Adventurin’ : Chinatown Ghost Tour

During the short stint of Facebook Deals, I was able to grab this great deal to head out for a Chinatown Ghost Tour!
Dano was so excited! We added it into our events for the Halloween month of October!

The tour starts out at Four Seas Restaurant on Grant Ave… Our Tour guide was Ruby… she was super-duper great, really funny, and very informative!

Not only did we learn about the areas of Chinatown that are meant to have activity and why, but we received a wonderful historical tour as well!
Most fun, was that we were deep in Chinatown (with a guide) on a late Saturday night… this gave us such a fascinating view of ‘true’ Chinatown!!! The hidden secrets of what games take place in the alleys and special events in the parks!

So amazing were the bricks used in the buildings! After the time of the earthquake and big fire… there was not enough money or material around to completely rebuild from scratch… and there were remaining bricks that were still OK to use, but were just a little fire damaged… well, basically MELTED, but still in ‘brick shape’… so they reused these beautiful melted bricks… this gives the buildings such a delicious and characteristic facade!!!

Though we had our ghost investigating equipment… we did not get much activity… or rather we got a TON of EMF activity… Dano’s meter was constantly at the high end (in the red)…  though it just seems that there is a great deal of truly electrical energy running though Chinatown.

One point to note… while Ruby was talking about her late-mother in an alley way that housed a beauty salon, in which a photo of Ruby’s mother in a Beauty Pageant hung, my EMF meter flicked back and forth numerous times!!

Afterwards, we were treated to a fun, little magic show!

It’s a fun tour… worth a visit!

http://sfchinatownghosttours.com/home.html

Adventurin’ : Monarch Butterflies, Ardenwood Farm

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Since we’ve moved to the Bay Area my cousin has been helpful in providing us with info about great things to do around here! As, she herself, prepared to move up here after her wedding.

Thanks to her we learned that the Monarch Butterflies have greatly increased in numbers, as counted, during their Over-Wintering phase!
They only lay their eggs in, and subsequently only eat as babies, the plant Milkweed… by adding a plant or two in your yard as an Eco-Friendly measure you would also get these wonderful butterflies visiting your yard during their West Coast Migration!!

We learned that there are a number of locations in the NorCal area to see the beauties in person! One such place, with about 6,000 butterflies at their peak, being the Ardenwood Farm in Fremont… Such a great place! Along with the Butterfly Preserve they many animals and a beautiful old Victorian home (The Patterson House), on the land, which I will write about in an Ardenwood Farm Pt.2 post.

We will also visit another Monarch Butterfly Preserve at Natural Bridges State Park in Santa Cruz later this month… this will warrant a separate blog post as well!

We learned that, like me, the Monarch Butterflies enjoy a warmer, sunnier climate in which to frolic! 🙂
They prefer temperatures of above 55degrees and sun… this warms their leaves and bodies enough to allow them to fly… otherwise, they will remain clustered together, for warmth, high above the ground within the leaves of eucalyptus trees.

When we visited Ardenwood Farm on Dec 11th, the weather was just a tad too cool for them at about 53degrees!

We did see a few butterflies in the air… though we mostly just wondered at the beautiful clusters of butterflies in the trees… we were also able to see a little, tiny baby butterfly egg!  It was all truly amazing to see!!

Please enjoy the accompanying photos… as we enjoyed taking them!

‘Backyard’ Seals!!

We are fortunate enough to live on a wonderful little waterway (a creek that feeds off the SF Bay)… on a daily basis we get to see Dragonboat and Crew teams practicing along the water as they row past the view from our deck!
We also get to see many varied types of water fowl, including my favorite… Pelicans!

We’ve both been wondering if we’d ever see seals or any other type of small swimming animals… Now we know the answer… YES! 🙂

I think it had to get cold enough for them to venture up the creek… but we were visited by two frolicking seals twice in one week…
I was in the bedroom, the morning of Nov 14th,  looking out the window and saw them (at first I thought it might be a scuba diver… HA! Weird, right!?  Though, no stranger than actually seeing seals from your bedroom window! 🙂
I yelled out to Dano, in the living room, “DANO! Oh my god! Dano!”… He was concerned something was wrong and came running… but then I pointed and said “SEALS!” 🙂

Right away we pulled out our cameras… we are happy to share what we captured with you…

Our Seal Video on Youtube

Pics Below :
Seals playing this morning in our ‘backyard’, this is the view (across the parking lot) from our deck! 🙂