Style with Riva | Culottes, I Like You Lots

We celebrated Father's Day in Napa. If you haven't been in Napa, you should definitely go. An hour and a half away from San Francisco, Napa has lots of beautiful places, quaint shops, wineries, and nice warm weather. Expect it in the 80s. So that means flowy sundresses, shorts, hats, and shades on.  

I've collaborated with Ruti and came up with this outfit. Just a bit of a background about Ruti, Ruti Zisser, a Tel Aviv native, moved to the states only to find she missed her favorite fashion brands. Deciding to depart her tech career in Silicon Valley and follow her dreams of fashion, she opened the first Ruti store in Palo Alto's Town & Country. More locations in San Francisco, Santa Monica, Berkeley and Venice soon followed. Ruti both designs & curates unique, ready-to-wear clothes + accessories which creates a chic and modern collection. Inspired by her Israeli roots, Ruti clothes make the customer feel authentic, confident and strong and is great for women of all ages. 

Have you worn culottes? Can I just say that they are definitely one of the greatest inventions in the world of fashion. It is not a skirt but pants but they look like a skirt. If you know me and my style, I'm always about comfort and I kinda gear towards basic and very minimal. 

I paired up these culottes with a nice cute flowy dark salmon blouse. It's loose on the arms, so it's really airy. I can see myself wearing this a lot this summer. And of course Napa, you need a hat, a cute pair of strappy sandals and a small crossbody purse. I find this outfit perfect if you want to go casual, loungey but stylish. Since the culottes are black, you can rock it with a nice crop top and stiletto heels and you're set for a party. I honestly can't wait for the denim ones, cuz my goodness they're just super comfy!

We went to Redd Wood for lunch on Washington St, and oh my gosh, this place is beautiful. With a touch of Italian style, I had to take photos there. Napa you have my heart. <3

Talk soon!

Photography by Kevin Ramos

Outfit by Ruti, hat- H&M, bag- Rebecca Minkoff, glasses- Eye Buy Direct, watch- Daniel Wellington, and hand me down shoes by my sil! <3

Travel with Riva | New York Part 3

Wow, we've come a long way. Finally, I'm ending this trip already. It's been, what? Almost two months. So let's just finish this already. Ha!

Day 4: This was the day we walked the most. We pretty much explored most of Lower Manhattan then Brooklyn. Pretty much at this point, we've nailed the subway system. We started our day with the One World Trade Center. All I can say you'd feel that sense of mourning and grief when you go this place. "Always remember". After the Trade Center, we walked along Wall Street to the famous old Delmonico's building. I can't tell you enough how I admire the architecture design in NYC. It's so rustic and so rich in culture. 

After Delmonico's, we walked all the way to the port to get on the ferry that will take us to Staten Island so we could see the Statue of Liberty. Guys, that's what you should do, if you want to see Ms. Liberty for free, just get on the ferry roundtrip and you'll see her. It's small but at least you get to see it. It took almost 45 mins to get back to the port. Then we walked to City Hall, starting point of Brooklyn Bridge. I remember it was so chilly that day. We were worried we're gonna be freezing on the bridge. Brooklyn Bridge is stunning. Lots of tourists, so timing is crucial to get that photo without photo bombers. Luckily enough, it wasn't windy at all that could blow us over. Ha. The walk was a lil over 1.1 miles. Barely noticeable if you're taking photos at any opportunities you get. 

Since Brooklyn Bridge takes you to Brooklyn (well duh), we went to see the famous DUMBO. Not the elephant, but the place. Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. I highly recommend that you check out this spot. 

Day 4: 31,936 steps, 12.67 mi

Food places we tried: Black Brick Coffee, we had donuts and coffee for breakfast. Please do me a favor since I did not do it, go check out the back, they had a nice patio. Freakin cute. Then for lunch we had japanese at Kaede. Not the best but when you're super hungry, anything will do. I had Momofuku Milk Bar in the afternoon. OMG, it was so good. Cerealsy, you have to try it. 

