Winter Break Posts: ☆~ Meteor shower ~☆

On the second day of the year, there was a meteor shower http://sf.funcheap.com/quadrantids-meteor-shower/ So, on a spontaneous decision, we went to see the meteor shower on Twin Peaks, which is pretty much just two big hills where you can see the whole city from (Kimmy says they're mountain boobs #CanNeverUnsee). Its always a great place to go back to because the view is just so breathtaking no matter how many times you see it. Although I just came back from New York, San Francisco at (late) night time was still so cold. We climbed onto one of the rocks and laid down on a rug, with a couple of beers and a very thin blanket. We waited for a few hours in the freezing weather, until 3 or 4 in the morning. It was a boring waiting game till the early hours in the morning because the sky was too vast and we didn't really know where to look/ whether anything was happening/ whether we missed it/ how many shooting stars there would be. But thank god, at 3 or 4 it started. It wasn't very frequent, but one would shoot very quickly across a small part of the sky every 10 minutes or so. We stayed till the morning, saw about 6 or so stars, and left. It just got too cold. But I'm sure if we stayed we would've seen more. It was still very gratifying though. And obviously, it doesn't happen too often.
I got a cold after that and coughed horribly, but you know what? I think it was worth it.

I'd throw my pie for you,

Emma

x

PS And sorry for the lack of posts recently, prepare yourselves for a spam of winter break posts

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Winter break posts: Cafe exploring

Since I haven't been able to go home this break, lately I've been doing a lot of exploring around the city... Like a tourist, but now that I've been here for 6 months I can (unrealistically) claim that I'm a local. I've fallen in love with this city, there's no doubt about it. It'll always be home to me, even though Sydney was the place that I grew up in. Anyway. I was so busy the past few months I barely had any time to myself. And I do like spending time by myself. So last week I went with Alex to a cafe in the mission called Haus. I'd been to the mission many times and walked past that cafe, and I remember snapchatting my friends a photo of it because there were a bunch of middle-aged white males on their macbooks looking hipster as hell. But, of course, being me, I went there. It was really chill. I bought a new book and also some sketching materials, so I did some reading and sketching there. Also I've been spending a lot of time on the roof of Cesar Chavez reading and enjoying the view and unexpected sunlight in mid-January. Apparently having earphones in both your ears and a book in your hands is an open invite for strangers to talk to you. But today I met this cute stranger called Gabriel (of course) who got so freaked out that I was sitting on the ledge outside of the fence on the Cesar Chavez building that he vocally expressed his fear as I stood up to talk to him eye-to-eye. I just love strangers. Especially San Franciscan strangers. Everyone seems to be united by the same things. Its great. I also met a sassy, hot gay black guy on the muni the other day. He complimented me on my socks. We had matching socks but his were bright orange, and mine were green (@Chae they were the socks you gave me for christmas ;) ) See what I mean about being united by the same things? hahaha. Anyway here's some photos of the hipster cafe.

And here are some shots from the roof today

I love strangers. 

Some of the best things in life are those that adults warned you to stay away from as a child, its true.

I'd throw my pie for you,

Emma

x

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My inner American

So I haven't updated recently but I've been out and about just exploring the city. I've been trying a lot more of the American food chains. This means places like Denny's and Applebee's. It's weird because as much as id hate to admit it, I actually love both. San Francisco has been a very expensive place to live, so going to a relatively cheap restaurant where I don't have to pay over $20 is rare for dinner. (Keep in mind the exchange rate for currencies too. So ~$22-25) My friend works at Applebee's so if she read this she would probably be questioning my taste but I really liked it. I think there should be more places like these around the city. Denny's was way fatty and unhealthy (we're talking deep fried cake balls and 24/7 decadent breakfast meal options for only a few bucks) but Applebee's was more reasonable. We really need something like that back home. I can't believe Outback died on us... Come on sydney. 

Id throw my pie for you, 

Emma

x 

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Monterey Bay Aquarium

THE AQUARIUM WAS GREAT. 

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Late post- christmas cooking

Soooo before Christmas (this was a fair while ago) we made a gingerbread house from scratch.

This meant making the actual gingerbread dough, forming and cutting the shapes, making the icing to hold the pieces together, using the icing as glue to hold the pieces together, and trying desperately to make the house stand up on its own. For first timers the end result really wasnt so bad. The house stood up for a solid second. A whole second. That deserves many pat on the backs. But then it crumbled and fell apart. So I dubbed it our San Franciscan after-the-quake house. 

It tasted pretty good too so it was pretty worth it. All our blood, sweat and tears went into this tiny house. Also look at our fancy patterning on the roof.

Dude that stuff doesn't just happen. Its all in the careful planning, my children. 

