our "wasssuppp san francisco" weekend

Soooo we decided we are not only going to try and conquer the 2010 Big Eat SF list, but we are also going to try and hit up as many cool neighborhoods in san francisco as we possibly can. we are going to call this the "wassup san francisco" challenge. we want to spend as much time possible getting to know the coolest city in the world. and that is exactly what we did this weekend.

On friday, matt's oldest brother was coming into town, so we decided to spend some time with him (his name is brandon). Brandon is currently in seminary school in Reno and he is "learning" to be a future pastor (sounds like a pretty awesome gig). He is part of something big...he is trying to help start up a church in San Francisco. It's awesome. On Fridays, he drives up from Reno to participate in the weekly meetings geared towards starting up the church. The meetings are at 7 on Fridays (at a local pastor's apartment), so we graciously accepted Brandon's invitation to join the party. Before we met up with them, we decided to try this awesome organic hot dog place in our neighborhood, Underdog. This place is totally mellow, like straight out of Berkeley "mellow." The hot dogs are a little bit pricier (they run about 4-5 bucks, but hey it's all organic...even the ketchup!). Anyways, Matt tried the bratwurst, and I decided to try the chicken apple sausage. This place is delicious. I love hot dogs, so I honestly am not super picky when it comes to these glorious pieces of meat. The bratwurst was definitely up Matt's alley, and he topped it with some onions, ketchup, mustard, and a little bit of sauerkraut. I wanted to spice up my chicken apple sausage, so I added relish, ketchup, mustard, some deli mustard, and even some sauerkraut. I am a huge fan of this place. At the end of the day, I don't think it tops costco's $1.50 dogs (plus soda), but I'm pretty sure very little in the world can top them. After our delicious dinner, we drove over to UCSF and attended the small group. You know, to be in a place where people love Jesus as much as these people do and are truly driven to do something big (well as big as starting a church) in a city as big as SF...it's incredible. The people were super nice and just welcoming. I know that sounds like every church, but these guys are welcoming, fun, and just overall cool. I think we will definitely be back next weekend...even though Brandon tricked us and didn't tell us that we were going to be filmed for a documentary about the SF lifestyle. Yes it was totally nerve-wracking being in front of a camera, but I guess if we had to do it for something, at least it was for Jesus. Honestly, as nerdy as it sounds, it was a really awesome way to spend Friday night. After the small group, we decided to go to a hookah lounge in our neighborhood called Old Jerusalem Cafe. They guarantee it's the smoothest hookah you've ever had, or you get another one. I don't know that I agree with that (especially since they made us order two hookahs since we had more than 3 people...Brandon brought a friend) but it was still a fun experience. I haven't hookah-ed in ages, so it was fun to do (and it inspired us to buy a hookah later this weekend....wait just a little bit longer to here about that). Plus they had a really good chai. Yum. Fun Friday night :)

On Saturday, we bid farewell to Brandon and his friend, Andrew. Matt and I had decided in advance that this would be a great day to explore SF. We took the N-line (which is kind of like a train/lightrail in the city) to Union Square. We did a little shopping...because that is the best type of thing to do in Union Square. He bought a cute zip up from Gap. We enjoyed watching people participate in a Special Olympics fundraiser....called Over the Edge, where participants climbed down the side of the Hilton. It was pretty sweet and very uplifting.

Afterwards, we walked upwards toward Chinatown. For some reason, I'm the chinese one, but Matt is the one that LOVES chinatown. No joke...this kid talks about it ALL THE TIME. I think it's because last time we went, he got bomb chinese food and bought like 3 t-shirts for 2 bucks a pop. I love Chinatown. It's just full of tourists and all these asian people giving the tourists funny looks. Plus everything is so cheap. I bought an orange scarf (guess where I am going to wear that) for only 4 bucks. We bought some mangos because they looked so delicious it would have been impossible to pass up. And as we were walking through exploring, it turned out that there was a parade today. I think it was supposed to spread awareness about oppression in China, and it was fun to watch the people walking through the streets chanting and the band following close behind them. It's not a good day in chinatown until you see a parade and/or festival. We thought about getting food in Chinatown, but for once in his life, Matt wasn't feeling chinese food. We also tried to get some egg custard tarts from the Golden Gate Bakery, but as you can see...they were on vacation.

