Tartine Manufactory

As my lovely foodie friend Serena drove an extra hour than she needed to to come spend some time with me (*cry* I know my friends are all so sweet), she encouraged me to bring my camera (that I hadn't touch for a while due to pharmacy school finals wah) out with us as we went to grab some food and catch up at Tartine Manufactory in San Francisco. Serena is one of those friends that literally fills you with life and genuine encouragement just with her stories and thoughtful sentences. One of those that you laugh with something stupid about one second and then dive into something crazy deep the next. Good food, amazing company, and a super aesthetic environment. Couldn't have made for a better day. (: 

Let's start with the food! We walked and we both were happily greeted multiple  servers who were extremely helpful in making out food choices. As I searched through the menu, I was slightly embarrassed to not have known what half those listed ingredients were. Thank goodness I had my walking food dictionary (aka Serena) next to me translating for me and teaching me how to pronounce things accurately. With Serena's help, we picked a few amazing dishes:

1)  Cauliflower tartine, ricotta, green apple, treviso

2) Nantes carrots, persimmon, yogurt, fenugreek, sesame, dill

3) Opera cake

4) Blood orange sorbet & cardamom ice cream swirl (you can order them separately, but the mix was highly recommended by the server so we trusted him and boy were we glad we did)

5) Iced oolong tea

These foods were PACKED with flavor and the textures and colors just balanced so beautifully. I would highly recommend all the above dishes. I even told her I wasn't hungry and that I would only take a small bite to try the taste of it, but oh man it was so tasty I couldn't stop myself hahaha. The tea was so delicious, it was strongly truly oolong, just the way I like it. If you don't want to come for a full meal, it is totally okay to just come for coffee or pastries during the day time as well!

Shot on iPhone 7s - Just had to show you all the amazing blood orange sorbet & cardamom ice cream swirl

hello strangers happily munching away lol

Serena and I stayed there and talked until the beautiful sunlight floating in gradually faded as the sun set behind us. We used to meet up every week to just chat about life but now we are further apart (sad face) and don't get the weekly time anymore, we can chat for hours! Don't you love talks like those? Chatting about pharmacy school made me realize I wanted to be more proactive with making more time for taking photos and blogging and traveling! I decided I wanted to continue with learning and practicing with illustrator/photoshop, blog more, travel more, and explore my own city (I live in San Francisco goodness sakes) more! I want to take advantage of my surroundings and live more in the moment. No more sitting at home studying (jk of course I have to study), but I need to be intentional about making time to visit all the places I want to visit and spend more time taking advantage of the amazingly diverse city that I live in! I would love to hear any suggestions on places and recommendations on places to go in SF (comment or feel free to email me)!  

Thanks for letting me share my day with you! Make sure to enter your email in on the side to receive email updates for when I post!

Color Factory

When Color Factory, this new trending pop-up museum, opened in August of 2017 in San Francisco, my sister and I were not able to resist the tempting videos showcasing the two-story interactive museum's yellow ball pits and rainbow confetti rooms. Each room featured specific color themes, whether it be a humungous yellow ball pit, a red joke-filled bathroom, a purple selfie room, or even rainbow walkways and ribbon rooms. The entire museum was interactive, which made it all the more enjoyable and fun. 

When we first walked in, we were met with rainbow stripes from floor to ceiling. On the walls were little circle scented scratchers that emitted random smells all the way from "grape bubble gum that loses flavor in two minutes" to "crying and frying" (whatever that smells like). We felt like little kids amongst theactual little kids running around and exploring these fun exhibits. We also grabbed a sweet treat, a cute light pink (slightly glittery) meringue at the turn table of sweets. Next, we walked into a black and white striped room and got served pretty delicious charcoal lemonade courtesy of Pressed Juicery.

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The ball pit was probably one of my absolute favorite exhibits. We buried ourselves, waded through, and pretended to swim through this pool of yellow balls. They served a couple flavors of soft serve - vanilla or Japanese milk coffee. We both sprung for the Japanese milk coffee since it definitely sounded like the more interesting one, and boy it was delicious! The green room (pictured below) was also so much fun! The huge pen in which we did a lot of our coloring with was admittedly pretty heavy though.

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via GIPHY

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The beautiful confetti room was our other favorite room. The teal wall is gorgeous and photogenic, and the rainbow confetti is just plain fun to mess around with! We probably spent the most time frolicking in the confetti room out of the entire museum! 

The above pictured purple room dubbed "#SELFIE" had actually a really interesting concept as well! You simply had to post an Instagram with the hashtag they listed on the wall, then the computer would someone detect it and print it onto this purple paper that is now littered all over the room as it's own sort of confetti! Super interesting! Our other favorite room was of course the infamous ribbon room! A wonderfully beautiful display of ribbons that you can walk and wade through. Super easy to make yourself too actually! It was so much fun to play with, whip around, venture through, and touch the soft smooth ribbons.

The funniest room would have to actually be the bathroom. They even decked out the functional, real-time restroom! It was painted all red, with hilarious potty-themed jokes plastered all over the walks. Go ahead and read some of them, they definitely gave me a good laugh!

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Thank you color factory for extending your opening for a couple extra months so that we got the chance to play in all the color fun that you guys had to offer! It was extremely refreshing to play like a child in ribbons, swim in ball pits, and laugh at poop jokes all over again!