Hills of Hayward

We were right on time for Mandy’s Birthday and we went to an old favorite of ours in Monterey Park called Open Door.  It is a Japanese Tapas Bar or Izakaya, serving small dishes of traditional Japanese sushi/sashimi, cooked dishes, to crazier offerings like truffle butter edamame.

The next day we found our way to Descanso Gardens to enjoy the summer weather, plants, and animals.  The night ended with a solid ramen offering from Daikokuya with the best ramen egg we have had in the states.  An entire egg was offered per bowl of ramen, not the usual half-egg.  The middle of the egg was half-cooked in the perfect amber-colored glaze.

Oddly enough, the drive down and back from LA went by incredibly quick.  Maybe time does speed up as we get older.

Christine and I have been big Anime fans for almost a decade now.  This year Christine organized a trip to the largest Anime convention in the US, the Anime Expo, which is held every year in LA around the 4th of July.  Originally, it was a way to get all our old friends (who all watch anime to some degree) to reunite and spend some time together by renting a vacation home in LA for a week, but alas, jobs and obligations intervened and most of them begged off.

We wound up scaling back the plans and spending more time with Christine’s BFF Mandy and her husband ChunPeng and their newly adopted cats!  During the day, Christine and I took Anders around LA while Mandy and ChunPeng worked, and at night we all hung out together for dinner, played with the cats, and the men worked on their PS3 skills.

Here are some photos from the first half the trip.  Some links to the places we went:

• Anime Expo at LA Convention Center
• Travel Town Museum
• Griffith Observatory

We had a quick weekend getaway with Michelle, Steve, and Bryce to Boulder, Colorado.  With extensive mountain trails, a biking culture even more avid than in the Bay Area, excellent breweries, and an amazing downtown, Boulder left an overwhelmingly positive impression on all of us.