Photo taken by Daynah using Camera+ on the iPhone 4

Day 2 in Canada was a day of passing through beautiful towns and taking walks in these amazing cities.

We spent the entire day in Niagara Falls yesterday. It’s a good idea to get a hotel there since it’s about 2 hours from Toronto. Day 2 in Canada was mostly driving to Toronto and stopping at various places along the way.

We drove by the Niagara Botanical Gardens and saw so many busses pull in that we had to stop by ourselves! The gardens were beautifully maintained and contained all sorts of plants. Walking around was quite relaxing, especially on such a nice day. There were also horse carriages giving tours of the gardens. And in the center of it was also a Butterfly Conservatory. There were lots of photo ops here. The only thing lacking were the roses. They’re not in season yet, so some parts of the gardens were flowerless.

We left the botanical gardens and took a left. If you drive for a few minutes, you’ll pass by the Niagara Floral Clock. Be sure to turn on the curvy street and stop by! It’s a giant functional clock made perfectly out of flowers. You can see a photo of it above.

We continued to head East and stopped by a little town called Niagara-on-the-Lake. My friend Claudia suggested that I visit it, and I’m so happy she did. This town was gorgeous! Every lamppost had a big bouquet of flowers hanging from it. Everywhere you looked had colorful blooms. The only difficult thing in this city was finding parking, and I can see why! It took us a while, but after driving up and down the street a few times, we found street parking. This city had lots of unique little shops and take a nice walk to each one. We stopped by The Epicurean Restaurant for lunch. It’s a cute little restaurant tucked away from all the excitement happening in the street. The food was quite fresh, and they make it when you order it. Albert highly recommends the beef pot pie. (See food pictures!)

By 5pm, we hurried off to Toronto. The drive there wasn’t as spectacular. They closed down the Gardier Expressway, so you had to take the Lake Shore Blvd (almost like a highway) that parallels it. That means you get all of the local city traffic. It took about 30 minutes to go a few miles. On the bright side, look to your left and you’ll see some amazing ads made of plants and white rocks. It looks lovely! And on your right side is Humber Bay. You’ll see piers, parks, and beaches as you drive to your hotel. It’s a slow, but scenic route!

After we checked into the hotel, we took a while into Downtown Toronto, in search for a good place for dinner. The city was packed! There was a music festival happening, and people singing on the sidewalk, and just excitement everywhere. We walked around a bit and found a place called Fine Asian Bowl, which was mostly Vietnamese food. Delicious!

After dinner, we took the subway and headed toward the CN Tower. We got there a bit too late, and they were closing up, so we ended up taking some night shots with the tower instead. We walked back to the hotel after, which was very close by!

There’s so much to see and do in Toronto.. that I wish I had another day or two to explore.

Tips: To-Do list if you’re driving from Niagara Falls to Toronto..

• Visit the Botanical Gardens
• Take a photo with the Niagara Floral Clock
• Stroll down the streets of Niagara-on-the-Lake. I hear that they have nice wineries too, so visit those if you have time.
• Have lunch here, I recommend at The Epicurean Restaurant
• American and Canadian money are inter-changable in Niagara Falls and Toronto, so no need to exchange them at the airport.

Disclosure: Many thanks to Virgin America and Klout for their special promotion. I was given free roundtrip tickets for LA-Toronto as part of a Klout Perk. #VXToronto

One thing I love to do when traveling is organize Tweetups so I can meet my twitter friends! And going to Hawaii is no different. We had a “Hulaween” Lunch Tweetup on Saturday, Oct. 31st. It’s a good thing that it was on a Saturday because all the kids were able to attend.

We had lunch at Nico’s at Pier 38, which is a favorite place of ours ever since @hawaii introduced it to us last year! Anything with the seared ahi is good!

It was such a nice and friendly tweetup group. 19 people attended (more came after this photo was taken). More photos to come (after I’m back from my vacation).

p.s. This photo should be on Hawaii IRL! :)

Vacation is finally here! Albert and I left for LAX in the afternoon to catch our flight to Honolulu. Traffic was amazingly non-existent, and on a Friday afternoon too!

