I walked past this place and had to turn back around when I smelled the delicious food being cooked inside. Bio is a tiny shop a block away from Union Square with lunch offerings that not only taste good but are also interesting. Jalapeno agave strawberry juice, anyone?

Bio's pastry is hard to resist. Every time I go there, I want to try one of everything!

The agave strawberry juice is sweet, tart, refreshing, and so healthy.

drool

An open faced turkey sandwich with salad and agave strawberry juice for lunch.

Because no meal is complete without dessert. The house chocolate: cayenne pepper, lavender, turmeric, sundried tomato, berries, fleur de sel, and flax. And it's vegan :P

Leave your heart in San Francisco

Bio
75 O'Farrel St.
San Francisco, CA
http://www.biologiquesf.com/

Amelia's trip to Disneyland turned out to be a fun day. The crowd was the lightest I've ever in my life seen it and we got on the most rides I've ever in my life been on. We got on Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Casey Jr. Circus Train, the carousel (twice),  It's a Small World, Space Mountain, Star Tours, Innoventions, Matterhorn, the Haunted House, Jungle Cruise, Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones, Winnie the Pooh, the Tiki Room, and the Monorail. We weren't even planning on going. We originally wanted to go to Legoland until I mapped out how long the drive is from Burbank. Two hours. One way. With a toddler, who doesn't like sitting in a car seat and is vocal about it.

Up until this time, I haven't taken Amelia to Disneyland for a couple of reasons. First, I don't believe she'd understand what's going on or where we are. It's like, "what's the point?" Secondly, I didn't want her to be exposed to its hyper commercialism and learn its cartoon characters before she learns the alphabet. I certainly don't want her to have any princess dolls, princess makeup, or princess high heels. There's only 1 princess around here. Joking! She remembers a lot of things even after only 1 mention. She's memorized a few of her books already, so I know how impressionable she is. Finally I got over myself and just decided to have a fun day, which exactly what happened. It didn't corrupt her. She still doesn't know any of the characters. She refered to Mickey as "a mouse!" No princess paraphernalia came home. But she did get more sugar than she's ever had in her life, and that was my bad.

Too early in the morning. She's not into it.

Have you ever seen no line in Disneyland?

Pointing to the flying elephants

 

Her favorite ride

Her 2nd favorite ride

Just conked out

And then she used it as a weapon on innocent bystanders

Out again

My favorite picture

One last sugar rush before we left. She gnawed through the plastic inside the store. I had to pay for this.

It's been a long time since I've been to the movies, approximately 20 months actually. So when I went, I wanted a sure thing. I don't want to take chances with my sweet, precious 2 hours off. The movie has to be good. It has to be worth my time. I'm glad to report they were.

4 of the 5 movies I saw were here at the Aquarius.

20 Feet from Stardom features "unsung heroes behind the greatest music of our time," backup singers whose voices you know but whose names you don't. It shows a history of backup singing, the obstacles the featured artists faced, the choices they made, what separates the divas from the backup. It displays their talents beautifully and I couldn't help fall in love. There were many performances in the film that were so good they gave me goosebumps, but when I heard Lisa Fisher's studio solo I was blown away. It's true, what our grandparents said, "they don't make music like they used to." The movie ticket was a small price to pay to journey back in time.

Now on to the teen portion. It's like when I read the Hunger Games trilogy and then The Night Circus, The Fault in Our Stars, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Paper Towns and even Ender's Game. All of a sudden all my kindle recommendations were teen lit! Ah, well, at least they were good.
I loved The Way Way Back. I love the cast, the acting, the writing, the story. It started as the summer that would never end, and it became the summer you didn't want to end. Even the trailer is irresistible. Go see it already.
The Spectacular Now was the more serious teen movie. It felt so real, at times uncomfortably so, but that's how it is, isn't it? Shailene Woodley is a star, and she'll be starring in the aforementioned The Fault in Our Stars movie.
The World's End movie got stellar reviews from rottentomatoes.com, Jimmy Fallon, and Kevin & Bean. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were hilarious in their KROQ interview with Kevin & Bean :) I've never seen Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz. It was just ok for me. It felt too long, but I suppose it's pretty good for its genre.

Just as I started my summer movie spree with a musical documentary that took me back in time, I ended with another one.
Harana documents the vanishing Filipino tradition of the serenade, which was last practiced 30 years ago. The music here is beautiful and it shows that great artists are found not only on main stages. Sometimes they are found on a fishing boat, a rice field, or behind the wheels of a tricycle.

I found out about this film when I went to see Spectacular Now. There were promo postcards just sitting on a ledge inside the Aquarius theater's miniscule lobby. I noticed the title Harana right away. I thought, "Hmm, I wonder what this movie is about because harana means serenade in Tagalog." It didn't occur to me that the movie title and the word I know would refer to the same thing. They did! And there were only 4 showings at the Aquarius: 7pm on September 4, 5, 11, and 12. You can still see it next week.

