Naked In LA For My Birthday

(Yes, this is a month old, but that's okay!)This year as an early birthday gift my friend Suzanne (Zan) planned a trip LA for us so we could visit a Korean spa.  That's right, I flew from San Francisco to LA to hit K-town and have an awesome time.  It also happened that we were there for St. Patrick's Day, which was an added bonus.  Zan knew that I loved my spa experience in Shanghai and she's visited WiSpa in LA enough times to know I'd also love it.  We flew down to LA on Thursday, March 15th so that we could spend all Friday at the Spa lounging about and wallowing in the hot pools.  Zan's awesome friend, and my new awesome friend, Michelle picked us up at LAX and we arrived at the Westin Bonaventure at about midnight.  Silly us, we had booked a weekend in LA during the LA marathon, who knew? (Not us.)  The hotel was packed but we still had a really nice room on the 14th floor with a great view.  We grabbed a drink in the hotel bar, and went to bed soon after so we could be well rested for our day of relaxation.

And what a relaxing day it was!  If you ever have the chance to go to a "banya" or Korean Spa, do it!  Lounge about in the nice warm pools and sign up to get a "buff."  A buff is when you get a full exfoliating body scrub, you'll feel sparkly and clean when all is said and done.  Zan and Michelle and I chose to also add a seaweed wrap.  I'd never had a seaweed wrap before but it's awesome and you get to feel like a giant sushi roll!  They slather you down with a seaweed paste and wrap you in tin foil to bake the seaweed paste onto your body.  I was so smooth and shiny afterward and felt ridiculously clean.   We pretty much spent all day at the spa relaxing in different saunas and pools.  Plus Wi Spa has an awesome Korean cafe where you can order great tasting food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 After our day of relaxing we went back to the hotel and lounged about working up an appetite for dinner, and I'm so glad we did.  We went to a Korean BBQ called ChoSun Galbee and it was absolutely mouth-wateringly delicious!  We ordered way too much food, and stuffed our faces like there was no tomorrow, but we loved every minute of it.  Go here, order the pork,  "daeji bulgogi" it is absolutely heavenly.  Go with a couple of friends so you can order more and try a whole variety of food.  If you've never had Korean BBQ, you need to remedy that immediately, you'll be pleased you did.

The next day was St. Patricks Day, and we played it low key.  Michelle had a wedding to attend, and Zan and I were prepared to be lazy all day.  We succeeded in leaps and bounds.  We shopped about in the hotel, there are some excellent quirky little shops in the Westin.  We checked out the revolving restaurant/bar/lounge at the the top of the hotel, that was fun.  And then we relaxed, because our day had been so hard so far, with a couples massage at the Spa in the Westin, the Bonaventure Club and Spa.  I had an amazing massage, and the woman actually walked on my back.  If you go there, ask for Daisy, she rocked!  

 

We had grand plans to get our drink on that evening but it was raining ridiculously hard so we partied at the hotel in their club, Suede.  It wasn't too bad - tiny, and some weird videos to go with the music.  But it was convenient and we had a great time dancing our butts off all night long.  (Maybe too much fun, but we won't go into that.)

The next day Zan and I had to head back to San Francisco.  We stopped at Hodori for some more korean food before heading to the airport.  (Hodori means tiger in Korean, AND it was the name of  the 1986 Olympic mascot - just in case you wanted to know.)  We had bibimbop and other yummy things, like kimchi.  I love kimchi!  

It was a short trip but I had an awesome time!  I cannot wait to go back to LA to have fun with Zan and Michelle again!

 

I Love My Job And The People I Work With!

I have to take a moment to gush about just how much I love my job, and the people I work with.  Everyone is so amazing and hardworking, and it's a great feeling to be part of a team comprised of such great people.  I love going to work and being part of the discussion of what is going to happen next.  I like knowing that if I need help I can ask for it and people want to help me succeed, because I want them to succeed.  This is one of the best opportunities I've ever had, to help make something, something useful, from the ground up and to be there every step of the way.  I'm so excited to see what each day brings!  Thanks simplehoney!

That's how excited I am!  And Bob is excited too, because he likes when I'm happy, and I'm ridiculously happy.

