The BEACH!

Finally. FINALLY on the 5th day of the trip we made it to a beach. I was so excited to see the ocean again. The water was absolutely freezing, but the scenery and weather were lovely:)





We had a delightful little picnic full of fun Japanese treats from the supermarket in Japantown, including oak mochi, chocolate mushi pan, and melon and cream filled mochi, citrus zellie, and snow sembei. such an amazing picnic!







okay maybe I should explain these? It's kind of hard to describe if you haven't eaten many asian snacks....so mochi is rice four mixed with water to make a paste that congeals into this almost nickelodeon gack type viscosity. You can flavour it, but usually, it's just plain and wrapped around a filling like sweet red bean paste, or fruit. the oak mochi was awesome and earthy and salty, and extra dense. The melon mochi was filled with melon flavoured white beans and cream. This is my favourite kind. It's more like candy.

Mushi Pan is my all time favourite Japanese snack. You can find them in any convenient store in the bread section, and it's steamed cake...but that doesn't seem to capture it well enough. It's not too sweet- the flavour is simple, but tastes like really good baking ingredients, if that makes sense, but the texture is definitely the draw. I guess, try to imagine a pound cake but much more moist and spongey. You can squeeze it into a pinch and it'll raise back up to its original shape, but if you rip off a piece it breaks apart super easily. It melts in your mouth, and sorta reminds you of pudding even though it's cake. I've seen them in cheesecake, milk, pudding, chocolate, and caramel flavours so far and they are all amazingly delicious.


































The best view we ever got of the golden gate bridge was when we drove across it to get to the woods and the beach...





some highlights of the day:

burying ryan and making him a merman

running into the water as far as I could stand (like two feet,) screaming at the cold, and running back with numb legs.

the soft, dense, squishy, amazing texture of mushi pan with the ocean breeze and sound of waves around me.

the first swimsuit day of the season!