(Actually the two pieces of roofs got stuck on the baking tray and it made a strange pattern. Im full of bullshit but psh you believed it for a secondddd) 

I'd throw my pie for you,

Emma

x

PS. The gingerbread fucking took forever to make because we had to combine all the ingredients without an electronic mixer, so we had to do it manually by hand. We didnt even have a rolling pin so we used a paper towel roll. Ghetto, but it worked. So whatovit? And to make things worse, we had no ground cinnamon so we had to shave it off... with a knife. Scrape by scrape. Until we just had enough to add in. But we made it. It didnt set on fire in the oven. 

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New York Day 6- THE LAST DAY :'(

This was the last day of New York. We woke up pretty late but we still had a few hours to go around the city one last time before we jetted off back to SF. 

In the morning, I got a traditional glazed donut from Dunwell's again. The last of my donut indulges for the trip.

Then we headed off to see the Statue of Liberty. We boarded the Staten Island ferries instead of the ones where you have to pay and it just went around the island. We got a pretty decent view of the Statue anyway. I just took lots of photos of the same thing from different angles @chae but fell asleep for half of the ferry ride because I was so tired. 

After the Statue, we went to visit the Smorgasburg flea markets. It looked totally different to what I thought it would look like. I thought it would be open stalls out in the open in a park but it looked more like a secret underground gathering of hipsters in a run down building.  

Inside the market- MORE DONUTS 

MORE HIPSTERS 

MORE VINTAGE PLAYBOYS 

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY MORE FOOD 

Tbh I like that food stalls in markets always try to reinvent food items to make it niche and then they get to sell it at overpriced prices. Like ramen burgers, literally just two buns of ramen around a piece of meat- 8 bucks yo. 

Its like sushi burgers in Melbourne, so overrated but i still fell for them. Whatever. Psh. 

Anyway, so I got an adobo from Adobo shack which is the winter variation of lumpia shack in the summer. I really wanted lumpias from the lumpia shack since I've seen reviews of it from one of the NY locals who's blog I follow. Are lumpias just spring rolls? Like the filipino version? Idk anyway, the adobo was great.  

Pretty girls and vinyls. And surprise surprise, American flag in the back. 

Cool graffiti on the floor. Don't know who it is. 

After that we went to go thrift shoppingat this place I can't remember the name of. It was huge though, and everything was colour coordinated. 

And it smelt like old people. 

Yeah. 

We didn't spend too long here cause we had to get home to pack and stuff to get to the airport by 3. 

It was a fun day though and an amazing trip.

Would do again. Next time, stay for NYE and see the ball drop at midnight. 

Sometime. 

I'd throw my pie for you,

Emma

x

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New York day 5

A donut a day keeps the doctor away? This morning I tried the french toast donut from Dunwell's. I liked it more than the cinnamon sugar donut I had the day before. I'm definitely going on a donut hunt in San Francisco after my trip in New York. 

 This is Washington Square (?) I think. Maybe. We just went there to look at the monument which is apparently famous. The park was really nice though and there was a man in the middle playing piano and basking for money. The park was located in the middle of West Village so we walked to Dominique Ansels afterwards in hopes of getting a cronut (A CROISSANT x DONUT).

 The line for the cronut was pretty long and extended from one end of the shop to the other end. By the time I reached the front of the line, they had already sold out of all cronuts and all of the good things that I potentially wanted to try. So I made do and bought a cookie, which turned out to be more like a cake. I'm still going to search for a cronut in San Francisco though, because Chae told me they exist there too. THE SEARCH BEGINS

Scripts on the street. Pree coo.

Fancy art galleries with pieces worth ~$20-25k

Then we walked over to Broadway street for some shopping. Chae's first stop was Victoria's secret, and after that we had chicken and gravy waffles from the food truck outside (so so so so so goooodd). 

I went shoe shopping and got a lot of things too. I ended up carrying multiple bags around, which was a hassle since we would be going to the ballet later that night. 

 After much shopping and unnecessary spending (unnecessary but much needed), we headed off to the new york ballet. We bought tickets to the Nutcracker which I suppose is a special showing for christmas.

Like the broadway show, I expected to be thoroughly thrilled for the price I paid for the ticket. However, I must be uncultured in the art of dance because in the first half, I was struggling so hard to stay awake. (After posting about Chae falling asleep in the broadway show, here I was falling asleep in ballet) Really though the first half of the show was just a bunch of kids jittering around and jumping up and down. I'm sure it takes lots of practise and effort to jitter like that but seriously stop jittering. To be honest, to me the first half of the show was just jitter jitter jitter jitter jump jump jitter. So fucking annoying. I couldnt believe I paid like ~$100 to watch a bunch of little kids jitter around a stage. 

But, the second half of the show was much more entertaining and involved a lot more of what I would classify as ballet, although obviously I have 0 knowledge and/or experience in the field of ballet and dance. But this professional pair of dancers dressed in green really stole the show and made it worth it. By the end of the show I was clapping because I wanted to. 

  

And I think that was the end of our night, seeing as it was the last night we would be there, and since we both loved our apartment a lot, we headed home.

Our apartment was really cosy and homy, I loved it since the first day. 

I'd throw my pie for you,

Emma

x

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