Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park and Yosemite National Park

June 27, 2017June 27, 2017 | Tammy Fong

Finally went camping for the first time this year during Memorial Day Weekend (yay for camping for the 4th time ever too!) and we decided to camp at Sequoia National Park. We went up Sunday morning and we were afraid that we would have a hard time looking for a campsite, but luckily, we didn’t! There were actually a lot of sites open so in case any of you ever want to go camping last minute in Sequoia, just know that there will be slots available.

It was my first time at Sequoia and it is absolutely beautiful. We did Moro Rock, a very intense, steep incline, stair-master type of hike but trust me, the view at the top is so worth it. We also visited the General Sherman Tree, the tallest single stem tree in the world.

For sunset, we went to Beetle Rock. We originally wanted to visit Sunset Rock (obviously for the name and the purpose it’s supposed to serve) but we couldn’t find it. The sunset from Beetle Rock was absolutely breathtaking, hands down, the best sunset I’ve seen so far. My photos do not do it justice.

There is still snow on some of the mountains so nighttime was still quite cold so be sure to bring down jackets and warm clothing. I had such a wonderful time making burgers around the fire and just being one with nature again.

On Monday, we decided to do a day trip up to Yosemite. We figured it would only be a 2-hour drive–boy were we wrong. It was definitely a 4-hour drive but it was so worth it. (Yosemite was much busier than Sequoia so keep that in mind if you’re planning on doing a day trip during Memorial Day Weekend.) We stopped by Tunnel View and got to see El Capitan, Half Dome and other waterfalls all in one frame. We also did the short hike/walk to see the Lower Yosemite Falls and we all got soaked but we all had a great time. I cannot wait to go back to Yosemite and camp and hike. It’s a must-visit for anyone who loves the outdoors.

Here are some photos from the trip! Enjoy : )

8F795BBF-6626-4922-8E84-326C1F30FE41

TTFN!

3 days in Chicago

May 2, 2017May 3, 2017 | Tammy Fong

I haven’t visited Chicago since I was in the 5th grade and at that age, I was honestly too young to understand anything so to be able to visit Chicago again now that I’m older and more appreciative was a good experience.

Back in March, my friends and I went to Chicago for a weekend to celebrate our friend’s birthday and it was lots of fun! Chicago is known for their deep dish pizza (and for being the windy city) so I was very excited to try it again. Before going, I kept trying to remember the taste of deep dish pizza from back in 5th grade haha talk about being nostalgic. Anyways, so here’s what we did that weekend!

Friday, March 3

We arrived really late at night, around 1:50 AM so we didn’t get to do much. We checked in our hotel and got ready for bed.

Saturday, March 4

We spent our first official day with a lazy morning. We were so exhausted from getting in so late that we didn’t really get up til close to 10:00 AM. After breakfast, we headed to Chinatown. We walked around a bit and settled on getting dim sum for lunch. After lunch, we walked around some more, checked out the little gift shops they had and then headed to downtown! We had planned to check out the 360 degree Observation Deck and the new Tilt! ride (Read about Tilt! here) Tilt! was a lot of fun and very affordable for only $7 USD; 10/10 would do it again! A few of my friends were scared of heights and they were screaming while we were tilted but the experience overall was fun! (P.S. They don’t allow you to take photos. The workers there will take photos for you and they’ll be available for purchase)

After the observation deck, we headed over to the popular Lou Malnati’s for some deep dish pizza. I wasn’t too impressed with their pizza even though many other people were. It just didn’t make me think about when I was in the 5th grade and eating deep dish pizza. Anyways, we also met up with our friend Stephen who had moved from LA to Chicago two years ago and got to catch up with him for a bit. After dinner, half of the group headed back to the hotel to rest and the other half went out for desserts.

Sunday, March 5

Happy birthday to our birthday girl!! Haha, anyways, so we woke up slightly earlier and headed to museum campus to visit The Adler Planetarium and the John. G. Shedd Aquarium. We spent all afternoon there basically and then headed to Crsip for some Korean fried chicken, YUM! Our group of 6 girls has a tendency to over order so we ended up ordering about 40 wings (these aren’t your tiny BBW wings) without even consulting each other, 3 orders of bibimbap, 2 orders of fries and 2 orders of fried mushrooms. We ended up finishing everything but man, were we full. After dinner, we got some ice cream and wanted to check out the famous Bean! Unfortunately, some shady stuff happened so we ended up going back to our hotel early and we just played some games and hung out.

