Adventure Day! 🌱🍽 Photo Blog

Hello!! I went on an adventure today ☀️☀️ and want to re-live the full nostalgic experience of an adventure by blogging about it aaa

I'd like to write more about it later but basically for the past month I've been doing what I can to pull myself out of the lowest point of burnout I'd ever been through, and this week I finally, finally cleared my urgent work projects and felt comfortable taking time off from my job! It's my first time taking a proper break since September 2019 when I took a trip to Vancouver.....because even over the holidays I was always busy with big projects......and we're about to start another huge project in May.....so yeah...... I really fucking needed this.

My heart is so full. I wanted to go on an adventure for once—and not be holed up in my room anymore, spend time with a friend(s), be free from the shackles of computer monitors & eye strain headaches, emulate the excitement of travel without safety risks, and have so much fun that there was no room for me to worry about work or feel guilty about productivity—so badly... and we pretty much fulfilled all of that in one day and more. 💗 (tho i'll confess i did read and replied to one email which my boss chided me for lolololol ah i have a long way to go)

The day was spent with my friend Myst who—like myself—has had basically no risk of COVID exposure in over a week and we both live with our parents who are already vaccinated (+ we have a bit of immunity from our first doses), so we felt comfortable carpooling together and not socially distancing between us which was greatly refreshing. ;v;

For our adventure day we considered, let's see.... hiking (both of us: "nah"), a beachside city, or San Francisco... Both of the latter are about an hour's drive away and places we don't frequent but ultimately SF came out on top for the sole reason that it would have better food HAHAHAHAHA. And we happily continued with our philosophy of following our stomachs for the entire day! Literally my purpose in life to be honest!!!!!

And as we were driving home, we realized just how shocking it was the amount of experiences we had for a day with little plans... We had a lot of fun. :> I'd like to make myself remember that I was able to have a day full of so much enjoyment, tasty food, and good fortune and encounters—even as we're in a pandemic and after such a long period of. I don't even know how to describe it. Stress? Drought? Isolation? Bad vibes? Feeling unfulfilled? All of the above.

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Step 1. Dumplings

We began driving initially without a destination while Myst read out random cuisines/restaurants from a Yelp search. Then dumplings sounded really good. Then she listed out the, like, 20 dumpling places in San Francisco.

Me: I kind of want to try Dumpling Specialist just because it sounds chuuni.

Step 2. Golden Gate Park

That's where we decided to take our dumplings to go eat and while being indecisive about where to park, we just kept driving until unexpectedly coming across this beautiful area with museums AND A GIGANTIC FERRIS WHEEL??? That was operational with a line of people??! We didn't go on it but it was a cool surprise that we might've missed out on if we weren't just wandering around without a plan!

[📷: myst]

Step 3. Stumplings (credit to myst for the pun tho)

We eventually parked in an area with a huge playground and lush meadow full of daisies (called Mother's Meadow btw which we liked because it sounds straight out of an RPG) and... not a single picnic table in sight. A few benches but in the sun. It wasn't looking promising so we almost left AND THEN BEHIND SOME TREES WE FOUND THE ✨PERFECT SPOT✨. LITERALLY WE WOULDN'T HAVE TRADED THIS SPOT FOR ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD. 😭🌱

A magical little hidden grove with a ring of stumps ready for stories to be told and for fairies to visit!!!

[📷: myst]

Soup dumplings (xiaolongbao) and pan-fried pork buns! Not pictured: sticky rice roll w/ pork floss and crispy youtiao. 

At one point, we were approached by two little elf-sized humans who'd fled their preschool group and this precious conversation ensued:

Child #1: Hewwo!!!

Us: 😳😳💦💦 (covering our faces because we were eating without masks on) H..hello.. !

Child #2: What awe you doing hewe?

Myst: We're eating our lunch! ^^

Child #2: Oh.

Eva: Did you eat your lunch already? ^^

Child #2: My wunch is at home.

Eva: Oh. ???

Child #1: Thewe's a water bottow. (pointing to the water bottle on the stump next to us)

Eva: Yes, that's my water bottle!

Child #2: Why is it thewe?

Eva: Uh.............I dropped it there! .. 

And I guess they tried to come closer to us or claim the water bottle or something and Myst had to be like, "No no, you have to stay far away from us, okay? We have to be safe!"

Then after they went away we overheard this report on their little expedition: "WE FOUND A WATEW BOTTOW!!!!"  Yes...yes I guess you did, child.

