Summery November

I've been back in California for the past couple weeks and it's so great to be home! It is so warm this year, even though it's already November.

Glass of Chardonnay at Splashes in Laguna Beach.

Doesn't get any better than this!

Beautiful sunset from Fashion Island.

Still summer in Venice Beach.

Zion :)

Lazy Update Part II

Soon after coming back to Tokyo, I went back to CA again for one week. Went to Vegas for half of it so it was a whirlwind trip back home. Here are some shots from my phone:

Southern California = Palm trees.

Pizza time! Pizzeria Mozza Newport

Beer al fresco. Basically commuted to Bruery Provisions every night.

Vietnamese food fix: Brodard Cafe

Cheeseburgers: In-n-Out Burgers

Absolute favorite beach back home, Laguna Beach.

A whole new appreciation for the close access to the amazing beaches after being away from OC for a bit.

Santa Fe Eggs Benedict (substituted Potatoes with Spinach): Plum's Cafe

Enjoyed hanging out with friends and of course, this handsome boy.

Miss him so much!

Counting down the days until I'm back...!

OC

Totally neglected this thing...

I came back to Orange County two weeks ago (wow, time flies!). 

Enjoying the weather, driving, access to Vietnamese and Mexican food, monthly Yoga membership and indulging in California wine. Oh, and most importantly spending time with Zion, who I missed so much!

I'll get some time (very soon) to catch up on more France & Belgium updates once I finish the project I'm working on now.

Sapi Island

On our second day, we took a day trip to Sapi Island. It was the "rainy" season so I was worried if we would be able to make it out to the beach, but luckily we were blessed with gorgeous weather!

We took these boats from the harbor, which was right next to our hotel.

That's the whole island! It's about a 15 minute boat ride.

Can you see the fish?

The "entrance" to the island.

Clear water.

We got there pretty early in the morning (we left around 9AM) and were one of the first to get there. We snorkeled...

and took naps with this view.

Roaming around were residents of this island, the Monitor Lizard. They were huge!

Kota Kinabalu

Another perk of living in Japan is its proximity to other Asian countries. Growing up in CA, for a weekend trip, we would only really have the option to travel somewhere within the US, Canada or Mexico.

Last Wednesday was a public holiday in Japan and my boyfriend took a couple days off so we planned a quick 2 night trip to Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, one of the 13 states in Malaysia. KK wasn't on our list of places to visit but after some research it seemed like a really interesting destination. They have beaches, jungles, animals, mountains, a city, and most importantly the food which is a mix of various Asian cuisines. What sealed the deal was a direct flight out of Haneda. SO convenient!

Will blog in detail but here is our trip in a nutshell...

Took a red eye and arrived around 6AM.

It's about a 5.5 hour flight there, 4.5 hour flight back. Not bad!

The city is about a 10-15 minute car ride from the airport, which is awesome.

Harbor adjacent to our hotel.

What we didn't know was that most of KK city is a landfill so they didn't have nice beaches that I'd envisioned. But, there are lots of islands nearby!

There is a large Muslim population so there were many mosques.

Went to Lok Kawi Wildlife Park.

Initially, we wanted to go to the Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary, and we knew it was on the Eastern side of Sabah but didn't realize that it was another flight or a 7.5 hour drive to get there. Definitely didn't have enough time for that but hopefully we can make another trip out to go there, Kinabalu National Park and Gomantong Caves.

Went to the Sabah State Museum & Heritage Village.

An enormous Bryde's Whale skeleton is displayed and it's impressive!

Day trip to Sapi Island.

Kota Kinabalu is famous for beautiful sunsets:

Day 1

This was after some rain so there were lots of clouds.

Day 2

Stunning!

We wrapped up our trip with food poisoning (both of us!) so although we had half a day before we flew out, we could barely move. Oh well, at least we were able to enjoy two full days there!

Island Tour on a Speedboat

We took a 1-day island tour from Phuket on a speedboat.

I really wanted to go to Phi Phi Island so when we got to Phuket, I asked around for tours. It's a bit overwhelming because there are tour stands and travel offices all over the city. We finally decided to walk into a legitimate travel office. All of the brochures have a price of around 3,000 baht/adult for speedboat tours (ferry or larger boat tours are much cheaper because they carry more people and it takes longer) but when we asked the lady, she totally threw us off by telling us that our tour would be 1,600 baht/person... I guess the price on mostly everything can be negotiated (we didn't even have to negotiate). The hotel told us a higher price than the brochure so I suggest asking around travel offices if you are in Thailand and are interested in any tours or packages.

First stop: Khai Nai Island

Picture of the speedboat that we took. The water was so clear and there were a lot of small fishes.

Close up of the fish.

Next stop: Monkey Beach (Phi Phi Don Island)

Phi Phi Don from the boat.

They briefly stopped the boat on Monkey Beach, where we can feed the monkeys.

After this, we had lunch on Phi Phi Don and then continued on to Pileh Lagoon and Loh Samah, where the boat stopped briefly so we can dive into the beach, swim and snorkel.

Pileh Lagoon

Loh Samah

Last stop: Maya Bay (Phi Phi Ley Island)

Approaching Maya Bay.

Heaven.

We stopped here for close to an hour to swim and tan. This was the most beautiful beach I had ever seen in my life.

Local Patong

Local scenery of Patong, the area of Phuket we stayed in.

Patong Beach.

Patong Beach. This was right in front of our hotel.

Phuket tuk-tuks.

They were different than Bangkok's tuk-tuks.

NO SEX Massage!

Pretty Shady...

Promoting Muay Thai fights.

Gas stands.

I thought it was so random that they sold bottled Gas all over the place.