We also stopped in a bookstore called City Lights. It's the first business in San Francisco to be named a historical landmark (most landmarks are famous because of the building, not what's inside). I know it's super famous, but I actually need to be enlightened on why it is super famous...so if you know, let me know :)

So we just kept walking...to North Beach. For those of you who don't know, North Beach is essentially San Francisco's Little Italy. If you are looking for some authentic pasta, this is where you need to go. There are little shops filled with cheeses, wines, bread, etc. Everything italian you could possibly think of. Plus tons of cafes (where you can get your cappuccinos!) and lots of pizza and pasta restaurants. Sounds like my kind of place. I love it here. We tried to decide on one italian restaurant, but honestly, unless you do some research beforehand, it's hard to pick one. So we decided to do something a little more interesting. We chose a restaurant called The Stinking Rose....their tagline is "We season our garlic with food." Yes this restaurant is entirely catered towards garlic. Honestly, it sounded like fun, because they had bagna calda (which is this dish matt has been telling me about for ages), but at the end of the day, I think I'm the kind of girl who can only eat so much garlic before I want to puke and die. Don't get me wrong, the food is delicious. We weren't very hungry, so we just ordered the appetizer bagna calda, which is essentially garlic cloves marinaded and cooked in butter, olive oil, and a hint of anchovies and herbs. Yes it sounds weird, but Matt has raved about it forever. What I did love at TSR is their foccacia and free pesto. The foccacia is maybe the best bread ever. Anyways, I think this is one of those places that you can go to only if you love reeking of garlic (and also having garlic leak out of your pores afterwards). I can see why people love it, it's quite the experience, but not so much for me. After our garlic-ky meal, we decided to head home.

Z Cioccolato candy store in North Beach

We stopped in Levi's to say hi to Matt's friend, Laith, who works there. After all that walking we were pooped. After our Muni ride home, we passed out for 3 hours in the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes I think we are 4-year olds sitting around waiting for naptime. When we woke up, we cooked up some dinner and stopped in the Haight Ashbury district to buy a hookah. After our hookah session the night before, Matt made up his mind to buy one of his own. I love Haight Ashbury. It's just such a fascinating area. Matt had a conversation with a homeless man who convinced Matt that he was a better rapper than Eminem....see what I mean about this place having personality? It's amazing. 

Later that night, we decided to see Captain America.  OMG. BEST SUPER HEROOOO EVER. Honestly, watching that movie made me proud to be an American...and thankful for super heroes in the world :) Five stars in my book. And if you decide to watch the movie, make sure you stay until the VERY end. You will not regret it!!!! In case you can't tell, we had a GREAT saturday.

On Sunday, we headed home to Sunnyvale. I think my mom has missed us a lot, so I'm glad we stopped by to hang out with her and my brother. We went to target and did our weekly shopping (for the record, target is much cheaper in sunnyvale than in sf...weird). Then we kicked it poolside. My mom took us to dinner and made us tons of food to take back with us...she is the best mom ever. We have "leftovers" galore and I pretty much don't have to cook all week. Plus we have lunch! awesome. Anyways, it was a perfect relaxing sunday...exactly what we needed.

last weekend...

we saw harry potter!! and it was glorious. i can't even begin to describe how i feel. it's like suddenly growing up overnight (actually, in 2 hours to be exact). i know i'm 23 (and really have been an adult for 5 years now) but seriously, my childhood just ended. but good news. for once in my life, i didn't cry. seriously. because i'm such a movie crier. it's incredible. i almost cried. it was that good. the movie definitely did it justice (though it did cut out some big details that I would have loved to see). let's be serious. this movie is epic. and i'm pretty sure it had the biggest movie opening...ever in the history of the world. bravo harry (and ron and hermione...and let's give a big what's up to neville, because he is pretty cute in real life). anyways, to tell you the truth, i will probably see it at least once (or twice) more in theaters. actually, i could go for a harry marathon.

harry (and even voldy). it was great knowing you. thanks for the good memories!

yes we are those people.

it all ends tonight (well tomorrow for us)

and by it i mean my childhood. ϟ

birthday girl!!!!

yes. i am referring to myself. happy birthday to me!!!! actually it was yesterday. but throughout the day yesterday, i realized how awesome the people in my life are. let me just recap my 23rd (and maybe best) birthday for you.

I woke up to this guy making me breakfast before work. the poor kid woke up an hour earlier than usual just to make me eggs and toast. what a cutie. plus he got me this sweet watch. best boyfriend ever.

when i got to work, my desk was littered with stuff. and by stuff i mean a confetti tree, a balloon, some cards, and eventually flowers. this is my first time working on my birthday (this means that i'm officially part of the real world...working on your birthday tsk tsk). anyways, it was awesome. pretty much everyone said happy birthday to me at work. one of my co-workers bought me breakfast at my desk (pancakes!) and then my financial advisor took me to lunch. amazing. and after lunch, they got me TWO CAKES, one red velvet from nothing bundt cakes and another red velvet cake (good thing i like red velvet!!). i gotta say...if birthdays are always this fun at work....well i'm totally down to work on my birthday.

when i got home, i found a dozen sprinkles cupcakes on my doorstep....courtesy of the faboosh meghan. thanks girl. you know the way to my heart. even though you are 259073719384 miles away, you know how to make my birthday rock.

my small birthday dinner turned into a big friend fest. some of my closest friends drove up to have pizza with us. OOOO! we went to little star which is on the foodie list! we tried the little star pizza of course because it's the actual one on the list. it was delicious. i just love pizza. and vinitha baked me the most fabulous looking cake in the world. it's shaped like a giants hat :) she knows me so well. Afterwards, we grabbed a few drinks but pretty much kept it low key. that's how you know you're 23. ick. getting home before 11 on your birthday. but i was exhausted from being so damn happy all day. i would say that i had the most fantastic day ever.

