Mission Inn, Date day in Jan....

For our date day in Jan we went to Mission Inn hotel @ Riverside. It is a historical landmark which was built by the original owner and then expanded into this monster by his son....The trip was short and I didn't end up taking too many photos cuz it was not all that easy to come up with nice photos @ the hotel since everything was put together kinda in a weird way....

They offer high tea in the hotel...

Spanish style on one side....We found our way to sneak into the hotel and went up to the top level to check out things. It's supposedly not open to the public so you have to be hotel guests to go inside of the hotel...but oh well....

Mission style bells....

We found a decent spot to take photos of the chapel in the hotel...

Other than the chapel this is probably the only place that I could take cool photo with cuz everything else was just a mingle of a lot of sight distracting objects....

I thought it's weird that they had diff. styles of buildings if you look in diff. directions...

On the roof level there were several fountains...

Views of the court in the middle of the hotel + some rooms on the top from the roof level....

There were people who were taking wedding photos at the staircase....

Looking up from the bottom of the stairs...

Outside of the hotel....I think they have a restaurant which belongs to the hotel....

Sun was setting while we were driving home. Took those two photos from the car to conclude my photo day :)

Year end trip of 2010, last day--St. Luis Obispo-Home :)

On the last day of our trip we didn't really do much. We visited the St. Luis Obispo mission while it started raining. We took few photos and just got on the freeway to head home...I don't know if I would want to visit SLO again since the town is so small and boring....:p

This was the last place we visited before we headed home....

We decided to eat breakfast at their cafe cuz the interior looked kinda cool and we really had no more plans on places to go at SLO...

Since we had to wait for 30 min we walked around in the hotel....Can't believe how crowded the place was....

Took a photo outside of the cafe....

Our seats were right next to the very heavily ornamented window....


They make huge cakes...

Foor we ordered.....very expensive for the quality of food I thought....

Very spooky clouds which I took on the car on the way back. It was actually snowing around Santa Barbara we heard...Weather was going a bit crazy...

Saw bunch of birds flew by....didn't know they were the big ones until I stopped to take photos of them....

I actually got some really decent pictures from the car when the sun was going down....

Best part of the trip was when I got home and my cats were there waiting for me....but our year end trip sure was fun and relaxing....That is a good way to wrap up year 2010 I guess. Hopefully 2011 will be a better year :)

Year end trip 2010, Day 5--Monterey

Our main goal for the 5th day is to drive on Pacific Highway down south to St Luis Obispo where we would stay for the last night of the trip. We went through Monterey Bay, 17 miles, Big Sur and all those beaches on the way. The weather was actually not too great, but the photos we took with our random stops actually turned out to be better than I imagined. I guess the views would really be superb if the sun was out with a clear sky....Oh well...there is always next time :)


We went to this light house cuz we saw it on the magazine at the hotel. It's the tallest lighthouse in the states...or so they said....I personally think all the hostels built around it just destroyed the scenery...


We saw A LOT OF birds at one place....so many of them....


We stopped by Monterey to look around, but I wasn't impressed at all. I guess it would of looked better if the weather was good...


Stuff I saw at Monterey fisherman's wharf....I think the jazz performance was too bad the old man there needed to plug his ear....lol....


Some nice scenery photos after we left Monterey....





That is the famous Bixby Bridge from pacific highway....


We saw a lot of people and cars at one point and stopped to check out what's going on....It turned out to be a place where a lot of sea elephants rest and breed....It's the 1st time I see so many of them at once....and they were ugly....



The restaurant we wanted to try for the new year eve dinner was all booked even though I tried to call in the morning. I guess people do go out to celebrate for new year even in this economy....We ended up trying this place @ St. Luis Obispo. It turned out to be really nice and they had a new year special set dinner which Billy ordered. I would totally go back again if we happen to pass by any time...




The hotel we stayed @ St. Luis Obispo was very cozy. The lobby had free tea and coffee + lemon water, and a fire place where you can sit around and chat....Couldn't really take a photo of the whole room but there was a sofa bed with the queen size bed and also a sliding table...anyway...last hotel night of year 2010 :)