Real Food in Oakland

We went to the "Real Food in Oakland" festival at Jack London, the food was great, we got to try a lot of nice stuff, the free chocolates and the basil ice-cream was the highlight for me! We signed up to Yelp and got free green bags, and Renee got to take a photo with the lobster and Gabriel.

Alameda Beach

Took Gabriel to Alameda Beach for the first time yesterday, there was some other moms there from the Oakland Moms playgroup.
The water was very shallow, hardly no waves, reasonably clean, lots of sand and seaweed for baby to play with. I even taught him how to stamp and splash with his feet!

Again, can't seem to catch him smiling!

Photos at JC Penny

We went to get some photos done at JC Penny, Gabriel was very uncooperative, he wouldn't stay where he was placed, wouldn't look at the camera, could not get a single smile out of the whole session.This was his one smile on camera all day, when he reached out to pat this little kid that was waiting to have his photo taken.

Super Franks

This place is quite a set up, there are all these rooms for kids, they have glow in the dark golf, a games arcade, a huge play area for little kids!
Too bad we don't have any photos of Gabriel when he first arrived, the look on his face when he looked around...he was awed and a little bit overwhelmed.

Gabriel is pushing a car around instead of sitting on it.

Here is one of the many rooms at Super Franks.

Stuffing our faces with curly fries!

Aunt Shirley's visit

Gabriel and I met great-Aunt Shirley for the first time, we had lunch then an early dinner at mom's place. I think Gabriel is getting better, he's still not sure of Uncle Errol...but at least he doesn't burst into tears anymore!Jonah took this clever photo using the webcam on his laptop which turned out quite well, we actually managed to get everyone in the picture!

Mochi ice-cream!

When asked what was the highlight of my trip to Hawaii, the visit to Bubbies ice-cream immediately popped into my head. They had some great flavours, I picked out lychee, guava, azuki bean and sakura, but I got to try some other flavours, strawberry chocolate, passion, green tea and peanut butter were pretty good too!

Diamond Head

Here we are at the top of Diamond Head, the view of Waikiki is pretty nice, the hike up was not strenuous (for me) at all since Jonah carried Gabriel all the way...our photo would have looked more impressive if there were less strangers in the picture!

Ramen

Since we're always on the lookout for really really good ramen outside of Japan, it really surprised us to find TWO really good ramen restaurants in the same town, too bad for us it's in Hawaii, which is still too far from the Bay Area... but it's only half as far as Tokyo!

Patiently waiting for the food to come.

"Where's mine?"

A very drool worthy bowl of ramen!!!

Self-serve frozen yoghurt

I'm officially a fan of frozen yoghurt...and self-serve is the way to go!!! Here we are at Menchies, a self-serve yoghurt bar, and then you pay by weight, we went overboard the first time and ended up with way too many toppings!

Tide Pool

Gabriel is not a fan of cold water, he doesn't like the beach or the pool. He likes to play with the sand and splash water around while his feet are firmly planted on the ground!!! Anyway we found this great little tide pool on the north shore of Honolulu, it's warm and shallow, he had so much fun that he started crying when I took him away.

Kenji giving Jonah a lesson on baby massage

Kenji gives baby Misha a massage before bed every night as part of their sleep routine, so here is Jonah taking lessons and practicing on Gabriel. But since then Jonah has decided that Gabriel didn't like getting a massage and has not repeated the experience.

Waimea Canyon

Here we are at Waimea Canyon. The view at the end of the long drive was pretty and scenic...but when compared to the Grand Canyon...not even close! (That should be removed from the guide books, it's deceptive!) If you have time to kill and don't mind long drives or want to do a bit of hiking then it's not a bad visit. But we could have used the time to see the Na Pali Coast or Wailua Falls.