Stuff we're doing

Wednesday May 31

Arrival after Ottawa - Toronto flights. Met Mark, Kirstie and their neighbor at the Fisherman restaurant on the pier in San Clemente http://www.fishermansrestaurant.com/

Arrived at their place, very nice neighborhood. Heard more about the wacky neighbor, the scurrilous wag. He's going through some issues.

Nice view. :)

Thursday June 1

Awoken at 7 AM by neighbor, blasting the most obnoxious music he could find and singing along, inserting random swear words, as warned. Was amusing, but I don't live here (M & K are moving to their new place after returning from their trip).

Coffee, sign up for monthly T-Mobile wireless ($40 for unlimited). Trip planning and keeping in touch with work at Starbucks. Many business meetings at Starbucks, good place to snoop (intentionally or not). Then again, California (at least) Starbucks are much different in the US. More of a meeting place, people are livelier (which means louder). Cheaper too, with apple fritters.

Laguna Hills, Laguna Beach, lunch at Las Brisas with a nice view.

Lost the camera lens cap where the logo pic was taken. If you see it...

Lots of driving in the nice weather & scenery. Need to get some walking in.

The Coffee Bean is across the street, been around since the 60s, slowly turning itself into a donut shop. Ofosa (?) beach - big waves.

Sushi dinner with M & K.:) We were wondering if just they call California Rolls "Rolls."

Friday June 2

Saw M & K off at 5 AM. Then back to sleep. Neighbor was quiet this morning.

Started the day at Starbucks again (the internet...). The coast down to San Diego (stopped at Ki's, a decent inexpensive restaurant with good veggie options in the beach strip). Went to Balboa park but were too late for the zoo. Went to Prado, a really nice restaurant in the park with a surprising cost effective happy hour. Now at another Starbucks in Gastown. Going to check out another restaurant, then back to San Clemente. Planning adventures with Laura/Andrew in LA tomorrow.

Saturday June 3

Left San Clemente for LA at 9 AM, were there an hour early so checked out a farmer's market on a closed off street.

Met A & L and went to Venice Beach for a decent brunch. Then a trip up the mountain for a great bay/city view. Some travelling around culminating in an excellent sushi dinner at Musha. Then we checked out a raw food shop and wrapped up with some coffee at Urth, a trendy organic cafe with some nice looking food.

Sunday June 4

Experiencing the "June Gloom" with clouds, humidity and low 70s temperatures, though it's not raining. Breakfast at Pipe's, a surfer friendly place. Updates at starbucks for the internet. Next we wandered around San Clemente, and went into the ocean, and had fun jumping into the waves, except I didn't limber up first and was a bit sore the next day. Then we had some food 'n' drinks in town and watched a couple of movies (nice selection M & K).

Monday June 5

Drove out to Palm Springs and surrounding area. 67 to 104 degrees in an hour. Lunch at the Blue Coyote. Lots of driving in the area.

Tuesday June 6

(AP) Left San Clemente just before noon, after connecting with clients. Drove all the way thru San Diego to the Syreho(sp?) town before the mexican border. This little valley town seems to be struggling from the fact it is a border town. Huge mexican flag is visible from the top of the San Diego highway.

Turn around to Coronado. Stopped at the famous El Coronado hotel for lunch with a view. Took the impressive San Diego bridge across to highway 5 and exited to Balboa park and San Diego zoo.

Visited the zoo.. no tigers today. But very cuddling pendas. Impressive 100 years old tortoises eating flowers. Hippos, crocos and a large variety of monkeys and birdies.

Walked gaslamp quarte in search of authentic pizza. Lots of authentic italian restaurants, but none to satisfy a pizza craving. Travelled north to Little Italy on India street. I recommend a short stop here for canoli, gelato and of course lunch or dinner.

Pizza craving satisfied.

(DM) The San Diego Zoo, followed by a nice dinner at Cafe Fanfastico in San Diego's Little Italy.

Wednesday June 7

Santa Barbara and then Los Olivos, wine country. Checked out a couple of wineries, Gainey and Firestore. Gainey was strongly preferred (and we bought a couple bottles), though the otherwise interesting woman was a bit over the top with her patriotism. Then a trip into LA and dinner at the Real Food Cafe, a nice vegetarian place with good prices.

Haven't been hearing much from the neighbor despite some horking in the morning and the occasional muttered curse, he's subdued, seems to be going through some issues.

Thursday June 8

Catch up on the net, then we headed into LA for some shopping http://www.fashiondistrict.org/. 90 blocks of wholesale and importer-run stores is a lot of shopping, though a bit rough and intimidating. We didn't buy anything, my sense is with some patience and time you could get a lot of decent clothes inexpensively, but you'd end up with some rejects. It was shocking to be confronted by a man with a hypodermic needle coming out of parking, though something similar happened to me in the subway in Toronto.

Next, happy hour at Border Grill, an established mexican place in Santa Monica. Happy hour, with drinks and appetizers half price or less, is more of a tradition here than at home. Too bad!

Then we met A & L for some dinner - more sushi, this time we tried "chef's choice" where it's courses of seasonally sensible sushi. Very nice. A & L have been getting us into cold sake, we always thought warm was the style but apparently it's often a sign of inferior sake!

Some interesting conversations later, then it was back to San Clemente.

Friday June 9

We slept in for the first time today, going to have a relaxing day, do a bit of shopping and tidy up getting ready for departure tomorrow.

It's been a great trip, but I'll be glad to be back. I miss Canadians!