:)Margaret

SimpleHoney - My new awesome job!

So, it's been a long while since I've updated my personal blogs.  I take full responsibilty - as if I could blame anyone else for not updating my own blog.  I've just been overwhelmed with excitement at my new job at simplehoney!  I'm loving it, AND I'm getting to write about all the fun places I eat and drink as well as some fun travel tips.  Until I get things up and running on MargaretOnTheGo I recommend you check out my posts at simplehoney.

 

:)Margaret

Maui! Day 3 and 4 (The Road to Hana, AKA how we tried to fall off a mountain)

We were feeling extra adventurous on Saturday morning.  We got up early again, and decided that our time would be best spent driving the circumference of Maui.  As I said, we were feeling extra adventurous.  As neither of us really had a guide book, or the inclination to look anything up, we simply picked up a map and decided the following:  We would drive clockwise from Lahaina around the island and then go to Haha which we had heard had amazing pools that must be seen.  We though, "yes, this is what we will do today, we will see ALL of Maui."  And so began a very interesting day.

I should go ahead and mention that Bob just got his new driver's license after having gone without one for the past 9 years.  (He turned 21 in NYC and hasn't really needed a car since.)  Anyway, Bob has a new license so he wanted to drive and I was more than happy to let him because that meant I could enjoy the scenery and take lots of pictures of the things we passed.  Perhaps I was naive because in my mind I imagined that all the islands of Hawaii were surrounded by beach land, this is not the case.

Our journey started easily enough, we were on a main highway and passing through residential areas and could still see the ocean and the awesome beaches.  The beaches turned into rocky cliffs and we drove through some lovely wilderness.  Then as if out of nowhere it was as if we were transported to what looked like the coast of Ireland before anyone lived there.  We were seriously driving on a one lane road, that was supposedly going to accommodate two lanes of traffic, AND this road was on the side of a cliff.  Needless to say, we were a little stressed out.   We were quite pleased to make it back to civilization after our journey.  As an example of how the driving went, we drove 18 miles of crazy one lane road, and it took us over 2 hours.

The views were of course beautiful, and when we were not driving along cliffs, we saw a lot of lovely green rolling hills.

There were plenty of signs like the one below.  According to Bob, there are approximately 51 one lane bridges on the Hana Highway, which is the road we took on our excursion out.

We found the Garden of Eden!

Our awesome Jeep.  We got it dirty driving all over the island in the dirt.

We left our hotel at about 9am and returned shortly after 7pm.  It was a long day.  And we were really really lucky because after we had gotten back to civilization and were no longer on a one lane road we stopped to get a soda and a gentleman asked if we were driving the white Jeep because the back passenger tire was losing air.  We ran outside and could actually hear the air leaving the tire.  We ended up calling Hertz and they sent a nice guy from AAA out to help us.  (It only took an hour, nice!)  And then we headed on our way back to the hotel.

After our exciting day of driving, we were exhausted and had dinner at the Westin.  It was only okay, i don't think I'll do a write up about it.

The next day we woke up and leisurely got our things together, and discovered our flight had been delayed which turned out to be amazing because we were able to check out Mama's Fish House for lunch, and it amazingly delicious.  There will most definitely be a write up about the food.

I had a great time in Maui, and can't wait to go back and add even more fun and adventure to my life.  I think we'll skip the Hana highway in the future.

:)Margaret

Maui, we went to Maui! Day 1 and 2 (Lahiana and Kiehie)

So, in an effort to become "Starwood Gold" members (because we traveled so much last year and the beginning of this year) Bob and I decided we should go to Hawaii.  That and because, why not?  Anyway, Bob previously lived on Maui for a short while when he and Jameson were putting together what would one day be MochiMedia, so we returned to his island paradise to stay at the Westin in Lahiana.

We arrived in the early afternoon, and picked up our lovely white four door Jeep Wrangler for our island getaway and were shortly on the road.  As a side note, I once considered purchasing a Jeep because I thought I was cool, after having driven one for the last four days I'm happy I didn't get one, at least not a four door, as it was massive.  The Jeep was very comfy, and turned out to be great in Maui - more on that later.

