Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/75 sec, ISO3200 “Carnitas Taco Dinner” Cedar Park, 2017
こんばんは。Tonight I present to you two photos of some tasty treats. The first is of our dinner of carnitas tacos. One of my sons requested it, and I provided my recipe to my wife who prepared it. I ate maybe 4 tacos and was stuffed! When we eat out at Mexican restaurants, I often get carnitas and offer some to my kids. But they never really like it until lately. Now they love carnitas! 😀
Later in the evening, we met some friends at Texas Saké Company and enjoyed a saké tasting and tour of the brewery. It was a lot of fun, and educational too! If you are in Austin, stop by for a drink! 🍶
Today we took it easy and slept in. We were pretty tired from yesterday’s travels, and my brother is still on West Coast time, so it worked out nicely. We pretty much just hung out at the house all day, watched the Dodger game, and then went out for a yummy dinner.
My brother wanted to sample some Austin Barbecue, so we headed to Freedmen’s for some brisket, ribs, pork belly, slaw, and potato salad. We also got salmon and pit-chili, and it was all so good! Austin has so many great BBQ places, but Freedmen’s flies a bit under the radar. However, it’s some of the best BBQ in town!
Have you seen the bats fly from the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin? It’s pretty cool! Bay and I were downtown for an event and before we left to return home, we walked over to the bridge where a crowd of people had gathered. I thought it was too early in the season for the bats to fly, but I was wrong!
A few minutes after sunset, they took off to search for their daily meal of mosquitos and other insects. It was a cool sight! It’s my first time to stand on the bridge and watch the bats. I’ve previously seen them while sitting below bridge-level at the Statesman lawn, which is another cool angle because you see the bats set in front of the sky. But the bridge angle is nice too because of the view of the city, the water, and then you can follow the line of bats as they fly off into the distance.
The video I took is a bit blurry, but you can make out the bats as they fly into the night. Enjoy!
It was a rainy day, but Explore UT was happening at the university, so Bay and I grabbed an umbrella and headed down to check it out. Bay is preparing for college and we wanted to check out the architecture activities down at UT. We first stopped by the materials lab at the School fo Architecture, which was pretty interesting. They have hundreds of different kinds of building and interior materials to browse and get the imagination going. They had some really cool stuff, of all kinds of materials, including a lightweight nest-like thing made of mushrooms. Wild!
Bay is more interested in building design, so we asked one of the students if there were any activities focused on that, and he directed us to the next building over (Goldsmith), and as luck would have it, Jonathan, a 3rd year architecture student was heading over there and showed us the way. Not only did he give us directions, but he gave Bay a one-on-one tour of the drawing activity class, then took us to the design studios, where students were deep into their work. It was so cool!
Jonathan explained a lot about the projects, some famous architects, and what Bay could expect from being an architecture student. He was very passionate about architecture, and I think Bay was impressed by the studios and the work that he saw. Very valuable information and experience!
This was our third time to visit Explore UT, but it was by far the most interesting. It made me excited for Bay, and it also brought back a lot of memories of when I was in college and the good times that I had there in the studio working on projects. I am hopeful that Bay will have a great college career!
After dropping Bay off at Japanese school, I decided to stroll around downtown Austin, take photos, and search for Pokémon. 😝 I ended up at my favorite book store, Book People for some coffee and catching up on blogs. It was a beautiful, but chilly day in the ATX!
