FESTIVALS!!!!

Saturday was the day of FESTIVALS! First, William and I went to San Francisco to the 12th Annual Ghirardelli Chocolate Festival to raise money for the charity of Project Open Hand. So we bought 2 tickets with 15 tastes each (30 total) and over-indulged! We tried "That Chocolate Thing" from Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., an assortment of cookies from Kit's Cookies, Ana Mandara's chocolate coconut moon cake (it was GROSS- I warned William but he still wanted to try it), Ghirardelli LIQUID drinking chocolate- one of the richest things I have ever had- William and I together couldn't finish one cup, Victoria's Chocolate Almond Toffee, Pistacio Gelato (yes, weird that they had a non chocolate flavor), Caramello Chocolate Crunch Gelato, and then the BESTEST- my favorite of day- mini Ghirardelli Chocolate Sundaes!!!! A scoop of vanilla ice cream drenched in their fabulous hot fudge sauce with whipped cream- HEAVEN! I had 4 of them (and I beat William again who only had 3)- and that totally maxed me out. The chocolate sauce is so rich that I can't do too much of it. The only bad part of the day was some of the lines to get the good ice cream ones- none of the other ones had long lines showing where the good stuff was. William and I bought way too many tastes than we could eat so fortunately, you could purchase Ghirardelli Chocolate bars- some big, some of the little ones- and we can enjoy some all this week. The class of 12-13 year olds that we teach at church were the primary benefactors of the additional. It truly was a great event.
They also had an ice cream eating contest to see who could eat a Ghirardelli massive 8 scoop and multi-topping (chocolate, caramel, whipped cream, nuts) the fastest- and with no hands. I did not participate in this- all of the toppings would have done me in- but I was tempted to.


We then came back to Mountain View and had dinner with Ben- a longtime friend of William's- and his wife Beverly at ShabuWay, a Japanese hot pot type restaurant. Each couple has their own pot of boiling water and we cooked the thinly sliced Kobe beef in the water really fast, by a "swish swish" (the Japanese word for Shabu Shabu), and then dipped it in a delicious soy based sauce. It is quite good- and then you also have rice, udon noodles, and veggies to complement it. Afterwards, we walked up and down Castro Street, the main downtown of Mountain View, where they had the closed booths of their 2 day Art and Wine Festival. There were lots of vendors but we still enjoyed ourselves while it was closed. They had THE most interesting and unique booths I have EVER seen- anything from Cutco Knives to Frozen Lemonade to antique coins. Here are a few photos of us with some of the unique booths-
with scarecrows

orthedontics


HUMAN- its not just a person, but a whole clothing line. You can check for yourself at www.humanwear.com
Although I did miss my big break to be a star- I guess this will have to do for me- just on my blog.

It was definitely one of the most interesting and unique fairs I never actually went through while open.