I love Hawaiian Airlines. It’s one of the few airlines that still serves food on their flights! My 5-hour flight was pretty enjoyable. Before I knew it, we landed in Honolulu already!

Ed was sweet enough to pick us from the airport when we landed, and took us out for dinner at Sanoya Rahmen. The service here was a bit slow, the food here was definitely worth the wait. The portions were huge, and slowly, but surely, I finished my bowl of ramen!

Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped by the biggest Safeway on the island to pick up some snacks. We had to pick up some POG (Passion, orange, guava juice) while we were at it! It’s a favorite of ours, along with the Hawaiian sun drinks.

We then checked into Aqua Pearl Waikiki and called it a night. It’s right on the other side of the International Market. So if you like shopping, it’s within walking distance to all the little shops. But since it’s close in town, it’s a bit on the noisy side as well.

First night in paradise.. and we can’t wait for tomorrow’s Tweetup! Going to see a lot of friends at Nico’s at Pier 38!

I had such a great time at the Anime Expo with my siblings and my friend Steve. We went to the Morning Musume (a Jpop music group) live concert. This was their first concert in the United States.. and I got the chance to see/hear it. They’re very upbeat and happy! I loved it. My favorite songs so far are Aruiteru and Love Machine.

After the concert, I wandered into the exhibit hall and I was determined to bring back some manga home. I ended up getting Kana de Manga and The Manga Cookbook which are very adorable. I also got the Morning Musume cd. :)

We left the expo at 5:30pm and had dinner in Little Tokyo. It’s now a tradition to have dinner at Teishokuya of Tokyo after the Anime Expo every year. :)

I’m thinking about heading back tomorrow just to take photos of all the great costumes. But that’ll depend on my family engagements.

More photos from AX 2009:

To be honest, I don’t know much about Anime or Manga, but @dragonal‘s cousins and aunt convinced us to go Anime Expo last year. I had a really great time. So I couldn’t miss this year’s event! My sister and brother are both addicted to it too, so why not make it a family affair? :)

The one thing I really love about this conference is seeing everyone all dressed up. You can’t help but smile at all the amazing costumes. I’m going to attempt to buy some Anime stuff this time so I can learn a thing or two about Anime. :)

And if you didn’t know already, I’m a big fan of Pikachu! Last year I managed to find Ash and cute little Pikachu. I wonder who will show up this year. I can’t wait until tomorrow! If you’re at the Anime Expo tomorrow, let’s meet up! I’ll be tweeting where I’m at. :)

I just noticed that my plumeria started blooming yesterday! I repotted it and decided to take some photos today since it’s so nice and sunny. I love the two-tone colors. :) I can’t wait until the other flowers start blooming too.

My husband and I met up with my college friends for dinner at one or our favorite local places, Anchos! They make the best fresh tortillas around.

After dinner, we walked around the amazing and historical Mission Inn. We all made it a tradition to visit it at least once every year.

Here are some photos that @dragonal took with his Canon EOS 40D.

View the full photo set

Qikking at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf

@Albert gave me an Annual Pass to Disneyland for my birthday! And I gave one to my sister for her birthday. :) The three of us spent all of Sunday at the parks together. It was tons of fun!

My sister was 3-years old when she last went to Disneyland.. so she didn’t remember anything. We got to show her all the good rides! Surprisingly, the lines weren’t that bad, we’ve just become experts on what rides to go on. haha The longest wait was about 25 minutes!

There’s a really fun new ride at Disney’s California Adventure called Toy Story Midway Mania. It’s now one of my favorites.

Anyhow, I can’t wait to go back to Disneyland. There’s still some new rides that I haven’t been on yet… like Nemo!

I had a great birthday! Lena came over and gave me flowers, and we spent the day at the beautiful Victoria Gardens! Qi met up with us to do some window shopping. He also went to exchange his iPhone at the Apple store.

While waiting, Lena asked the Apple Genius Guy, “since it’s my friend’s birthday, can she have a free iPhone?” Unfortunately, he turned us down. heh He did like my Chocolate iPod Touch case though. :)

I had a great day spending it my two very good friends!

Today as just a typical day at the grocery store. We needed to buy some Japanese food, so we went to Marukai. The nearest one was in Costa Mesa. And I always carry my camera, so these photos were captured!