Skiing at Lake Tahoe

"The air is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious, the same as angels breathe." - Mark Twain, on Lake Tahoe.

We went Skiing/snowboarding at Lake Tahoe this weekend. It's our second time there, last time in the summer, but this time to ski. We went to the famous Heavenly mountain resort. This is a great place to ski, because it's right next to the actual Lake, so the view is awesome! Also, it's on a real mountain, unlike the ski resorts near Toronto, so there's some true double-black-diamonds (I dare not touch them, but still). Heavenly is on the California-Nevada border, so you can ski in both states at the same time.

We took a couch bus service; left early in the morning from San Jose at 4:30am, arrived in Tahoe at 10-ish, got our rental gear and hit the slopes by 11. This is actually my first time skiing, so I was learning everything for the first time. I stuck to good ol' green slopes throughout. Being a newb, I totally exhausted myself in the first hour and felt a little sick. After eating a hearty lunch, I was refueled and ready to go. I picked up skiing pretty quickly, i think. By the end of the day, I was able to snowplow, turn at will, ride down a slope in its entirety falling down only once, and almost control to a stop.

It was a gnarly ski trip. Awesome weather, cool slopes, amazing view, and fun times!

Monterey - Carmel

The first weekend back in CA, we went to the Monterey Bay area. It was a close 1.5 hour drive from home. Both cities are on the Pacific coast. Keeping in mind the fact that it's January, the weather was still fantastic. It was actually pretty hot at one point.

First we went to visit Carmel. This little town has the world famous Pebble Beach Golf Course, an amazing super-white sand beach, and chalk-full of rich people. In its main road area, there are probably as many art shops and galleries as Paris. Carmel in terms of its urban design is a lot like Santa Barbara, and reminiscent of the classic small-European-town-on-the-hills in its atmosphere. Most of the buildings in the area are actually built from stones. The restaurant we had lunch at was very cozy, with an outdoor stone fireplace in the centre.

Monterey is a much bigger city, just ten minutes north. The main attraction was the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Their theme is conservation of marine life. That message is more important here than the display of animals. The coolest parts of the aquarium were the touch-stations. Here, you can actually touch and feel the various aquatic life. Some of the animals I got to play around with were: devil ray, starfish, crustaceans, sea cucumber and others I don't remember the names of. I learned that the world seafood supply is close to extinction if we keep at the pace we're currently on. As a matter of fact, the entire city is all about the conservation. All the seafood restaurants here will only offer dishes of fish that are currently sustainable.

It was fun to reacquaint myself with the Pacific coast again immediately after coming back from Toronto. More photos can be found here.