The likes of me

Baby Shower

2012-01-28T22:15:00.000-08:00

I had my baby shower today at our house. It was so much fun! My sister, Sharon, and Sue did all the planning, decorating, and organizing. Everything turned out so nice. I was so happy. It was a good gathering of various friends - one from Jr. High, 4 from high school, 1 from Oakley, 1 who I met through Duke, my mom, my sister and Duke's mom, sister and niece.

Sue went early in the morning to the LA flower market just so we could have nice, fresh flowers. That was really sweet. We had a beautiful assortment and it really made it look special. My sister also had all these cute jungle-themed items - little note card holders to label the food, animal candles and lollipops with personalized stickers for party favors. I love monkeys (and I am one too) and there were lots of them all over.

My sister brought some veggies & dip and fruit assortment for snacks. We also catered in Buca di Beppo and my sister's husband was so nice and drove the food over from 40 mins away! The kids were with him, and Dylan was sad he couldn't stay to play but it was ok - we'll play tomorrow. :) Duke's mom also baked me some zucchini chocolate bread and it was really delicious! She got the recipe from her cousin in Michigan (the first time I ate the yummy goodness) and it really turned out great. Everyone was raving about it.

We all hung out for a while, then it was time for games. Sue made this poster board with labels for us to go through old wives tales of how to tell if you're having a boy or girl. There were lots of weird random notions in there which I didn't fit. They are wives tales, after all. Haha. We then did Baby Jeopardy where she went through various tidbits about babies and then shared some interesting facts about names now vs. when we were growing up. Meg was pretty funny since she said this was the smartest baby shower she'd ever been to. Usually it's about melted chocolate bars in diapers and guessing what kind of candy it was, but we were playing trivia. Haha.

We did do a non-intellectual game where everyone cut a ribbon to guess how big the circumference of my belly was. Most people guessed way too big but my junior high friend was extremely close. :) Everyone kept apologizing they thought I was so big but I didn't care - I think I'd be wrong if I played the game myself. Ha.

After games, I opened gifts and got lots of awesome stuff. I'm so thankful for all the friends I have and their generosity.

One by one, people had to go on their way. Duke's family drove 4 hours to come here and another 4 hours back to Vegas all in the same day. Hopefully they had fun and were happy they were a part of the shower. Crazy!! Sharon, Sue, and my sister hung out for a bit longer before cleaning up. It was a long day but it went by so fast. It was great to catch up with everyone, and I'm glad everyone got along so well even though they don't know each other that well. I continue to just feel blessed to be around such great people.

Pregnancy Updates - 3rd Trimester!

2012-01-28T22:02:00.000-08:00

I'm now in the 3rd trimester so that means doctor's appointments every 2 weeks! I can't believe the pregnancy is almost over. Time really has flown by.

Caution: There are some TMI moments in the post below. So if you don't want to know all my details, then stop reading! Haha!

December 27 - I had my appointment with the NP today. She basically talked to me about kick counts. Once every morning and once every evening, I'm supposed to count the number of kicks/movements I feel. If I feel at least 5 in an hour, then everything is fine. If I feel less, then I have to eat/drink something, then wait 30 minutes and lie down to try and see if he kicks me at least 5 times after that. If still nothing, then I have to call the doctor and have them check if the baby is under stress or anything else that might be wrong. She then measured my belly and listened to the baby's heartbeat which all checked out fine too.

Otherwise, she also confirmed my suspicions that I have a yeast infection. YUCK. I've been pretty uncomfortable for a few weeks and thought it was just me being hyper-sensitive to the changes in my body but when she checked me out and took a culture, she confirmed that it was definitely yeast. She prescribed a cream for me for 3 days and said the symptoms should go away.

January 13 - I had a doctor's appointment this time, and told her that for the most part my symptoms were better but I'm still having some "leaking/discharge" and there was still itchiness while I shower. She took a look and basically exclaimed that it's definitely yeast still. Very classic presentation (whatever that means - I just imagine a yeasty mess down there) and she didn't even need to culture it since it was so obvious. Grrrreat. She apologized and said that some women don't react to the 3-day treatment so I had to do the 7-day treatment. Oh, boo. That cream is inserted vaginally and it is NOT pleasant. I hate it. It makes me itchy and it gives me a headache every time, not to mention that it's just plain gross. Blecchh... It better get rid of it this time!!

Otherwise, she measured my belly and said I'm measuring fine and checked the baby's heartbeat which was great also. She also told me that I've gained 31 pounds so far (!!) and told me that I would probably gain another 10lbs by the end of the pregnancy. Normal weight gain is 25-30lbs so I'm already above that. She said that I need to start walking...to which I replied "I already have been..." and she didn't really have much to say about that.

I'm not really sure what else I can do about the weight gain. I haven't been eating much more than I normally do, and it's not like I'm going to go on a diet since that's not healthy anyway. I'll just try to do more walking, I guess. The one thing I am guilty of is snacking and craving baked goods (cookies, muffins, pound cake...) but it really is in moderation so I can't really blame that...

January 27 - I had another appointment with my doctor and told her my yeast infection symptoms are gone now so that's good. She measured my belly, listened to baby's heartbeat and said all seemed fine. She also asked me if I had picked a pediatrician yet and I told her I had but he doesn't go to the hospital I'm going to deliver at, so I asked her to recommend one. She gave me her kids' doctor so I'm going to check her out and maybe I'll go to her if I like her at the hospital. The other doc is my sister's kids' doctor but I've never met him so it's not like I'm tied to him or anything. She also didn't comment on my weight gain so maybe it's ok?!

Next steps are to read about birthing and breastfeeding classes. I can't believe baby is coming in a couple months!

New Year's Eve

2012-01-28T21:53:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit behind on my blogging...but our NYE was spent with Sue, her husband, and Liane. We went to Patina for their NYE early dinner. We had been meaning to try out Patina since we were so happy with our catering for our wedding, and we were not disappointed!

The restaurant was tastefully decorated with hundreds of balloons lining the ceiling. It was nice and not overdone. We were definitely the youngest table there though since most of the folks were older and doing a pre-theatre dinner. We wanted an early dinner so we could enjoy some good food and company, then get the heck out of LA before the madness began!

We all had the 4-course meal:
- I started with a vegetable mosaic which was a delicious assortment of locally grown vegetables from a Santa Monica farm. This really was a 2nd course menu option but I couldn't eat either of the two 1st course options (raw oyster and a chicken with foie gras - I'm not supposed to eat liver and I don't like foie gras anyway!). Everyone else had the raw oyster, topped with uni and caviar. The oyster was set on a bed of salt. Definitely very interesting presentation but ungodly how much salt was there. Haha.

- I then had the truffle risotto. This was really yummy! I had been longing for some good risotto since the last few meals I've just had so-so risotto. This was done right! :) Duke said that it was very much like the best risotto he ever had (at Le Cirque in Las Vegas - a meal I didn't partake in so I always wondered what he raved about, and now I know!).

- Third course was lobster with some potatoes and a truffle custard. The lobster was served almost medium and almost tasted under-cooked since I'd never had it prepared that way, but it was really good. The truffle custard was rich and really to die for. The other option was venison - Duke wished he had gotten that since he wasn't a fan of the "medium-cooked" lobster...

- For dessert, I had chocolate bar which was just ok. Duke ended up being allergic to both options so they brought out a special lime dessert for him and it was way better than mine! Haha.

All in all, we were happy with the pre-set menu. I'd like to come back for a regular meal some time, and also when I'm not pregnant so I won't have any dietary restrictions! :)

After dinner, we headed back home and I watched the ball drop on TV. Duke didn't stay awake til midnight. We are getting old!

Christmas

2011-12-27T22:38:00.000-08:00

We had a really nice Christmas this year. It was the first year Duke and I spent it together too. My brother, Duke, and I spent Christmas Eve hanging out at the house and cooking some food. Duke made some goulash and my brother made some chicken stew. This was the first time I'd ever had my brother's cooking so it was a treat. Haha. My parents, sister & family ended up coming over for dinner, so we had a full house. My dad brought over some lobster too for dinner.

I played some Super Mario with Dylan, we chatted during dinner, and we let the kids open up one gift each. Dylan got a Sonic race car, and Brandon opened up his book that I made for him using his picture so he was with all his favorite Sesame Street characters. Both of the boys loved the gifts, and we spent some time playing with them and taking some family photos.

After everyone left, my brother, Duke, and I tried a new game called Galaxy Truckers. It's actually pretty fun but it takes FOREVER to learn. There are a ton of pieces and rules, and Duke was pretty tired of it. Haha.

On Christmas day, Duke cooked some waffles for breakfast (which my brother had with his stew which sounds gross), and we hung out for a bit before heading over to my sister's. She just moved into her new house, so this was the first Christmas we'd spend over there. My parents joined us soon after we arrived, and we had some of Duke's pasta salad and my dad's lobster for lunch. We also brought over the Wii and all the games so that Dylan could play.

The day was pretty relaxing - just some conversations, goofing around with the kids, and opening gifts. I think this was a rather successful gift-giving year - Dylan loved all the toys we got him (Transformers, Super Mario Chess, Sonic Car, and Thundercats sword). The sword took the cake though. He did not let go of that thing the entire day/night and kept saying "Thunder, Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats...Whoa!!!" It was hilarious. He even went into the dark just to see the little Thundercats symbol light up and kept saying how awesome it was. It was really cute.

Brandon also had a huge smile on his face with every gift (Elmo, Yo Gabba Gabba keyboard). He was very excited until my parents gave him a box of clothes. It was so hilarious. He kept yelling "No!" and throwing the clothes out of the way so he could play with his toys. Haha.

We also gave my sister some goodies from Michigan (chocolate non-pareils which are her favorite and some summer sausage) which got a good chuckle, along with some clothes and miscellaneous other things.

Dinner was made by my sister's husband, and it was a huge success. He made Korean-style short ribs and it was delicious! We played Scattergories for a little while with my mom, and earlier, my brother had tried to play a money game with Dylan to help him learn how to count coins, etc. That wasn't overly successful but the game was for age 7+ and Dylan's only 4. No excuses, according to my brother, but I thought Dylan did a good job for what he did understand.

My brother was watching a basketball game that he had bet money on, and Dylan was picking up some of the terminology which was pretty funny. He would boo the Magic, and cheer on the OKC Thunder (which coincidentally matched the whole Thundercats phenom so that was appropriate). After that game was over, another game came on, and Dylan asked who were the bad guys, and said "Someone is going to get paid!" Haha. So silly.

It was getting late, so we headed back home after the kids went to bed. Duke went to bed just as we got back, and my brother and I stayed up a little, playing a little bit more of Scattergories.

The day after Christmas, we played some more Scattergories - Duke had never played this game before this weekend so he wanted to practice. Mark came over, so we played a couple rounds with him and then tried another go at Trucker's Galaxy. We played the full game this time (the previous night was only a practice round - that's how cumbersome the game is - they actually go through a practice round with you in the instructions), and it was pretty fun.

We all then headed to dinner to get some Chinese food, and Duke and Mark headed off to Vegas so that Duke would spend Part 2 of Christmas with his family.

My brother and I worked from home today, and he left in the afternoon, so it's a quiet house yet again. A bit messy which I haven't fully cleaned up yet, but that's ok. It was a really fun, nice last few days. Everyone got along really well, no drama anywhere, and lots of good memories. What else can I ask for.

One More Pregnancy Snafu

2011-12-16T00:56:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago, I stood up, and yowzers! I felt a shooting, sharp pain down my butt and through the back of my right thigh. Definitely felt like sciatica or something. I could barely walk and was limping my way everywhere. Super painful. Today is day #3, and the first half of the day was the same severe pain but the second half, it seemed to wear off. Maybe baby has moved, and isn't pinching my nerve anymore. I'm not 100% recovered, but I'm hoping it does get better from here on out. It's no fun feeling like a cripple! :(

Random Things I Notice About Michigan

2011-12-16T00:54:00.000-08:00

Here's my list of observations about Michigan:

1) Cars are dirty here...like an abnormal percentage are covered in dirt over halfway up the car. It turns out that many people live on dirt roads, which is bizarre to me since all the roads surrounding the area are paved. Car washes seem to be a big business here, but it seems like most people really don't care if their car is dirty since there's no point in trying to keep it clean.

2) There are a lot of weird pronunciations. Mackinac is "Mak-i-naw", the ice cream place Sanders is pronounced like "Saunders", and there's a store that's like a Walmart which is spelled Meijer but it's pronounced like "Meyer".

3) I knew Michigan people love cars, but wow, there are a lot of car dealerships everywhere. We drove through towns where there was nothing but fast food restaurants and truck stops...and there would be multiple gargantuan car dealerships.

4) Michigan people love American cars. I'd say a good 90+% of cars are Ford, GMC, Buick, or Pontiacs. Funny that they still love cars. Haha.

5) There is a thing called a "Michigan left" where there are two roads, say one going left and the other going right. There is a middle intersection thing but you can't turn left there. You have to make a right to go make a left, stop at a curved stoplight, and continue making the left/U-turn to go left on the original road.

Michigan Trip (December 3-10)

2011-12-16T00:53:00.000-08:00

We wanted to take one last trip before the baby was born and before 3rd trimester, so we racked our brains on where to go, and we decided to come to Michigan. We debated tropical locales which sound nice, but what can I really do? Lounge around with a pregnant belly and not use the hot tub? Haha. Then we thought of some more adventurous places but would probably be too strenuous...So we came up with Michigan, so I could see where Duke grew up and meet some of his family.

