Lake Chabot

For Fourth of July weekend, my family was up and in the mood for fishing.  I generally don't care for fishing, as it's a whole lot of sitting around, getting smelly from the sunscreen, worms, lake water, and supposed fish.

But I went along with the promise of a nice lakeside hike and a close proximity. And close it was! We went to Lake Chabot in San Leandro.  I was surprised they had such a nice lake so near to the cities.  On the Peninsula we have Crystal Springs, but you aren't allowed to touch it since it's drinking water.

Lake Chabot was teeming with people, mostly on the picnic tables and BBQ pits.  There were many on the weird "gym" playground.

That'd be an elliptical. Lol.

There were people fishing on the "shores" of the drought-ridden lake.

And there were plenty of people out on the water in rental boats!

It looked like fun~ here's the price list inside the cafe:

Anyway, the trail around the lake is nice and paved, though Sak and I only went about 30 minutes before my new-shoe-blister from the week before opened up again. Gwah.

Beware the poison oak on the sides of the trail, it was EVERYWHERE.

There are a lot of other kinds of non-itchy plants around though!

Derrrr!

The East Bay Regional Park District has flower photo guides on their website too if you want to know what you're looking at!

It really is a pretty lake!

I don't know if they have one for birds too, but we saw many different types of ducks, geese and small birds busy building their nests!

Watch out for the Canadian geese though - they are disgusting and poop all over the place.  I hear it makes excellent fertilizer, but it sure ain't so nice on the soles of your shoes!

After our hike, Sak and I were lame and went back to the car to sit on our phones.  :P But in my defense the mosquitos were biting me because it was dusk.  My parents and sister fished for a good hour and half, hoping for some of the catfish that had been planted the day before.

They had no luck, unfortunately. Instead, we ate black bean catfish at a Chinese restaurant that night. :P

I wouldn't mind coming back to this nearby lake in the future, with a rental boat and a good book. That'd be relaxing. And it's still surprising how you can live in the Bay Area so long and *still* not have seen/done everything. I guess that's the fun part of living here!

Hetalia America Cake

Like the past three years, we had a lovely family BBQ and fireworks show at our house for Independence Day.

But not to forget all my friends who were braving the crowds at Anime Expo in LA - I thought an APH America cake was in order!

"Watashi wa HERO!"

So for those of you who don't watch anime - Axis Powers Hetalia is a short (5 min episodes) show that portrays countries as different characters. Mainly WWII countries.  It's irreverent, funny and definitely cute. I think it's on Netflix and Hulu?

Anyway, America is my favorite, obviously.

He's so cute! And he has a hamburger! Alfred Jones!

I made him with whip cream and chocolate (for lines) using the same method as V-Day's Keroro cake (using Kawaii Kakkoii Sugoi's tutorial).  Since this was my second time, it came out a lot better - I made sure to make the cream even, so there weren't as many holes when I peeled it off onto the cake base.  However, I used a different box cake mix, a "moist pudding" type cake mix, and it was almost too soft.  Next time I will stick to a standard cake mix as it holds shape better.

You don't know how long it took me to mix red, green, blue and yellow food color into BROWN and KHAKI. Ugh. A lot of trial and error. But still, he's pretty cool!

Aside from cake, we also had BBQ and lots of other tasty food for the 4th.  Unfortunately our grill broke that day =_= so we ended up ordering BBQ from Armadillo Willy's. Kinda lame, haha. But it was still good so all's good.

At night, fireworks in Foster City.  We watched from our deck, with patriotic tunes blaring on Dad's ipod.

The 92 San Mateo Bridge in the background

Mom got some good shots this year!

'Murica!

Hiller Aviation Museum

Perhaps you've seen the sign for this museum while driving on the 101 up or down the Peninsula?

Sak and I went to the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos when we first moved to the Bay years ago, but since my family was in town for 4th of July, we thought it'd be fun to go again. Plus there is a Living Social deal going on now for 50% off admission. That helps. (As of the post date, general admission for adults is $14)

The museum is one large building of aircraft, models, and information, and there's also a few cool things outside in the back as well.

Flying things!

Penga-Sis wasn't too keen on going at first, but she warmed up quickly at the promise of photo ops :P

This was in Mythbusters, no?

Anyway, for Sak, planes are probably his second most favorite thing after trains. And my dad has really been getting into hobby planes lately (he even puts his flights on Youtube @_@), so they had a good time.

There are many different types of motors on display, if you want to learn about how they work!

Dad said this type of mini plane was in one of the older James Bond movies.

Gas will give you  flight??? I don't even know.

The cool part about this museum is that it heavily caters towards flight in Northern California.  Innovators (like the museum's namesake, Hiller), and Bay Area expos and such.

Like, in the 1920s there were competitions to fly from the Bay to Hawaii! The amount of contestants that wound up "lost at sea" or "crashed on takeoff" is ridiculously high.

For some reason I thought there were more WWII planes here, but I must have been confusing it with Oahu's or DC's flight museums =_="  So not too much WWII, but I found this mini model plane to be interesting - did they know what baka meant when they named it? I guess?

Anyway, upstairs in the main hall are many computers where you can run flight sims for an extra $3 on weekends.  Back on ground level there's also a window to look into the museum's restoration workshop, but the coolest part awaits out the back.

Yes, that'd be the front part of a 747 jet. So ginormous up close.

Not everyday you can *safely* model in a jet engine.

Inside the plane they've kept it, for the most part, pretty original.

Might be waiting a while for take-off though.

And you can sit in the cockpit!!! SO COOL.

All the buttons and dials can move too :) So many buttons!

Sak says it's more simplified now that everything is digital.

When you're done in the jet, you can go right up to the San Carlos airport runway and watch the little planes take off and land.

Overall, it's a fun little museum to spend a couple hours at. You can sit in several of the planes and helicopters, and there are interactive simulator games spread throughout the museum.  The mannequins, like most mannequins, are pretty creepy though. Haha!