feature an automatic ball loader. It was really fun, you had to try to collect all the cards in a deck to win.

We played a few times and this was the closest we got!

Gorgar! First pinball machine to speak to you. It could say 7 words. It came out in 1979.

A totally different style that is like baseball where you swing the “bat” and hit the ball into a hole worth different points.

Theater of Magic, Zach almost hit a billion points!

Wish there was an X-Files one.

We spent a casual 2.5 hours there and could have definitely spent longer! Loved that each machine had a write up about the designer, history, and what was going on in entertainment culture at the time.

Picked up a pizza for the gang back at the Airbnb

Everybody watching American Ninja Warrior and SCREAMING.

Sunday morning! Our last day…noooo!

Bloody Marys at Portal in Oakland.

Precision slide

Habanero chicken sausage and potatoes and eggs yes.

Zach can’t resist chilaquiles

Then we started our journey home. I want to do another post about places to stop driving Oakland to Los Angeles, just to show a few more pictures since we stopped at some photogenic places.

So here’s just a teaser because I’ll post more! I promise…slowly but surely.

Pinnacles National Park

San Luis Obispo.

I’ll leave the week here.

Thanks for reading! I had such a great mini-trip with my friends to see other friends in the Bay area for my birthday. I’m feeling lucky!

Much love friends.