Day 1, December 3: Mark picked us up at the house at 9am so that we could catch our flight at 11am. After about 10mins of driving, "Uh...I have to turn off the car. My engine just stopped." He tries to start the car after a few tries to no avail. I give AAA a call, and as they're getting all the info, the car starts. Ok, let's see how far we get. We get on the freeway and proceed in the slow lane, and it seems like we're going ok. Then, the engine starts misbehaving a bit, and then we pull over to the shoulder. Dead again. We give it a couple minutes, and Mark is able to start the car again. Ok, let's see how far we get this time.

We're able to exit the freeway, and we start traveling north towards the airport. It's about a couple miles away, and we hit a red light. Uh oh. Car's dead again. It starts, but then immediately dies again. The car doesn't start again. We figure that the airport is walkable, and it would be more likely to catch our plane that way vs. waiting for AAA who may not be able to fix the car anyway, and would just tow the car to Mark's mechanic...in which case we'd definitely miss our flight. So, we bid Mark good luck with his car, and we start on our trek to the airport.

It's about 9:45am when we leave Mark, and boarding starts at 10:30am. We walk for a couple miles, and are getting close to the airport. We see the rental car area, so we head over there to catch the shuttle to the terminal. We see one bus but the driver wouldn't let us on-board since it wasn't an official stop. Boo...there was no one anywhere near the road! We lose a good 5-7mins waiting for the next shuttle, but we finally arrive to our terminal. Security lines were thankfully short, and we arrive at the gate literally a few minutes after 10:30am, and they were just boarding all the 1st class and priority passengers. We took a quick stop at the bathroom, picked up a muffin, and headed right into board. Whew! We made it! Duke texted Mark to let him know that we got there. What a relief!

The plane ride was fine, aside from the fact that it was completely full and jam-packed. I was in a middle seat, and out of all the seats in the plane, the seat in front of me didn't adjust forward so it was permanently reclined. Yay! Luckily I'm smaller than say, Duke, so it was ok.

We land in Dallas for our stopover, and had an hour to get some food. We stopped in at PappaDeaux's which is a chain of restaurants (PappaDeaux's, Pappacitas, etc) which I had been to before when I used to travel to Dallas all the time for work. Duke had never had it, so we gave it a go. I ordered the crawfish etouffee and Duke had the Po Boy sandwich. The etouffee was delicious! The Po Boy was a bit dry, but who orders a Po Boy anyway.

After lunch, we had about 15 minutes before boarding, and then we were off. This plane's only snafu was that the chief who was supposed to enter in our cargo load data didn't, so they were busy trying to track him down to enter the info so we could have proper takeoff data. How careless...so many people out of work, and of course, the guy who has a job can't do it. Luckily though, we had an 80mph tailwind which helped us recover all that lost time, and we landed on schedule anyhow. Overall, the plane rides were fine - between dozing off for 10 minutes here and there, we knocked off a number of crossword puzzles, which has been our obsession of late.

After we landed, we headed over to pick up our rental car, and began our 2 hour drive up to Bay City. Along the way, we stopped at Walmart to pick up some drinks and toiletries, and we had forgotten one of our bags. The cashier actually ran out in the cold to get our attention and give it back to us. Duke was happy to see the Michigan hospitality. At first, I was convinced it was a homeless man trying to get us to give him money, but it was just another customer yelling over at us to tell us the cashier was trying to chase after us. Haha.

We then went over to see where Duke's old house was. He was shocked at the commercial development that had happened with major retail chains, etc. right off the exit, but once you got further in, it was more like home again for him.

We took a turn into the woods and onto some dirt roads. They were flat and well-kept for the most part, but the further in we got and the closer to his house we got, the potholes got huge! Duke had to drive like a maniac to avoid these giant holes. It felt like riding on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.

We took a quick look at his old house, and saw that the owner there had a phone booth in the front yard. How bizarre. Apparently, it was there 2 years ago as well when Duke came to take a peek at the house last time he was here, so that booth is a permanent fixture.

We stopped in Flint to grab some White Castle which was one of the only places open at this time of night. It was after 11pm at this point. We grabbed a couple cheeseburgers and chicken burgers to eat in the car. The burgers were fine but the chicken burgers were dry. We won't be going back though b/c Duke had some imminent bowel concerns after eating it. We were about 10 minutes outside the hotel, and Duke was having some major issues. Oh no...What else can go wrong today?

We barely make it to the hotel, and as I check in, Duke does his business. We stayed at the DoubleTree, and I have to say I'm always pleasantly surprised and happy with the DoubleTree. I was greeted with the warm chocolate chip & walnut cookies, and the beds were especially soft and comfortable. For the price, you really can't beat it. The beds were so comfy we both slept in until 11am, and for Duke, that is amazingly late since he's usually up by 7am.

Day 2, December 4: We headed over to the lake recreation area to see Lake Huron. It's overcast and dreary with random bouts of rain. The lake was pretty green but the campgrounds were empty. We took a quick stroll over to the water, and then we were soon on our way to Frankenmuth.

We stop at Halo Burger for lunch which is a local Michigan fast food chain. Duke was very excited about it. The burger was pretty standard, in my opinion but the fries were pretty good. They also sell a Boston Cooler which is Vernor's ginger soda & ice cream (like a soda shake) and that was pretty good. I don't think I want to go back though b/c it didn't sit well in my stomach. The burger was pretty greasy or something...

The main town of Frankenmuth is nearby, so we take a quick drive up there. We walk along the river and into some stores. It's a German town, so there's lots of Wilkommen signs and other things in German. Knick-knack stores are plentiful, and we stop in the Bavarian Inn which is the main place to be (a cousin of Zehnder's which is the other main spot in town). We look in the gift shop and this is where we'll have dinner later. We continue to walk along the streets to look at more shops, and decide to check into the hotel. We stayed at the Drury Inn. Nothing to write home about here. Pretty standard, lower-quality place but people are nice enough.

We head back to the Bavarian Inn for dinner, and Duke is uber-excited. We both ordered their famous chicken plates which is basically fried chicken but the fried skin is lighter and more breaded in nature. The chicken was tender, and the skin did taste good but a little bit salty for me. The one thing about this place is the amount of food that they give you. Before you get your entree, they give you a cup of chicken noodle soup (which was excellent), sides of cranberry/orange hash, chicken pasta salad (very very salty), cole slaw (pretty tasty), navy bean salad (just ok), bread & stollen bread (fruit & nut bread) with strawberry jam. Then you get your entree....Plus mashed potatoes & gravy, stuffing, and more sides - mashed squash (this was yummy; tasted like mashed yams), butter noodles (the noodles were huge and thick so it was very egg-y), and of course you get dessert which was soft-serve ice cream coupled with some ginger cookies. Holy cow, I was stuffed. I had peppermint ice cream which was different and Duke had his vanilla.

The place was packed, and definitely seemed like a local favorite for sure. We headed down to the bakery and chocolate shoppe to see what things we'd like to bring home, and of course we decided to eat some more! We split a cinnamon roll which had a flaky crust, but was very yummy. Duke got some cookies and a couple of his Danish crisps which he loves.

After that, we headed to Zehnder's. Duke was very against this place, saying it was where the "rich" would go for dinner at Frankenmuth's and wasn't even going to take me, but every time we went by, the place was packed. How could we not go? We headed over, and the menu was the same price, if not cheaper for very similar foods. Bah, for the "rich". That didn't even make sense! We might try it for lunch tomorrow so I can see for myself if I like it better or not. Haha. This place also has a large bakery and shops, but we didn't pick anything up here.

We drove over to Bronner's to see the light decorations. Bronner's is the world's largest Christmas store, so we're going to check that out tomorrow. It has a parking lot that is reminiscent of a theme park, and it was full earlier today. I'm hoping tomorrow will be less packed since it'll be a Monday. We shall see!

Day 3, December 5: We woke up around 10am, and missed our free breakfast at the hotel but I'm sure it probably wasn't anything spectacular anyway. We went over to Zehnder's for lunch, and wanted to really compare how this place stacked up to the Bavarian Inn. We ordered the dinners instead of the lunch sizes so we could get all the different side dishes (we referred to it as "ponchon" or however you say it in Korean since it's the same idea - we just don't know what it is in English).

Duke ordered the chicken plate and I had chicken shnitzel with a side of spaetzel. The sides this time around were chicken noodle soup, cole slaw, cranberry relish (these 3 were the same as last night), cottage cheese, and crackers with a cheese/vegetable spread & chicken liver pate. Everything was superior here. The soup was the same - both places were great. The cole slaw was a bit more crisp and tasty, and so was the relish. I also preferred the cottage cheese and crackers with cheese spread to the pasta salad we had last night. Duke even had to concede that the sides were better.

Then, the entrees came, and his chicken was a little less breaded and less salty, so I thought it was better, and his stuffing was much better. I didn't even eat it last night since it was pretty gross, but today's was much more edible. The mashed potatoes were overly salty though so last night's was better on this front though Duke disagreed and like the mashed potatoes here more. My dish was completely different, so nothing to compare there except to say that it was fine. The sides with dinner were the buttered noodles (more buttery & less eggy here) and a vegetable medley of peas, green beans, corn, and carrots (this was similar to frozen veggies that were microwaved for too long since it was pretty gross and mushy).

To me, I have no nostalgia with the place, so it's not like I put this meal in the highest regards in terms of taste, but I can see the old-style charm that this place would bring for people. We finished the meal with vanilla ice cream for Duke and cheesecake for me (dessert wasn't included in this meal, so that's not as great as the Bavarian Inn). I blew out my candle since it's my birthday, and we went on our way.

Bronner's was the next stop for us. It is ridiculous in terms of how much Christmas stuff there is. If you can think it, it's probably there. There were beautiful ornaments everywhere, albeit not cheap, but unique enough. They have sections for everything from "I just bought a new car" to "I like bowling" and a whole section of ornaments to go along with it. Pretty amazing. We bought some pretty neat fiber optics lights for the tree, and a handful of ornaments. There is free personalization there so we got a couple ornaments done with our names and 2011 on it. We also bought an ornament for baby's first Christmas 2012 and a back-dated ornament for our first Christmas at our house in 2010.

We then took a quick stop over at Birch Run which is a huge outdoor outlet store center, and then had an early dinner at Pizzeria Uno. I haven't had deep dish pizza in a long time...perhaps since the last time I visited Chicago which was almost 5 years ago! It was tasty for sure, and a great birthday dinner.

We then drove by some of the places near Duke's house on the way back toward Detroit, and ended up in Novi where our hotel is located. We're staying at a Sheraton this time around, and got upgraded to the club floor which supposedly has "better than average" free breakfast. If we get up in time, we'll be sure to check it out. :)

After unloading some of our belongings, we headed over to Laurel Park Place which is a nearby mall. There is an ice cream & chocolate shop there called Sander's and I got their well-reputed "Bumpy Cake" which was a devilishly rich chocolate cake topped with Mackinack's Hot Fudge ice cream with actual hot fudge topping. It was really yummy but so sweet, my stomach actually felt really sugary afterward. Duke had a chocolate soda which made him very happy since it's the only place he can find that understands what a chocolate soda is (made with seltzer water and vanilla ice cream).

At this point, it was snowing, making this trip a pretty darn complete Christmas trip. Duke caught some snowflakes on his tongue, and he had a good time out in the cold. Overall though, I can't complain about the weather. It's been in the 40s the last couple days, and even though today was in the 30s, there really was no heavy wind so it's not too bad. :)

Day 4, December 6: We woke up around 9:30am, and I headed over to see what the big fuss the free "above average" breakfast was about...Ha, what a laughable affair. It was basically some fruit and one serving area of pancakes. There was no one in the club room, and I didn't see any syrup or anything else. There were some cartons of milk and some sodas and waters, but I find that to be funny that that was supposed to be a big deal.

We went over to Leon's for breakfast which is known for their homemade soups. We both got the chicken noodle soup, and Duke had an omelette while I had the "mini-breakfast" which was actually quite filling (1 egg, 2 sausages, and 3 pancakes). The breakfast was average, but the soup was quite good. The place is next to Miller's Bar which we will be going back to try out at some later date.

Duke then brought me over to Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford museum. Unfortunately, Greenfield Village was on the winter schedule so it's closed except for some holiday nights during the weekend but it's apparently a pretty cool place that has old style houses and people dressed up back in the colonial days.

The Henry Ford museum was open though, so we figured we'd go check that out. After $35 (2 admissions + parking fee), the lady tells us that the museum is under construction and we won't see as many cars...and "very few, in fact". Uh, thanks for telling us, lady. Anyway, so we start walking around and we see some of the presidential cars that were used. There were a lot of cars there but yes indeed, they were behind a barricade and many cars were draped over with a cellophane so you couldn't see anything. Most of the museum that was open dealt with planes, trains, and steamboat engines. Not exactly what we were looking for since this is Detroit and everything is about cars, but what can you do...

After this disappointing stop, we headed over to Ann Arbor to check out University of Michigan. We stopped at Le Dog which is a little red shack that is only open from 11am-2pm on weekdays for a hot dog. The hot dog was pretty good, but it was noticeably soft...I ate mine first, and Duke said "What do you mean by soft?" but I didn't know how else to describe it. He ate his, and he said "Wow, yeah, it is really soft." You don't really get the crunch of a hot dog skin, and the meat just kind of melts in your mouth. Definitely a unique hot dog, if anything but I liked it.

We then walked down the "Diag" which is a diagonal pathway through campus, and made our way over to Zingerman's Deli which is quite well-known. We shared a reuben sandwich and got an "old pickle" and a "new pickle" - the old is more garlic and pickled, whereas the new is more cucumber-y. The reuben was really good. The spread/dressing they use is quite delicious, and their motto is that you really can taste the difference. And, you can!