and today (not even my birthday), i came home from work and found these beautiful flowers from my favorite one year old. thanks landon :) (and marie). who knew that he knew how to order flowers from 1800flowers. he's such a gifted child.

anyways, i'm pretty sure i gained like 10 pounds from eating (mostly cake) in the past 24 hours. but it's my birthday, so if i say let them eat cake, then let them eat cake (and by them, i mean me).

so......i just wanted to give a big thank you to everyone who contributed to my awesome birthday (i know i've said awesome like 12 times already). you guys are the best, including everyone that blew up my facebook! thank you everybody :)

BIG NEWS!

So remember how I told you that Matt and I had big news and we were waiting for something before we were going to let you all know. Well....we're ready. Here goes.

matt moved to san francisco for the summer and we got our own apartment together. and he is pretty much working his dream job right now.
 
i know. sometimes i can't believe it either. we are living in the sunset district in an in-law unit that is HUGE and beautiful and quaint. our landlord is awesome (and told us we could pick her vegetables if we wanted fresh produce). we have our own room, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. I will post pictures as soon as matt gets them uploaded. isn't it incredible? we are like real people. we cook, we clean, we lounge...it's awesome. if any of our friends want to visit, this is your official invitation to come over. we have LOTS of room (who would have thought I would ever be able to say that in san francisco).

the living room:

the bedroom:

the bathroom:

the kitchen: 

our street:

Moving on...matt is working at backen, gillam and kroeger architects. His official title is architectural intern, but he gets to do all sorts of neat stuff around the office, like check out some really cool architecture drawings (and pack them into boxes), run office errands (where he spent 70 bucks on creamer one time) and even drive the boss man's BMW around to get it gassed and washed. plus he is around architectural geniuses day and night. and they are practically over the moon to have an awesome an intern as matt. pretty much win win all around.

matt's new commute to work

his new place of employment in sausalito, ca

we are pretty much living the dream right now. plus we live in a neighborhood that's beautiful and cold and foggy but wonderful. tonight, we made dinner, cleaned the house, packed lunches for tomorrow, did the laundry, and even went for a nice evening walk around the neighborhood. i love it here. plus there is soooo much great food around here :) and i get to be with matt all the time!! quite the change from our recent year, but definitely worth the wait (even if it means i have to get up earlier for work because i have a longer drive).

also, we decided we are going to do this challenge. it's called the 100 best things to eat in san francisco before you die. we are going to try and knock it outta the park. if you remember, we started this blog two years ago because we made a list of things we wanted to do. well....here we go again. wish us luck!!!


so to give you an update on our week....we moved in on monday (unfortunately, we were too tired to have any big 4th of july plans). we did see a couple fireworks from our window. we have a pretty good view! on tuesday, we went to matt's first giants game of the season with my company. go morgan stanley! we pretty much paid 4 bucks for a hot chocolate and that's it. the tickets were free, the hot dogs were free, and the beer was free. matt got to come because we had extra tickets. we also learned that the n-line lightrail drops us off directly in front of the 2nd street and king entrance, and the stop is one block away from our house. best news ever. we are sooooo hooked on this place. of course, wednesday my entire office was exhausted because the game didn't end until 10ish. but it was worth it. my company peeps are really cool! thanks morgan stanley.

look how close we were to amy g!!

wednesday night was pretty low key. we made dinner, went to target in emeryville (it's right next to oakland lol) and picked up a free boxspring for our room. awesome. nothing is better than free ninety nine. anyways, on thursday...guess where we went. AT&T PARK. again. since matt cain finally hit the 1000 strikeout mark, tickets were ten bucks (and since we hadn't expected matt to come on tuesday), we had bought these tickets a week ago. i love at&t park...especially with good friends (thanks for coming nicole, lunani, david and jp). it was well worth being tired the next day (even though the game ended at 9:30, we didn't get home til 11 because the muni lightrail delayed for almost half an hour).

the view from the bay bridge (coming back from berk)

finally it was friday. i love fridays. congrats surviving your first week of working matty. on friday we drove up to sunnyvale and hung out with my mom and brother (since matt didn't really spend that much time with them on monday since we were in a hurry to move in). we went to dinner at this mongolian bbq place (which had free ice cream yay) and watched the giants game. we went to bed super early on friday night....guess we can't rage like we used to. those were the good ol days ;) on saturday, we ran a couple errands (picked up my bday present from the post office, drove my brother around, went to the sunnyvale farmers market) and went to the mall. got some cool stufff. always a good time. and last night we went out with a couple of my friends.

sunnyvale farmer's market  

my new birthday present!!

our new super embarassing
but awesome shoes

anyways, i think i need to stop blogging for tonight. i'm exhausted. but have a good week everybody!

ps it's my birthday on tuesday :)