"Ukiah, never a dull moment" - T. Jacobson

Happy 2012!

3 days late but, welcome year 2012! May this year be filled with many more happy memories and wonderful times.

Hello Memphis!

I like Elvis Presley. Do I? Or do I not? Well I didn't until I visited Graceland. Something about Graceland that still radiates the Elvis' aura. After visiting Graceland, I began to understand why  his fans loves him so much. His live performances were amazing (according to what I saw on the documentary). He was such a great performer. His house and possessions were very well kept. When you were in the mansion, you'll be able to see his beautiful living room with the 12' white sofa, dining room, kitchen, jungle room, TV room, peacock room, his racquet hall turned memorabilia hall, and his grave. If you love Elvis, you MUST visit Graceland! The tour includes his private jet Lisa-Marie, with gold plated safety belt, his car museum and fashion collection.

So what else is there in Memphis? The food of course, BBQ ribs, fried chicken and catfish.

What surprised me the most is the fried green tomatoes. Have you ever had it before? It tasted really good, it's crispy and dry on the outside (despite being deep fried, it's not soaked in oil really) and very firm on the inside, not soggy like a red tomato, but kinda like a firm potato. Also the hush puppies. I never really knew they could taste so good, I've had it before and they usually taste either too oily or burnt, the way Catfish Cabin did it was super nice. Once you pop it you can't stop! Memphis does know how to do their deep fries. 

For fried chicken we went to the town's most popular place, Gus' World's Famous Fried Chicken. When they served it, I thought since the chicken pieces looked so scrawny, I could easily eat more than 2, but nope,  I was full after a thigh and a leg. The locals could easily eat 3 pieces each. Lastly was the ribs. We had the wet BBQ sauce and the dry herbs one. It was pretty OK, I still find it a little too dry, but if you put it in the bun it makes really nice pulled pork sandwiches. Hahaha.....

I must thank my hostess for hosting me for a week and feed me like a baby! Thanks YC!

Plantation Tours

You can't possibly leave New Orleans without visiting a plantation. I know many do not want to be reminded of its history but history is still history and it's really interesting if you listen to the story. There are 4 main plantations open to the public and we chose Laura's Plantation because it won many tourism awards and well known for its well documented rich history. The tour wasn't too long, about 1.5 hours and the tour guide gave us a very detailed history of the beginning and the ending of Laura's Plantation. It's very fascinating.

The tour started from the front of the house, as we followed the tour guide through each rooms, he shared with us the stories of each generation. We saw the basement/wine cellar, the slave quarters, vegetable farms, learned how the house was built, who built it, who worked on the farm, how it started, who sold it, who was murdered, who schemed against who and so on. The weather was so beautiful which made the trip even more pleasant. If only all history classes were this interesting! It is definitely worth coming for a visit! :)

We didn't visit Oak Valley but we stopped by just to take photos of its beautiful old 300 years old oak trees. :)

New Orleans - Part III

The day was forecasted to rain. We lucked out, it didn't start to pour until after noon, after we've done walking around in the French Quarter. We started the day at 8am, the morning was freezing with the breeze from the river and the whole place was really foggy. I have never realized it can be this foggy in New Orleans but it was a very good weather to be walking around, except that we can't take the river boat cruise.

French Market is a fun place to visit. They have art works, nick-knacks, souvenirs, herbs and spices, jewelry, and all kinds of haberdashery. The souvenirs are only half of what you have to pay in the stores.

After the rain we went to the Garden District, I wanted to see the old houses and mansions with beautiful gardens. As you can see the first one on the left is 100 years old, the second one below is about 150 years old and the last one at the corner is actually almost 300 years old. So I don't know why the older ones didn't deserve as much attention as the 100 years old? As for the one at the right hand corner, I have no idea how old it is but I figure it must be really old and still in its original architecture. I also passed by the old Lafayette cemetery, but it was too creepy to be taking any photos of it. 

New Orleans - Part II

What must you try in New Orleans? Apart from enjoying the music and entertainment aspects of it? Creole food of course!