Afterwards, we walked over to the M Den which is a U of M store with all the paraphernalia you could ever think of, and Duke picked up a hat. We were soon off on our way, and we headed over to Deluca's which is where we would meet Duke's mom's cousins for dinner.

We ended up arriving an hour before we were supposed to meet, so we took a detour over at Starbucks, picked up a Detroit mug, and had some drinks while we waited. At 5pm, we met up with the crew, and had dinner. I had the spaghetti & meatballs - the meatballs were kind of dry but the spaghetti was really good, and most of the rest of the table had their gnocchi. We ended up staying until close to 8pm there, chatting with the 4 ladies. They are all super nice women, and had a lot of stories to share about how they grew up, kids these days, etc. I didn't get to spend that much time with them at the wedding, so it was nice to be able to hear more about their lives and be able to distinguish each one's lives and personalities.

We're now back at the hotel, and unwinding with some crossword puzzles. Tomorrow will be some more family visits but this time, on Duke's dad's side of the family.

Day 5, December 7: We headed over to Duke's aunt's place, and hung out with his dad, aunt Ann, and her son-in-law Dave. We took his aunt over to eat lunch at Highland House which is a nearby joint whose previous owner had their same last name. One of the original owners is still there, and recognized Duke's dad and sister. Anyhow, I had some fish & chips there which were actually fresh and light & crunchy. The fries were good too. Duke had the mastaccioli which I thought tasted bad, but we also had some pizza which tasted like a good Pizza Hut. Apparently a lot of fast-food pizza chains (Little Caesar's and Domino's) came from Michigan so I guess this was my first go at "Michigan pizza". It was yummy.

We then parted ways, and Duke took me around Milford and back to his old house. This time it was light out, so I could actually see the neighborhood. Duke marveled at the Christmas trees that they had planted in their yard b/c he used to jump over them as kids, but now they're gargantuan in size. Oh, what 25+ years will do to a tree. I think it's pretty neat that people grow Christmas trees in their yards.

We stopped by downtown Milford and got some pretty gross hot chocolate (but it was good enough since it was so cold outside), and walked around a park where Duke told me this terrible story of a girl who was walking there with her boyfriend, and the boyfriend got duct taped to a tree while she got kidnapped and was later found in pieces. That's so scary.

We continued our drive around and went to Fowlerville where his mom's parents used to live, and Duke kept saying it was the boonies but honestly, the town looked just like Milford so I don't know how to distinguish the boonies from the rest of the countryside we've been spending time in. Haha.

We then headed back to his aunt's house, and Dave made us some ribs and criss-cut fries. He also offered us some deer sausage with jalapeno & cheese which was actually pretty good but a bit too spicy for me. He also told us that he bought some venison and was going to make some jerky which would be ready in a couple days. Haha. I had never heard of venison sausage or venison jerky, and this guy was offering both!

They have a really nice basement which is a weight room, game room (pool table & darts), and bar which Dave built. It was a pretty sweet lay-out so Duke played a couple games of pool with the kids (they're twins who are juniors in high school). Lots of old stories were swapped, and the game room had lots of old paraphernalia from Duke's dad's family so that prompted a lot of memories too.

It's late back at the hotel now, so I've got to get some shut-eye. I'm beat.

Day 6, December 8: We went to Miller's Bar for lunch today, and it's actually a lot nicer inside than outside. On the outside, it's just a red door and nothing much to it, but inside, there's a lot of bustling and old pictures of Dearborn everywhere. The waitress comes by and says "What are you having?" with no menu, etc. Duke orders us cheeseburgers and fries, and they come out on wax paper. No plates or anything. Haha. The burger was simple and classic, and you put on your own ketchup/mustard/pickles. The other big deal about this place is that there's no check either. You just go up to the cashier and tell them what you ordered. An honor system - what a concept.

After lunch, we headed over to see Duke's dad's family again since everyone would be home at around 3:30pm. We decide to hit up the local deer meat market before dinner - a place called DJ Meats. The place came highly recommended by Dave who gets the summer sausage there with jalapeno and cheese. Unfortunately all the meats have to be refrigerated so we didn't get any, but we'll probably order some when we're back in CA. I figured my brother might like some for Christmas. Ha.

We then headed to dinner at Uptown Grill with the whole family - Duke's dad, aunt, cousin, her husband and two kids. The food was good - I had a shrimp pasta and Duke and I shared a huge side of mac & cheese. Ah, more carbs, so much food.

After dinner, Duke and I headed up to Rochester to the hospital where he was born. We then stopped in downtown which was beautifully lit up for the holidays. Every store participated along Main Street, so there were different colors lights lining every single store. It was really nice. I think more small downtowns should do something like that - gives it a lot of charm and worth a visit. We took a short walk over to LiPuma to do what? Eat more, of course! They're known for their Coney Island hot dogs (hot dogs with chili & onions; no beans). We each ate one, and shared the fries. The fries were super good here - similar to McDonald's fries but a little less oily. Yummy.

On our way back down Main Street, we saw a Sander's, so of course, we took a stop there so that I could try the cream puff hot fudge that everyone raves about. Duke got another chocolate soda, and we confirmed their secret ingredient of adding half & half. I didn't particularly like my cream puff hot fudge. It was good, but the cream puff was a little dry for my taste. I much preferred the bumpy cake which was moist and rich. Oh well, at least I tried it.

We then called it a night after Rochester, and got some much needed rest.

Day 7, December 9: We headed straight to pick up Duke's dad and his sister to meet Duke's mom's cousins at her house for lunch. Barb made some homemade chicken noodle soup, some Italian sausage subs, zucchini & chocolate bread, coconut cream pie, and some pineapple. She said "Oh, it was nothing!" Wow, if that's nothing, I'd like to see something! Everything was delicious and it felt really nice to have a home-cooked meal. Lots of old stories were shared with her and Heide, and soon enough, a few hours had passed and it was time to get on our way. We hung out with Duke's dad's family for a little bit, and then Duke and I headed back to the hotel to pack up the stuff we had bought to ship back home. We took a little break doing some crossword puzzles, and then headed over to Greenfield Village. It was closed when we last went, but we heard that they open for weekend nights for the holidays so we were going to brave the cold and see what was going on.

We get there, and it is packed solid...and then we find out that they're sold out for the night. Duke was pretty pissed off since this is now strike #3 (1 for being closed during the week, 2 for duping us out of a lot of money to go see a half-complete museum, and now 3 for being sold out while they were open). We lost time driving, but what can we do. We tried...

We opted for plan B since we had heard that there's a nice drive along Hines Road where you pay $5 per car to see the light decorations. We figured it'd be nice, and we saw a huge line to enter. It took us almost an hour to get through it, and it was terrible. The decorations probably have been the same for the last 20 years - very old-school, tacky designs, and not much to see. We took a 20 minute video of our drive which I'm sure Duke will edit down to about a minute. It was pretty boring and bad and another waste of time.

It was close to 10pm, and we hadn't had dinner yet so we stopped by Buddy's Pizzeria. They're voted as the top 5 pizza places in the US by Food Network and seemed to have gotten a ton of accolades from other media outlets (Oprah, etc). They have a square pizza, and Duke's sister had told us that the mac 'n' cheese was the best.

Overall impression, it was a nice place but nothing too great. I didn't particularly like the pizza. It is different for sure, but I wouldn't say it's better than a regular old Domino's...The shape does psychologically throw me off though since I kept associating it with cafeteria or TV dinner pizza. Haha. The mac 'n' cheese was really good for traditional mac 'n' cheese. You can taste the sharp cheddar cheese. I liked it but Duke wasn't a huge fan.

We're now back at the hotel, and it's time to rest and get ready to pack up for tomorrow. Goodbye Michigan! It's been a good trip, and really nice to finally see some of the places that I've been hearing about and to meet all the people. I wouldn't say I'd want to ever live here, but it's definitely a nice place to visit and have some Midwestern hospitality. :)

Pregnancy Update

2011-12-04T17:41:00.000-08:00

I went to the doctor for my check-up, and everything looks to be a-ok. We heard the baby's heartbeat which sounded fine, and she measured some length from my hip area up above my belly. Not really sure what that was for but she didn't say anything, so I'm sure it's fine.

I've gained 20lbs so far, which is now above normal. I was a little freaked out b/c I was right on target for weight gain, but this past month, I really gained a lot without even knowing it. I haven't been eating the best, but I didn't realize I'd put on so much. The doctor actually then told me that it's really common for women to experience sudden weight gain during this part of the pregnancy b/c my blood volume doubles so the extra weight isn't really from fat, but really from the blood. That made me feel better, but I still want to try and keep up with my exercise and everything so that I don't get too heavy and increase my risks for a C-section or an oversized baby, come delivery time!

That's all to report for now on the baby front!

20 Week Ultrasound & Then Some

2011-11-30T23:58:00.000-08:00

November 10: Duke and I went to the imaging center for our anatomy ultrasound. I'm officially 20 weeks, so we should get a good picture of everything since the baby is a bit more developed. We got the same tech as last time, and we asked her for a copy of the images for my dad to look at.

When we walked in, she asked if we were finding out the gender today, and I said yes. Soon enough, we saw the baby up on the screen, and the tech says "Oh, hmm. I can't get a good picture of the penis." Haha. So we say "Oh, so it's a boy?!" and she says "Oh! Yes, definitely a boy." She pointed out the penis and the "little ball sac" but then corrected herself and said nothing is small. Haha, and the jokes ensued with Duke commenting on how "hung" the baby was.

The rest of the ultrasound went through to confirm that the baby has two legs, two feet, two arms, and two hands. There was also no cleft palette so that was good news. The tech then took a number of pictures of the heart, brain, and a couple pictures of the kidneys. She measured the baby's femur and said it was on the tall-side which was no surprise to her, given Duke's size.

The appointment was fun, and we came out happy that we were having a little boy. We always preferred a boy first just b/c I grew up with an older brother, and well, Duke is an older brother. We called our parents to tell them the news, and I texted my brother and sister as well. Yay!

November 11: I was heading over to a happy hour, and had a message from the doctor's office. Usually a nurse leaves a message to tell me everything was fine, but this time I had a voicemail from my doctor. Something came up. She called to tell me two things: 1) my placenta is a bit low, so she wanted to make sure I didn't have any cervix activity or pelvic exams. The placenta implanted low, and should move up as the uterus grows, but just in case, there should be precautionary measures. I'll need to get a follow-up ultrasound to confirm that the placenta moves up. Otherwise, I'll have to deal with a c-section and possible bedrest if I start bleeding.

2) There were choroid plexus cysts in the baby's head. While there is no certainty that there is anything wrong, these cysts are a soft marker for Trisomy 18/Edwards Syndrome. This freaked me out. I called my dad, and then called my doctor to speak to her live, and was told that I'll need to do further testing and get a more detailed genetic ultrasound. My blood genetic screening came back at 1 in 100,000 so I have numbers on my side, and plus the cysts were the only thing that were found. Usually, Trisomy 18 has other symptoms - clenched hands, club foot, or a misshapen chest. None of those other symptoms were found, but of course, we need to do a further exam and double-check everything.

The cysts are actually more common in Asian populations, but they're still not very common. About 1-2% of babies have these cysts, and 50% of those with Trisomy 18 have these cysts so that's why there's an association. The cysts will go away, but we just need to make sure everything checks out ok with the perinatologist.

When I first heard the news, I thought of it very matter-of-factly, but when I started to talk to my dad about it, I just got really emotional and started crying. I know you bond with your baby while you're pregnant but I never really felt it b/c I've had a smooth pregnancy and don't really feel the baby much. The reaction took me by surprise but it is natural to just be scared and worried about your baby, I guess.

My dad was actually pretty mad about the doctor b/c he said she shouldn't have left a message about the cysts like that, especially b/c regular people have no idea what the cysts signify. If you hear "cysts in the brain, chromosomal abnormalities, and genetic testing" in a message, you're probably not feeling too comforted. But anyhow, when I spoke to her, she said that she actually wouldn't have called on Friday but wanted to make sure I didn't have any cervix activity b/c of my low placenta, and would've called on Monday. She said she was concerned I'd be worried all weekend but she wasn't concerned about the cysts at all and was more concerned about the placenta moving up.

Lucky for me, I'm able to talk to my dad about this stuff, and he was able to give me some more facts and key words to look up and read about on my own.

When I got home, I told Duke, and I started crying again which freaked him out. I then had to talk him off the ledge and explain all that I had learned, and he said I need to get better at telling someone news like that. I should have started with "Everything is ok, but ..." But, to be honest, I don't know if everything is ok. Odds are on our side, but until we get the green light from the genetic center, I'm still feeling uneasy about it.

So, of course a smooth pregnancy has become a more complicated one but I just hope everything checks out ok with the baby and that my placenta moves up so I don't have to worry about bleeding out and losing the baby. Stressful...

That's the update for now.

November 18: Duke and I headed to the genetic center to get the follow-up ultrasound done. The tech did her original screen, and everything looked fine. Apparently there was just one cyst now which was quite small, and she didn't seem concerned about it. At the previous ultrasound, my dad saw 3 cysts on both sides of the brain. They weren't abnormally large but bigger than what we were seeing this time around. The tech also said I have some fibroids in my uterus but they were still small, and they're actually quite common in women. Most don't even know they have fibroids but they can grow bigger since they flourish in the same environment as a pregnancy (with the hormones, etc).

