My parents came to visit over Labor Day weekend! The original plan was to have it off because it was the weekend I was originally going to be moving home, but since I extended it turned into a nice staycation with the parents visiting. It was their first time really visiting the area (driving up for less than a day to move me in doesn’t count) so I was excited to show them around (and also visit some places I hadn’t been yet). They came in late on Thursday while I was at work, so it was wonderful getting off work to find them at home.

Saturday: A Day in Glen Burnie

On Friday, we went to my favorite places in Glen Burnie!

The first stop is where I feel like I take all my friends visiting from far away: the ramen place :) We got two new items, the pork buns which were absolutely incredible, and these cute matcha ice cream-filled waffles, compliments from chef Hanjo. My parents both enjoyed it very much, and you know me, I love ramen so I’m always enjoying it!

We then went to my other favorite place in Glen Burnie, the grocery store! We actually went to Sprout which I hadn’t gone to before, but my dad likes the produce there. We got a box of these HUGE blueberries!!! (Hand for size)

I’m a little sorry to say they weren’t as sweet as we hoped. The blueberries spent too much effort getting big and not getting sweet. But they were still average blueberries in taste! And the novelty of eating grape-sized blueberries definitely added a plus.

It was a surprisingly enjoyable day for how much we were just spending it doing groceries. Just the familiar feeling of spending time with the parents, it didn’t matter what we were doing, it was a nice time.

For dinner we went to the Korean place! My mom got a half-jjamppong and half-jajangmyeon dish and my dad and I both got LA Kalbi. Then we went home and ate some fruit, my parents watched their Chinese dramas, and I played games. A typical day at home!

Sunday: A Day in Annapolis

On Saturday we went to Annapolis! We had Yama sushi for lunch and then headed downtown.

Then, we walked through an arts festival that was going on downtown! Annapolis hosts the First Sunday Arts Festival the first Sunday of every month between May and November, where they set up tents for vendors in downtown. You know me, I LOVE arts festivals and it was the perfect day to go and walk around downtown Annapolis and SUPPORT LOCAL ARTISTS!!!

I got some handmade soaps from a local soap maker. We walked to the Annapolis Ice Cream Company for some yummy ice cream and then headed back up through the festival and looked at all the sights and sounds. And the weather was so beautiful! It was a good day.

For dinner, we went to have a traditional Annapolis seafood dinner! We went to Boatyard Bar & Grill to have their award-winning crab cakes, oysters, dip, soups, and salad! It was all so yummy, my favorite is always the corn chowder. Oysters are also really good but I can never seem to get enough because they’re so expensive!! But they’re so yummy when they’re fresh and have some lemon on them. I think it’s really cool when you have different oysters from different regions that have such vastly different tastes–some sweet, some saltier, and different textures in the meat too.

On the way to the restaurant we happened to pass by some marina that hosted the Annapolis Dragon Boat Club. And I happened to be wearing my RDBC shirt! So I took a picture. But nobody was around on Sunday so I just shared the picture with my dragon boat friend.

Monday: A Day in Baltimore

On Monday we went to Baltimore to visit the National Aquarium! We had lunch at Miss Shirley’s, a really well known diner that has a few locations in the area. It was so yummy!! And we were so full afterwards. Their chicken pesto benedict thing was surprisingly good! The chicken was moist and so well seasoned. And the citrus shrimp avocado toast was so good, the lime and shrimp really added a refreshing twist to the traditional avocado toast flavor profile.

We got to walk around the Baltimore area on the way to the aquarium, and got to see some sights like “the power plant”, a coast guard cutter, the like. There was a coffee and ice cream shop that had a cute crab mural and of course I had to pose with it.

The aquarium had a really cool setup! Unlike a lot of other aquariums, the National Aquarium has a lot of verticality with its exhibits–you start at the top of a tank and see a top-down view, then you go further and deeper and see how different marine animals and plants live in different depths. It was really neat to see. There was a lot of people there since it was a holiday, but it was still really fun nonetheless.

Photo dump!

We were planning on eating at a nice steak place for dinner, but I got really tired and we decided to go home to rest instead. Either way, still a wonderful day!

I had a lot of fun showing my parents around Maryland and it was really good to see them after all this time (which wasn’t that much time I was home literally the week before lololol), but I mean like real QUALITY time!

Staycation 2.0

The following week my friend Jasmine from NC came to the “DMV” area (DC, Maryland, Virginia) kind of by surprise, and I got to hang out with her and her family and go crabbing!! Her dad’s health hasn’t been doing super great so they were taking a trip to see their family in Virginia before he gets treatments done and won’t be able to travel for a while. Since it was “”””pretty close”””” (only like an hour drive or so), she drove up to hang out and then we drove back the next morning to go crabbing with her parents and aunt/uncle who were renting a house from a friend of her aunt’s, I think. They have a little dock and some crab pots and we got to catch some crabs and cook them to eat!

After catching the crabs and emptying the pots we give them a little “bath” by scrubbing them clean of algae before throwing them in the steamer (sorry). They’re very fiesty, crabs are. They would grab each others’ claws and legs and chain together like monkeys in a barrel. I once was cleaning one with a toothbrush and the crab grabbed the toothbrush and wouldn’t let it go, and then the uncle came over and pulled out a backup toothbrush to continue scrubbing while the crab held onto the primary toothbrush XD

We also “fished” for crabs. What you do is tie a chicken drumstick to a piece of string, and drop it in the water. When the string starts wiggling, you slowly, slowly, slowly bring the chicken up and then scoop the crab up with a net! The one we caught was the biggest crab of all the crabs we got! It was smart enough to not go into the pot, but still too greedy for chicken and got caught.

After all the crab picking, we all went to a nearby state park to go on a walk. We walked all the way to the beach and back. It was a really nice day out, and the trail was shaded quite a bit. It went through some wetlands and there was a lot of fun things to see. Jasmine’s aunt had recently started getting into foraging for mushrooms, and so they started taking pictures and grabbing all the mushrooms they could find on the trail! I still need to ask if they found out if they could eat them or not…

Jasmine also wanted to catch whirligigs after I told her that they smelled like apples. I have a core memory from when I was a kid doing a “bug camp” for Science Olympiad and wading into a lake to catch a bunch of water bugs. And it was there I remember grabbing one and smelling its butt at the behest of my camp leader and sure enough they smell like apples! Sadly they evaded her grasp and she is just gonna have to take me at my word for it.

Back home

After we got back from the walk, we went back to Maryland to get some din din and hang out, but not before stopping by this super cute roadside market!

I got some veggies to make pasta and some corn, and Jasmine got some pretty sunflowers for each of us to enjoy! They grew them with colored water, so the petals had a red edge to them. I didn’t have a vase, so we improvised with my water jug. It only tipped over twice because sunflowers are SOOOOO heavy! I eventually just had to put it in the sink and lean it against the side so they wouldn’t tip over and spill a bunch of water everywhere.

We then of course, went to the ramen place. It’s just a tradition, now. We got the pork buns appetizer, a bowl of yuzu shio ramen, and a bowl of black tonkotsu ramen. Then the chef treated us to mochi ice cream since they were out of the ice cream waffle thing. Find someone who looks at you the way Jasmine looks at mochi ice cream.

All in all, it was a really nice couple of weekends. I’m already like two months behind on this update, but better late than never!

Jasmin