Red Rock Canyon is located in Southern California, just south of Irvine. The trail to Red Rock Canyon is about 1.6 miles one way and the round trip hike can be completed within 2 hours. The first part of the trail shares the same starting point that connects to many other trails, thus there is usually a lot of people on the trail.
We got to the trail head at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park at around 7:30 AM and the parking lot at the park was already full! Thus we had to park the car at the plaza across the street. If you choose to park at the park's parking lot, there is a $3 fee. Also, make sure you don't park at the plaza beside the park, else your vehicle will be towed away.
The hiking trail is quite easy without much elevation gain. The only difficult park is that some parts of the trails are quite sandy and difficulty to walk on. In addition, keep in mind that this is also a mountain biking trails and many bikers are on this trail. So just walk on the side when there are bikes coming through.
We got to the intersection after about 40 minutes and there are more signs and maps to show which way to go. The Red Rock Canyon trail would be on the right side and leads into a small trail that no bikes are allowed. We proceeded onto the Red Rock Canyon trail for about 10 minutes and we really enjoyed the hike here. The trail goes through the meadow and it was extremely quiet!
We finally reached the Red Rock Canyon and that is where the trail ends! The rock was painted with beautiful red color. Unfortunately it was cloudy on this day and there wasn't much sun light, else it would be even more beautiful. It would be the best to be here during the sun set as the sun shines onto these rock from the west!
Overall, it was a fun trail to hike on and a great place to get away from the busy city life. It was so quiet on the trail and the only thing we could hear were bird chirps.
Aliso Peak trail is a short 3 miles round trip trail in Southern California in the city of Aliso. The peak sits right by the coast and provides an incredible view on the beach down below. The difficulty of this trail is quite easy, but there are some steep portion of the trail that go up and down on gravels. Thus extra caution is advised.
To get to Aliso Peak, there are 2 starting points. The first starting point is to go from Aliso Summit trail head, but that trail head was closed when we went there for some reason. The second trail head is closer to the peak and starts from Sea View Park. The Sea View Park is right by the gated community of Aliso Sur. make sure you don't approach the gate since you are not a resident there. We parked our car on the curb side right by the park. When we got off the car, we could already see a gorgeous view of the canyon down below.
The trail starts on the side of the gate of the gate community. There is a sandy trail that forks to the right and that is the starting point. Along the trail, there are several picnic tables on the side for people to enjoy the day. Upon approaching the picnic table, the easy part of the trail ends here and now the trail becomes narrow and goes downwards. Be very careful here since it is a bit steep. Once we got down to the bottom of this down hill section, we kind of got into the gated community, but of course we don't plan to enter the community.
The trail continues along the side of the community and goes towards the beach. The trail is actually wide here because it needs to allow trucks to go on this trail as well. So be aware of any incoming vehicles. On this section of the trail, we could see the Aliso Peak down below!
Once we got the the bottom of the peak, the ascend beings. The ascent of this trail is just a small part of this trail. It was not difficult at all. We got to the top right away and the view was breathtaking. We could see the entire coastline and the Laguna Beach. Since it is early morning just 30 minutes after sun rise, the color is beautifully golden along the ridge. There is also conveniently a bench at the top for people to sit and enjoy the view.
Looking back at where the trail started, we could see the community built on top of the hill. It was really a beautiful view from the peak. We could also see the nicely built golf course down below in the canyon. That is actually a very well built golf course to allow players to enjoy golf in the shade.
Overall, this was a great hiking experience since it was our first time hiking in Southern California. The sun was not as glaring as what we expected and we would definitely try a longer trail next time.
Capital Seafood is an authentic Chinese restaurant located in Irvine along Jamboree street. In the morning, it offers Cantonese styled Dim Sum dishes and at night it offers traditional Chinese seafood dishes. The restaurant is located in the plaza that has many other Asian restaurants.
Initially, we were just at the plaza to purchase some bread for breakfast, but we happened to tumble across Capital Seafood and wondered why it opened so early. We figured that it must be serving Dim Sum in the early morning and thus we decided to give it a try since we haven't had Dim Sum for a while.
We went in and the restaurant was about half full. We were led to the table and chose to get a pot of Jasmin Tea. Right after we sat down, many Dim Sum cart were brought to our table to allow us to pick the Dim Sum dishes that we would like to have. We have been to many Dim Sum restaurants and we could tell that Capital Seafood restaurant does not do Dim Sum as its main business because the Dim Sum dishes that are being served are very limited.
We picked the usual Dim Sum dishes to see how it is. The shrimp dumping is gigantic! The shrimp dumpling served at Capital Seafood is twice as large as the one served in other places! The dumpling was filled with lot of shrimp! Although the dumping is big and filled with lot of shrimp, the taste of the dumpling isn't that great. The skin of the dumpling was falling off and hard to use chopstick to grab it since it is so big!
