A Day in Durham

Today Alan and I spent the day together. We had no plans when we woke up this morning but ended up having a great day together.

We began the day with coffee and a handful of errands. We got back to the house mid-morning and were deciding what to do with ourselves. We both recently got new cameras so we decided to spend the day around Durham shooting pictures of some of my favorite places. My goal is to make a collage of all of the pictures so that I can have them with me in Singapore.

I started with a bunch of pictures of the cats and also of the house and things around the house. The cats were not too enthused with my new-found photography hobby.


The next stop was at our favorite coffee shop, Bean Traders. We hang out there with our friends on Saturday and Sunday mornings. They have the best tasting coffee I have ever tasted (roasted locally) and the owners are great.


Next we headed out of Durham for a bit and got some pictures at the RBC Center in Raleigh. Another favorite place for us since this is where the Carolina Hurricanes play hockey. Alan has been the benefactor of our season tickets this past year but I was able to get to a handful of games including one playoff game.

We then headed to our favorite Thai restaurant which is in Cary. For those of you in the Triangle area, Yum Yum Thai is the bomb! I tried Noodles in the Jungle for the first time and was not disappointed.
After lunch we headed to observation area at the RDU airport. I wouldn't necessarily call this one of my favorite places. However, I spend quite a bit of time flying to and from it and they have a great observation area. Alan was able to get some better photos since we were kind of far from the planes but I managed to get a good one of him taking those shots.

After the airport we headed back to Durham. Had another errand to run and then headed up to campus of Duke University. It is quite a beautiful campus and there have been a number of changes since the last time we explored it. We did make a stop so I could get a picture of Cameron Indoor Stadium where the Duke Bluedevils play basketball.

Next stop was downtown Durham. I must admit that we spend less time in the newly revitalized downtown Durham area but when I get back from Singapore we will head there more frequently. There are a ton of amazing old buildings many of which have been renovated. Alan and I are particularly fond of the old tobacco warehouses and buildings. Durham was the main production city for Lucky Strike cigarettes for many, many years.

A couple of pictures of the Bull City and the Durham Bull...

It was a hot day in Durham and we were walking around in the afternoon sun. Naturally, this required us to get a treat. If you are near the first bull pictured above look around and you'll see a great little shop called LocoPops. They make delicious popsicles from fresh ingredients. You may recall from a previous post that I can't get popsicles in Singapore so I jumped at the chance to have a fresh one. I had a lingonberry and pear flavored one and Alan had a mighty mojito flavored one.

We also popped into the speakeasy at Tylers Taproom in the Tobacco Complex for a beer. I had my favorite Michigan brewed beer, Oberon from the tap. Yummy...

To end our day we found a great new bakery at the Streets at Southpoint. It is called French Market Bakery and is behind Gap on the upper level. If you like cupcakes you need to run...not walk to them...holy cow are they tasty! And why not support another local business?

Hope your Monday was as fun as ours!