San Clemente - The pier and Beach Ice Cream

Before heading home, we stopped by the seaside town of San Clemente...

which TC reminded me was the home of skater Ryan Sheckler (he played a hockey player in the abominable movie "The Tooth Fairy" which also starred The Rock; why did I even waste my time watching that....ha ha)...

Plus, they do have a really pretty pier...

The Empanada Maker

Yesterday we made a mini road trip up to the OC...

(passing by the decomissioned San Onofre nuclear power plant, aka "The Tits", or at least that's what I call it)

We were invited to Bert's niece's Gold Award Ceremony...

The Asian Garden Mall

Before heading over to our last stop, my SIL wanted to  see if she could find a particular beauty product at a nearby mall...

located on Bolsa Ave, one of the main commercial streets in Little Saigon....

As predicted, the parking sucked in the tiny lot, and as we were about to drive out to try another place, we snagged a spot at the last minute! The parking gods were smiling upon us that morning....

Return to Brodard's and a Mac attack!

Fresh from our quick foray into blueberry donutland, we headed back down to Little Saigon, taking the surface streets. We drove through Anaheim, Santa Ana, and a few other cities and ended up in Garden Grove.

Our next destination was right across from one of the many locations of Lee's Sandwiches, a Vietnamese chain which popularized the Banh Mi sandwich to Americans. The original location is on Bolsa Blvd, across from the Asian Garden Mall (thanks Wandering Chopsticks!).

There it is...the 99 Cent Store in a non descript strip mall, called "The Mall of Fortune".

Ignore your GPS directions and  go around the BACK...

Marche Moderne

As seen in my previous post, Bert and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary.

We were married at 10 in the morning and had a lunch reception at a bayside venue in Mission Beach with the reception ending at 5 pm. In our haste and excitement, we didn't think of packing other kinds of clothes. Now don't get the wrong idea! I seriously did not want to go out to dinner wearing my wedding dress nor did Bert want to wear his tuxedo. Plus our clothes for the next day were just jeans and fugly t-shirt and I did not pack regular shoes. I only had my white high heels, so we decided to order in.

Our nuptial feast for that night (and breakfast the next day)?

Pizza Hut Supreme Pizza...

(image courtesy of Food in Real Life)