I bought tickets in advance because we had only 1 chance to see this. My sister Ricci was free from work only on the 4th, and my mother-in-law was available to babysit Amelia only on the 4th before going back to Hawaii. I didn't think the theater would sell out, because how many people could possibly want to see a Filipino documentary about serenading on a Wednesday night? Nevertheless, I wasn't going to take that chance. I bought the tickets over the weekend and went with Ricci and Tom to the first showing at the Aquarius.

Florante Aguilar, the man behind the movie, and Executive Producer Fides Enriquez held a Q&A session after the screening. Florante even signed Ricci's CD. I hope they succeed in getting it into wider distribution. Like Ricci said, it makes me proud to come from such a romantic and musical culture.

Left: This was the postcard I found last week.  Right: Florantes signing Ricci's Harana Kings CD.

I got my inspiration for this project when we were visiting various daycares. One of the daycare providers said that she asks all parents to provide pictures of themselves, so that the kids can look at their parents' pictures if they miss them. At that point, I knew I would include our pictures in Amelia's daycare bag, whether the daycare we chose asked for them or not. However, I wanted to give her something more durable than a printed photo (Amelia is notorious for tearing paper), so I decided to make a mama doll/dada doll.

I got printer fabric from the fabric store.

I printed out a photo of Marc on one sheet and myself on another sheet.

I ironed the prints to set the ink

I sewed the prints on duck cloth and then sewed the prints together facing each other. The bottom was left open so it could be stuffed.

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This is what it looks like turned inside out. It was stuffed with batting and the bottom was sewn close.

The finished product.

It's like I'm an action figure. Haha. Happy back-to-school!

Enjoy the holiday!

We spent a lot of time at beaches and pools this spring from Manila to Cebu, Boracay to Palawan, and Burbank to Bali. Seeing my 5-year old nephews Kai and Hoops swimming on their own was such a joy. I marveled at how quickly they learned and how much fun they had in the water. I figured it's time for Amelia to learn how to swim too.


We've been attending a toddler class once a week since June at La Petite Baleen in Atherton, where babies as young as a month old learn to swim. The first couple of session were very light. We were basically just in the pool to get the kids comfortable in the water and get acquainted with the swim instructor. We learned songs and rhymes that we've repeated every week since, in order for the kids to learn the routine and know what to expect. Kids and routines!

"Hold your ribbon, Amelia." At the end of her first lesson, she got a ribbon officially declaring her a whale and a "Save the Humans, Learn to Swim" tee.

Ready for swim class

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Learning about propulsion with the "Kids in the Pool" song

Next we learned submersions, where kids learn to hold their breath and close their eyes and mouth when the go under water. Amelia was a natural at that. She mastered "textbook la Petite Baleen submersion" the first time we tried it, according to Teacher Kevin. She is a survivor. Haha.


Then the kids started to wear goggles and fins, which are part of lessons going forward. The theory behind the goggles is, if they can see underwater then they can orient themselves and learn faster. And the fins help their little feet propel. We skipped a couple of lessons because of a cold one week and then we were in LA the following week, and she regressed a little bit. She wasn't jumping in the water or swimming to the instructor as readily as before.

Going through the tunnel

Kids have to get comfortable being on their backs, which is their most vulnerable position. If they know how to float on their backs, they can keep themselves from drowning.

Sit jump

Swimming to the steps

All done

This week, I've started to let her go in the water and have her swim to the stairs. I think she was mad at me for letting her go. Haha. After 2 months of lessons at 20 months old, she is starting to swim. We're both looking forward to ongoing lessons as our endless summer continues.


La Petite Baleen
60 5th Ave.
Redwood City, CA 94063


Photo credit: Ricci Sylla

Red Medicine is a Vietnamese restaurant that isn't a Vietnamese restaurant. It's not even Asian. The flavors are not what they look like on the plate. It's different. It's exciting. It's so good.

#87 crushed ice, mint, spice, chai.

PORK PATE, clove, rambutan

SANTA BARBARA UNI, cauliflower, chinese sausage

BRUSSEL SPROUTS, shallots, fish sauce

BIODYNAMIC LEEKS, yuzu, buttermilk. My favorite dish of this meal.

SWEET POTATOES, smoked tofu, tamarind

YOUNG TURNIPS, banana vinegar, creme fraiche

WILD ALASKAN HALIBUT, burnt onion, black roots

SWEETBREADS, spice bread, smoked bone marrow

SHAVED ICE OF REDWOOD STEMS, sour red currant berries and jelly, creme chiboust (no idea what that is) flavoured with jasmine flowers, crispy rice crackers, orange blossom bubbles, covered with roasted almond praline disk spray painted with white chocolate

Red Medicine
8400 Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90211