Menyeberangi Lautan Pasifik

We had only two days to spare in Santa Barbara. Someone told me that the Santa Barbara Old Mission is a must see. Well, there must be a reason Santa Barbara is called the "Queen of Mission". And I had wanted more of the sea after the Huntington visit. So two reasons to visit Santa Barbara.

Yuting, Wen Chun and I arrived at the Santa Barbara Amtrak station in the afternoon. I flicked out the hostel map. It seemed to be really near the station. And I remembered that on the hostel website, directions was to "Cross the train tracks towards the beach." No kidding, that's all we had to do. The hostel was really across the tracks from the station! Too near to be true. Cool.

But the hostel doesn't open up for registration till 3pm so we locked up our luggage and set on foot to explore the city. The main part of the city lies along State Street, which is just down the other direction from the train station. Convenient.

We saw lots of pubs and cafes, restaurants, shops and few of big business entities you'd associate with a "city". The sidewalks were really spacious and the entire city had an almost uniform landscape of spanish architecture. The buildings were characterised by their spanish arches and simple bohemian decorations. The buildings generally don't exceed two storeys. Even the shopping complex, known as Paseo Nuevo, was lovely, and had cobbled pathments. It did look out of a postcard somewhere in Spain.

We stopped by at the Courthouse, known for its architectural structure. Unfortunately, we just missed the entrance to its clocktower. It closed at 4.45pm. Supposedly, from atop, you'd see roofs that are mainly red-tiled, therefore earning Santa Barbara her other nickname "City of Red Tiles". However, we did crash into a rehearsal for a Easter church concert that would be held the next day. The courthouse had a big lawn and looks like the perfect place for concerts or even weddings!

That night, with some persuasion, my two travel kakis agreed to check out the Salsa places along State Street. According to my online research, there were supposed to be two places. Turned out that Velvet Jones didn't have Salsa Nights for half a year now and the other place, Ruby's Cafe charged $12! Too expensive plus no free lessons, they went instead to catch Blades Of Glory in the theatres. After seeing them off at the theatre, I was contemplating if I should go to Ruby's, then my shoe bag zipper came off, which decided my fate that night haha... (clue: zzzzzzzzZZZZZZ)

The next day, the plan was to visit the mission in the morning then hit the beach in the evening. However, an encounter with Ale, the mexican girl who was working at the hostel changed it our plans. They were going to have a Volleyball outing in the morning and asked if we'd like to join? Sure!

The beach was just 3 minutes walk from the hostel. How more convenient could this get? haha. We started our beach trail from the Iraq War memorial. It had been set up every Sunday at the beach ever since the war began 3 years ago. The hardworking people in-charge would plant crosses into the sand for each USA soldier that was sacrificed in the war.

We walked past the Fisherman's Wharf and walked through the Arts And Crafts Show. Artists would sell their works and crafts along the beach walk. The show is held every Sunday and is an opportunity for local crafts to get exposure. The were a lot of interesting crafts, like the rotating wood and the psychedelic mirrors.

Continuing our walk till the end of the beach, we found where the beach volleyball courts were. There were 5 of us: Yuting, Ale, Sean, a Australian and Sean's friend, a British, who'd visited Santa Barbara for more than 8 times.

The weather at the Santa Barbara beach was quite unusually. Because there were the Santa Ynez mountains sandwiching the city with the ocean. The clouds that accumulated overnight would normally hover above the beach and city until around slightly before noon. Then, the sky would clear up once the wind becomes strong enough to push the clouds past the mountains.

This day, there probably wasn't enough wind movements in the atmosphere and the clouds hovered above us until about 3pm. The sky was a greyish sad.

Walking back from the beach, we stopped by the SkateBoard Park. Wen Chun joined us then and even bought a souvenir from the Arts And Crafts Show. We spent so much time at the beach we didn't realise that it was approaching late evening. Luckily, we managed to catch the last bus to up to the Old Mission. Unfortunately again, we couldn't visit the insides as it was Easter Sunday. Church had to rest!

However, the skies in Santa Barbara had cleared up and we had a clear view of the Mission with the mountains as its backdrop. Beautiful. Nearby was Mission Park, where families were seen picnicking or playing frisbees. There was also a rose garden in the park.

We took a slow stroll back to our hostel from the, Mission, which meant walking down the hill. Not bad at all =) We took the liberty of treating the homes that we passed by as exhibits haha... We kept ooh-ing and aah-ing at those cottages and nice homes because they were seriously.... nice =) So if you're from Santa Barbara and you see your home in my personal photo collection... don't be surprised!