Life via Instagram

When I'm in the mood or just bored at home I post pictures via instagram. Just thought I'd post a little about the happenings in the comforts of my home. 

My most recent purchases were colored denim, (from ltr) Teal, Yellow, & Mint. I'd say I'm certainly ready for spring now despite the temperature dropping to a low 39 degrees recently. Despite the low temperature it definitely does not stop me from enjoying ice cream. A recent sweet tooth (yesterday) I went out in search of sweets and found chocolate ganache macarons, chocolate macademia nut lacey's & of course a side of neapolitan ice cream c/o thrifty's..the best!

My cousin's son had his baptism this past weekend in Carlsbad which is located near San Diego, I guess considered San Diego for all you SD natives. I always have a great time with family, they hold a very close spot in my heart, no matter the distance or little time we get to spend/see each other. I've always been so close to both sides of my family & each moment I spend with them reminds me how much I'm so grateful to have such a strong family core. We had a mini photo-shoot session with my Grandma also, she'll be turning 90 in April so we kept on teasing her that we had to take pictures now. She was as usual so hilarious giving smart remarks like "hurry up!".."you'll need this when i die!", shes so funny like that, her humor is nothing but love in the end. 

This was taken on the flight back from Philly to LA, somewhere over the east coast. Recently, "life" has been  heavy on my mind, so I thought a picture of floating in the clouds essentially "weightless" was appropriate for what I should be feeling. Lately I've been battling myself on different prospective future path's and each time I've hit mental obstacles. I need to remind myself that there should be no obstacle in any endeavor I wish to tackle. I'll need to start being weightless, instead of always carrying the whole world on my shoulders. I have a bad habit of thinking too much and stressing myself out. I really need to mentally prepare myself for positivity if I want to get thing's going. 

As silly as it sounds I always pick up Tao of Wu or Wu-Tang Manual by RZA to enlighten me or even put me at peace. I'm not particular on any subject of literature, but I am picky on writing style (I'm not one to just pick up any book). At first I was apprehensive picking up a book written by a musician, however both books are written in a way that is not only informative but philosophical and spiritual as well.  His knowledge and discipline that he explains through his journey to form Wu-Tang always gives me inspiration. I can never accurately explain how insightful both books are, it's a must read even if you aren't a fan of  hip hop. 

I'll leave with a picture from Philly Day 3,  members from a local church were singing gospels acappella on a Saturday in Reading Terminal Market. It was awesome to be part of Philly Culture by experiencing something rare. Philly Day 3 will be coming soon. 

Happy Terrific Tuesday!

Double the Love (Day 2 in Philly)

I'm on a roll! By the end of this week let's hope I'll be done with all 4 days of my trip to Philly. The picture above was around 8 am in the morning. It slip my mind that the sun rises on the east so when I opened the curtain's to our hotel I saw the dark clouds and thought aw no sun today, but literally 2 hours later the sun came out and all the clouds disappeared it was very odd but ultimately made me happy that the rain was gone.

Our second day in Philly was a very relaxing day, since my sister had work, her bf and I thought we should celebrate our mini vacay and go beer tasting. Since I love beer I was excited to check out the local beer. The brewing company we went to was Yards Brewing Company located in East Philly, we took the blue line again since it was about 2 miles away and walking wasn't really an option.

 We got a little confused this time with figuring out East and West Philly 3 trains passed before we figured out to take the east line. For the record Philly subway maps are super confusing if you don't know what is east, west, south, or north. Eventually we figured it out got off at spring garden and walked a block or two, if you know Philly you know you really will feel like your on the east coast when your walking around. The best way to describe it is, Toto we're not in Kansas anymore :D 

I ended up getting the Revolutionary Ales because I love Port's and Stout's! And I couldn't Resist the Love stout! I actually ended up falling in love with the Tavern Spruce Ale. My sister's bf got both the Signature Ale's & Revolutionary Ale's. I tried a small sample of the Philadelphia Pale Ale since they said it was the best selling one, and naturally I fell in love with that one too, it had a very unique lemon taste! 

Since I fell in love with these two I decided to bring some home to Joe. & If you guessed it, this is what spilled in my luggage! The Spruce Ale! After talking about it more TSA definitely spilled some of it out or enjoyed it. We're only allowed 5 liters and these are 2 liters each plus any other liquids I had in my bag, but the most shitty part is they didn't screw any of my other liquids on tightly so basically everything spilled. They only poured out a bit of the Spruce Ale, I really hope it's still fresh. I haven't opened it since we found out I won't be seeing Joe till March 17 so I guess we'll find out then. Atleast the Pale Ale wasn't open and its the most popular.

If you watch HIMYM you know Lily and Marshall have a tradition of bringing beer to each other from whatever place they travel without each other. I knew I had to get something awesome too, since Joe loves beer I knew Growlers would be a great gift. The best thing about it is he can reuse these Growlers at any brewery. & on top of that these beers are exclusive to Philadelphia and a only a few other states like Delaware & the tip of Virgina, but virtually you can't find it anywhere but Philly! 

After Yard's Jon and I were quite tipsy riding the blue line back that we got lost again haha it was pretty funny and entertaining. We finally made it back after only really going west instead of east for one stop over so not too much of a oh shit we're lost moment. Got back to the hotel and were just in time for complementary food & my sister getting off work. We ate food and rested a bit before taking the orange line to South Philly for the 76ers game. We had to take the 15th street entrance to the Orange Line so we walked 2 blocks and stopped by the LOVE sign since it was a must!