Monday, March 6

Our last day in Chicago was the one and only day we all made it to breakfast together haha. Today, we visited the famous Chicago Skydeck and I loved it. It was so cool (definitely recommend it, even if you’re scared of heights!) We spent a good hour just taking photos for each other on the deck and then we left to go visit one more museum; The Museum of Science+Industry!!! This museum is A MUST VISIT! There were so many cool exhibits and was so much fun! After the museum, we went to our last pizza spot: Giordano’s! Now this pizza made me think of my 5th grade self. We ended up each buying a few frozen pizzas to bring home to LA! After dinner, we finally got to visit The Bean without any disturbances. It was definitely a sight to behold, to be able to see the skyline right behind it and then reflecting against it if you’re viewing it from the side that reflects it (did that make sense haha) We spent a good half hour or so taking photos and then we picked up our stuff at the hotel and headed home!

3 days in Chicago allows you plenty of time to do lots of things! It’s not really a city that requires an extensive amount of time, it’s more of a weekend city, much like LA so if you’re ever looking for a weekend getaway, Chicago is perfect! Just make sure to pack warm clothing because it was extremely windy when we were there. There were several times we almost got blown away (haha half kidding). The public transportation there is also very easy to understand and very convenient! Anyways, if you have any comments or suggestions, let me know!

TTFN!

Death Valley National Park

March 13, 2017May 3, 2017 | Tammy Fong

I finally visited Death Valley National Park this past Saturday after wanting to for a while and I was not disappointed. There’s something about deserts that just really fascinates me. Brandon and I decided to do a day trip and even though we left LA really late (around 10:00 AM), we were still able to see quite a few things! We arrived at the park around 2:45 PM and our first stop was Dante’s View. To get here, you’ll pass by Mesquite Dunes (we didn’t stop because it was going north and we were going south). Once there, it’s a quick, very short hike, (really just a walk up hill) to the view. Dante’s View gives you a view of the valley from over 5000 ft up.

We spent about 30 minutes here and then continued our way down to Badwater Basin. On the way, we drove past Artist’s Palette, The Natural Bridge and The Golden Canyons. We didn’t stop because it was nearing sunset (about 5:00 PM) and we wanted to see the basin before it got dark. The Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America and it’s approximately 282 meters below sea level! It was so cool just standing in the basin and looking up at the canyons and mountains on both sides and admiring it all. Up on the canyons (where Dante’s View is), they had put a sign that indicated where sea level starts and seeing how high up it was was just amazing! It was a bit hazy that day so Telescope Peak wasn’t very clear but the sunset from the basin was still beautiful!

Just some quick tips if you’re planning on visiting:

Take the 15 fwy up to Bakers and enter the park through highway 127 through Shoshone (this is the shorter way). You’ll hit Badwater Basin first by going this way and make your way up to Furnace Creek Visitor Center.
Bring lots of water and snacks (there wasn’t that many stops for snacks as the park is HUGE)
Make sure you have enough gas. We were leaving the park from Badwater Basin and exiting through highway 127 to Bakers and we were down to our last hundred something mile range (I was slightly nervous we weren’t going to make it but we did, yay!) Plus, gas can get really expensive in the park (this is partially because gas prices have been going up regardless, haha).

Here are some photos from the trip, hope you enjoy!

TTFN!

3 Days in Portland

February 22, 2017May 3, 2017 | Tammy Fong

The Pacific Northwest Pt. 2, Winter 2017 Edition

So, I’ve been back from my trip for a little over 2 weeks now but was extremely busy getting back into the groove of work and so I’ve been slacking on editing photos. Luckily, I had some down time last week so I was able to edit a few photos to share!

Portland in the winter is just extremely wet haha I’ll just share in a short summary of what we did by day so if anyone is ever interested in visiting Portland on the weekend, it’s totally doable!

Saturday

We woke up around 9am (we were supposed to wake up at 5 and drive up to Vancouver, Canada for the morning but we were too tired) and headed out around 10:30am for Seattle, Washington. Our first stop was Mt. Rainier National Park, yay! We had allotted 3 hours for Mt. Rainier but we didn’t account for the amount of snow and the fact that we needed to put on chains so we did not leave Mt. Rainier until 3:30-4:00pm. I gotta say though, it was worth it. Seeing falling snow for the first time was absolutely magical. We were planning on seeing the Narada Falls but there was so much snow, we couldn’t find the trail so we just admired the snow and had a mini snowball fight. We also stopped off and visited the visitor center to get our cancellation for our national park passport.

