napa valley

this was the car we rented for the day.  ping-soon, vijay and i set off at around 9.20 am.  it's a toyota.  our first stop was bouchon in yountville just north of napa (the town).  we had a reservation for 11.45 am.  along the way, we got caught in a jam just outside napa and we got a bit worried that it would be like this the rest of the way to napa.  it turns out that the jam was caused by lots of cars going to a theme park.  i think it was a six flags park.  anyway the jam was for about 15 minutes and after we passed the exit in question, it was smooth driving again.

we made it!

this is ping-soon and vijay.

appetizers of asparagus soup for vijay (top of picture), and ping-soon and i shared the glazed pork belly with egg (above picture) and a dozen mussels (below).

the main course that we shared as well together with the fries, was this trout.  it had almonds and long beans on top.  everything was pretty good.

vijay is vegetarian so he had the gnocchi.   i tried some and it was quite good.

the queue outside bouchon bakery!

washington street, yountville where bouchon is.  it is a very nice street with flowers like this and lots of nice little buildings that give it a great deal of charm.  and tourists love it of course.  it looks very different in summer doesn't it?

saw the napa valley wine train going past. it's a 3-hour ride i think with food and wine on board.  don't think it stops anywhere:)  don't think anyone wants to get off.  if they drank too much, they might not make it back on board.

this is the robert mondavi vineyard.  apparently it is the wine they serve here but i don't drink a lot and don't pay attention to the bottle.  mondavi is also the name of the place uncle jerry brought us to last year wasn't it?  anyway, mondavi died a few years ago at the age of 93.  so a good reason to drink wine no?

our guide for the tour was rebecca.  she's from boston which is on the east coast.  she's doing this for 6 months.  i think it's part of the requirements for a course in wine she is doing.  takes about 5 years!   pictures of the grapes on the vine.  these are just for the tour because they were placed alongside other grape varieties which they normally do not do.  i think california produces like more than 90% of the wine in america.  but napa only accounts for 4% of it.  but it is the most famous i guess so people think it is the main producer.

this is the cellar where they keep the wine.  in all, they keep it for 18 months before bottling it.  but i don't think all wines are kept so long.

this is the bottling part of the vineyard.  it's saturday so it's shut down.  below, the best part of the tour of course.

they also stage concerts here at the vineyard.  apparently dinner is included.  sounds good ya?  colbie caillat is playing!  and kd lang but i think you guys are not familiar with her.

next we headed off to robert louis stevenson park.  there are a few different trails i think and the one we took is the memorial trail.  it's very short, only 1 mile up.  there is another trail which is 5 miles long but we did not have time for that.  it would take us at least 2 hours one way.  think it goes up to mount st helena.

the first part of the trail is quite an easy walk.  quite gentle, nice wide paths though there is a lot of erosion so you have to be careful.  saw someone coming down slip on the loose gravel.

this is the marker for the memorial trail we took.  the book is actually carved out of the rock.  it's a little worn and hard to read.  if you want to read more about this trail, check this out stevenson park

we decided to go up a little more and see where that took us.  the trail was now a bit more difficult as you can see here.

from the description, it seemed like there would be a view just a bit after the memorial.  and lo and behold, after another 10 minutes, we found this great view.

so all in all, a nice short little hike with a great view at the end.  well worth the effort.  time for dinner!  this helped to work up an appetite because we had lunch early.

remember this place that we walked around in december?  it is the culinary institute of america.  we were going for dinner there.

i think these are seats where you want to see what goes on in the kitchen.  they are not very popular so if you don't have a reservation and would like to wait, i suppose this might be available.

this is what i had, a seafood stew.  it was good.  i also had a starter of sardines but i was so hungry i forgot to take pictures!  after the drive back we walked around in downtown palo alto for a while and i saw this cinema that screened mostly old movies (many in black and white) and they had this classic ticketing booth that i have only seen in the movies.