Hearst Castle

This weekend, the hubby and I are driving down from Northern California to Southern California to attend my good friend Jim's wedding to the ever lovely Liza! They are such a precious couple, I can't wait to see them at the wedding on Sunday!

Until then, however, I'll document our trip!

We left Thursday evening after work in San Francisco. We drove all the way down to within five miles or so from Hearst Castle, our planned activity for Friday!

Hearst Castle is a wonderful place to visit if you love architecture and luxury. Here's a link to the Hearst Castle website.

William Randolph Hearst, as many of you may know, was VERY rich. He had the moolah to build this castle which cost roughly $10,000,000 back in the 1940's (I think. I was snapping almost 200 pictures during the tour). It took 20+ years to complete, The stats of the house were crazy - something like 50+ bedrooms and 60-something bathrooms...or was that fireplaces? It felt as if there was a fireplace in every room!!! He started building in his late 50's with the help of architect Julia Morgan.

(By the way, the hotel we stayed at Thursday night was The Morgan Hotel. It was very quaint, cute and affordable. Obviously it was named after Julia Morgan, the Hearst Castle architect).

This is the view on our way to Hearst Castle from our hotel. I love the coast of California. I'm not a beach person, but I'm an ocean person. Does that make sense?

From the visitors' center, our tour group took a bus up to Hearst Castle. It was another five miles up the hills/mountain to the castle on windy roads. On the way, we found out that Mr. Hearst loved animals and kept, at one point, the largest private zoo in the world. He had lions, tigers, bears... =) no, seriously, he did! His animals roamed the hills as well, and we caught a glimpse or two of deer while driving back down after the tour.

I am not going to post all my pictures of our Hearst Castle tour. I'll just post enough to give you an idea! We took pictures from one of the many, many grand views from the house. Could you imagine having that type of view?

This is a picture of Neptune's Pool. At first they were just going to make a family pool, but when it became apparent that the house was constantly going to be full of people - movies stars, politicians, etc., they ripped out the pool twice-ish and finally settled on this pool. It is AMAZING!!!

Here's another view of the pool from above.

Here we are outside of the Casa Grande (the main castle portion). Doesn't it look like a church?

Here's another shot of Casa Grande. That's the front door of the house.

The Hearst Castle Living Room. Check out the giant fireplace! I asked the tour lady if Citizen Kane was filmed at the Castle, and it did not appear so.

Hearst loved art and architecture which was a result of an earlier year and a half long trip to Europe with his mother. His estate had tons of art all over.

This was his dining room. Not too shabby! By the way, if the pictures aren't the clearest, it is because I wasn't able to use a flash (Castle policy), so I did the best I could without a tripod!

Since Hearst also made movies and stuff, he had an actual theater in his house.

This is Mr. Hearst himself. I guess back in the day, movie theaters did more than show movies. This is Mr. Hearst's public appeal for people to support US industry.

Our tour conlcluded with an indoor pool. It was an amazing thing as well.

Apparently, the floor had gold in it. Here's a picture of Eli and I standing on gold.

The indoor pool also had a diving platform. The pool was only 10 feet deep, though. Not sure if I would've jumped from it.

It was a marvelous house, really! They have four tours. Ours did not entail the second floor or Mr. Hearst's bedroom. They also have evening/night tours during certain months. If you have the chance, definitely drop by! Oh...I'd recommend budgeting a couple hours and getting your tickets ahead of time.

Happy Birthday, Manang!

Happy Birthday, Manang!!! For my sister's birthday, we all got together and did what we are all good at - EAT!!!

Yummy food at a Mexican restaurant (can't find the name on google! Crazy! But it was soo gooood!)

I can't post about my sister without posting about my beautiful neice! Here she is with the bear. She's the same size as him, if not bigger! She's so going to love all these pictures we're taking with her and the bear. =) But seriously, aren't they cute???

Awwwwwww...............

Tourists!

Two weekends ago (I think), the hubby and I took a trip down south. My company was throwing one of the partners a retirement party down south. It was fortunate that we were able to combine the Saturday night event with a conference I had to attend the following Monday - Wednesday.

We flew down Friday afternoon and drove around until we found our hotel. This was our view at night:


Sabbath morning, we did a little exploring and decided on attending the Vallejo Drive church in Glendale. It looked like a mini Angwin church! The service was really nice, and I wouldn't mind attending again.

Saturday night, we got all dressed up and attended the party which was held at the California Club. I definitely felt out of place next to the giant fireplaces and ritzy...er...everything! But we were able to relax with some coworkers and have a lot of fun. There were tributes given and dinner and dancing to an awesome live band. Here are a couple pictures:

I really liked the ceiling. I think I'll make it my wallpaper...
The main room for the party.
Sunday, we slept in and took our time moving out of our room and on to the next hotel for the next couple days. On our way, we stopped in Hollywood since the hubby hadn't seen it before. We dropped by the Chinese Mann Theater where a lot of movie premieres are held. We saw the movie Inkheart there. (I liked the movie, but in the same vein, I liked Stardust better.)

We also were in the same place as the Kodak Theater - ya know, where they hold American Idol Hollywood week and the Oscars.

We stayed at a hotel just within walking distance from Universal CityWalk. It was fun to go visit. I'll write more on the conference (hopefully) since I really enjoyed it.

oh, by the way, since I haven't posted in a while, I thought I'd include in this post pictures of our visit with one of my favorite people - Stacey! Stacey is one of my dearest and most precious friends from MBA. Although we don't see each other nearly as much as we should, and we don't keep in touch as much as I'd like, she is still a very, very dear friend. When I received RSVPs back for my wedding, I shed tears only twice when I found out someone wasn't able to come. One was for my cousin, Marvin and the other was when I found out my friend Stacey couldn't come.

I completely understood the circumstances, but the wedding did feel a bit incomplete because these two weren't there.

Anywho...Stacey and her husband were down visiting family over the Christmas/New Year's holiday, and we were able to meet up with them for a couple hours. Here are some pics:

Stacey, I miss you, and I hope to see you sooner rather than later!!!