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The main beach in Corona Del Mar is a 1/2 mile sandy beach in Newport Beach, CA.
This video is an overview for visitors to the Main Beach in Corona Del Mar. Corona Del Mar is popular with ocean swimmers, sun bathers, and body boarders. It is a great beach in Newport Beach that is often less crowded than the Balboa Peninsula.
Spectacular Halloween decorations are a treat for the trick-or-treaters on the homes of Balboa Island in Newport Beach California.
This video highlights some of the best decorations on the island. Truly spectacular!
ocgirl posted some pictures of the coolest houses and their decorations over on her blog. Extra points if you can read the Chinese as well!
Disneyland is awesome during the holidays, and Halloween is a great one!
Every year Disneyland decorates the entire park with pumpkins, ghouls, and ghosts. Visit Space Mountain, aka Ghost Galaxy, the Haunted Mansion Holiday, and take a ride down Main Street with all of it’s holiday decorations. Around the statue of Walt Disney, there are 7 pumpkins, each with a different Disney character carved in to it.
This video is another oldie but goodie. Shot in 2005 — this is video from a day of really big waves at The Wedge in Newport Beach, CA.
The Wedge is at the southern most tip of the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach. It is called the wedge, because of the wedge that is made where the sand of the beach ends, and a rock jetty comes out in the ocean. The particular angle of the jetty causes the waves to double or triple in size when the wave energy reflects off of the jetty. When the waves are big, the lifeguards only allow bodysurfing during the afternoon. But after 6pm, they allow surfboards and boogie boards, and all chaos ensues. Check out the video!
Peters Canyon is a hiking trail in Orange County just east of Irvine and Tustin Ranch in the city of Orange at the intersection of Jamboree and Canyon View. Going around the loop is about a 2 hour moderate hike with some cool views of southern Orange County from the top of the Eastern Ridge.
On Valentines Day I had lunch at Tokyo Table — a fusion inspired Japanese restaurant that opened in the Diamond Jamboree shopping center in Irvine on October 2008.
Tokyo Table specializes in modern “Tokyo City Cuisine” which is essentially Izakaya style — think of a Japanese version of Spanish tapas — lots of small dishes for the group to share. The inside of the restaurants is very modern, with nice brown leather booths, and a very interesting wooden chandelier/sculpture in the middle of the dining room.
The menu contains much of the standard Japanese food you’d see at other Japanese restaurants, for example, sushi, ramen, and tempura, but also consists of a number of “fusion” items that are not your traditional Japanese Faire. The “specialties” at Tokyo table are 1) Tofu (our waiter told us they make fresh every 30-40 minutes) and 2) The sushi pizza (obviously on the fusion side of things).
Not being a huge tofu fan, we passed on the tofu, but we did order the sushi pizza as recommended by our waiter. We also ordered the pork Yakisoba noodles, and the shrimp Tempura.
The Yakisoba noodles ($8.95) were tasty — although it was topped with a bit too much of the Katsuobushi (fish flakes) for my liking. The amount of pork was also pretty minimal, but that is typical of most Yakisoba that I’ve had.
The Shrimp Tempura was also good. Fives pieces of shrimp for $8.95. It had just the right amount of batter, and not too greasy.
And finally — drum roll please……….. — the sushi pizza ($13.95). A pretty odd name for a dish, and let me start with saying that it was quite a bit better than I had expected. The sushi pizza starts with a layer of seaweed as the “crust”, is then topped with rice, crab meat, salmon meat, and a jalapeno. The sushi pizza is then baked, and served hot with a mini pizza serving spatula. The combination of the crab/salmon and jalapeno is surprisingly delicious. The jalapeno adds a bit of spark of the otherwise typical seafood flavor.
Tokyo Table is not your traditional Japanese faire, but it’s definitely tasty.
Tokyo Table is located at:
Diamond Jamboree Plaza
2710 Alton Pkwy.
Irvine, CA 92606
Balboa Island in Newport Beach California is known for some of the most elaborate Christmas light decorations in Southern California. The island itself is about 4 blocks wide, by 14 blocks long and is one of my favorite places to go for a walk in Orange County. A stroll around the island takes about 45 minutes and is an even greater joy at Christmas time. This video was shot on Christmas Eve, 2008… and shows about 10 houses on Balboa Island.