A Bowl Of Comfort

On a cold rainy day, what else can be better to comfort and soothe your soul than a bowl of hot ramen noodle. We went to this place quite often whenever I feel like having ramen. HALU is the name of the restaurant. It's a small restaurant tuck in a plaza that you would never thought to go for dinner.

A friend introduced me to this place and I have been loving it since. The decor of the restaurant is simple however it made you feel at home. On the ceiling you will see fishes swimming, photos that capture the various moment of the seas and surf board that grace the wall.


They hand made their ramen noodles and for the healthy folks they also wheat noodles on the menu. They also have various side dishes that you can order as well to go with your bowl of ramen, something that is not so common in other ramen noodles shop.


Try it out if you are in the area next time, Ramen HALU.

It's a Girl

Wait... don't misunderstand just yet. I'm not pregnant.

I just want to share my joy after reading the text. It was news from home that is is going to be a girl this time around for my brother's baby. Daddy must be really happy to get a baby girl and that little girl is so going to be a daddy's girl.

Indeed, I'm very happy to get a niece as well. Now I get to go shopping and by those cute, pink color dresses and not to mention those tiny baby girl shoes *grin*. Cuteness overloaded, all of them. They are just so eye catchy compare to baby boy clothes. I can't help myself, of course the baby brother will still get his pressies from this aunt.

May the baby continue to grow healthy in mama's womb.

Fleet Week Weekend

The annual Fleet Week started last Thursday and will last until tomorrow. Over the weekend they have the air show, it's one of the major attraction of Fleet Week. Every year for the past couple years, I have plan to go and see the air show however for one reason or another I have never made it. So, when a friend asked me whether I would like to tag along to see the air show this year, of course I said yes without any doubt. I have to go this year since it was given so much rave review by everyone who go to the show each year.

Rise and shine early on Sunday since we have decided to bike as usual and need to take the first train in the morning to beat the crowd. Surprise, surprise we made it to the train station with more than 10 minutes to spare instead of the usual late arrival or just in time arrival.

We got to San Francisco an hour before the show schedule start time so we decided to brunch at 'In & Out', my favorite burger joint. If you are here in California and you do eat beef burger, it is a must try. Instead of my usual cheeseburger, since I don't feel cheesy that morning, I had a hamburger instead.

Doesn't it looks good ? Yummy, yummy...

Along the way you will see stalls like this, a little souvenirs for the tourist and food for the empty stomach.





As for the air show, they have aerial demonstrations by the Navy's Blue Angels, Team Oracle, and the Air Force's F-16 Demonstration Team. Here are some photos of the air show, a little blurry of course since I'm using PnS instead of DSLR. I didn't bother with my DSLR as I don't have an ultimate zoom lense :(.




The Blue Angels flying


They even make a heart with a cupid over it
It was not as crowded early on in the show, compare to when the Blue Angels is schedule to fly. The Blue Angels are the highlight of the air show. Whoa, everyone was cheering on when they flew in. It was so loud and fast.



For more information about the event, visit the Fleet Week Official Site to see whether you plan to attend the event next year.

Oktoberfest by the Bay

BEER TIME!!! Last weekend we went to Oktoberfest by the Bay for beer and fun. Had a little incident at the train station. I got there right after the train arrived and didn't make it up the train. Worst thing is he made it up the train and the door close right when I try to board the train. I was standing there looking helpless. Ended up waiting an hour for the next train. However I still made it there which is the most important and not miss the beer session :)

We decided to bike there since it's not that far away. The festival is held at one barrack in Fort Mason as seen below. I thought it was going to be an outdoor festival so didn't expect it to be in a barrack.





There was a tent that sell German clothing and accessories, even those sales person are dressed up in traditional clothes. After looking around it seems like there are many of people attending the event dressed up in traditional clothes.




I was a little disappointed when we got in there, there wasn't that much to do in there other food and drink. Since there is nothing else we might as well eat up and drink up. There are pretzel, bratwurst hotdog, pork leg and dessert.






There are so many trucks in the barrack to serve beer. As you can see the beer is coming out directly from the truck and in the truck there are so many kegs of beer to serve everyone endless beer :)




There are couple kind of beers as well and of course we have to try every single one of them.


What is better than an orange hair lady serving you shot of beer? Are you not tempted to buy one shot from her? Would you be able to resist the charm?



What do you need the most after drinking non-stop beer for the afternoon? A breath tester to make sure that you are within legal limit before you head out and drive home. It's very considerate of the organizer to think of putting a couple of them in the venue. First time I see one of this machine ever.


All in all, it was a great day of fun and food with friends. Even the weather was incredible that day at this time of the year in San Francisco.

Harvesting Tomatoes

After 2 months, at last I have harvested my first batch of tomatoes from the garden. However, there are only 11 of them in the first batch, barely enough for one person. Nevertheless, I'm very happy to be able to eat tomatoes planted by myself. Hopefully in couple more weeks there will be more to be harvest.



There are a second tomato tree that is growing now, although I did not plant it myself, it's growing healthy by itself. It's already flowering however I am not sure whether it will bare fruit since winter is almost here. Hopefully it will turn out to be ok.

Jakarta, Indonesia

A little disappointed with myself during this trip because I did not take enough photos. I was too busy playing with my little nephew rather than my camera. Jakarta is not even remotely close to what I picture in my mind before I got there. In my imagination, it is very similar to KL since it is the capital of Indonesia. Reality is, it is still far from it. When I looked down from my hotel room this is what I see, not many high rise buildings and most of them are crowded together.




On the street, there are a lot of those motorbike pedicab zooming in and out of the traffic. The one thing that capture my attention is their public bus stop. It looks more like one of those subway, or train platform and it's covers so you do not need to stand under the sun and smell the bad traffic emission gas. Too bad I do not have one to show you here.

Majority of this trip we spend exploring food. Aside from food, we went to visit a safari park, a volcano and outlet in Bandung.





It was a great trip to be able to spend time with family, although we did not visit a lot of tourist spot. One thing that is missing from this trip is a visit to buy some handicraft souvenier since I heard it is really cheap to buy handicraft in Indonesia. Next trip I shall go and visit Bali for the thing that I miss out this time.