Recipe for a wonderful afternoon: My buddy + hiking up Buena Vista Park with a tiffin lunch + afternoon tea on the patio garden

Today I woke up around 11am (hey, that's early for me!), washed up, and met Ian out in the neighborhood for our plans to have lunch at the top of the hill that is Buena Vista Park. It was sunny and warm, so with tiffin in hand, I stopped by a local market to pack my fill of lunch and get on our way.

For those of you who don't live here in SF, here's a look at where we were:

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Ready to go! Let the climb begin ...

Ian has huge calf muscles ...

Ian has huge calf muscles #2 ... haha

YAY! Tiffin all packed up, but now that we're at the top and found a nice picnic spot ....

Lunch time! Open up the tiffin for some vietnamese summer rolls, california rolls, egg salad and quinoa, and some greek salad with BBQ chicken. Yummm

Big chunk of watermelon for dessert

View from the top looking towards Marina/Cow Hollow district

Looking towards Presidio / Golden Gate / Marin ... still a tiny bit of summer fog that hasn't quite lifted yet

Lots of the trees up here were the efforts of urban reforestation work done in the 1950s

Wild cherries of some sort?

Ian and I engaging in an epic wild cherry battle!

Lots of different trails to wander about...

California poppies (state flower) abound

Thistle

"I'm bringing home a baby bumble bee..."

It's incredible how plants have adapted so many different ways to populating new areas. Thistle seeds are carried far away by their feathery wings

I call this the "purple fuzzy caterpillar" flower ... since it looks like, well, exactly that!

Super expensive houses up here on Buena Vista Terrace

Then, after that fun afternoon hike we enjoyed some quiet time at home on the patio before Ian headed off to work. We opened up the sliding glass door, and I prepared some Wenshan Baozhong tea for us while we read and enjoyed the birds chirping and plants swaying in the garden

A good book and some good tea

The way tea is meant to be enjoyed ... in the leafy green serenity of a garden

Wenshan Baozhong is an oolong from Taiwan (Wen mountain) and is just barely oxidized. It is the lightest oxidized of oolongs (and therefore often considered more similar to a green tea) and is known for its light, crisp mouthfeel and very floral aroma. Unlike other Formosa (Taiwanese) oolongs, baozhong leaves are prepared in a "twisted" style rather than the typical "rolled" style with teas such as Alishan, Lishan, San Lin Xi, etc. This bouzhong was harvested just this past spring a couple months ago, so this is the freshest of the fresh!

Couldn't help but notice while slowing down and enjoying the tea in the patio garden ... is that a yuzu fruit forming ?!?!?!?!

Feijoa (pineapple guava) flowers are blooming left and right ... I've been plucking the petals to eat. Mildly sweet and delicate - would be wonderful on a salad, or perhaps in a cup of tea?

Pollinated the feijoa flowers by hand, hopefully this helps increase fruit yield (but our variety is self-fruitful so perhaps this doesn't do anything really...)

Always love looking up at the beautiful sun disk that Ian got me years ago ... it's moved with us every place we've moved to. Now it's catching the rays in our yuzu tree :-)