The Westin was pretty swanky, and we had an awesome view of the ocean.  Nice pools outside with a dedicated "adults only" pool, which I always appreciate - because I want to be the only person doing canon balls into the pool. They also had a Luau every few nights, so we signed up for the Luau that night so we could immediately get immersed in *cough* culture *cough*. But lets not get ahead of ourselves, first we went for food!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We ended up wandering over to Whaler's Village where there's a small shopping complex and a few different places to eat.  We checked out "Cane and Taro" for lunch, and were pretty satisfied with our choice.  If you'd like to read more about what we ate at "Cane and Taro"  you can check out my food blog.  After lunch, and a nice helping of Maitais, we wandered over the local convenience store to pick up sun screen.  No Lobster Girl for me on this vacation!  We then promptly took a nap, well Bob napped, I worked.  We still needed to get some things done before the partying could commence.  (And we only had 2 hours between lunch and the start of dinner at the Luau.)

We promptly got in line for the Wailiee Luaua at 5:15pm and were given fairly strong maitais to get us going.  We sat with Maria and Frank, from I can't remember where, and two nice Australian peeps.  We did't talk with the Australian couple much, so I've forgotten their names, but they were nice.  The show was pretty much what I expected, there was hula, and some fun tribal chanting and at the end there were people throwing fire crazily into the air like madmen!  I had a wonderful time!  As a back story, I had previously been to Hawaii when I was much younger and had attended a Luau with my family, unfortunately I had strep throat at the time so I look miserable in all the pictures.  I don't look miserable in these pictures!

We were so wiped out from the Luau and all the drinks they kept giving us that we called it a night at 10:30pm - in our defense it was after midnight in San Francisco.  The good news is that we did wake up early the next morning and took advantage of the breakfast buffet at the hotel.

After our nice breakfast buffet, which was okay, we decided we'd drive over to see where Bob previously lived in Kihei and then continue along the road to the most southern point of Maui where there's a Lava Beach.  Despite Maui being a relatively small island it takes a long time to get from one place to another because the speed limit is typically 35MPH, sometimes slower.  It was a nice drive, we got to see a lot of little residential areas along the coast.  Sadly we were unable to see Bob's old house because it's in a gated community - he failed to mention this to me prior to our departure.

We drove out way along the coast until the road ends where the Lava Beach begins.  I'm sorry I didn't take my tennis shoes with me, and a change of clothes because I really wanted to do some more exploring on the rocks and in the little tide pools, but my sandals were not the best for wandering around on rocks.  We'll have to go back.

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped in Kihei on our way back for lunch.  Bob had remembered there being a place that had the most amazing calamari, we were sad to find it was no longer there.  Instead we had fish tacos at "Life's A Beach."  It was a fun little hangout/bar and it looked like it would be hopping at night.  I didn't do a post on the fish tacos, but they were good.  I'd never had fish tacos before and I feel like these were a nice way to ease me into them.  They were battered and then in soft taco shells with delish salsa and some guacamole.  We split the fish tacos because we planned on eating an early dinner at a restaurant near our hotel that had excellent reviews....and we both wanted to drink at dinner.

While in Kihei we checked out a small open air market and I ended up buying some excellently ugly convertible dresses/skirts.  I figured we were in Hawaii so I should have some Hawaii fashion, which is to say, I should look like a tourist trying to fit in with the locals.  We also stopped and had Shave Ice!  OMG delicious!  We stopped at Local Boys Snack Bar and had the "Patriot" which was strawberry, blueberry and coconut shave ice on top of ice cream and with sweet cream on top.  It was sooooo good, we practically licked the bottom of the bowl when we were done.

We decided to head back to the hotel after our shopping excursion so we could play in the ocean.  There are no pictures of us playing in the ocean as our camera is not equipped to handle that.  Oh well.  We played in the ocean for a while and then hosed off and lounged in the "adults only" pool and had pina coladas.  It was a really nice lazy afternoon.  We then prepped ourselves for an amazing dinner.  We had made reservations at Son'z Maui at the Hyatt hotel.  Yes, this is a hotel restaurant, but you're going to want to go here because it was amazingly delicious!  You can read all about our wonderful dinner on the food blog.