I asked her about the placenta, and she said that it didn't look very low, and that it'll just move up higher over time. So, maybe the issue is fine there now too but I'll have to wait til I see my OB and see what she says.

The ultrasound machine was really nice and clear this time too. The baby was moving around, and had his hands up around his face a lot, refusing to take a picture. Haha. The tech tried to get us a good 3-D picture but we see the babies hands up blocking some of his face. Oh well. The 3-D technology is pretty amazing though. This center didn't allow me to take a disc home with the images, but gave me some hard copies of some generic photos. I really wanted my dad to see all the images, but that wasn't an option for me this time around.

The tech re-confirmed that the baby was a boy, and that everything looks fine. She then told us that the doctor would do some additional scans and come to talk to us. When the doctor arrived, he took a very close look at all the warning factors - the hands, fingers, feet, toes, heart, and brain. He was able to identify the 10 fingers and 10 toes (so mark off the deformed hands and feet which would be associated with Trisomy 18) and confirmed the blood was flowing through all four chambers of the heart. He also took a long look at the brain, and also told us that he saw just the one cyst which was very small.

You could tell this was a doctor doing the ultrasound vs. a tech though. The baby was pretty low, and the doctor wanted a clear picture of the head, and he pushed down pretty darn hard in my pelvic area. It hurt! Small price to pay though to make sure everything was checked out as it should be.

The doctor then told us that he sees these cysts a lot, and Trisomy 18 is one of those diseases that can be identified via ultrasound 80-90% of the time b/c of the significant physical characteristics. He contrasted this with Downs which is harder to identify in an ultrasound. So, after factoring in that my blood tests screened so positively, there were no other indicators of Trisomy 18, and that the cysts were resolving themselves very quickly, he really had no worries at all for us. He said usually the cysts are resolved by week 28, but the baby's cysts seem to be resolving much faster than that. He didn't recommend any additional testing - no amniocentesis, and not even another ultrasound unless my OB wants to re-confirm how the baby is growing.

After speaking with us, he pretty much left the room immediately which we found strange since we didn't really have an opportunity for questions, but I guess it's good that he was so confident that nothing was wrong that he didn't need to spend more time counseling us. That's how I'm justifying it anyway:)

So after that whole ordeal, we can happily say that baby is fine and healthy. Yay!

I can also feel baby moving around now too. We went to Duke's friend's birthday party and another girl was pregnant, and she described the baby kicking like "little farts" or like "popcorn popping" which I find to be a much more accurate description than "flutters" or "butterflies in your stomach". I definitely feel the little farts. Haha. Sometimes I feel some larger "kicks", and Duke was able to feel them too at one point which was cool. :)

Pregnancy Updates

2011-11-03T22:49:00.000-07:00

October 4: I had a check-up with the doctor today, and it was short and sweet. The doctor basically used a little device to hear the baby’s heartbeat. We heard a couple static/scratchy noises and she said that was the baby kicking. We heard that twice. Otherwise, she said everything sounded fine, and told me to set up my 2nd trimester blood screen appointment, and that she was sending in an authorization for my anatomy ultrasound which I’ll schedule between weeks 19-21. That’ll be the important ultrasound to make sure all the organs are looking good, and we’ll also find out gender at that point too.

October 19: No appointment to speak of, but just to memorialize the fact that I pulled my back! It was sad. I bent down to put some lotion on my legs, and yikes!! Pain, pain, pain!! I actually wasn’t sure if I could walk for a little while but my back limbered up, and I was ok. The pain was pretty bad, especially while sitting. I’ve had chronic lower back pain for most of my life, but I’ve never had this sharp pain before. I was sad. It was also strange since standing/walking wasn’t nearly as bad as sitting, and massaging didn’t seem to bring any relief or pain, so it was bizarre. It’s now been 2 days, and I’ve surely getting better. Each day is better than the last, and I still have a subtle pain but it’s definitely more bearable than the first day. I feel pretty lucky since some people experience severe pain for a few weeks, and it looks like I’ll recover for the most part in a few days.

November 3: I'm 19 weeks today, and had my doctor's appointment. She said that I'm right on target for my weight gain, and that my growth is spot on when she pushed down on my belly. She said I'm about 1cm from the umbilical line - not really sure what that means but it sounded like it was what it was supposed to be. :)

She also gave me the 2nd trimester screen results, and everything came back negative. 1 in 100,000 which she said was the best I could hope for. I'm glad everything continued to check out well.

She did listened for the heartbeat which we heard, and the baby kicked once. She asked if I felt it but I did not. It seemed she was a little surprised that I haven't felt any kicking at all, and she kept asking "Really? No flutters or feelings of butterflies in your stomach?" "Nope...I do feel cramps though from time to time." "Oh, but nothing in the front of your belly like flutters?" "Uh...no." "Well, you will."

I also told her about straining my back and she said I should do some stretches in the morning before I go about my day, and if I have pain to take Tylenol but no Advil.

Otherwise, everything seemed fine. The appointment was very fast again but I guess that's a good thing. Next week is the 2nd trimester ultrasound!

Baby Pumpkin

2011-11-03T22:42:00.001-07:00

October 5: Duke and I went to see the Smashing Pumpkins at the Wiltern in LA. We went to Koreatown to eat some dinner at Hodori – it was pretty subpar which was sad since we usually like it there, but whatever. We ventured over to the Wiltern which is really close to the restaurant, and stood in line for doors to open. There was some talk about Steve Jobs since we had heard he just passed away, which definitely put a damper on the evening…But, the concert was still spectacular! It was actually one of the best shows I’ve been to in a number of years. Sure, it’s still not the same as the “good ole days” but they played *a lot* of the older songs which made me really happy. I haven’t been a great fan per se, since I’ve been lacking in downloading all the free new songs off the site, and keeping up with all the latest and greatest, so I really just know the old stuff (when I was a crazy person back in the day…haha).

Anyhow, the Wiltern is a pretty intimate theatre so it turned out great that I actually went out of my way to try and get seats (and not get General Admission) b/c of my pregnancy. Our seats were pretty high up relative to the rest of the theatre, but we still had a great view and the sound was great. Duke tweeted at Billy Corgan before the show (who knows if he’d ever read it) that we were bringing our unborn baby to hear them live for the first time. Haha.

Here’s the setlist:

Quasar
Panopticon
Starla
Geek U.S.A.
Muzzle
Window Paine
Lightning Strikes
Soma
Siva
Oceania
Frail and Bedazzled
Silverfuck
Obscured
Suffer
Thru the Eyes of Ruby
Cherub Rock
Owata
My Love Is Winter
For Martha

Encore:

Pissant
Bullet With Butterfly Wings

I was actually shocked that so many Pisces Iscariot songs were played. I’ve heard a number of them played at various shows but never so many back to back in one night. It was a real treat. It felt like a show where Billy was playing what he actually felt like playing, and not bending to what “the generic crowd” would want with all radio hits. The setlist did give me hope that they’d play Mayonaise, but no such luck. Of course, tracks #7, 8, and 11 were played from Siamese Dream and I needed track #9! :P

Duke didn’t really realize that this was a great show since he didn’t recognize most of the songs (he only knew Cherub Rock and BWBW), but I think a lot of the crowd was like me…People who grew up with the band, and really appreciated all the older classics. There really weren’t a lot of young teens – most were like us, in their 30s or even older… I guess it’s a sign of our times. We’re getting old…

Pregnancy!!

2011-09-27T00:35:00.000-07:00

The news is public, so here's what's been going on! :)

July 22: I woke up at 4am with extreme nausea. I felt terrible all day with aches and pains, much like the flu. I also had a fever of up to 101.3. This was really similar to a couple weeks ago when I had a fever with flu-like symptoms but after 24 hours, it subsided. I decided to get a pregnancy test b/c I had never felt that sort of nausea before without actually throwing up. My period was supposed to come any day, but it didn't yet so I figured I might as well check. The pregnancy test said that it would take 3mins to reveal the result, and close to 1min, it popped up as "Pregnant". I was in a bit of shock since I was really concerned that we couldn't get pregnant - a fear that many women have, I guess. We'll see how this pregnancy goes and if it is viable. On Monday, I'll call my OB to set up an appointment and confirm everything.

We are really happy. We've been wanting to have kids, and that's what triggered our desire to get married. I'm glad it only took a couple months to get pregnant! :)

Duke and I have been talking about names, and he keeps wanting to use names from Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings. He's crazy. Haha. Either that, or he wants to name a girl Meg (short for Megatron) and a boy Optimus Prime. Like I would ever let that happen!! Haha.

August 15: I finally was able to go in for my appointment. I've had to cancel 3-4 times b/c of work conflicts (and no one at work knows yet!). I went to see the Nurse Practitioner, and it was actually a frustrating experience. They called me on time to take my blood pressure, weight, and ask me a few questions. They tell me to just wait in the room, change in the paper gown, and the NP would be in with me in 15 minutes. Uh... 15 minutes became 45 minutes!! Why didn't they just let me wait in the waiting room if they were that behind? It's not exactly the most comfortable situation to be sitting in an exam room wearing a paper gown! Grrr... Anyway, I poked my head outside of the room to ask if they knew when the NP was coming (I wasn't sure if they had forgotten all about me), and the NP yells "I'm coming in right now!"

She comes in, and is clearly annoyed that I was "impatient". She literally spent 3 minutes with me. She did a chlamydia/gonorrhea sample test then asked if I had any questions. I asked who would be delivering me if my doctor isn't on call and she told me that there are 4 other doctors that may potentially be the one. I asked if I would meet them, and she gave me this annoying look, and was like "We don't do that. You can look at the brochure if you want to place a face to a name." And then I asked if there was any information they give about what they recommend as do's and don'ts, and she says to go read "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and some Mayo Clinic book.

She may as well have just said Go Google It. Ugh.

I then went to the lab to get my blood drawn but they were packed, so I decided to go to the lab next to my house in the morning.

Thank goodness I set an appointment since that lab was also full of people. I was in and out in 20 minutes so it was fine.

August 17: I got the phone call that says my blood test shows I am positive for pregnancy. It's now official! There wasn't really a doubt since I have some symptoms but it's always nice to get the official word. I have my first OB appointment next week, so hopefully that will go well.

In general, I feel completely normal. I did feel constipated for a while and also a lack of appetite but both of those have passed for the most part. I do also get quite bloated (and look pregnant) after eating so that's been kind of weird. I've always had a "big" stomach relative to the rest of my body so it's really unclear if I'm looking pregnant or if I'd look like this anyway! Haha.

I did have a couple boo boo's already though.
- A few weeks ago, I had a piece of ahi tuna sashimi (I was at a work event and I always gobble that stuff up, so I felt like I had to eat some of it to not raise any suspicion). I had one small cube so I'm sure it's ok.
- Duke and I went to Ricky's, and I told them that I was pregnant so they did a cooked food omakase for me which was pretty darn cool of them. I got some fried tofu, cooked salmon, seaweed salad, etc. But then he gave us monkfish liver sashimi. I didn't eat any of it, but then Ricky says that he prepared that especially for me b/c it's really good for pregnant moms, and that his dad would always give that to him growing up b/c it's very nutritious and good for your health. So, I had probably 4 pieces...Then I later found out that it's packed full of vitamin A and you're not supposed to have too much vitamin A b/c it can cause birth defects!! :( Again, I'm sure it's fine but I felt bad.

I'm sure the list will continue to grow as the months go by. No one can be perfect, but I'm sure there will be a lot of women who would probably yell at me and disagree with that.

I did go to the gym this morning, and I couldn't run for longer than 3 minutes! How sad! I was so winded. It was pretty unbelievable actually. I'm going to try to stick to the elliptical b/c I can do that for an hour and at least still get a decent workout in!

Oh, what else. I get sleepy around 10pm every night now which is a far cry from my normal time of going to be around midnight or 1am. It's now 11pm so I'm pushing my limits here, but I don't like that all my conscious time is at work! :P

August 23: First OB appointment. It wasn't very eventful - the doctor handed me a bag full of random magazines, sample prenatal vitamins, and some other random marketing items. She then went through a lot of disclosures about my rights to genetic screening and what I can opt in or out of. We spoke briefly about what I can eat and she said that I should limit to 12oz of seafood per week. That's nothing! I think I've broken that quite a lot already, and honestly feel it's ok as long as I avoid those high-mercury fish like tuna and bass. She asked me if I had any nausea and I said no, and just told her about my other symptoms that are all normal. The new symptom I had was that I get a cramp in my lower stomach when I sneeze, and she said that's normal since my ligaments are pulling.

Otherwise, I stuck my arm out yet again and got tubes and tubes full of blood drawn. I don't even know what they tested for but I guess I'll find out if anything doesn't come back right. I'm supposed to meet with the NP again next week for a nutrition appointment but I think I'll have to postpone it b/c work is crazy right now.

August 29: I had my first ultrasound this morning. Duke met me at the medical center, and it was a really neat experience. I was told to drink 32oz of fluid before my appointment so I'd have a full bladder. I drank 1 liter of water which turns out to be 33oz and I had to pee so badly. We went into the room and the tech started showing us some of the images on the screen. It was kind of uncomfortable since every push down was really hard for me since I had to pee. The tech then asked me to empty my bladder and then they did the more invasive ultrasound to get a better look at the baby and to take better measurements. The picture was a lot better, and we even got to see the baby wiggle around a lot. It looked like it was dancing. Haha.

Both Duke and I thought the body was the head, and the tech soon corrected us and labeled our pictures for us. We saw the two arms, two legs, and one head...and just one baby! Duke has some twins in his family so we're glad to hear that there's only one baby brewing. Hehe.

