Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 19mm, f/4, 1/150 sec, ISO200 “Parents and Sons” Redondo Beach, 2019
こんばんは。For my mom’s 80th birthday, we decided to surprise her by having me fly to California to join the rest of the family for a birthday dinner. We had to coax her to come to my brother’s house for a barbecue because she wasn’t feeling 100%, but when she arrived, it was fun surprising her since she was not expecting me to be there. (She thought I was home in Texas)
After the surprise, we settled in for a nice dinner of ribs, sweet potatoes, beans, salads, and of course birthday cake! And we also enjoyed the beautiful sunset, which was unfortunately extra-colorful because of the wildfires in the state. 😕
I wasn’t sure if my mom would be happy to be surprised by me flying over, or if she would have preferred we save the airfare money, but she said she was very happy to see me. So, yay, it was a success! 😄 I have to say, it was nice for us three sons to be with my mom and dad on her birthday, just like old times.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/125 sec, ISO2500 “Travel Companion” Cedar Park, 2019
As you may know, I love watches. I’m not a collector by any means, but I’ve always owned a couple throughout my life, starting with my first digital that I received as a Christmas gift from my parents when I was maybe 8 years old. I still remember wearing that non-waterproof watch in the water at Ho’okipa Park on Maui… and watching it die… luckily after it dried out, it came back to life. Whew!
Anyways, my favorite watch for the past couple years has been my Seiko SKX007 dive watch. What I like about it is that it’s so rugged and simple that I fully expect to keep it for the rest of my life. Maybe it will need servicing at some point, but I’d love to just get it repaired instead of replacing it. And because of this “buy it for life” aspect, I like to take it with me on my travels as a sort of travel companion. We’ll travel the world together forever! 😆 Being a dive watch, I want to dip it in many of the world’s famous bodies of water (and I still need to scuba with it!). Hopefully, the list will keep getting longer, but here’s what we have so far:
Yangtze River
Mediterranean Sea
Pacific Ocean
Gulf of Mexico
Caribbean Sea
Atlantic Ocean
The one other item that I take traveling and that I absolutely adore is my Fujifilm X100T camera, but that will eventually become obsolete only to be replaced. However, the rugged Seiko watch, with its automatic battery-less movement should stay with me until I die. I kind of like knowing that!
We arrived at the Port of Miami early this morning and were back at my cousin’s house relaxing by 11 am. It was a bit sad to leave the ship since it meant our vacation was coming to a close, but the disembarkation was easy and also we still had a birthday celebration to attend.
So what was on the menu for the birthday? Sushi!!! ❤️🍣 Not only that, but my niece made a cake and lychee ice cream for her dad. Super-yummy!
And if that wasn’t enough, that evening we went out for drinks at Monty’s Raw Bar and Cuban food at La Carreta. My Cuban Sampler dinner was huge and I didn’t come close to finishing it. 😲 But it was delicious and so much fun to hang out with my family. It’s the best!
*note: when this blog post is published, we will have already returned back from vacation*
Our morning in Nassau was spent exploring the aquariums of the Atlantis Paradise Island resort. Atlantis is a giant hotel with casino, water park, and aquariums. It’s pretty incredible!
While most of our group went to the water park, Mariko, Bay, Koa, and I opted to just check out the aquariums around the “Dig” area. The area is themed similar to the Disney animated Atlantis movie, with ancient Atlantean technology and artifacts. Very cool. And the aquariums were really nice, with the star being a huge manta ray – I mean who doesn’t love manta rays?
We finished up the aquariums and Atlantis around noon and then headed to “Fish Fry”, which is a small area of local restaurants. My cousin told us to meet them at Oh Andros, and while we were walking there using Google Maps, a local couple who were sitting in their car heard me mention the restaurant name and told us that Oh Andros was definitely the place to go! They even gave us directions.
We arrived at the restaurant ahead of my cousins and parents so we went ahead and ordered first. A couple of local beers and the Seafood Combination plate were fantastic! Lobster, fish, shrimp, peas and rice, etc… and a huge portion!
When the rest of our group arrived, they ordered even more fish, shrimp, and conch fritters and everyone was stuffed. So good… I definitely recommend Oh Andros at Fish Fry. Yummy!
We had to be back on the ship by 3:30 pm, which honestly seemed way too early, so after a little shopping, we met up with the larger family and boarded together. The final night’s dinner and show were especially good, which was a nice way to end the cruise.
