Redwood National Park and Crater Lake

This past weekend, we took a trip up north towards Oregon. First on our stop was the Redwood National Park. This is where the famous giant redwoods on the west coast are located. Driving through this northern California coast line, we came across some ginormous trees, Paul Bunyan land, Trees of Mystery, where some really funky trees are grown, and got to go through a Drive-Thru tree, one of only 4 remaining in the world.

The next day, we went to the beautiful Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon. This is basically a perfectly pristine lake on an ex-volcanically-active mountain top. The name is actually misleading because the giant "crater" is not caused by a comet, but is actually a caldera, meaning a volcanic mountain burst completely and broke down itself in the processing, thus creating a giant pit. The lake is mostly rain fall contained within the pit and because of its high altitude, the UV rays are so intense here that there is absolutely no life form living in the water. Hence, the perfectly deep blue colour is preserved all the time.


It was an amazing sight, because you can see a complete reflection of the mountain in the water, with no distortion or loss of details. The lake is so calm that there is not a single wave. Because of the high altitude and cold weather, the snow is sustained year-round. On the roads driving up to the lake, the snow build up was higher than our minivan and the Visitor Center was almost snowed-in, and this was in mid-May!

We being 20-something year old kids that we are, just couldn't resist the huge pile up of snow and had a 2-hour long snow fight along the edge of the Lake the whole way through the hike. I think everyone's cloths were pretty soaked by the end. Never had that much fun with snow in May before.

► photo album

Conan O'Brien and Russell Peters

Conan came to San Francisco for one-week only during Mon. April 30th - Fri. May 4 to do his Late Night show. I was extremely lucky enough to score a pair of tickets to the taping of the show on Thur. May 3rd. I emailed the producers to get the tickets as soon as I found out they were planning to come to San Francisco. The tickets were given on a random draw basis. I'm sure a hella lot of people applied for them, but my name was drawn!


So Joe and I skipped work that day to be in San Fran at the Orpheum Theatre all day. The taping began at 4pm, but we arrived at the theatre at around 11am, only to find about 200 people outside in line already! The first in line arrived at 6am in the morning. Talk about dedication. Waiting in line for 4 hours on a windy day was not fun, but we got through it. Finally, when we were allowed into the theatre, we scored awesome seats, just about 10 rows back from the stage. When Conan came out to do his monologue, we were insanely close, like 20 ft from him. The guests on the show were Randy Jackson, frisbee throwing champion, and some band made up of really old dudes (I don't know who). We got to see Max Weinberg and the band, and all the supporting casts, except the Masturbating Bear :( Overall, the taping was good, Conan was funny, the atmosphere was great and I had a great time.




A week after, I went to see a live Russell Peters show at the Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco. This was part of his 2007 tour, which promised to deliver on new materials. Initially the tickets were all sold out, but somehow 2 more become available online, and I snatched it. Again, I was really lucky to stumble upon it.

Robert and I arrived at the club about an hour ahead and was the second group in line. So we were seated in the front row, right beneath where Russell performed! I saw his previous gig at the Warfield (Outsourced on DVD), which was hilarious so had my hopes high for this. And he did not disappoint. Not only was it fresh new materials, he did great improv bits with the audience right on the spot. The best jokes were Canadian mocks, that only Canucks in the crowd got. It was a great performance, totally worth the $60, because I got to laugh my ass off.

Angel Island adventures

This weekend, a few of us went to hang out at Angel Island. This little island is situated between the coast of San Francisco and Marin County. We had to take two separate ferries to get there. First, we got a ride to Tiburon, a beautiful coastal city, and from there took another ride to Angel Island.

We decided to hike all the way to the top of Mt. Livermore. It’s only 800 ft elevation, so it was a pretty easy challenge. However, we made it a whole lot difficult by turning this hike into a “climb” for half the way up. Some genius, who shall remain nameless, thought it was a good idea to cut through the forest, ignoring the trail. So we ended up climbing our way through the mountain directly upwards at like 60˚ angle. At halfway point to the top, we finally intersected the proper trail. Staying on it from then on, we hiked our way to the top-most point.

It was quite exhilarating when we reached the top. The cool breeze refreshed our sweaty bodies. You could see a panoramic view of all of San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, Tiburon, Sausalito, and the rest of Marin. Even though we didn’t have time left to check out other stuff afterwards, we had an awesome time on the island. Happy Cinco de Mayo!