Down the Rabbit Hole

  Lone Cypress I have been to Monterey Bay with my family three times before. I visited Cannery Row's shopping district with Mommy and Daddy on my first visit. On my second visit, the whole family drove here on Christmas and had dinner at Carmel-by-the-Sea . On my third visit, we finally visited the aquarium (but Donan was asleep for most of our visit). Since we've seen the Cannery Row area several times, we decided to explore Pebble Beach on my fourth trip back. This community on the Monterey Peninsula is famous for its world-class golf courses. We had a Hawaiian fusion lunch at Roy Yamaguchi's restaurant at the Inn at Spanish Bay while admiring the view of the Monterey coastline. Then, we followed the 17-Mile Drive along the Carmel Bay coast, enjoying the view of the rocky outcroppings and the birds that call this place home. We also saw several sea lions swimming off the coast (Anna mistook them as dolphins). We stopped briefly to view the Lone Cypress, a Monterey Cypre...

Our trip to San Diego wouldn't be complete without a visit to one of the places on my bucket list: the San Diego Zoo (I've always wanted to visit since I was in grade school). Initially, I planned for us to be there all day on our second day in the city. However, Mommy and Daddy wanted to listen to the organ recital in Balboa Park, so we scheduled the zoo trip right after visiting the USS Midway . Visiting in the afternoon was a good idea because the crowd was smaller, the bus queues were shorter (yes, there are buses in the zoo!), and the gondola lifts were much shorter. We saw elephants playing, lions and tigers napping, koalas hanging around, giraffes munching, camels people-watching, and flamingoes walking about.  We even saw an artificial tar pit with a few bones, which Donan enjoyed staring at.  We saw most of the zoo on the bus tour and the gondola lift (for a bird' s-eye view); however, we didn't visit the animals whose enclosures were away from the tour's ...

  I had an exam in the City in mid-March and brought my meal-prepped lunch. So I hopped into a lift that brought me to Salesforce Park (for the first time). It is a garden 70 feet above ground, suspended over three or four city blocks in the East Cut neighbourhood. It is a sight for sore eyes after being on the BART and walking on San Francisco's concrete trails under the shadow of the tall buildings of the Financial District. Salesforce Park reopened in July 2019, a few months after I finished studying in the City . In fact, the construction site for the Transbay Transit Centre (on which the park is found) was under construction while I was a student at UC Berkeley's SF campus. And that is why I didn't get a chance to see it earlier. Walking along the paved path in Salesforce Park reminded me of my visit to Singapore's Flower Dome . The park is rich in greenery, with the path lined with plants and grass-covered hillocks. Since it was (literally) the last day of winter,...

Alcatraz Island is one of the more difficult National Parks to visit.  Tickets to the island sell out fast, especially on weekends (a very popular tourist destination) The only way to get there from Embarcadero is by boat (15-min trip) The road on the island is uneven and difficult to walk on because of the terrain (wear super comfortable shoes) After watching Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery's The Rock, I always wanted to visit Alcatraz. Val and I took a  cruise  around the island once; we didn't land there, though. This is why I was excited when I snagged a day tour slot when I was in San Francisco. Finally, after years of finding an opportune time!  The highlight of the island tour was the audio-guided tour of the federal penitentiary, which used to be a maximum-security prison (and is famous because of it). Before it became a federal penitentiary, however, Alcatraz Island was home to a military fortress designated to protect the West Coast from foreign invaders (d...

Val has been wanting to go outdoors after more than a year of being restricted indoors (thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ever-changing regulations on community quarantine in the Philippines). I decided to take him (and the rest of the family) on a road trip to the Muir Woods National Monument in Mill Valley. There was neither cell signal nor WiFi access in the woods so it was a good opportunity to really stay off the grid and relax. I first visited the Muir Woods in 2015 with Ate Maddie. Back then, we could visit the park without getting reservations but finding parking was a challenge. Some people had parked on the side of the road already! This time, however, I had to buy our tickets and pay for parking before we went there. Perhaps, the ticket reservation requirement is enforced to limit the number of visitors as parking space and shuttle service are limited (and also, COVID-19).  As per usual, I took baby-wearing duties while Val pushed the stroller (with our personal b...

Val wanted to go outdoors so we drove to Calistoga , which we have visited two years ago. This time, however, instead of going with Anna, we drove there with our son and with Mommy. And instead of doing a vineyard tour  (which is what many tourists are doing when in the Napa Valley), we opted to go on a nature trip by visiting the Petrified Forest. I first came across the concept of petrification in Prof Dimaandal 's Science 1 class in high school because we covered geology in that course. I first saw an example of petrified wood in that class but never have I ever thought that I'd see a forest of petrified trees... until we visited. Val was fascinated by the petrified forest as well because he has only read about it in school; this was the first time he saw a petrified forest. From what I've read about the Petrified Forest in the signages peppering the trail (yes, Mommy went hiking!),  I learned that this forest was created over 3,000,000 years ago after Mt St Helena erupt...

This is my third visit to the Lafayette Reservoir , a water supply standing by for customers of the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Also, this is one of the rare occasions that my son and I were out of the house because of COVID-19 restrictions still being enforced in the Bay Area. Outdoor recreation is allowed as long as we stay away from others and people over the age of two years old wear masks. It's almost surreal to me that we're outdoors just as winter is giving way to spring. The last time we were out, the temperature outside hovered just below 60 ºF/ 15.5 ºC which felt even colder because of the strong winter wind. We were all bundled up, with me wearing my son in a baby carrier covered with a polar fleece winter coat. But just a few weeks later, we were already walking in the forest surrounding the reservoir wearing activewear sans  winter outerwear.  Anyway, I'm glad that we were able to go outdoors because I needed the exercise (to help my knees and hips rec...