This was the one thing I was excited to do in Philly, 76ers have so much history that it was a must for the visit, so much basketball history under one roof. It was a plus that they were playing the Mav's too. Mav fans we're sitting in front of us and 76er fans were behind us so there was no problem cheering for both sides, but natuarlly I ended up cheering for Mav's I guess its the west coaster in me. 

I had the chance to meet up with my good friend Cathy during the game also. She goes to Drexel getting her Masters and conveniently we were going to the same game. Most of the trip, due to time it was hard to meet up so this was the only time I got to see her. Sadly never got pictures with her, I have a horrible habit of forgetting to take pictures when I see friends I haven't seen in awhile. Plus the stampede back to the orange line was hectic and the carts were full, last time I experienced that was taking the rush hour lrt in Philippines! The line to the orange line was crazy and getting in the carts! We were literally sandwiched against each other, and the worst part was we had 8 stops to go through, which meant bumping into people every time the cart came to an abrupt stop. Then I remembered why i'm not a huge fan of big crowds!

After the hectic orange line back we were gonna call it a night but my sis was hungry and since we heard pizza was a must in Philly we found a pizza joint. I never ended up taking a picture but its ok my sis and her bf ended up ordering veal on it so I didn't eat much of it. I did go to a gelato place while they were ordering pizza, mmmm this gelato place was divine! They had flavors I don't usually see in CA. I ended up getting Clementine & Coconut. It was heavenly, so light and yummy. The funny thing was when I first went in it was completely empty, it was after all almost midnight, who want's gelato at midnight in the cold? Me of course! So after I got my order I sat outside eating the gelato waiting, then when they were done ordering they wanted gelato too and suddenly the place was PACKED! I guess my free advertising on the bench worked, I was eating it like it was the most delicious thing in the world! So funny! The rest of the night consisted of relaxing and pigging out :)

Since it's Monday i'll leave with one of my favorite Hawaiian slow jams to end this lovely night, Happy Music Monday! 

Welcome to the City of Brotherly Love (1st in a series)

Philly Day 1

After going through 500+ pictures, I had to post these, even if horribly blurry & taken from the car. The colors in the sky drastically changed within 30 mintues of driving to downtown from the airport. 

Once we got to Philly we wanted to see the Cathederal, we parked about about a block from the church and I was in such awe looking up. 

Directly across from the buildings was this, the drastic change was quite interesting, it happened very often near downtown. 

All cathedral pictures were taken with my sister's canon elph, we were planning on going back to take pictures with my nikon, but due to time crunch we never made it back. Not too shabby for a point and shoot though, after all you can never capture the beauty of a church. 

After the Cathederal we went back to the hotel to drop our car off with Valet, this was after realizing a car in Philly is a no-no. It turned out to be the best choice, we really needed a moment to sit and relax after the red eye & having little sleep. In the hotel lobby we were able to charge our phones and my camera. Not to mention change out of our red eye clothes, our hotel room wasn't ready yet so we had to change in the bathrooms and leave our luggage with the concierge. Despite being tired we went exploring Historic Philly with only 2 something hours of sleep. Our first stop was Reading Terminal Market, a few steps from our hotel. 

I loved Reading Terminal Market, It had everything yummy in one roof, truly a foodie's paradise. & A very interesting fact, it is one of the largest indoor markets in the country.

Our first meal in Philly, Tommy Dinic's, Best of Philly. My sister's first choice. Prior to going I never really looked up anything, I fully intended to go without any expectations and just explore. My sister looked up food things and I'm glad she did I don't think I would of tried most of things we did without her suggestions. Even though my non planning was exciting it was nice to have choices of good places to eat. 

Before walking around we went inside Burlington Coat Factory and messed around with hats, it was actually really fun and funny, and needed since we did need an umbrella. We never got a hat despite trying on so many, however it was a good laugh. 

 A little bit of historic Philly, we walked through historic downtown area and ended up in the President's original house, it was neat that some of its structure was original to it's actual foundation. The liberty bell was quite cool too it had mini exhibits before the actual bell I took a bunch of pictures of it but i'll post the rest on my facebook. For some reason I thought the bell was in a huge museum, well I suppose it was, its own mini museum. After we went to Independence Hall and did the whole tour, we never went into the National Constitution Center, just took pictures outside it heh. We did see Ben Franklin's Grave just didn't want to take pictures because it'd probably give us bad voojoooo or something. 

After the historic walk we took the Market-Frankfurt line, the blue line to see "A love letter to you". A growing project of street art. It was difficult to take pictures but they have a site you can look at most of the work they have around Philly. http://www.aloveletterforyou.com/?page_id=198

These pictures were taken from the website they have, my favorite was the first one, my sister really liked the 3rd one and when I showed Joe he really liked the last one. I thought all of them were cute though, epitome of brotherly love for Philly. 

After the Love letter tour we went back to our hotel and enjoyed the complementary food, rested, charged everything, then finally went out again to get food. We drove to Tony Luke's and Geno's. When we went to Tony Luke's someone was actually doing the challenge, it had 50 pounds of meat. To be honest Tony Luke's is so good that I probably could of eaten it, it was only an hour max, heh. 

(Preview of Day 2 @ Yard's) 

Day 1 of Philly was a tiring first day, but we busted out a lot in a day, the next few days were very relaxing and not as jam packed. When I have the time i'll be posting Day 2 and hopefully when I decide which ones to post on facebook i'll have a Philly Album.

Happy Sunday!