A Day in San Mateo

Since we don’t have a car, we made the most of a trip to San Mateo by planning several things in the area on the same day. Since Waymos don’t drive on the freeways (yet), we went with a human driver (Lyft).

We had lunch (Asian fusion) in downtown San Mateo with James, a friend from Princeton Tower Club whom we hadn’t seen in ten years. We had so much to talk about, such as learning to parent young adults and care for our own parents in a digital age, and James’ interest in night sky photography. We promised not to let so much time go by before we meet again.

After lunch, we walked to Central Park to see the Japanese Tea Garden. It was a serene and lovely place, with Japanese maple trees, a koi pond, and pretty wooden bridges.

Then we took a Lyft to Filoli in nearby Woodside. We went there to see a Thomas Dambo troll, and were pleasantly surprised to find so much more. Read about our visit to Filoli HERE.

After Filoli we returned to San Mateo, where my cousin Karina, her husband Albert, and their son Adrian hosted us for dinner in their lovely home. We played fetch with their friendly doodle Archie and talked about Adrian’s college visits and our hopes to visit Sydney (where Karina and Albert once lived). Karina served a Filipino feast, with lumpia, pancit, kare-kare, sisig, and more. I tried dinakdakán, an Ilocano dish, for the first time. For dessert, we had halo-halo ice cream. Ang sarap! After living thousands of miles away from Karina for decades, it was nice to see her two Augusts in a row.