  Photo taken by Anna On a warm winter afternoon (and by warm, I mean 61 ºF/ 16 ºC), Anna and I brought my son to Heather Farm Park in Walnut Creek. I'm very happy that we went here because I've always wanted to visit (but never had a chance before, thanks to COVID-19 ). The park is impressive! It's one of the bigger urban parks I have visited (the biggest, so far, is the Presidio of San Francisco  at 1500 acres). We intended to stroll along the easy path, just going around the pond. However, we quickly changed course when we discovered that there's a lake we could explore (and we did). While Anna and I enjoyed the view of the lake and the sounds of the wildlife, though, my son was more interested in staring at his stroller canopy than at the ducks floating on the lake.  Following the path around the lake After touring part of the lake, we headed to the Gardens at Heather Farms. It actually is a non-profit organisation that runs a garden that is accessible (and free) to...

I intended to take the little one on a walk around the neighbourhood at 8am one day in early September. As I was placing him in the baby carrier, I kept wondering why the sky was so dark and gloomy, given that it's supposed to be a warm sunny day. As we walked out the door, I noticed that there was ash sprinkled all over outside. It reminded me of the day Mount Pinatubo's eruption in the 1990s and the more recent eruption of Taal Volcano . And when I looked up, the sky was a deep orange hue... it was so uncanny that I decided to stop and take a photo before retreating indoors. Ahh, the 2020 California fire season had begun. And the glowing orange sky I saw that day was also seen by a lot of other people in the Bay Area. The thick smoke that made the air quality really bad that morning came from multiple fires in northern California, Oregon, and Washington being blown by the wind into the Bay Area. The fire that led to this orange sky started because of a dry lightning event in...

Summer has come and gone. Autumn has finally arrived! And we still are supposed to limit our engagements to a few people at a time and in outdoor locations if possible, thanks to COVID-19 . California's new cases count has steadily decreased and the state has allowed some establishments to reopen (like gyms and salons). We are still cautious—wearing masks, observing physical distances, and working from home (if possible)—to prevent contracting the illness. Especially now because the fall season is expected to be another challenging time for hospitals regarding respiratory illnesses. One of the things I did to prepare for the fall is to get my flu shot during my last doctor's appointment. Everyone else in the family is doing this too, all to protect the youngest among us: the two young boys we've been blessed with.  Anyway, the fall heralds the arrival of cooler weather, finally! During my latest morning walk with the wee one, I had to wear a sweater already and he wore a lo...

Two years ago, I assembled a bookshelf using only a Swiss knife (because I didn't know where the proper tools were stored). We never did use it as a bookshelf because we've used it as an open cabinet for clothes. For most of its use (so far), the cabinet had been standing tall.  But the presence of a baby has made us review the risks posed by the furniture we've got at home. The most obvious of which, for us, was that a lot of our stuff are fall risks in the event of an earthquake.  Three bookshelves are now lying horizontally on the floor. I decided to use the one assigned to me as a clothes container again with  each shelf acting as a partition for clothes (and there won't be too many clothes piles collapsing because of the weight!). The second one is also used in the same way but for Anna's clothes. The third one is assigned to the dining area or the living room; I'm just not sure how it's going to be positioned and what its contents will be. With just a ...

We normally respond to perceived danger with flight, flight, or freeze.  During my son's early days, when he wasn't sleeping through the night, I was reading up about sleep training and how it affects babies. Some articles say that sleep training is all about providing a baby the opportunity to learn how to self-soothe. Crying is often times seen as a baby's way of manipulating parents to what he/she wants; minimising this behaviour is important so that parents can rest. On the other hand, some articles say that sleep training's success is actually the baby's freeze  reaction. He/She is stressed too much because he/she perceives that he/she is alone and his/her parents will not come to the rescue. Crying is a communication tool of the baby and it is suppressed because the child quickly learns that his/her parents will not come to his/her rescue. The choice to train a child to self-soothe or to suppress his/her care cues (depending on how parents see sleep training) ...

Taal Volcano is the world's smallest volcano, sitting in a lake in an island (Volcano Island), within a lake (Taal Lake) surrounded by an island (Luzon). Tourists looking at Taal Island from Tagaytay City typically mistake Binintiang Malaki as the main crater; but in fact, Binintiang Malaki is dormant and used to be the active crater in the 18th century eruptions. This year, Taal Volcano took centre stage when it erupted on January 12, after more than two decades of seismic activity. It's the first time I've seen it erupt because it's last explosion was in 1977... way before I was born. It's fascinating to watch from a distance (watching on the telly) but I'm sure that it must be terrifying for the people living on the island and along the coast. Livelihoods disrupted; tourists and buildings literally shook by the frequent earthquakes; ecosystems changed. By Buszmail - This file was derived from:  Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020....

Val and I are in Washington, D.C. for a week. Val is attending a training course in the city and I am on vacation mode, fresh from boot camp.  --- Val's workshop in D.C. is well-timed because it falls smack on the first week of the cherry blossom festival. So what was I to do, right? I trooped to the Tidal Basin, prepared to take photos of the cherry blossoms gifted by Yukio Ozaki, Tokyo's mayor in 1912. The traces of pink on the other bank of the Tidal Basin made me hopeful that I'd see cherry blossoms. But as I got closer, I realised that I was actually staring at the buds of cherry blossoms... I arrived way too early! The iconic view of the Thomas Jefferson memorial with the cherry blossoms in the foreground was not what I saw. Instead, I saw trees that still had to wake up from their winter hibernation. Yes, there were trees with green leaves already but there was still a lot of trees that were still to bloom. That doesn't mean that all t...