Monday, July 30, 2012

maloree in the city

My baby sister Maloree came to visit for a whole week in June. She is a vet tech, and she was attending a veterinary conference here in lovely San Francisco. So she got to stay with us, sleeping on the floor of the sewing room on our uber plush air mattress. 


Photobucket
Tilda waiting for sister to arrive.



Photobucket
Maloree in China Town. 

I picked her up at the airport on a Saturday morning. We drove back home and walked to one of my fav places- Just For You cafe, where we had lunch. Then we walked to the train to go downtown. Since her birthday was coming up, she wanted to do a day of shopping in the city. Duh, who wouldn't? Anyway- since there is SO MUCH here, I thought we could do a mini tour of downtown so she could really decide where to spend her time/money on our shopping day.

We went walking around, and ended up in Chinatown. It was cool, since we weren't really planning to go.


Photobucket
Mal loved this street corner with the asian building on on side, and the old church on the other.



Photobucket
Chinatown is pretty cool.



Photobucket
It was a very bright and sunny day. But Mal was still a bit cold, being used to 90 degree weather and it was in the 60's.



Photobucket
We spotted this funny little alcove jutting out of this otherwise boring building.



Photobucket
And the financial district. Home of the tallest of buildings.







We saw this lady on the train into the city, I thought she was dressed up for a bar job or something. Her and her husband were taking turns signing opera on the street. I normally don't like opera, but she was signing Carmen, which I know from watching Sesame Street as a kid.


Photobucket
We ended the day at Britex- the Most Expensive Fabric Store In The World.


We didn't do anything on sunday, because sunday's here are crazy and we aren't fans of crazy.

On Monday, we went shopping.


Photobucket
Nordstrom is HUGE.


Photobucket
Sister's fav- chocolate covered strawberries from the best chocolate place ever.



Photobucket
Sitting by a mini Golden Gate in her new Tom's.



Photobucket
Huge vintage sewing spools. At this strange shop downtown. Can't remember the name.


On Tuesday we went to Fisherman's Wharf.



Photobucket
I got all dolled up in the skirt I made for myself. 



Photobucket
We took the train to the ferry building, where the Tuesday farmers market is. Mal wanted to try some expensive coffee. We waited in a realllllly looooong line. And it wasn't that impressive. Too robust for me.



Photobucket
Mal on the vintage street car that runs to Fisherman's wharf.



Photobucket
We stopped at Pier 39 and gawked at the double carousel. We decided it was too spendy so we took a photo instead.


Photobucket
Then we walked allllll the way down to Ghirardelli square where we sat on the beach and...



Photobucket
Shared a monster hot fudge sundae with chocolate dipped waffle cone. Mmmmmmm.


Then we drove to the Haight Ashbury, I had never been and it's pretty much legendary. We wanted to see if there were lots of hippies smoking weed.



Photobucket
No hippies, no weed, just some really cool shops. I'll definitely be back.


Photobucket
The RVCA shop has a back room dedicated to featuring artists.



Photobucket
A cool/creepy mural that a group of dudes from London asked us to take their photo in front of. They offered to buy us a soda pop, and we giggled at their accents.



Photobucket
Legs.



Photobucket
I thought this shop would be really cool. But unless you are looking to dress like a hooker for Halloween, it's really not cool at all.


As we were headed to Little Italy for dinner, some lame ass speeding lady hit our car. Mal got right out and documented everything with my camera, refused to back down when the lady tried to bully us, and totally had my back and got me through the experience like a pro. Thank you, lil sis. 



Photobucket
To compensate, we skipped dinner and went to Trader Joe's for snacks.



Photobucket
Some of our fantastic finds in Chinatown.



Photobucket
On Wednesday we went to the California Academy of Sciences, located in Golden Gate Park. This is it, viewed from across the way from the tower in the De Young building.



Photobucket
We love aquariums. When I asked Mal what she wanted to do while visiting, the first thing she said was "go to a cool aquarium". 



Photobucket
Squiggly little jellyfish.



Photobucket
Gorgeous plant life.



Photobucket
Some dude cleaning the glass.



Photobucket
Some fish have perma sadface.



Photobucket
Angelfish.



Photobucket
Beautiful Koi.



Photobucket
Bright pink starfish.



Photobucket
Albino alligator.


After we were finished with the aquarium, we went into the rainforest dome.



Photobucket
Poison dart frogs. I wanted these colorful guys as pets back when I had like 5 tanks in my bedroom as a teenager. As far as frogs go, the poison ones are the "prettiest". 



Photobucket
Gah! Look how cute they are!



Photobucket
And at the top of the dome, all the butterflies float around you. It's magical. This one is huge, and looks like and owl's face when its hanging down. 



Photobucket
I was sure glad I had my 100mm lens!



Photobucket
Then there is the section with the taxidermy. I'm not usually a fan, but they do an excellent job.



Photobucket
Giraffe's are impossibly tall.



Photobucket
Closeup of the living roof. This is the outside of the rainforest dome.



Photobucket
View of one of San Fran's many, many, house covered hills. 


Then we walked across the park to visit the Japanese Tea Garden.



Photobucket
Cute sister.



Photobucket
Pagoda.




Photobucket
Crazy tall bridge that you literally had to climb to get over. I went around instead.




Photobucket
I love mossy rocks.



Photobucket
Lil sister instagramming. I taught her the joys of instagramming while she was here. We were SO tired at this point- we had been walking all over the city, all day long for 3 days. So we sat in the garden and had some delicious Ramune.



Photobucket
There were tons of pretty Koi.



Speaking of all things Japanese, at some point we went to Japantown.



Photobucket
I got two amazing Japanese sewing books and some pretty cherry blossom fabric. I know- I can't read Japanese but maybe I can use the illustrations to follow along. Maybe.


On Thursday, Mal had her first day of the conference. I stayed home and did nothing but rest my achey feet! When she was finished for the day, we had a cheesecake baking lesson. We made caramel cheesecake.



Photobucket
During her lunch break on Friday, we took the cheesecake over to Danny's work- they had just moved into a huge building right on Market street. I wanted to bake something great and take it to them to congratulate them, so being able to bake with my sister and take it over was even better!

They loved it, of course. And so did we.

Except for the fact that we got lost looking for the building- we ended up in the not-so-great Tenderloin district thanks to google maps, and Maloree got a taste of culture that nobody should have to ever get a taste of.




Photobucket
Our favorite ice cream shop had been closed all.damn.week. Because they were on vacation. But Friday- they were open. So that evening we walked over and got ourselves a cone!


Saturday Mal went to her conference, and after we went out to eat. Sunday was a lazy day, we all slept in and then got ready to go to the airport. We were dropping Mal off to get to her flight by 4, and we were flying out to Portland at 5. It worked out wonderfully!

Ever since she was 3, Maloree has wanted a German Shepard. She had been obsessed with animals, especially dogs, all her life. It's no surprise that she became a vet tech, she has a love and compassion for them like I've never seen in anyone else. She decided to finally get a dog of her own. The same day we all flew out, her puppy also flew in. My parents picked him up, and he was waiting for her when she got home. 



Photobucket

Meet Ryker. Squishable, right? Full blooded, his dad is really from Germany, and he will be a working German Shepard. She is training and socializing him everyday. This is a dream come true for her, I am so proud and I am so excited for her. And I can't wait to meet him! 

We had a fantastic time. I miss her sooooo much- it was so nice to have so much time together. It was also very awesome that we happened to live in the city that they had the conference- otherwise she wouldn't have come and stayed with us. Come back soon!


No comments:

Post a Comment