Adventure // Golden Gate Park

A couple weeks ago, Dai and I ventured out to Golden Gate Park with a couple of friends. We had gotten together with them to shoot some portraits and to show them around the city a bit. As I believe I have mentioned, the weather hasn't been the greatest lately (except for today, Hallelujah!), so I figured that the backdrop of luscious greenery & a gloomy day would be perfect for some portraits!
Golden Gate Park is a really expansive and sprawling park comprised of smaller pockets of parks and  trails with roads that allow you to drive through it. Sometimes it can be confusing because there are just so many different parts to it! There are bison housed there that you can take a look at, baseball fields, paved paths to walk along, a large duck pond, a small "lake," playgrounds, and an area with some museums. You could really spend a whole day in this park and even I have yet to see it all.
One things that is kind of nice about this place is that you are in San Francisco, but feel so secluded and like you could really be in an entirely different place altogether. You could be in another state even and not even notice! I really like that you can find such a quiet and serene place in a big, bustling city! It is definitely something that should be appreciated.
Our friends were nice enough to snap a few photos of us with my camera, which we really don't have nearly enough of! Most photos of us are iPhone photos, which aren't the greatest quality for printing, so I'm happy to have a high quality photo of us that I can print out and frame :)

This dog was hilarious. He suddenly appeared out of the bushes and just had to rest right in the middle of the walking path while he waited for his humans. He was just too tired! He was probably the biggest Corgi I had ever seen, too haha.
This guy. Always nice enough to carry my bag for me so I can photograph things! Looks pretty good doing it too ;) What a good sport!
I love all of the different types and colors of greenery that grows here. It is like a little forest hideaway! One could surely get very lost here and I'd definitely like to spend a day doing the same.
This photo pretty much perfectly sums us and our relationship up. We are basically goofballs and we love it. Really though, I hope some of you have had the joy of hanging out with us haha.
Aside from visiting the museums, I think I have taken this park for granted all these years! This summer, I'd love to take advantage of living a short drive away and explore it more. It would be fun to pack a lunch, grab my pup, and have a picnic here! It would be a great new place to shoot outfit photos, and would even be a nice place to take a long morning walk with Marly at! I think it will be one of my goals to do all of those things this summer :)

I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of our little afternoon adventure and getting to see a new part of the city here on the blog!

Do you enjoy visiting parks? Do you have a similar place you like to visit?

Have an awesome weekend! Woohoo! Tonight we are having a bonfire with friends, which I am pretty pumped about :)

West Coast Love // SF Japanese Tea Garden

Remember the other day when I talked about that proposal we saw? Well, it was here, at the Japanese Tea Garden in SF's Golden Gate Park! Though I had been to Golden Gate Park numerous times, I had never made it into this tea garden until just the other day when Dai brought me here. It was really the sweetest little introduction to what our trip to the real Japan will be like (28 days to go, my friends!) and the perfect afternoon date.

We had the greatest time wandering around every inch of the garden, stopping to take photos or joke around (maybe someone had a little too much fun ;) ). I didn't realize that it was as big as it was; I was expecting something much smaller and was very pleasantly surprised. I loved all of the lush greenery and the colors from the flowers in bloom.
This bridge was so much fun to walk over! It is extremely steep and there are steps kind of like a ladder to get up and down from it. It was a bit scary, but definitely a cool thing to do.
The sakuras are in bloom! They are just so pretty. Wish we could see them when we go to Japan, but they are mostly in the north, somewhere I am told we won't really be visiting. Bummer.
That's our reflection from the top of that steep bridge :)
And there you have it! I am sure you will all get sick of me talking about anything Japanese related by the time May rolls around, but guys, I am so excited for our trip! If Dai and I can have this much fun wandering around a garden that isn't even really in Japan, think about how much fun we are going to have when we actually get there! I'm a lucky girl to have such a great adventuring companion :)

Japanese Tea Garden // 75 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco, CA

This world is not my home.

This is just so brilliant it should be in a museum. Said no one ever.

jacket-American Eagle//dress-Target//bag-Lucky Brand//booties-Toms

Yesterday we spend the afternoon at the de Young, an art museum in Golden Gate Park. For my photography class I had to see an exhibit and write a report about it, and well it is due Thursday so of course I waited until the last possible day to see one. But moving on, I really like the de Young. The museum itself is pretty cool and I love the viewing tower they have, which takes you up about 10 floors to a panoramic viewing room. You can see the entire city. It's simply breathtaking. If you're ever in Golden Gate Park, do it. I would pay to get into the museum just to spend time up there drawing.

I loved the photography exhibit, but I was not very interested in the ancient tribal art they had or the paintings. Also, I think it stinks that they have exhibits you have to pay extra to get into! But nonetheless, the de Young is a great place to poke around, spend some time in the viewing tower, and even have some lunch in their cute café.

I really should start exploring more of the museums while I still live here. I have been to the MoMA several times and the de Young twice, but there are still many more museums to check out!

Plus, Golden Gate Park is just glorious on a Sunday afternoon.