San Diego part dos

Day 4

Started the day with an intense and rewarding hike up Mission trails on Cowles Mountain. I was sweating so much by the time we got to the peak but the view was lovely and the breeze at the top was helpful hehe

After the hike, we headed to Mission Beach for a chilled beach day! 

Had the most amazing Acai bowl I've had to date at Barefoot Bakery Cafe, proceeded to sun tan on the beach and even dipped myself into the sea! Proud of me-self because it was so cold but I did it!!!

Topo and I then went on a thrilling roller coaster ride shown in the pic above at Belmont Park right along the beach! 

We then went to Bar Kindred for dinner and the food here was perfection!! 

We then ended the day with the season finale of Sense 8 - it was just ok, felt that it was too rushed and confusing because we hadn't watched it in a while, but I'm glad they still made it! 

Day 5

Packed up in the morning as it was our last day in San Diego and left the air bnb at 11.45am for La Jolla cove. The second we stepped out of the uber, we were swarmed by this foul smell - it was either pelican poop or sea lion poop. On the bright side, the view was great! 

The white bits are the cliffs covered in bird poop!!

There was the option of kayaking or even snorkeling here but we didn't come prepared ☹

We then headed to the Cave store to get an entry ticket to go to Sunny Jim cave! It was a really short but super cool walk down to the cave - the only sea cave accessible by land in California, and it's called Sunny Jim because opening of the cave looked like a mascot for a British cereal who was called Sunny Jim 

We walked along the coast and came up close and personal with sea lions and sea birds!

This was one was just chilling the efff out on a bed of algae 

It was so close to the tourist on the beach and Topo and I had such a good laugh watching silly people trying to pet the sea lion and it reacting aggressively by trying to bite off their fingers 

Can you spot the sea lion! 

This one had just given birth and we witnessed a seagull trying to eat the umbilical cord from the mummy. Topo and I also saw the fins of a school of dolphins! unfortunately they quickly disappeared 

Topo and I then headed to Plumeria Thai restaurant to try their vegan duck but they were closed!! ☹

We were so gutted but before we managed to look for an alternative place for lunch, we saw another Thai restaurant just across the street and decided to check it out. 

We hit the jack pot!! This place was called Bahn Thai had a similar menu to plumeria thai and even had the vegan duck!! What were the chances!! It was an absolute gem and we had our delicious meal with vegan Thai milk tea and omg just thinking about this meal is making me salivate!!

This was the garlic vegetable stir fry with vegan duck that I had, which was divine

We got a pineapple curry to go and spontaneously headed to Whole Foods just for a wander around! and we obviously ended up spending money there because who can resist 

After Whole Foods, we headed back to our air bnb thinking we could chill for the rest of the night before our bus was scheduled for Santa barbara at 10pm, but a change of plans left us homeless for a couple hours and so we decided to chill in Balboa Park on a random hill with our suitcases and sat there till it was time to go! We watched part of The Devil wears Prada and shared the pineapple curry and then headed to the bus station ☺

🌴San Diego!🌴part uno

Day 1

Had a rough and long night traveling to San Diego with Greyhound but we finally made it at 8:40am!

I was surprised to see so many high rise and modern buildings in the distance when we arrived at the bus station but at the same time it was a really dodgy area with homeless people everywhere and so that was rather confusing. We later found out that the bus station was located in the 'bad' areas of San Diego. Anyway, our first stop was to get food (obviously!!) at Anthem vegan! 

I had a 'Chicken' waffle with berries & eggplant bacon and Topo had a biscuit and gravy dish with a 'salmon' thing (can't recall ☹) - but breakfast was really yum and so filling and after, we headed to our Tiny home air bnb, which was just adorable and so lovely!!

my dream come true :')))

We got up the ladder to our bed and that's the view from the bed (right pic) 

Tired us decided to take a rest day and so we headed to the cinema to watch Ocean's 8, which I thoroughly enjoyed! #girlpower 

We then got some groceries for dinner and headed back for a delicious meal of ramen and kungpao chicken!! 

Doesn't look fantastic but sure tasted fantastic 

Day 2

The next morning, we moved out of the tiny home (it was so expensive that we could only afford one night) and moved in to our next air bnb! We met Evan (who looks exactly like Oberyn from GOT) and he showed us round his lovely house and our room, which was soooo cosy! It also had netflix on the tele which was perfect. He gave us excellent recommendations for the day and so we ended up at the broadway pier and got round trip tickets to Coronado Island (I grabbed an iced chai latte before boarding the ferry and it was one of the best chai lattes I've had - but the one from P.S. cafe in Singapore still ranks #1)

This was at the pier 

Coronado Island! 

Coronado Island had buildings like these, a beautiful beach and also the most perfect neighborhood I've seen! It was just like in the movies with green lawns and white picket fences 

We rented bikes and had a lovely cycle around the island! 

After the scenic bike ride, we headed back to the main city and went to Donna Jean for dinner 

We had an Easy Tiger chorizo pizza, a super creamy carbonara pasta and a wild-rice chorizo salad! 

Food was so good!! 

We then went for a wander through Balboa park, the largest urban park in the US, which has 16 museums within the park - insanity!

and a fun fact: You hear and see planes fly through San Diego every 2 minutes!! (well in our experience at least) 

The themes/buildings/areas in Balboa park were so diverse and stunning!! 

We then headed back to our air bnb and watched breaking bad hehe 

Day 3 

Had a rather late start to the day (something I'm proud of because I'm the kind of person who loves getting the most out of every day when traveling and hence I would always want to get up really early and start exploring the city by 9am - so having experienced a few late days in America was something I'm proud to have learnt to do!) and we headed to the National History Museum in Balboa Park. My favourite bit of the museum was the 30min 3D movie about our oceans, which were basically shots from Blue Planet II, but I still loved! 

After the museum, we went to Wonderspaces, an art exhibit by the pier, which was recommended by Evan and his wife Angela. It was rather quirky and 'hipster' like - alternative art let's just say. It was cool but at the same time not something I'd enjoy often. Personally I felt that it was just a place for people who wanted to take 'cool pics on Instagram'. 

We were both famished (and me hangry) by the time we left the exhibit and quickly found a spot nearby for lunch - a vegan drive-through called Evolution Fast Food! 

The patty was the Beyond Meat burger (the ones we had in San Fransisco) but the combination of the other toppings and the sauces just took this burger to a new level! It was so good that Topo ordered 2 burgers!! 

With satisfied tummies, we headed to Sunset Cliff Boulevard! We got into an uber with a crazy lady who was an artist manager (whatever the title is) and she was blasting her client's music so loudly in the car and not paying attention to the road let alone whether we wanted to listen to her music. Anyway, Sunset Cliffs was absolutely stunning!!

Spot the mermaid on the rock!! Apparently someone swam and climbed that rock and placed the mermaid there hahah

This cool old man was just enjoying the breeze and smoking pot

Was such a lovely end to the day sitting at the edge of the cliffs, watching people surf and hearing waves crashing against the shore :))