New 52 | Week 43: First Time Bertha Came To Visit

I was wracking my brain today and panicking that I didn’t have anything NEW this week to share.  Then I looked at my photos and realized that I in fact have five new things to pick from.  I decided to choose the biggest and best one, which was that my cousin Bertha finally came to visit us in San Diego for the first time.  We have lived here since the end of 1999, but Bertha had never gotten a chance to come visit.  We’d seen her numerous times in San Francisco, and LA, but never in our turf of San Diego.  Well, it took her movie “Almost Perfect” being the 2011 San Diego Asian Film Festival’s Opening Night Film for her to finally get to San Diego, ha ha.  But once she got here, we aimed to show her our fine city!   

I already blogged about the Thursday night screening and after party.  On Friday, we picked Bertha and her friend Charles up at the hotel and took them to La Jolla Cove.  La Jolla Cove is one of the most scenic places in San Diego, and we seem to always take visitors there when we play tour guide. 

This is where Todd does his open water swim training for his triathlons. 

We scaled the dangerous sandy cliffs so we could go down and see the waves hit the rocks.  All the while laughing our heads off.



Charles, me, and Bertha.


I wish that it wasn’t so cloudy on Bertha’s visit!  It’s so not the San Diego we know and love.  After the cove, we walked up the street to have lunch at Whisknladle.  This was my third time there and as usual, the food was yummy!

We chatted for quite a bit, until suddenly it was time to drive Charles to the train station so he could head back up to LA.  We had an adventure getting Charles to the train station in time, weaving through traffic.  But he made it in time, thank goodness, so he could attend a work event in the evening.  After that, we drove back to Bertha’s hotel and hung out there until it was time to go to the pre-party and screening of Bertha’s friend, director Michael Kang’s movie “Knots”.  It was a lighthearted movie set in Hawaii.  Todd and I both enjoyed it.  Then we called it a night because all of us had a late night the night before (Thursday night).

On Saturday, Bertha checked out of the hotel and we picked her up for lunch.  We went to Tender Greens at Liberty Station, one of our favorites in San Diego again! 


After a fantastic lunch, we drove over the Coronado Bridge to Coronado Island.  The beach there is vast and awesome, and we wanted to show Bertha the Hotel Del Coronado.

When we got there it was still sunny.





Isn’t the hotel gorgeous?


One of my favorite shots to take… a feet in sand photo!




We had ice cream at our favorite creamery, Moo Time.  By then, the clouds had rolled in and it suddenly turned cold, so we headed home.  It was Bertha’s first time seeing/staying at our house!  Todd made an awesome Thai Basil Chicken dish for dinner.  We had some wine, and there was lots of catching up and storytelling at the dinner table.  So many memories of us growing up, and yet so many things we hadn’t known about each other.  Bertha has a great testimony and I’m just so proud of her. 

We made a late-night stop down at the Sheraton Harbor Island so Bertha could say goodbye to her filmmaking friends.  It was the karaoke after-party after the awards gala.  We saw Kelly Hu and Ivan Shaw again.  Oh and we got to meet Bertha’s friend Archie Kao.  He was there at the awards gala, presenting an award.  Since 2001, he’s played Archie Johnson on the TV show CSI:  Crime Scene Investigation (the original Las Vegas one).  Before that… he was the Blue Power Ranger!  I would have gotten a photo with him, but it was late at night and we were all visiting his hotel room and he was in his pajamas, LOL.  So I didn’t.  Oh well.

Bertha got a short night’s sleep in our guest room.  We left around 8am on Sunday morning to drop her off at the train station so she could take the train up to LA to visit some friends.  I loved hanging out with her.  While it was fun to be in her “entourage” and get to meet celebs and go to parties, my favorite part was Saturday night when we got to chat and hang out at our house.  Bertha had been so busy the last couple of years with her movie that we haven’t had a chance to really talk.  I hope this is the start of something new and she can visit us more often!  Of course, I can always visit her in NYC or Taipei.  :)

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About This Project

New52 is a project started by Peppermint and I to encourage each other and others around us to try something new every week in 2011. The "new" each week doesn't have to be something big. It could be something as simple as ordering a new dish instead of old standbys at your favorite restaurant. It's simply opening your heart up to NEW possibilities.
Don't worry if you're late getting started on joining in. It's totally OK if you miss a week here or there. We encourage everyone to keep an open mind about trying something new. This is a life project, and a photography/blog and even scrap challenge if you wish. If you participate this week, please leave a link to your blog post in the comments of this post.