The tech took some more pictures and measurements of the baby and my ovaries, and that was pretty much it. I'm 9 weeks and 4 days, with the weeks counting every Thursday. Due date is around March 27-28. The next ultrasound will be for the first trimester screening followed by some bloodwork, but the next major ultrasound to see the full anatomy will be at 18-20 weeks. That's when we find out about gender too.

It was really cool to see the baby and feel that it was real. The heart was beating really fast - Duke says he saw the screen say 180 bpm which is normal. Pretty awesome to know this living thing is in my belly.

Here's the little bugger:

September 6: I had a pretty frustrating appointment today. I met with the nurse practitioner for a nutrition & exercise appointment as well as hospital info which was supposed to be "very informative". The medical office wouldn't let me just do it on the phone, so I figured it was going to be some in-depth talk. Uh...not so much. The whole appointment was basically a push for cord blood banking (definitely felt like they would get some kickback from these companies), and that was all the NP talked about. Then she said "Well, we're supposed to talk mainly about nutrition & exercise...Do you have any questions?" Huh? Questions about what? She didn't go over anything with me.

This is the 2nd time I've met with the NP, and I think she's just a rude person. Before this appointment, I got a call from the office that my iron was a little low, and to start taking iron supplements. Then, I went to this NP appointment, and she told me the same thing, so I said "Oh, can you go over the rest of the results?" and she just snapped back "That's what I'm doing right now." Sheesh. Excuuuse me!

Anyway, I really debated calling the doctor to explain my frustration but I think I'm just going to see if they make me have any more appointment with the NP or not. If they do, I'll just ask the doctor if I can just see her instead of the NP since both appointments with her were a waste of time coupled with a bad attitude.

Aside from that unpleasant experience, the rest is all good news to report. I continue to feel very normal with no nausea at all. I am still very tired and sleepy but I can't complain.

September 9: I went to get my blood drawn for the first trimester screen. The doctor's office told me to get this done 2 days or the same day as my ultrasound but the ultrasound clinic told me to get it a week before. I called the office but no one answered so I left a message. They didn't call me for 3 days, and ended up just saying "Oh, just listen to the clinic." Um...you'd think they'd know not to tell me 0-2 days when the bloodwork should be done 7-10 days before the ultrasound. I'm not too sure I like this doctor's office but I have an HMO plan and a lot of doctors don't take it. Plus, the office is close to my work. Bah.

September 16: I had my first trimester screen ultrasound today. There was a 40 minute wait past my appointment time, but I'm so used to waiting for forever that it really didn't bother me. The tech was super duper nice. I loved her! She was so enthusiastic, and overly comforting about how great the baby was doing. The test was called nuchal translucency which is to measure the space between two layers of skin on the baby's neck. The thicker this is, the more likely the baby is to have Down's. That measurement is coupled with blood test results, and also factors in my age.

The news was great. The cutoff for Down's was like 1 in 100 (I don't really remember) and my result was 1 in 100,000, and the cutoff for Trisomy was 1 in 50 (or so?) and mine was 1 in 47,000. Hearbeat was strong and steady at 162bpm. The baby was also a good size for its age.

The actual test was just an on-the-stomach ultrasound and I didn't have to have a full bladder for this one so it was quite fun. The baby was sleeping when we first started, and to get an appropriate measurement, the baby has to be face-up or face-down with a flat back. My baby was face-down and curved, so we had to wake up the baby to get it to move to a better position. She tried putting pressure with the ultrasound device but the baby didn't wake up, so she asked me to cough which woke the baby up. Haha.

The baby started moving around so she got some good measurements, and we got to see some nice activity as the baby moved its arms a lot. There's one picture where the baby's arms are both up and the tech wrote a caption of "Hi!" on there. Pretty funny, especially b/c this morning, I woke up and said "I'm going to say hi to you, baby!" and the tech ended up having the baby say hi to me. Haha.

Here's the pic - hard to make out since I took a photo of the photo:

I'm really relieved that everything checked out. I've been feeling so normal that I always have this paranoia that something is wrong, but the baby is growing and seemingly healthy so I'm happy.

The news also gave me comfort to break the news more publicly. I told my boss today, and the rest of the office knows now. I'll have to deal with all that later to figure out what I'm going to do after the baby is born, but at least I don't have to keep this secret anymore. I also e-mailed a few friends, gave my mom the ok to tell the rest of the family, and Duke is going to do a Facebook post soon to let all his peeps know. :)

September 18: Duke spent hours compiling this video which is a scene of King Kong fighting a big snake. It was basically a "What do you get when you have a monkey and a snake?" And it was supposed to be a dragon baby... I didn't think anyone would get the video without any prompting or hints. Duke thought 10%. No one got it. Haha.

We ended up having to be explicit on FB, and got a ton of heartwarming congratulations and well wishes. It was pretty awesome. :)

September 27: As far as how I'm doing - everything is pretty normal still but I did start getting lower back pain. :( I also woke up probably 4 times last night which wasn't very fun. I think it was a combination of having to go pee, having a hard time breathing, and having a dull ache in my back. I just couldn't get comfortable. My pants are getting pretty darn hard to squeeze into so I really have to figure out what I'm going to do about my work wardrobe. Haha. It's 14 weeks on Thursday!

Just Working and Spending Time with the Family

2011-08-17T23:10:00.000-07:00

Not much to report right now...I've just been working a lot and traveling back and forth from LA. I hate the commute! But at least I've been able to stay up in LA for multiple day visits, and I've had some good meals while I'm up here. A slight consolation prize...

Otherwise, the past few weeks have been spent with family. My parents watched Dylan for 3 weeks, and he came over to my house 1-2 times per week to play some Super Mario Bros. He's pretty darn good at the game, and lives and breathes it. I've been pretty impressed how much his skills have improved though. He's becoming a better sport, and isn't giving up as easily if we don't beat a level right away. I'm pretty proud of him. :)

My sister moved recently out of LA, so now they're in a rental home. They're closer to where I live now but it's still a good 45 minute drive. The place is pretty old and less than desirable but it's a 6-month accommodation before they move into a brand new house! I can't wait for that since the model homes are so gorgeous! :)

Duke and I have otherwise been doing stuff around the house. We got a nice wine bar rack, and have been working on the yard. For the parts of the yard that we've put Amend on it, it has made a difference, so we know all this effort is worth it and we should continue working on it. Duke is doing most of the heavy lifting though but I'm doing my fair share too! :)

June/July Catch-Up Post

2011-07-14T23:47:00.000-07:00

Since the honeymoon, life has sadly come back to normal. I guess I shouldn't complain too much since my life ain't so bad, but having something to plan and look forward to is always more exciting than the run-of-the-mill comings and goings. One of my best friends just got engaged though, and she's asked me to be a bridesmaid, so wedding stuff can still continue! Hehe.

Otherwise, my recap is as follows:

The Yard
We bought a cool patio furniture set from Crate & Barrel! I've been eyeing it for over a year now, and finally caught it on sale plus the 10% off from registering there. :) Yay! My backyard is pretty much complete now, as far as furnishings go. We still may want to get a shed of some sort but that's a nice-to-have and not really a necessity. We do still have some landscaping to do though since my back wall is ridden with weeds & grass. It's impossible to keep up with it, but Duke has been helping me rip everything up and lay down some Amend (a special soil to help break down clay). The dirt that is in my backyard is beyond bad - most is hard clay and is full of large rocks and/or concrete. Whoever laid it down was so lazy and just filled up the land with no regard to what it was filling it up with!

Oh, and I also bought a lime tree but it's a sweet lime so it actually looks like a lemon. I haven't tried any of the fruit yet since it's just growing now, but hopefully I can make some nice summertime limeade. Yum yum.

We had also planted some tomato plants and a squash plant, and all of those have been growing like crazy. My dad put down some fertilizer and I had the largest squash I had ever seen. It tasted pretty good too. The tomatoes are growing faster than I can eat them as well. They taste fine but the insides look kind of strange (more reminiscent of a brain than the nice half-moon shapes you find when you slice grocery store tomatoes). Not sure if that's b/c mine aren't ripe enough or if it's b/c I don't pesticide treat them or something. I made a tomato & cucumber salad the other day with some rice vinegar, sesame oil, and salt, and that turned out really well. A nice cool, refreshing treat so I'll probably make that again soon since I have too many tomatoes to just garnish a sandwich with.

BBQ
We had some friends over for the 4th of July, and it sort of was a party for the kids. My sister came with Dylan & Brandon; John & Susan brought Avery & Wyatt; Dan brought Quyen. We put out the kiddie pool, slip 'n' slide, and this turtle spritzer thing, and the kids had fun. The adults wished they were kids, and fried in the hot sun. The rest of the time was playing some video games inside and hanging out. It was fun though spending a lazy Saturday with friends.

Family Stuff
My sister had her Fellowship Graduation, so I got to finally meet the people she had been telling me about for these past few years. A bunch of speeches, etc., and it ended up being a sour evening since my sister's mentor wasn't able to make it due to travel plans, so she didn't have anyone really sing her praises like everyone else did. After working so hard, it's hard not to get recognized alongside your colleagues like that. What a bummer.

In other family news, the kids have been over quite a bit lately. Dylan has taken on Super Mario Bros. and is officially an addict. He loves coming over and just wants to play the game all day. He is getting a lot better though than when he first started, so his hand-eye coordination is pretty darn impressive for a 3 year old. When we were at my sister's graduation, he was laying on my lap and was getting restless b/c of all the speeches. Then he whispers to me: "Auntie, Auntie!" "Yes, Dylan?" "You know that one hot lava level..." Hahah. It made me laugh. That's what he's daydreaming about.

Aside from Super Mario, we did head to Legoland after the BBQ. Dylan and Brandon had some more time with Avery and Wyatt. As a higher-priced theme park, it was pretty disappointing. The rides were really basic, and the lines moved sooo slow. Brandon was pretty upset the entire time, and Dylan didn't want to go on half the rides since he was too scared to. All in all, I don't think I'd be going back. It's a whopping $61 ticket price, but luckily I had free passes from my friend who had gone with her nephew previously (2nd day for the ticket was free within 90 days).

The Worst Race in the World
Duke and I signed up for the Great Urban Race. I was so excited to do this race since it seemed like the Amazing Race. Challenges, both mental and physical, were promised. An intricate clue sheet was promised. And a darn good time was promised. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The clues were dumb. The most mental thing about it was a word search which took a whole 2mins to complete. Then we realized what the race was all about. Sponsorship.

The OCTA was a sponsor so lo and behold, these secret locations that we were supposed to go were clustered 5-10 miles away from each other so you were forced to take the bus. The OCTA is not like the BART - it doesn't run very frequently. It runs every 30-45 minutes if you're lucky. So, for a race that was going to be finished in 5 hours but required you to take the bus which is that slow...just doesn't seem like a great set-up.

The YWCA was a charity associated with the race. One of the "clues"? To go buy an item on their list (dryer sheets or other random items), and drop it off at the YWCA. Ummm...I'm all about donating but shouldn't that be of my own accord? Why am I forced to do that as part of a race? What kind of "clue" just tells you what to do? That's not really a clue.

The final straw: We went to JT Schmid's which was another clue location - you had to go there and pick up a fake mustache and take a picture with someone who actually had a mustache. Ok, fine. But what happened? We go to JT Schmid's to get the mustache, and find out that we *have* to sign up for the JT Schmid's mailing list in order to get the mustache. Umm...ok, so I paid a registration fee for this race and am forced to sign up for mailing lists? Completely absurd.

We left after JT Schmid's. We had already wasted an hour, grumbling the whole way, and it wasn't going to be worth wasting the rest of our day and potentially riding a bus 10 miles away from our own car, only to find out that we can't make it back in time for the race finish b/c the buses are too slow.

Don't ever sign up for this race. I'm so surprised that this race has been going on for 5+ years and has expanded to cities across the US. I e-mailed a complaint and they apologized for how I felt about it, but in no way did they seem surprised by what I described.

This race would be much more suitable in true public transit cities like NY, Chicago, or SF. Don't put one in Orange County. But aside from that, no race should ever force you to sign up for advertising or buy mandatory items. That's completely bogus. I'm going to stick to more traditional running races from now on!

Plumbing Success

One of our guest bathroom showers stopped having hot water. We didn’t know why or when the issue started since we rarely use that bathroom, but nevertheless, it required some fixing. My house has a Manabloc plumbing system so there are these valves for hot and cold water to each room, so it’s easy to turn off water in just one room instead of the whole house. We were really worried that this valve broke somehow, and wasn’t letting hot water go through into the shower. We had read similar issues online with Manabloc so this was a valid concern. I tried calling Viega (the parent company who makes this system) to understand my warranty, but they said that they don’t deal with consumers directly, and I’d have to go through a wholesaler to see if my warranty could be claimed. I have no idea who installed the system so I figure my warranty is bunk.

I then call a bunch of local plumbers to figure out who has had experience with Manabloc, and 100% of them said they are familiar with it and are trained on it. I find that hard to believe since this system is only in a couple hundred thousand houses in the nation. Anyhow, I ended up having Rescue Rooter come to the house b/c they were the only ones who would provide a free estimate with no strings attached. Some of the other “free estimates” were gimmicky and actually would charge you if they had to turn a handle b/c that would then be considered “physical” for them and I’d owe them money.

Anyhow, Rescue Rooter didn’t seem promising at first. The guy never showed up during his time allotted window, and a 2^nd guy was called in to take a look since the first was a no-show. The 2^nd guy comes in and he’s never seen the Manabloc. He played it off like he was familiar with it but through the course of the inspection, he kept asking me what it was called and how it worked, so he clearly had no experience with it. I was preparing myself for disappointment.

