A Balanced Life

Last weekend, 7 girlfriends and I made our way to Tucson for a long-awaited weekend at Miraval. I had been fortunate enough to have made the journey with my mother and sister in April, and had taken pains to request particular rooms for this Sept trip.

It did not bode well when all records of my room request vanished into thin air - not exactly the way I had hoped to kick off the weekend. I'll leave the unsavory details from sullying this blog but suffice to say, the GM has received a detailed 3 page letter from me on the subject :)

Overall the trip was wonderful but then again, we were determined to have fun, no matter what. Miraval is a great resort for a group with varying interests. At any hour of the day, there are probably 6-8 activities to choose from - including hikes, exercise classes, yoga, spa treatments and the always popular "lounging by the pool". Our group would split up for active and not-so-active pursuits, always meeting up in sub-groups for meals and as a full group for dinner every night. And the meals were excellent - you will not starve at this particular spa resort!

I had probably the best massage of my life with Heather on this trip - a hot stone massage but since she usually specialized in deep tissue, it turned out to be a combo of the two. Despite my best efforts to book another treatment with her during the rest of my stay, I was unsuccessful :(

No Travels, Just Food - Miette in SF

Alas, I haven't been anywhere of note in the month since our return to the Bay Area, so I'm going to focus on my other big love - food!

Since my sister moved to SF, I've had the excuse of going up there every weekend and indulging in dive-y ethnic joints for dinner. However, we also went to the new (since Jan 2007) Miette Confiserie in Hayes Valley last weekend.

Miette is a bakery located at the Ferry Plaza but they opened this candy store on the Green in Hayes Valley, across from a very cool play structure that the girls just loved.

They made cotton candy to order and the flavor of the day was "Rose Geranium" - the girls were a little dubious, but the very nice lady assured them that the flavor was very mild. It was a pale yellow color and not quite as sweet as commercial cotton candy. We also bought some fleur de sel chocolate caramels, a really good chocolate truffle tart, some fresh taffy (peach and chocolate), Turkish Delight plus some excellent chocolate chip cookies.

With all the lovely decorations and overall pinkness of the place, the girls and I enjoyed ourselves immensely :)