First a hike around Malibu, and then An Evening with Horiyoshi III tattoo show

Today I decided to leave Los Angeles, not being very fond of the traffic and congestion. I guess that's what happens when you've been on the open roads and in nature for awhile..too many people cause a disruption. I searched online for some hiking trails and here are some pictures from the very very lovely hike, as well as pictures in the general area.

Santa Monica Mountains in Malibu.





And then I met up with my friend and her boyfriend to go to Canvas Los Angeles to see a tattoo show "An Evening with Horiyoshi III". It was kind of cool to watch them tattoo someone and the art was interesting too!





Horiyoshi III couldn't make it himself so they set up a live video feed.

Joshua Tree National Park

I woke up to the sunrise at Joshua Tree National Park today. Some of these look a lot alike I know..every single moment the sky changes and I find it fascinating and beautiful.





And then went for a drive around the park.





And then I saw a sign saying "Skull rock" and I had to stop.





And before I left I went to a cactus garden of sorts!





After driving to LA, I met up with a friend for dinner. I tried to get him to eat the crickets, but he just wouldn't do it. In all honesty, they were too salty, but hey..at least I tried them.

The Grand Canyon and Joshua Tree National Park

I woke up to the sunrise at the Grand Canyon and stuck around for most of the day. Loads of pictures to follow.





And then I drove into Joshua Tree National Park around sunset. Nice place to fall asleep.

Vacation to California - Bay Area

I haven't had time to update since my vacation over Labor Day weekend. These pictures were taken over a series of days on my vacation to San Jose, and the Bay Area in California.

These pictures were taken on the first day of my trip, which was August 31st. I decided to check out the neighborhood where I once lived in San Jose and I took a few pictures of my old apartment and other neighborhood memories. These are just a few shots of the area that I really liked.



These pictures were taken September 1st at Santa Clara Mission Cemetery.



These were taken September 3rd in multiple places. We drove down to Santa Cruz, and finding it was way too busy, we decided to just continue our drive up highway 1 toward Half Moon Bay. We stopped at a really nice beach along the way. I was hoping it was one I had once visited that had a nice view to the ocean through a sort of cave. It wasn't that beach, but this beach had another smaller cave which you could see the beach through. The first four pictures are along Highway 1 just north of Santa Cruz. The other two were later that night in Colma at the Woodlawn Cemetery (the final resting place of Emperor Norton).



This last picture was taken on the last full day in California during my vacation. We went into downtown San Jose for food, and found that Tapestry in Talent was going on. We checked out the booths and got some food there, nothing else was open since it was Labor Day. This was taken of a fountain in town that I thought looked nice.