Living Primal/Paleo doesn’t always associate with food choice and working out. What’s the point of eating healthy and exercise if you’re not enjoying your life to the fullest? I realized all of this time I’ve never really taken one day to just get out from the regular chores and just relaxing.

Yesterday, Hubby K and I went for a day trip to Santa Barbara. Since we would want to enjoy our time as much as possible with the least stress, we decided to take a train instead of driving.

For Los Angelenos people like us, it’s pretty rare to take public transportation. Most people prefer to drive on their own because our public transportation system is plainly…HORRIBLE. Unlike Asia or Europe, if you miss the train/bus, you either have to wait for another 15 minutes or 30 minutes. Weekends are the WORST. Back home, I always took public transportation everywhere because it was super convenient. Buses were always come every 5 minutes, so no need to sweat if you missed it. Not in Los Angeles.

Anyway, it took us about 3 hour to get to Santa Barbara vs. 2 hour if you drive – but then you’ll feel tired and had to worry about parking etc etc. Plus, we won’t be able to enjoy some scenery on the way if we drove.

Before heading off the the station, I refueled myself with whatever left over in the fridge for breakfast (beef stew plus asparagus stir fry)

Packed some Primal friendly snacks, which we didn’t touch except for one of the “hacked Larabar” that I made (will post the recipe soon).

The train was delayed a bit on the way so we arrived 30 minutes later than the scheduled time. But no worries, we had plenty of time to enjoy ourselves since our return train won’t be there until 7pm.

We went to The Palace Grill, a Cajun Cuisine Restaurant for our lunch.

The inside was pretty small and decorated with New Orleans style.

After reading the menu, we decided to order “All the Best” Platter which consist a little bit of all seafood stuff (main, appetizer and (gasp!) dessert)

Apparently, they’re famous with their Bread Pudding Souffle – which was included in our order.

But I told the waitress if I could substituted one of the dessert with gluten free one and she said yes….with an extra charge of course.

Bread pudding souffle (left) with creamy whiskey sauce and Homemade Mango Sorbet (right)

Not gonna lie, I polished off the sorbet AND also nibbled some of the Bread Pudding Souffle as well (Hubby K had some of it), but in the end we still couldn’t finish it. It was pretty good actually – just a little hint of sweetness with cinnamon. I think it was sweet enough without having the whiskey creamy sauce poured into it (the waitress just did it right after she brought in to our table and I didn’t get a chance to tell her to hold off on the creamy sauce).

Oh, I also confessed I took a bite of the muffins and had some rice from the platter earlier as well. 🙂

For the rest of the day, we walked off our lunch around the area (from downtown to the pier and the bike path and came back). Another rule from Primal: Move around a lot at slow pace plus we got plenty of sunshine for the whole day!

It was really sunny but VERY WINDY AND FREEZING!

Lots of wine! Too bad we don’t drink.

World Market – carry everything from furniture to grocery stuff! (Bacon Chocolate anyone??) – Too bad it’s not Primal/Paleo – lots of forbidden ingredients like soy lecithin, emulsifier etc.

Got some simple meal for our “dinner”.

I ate my way around the grated cheese and skipped on the croutons and the dressing. Veggies taste good enough without any dressing already.

On our return trip, I’m happy I was able to snap these sunset scenery!

Got another delay, and didn’t get back until 11pm as opposed 10:30pm.

Overall, we had a nice, short and relaxing trip, although we slept in until 9am today and didn’t get to eat breakfast until 10:00 am

Plus I woke up on the wrong side yesterday so I’ve been having stiff neck (couldn’t even turn my head to left) and today was a bit better although still a little stiff.

Nibbled on some unsweetened banana chips and some macadamia nuts as well.

Now going to run to grocery store to replenish my pantry, plus hopefully I could cook some meal for the upcoming week.

*sigh* Back to the usual routine – never ends!

Public transportation vs driving – which one do you prefer?

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