Step 4. Our K-Drama Moment

[📷: myst]

After cleaning up, we explored the park a bit which led to walking up a hill—so we actually ended up hiking anyway 😑😑—and down this little isolated forest-y path with some pretty growths of vines and twisty trees. Also, a sprinkler that was on rotation.

So we planned it out so that we'd cross the path at the time when the sprinkler was facing away.... We didn't move quickly as the dirt was wet and at one point we dumbly stopped to admire how pretty the arch of water droplets looked against the sun and the woods AAAAAAND THEN WE WERE WET LOL.

Running, laughing, and accidentally getting rained on... by ourselves in a forest on a gorgeous day with blue skies....... It should have been captured in slow motion and replayed 3 times with a soundtrack :')

Step 5. Fake Spam

From the park we walked over to Pineapple King Bakery which Myst had been wanting to try!

[📷: myst]

Pineapple bun with guava butter.

Yes. The spam-looking block right there? Guava butter. Mushy and sweet and tart. Not spam-like at all. A perfect disguise, 10/10 prank potential.

Step 6. The Photoshoot

After more accidental hiking, we headed back to the car where we spotted a woman on the other side of the road taking photos of herself with cherry blossom trees, her phone propped on something on the ground. We were in no rush so decided to ask if she'd like someone to take photos for her—AND LORD I DON'T THINk we could have found someone more happy to say yes to the inquiry LOL.

[📷: myst]

I took photos for her for like... 10 minutes or more probably?

She brought us to 3 different cherry blossom trees. So many different poses and angles. It needed to be full body, but with her feet as close to the bottom of the frame as possible, and as much tree as possible, and no weird shadows on her face. She was beaming and glowing and fabulous and sparkling and also kept being like, "I'm so lucky to have my picture taken by pretty girls!" "You two aren't busy, right? You don't have to go?" ...Also I caught her speaking Cantonese to herself so we ended up unexpectedly speaking in (on my part, broken) Chinese for the rest of the already very unexpected photoshoot and socialization with a total stranger....... My brain the entire time: WHAT IN THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?? HELLO?????

It was fun though 🌸 Myst and I came away from this encounter with the insight that it would be a happy thing for us to someday let go of our self-restrictions and humility that prevent us from being so self-loving without shame. ;u;

Step 7. Boba

We drove over to this place that caught our eyes on Yelp called Tea & Others and yessss I already look forward to going back someday! There's also some nearby outdoor seating, so all the more perfect. I got the "Dirty Matcha" which just means it comes with brown sugar syrup—and wow.... this might top the list of any matcha drink I've ever tried that tasted strongly of real, actual matcha. Holy. 🍵🍵🍵

Myst got herself a drink but then we also got a 3rd drink to share between the two of us because IT'S A VACATION DAY #YOLO LOLOL. The thing that won over our curiosity was their "Sunny Side Up" which is a salted egg yolk latte. Yes. (Verdict: It's tasty and fascinating and we're both very glad we tried it but probably wouldn't order again. Maybe. Idk maybe one day I'll randomly crave it.)

This place was also near Hait & Ashbury which is a... cool vintage fashion district? If not for the hills we would have walked there, so we took a drive through instead and still could somewhat admire the fun colors and unique storefronts from the car. :> I want to go back and browse the shops when it's safe!

Step 8. Japantown

We've been seeing online a lot of concern over the small businesses there struggling and potentially losing a part of the city with much cultural significance, so we wanted to check it out and !! there was a very healthy amount of people there for a Tuesday afternoon. Enough folks that it felt reassuring to see the shops have business, but not so crowded that we necessarily felt unsafe. (That said, it'll probably be a while before I'd feel safe going on a weekend TT so going today was perfect.)

...It was really, really fun to go shopping in person for random things that aren't groceries because I haven't done that in a year......

Step 9. Health

Oof we were almost tempted by kimchi-topped takoyaki ...... and at another point croffles (croissant waffles) ..... but after a day of consuming mostly carbs and lattes, we decided what we wanted most was a refreshing fruit smoothie so we could feel somewhat like we were trying to be healthy hehe. Ok this was the part that wasn't fun: thanks to SF's insanely steep streets built on the side of giant-ass hills, driving to the juice place was straight-up (ha get it?) stressful. Like actually anxiety inducing. But hey. We got there alive. My car's alive. Fearing for my life was part of the adventure?? lol

And here's a photo of my empty juice bottle just because every other section has an image and I forgot it was in my bag and hadn't tossed it yet,,,,,

Step 10. Profit 😎