Afterwards, we continued our drive up to Seattle. It was another 2-hours but it wasn’t too bad. We had wanted to visit the Space Needle and the Pike Place but it was dark already so we opted for the REI Headquarters and dinner with my friend Michael. After my visit to the REI HQ last summer, I knew I had to take Brandon. It was such a cool place and I knew he’d love it. We ended up spending about an hour there and met up at The Patio Thai Cuisine for dinner. Afterwards, we stopped by Victrola Coffee for a little pick-me-up for the long ride home.

Sunday

On Sunday, we had originally planned to visit Bend and Crater Lake National Park but unfortunately, due to weather and time, we didn’t think we had enough time so we settled for just Bend. I had signed us up to take a tour of Deschutes Brewery so we set out for Bend. We didn’t get there until after 4pm because again, we didn’t think we needed chains but of course, we did, so we had to look around to find a merchant that would rent it to us. On the way, Brandon saw these 2 bridges and because he knows I love bridges, we stopped and admired the view and of course took a few photos! Fast forward, we finally made it to Bend and made it in time for our tour. They started off our tour with a sample flight and to my surprise, I actually liked a few of their beers! I can’t remember the names so I can’t recommend any right now but I definitely recommend taking the tour. It’s free and the staff was so friendly and accommodating. After the tour, we went down to the Deschutes public bar and had dinner and tried some of their house beers. I thought their food was just ALRIGHT, it definitely looks better in pictures. After dinner, we didn’t know what else to do because everything around us was already closed with Bend being a small town, so we just headed back to our Airbnb early.

Monday

Our last day in Portland was extremely busy! We had so many activities packed and for once the entire weekend, we woke up on time (somewhat). We were planning on getting The Screen Door for breakfast and then head to Rowena Crest, Multnomah Falls and explore Downtown Portland, all before our flight at 5:30pm.

Anyways, so we ordered The Screen Door to-go and ate it quickly in the car before heading to Rowena Crest. We decided to do Rowena Crest last minute the night before because we had both seen photos of it and thought it was beautiful so why not! It was closer than we thought and we figured we could stop by Multnomah Falls on the way to Downtown. So, we got to Rowena Crest and ugh, the drive up those canyons were so much fun.

Next, we headed to Multnomah Falls and I was hoping it would be frozen but no, oh well! It was still beautiful and we met the cutest, most hyper golden retriever named (Miko, Meeko? Idk) but anyways, we just took in the beauty that is Multnomah Falls and continued on our way to Downtown Portland!

We didn’t get to spend much time in Downtown Portland but with whatever time we had, we spent it at REI, of course! Haha, while at REI, we found out our flight got delayed so we thought we could take our time but that probably wasn’t a good decision.. Anyways, after REI, we went to go grab dinner to-go at Grassa and basically rushed it to the airport because we were about to miss our flight. Long story short, we made it but we nearly missed it by THIS much. The entire flight was waiting for us and they had almost closed the gate but luckily, they waited. Once we boarded, I immediately started laughing but Brandon didn’t find it funny yet, heh!

Hope you enjoyed my little recap of our trip! We had approximately 3 days and although we didn’t get to visit Mt. Hood, we got quite a lot done so if you’re ever planning on visiting Portland (and Seattle) for the weekend, you can do a lot! Here are some more photos from the trip, enjoy!

TTFN!

The Pacific North West

February 3, 2017May 3, 2017 | Tammy Fong

Last summer, I visited Portland, OR during my birthday week and absolutely loved it! The amount of bridges in that city satisfied my love for bridges and I finally got to see the beautiful Multnomah Falls in real life and it was better than I could have imagined it. We also did a short day trip up to Seattle, WA and got to explore Pike Place and a bit of downtown. We did some hikes and saw Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and a few other mountains, and can’t forget the beautiful Crater Lake in Crater Lake National Park. Overall, it was an amazing trip, which is why I just had to share that I am beyond excited to be going back this weekend! This time, it’ll be in the snow and rain (boo!) but it will be my first time experiencing falling snow so I’m excited for that and I’ll be traveling with Brandon so I’m even more excited as this will be our first trip together.

Anyway, here’s a few photos from my trip last summer; I can’t wait to shoot more and share new photos!

TTFN!