Siu Mak was huge too! We were shocked when we saw it! Siu Mak has a pretty good taste. It was still juicy inside and has chewy texture!
When we got our bill, we were shocked to see how much each Dim Sum dish cost. The cheapest one was $4! This could possibly due to the large dumping.
Overall, we think it is a bit too pricy for a Dim Sum place and may not go again if we don't have to.
CoCo Ichibanya is a restaurant located in Irvine California that specializes in curry dishes. It is actually a chain restaurant originated from Japan! The restaurant itself is located at the heart of Irvine business district and the restaurant is usually packed with customers lining up at its door. The restaurant itself is easy to find in the plaza that it is in. It is located directly at the corner of the plaza and can be spotted easily when coming out of the parking garage at the back.
CoCo Ichibanya does not take break in the afternoon and operates from lunch time to dinner. We got there around 1:30PM avoiding the busy hour, and we still had to wait for 5 minutes. When we got to the reception, we signed in by ourselves on the tablet to indicate number of people in the party, and whether we have any special request. After about 5 minutes, we were led to the bar table, which is still nice since we could see the chefs in the kitchen making curry.
So the curry at CoCo Ichibanya is more like Japanese style curry. Not Indian style or Thai curry. Thus the curry taste is more sweet rather than spicy. It does have spicy option however. The menu of the restaurant offers many different curry dishes, but we believe that the curry sauce is the same for all of them. The only difference is the meat or the vegetable that come with the dish.
CoCo Ichibanya also allow customers to customize the curry, and of course you can add spiciness to it as well. The maximum level of spiciness is 24! We are not a fan of spicy food. So this time we ordered a port cutlet curry with egg wrapping around rice, and a customized curry dish.
The dishes were served quite quickly and the rice was served in a big bowl plate with lot of curry sauce! The curry taste is quite rich and sweet, which we really like! The egg wrapping rice is very common in Japan, but we find the egg wrap to be a bit thing and we thought the rice is usually flavored with other spice.
Overall, we loved the taste of curry here at CoCo Ichibanya! It is the kind of East Asian curry that we like since its more sweet than spicy.
Trail of 10 Falls is the 7.5 miles trail loop at Silver Falls State Park. This trail is a true gem in Oregon and it is always very crowded during the weekends, even during winter season. Silver Falls State Park is located East of Salem, and it is about 1.5 hours away from Portland. During this Thanksgiving Weekend with 1 day of sun shine, we decided to pay a visit to this beautiful state park.
We left around 9AM in the morning so that we can get there early to make sure there are parking space available. After reaching Salem and head toward East, we were driving through the valley with beautiful green scenery. It was like living in the dream and the sceneries are like the ones that you would see on post card. We actually stopped by the side of the road for several moments just to enjoy it. A note here, if you want to stop on the side of the road, make sure you find a place that is safe since the shoulder of the road is quite narrow.
We got to Silver Falls State Park around 11AM and there was a surprise there for us. The admission fee is waived on Black Friday! This was just awesome! Although the daily use fee is only $5, it still made us very happy! We parked the car at the South entrance of the park and that is where most people go to. Many people brought their cute dogs, but just note that dogs are only allowed on certain trails.
We started the hike from the South Falls, which is the most popular one. Since there was a lot of rain during the winter, the volume of water coming from the Falls is enormous compared to summer season! The trail goes behind the waterfall where we could feel the water splashing against the cliff. The trail was quite wet here and we had to hop around to make sure we did not step into the water.
Afterwards, we started heading towards North Falls, which is about 5 miles away and there are several waterfalls along the trail. The trail was quite easy with limited amount of elevation gain. The trail goes along the river and sometimes crosses the river as well. At this time of the season, although the trail is slipper, most of the dangerous areas have fences along the side to prevent people from falling.
After about 2 hours of hike, we finally got to North Falls. We would say that the North Falls is more beautiful than South Falls! The North Falls was split into 2 unlike the South Falls which was like a giant white curtain. Similar to South Falls, we could also go behind the North Falls. The area behind the North Falls is much wider and dryer, which allows more rooms for people to take photos.
After the North Falls, it was time to turn back and head back to South Falls. The trail loops back along the Rim Trail, which is very easy to hike on with no difficulty at all. heading back was easy due to trail going in a straight line and only 2 miles.
Overall, the Trail of 10 Falls at Silver Falls State Park is simply amazing. This is by farm one of the best trail I have been on and the difficulty is extremely easy. If 7.5 miles is too long for you, there are 2 other smaller loops with just 2 miles and 5 miles. Thus this is a great place for people to hike around with different preference on difficulties.
Class 302 Cafe is a popular restaurant that offers Taiwanese style food. It has many stores within the Orange County. Class 302 actually means grade 3 and second class. The restaurant is known to have use Taiwanese class room styled tables and chairs in the restaurant. People from Asia country would know what we are talking about when they see it.