And then he says that the problem is the cartridge which resides behind the shower handle. It seemed weird he would conclude this since he was asking so many questions about Manabloc, only to conclude that it had nothing to do with Manabloc. All he did was let the water run as he turned the handle back and forth to verify no hot water was coming through, but whatever, he said he was sure that it was the cartridge and quoted me a few hundred dollar estimate. Yikes but he was really friendly about it and said I could go investigate at Home Depot to see if it’s something I could do myself.

We looked at some online videos and then followed his advice to go to Home Depot. The employee was awesome! Yay for highly trained employees! He knew exactly the right tool for us to use to pull the cartridge out and knew exactly which cartridge we needed after we showed him a couple pictures of the shower. Everything cost a bit over $50 so we went back home to try it out. At this point, we were still skeptical that this was the problem but we figured we’d give it a go.

The cartridge is a beast to take out. That tool made it a lot easier but it was still tough since you really feel like you’re going to rip your wall apart since you have to yank and twist pretty severely. Anyhow, we finally fiddle around with it a ton to get it installed, and it worked! Hot water flowing through again. Hooray!!

We were really proud of ourselves and know how to fix these things now, and we were really grateful for the help we got from Rescue Rooters and Home Depot (plug plug)!! J

The Honeymoon - Day 10/11 (Thursday/Friday)

2011-06-02T00:14:00.000-07:00

Last day in Paris! We are both feeling like the time went by really fast, but we are also happy it’s the last day since we’re ready to go home.

We decided to have our last lunch at Café Imogene. It tastes great, and it’s around the corner from our hotel so every day, we’d see the old chef in there, and he’d nod and smile at us in acknowledgment. We also wanted to actually allow me to have a great meal there since last time I had that stanky Andouille crepe.

We both ordered the crepe du jour, and it was amazing! It was filled with ratatouille, topped with a sunny-side up egg and 2 different types of ham (think prosciutto). The place was busy as usual, but it was worth the wait. They even gave us some cider to drink while we waited for a table. For dessert, Duke got his caramel crepe with vanilla ice cream again, and I chose the dessert du jour which was a crepe filled with fresh fruit (strawberries, kiwi, peaches) with fresh strawberry syrup drizzled on top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. We finished it off with a couple espressos, and it was time to go.

The rest of the day was filled with souvenir shopping. We headed to the Louvre area to get some of those junky souvenirs (my mom loves that stuff), and also picked up some random gifts for people in Carousel du Louvre. I did get this little plastic dude who is an eyeglass stand. It’s really cute. I got one for Sharon too, even though it’s not really Parisian.

After dropping off all the gifts at the hotel, we made reservations at Rino, a highly rated Italian place. We took a walk over there, and were seated outside on the “terrace” which meant we were out on the street. We tried to get a table inside, but they were already reserved. We had a four course meal which consisted of cheese dumplings in a pea sauce, cod with sacreur (flowers of some sort), pigeon with asparagus and fava beans, and a yogurt ice cream with fruit and semolina as dessert. Duke also had a cheese plate before dessert which was inedible in my view (except for a small piece of goat cheese that was ok).

Overall, I thought the meal was the best one we had in Paris. Not really for the experience, but just in pure taste. I surprisingly enjoyed the pigeon. I’ve never really liked quail or pheasant, so I didn’t think I’d like pigeon but it was much more steak-like than I had imagined. Duke didn’t particularly like it but he still ate it all.

The rest of the night and next morning was basically packing so we’d be ready to go to the airport. Roissybus proved to be another great deal but it was a huge pain b/c of the swarms of people. We got to the airport in one piece though. Time to board the plane.

Au Revoir!

The Honeymoon - Day 9 (Wednesday)

2011-06-02T00:12:00.000-07:00

We woke up early! And then we realized that this had no benefit, as random stores were open but most were closed, and restaurant weren’t open for lunch until after 12pm. Oh well, we tried. We walked around Marais until Briezh Café opened. This was a place with highly rated reviews, and almost every tourist website listed it as a must for crepes.

I still have to say that I prefer Café Imogéne but Briezh Café was good in its own right. I had some sort of crepe which I don’t remember but it was pretty good, and I had a chocolate crepe with chocolate ice cream. The place is always super busy which is partly b/c of all the good reviews, I’m sure, but also b/c there are only about 10 tables in the place so it fills up quickly.

After lunch, we took a long walk towards the Opera area to Hard Rock Café to pick up my souvenirs. We stopped in a few shops along the way, and got some nice bath salts from Switzerland and some bath fizz balls and bath cupcakes (they melt to make a milky bath) from Belgium. The shop owner was a super nice man and even gave us a canvas bag since he knew that our items would probably not hold in a regular paper bag.

Along the way, we passed by a ton of Afro-hair salons. It was a strange street to walk down since it felt like a different country and almost a time warp as well.

We finally made it to Carousel du Louvre but everything was closed, including the bathroom. I’m sure Duke will have his own rant on this one, but this is really the most ridiculous thing. The shopping area closes at 8pm but the food court remains open until 11pm. This is a major tourist attraction as it connects directly into the Louvre. There is one bathroom in this public area, and it is a pay toilet…and it closes at 8pm. I even asked one of the food court employees about the bathroom, and they looked at me like I was an idiot for thinking a bathroom should stay open after its closing time…

Anyhow, we headed back to the hotel to use the facilities, and then decided to find a Vietnamese restaurant. It’s the one type of Asian cuisine we hadn’t yet had and Vietnam was a French colony so we figured it would be good. We went to Dong Phuong which was completely packed with people, and it’s a rather large restaurant. I had some pho and Duke had some chicken soup. We started with some spring rolls which were really good, but the pho had much to be desired. Their sriracha sauce has a goose on it instead of a rooster. At first we thought that was just an emblem thing but no, it’s much sweeter and not very spicy at all. Most of the food we’ve had in France has been very bland, and this was no exception.

I was pretty disappointed, but I can’t really judge the place since I don’t know if this was just bad for my taste buds or bad in comparison to other Vietnamese restaurants in Paris.

After dinner, we had a 2^nd dinner at Leon. Yes, this is the 3^rd time we’ve been to the place. It’s not –that- good but at the same time, it’s really hard to find fresh mussels in the US, and they’re my favorite shellfish. Duke doesn’t mind them either.

This time, I tried the mussels in a curry sauce which was pretty darn tasty – probably the best cocotte I’ve had out of all the times we’ve been there. For dessert, I had a waffle with powdered sugar and chocolate sauce which was ok.

The Honeymoon - Day 8 (Tuesday)

2011-06-02T00:09:00.000-07:00

We woke up at 12pm. I think we figured out why we are still jetlagged after being here for so long. The sun doesn’t set until 9:30pm which throws our schedule way off. Everyone eats dinner around 8:30pm or 9pm, and drinks until midnight. We’re going to try a new strategy and go to sleep with the window shades open so that the sun can wake us up at a reasonable hour.

It’s really hard to do anything in France when you have a late start. Basically lunch is from 12pm-2pm; dinner is from 7pm-11:30pm. Certain places open at 9am (it seems only bakeries are open before then) and every store closes at 7pm (even though it doesn’t get dark until much later). Given our schedule, we eat around 1:30pm, and finally head out around 3pm which leaves a few hours to actually see anything that is open. I guess we’re spoiled in the US when businesses stay open all the time once they say they’re open.

For lunch, we headed to Café Imogéne which is just around the corner from our hotel. We almost didn’t go here b/c we tried the other creperie yesterday and thought it was so-so. We came to a conclusion that we didn’t like “savory” crepes (I don’t know if that’s a British term or not), but it turns out that maybe we do like them. Duke ordered the daily special, recommended by the chef, and it had the best tomato/bell pepper mixture with chicken pot pie-like sauce and chicken inside. The restaurant was a super cozy little place with a small kitchen right next to the tables. It felt like eating in this old man’s cottage.

My meal was the Andouille sausage. The chef actually gave me an “A to Z French Cooking in English dictionary” to make sure I wanted what I ordered. The definition said that it was intestine, and Duke and I both thought that was normal. Aren’t hot dogs just meat stuffed in intestine tubing? Isn’t Andouille just a type of sausage? Oh no, when it says intestine, it means intestine, just chopped up. It smelled like butt, was grey, and it tasted exactly like intestine. Luckily, the crepe was really fresh and good, and Duke’s was overwhelmingly good that I can’t judge the place on my crepe alone since it was my fault anyway for ordering it.

For the dessert crepe, I chose chocolate, and Duke had a caramel crepe with vanilla ice cream. My chocolate crepe was delicious, and Duke enjoyed his as well. The ice cream was real French vanilla and very yellow in appearance.

Overall, the place was charming, the waiter and chef were very friendly, and the food was great. We will probably be back again in the next couple days before we go. I will order the daily special.

So, our tummies were filled, and we had a long walk around the neighborhood, and headed to Pere Lachaise Cemetery. We stopped in a couple paper stores and bookstores. We picked up a portfolio book for Duke’s dad which he’s going to fill with brochures (his dad likes that sort of thing), and picked up a small dragon puzzle for Dylan. I bought a French character coin purse for myself, and Duke bought a few “Mister” books in French. Mr. Bump is M. Malchance; Little Miss Bossy is Mme. Autoritaire; and Little Miss Helpful is Mme. Catastrophe. Pretty funny.

Anyhow, I had no idea what Pere Lachaise was, but it was one of Duke’s places that he wanted to see. I’m glad we went. It is this amazingly large place with old crypts, mausoleums, tombs, etc. It felt very historic with all the grave monuments.

We went to go see Jim Morrison’s grave, which seemed to be the main attraction with a number of other tourists there, and it had various items littered in the grave (cigarettes, a joint, flowers, etc). There was also a nearby tree where people inscribed messages to him.

We then walked around a ton of crypts, trying to find the burial places of some other notable names but we didn’t have a map so just wandered around. We saw a crematorium with a bunch of drawers where people kept their loved ones’ ashes, and finally stumbled upon Edith Piaf’s grave. Duke has her song as his ringtone after becoming obsessed with the movie Inception, so it was a nice pitstop.

We didn’t make it in time to go see Frederic Chopin or Georges Seurat’s graves since they started booting people out at around 5:20pm. Apparently the cemetery closes at 6pm.

On our walk back to the hotel, we saw a lot of Chinese garment district type stores but nothing else too exciting.

We came back to the hotel for a rest stop then headed out for dinner at Deux Fois Plus de Piment, a Szechwan Chinese restaurant. We ordered Mapo Tofu and some chicken dish in black bean sauce covered in peanuts. We didn’t know that obviously, so I just ate it. The food was actually really good and authentic.

Everyone in the place spoke Mandarin, and the menu is only in Chinese and French so that made ordering very difficult. I tried my best at speaking to them in Mandarin but not with much luck. I basically was able to let them know that we couldn’t read Chinese or French b/c we were American. The waitress quickly scurried to grab another waitress who could speak some English for us, but that still didn’t work out too well given our peanuts in the dish. They did keep saying “No ABC” very happily, and I have no idea what that means.

After dinner, we walked to Place de Bastille which is the memorial marker of the former prison. Apparently the storming of the Bastille wasn’t to free prisoners but rather to collect arms and gunpowder that were stored there.

We walked around some more back towards the hotel, and ended up in what seems to be the main area of Marais where there are tons of little shops. The area is like Soho meets East Village. We’re going to head back there tomorrow to explore when things are open. This is the same place as the Restaurant of Robert & Louise.

We took a stop at a public toilet which we had never used. It’s actually quite sophisticated, as it self-cleans itself for a few minutes after each person, has an automatic side-sweeping door, and an automatic soap dispenser/water dispenser/air dryer.

We then went down a street fairly filled with people, and meandered over there to have a falafel. There are a number of falafel places throughout Paris – maybe there is a large Turkish and Lebanese population? This restaurant seemed pretty authentic with some Jewish people sitting at tables nearby, and the falafels were very tasty. Duke had never had a falafel before, and thought he didn’t like them, but it turns out that he does.

Tomorrow will be a shopping day and more wandering with no real destination. Hopefully we wake up in time!

The Honeymoon - Day 7 (Monday)

2011-06-02T00:04:00.000-07:00

We woke up at 11:30am, yet another late start. We went to eat at Le Creperie du marais Stoojo Crep’s which was an extremely cute little place decorated in pink. The waitress/owner (?) was a wonderfully friendly woman who was very patient with our lack of French. Luckily, we had pre-Googled the menu and translated it, so we had a fairly good idea of what everything was.

Duke chose the regular ham and cheese crepe with a sugar crepe for dessert, and I had the Caribbean crepe which was curry chicken followed by a caramel crepe. For ambience and hospitality, this place is a definite five stars, but for taste of food? I’d give it a 3 stars. The salad wasn’t the freshest nor was the dressing very flavorful, and both of our crepes were very standard, if not a little bland. The waitress did make me a special homemade chili sauce for my crepe (she tried to explain it in English and asked if I liked pickles but I think she meant chilis), and it was extremely spicy. Not the spicy that gives flavor but just one that burns your mouth!

Anyhow, we walked back to the hotel since the crepes didn’t sit too well with Duke, and then headed out to Sainte Chapelle. This was the last day of our museum pass so we wanted to go to the last remaining sightseeing spots we wanted to see.

There was a slight line which was for a security checkpoint (no fast pass here with our museum pass), and we walked into the chapel. It was a nice room but most of it was taken up by a gift shop area which was a bit tacky. Duke and I took some pictures, and looked at each other with a “Is this it?” look but then we realized there was an upstairs.

