Another conference day for Melody, and a day on the road for my mom and me. After breakfast, Melody headed back out for another conference day, but she was able to take a little time to head down to the Mission District and walk around there. Among other things, she saw Mission Dolores and some of the murals.
I took another trip down to the train station and let my mom know when I'd arrive so she could time when to get there to pick me up. We then headed up to Stanford.
Since it was a weekend, visitor parking was free, an unexpected bonus. After taking a brief look in Tressider Union, we headed down to the Bookstore to look for gifts. She found several things she wanted to buy, and I found a t-shirt for myself. After making our purchases (and getting the alumni discount) we made our way down to the Quad.
Along the floor of the inner quad are a series of time capsules, one for each graduating year. We went by 1922 (my grandfather's year) and took pictures; I also gave the plaque a little rub for good luck. We then found 1958 and my mom posed for a picture there. We then worked our way back to the car, and my mom braved the distance and made it all the way.
We figured we should get a small lunch, and we headed to Hobee's; we went there often when I lived in the area. Once we finished, we headed on the road towards the East Bay.
When we got to San Leandro, we went straight to the home of my mom's cousins, the Shinodas. A couple hours flew by as we caught up on what was going on with our families, as well as reminiscing about the past. I was particularly interested with Yo's description of her travels in Japan when shopping for her dad's store.
We headed out for an early dinner at a Japanese restaurant, where I had a very tasty sukiyaki and my mom had nabeyaki udon (with poached egg). Fred's sabashio (grilled mackeral) and Yo's ikamaruyaki (grilled squid) also looked really good. Again, much more food than we could finish.
On the way back to the Sunnyvale train station we ran into quite a bit of rain, but we made it safely. While I was riding the train, my mom called to say she made it safely back to Saratoga, and I got to the room myself, ready to fall asleep.
