travel

Shanghai Day 1

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It was no surprise to me that I woke up at 6am this morning. My first glimpse of the city was through my bedroom window.

We took a stroll though the old, not so fancy parts of Shanghai. Lots of small alleys and street markets!

I was really glad and surprised to see how clean it was on the streets, no garbage laying around like on the streets of Los Angeles, or any other city in the US. 
The street food looked really good and I was tempted to try, but I thought I’d spare my stomach on the first day in Shanghai.

I dunno, but some of these fishes looks more dead than alive to me…

We made it to Yu Gardens, but never actually made it into the gardens – we will have to come back and do that next time!

Polly

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I made it to Shanghai without any major disruptions and was greeted by friends and parents with a big box of Polly! How awesome! 

Off to Shanghai!

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I haven’t had a good vacation in quite some time and I’m excited to go to Shanghai today!
But first, the mandatory beer at LAX before take-off.

Las Vegas

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I love Las Vegas! I am not so much into gambling or walking around in 8″ heels, I am more into watching people making a fool out of themselves! 
I’m gonna gave a wine cellar like this one day!

We came across a slot contest, very interesting! It seems like the one who could hit the button most time during a 15 minute time slot won $15 000.

Tourists with jogging shoes, a must!

I am not sure if this is the good or the bad part of Las Vegas…

Christmas Day

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I woke up in cracker dawn to take the first flight out of Denver to make it in time for Christmas lunch in Hacienda Heights.
Spending Christmas with my LA family is the next best thing to spending Christmas with my Swedish family!
We started off with a Gingerbread House Decoration Contest. We teamed up two and two and my team made an awesome 4 story house! Unfortunately, the rest of the teams took too long to put their houses together and the icing provided to glue the houses together was not that great, so our house fell apart.
My teammate Annie is a quick thinker though so we named our project Sandy after the recent west coast storm, so we managed to win the contest!

After all the fun and games it was time to get serious with the White Elephant Gift Exchange.

I scored a bottle of wine!

Christmas Day

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I woke up in cracker dawn to take the first flight out of Denver to make it in time for Christmas lunch in Hacienda Heights.
Spending Christmas with my LA family is the next best thing to spending Christmas with my Swedish family!
We started off with a Gingerbread House Decoration Contest. We teamed up two and two and my team made an awesome 4 story house! Unfortunately, the rest of the teams took too long to put their houses together and the icing provided to glue the houses together was not that great, so our house fell apart.
My teammate Annie is a quick thinker though so we named our project Sandy after the recent west coast storm, so we managed to win the contest!

After all the fun and games it was time to get serious with the White Elephant Gift Exchange.

I scored a bottle of wine!

Keystone

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Not a ton of snow, but well enough for some nice tree runs!

Off to Denver, Colorado

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With a few days off for Christmas and nothing to do I thought a last minute quick trip to Colorado would do me good!
With my usual luck, the flight was delayed – which gave me time for a couple of IPA’s.

Airports at Christmastime is always fun!

Pacific Coast Highway

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We headed back to Los Angeles today, but stopped by Martin’s studio first to see where all the magic happens.
We took PCH down and the scenery was amazing! I didn’t really know it was gonna take us 12 hours to drive though… I think PCH is totally worth the ride, but I would do it over two or three days if I were to do it again, everything in one stretch is a little to much.

Alcatraz

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We woke up bright and early to a sunny San Francisco and headed out to the wharf for breakfast.
After the breakfast we took the shirt ferry ride over to Alcatraz

The Bay Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge
Our destination, Alcatraz!

 Mom and Dad ready for some sightseeing!

I’ve been to Alcatraz before a few years ago, but I think it’s really cool and a little creepy and think it’s worth going every few years.

The audio tour is really interesting and you need at least a couple of hours on the island to be able to see everything.

We came back to the city around noon, just in time for lunch. But we had time to walk by the Sea Lion wharf; apparently they just showed up one day after an earthquake and then just decided to stay.

Lombard Street, a funky steep street in the middle of the city.