This room is why people come to Sainte Chapelle. It has these magnificent tall stained glass windows which tell the story of the bible if you look at them clockwise. We couldn’t really see each picture’s depiction, but that’s what the pamphlet told us.

We then walked over to the Notre Dame which was very crowded, especially since admission was free. There were a number of people making offerings and lighting tealight candles, or even entering a glass (and very modern looking) confession booth.

We paid to enter the Treasury area (which we later found out was included in our pass. Darn it!), and saw some of the old Pope wardrobe and jewels. The coolest part was an area which had coins for every Pope that has ever existed.

After walking through the rest of Notre Dame, we wanted to go up the towers, but found out that they were closed. This was our first encounter to realizing that when French people say something is closing at a certain time, that doesn’t mean that you can go in until that time. That means everyone is out by that time which makes it impossible to predict when you can actually go somewhere – best guess would be at least 1.5 hours before.

We decided to head to the Pantheon which supposedly closed at 6:30pm (we hadn’t yet realized the closing time idea), and got turned away at 5:15pm. The building looked like a capitol and I guess we’ll just have to google what the inside looks like.

We had to go to the restroom so decided to enter a nearby McDonald’s. The two main menu items that are different are The Royal and Royal o’Fish. Duke opted for the Royal o’Fish with fried potatoes (wedges) and Coca-Cola (which is the drink of choice here in France). The Royal o’Fish tasted fine; nothing too much to write about.

We then started our walk towards the Eiffel Tower, looking for a restaurant we never found. We ended up at Sushi Yaki which was a horrible restaurant. It turns out that it was Chinese-owned too. I had a chirashi bowl and Duke had bouchettes which were like yakitori (but it was an assortment of meat, fish, and cheese). I thought my dish was edible but I thought Duke’s was pretty bad. Overall, very bad meal and a waste of money.

We continued our trek to the Eiffel tower, and saw the swarms of people. Randomly, I ran into an old coworker of mine Alan who was there. Pretty odd to bump into someone, given that he now lives in Singapore and we’re in California. Anyhow, we parted ways, and bought our tickets up to the summit.

The elevator ride up was pretty squished, and so was most of the time at the top. There were huge tour groups there blocking every passage and being pretty pushy so it was pretty annoying. Duke was hiding in a corner as well since he has a fear of heights and felt wobbly in the knees.

I took some photos the best I could without shaking and causing the photos to be blurry, but at the end of the night (around 11pm), the crowd was thinning. Before we knew it, there were probably only about 10 people left up there. This was when we were able to take some awesome photos. There were a couple boxes that we could set the camera on to do a self-timed photo of us, and I got to take some pictures resting against the fence without people bumping into me.

The night was beautiful, clear skies, and a lot of lights throughout the city. It was nice and romantic…until we got abruptly kicked out at 11:20pm (the tower closes at midnight). Duke had to use the restroom, but no, it had already closed, so we were stuck waiting for the elevator down with a bunch of people in the mid-layer of the tower with nowhere to go.

After the descent, we walked around to find the nearest metro. After some longer wait times since it was late at night, we found our way home (and Duke got to use the restroom...finally).

The Honeymoon - Day 6 (Sunday)

2011-06-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

I don’t remember what time we started our day, but every day has been a fairly late start for us since we have just been exhausted. We went to eat lunch at a highly reviewed Japanese restaurant called Kunitoraya. I was so excited to go since all the reviews were very positive, saying how authentic it was, etc. Alas, we were disappointed! It ended up costing nearly $40 for two bowls of udon. And the udon wasn’t even very flavorful – they didn't even provide any of that spicy powder to sprinkle in the broth. I had it with tempura and Duke had it with beef. The only neat part of it was that you crawl down this small staircase and basically eat in a cave-looking room. Otherwise, it was an overblown, over-rated meal.

We then walked over to the Musee de L’Orangerie which is right next to the Louvre. It is best known for having the rooms that Monet designed which are ovals in all white decorated by the Water Lilies that he painted. It was a beautiful room, and completely tranquil. I really loved it, and highly recommend seeing it if you like Monet at all. He apparently designed it that way to give the people hope and peace as they were surrounded by war at the time.

The downstairs area has several other artists including Cezanne and Soutine (a new discovery for me whose art is pretty interesting since it looks all warped). This museum is quite small though, so it was a short little pit stop for us.

We then strolled through the gardens, relaxed in the sun for a little while, and then headed into the Louvre. We knew we had to complete the Sully wing which we had neglected the other couple trips in, so that’s where we focused. We saw a lot of Egyptian art here, and Duke really loved it again.

We came out to look at a few stores in the Carousel de Louvre which is like an underground shopping area, and then went back in the Louvre until closing to go see a couple more items that Duke noticed that we hadn’t seen. That was it for our Louvre time. Duke was sad to leave and wanted to spend more time there but I think 3 big chunks of days there is enough for me.

We had dinner at a Korean restaurant near our hotel called Ossek Garden. We had the seafood pancake here as well, and it was excellent. Duke’s soondooboo was sub-par and was more like a broth than a tofu stew, and the jaeyook kimchi bokum (tofu & spicy pork) had the right flavor but the quality of the pork was terrible and basically all fat. We also realized that all of the workers were Chinese. This was the first time that we realized that almost all of the Asian restaurants (even if they’re Japanese, Vietnamese, or Korean) are Chinese-owned. We’re more used to Korean-owned places like in the US for sushi. Haha.

The Honeymoon - Day 5 (Saturday)

2011-06-01T23:57:00.000-07:00

We woke up around 2pm or something ridiculous like that. This trip has made us so fatigued, it’s quite bizarre. Duke has never slept so much. Anyhow, we found out that a bunch of places close for lunch at 2:30pm and open back up at 7pm, so we were pretty screwed in terms of finding any quality places to eat lunch. Of course there are cafes that are open but our luck with those has been slim.

We decided to go to Musee Rodin first, and this was a nice small museum. There is a nice outside courtyard lined with sculptures, and the inside has a lot more sculptures as well. We saw “The Thinker” which was really cool to see in real life, but it just supports the fact that I don’t know art. I can’t tell why that held so much accolade versus some of the other sculptures which seem to be pretty good in their own right.

After the museum, we went to Bon Marche which is a pretty upscale department store. I thought there was a food court in there but the store we went in only had a café and restaurant. We ate at the café, and I had a tourte au legumes which turned out to be pretty good. It tasted a little like a healthy pizza. Duke hated his Caesar salad though.

We walked around the store looking at all this furniture that we couldn’t afford, perused the book section, and finally made our exit. We stopped to sit at a local park and just did some people watching. I noticed that all little girls are in skirts and they’re never dressed with pants. At least none that I saw. Pretty interesting, I think.

We then found a gourmet grocery store near Bon Marche (maybe the same sister-store since they were connected), and saw a lot of neat items to buy. There is “Party Fizz” which is basically non-alcoholic champagne for kids, fully decorated with Disney characters, etc., and a number of nice crackers/cookies/chocolates. We will definitely have to stop by there again to pick some goodies for home.

We then went to eat at Au Pied du Fouet, another place found from Yelp. The was also a tiny establishment, and we were seated right away as they had just opened.

For starters, I ordered the soup of the day which was some green/vegetable broth. I don’t actually know what it was but it tasted fine. Duke had the tomato & mozzarella which was fresh and good. For main courses, I ordered duck confit and Duke ordered the special of the day which was Cote de Boeuf. A neighboring table was served a plate of raw steak, and Duke felt sick since he thought that was his dish. It turned out it wasn’t, and while his steak was rare, it was at least cooked some. My duck was quite nice, and the crispy skin was definitely reminiscent of some fried pork skin at Chinese places.

Both of our dishes had mashed potatoes which were creamy and very nice. We also had a couple glasses of wine to go with the meal (it’s actually more expensive to buy soda than wine). For dessert, I had pudding cake with crème anglaise which was very good and similar to other British desserts I’ve had, and Duke ordered an upside down apple tart. He liked the apple tart part but it was accompanied by extremely tarty yogurt which disgusted him.

All in all, the restaurant was a cool place to have dinner. The staff/owners were extremely friendly, and it made me think how patient all these business owners must be since they often get customers who don’t speak their language. I don’t think you’d find that kind of patience in the US.

After dinner, we headed to the Louvre. It was a special night where all the museums opened up at night and were free to the public. We went around various exhibits until about 11:30pm. We’ve covered quite a bit of the Louvre but we may head back for one more day to finish up some areas that we have not yet seen. Duke loves it there though, it’s been his highlight for sure.

The Honeymoon - Day 4 (Friday)

2011-06-01T23:51:00.000-07:00

We headed to Versailles in the morning which ended up being a fairly long train ride (we went the wrong direction initially). Upon arrival, the place was already teeming with tourists. There was also a lot of construction going on which detracted from the actual palace. Nonetheless, we were still impressed by the grandeur. I have been here before but I was able to see some additional places that I hadn’t before this time around.

Duke seemed pretty underwhelmed by the palace though since he felt it was much smaller than the old Palace (where the Louvre now is). It turns out that the Louvre is 20% larger so his instincts were right. We went through the main rooms looking at the various apartments and halls. It was really claustrophobic with way too many people and tour groups. We tried to get through this as fast as possible.

It was lunch time, so we headed to Angelina Café which was in the palace. The food was excellent (well, at least mine was). Duke had a club sandwich which wasn’t too exciting nor did he enjoy it much for lack of meat (I think there was maybe one slice of ham), but my salad was amazing. I had some smoked salmon on top of a nicoise style salad and the most amazing soy sauce/mustard dressing. Yum. I also had a cup of their hot chocolate which was rich beyond belief but also quite tasty. After lunch, we saw the adjacent sister-stand which would have been a much cheaper alternative than where we ate for a full service meal, but oh well. We didn’t know. I did buy a financier though and it was so good! I miss eating those – I used to eat them quite frequently when I was in NY b/c there was a French bakery/coffee-shop next to where I worked. Funny how I forgot about that place completely, but now I remember the goodness again!

We then spent a lot of time in the gardens. The gardens are just phenomenal. You’ve really never seen anything like it, so Duke was finally impressed. He was really tired all day though so he kept napping on various benches while I meandered around taking photos. We went through a lot of the garden, and headed over to the areas that I had never been – closer to where Marie Antoinette’s palace was. These gardens were not as expansive but they were still very nice. I also liked that this part was less crowded since most tour groups don’t extend out to those properties. We went through a few of those buildings but I guess once you’ve seen one gaudy room, you’ve seen them all. Haha.

After more extensive walking, we were pretty pooped and headed back to the hotel. Duke’s friend Andre and his wife Jen happened to be in Paris, so we e-mailed back and forth and found a place for dinner. We met up at the Restaurant of Robert & Louise around 9:30pm. Apparently this place was featured in “No Reservations” but I have never seen the show. We found it mainly b/c of positive Yelp reviews, and we were not disappointed!!

This was probably the best, most authentic French dining experience we have had. The restaurant is small, jam packed with people, and we are seated at a picnic table of sorts alongside another group of people. The cook has slabs of raw meat fresh from the butcher on his cutting board, and he is literally cutting up the meat right behind us, and he throws them on a grill atop a fire burning in a fireplace.

We started off with some red wine, and as a starter, we ordered escargot, fresh sausage, and foie gras. Andre and Jen are big foie gras fans so that was their pick, and it was surprisingly good (I usually dislike it). But, the best part of this dish was this amazing orange-looking bread. It was sweet and absolutely heavenly. Wow, it was good. The escargot was amazing as well, and the sausage was good too. A French guy sitting next to us asked how the sausage was, and said he wanted to try it next time, so we offered him a piece, and he took one. He seemed to thoroughly enjoy it as well.

For our main course, Duke and I both had the filet, Andre had a rack of lamb, and Jen had duck. We all shared some potatoes and salad. The potatoes were cooked beautifully, and also another highlight of the meal. Steak was pretty good but I guess overall, you’d still say that steak in the US tastes better. For dessert, we shared a couple crème bruleees which I thought were decent.

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to hang out a little, then went to a nearby late-night place. I’ll have to go by there again to get the name, but it was a decent place for some drinks. We had a bottle of Riesling, and shared a couple starters (eggs with mayonnaise – this isn’t as good as deviled eggs since it’s basically a regular hardboiled egg with mayonnaise on top; and this thin pizza thing which was actually pretty light and tasty).

It was about 3am when we all called it a night. It was a nice way to spend a Friday night in Paris!!

The Honeymoon - Day 3 (Thursday)

2011-05-25T00:14:00.000-07:00

We woke up at 12:45pm. Wow, we slept for over 12 hours, and the only reason we woke up was b/c housekeeping banged on the door. Duke has never slept that long (I can’t say the same for me), so it was a real shock that we were scrambling to pack and get ready to go. Thank goodness for late check-out.

We took the metro to Republique which is close by to the Hotel Gabriel Paris Marais, our hotel for the remainder of our stay. The hotel is definitely a boutique hotel with a tiny elevator, slender halls, and a really modern look. There are backlights throughout the walls which make the hotel seem really hip.

Even though the room is much smaller than the Intercontinental, we like this hotel much better! It’s very clean, sleek, and made to fit. The Intercontinental had large bulky furniture (a table, a large armoire, 2 chairs, etc) which made the room impossible to get around in. This room has a nice open floor space, and everything fits in its own little place. The TV is within a bookshelf; the nightstands all have little cubby holes to put stuff in, and there are a lot of “walls” that you push in to find a storage compartment or even the mini-bar inside. The shower also has a half glass wall thing, but at least there is no hinge so it leaks less.