 

Considering its history in New Orleans for its famous cafe au lait and beignet, Cafe du Monde became the MUST place to go if you happen to be in New Orleans. We were lucky, we went around 9am and there was no line, it was packed, but plenty of spots to sit down for you to slowly savor your coffee and beignet. By the time we were done, there was a long line outside the coffee stand despite the sprinkle. Cafe au lait was really good, it was really smooth, and the beignet, unfortunately you do need that amount of powdered sweetness if not it just won't hit the spot *guilty pleasure* .

Coop's Place is a small unpretentious pub/eatery on Decatur street, only 3 ladies operating the front of the place no matter how busy the place may be, while the men take care of the kitchen. It's really fun to visit the Coop's because the place serves really good food and is full of character. The menu is handwritten on the blackboard and according to the owner, either you hate it or you love their food. They even have quirky signs posted all over the place such as 'Be nice or you will not be served' or 'The Bartender is always right', etc.

I've always loved gumbo so we ordered the seafood gumbo, shrimp and oyster po'boy. My oh my, the  shrimp and oyster po'boy is awesome! They're very good at frying their seafood, sweet, fresh and not oily at all. I'm not a big fan of raw oysters but deep fried oysters are always good in po'boys! As for the gumbo, I like it but I'd prefer chicken and sausage more instead of the seafood gumbo and gumbo never tastes the same because every place have their own style of cooking it. So it's fun to try gumbo at different places!

When the rain got a little too heavy to be walking around, we took a break at Creole Creamery before heading towards the Garden District. Eat ice-cream and be happy. Underneath the writings was a wall full of  happy faces smudged with ice-creams. It was quite a cold day to be having ice-cream but after walking for almost 5 hours, it was a very welcomed break. 

We were greedy and ordered the sampler with 6 small scoops. We had the lavender honey, gold crunch, chocolate amaretto cheese cake, raspberry vanilla, cafe au lait and double chocolate.

There are plenty of good places to eat in New Orleans, since we were there for  Christmas, most good eateries were closed for the holidays and we were only able to sample a few of  the highly recommended places. 

New Orleans - Part I

I was lucky enough to have spent my 2011 Christmas in New Orleans's French Quarter. I had expected the whole place to be completely quiet because of the holidays but it wasn't. The whole French Quarter was decorated with bright Christmas lights and it was really pretty.Bourbon Street of course was filled with merry tourists such as I.

The Flinstones

This was definitely one of the highlight of this trip, being able to see dinosaur remains outside of a museum. We were on our way into Monument Valley when we saw this huge sign by the road that said "Dinosaur Tracks". It looked a little dubious, because most of the attraction spots had huge signs and posts miles away informing people  where they were but this one was a hand painted sign. Curious, we followed the sign. This was on the preserve land, so it's not operated by anybody, and it's free. We had a friendly guide who explained what tracks or who's bones we were looking at. It was really exciting, little did I expect to be able to see dino tracks live on location! 

As you can see clearly, those are foot prints and partial bone fossils, but can you guess what are those rounded mounds? 

MartAnne's Cafe

Everywhere we went, we always rely on good ol' Yelp for a good place to eat. For breakfast, we wanted to try local good food, so we went to MartAnne's Cafe. This place is so quirky cool. It's very small, as you can see from my little thumbnail, the ceiling is painted with cloud motives and the whole place is filled with colorful local art work. We ordered something special, but I forgot what exactly it was, all I remember was had hashbrowns, beans, cheese, pork and eggs. It was SUPER good and believe me, it can fit 3 little ladies' tummies. At our case only 2 ladies'. Hahahhaa...... Yumms. :)

Postcard Moments

 

"I was commissioned by a certain vehicle company to take a product shot", I would love to have said this as you look at this beautiful shot, but nope, it just happened that I took a shot which turned out to be quite a picture perfect moment, don't you think so?  :) This is the reliable vehicle that took us through Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Flagstaff and  Monument Valley.

Then there's also all these picture perfect moment of Monument Valley. Here we're looking at the West, East Mitten Butte, and Merrick Butte on the left.

Can you spot Elephant Butte? 

The 3 sisters.

Finally, the Totem Poles.