After our gigantic dinner, we moseyed along the beach back to the Westin.  Because of our heavy intake of maitais, it was again an early night for us, and we were sound asleep by 9:30pm.  What can I say, having fun in sun makes us sleepy face when mixed with booze.

Stay tuned for days 3 and 4, you're not going to want to miss this!

:)Margaret

 

 

Halloween!! (Mochi and at Home)

I love Halloween, I think I might like it more than any other holiday.  I made sure to get the most out of October this year by wearing a little bit of a costume pretty much every day.  With the amazing assistance of Suzanne, from Mochi, I had a great collection of Halloween headbands to use for my every day awesomeness.  I had two Halloween costumes this year, one for the office and one for our Halloween party.

Mochi Halloween -

Dressing up was mandatory to participate in the office party.  I really wasn't going to let anyone have any of our treats/drinks if they didn't at least have a Halloween headband or mask on.  We had yummy snacks and ice cream sammichs along with more booze than we could consume.  I think it went quite well, take a look for yourself:

We also decorated pumpkins at the office, and got to see a little bit of everyone's creative side:

Overall I think the office liked Suzanne's and my crazy love for Halloween.

I really wanted to post pictures of all the awesome decorations we put up at the house for our Under Water Themed Halloween Party, but it was just too dark to take good pictures.  We hung navy blue fabric all over the walls, and then created waves with blue tulle and put fish up everywhere!  We inserted blue gel lights in all the ceiling lights, and in our tv room we had 8 black licks, with white fish all over the wall and a bubble machine that created uv/glowing bubbles.  I was quite pleased.

We made two different kinds of punch for the party that were a huge hit.  We had "Blood in the Water" - hawaiian punch, 7up and rum, "Electric Eel Lemonade" - lemonade, blueberries and vodka and then a bunch of beer.  (And water so people could hydrate.)  It was a great night and we had people relaxing outside on the back patio until almost 11:30pm.  We used our heat lamp and it was soooo comfortable outside.

I only have a couple of pictures from the party, again, because it was so dark:

Thank you so much to Adam and Eric for throwing such an awesome party.  It was amazing, I can hardly wait for next year!

:)M

Party like you're on the East Coast! (Cause we are.)

Bobicito and I are currently visiting our friend Casey in Portsmouth New Hampshire to celebrate her getting married and having a lovely little baby girl, Ruby.  We're staying at the Sheraton in town which is perfect because we can walk all around town very easily and visit all the fun little shops and cafes.  We flew into the Boston airport on Thursday night and then drove up to Portsmouth.  We rented a cute little Versa Nissan, just as an aside.

On our first morning we got up and worked a little bit then headed into town to find some coffee.  Casey told us to save room for doughnuts, so we made sure to stick with coffee to tide us over.  So there we are, walking into town to get coffee when we see a dude who looks just like my dad!  The guy was really nice and let me have my picture taken with him.  Check it out:

We also visited the house of William Whipple, who was apparently one of the signers of the Declaration of independence.  Nice.  As you can see I'm pretty pumped about being there:

Anyway, we met up with Casey and some of her friends and headed up to Kittery, Maine where we had a late breakfast/lunch at Congdon's.  I had a pretty delicious maple doughnut, and a rueben omelet.  Yes, you read that right, a rueben omelet.  It was good, although I which the omelet had been a little fluffier.  Bob had a lobster omelet which was also good.  The place is supposedly well known for all their doughnuts.  I liked mine but it was full of creme and not the yummy whipped kind.  It was the most sugary creme I've ever had, I had to push most of the creme out of the doughnut to really enjoy it.

After our breakfast we headed to Ogunquit to visit the Marginal Way.  Isn't that the most ridiculous name you've ever heard?  The Marginal Way is a walk way along the cliffs that's really scenic and nice.  The day was pretty windy but we went most of the way and checked out all the rocks and birds hanging out and having a good time.

Bob and I had a fun photo shoot as you can see:

On the walk back I got a picture of Bob with all the ladies:

We evening that night Bob and I headed into the town to enjoy some delish seafood at a place called "Surf."  You can read about the food and what we though on the BiCoastalBites Blog.

It was a great first day, and we've so far had a wonderful time.

Love and kisses,

Margaret and Bob