San Diego Zoo

More San Diego Zoo photos... because animals are awesome! (even more after the jump)

Santee, San Diego, Coronado

San Diego Zoo!

Road Trip of Sisterhood! After pampering myself with a haircut at the gorgeous Joya Salon (at the Montelucia resort), Sissy and I hit the road for California!

Along the way we stopped to see Cosanti handmade wind chimes in Paradise Valley, then drove through some incredible vistas en route to Santee, CA. There were barren deserts, cacti, sand dunes, huge pile of boulders, giant wind turbines... and about a zillion Border Patrol cars! It was interesting to find myself driving in such different environments, all in one trip. Some of the desert reminded me of Kuwait and Iraq, minus the camels.

We arrived in Santee in time for a home-cooked dinner by DR and LR, a couple we've sort of adopted as great-uncle and -aunt. (There was a strawberry pie for dessert... gorgeous!)  We had a blast catching up with them; I feel like they've watched us grow up since we were little kids. They also made us a top notch breakfast (complete with the prickly pear jelly we brought them!) before we set out for my bucket list stop: the San Diego Zoo.

I have wanted to visit the San Diego Zoo since 3rd grade. My parents had given me a CD-ROM of the zoo to explore on the computer, and I think I had the entire this memorized by heart. When Sissy suggested that we go, I was like a little kid again! I especially loved seeing the pandas, giraffes, elephants, and tigers. Sissy liked the polar bears, gorillas, and orangutans. The whole place is lush and gorgeous... but I am glad we went early, as it started to get very crowded later!

After, Sissy suggested that we eat lunch at Hotel del Coronado, not too far from the zoo. It is where the Marilyn Monroe movie 'Some Like It Hot' was filmed. The place still looks like it is out of another era, and it overlooks the gorgeous beach. We had a great view from our lunch table!

Coronado

After that, it was time to head to Los Angeles to see the Korean side of our family... in which I drove in LA traffic for the first time and put a nasty scratch on my sister's car trying to park.  I think I'd better stick to driving in the Midwest/South.  More about LA later!  :)

Dessert at Hotel del Coronado

Playlists and Sisterhood

I took a recent vacation Arizona to see my one and only sibling, my baby sister AW.  (She needs a name here... Sissy works!)  We hadn't seen each other since Christmas, and I hadn't been out to Arizona since last year, so it was a long overdue trip.  But I'll talk more about our adventures later.

Sissy had to work the first day I was in town, so I spent some time setting up her new iPad and computer, specifically her iTunes account.  As I painstakingly saved her individual playlists (they don't transfer with the library automatically, at least, the method I had to use), I noticed just how different we really were.

It wasn't the genres of music; we both have eclectic tastes, though I think she is far more hipster than I will ever be.  It was the chaotic mess of playlists, titles, spellings, duplicates... the utter disorganization.  It made me frown, then made me smile.  I thought of my orderly, sorted, spell-checked tracks of my own iTunes at home.  I thought of the conglomerate of randomly placed foods in her fridge and kitchen, compared to my neat stacks and systematic sorting.  I thought of her beautifully decorated home and my pale attempts to spruce up my place.  I thought of her effortless style, and my search for my own look.

I've always been the academic one, the tech-savvy one, the practical one, the safe one.

She's always been the free spirit, the impulsive one, the sensitive one, the brave one.

We don't always like each other; I've always said that by our third day together, we've had at least one explosive fight.  But we love each other unconditionally, and I know she'll always be in my life, whether she agrees with what I'm doing or not.  When we're together, I can't help but think about how different we are... and how, sometimes, I think we wish we were a little more like the other.

But regardless, I'm happy inside when we're together.  Even when we're screaming and crying and feel like the other is wrong/selfish/stubborn/such-a-meanie.

I love my sister, and her infinite playlists of randomness.  Because in my ordered, organized existence, I love the excitement she brings to my life.