Day 5, our last day. Where I didn't take photos at all. Since it was our last day, I just wanted to savor the city. We went back to Central Park and visited a bit of Upper East Side. 

To me, NYC is definitely one of my favorite cities. Though I haven't been to a lot, I will never forget NYC. I absolutely enjoyed the hustle and bustle. Just like I said in the first post, it reminded me so much of Manila, where I grew up. I don't know if I can live here, but I sure want to try (given the favored circumstances). I don't know if I can imagine living here in the winter though. Haha. I'm sure it's breathtaking but man I heard the cold goes straight to your bones. 

If you want to see all my travel pics on Instagram, just check out #travelwithriva

Talk later!

Travel with Riva | New York Part 2

I've been stalling this for three weeks now (started typing this last week, hopefully I publish it today). Insane. There are two major reasons why. 1.) life is so busy that it just got in the way of blogging and 2.) cuz life moves on no matter how much I try to hold on to these memories, it's time to do it. Aren't you just grateful for photography? There's also a huge part of me dreading to write down everything that I could possibly remember from this trip. LOL. I mean, it's NYC. A trip I will never forget. 

Where were we at?

DAY 3:  It's Manhattan Day! I think Central Park is the highlight of our trip. I can see myself spending my free time here, jogging (i mean, once in a blue moon I try), reading, and/or people watching. You'll see and meet a lot of interesting people in NYC, that's for sure. California is rich in nature sight seeings, and being in Central Park gives me that homey feel even if it's in the midst of the city. And gosh, this park is HELLA huge. You can seriously spend an entire day here. It does remind me of Golden Gate Park except the trees and the greenery are so luscious! No kidding. It's a vibrant green, not a moss green. See, difference? Don't get me started with the cherry trees. Ugh. They were everywhere! And they're utterly gorgeous! I just had to do a lil bit of a photo shoot, cuz I could never ignore it. Warning: lots of green coming your way!

After Central Park, we headed straight to Washington Square Arch which is right next to NYU. There were hella people. Lots of students, tourists, performers roaming around. And it was a gorgeous day too, so can't really blame them. 

After the arch, we walked down south to SoHo. We did a lot of walking that day. So I'm just gonna leave this post all of Manhattan and conclude this trip on the next blog. Cuz seriously, this post is overloaded with photos! SOOOO Ho ho! I knew before coming that I was going to go gaga about this district. About them cast iron building tho... Damn straight from the magazine brah! I could seriously see myself photographing in the streets of SoHo. 

We also went to this most Instagrammed alleyway, Freeman's. It's stinkin' cute and very eye-candy. So while we're roaming the streets of SoHo, we found out that Kevin's favorite, Tori Kelly was in Brooklyn and snapchatted this photo of a wall. "Cmon, we have to go there! We might meet her!", he said. In my head, "what, are you crazy?!" (he doesn't read my blog anyways so baha) and yas we did ditch SoHo and went straight to Brooklyn in high hopes that we might meet a famous celebrity! *smh* of course, it was negative. At least we got a nice sunset view from the dock. 

I told you so many photos! It's really hard to not share ever single photo. We pretty much stayed in Brooklyn after sunset then we went to Finnerty's to watch game 5 of Warriors against Houston Rockets at 10. (We closed out the first round and look where we are right now, Finals Game 2! GO WARRIORS!) I was totally beat that day. No kidding. 

Day 3: 28, 641 steps 11.93 mi

Food places we tried: Toby's Estate Brooklyn for breakfast and coffee. This place has the coolest shelves. They also get really packed around 9ish so you're lucky if you can grab a table. This is also right next to Madewell. I love Madewell so I wanna point that out. :P For lunch, we went to this pizzeria, Champion Pizza. I don't think it's the new york style but I loved it. I had the BBQ chicken and White Pesto. Freakin' gooood. We had another cup of Joe at Happy Bones in the afternoon. Before going to Finnerty's we just went to hotdog at Papaya Dog. If you want something quick and cheap, you might just wanna grab KFC which is just across the street. LOL. After Finnerty's, we had to get another round of Halal Guys. cuz guys, it's halal duh. bomb. com.