Last week I packed up a bag, and flew from Tokyo to San Francisco. I’ll be here in CA for about a month for training at my new job. It is really nice to be back in the US after two and a half years.

L. joined me after the first day, and stayed for almost a week. We only had one weekend together in CA, so I planned a trip up to Napa Valley.

I enjoy wine, and so does L., so I thought it would be fun to visit the valley. We drove from Palo Alto early on Saturday morning and took the scenic route, up 101 and over the Golden Gate bridge. The drive itself was a lot of fun, because the car I rented was a convertible, so we drove with the top down. Things started out pretty cold, but by the time we got to the valley we were both pretty hot! I had made a reservation at the Hennessey House Bed and Breakfast for the evening, so we headed there and dropped off our stuff. We made it just in time to catch our 11:00am wine tour.

Neither L. nor I had never been on a wine tour before, so I thought the best thing to do was to get someone to show us around and drive us around, in case we drank too much. That was definitely the right way to do things. The late harvest Riesling from Trefethen vineyard really left an impression on me: it was super sweet (like an ice wine) and probably wouldn’t work well in quantity, but seemed like a good dessert wine. I really enjoyed going around to the different vineyards, and we met some fun people (a couple from Brazil) on the trip. There were also three younger American girls who got totally wasted and then had a huge argument over some boy that two of them liked, but that was kind of amusing also (once you get past the annoyance.)

I wanted to write this up sooner, but it has been a bit over a week, and the details are starting to fade.

After the wine tour we took a nap at the B&B, and then went to dinner at a nice Italian place (Tuscany) in Napa. The food was good, but we were still full after all the wine, and the portions were fairly large, so we ended up going back to the B&B feeling a bit bloated (but that has how almost every dinner in America has ended so far!)

Since it was the first time for L. and I to travel in America together, I wanted to make it memorable so I also made a reservation for a hot air balloon ride. We had to get up at 5am to make the 6am gathering time, but it was worth it. The views were great, and smoothly floating through the air was also really amazing. The only way to control the balloons is up and down, and the rest is up to the prevailing winds. It was really impressive that the pilots are actually able to target a field, and then get the balloon there. Of course, they have many options, but still they can’t just land the balloons anywhere.

The landing on our balloon was a bit wild, since the balloon was still going at a pretty good clip when it touched down. I thought that the basket would flip over, but it just barely managed to keep upright after a few bounces. I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to ride another balloon, but I really enjoyed it, and I was surprised that I didn’t have any sort of motion sickness. I usually have trouble on boats, elevators, and airplane landings, but I didn’t have any trouble with the balloon. I don’t really think it will replace planes as my preferred method to get to Japan and back, but still.

After the balloon ride we had a nice brunch, and then took things easy before the drive back to Palo Alto. If I do things again, I would go a bit easier on the wine tour, but it was a lot of fun.