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Somi Somi is a popolar ice cream franchise from Korea. It specialized in placing ice cream on taiyaki. Taiyaki is a type of soft baked cake that is shaped like a fish. When Somi Somi serves its ice cream, it opens the fish's mouth and places the ice cream in there. The Somi Somi restaurant that we visited this time is at the Irvine Spectrum Center in Southern California. When we got there, there was already a huge line in front of the restaurant, but then we realized that it is because the restaurant serves the ice cream very slowly!
Somi Somi's ice cream menu does not have many ice cream flavors. The flavors include sesame, milk vanilla, matcha, and taro. A swirl of two flavors are also offered. When picking your "fish", you can also choose the type of fillings that you want to have in the fish. The choice of fillings include Nutella, custard, and red bean.
This time we bought two ice creams served in the fish. We selected a matcha flavor, and a sesame flavor. After we placed our order, we waited for a good 10 minutes to get our ice cream. The sesame flavored ice cream was different than what we expected. The ice cream was not dark at all! It was more of a grayish color. We were a bit disappointed at its presentation due to its color. However, when we tasted the ice cream, the sesame flavor was rich!
The matcha ice cream was quite good too! The ice cream has a lot of green flavor in itself! In terms of the fish filling, the custard filling was the best! It was not too sweet and was not sticky either. Red bean filling could be good too!
In general, Somi Somi servers some really good ice cream! Custard filling in the fish definitely kills it! The only thing that should be improved is the wait time!
Joshua Tree National Park is one of the most popular national park in Southern California. This national park offers a variety of activities such as rock climbing and camping. Many rock climbing enthusiasts love to come here due to the special rock formation in the national park. The camp site within the national park is also top rated sites for camping.
Joshua Tree National Park is only about 2 hours away from Los Angeles. We left home around 8AM in the morning to avoid traffic. After we enter the desert area, the wind started to blow really hard and felt like we were about to lose control of the car. So make sure you hold tight on your steering wheel.
We got to Joshua Tree National Park around 10AM. The park entrance fee is $25 per vehicle, which is not too bad. We also saw a Tesla Model 3 coming into the park, which was pretty cool!
The first thing we did was to hike on the Hidden Valley Trail. This is the first trail that you would encounter when driving on Park road and it is one of the most popular hiking trail and offers great picnic and barbecue area for day use.
After Hidden Valley Trail, we wanted to visit Barker's Dam. Unfortunately, when we got there, the parking lot was full! The park should build more parking spaces! There was only about 50 parking spaces there and we could not really park on the side o the road!
Then we decided to go to Lost Horse Mine Trail. The trail head is located at the end of the unpaved gravel road. It was not easy to get and when we got there, the parking lot was full again! The parking lot could only hold like 10 cars! We were really pissed. The gravel road was very narrow and so we could not park on the road either!
Since we were already here, we decided to visit Keys View, which is the highest point within Joshua Tree National Park. There is a plenty of parking spaces here! From Keys View, we could see the valley below the mountain and the haze over the valley. It was our first time seeing the dessert and we found it amusing.
After this, we went to Skull Rock Trail. Fortunately, there is a plenty of parking spaces for people to park on the side of the road. This is most likely the most popular spot for people to hang out since there is a big camp site here.
Overall, Joshua Tree National Park was a fun place to visit and it was our first time seeing a desert like national park. The rock formation within the park was quite interesting as well. Walking on the rock was no problem at all as the texture on the rock provides a lot of grip. One thing to note is that Joshua Tree National Park is gigantic! So make sure your car has enough gas before you enter the park!
Skull Rock Trail is one of the most popular hiking trail within Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. Its popularity is due to the fact that there is a rock that is shaped like a human skull. The Skull Rock Trail itself is about 2 miles long. The trail is located near the center of Joshua Tree National Park and just beside the Jumbo Rock camp site. To hike on this trail, it would be the best to park the car on the side of the road since the camp site parking space is for people who reserved the camp site.
We got to the trail head at around 12:30PM and parked the car on the side of the road. We did not see many people hiking on this trail however. Most people were off the trail and wondering around on the rocks on the side. Since Skull Rock Trail is a loop, we actually started the trail from within the Jumbo Rock camp site.
While we were hiking on the trail, we heard that there is also a rock that looks like an elephant. We thought we found the "Elephant Rock", but we realized that we found the wrong one after we went home and searched it on web. So make sure you find the correct Elephant Rock! The trail is split into 2 parts by the Park road. As we approach the Park road, we started to encounter more people and this is because we were getting close to Skull Rock! Once we got to the Skull Rock, we were a bit disappointed. The rock itself does indeed look like a skull, but it isn't a full skull.
As we started to loop back to where we start, there were less and less people on the trail. The scenario on the trail were amazing however. Seeing the amazing rock formation from afar is just an amazing view. It really felt like we were in the Wild West.
If you are only interested in seeing the Skull Rock, there is no need to hike the trail. You can simply just drive your car up onto the road and stop at the Skull Rock.
Hidden Valley trail is one of the most popular hiking trail in Joshua Tree National Park located in Southern California. The Hidden Valley hiking trail is the first hiking trail that you see on the road when entering Joshua Tree National Park via its main entrance on the West side. Other than just hiking trails, Hidden Valley trail is surrounded by various giant rocks and many rock climbing enthusiasts love to come here to do rock climbing.
Although Hidden Valley trail has one of the largest parking lot within Joshua Tree National Park, the parking spaces fill up very fast. We got there around 10AM in the morning and there were only few spots left. This is because many people come early and have picnic or barbecue in the area.
The Hidden Valley hiking trail is only about 1.5 miles, so it's quite short. The hiking trail essentially take you into a valley surrounded by rocks and loops back to where it begins. While we hike on the trail, we saw many rock climbers climbing on the rocks on the side. In addition, we also saw many lizards running around on the ground. Some lizards were rather largest. They are bigger than the hand.
The Hidden Valley hiking trail is very suitable for all ages. The elevation of the trail is essentially none. Even if there are up hill climbs, there are rock chiseled stair cases to make the hike easier. The only thing to remember is to bring water. Even though the hike is short, it is still important to stay hydrated since the sun is quite glaring.
When we came back to the parking lot, the lot was full and many cars were circling around to find a spot. Thus it is important to come to this hiking trail early if you wish to find a parking space.