We have been to this restaurant 4 years ago. This is the first time that we visit this restaurant again after 4 years and things have changed so much. It does not look like it is as popular as before, probably due to the competition from other new restaurants. The food menu does not have as much variety as before either. In addition, the restaurant is now more like order first and then find a seat kind of style, rather than sit down first and the order your meal. We were shocked about how much have changed in 4 years.
So this time we ordered a Taiwanese Sausage Fried Rice, Pig Blood Rice Cake, Boba Milk Tea, and a Slush Ice. The Taiwanese Sausage Fried Rice came with a huge portion with lot of sausage in it. It was fried perfectly. The only thing that we have minor complain on is that amount of onion in there.
The Pig Blood Rice Cake might sound scary, but it is very common in Taiwan. It is usually dipped with peanut powder to add sweetness to it. We definitely recommend people to give it a try. It is really tasty and not as scary as it sounds and looks.
The Boba Milk Tea is the one that we were shocked with. When we placed the order, we were given an empty cup. Apparently the drinks are self serve. We went to the drink bar, there were different types of bobas and puddings for people to place in their cup and then you choose which drink you want to fill your cup with. It was quite an experience.
The Slush Ice is not as good as before. We felt that this is more like ice cream, rather than crushed ice. We prefer to have crushed ice since that's more like Taiwanese styled dessert.
Overall, we felt that Class 302 Cafe is no longer as good as it used to be. We wished that it could have maintained its quality as before, but the owner must has his/her own reason to change the way how the restaurant operates.
Griffith Observatory is one of the four observatories in California. It is located North of Los Angeles. There is no entrance fee to enter the observatory, but there are parking fees with an hourly rate of $3. Since we were having a vacation at Southern California, we decided to pay a visit to Griffith Observatory.
The observatory was not hard to find. We simply just drove up the road all the way to the top of the mountain. When we got there around 3pm, there was already a lot of car in the parking lot and many car were parked on the side of the road. Note that you still have to pay for parking fee even if you park your vehicle on the side of the road. Luckily, we were able to find a spot in the parking lot right away.
We went into the observatory and looked at the photos of the galaxies and the telescope used to observe the stars. On the outside patio, we could see the entire metropolitan city of Los Angeles. We could still see the smog among the city due to the forest fire that happened a week ago. On the North side of the observatory, we could see the Hollywood sign on the mountain.
There was a stair way on the side for people to access the observatory telescope at the top of the observatory. The telescope is open to public from 7PM to 10PM when the sky is dark. We did not get to try it since it was still in the afternoon and the sun was still bright. But it would have been an awesome experience to check out the telescope.
The observatory also had shows for people to watch, with additional cost. We did not bother to check it out since we just wanted to enjoy the view from the top of the mountain. This is one of the best place to see the sunset over Los Angeles. Furthermore, it is also the best place to see the night scape of Los Angeles.
Overall, we don't think it is a must visit place when visiting Los Angeles, but it is an interesting spot. It would be a romantic spot to spend the evening here to see the night view over the city. We didn't get to stay till the sun goes down, but we would definitely do it next time.
Hollywood is known for its entertainment film publication in the world! It also has this famous HOLLYWOOD sign at the top of the mountain as its landmark. Hollywood is located North of Los Angeles and it is just about 20 minutes of drive, if there is no traffic.
We drove to Hollywood from Irvine and took us about 1.5 hours to get there. The traffic is just crazy in Los Angeles region. When we got there, we wanted to park the car at Highland mall, which only cost $2 parking fee. However, we took the wrong turn and went to a valet parking place, which cost $15.
From Highland mall, we could see the Hollywood sign from afar, and most people take photos of it from here. Originally we thought we could do shopping at Hollywood, but we found out that there weren't many fashion shops there. It was mostly restaurants and pubs. It was very much like a tourist place and there were many scammers on the street. For those scammers, we just try not to talk to them.
The Chinese Theatre is probably the most famous building in Hollywood. Many films were shot here as well, such as Iron Man 3. There were just so many people and we did not bother to enter to take a look.
As we walk on the street, there were stars on the ground and each corresponds to a celebrity. Some stars do not have celebrity's name on it and it is probably for new celebrity to fill their name there. We were trying to see if we could find Donald Trump's star, but we did not find it.
The souvenir shops were interesting and filled with Oscar's golden statues. It was quite interesting. The Oscar golden statue aware sold in the shop shows that it is for "best mom", or "best dad" award. It would be a great gift to bring back to people who are very interested in this kind of stuff.
Overall, it was an experience to visit Hollywood, but not as interesting as we have thought. There were not much stuff for us to do there other than just walking around and look around to see things. However, if you have never been there, it is worth a day trip to check it out.
