In the toasting oven, so here we come...Monterey

I can't help but comment that temperatures here have been scorching HOT in Sunnyvale and in the entire Bay Area, since Friday 21 July 2006, setting temperatures as high as 100-110degF (38-43deg C, my fellow Singaporeans) . To make worse, the high pressure acting downwards makes the surrounding air stationary and heat does not get dissipated away at ground level. Though we are used to the year long of high temperatures (avg 32deg C) and high humidity in Singapore, THIS... was really too much to bear.

Since we have already planned to go for a Monterey day trip on Saturday, we stayed with our plan. It will be by the Peninsula and coastal area anyway, so we gonna get come cooling off along the beach, we hope. But we know it's goin to get crowded because packs of people will get cool off near the ocean when the temperatures are soaring inland. We set off at about 9.30am (the latest... in our records for any short trips we have had in our lives) in the morning. Having planned our itinerary only on the previous Friday night, we estimated to reach our first destination at about 10.30-11am. Just in time for an early lunch.

Phils Fish Market at Moss Landing, CA was a pleasant surprise. I first knew of this place in a recent Food Network channel. And since heading off to Monterey, Phils Fish Market naturally became the via point for us to stop for lunch. This is a fish market-cum-eatery. We were already starving at 11am and ordered for ourselves a Cioppino for Two, and Fish and Chips. Yes, the Cioppino of clams, mussels, white fish, calamari, dungeness crab, prawns and scallops (SLURP !) can already feed two of us but we were greedy enough to get ourselves another Fish and Chips. Of course, we realized it was too much after the orders came but we still finished 95% of it, only with some salad remaining. The cioppino was really really yummy YUM. The city was really out of the way, middle of nowhere, scarsely populated...but the eatery was packed with people by the time we left at about 12.30pm. So, this is what we call good food. Even not set in prime location and convenience, people will go for it.

Piping hot Cioppino...Slurp!

Not a single bit left...Burp!

Fisherman's Wharf, Monterey, is not as big-scale compared to the one at San Francisco, but it has her own unique character, with small little galleries, retail shops and cafe/restaurants.

Traditional candy shop in Fisherman's Wharf, Monterey

We then continued our journey to 17 mile drive (entrance fee $8.75) towards Pebble Beach. Along the 17 mile drive were points of interests such as Restless Sea, Bird Rock, Lone Cypress and Ghost Tree. But my hubbie said it was nothing special compared to the coast in New Zealand-South Island.

Why is the sea so restless

Gave Carmel a miss since we wanted to be back home in the early evening of the same day. Hopefully, we will have a chance to be back in Carmel via Monterey Peninsula in another time of the year. Well, it is at most 2 hrs away from Sunnyvale, so it is not that hard to make a day trip again if we run out of places to go to nearby.