The location is also superb. Many metro lines cross Republique, and the area itself feels very much like Union Square in New York. Busy, but definitely a different vibe than the more populated/touristy Times Square or Opera/Champs Elysees area we were in.

We grabbed a very late lunch at Leon. I wouldn’t say it’s such a good place that we had to go to it twice, but it was convenient, and we wanted to try the Mariniere preparation of the mussels. This was definitely better than the one I had before and this location’s prices were much cheaper. Duke now thinks that this meal was the best we’ve had in Paris, but I still prefer the Korean place thus far.

We then headed to the Musee D’Orsay which stays open late on Thursdays. This was actually a really nice museum, even though it’s pretty small. There are a number of nice Impressionist paintings as well as some other sections that are neat to walk through (there is a rather large section for German composer Mahler). The museum was under construction though so who knows what the actual place looked like. It was still arranged nicely, so it’s fine. The central lobby area is very grand with nice sculptures lining the center.

I was very sleepy though, despite the many hours of sleep that we had, and took brief little naps sitting on the stone bench waiting for Duke. I don’t know if I’m a huge museum person – I like them, appreciate them, but get kind of bored easily so I went through the museum at a much faster pace than he. It was cool to see the Whistler painting of the old woman, Monet’s paintings (haystacks, water lilies), and Van Gogh’s self-portrait. There were also some nice pointillism works as well.

After the museum, we walked over to Notre Dame. It was closed but it was nice to see the outside. We’ll venture over there again later this trip. We had dinner at Deux Palais which we thought was a restaurant we had looked up, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t very good either. We both ordered steaks and shared a salad. Everything was very average. Bah.

We did go around the corner to Glacer Berthillon to get some crepes which we thought we had read about as well but it wasn’t. However, the crepe was very good though – piping hot and filled with nutella. Duke sat around bored though b/c their milkshake machine wasn’t working and that’s all he had wanted. We later found out that Glacer Berthillon is like a chain that gets partnered with various cafes around the city. They're terrific, so stop by for one!!

We took the metro back to Republique, walked around a little to pick up some water, and called it a night. Tomorrow, we head to Versailles. The trip is better already, and is sure to get better now that we’re away from that dreadful Opera area where everything is geared towards ripping off tourists.

The Honeymoon - Day 2 (Wednesday)

2011-05-25T00:10:00.000-07:00

We woke up at around 7:30am, got ready, and headed down towards the Louvre. We stopped at Paul which is a bakery (later to be known that it was a chain), and went to the Passage Richelieu which is a special entrance for pass holders. This made buying the pass worth it already, since we bypassed all of the really long lines. We breezed through a lot of exhibits really quickly just to see what was around, and I recognized certain things such as the Napoleon apartments that I had seen before. We stumbled upon the really famous section containing the sculpture with the angel wings (Winged Victory of Samothrace), Venus de Milo, and the Mona Lisa. Duke was pretty impressed, and we decided that we should rent the headphones to get some more context to what we were seeing when we came back.

But, it was time to eat lunch so we took a long stroll out of the Louvre, through the gardens, and ended up back at the obelisk and down Champs-Elysees. We stopped at Leon to eat mussels from Bruxelles (spelled this way just so Duke can stop telling me that Belgian mussels are only known b/c of Van Damme). The mussels were ok but I blame it more on the preparation than the mussels b/c they were fresh. I ordered them a la Provencale which was more of a tomato base with black olives instead of the classic Mariniere style with white wine and garlic. Next time I’ll get that kind. Duke had his au gratin which basically meant they were covered in cheese, and his 2^nd dish was topped with chorizo so it tasted like a pizza.

After lunch, we decided to just meander towards the Arc since we were already so close by. Again, the museum pass proved useful as we completely bypassed the line. We hiked up the 220+ steps to the top, and saw a nice view of Paris. We had a couple cool perspective shots where it looks like we’re holding the Eiffel Tower in the palm of our hand, and it was then time to come back down and head back toward the Louvre. Though, we never made it back there.

We took a couple detours looking around different neighborhoods, and ended up walking through Printemps and Galleries de Lafayette which are huge department stores with lots of name-brand stations lined throughout. The Galleries de Lafayette were more underwhelming than I remembered, but it still has a beautiful layout of the various floors and lights if you look toward the center of the store.

We headed back to the hotel and ended up taking a 2 hour nap, and it was time to head to dinner. We found a local Korean restaurant (Sa Lang) which ended up being surprisingly good. Duke had the soondooboo and I had Yuk Gae Jang (served in a stone bowl which I hadn’t seen before). We also shared a seafood pancake which was probably one of the best ones I’ve had in years. Based on pure taste and value for the money, this has been our best meal. Who knew.

We wandered around some more and went to an internet café to do some research on restaurants (we’re pretty darn sick of spending oogles of money on bad food), and how to get to our next hotel where we’ll be staying for the remainder of the trip.

We continue walking around and end up at a restaurant/dessert place. I ordered an ice cream with strawberries and bananas as well as a nutella-like drink. Duke ordered ice cream with nougat and whipped cream and hot chocolate. Soon after he started eating, he had an allergic reaction and took some Benadryl. We don’t know if it was the nougat or the hot chocolate that made him react but we’ll be more careful next time. I felt really bad since I told him that nougat would have been fine. The desserts were extremely rich, and weren't that great which made it even worse that Duke had to suffer for that! :(

We’re now back at the hotel, and ready to sleep. Tomorrow is a new day, and we’re both actually just so beat that it’s hard to really enjoy ourselves. I do wonder if we should have gone to a beach/tropical paradise for a honeymoon instead. I don’t think Duke likes it much here since he’s not a big city person. I was really surprised that he suggested Paris as a destination in the first place, but he seems very underwhelmed by everything. Everyone is driving a motorcycle except him; everyone is smoking except him; and no one will serve a cold Pepsi without charging you $15 for one. Those three things combined are probably his version of hell. How sad.

Hopefully the rest of the trip gets better.

The Honeymoon - Day 1 (Tuesday)

2011-05-24T22:03:00.000-07:00

Bon Voyage!

We left for the airport bright and early at 4am on Monday morning. We flew from LAX to MIA with a couple hour layover. We ate at this absolutely horrible Caribbean restaurant at the airport, and had to follow the meal with some Nathan’s hot dogs. The flight from MIA to CDG was long and painful. We were in a stodgy old plane, and Duke could barely fit in the seat. It was really sad – he couldn’t sleep at all which meant that I wasn’t going to get much sleep either. After 9 hours of the flight, we landed around 9am in Paris.

I was in Paris a few years back for a few days, and was always so surprised at how nice French people were to us Americans, despite the reputation. This time around, it was not the case.

We wanted to take the Roissybus to Paris since it dropped us off at the Opera which was right next to the Intercontinental Le Grande Hotel where we were staying. Unfortunately, the Roissybus ticket machine didn’t take foreign credit cards even though it says it takes Mastercard/Visa. We withdrew some cash and went back to the machine, only to find out that it only takes coins. This, I didn’t understand b/c it’s not like it costs 2 euro (which is a coin). Rather, it costs almost 19 euro for the two of us. We weren’t sure if we could pay on the Roissybus or if they’d have change, so I set off to try to obtain some coins, or at least some change. I didn’t want to get caught having the bus fare cost just over 20 euros, and I had to give 40 euro with no change back. This ended up not being the case, but I’ll get to that later.

I went into McDonald’s to see if they could break a 20, and the cashier rudely waves me off with a resounding No! Ok, I’ll venture somewhere else. The next lady was one of those airline employees who usher you into a line. I ask her where I might be able to get change, and she glares at me and says “Buy something!” Um, ok. I went back to check in with Duke, and we figured we’d gamble with paying directly on the bus. A Roissybus pulls up, and quickly drives away. Huh? We didn’t even have a chance to see if that was the right bus. 10 minutes later, a second arrives. We figured we had learned our lesson so we quickly moved toward the bus and waved at it. The driver looked right at us and never stopped.

What?

Figuring I had another 10 minutes, I made one more attempt at getting change. This time, I stopped at a bakery, and the woman was super rude just snapping at me saying No No No. So, I decided to buy a cookie for 1.80. The lady gave me the most annoyed look, so instead of just breaking a 20, I gave her a 50, just to piss her off. And it did. Ha.

Anyhow, now I had a few small bills, and as I approached, a Roissybus had stopped at the curb! Hooray! It turned out that all that fiasco for change was for naught since the bus fare was the same as the machine and the driver had change for a 20 for us.

So, the bus ride was fine and it has turned out to be the best deal we have seen here in France. We check into the hotel which is very upscale and swanky. If you were to walk in to get a room, it costs 750 euro per night. Wowza, that’s expensive. We had hotel points so our 2 nights are free. We count our blessings, and are eagerly awaiting to get up to the room and get a little rest. Then, we get into the room, look around, and…hmmm, wow, this is it. It’s a really small room. Duke is bumping into everything, and quickly the room looks like a cluttered mess with our luggage taking up a ton of the room even though we only have 2 bags.

The bathroom is pretty darn ridiculous as well. It’s one of those half-walls made of glass (and this one had a pivot too so there was an opening along the wall), so even though there is a covering, the entire bathroom gets flooded. I really don’t understand why you wouldn’t just have a full glass wall/door or a curtain. We basically used up all of the fresh towels to sop up all the puddles on the floor.

Needless to say, the hotel is less than impressive, and gosh, if I were to have paid 750 euro for this place (or even the 500 euro if you book ahead of time), I’d be pretty pissed off.

The location, however, is very good for tourist attractions but bad b/c everything is crazy overpriced. Duke is so tired, he basically falls right asleep so I went to go walk around a bit. I found the Paris tourism office to learn about the museum pass and transit pass, and also just to get my bearings straight.

I went back to the hotel to wake Duke up for lunch. We headed to Chet Chavez which turns out to be a chain here. The food was actually really decent – I had a cream of cucumber soup (I chose to have it served cold) and Duke had a tomato & shallot salad, both of which were very good. We both chose the Aveyron sausage and fries for our main entrée, which was fairly decent as well. I learned that Badoit rouge is a type of mineral water, and Duke had a Pepsi. This was a package lunch special so it was expensive but not as exorbitant as other places as we would soon find out.

After lunch, we went to buy the passes at the Tourism office, and headed back to the hotel for a nap. That nap ended up lasting 5 hours, and we woke up around 9:30pm. We figured we should stay up until about 2am to try to get over the jetlag, and we grabbed some dinner at Café Olympia. This place was not so good. I had a ham and cheese crepe, and Duke had a grilled cheese with ham sandwich. Both were mediocre at best, and they were very expensive. This was also when we realized that drinks were ridiculous. Ordering a half-liter cost over 5 euro and a small Pepsi (smaller than a can) can cost 8-9 euro. Wow. This is really absurd since we had actually bought drinks at a market for 5 euro (4 1.5-liter Pepsi’s and 1 1-liter water).

Anyway, we ended walking around the obelisk, down Champs Elysees and to the Arc de Triomphe. It was nice to be in this always-busy part of the city at night since it was quiet and relaxing. We headed back to the hotel to get some sleep around 2am.

Wedding Vendor Reviews

2011-05-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

Vendors (for anyone who may want recommendations or is just curious!):

Lighting – I’ll leave off the vendor name (you can ask if you’re interested), but it was ok. The pinspot looked nice on the cake. The venue lights seemed pretty normal. I felt that the lighting guy could have been more creative with suggestions on how to best utilize the lights but basically just listened to what I wanted when I clearly told him I have no idea about lights and what would look good. He was also fairly slow at responding to me once I paid in full! L But, the huge positive is that he is much more affordable than the other lighting people I spoke to.

Officiant – again, I’ll leave off her name. A wonderfully polite lady, and she was easy to work with before the ceremony, but I don’t know if she completely understood the flow and intonation of the ceremony as we would have wanted it. That coupled with the botched-up e-reader usage was really disappointing.

Ondine Ensemble (String trio) – amazing performers, very easy to work with, and responsive. It definitely made the event a classy one.

Empora Flora – the most unique and awesome florist. She is an amazing person who is completely artistic and passionate about bringing joy to people through flowers. I loved working with her. The flower arrangements were very different, colorful, and modern.

Final Touch Bakery – wonderful tasting cake, beautiful simple design, and extremely affordable for the high quality.

Battleson Entertainment – Gus was our DJ who was easy to work with. He dealt with the crowd very well, and had a great personality. He did a fantastic job. The only slight misstep was that he played “Celebration” twice during the night, but other than that, he was outstanding and gave us an evening that we would never forget.

Bowers Museum – working with the venue was very smooth. They were extremely responsive on e-mail, and very patient with all of my detailed questions! The venue is so unique and an awesome place to get married!

Patina Catering – working with them was great. The main coordinator was terrific at responding to multiple e-mails, going through the details, and helping to coordinate a wonderful evening. The food was spectacular and an obvious hit among the guests. The wait staff was all professional and courteous.

Mon Amie Bridal Salon – selection of dresses is awesome. I only went to this one store and found the dress. I did have some issues – major pressure about when to order the dress and getting charged extensive rush fees to get the dress in on time. The dress came much much earlier than expected which was good but it does make you wonder if those hundreds of dollars you spent on rushing it was really that necessary. Alterations were also crazy expensive. I did not use them – they try to scare you into them which wasn’t that cool.

Rose Alterations – amazing tailor and super-duper affordable! Her costs are about a third of what Mon Amie would have charged, and she did an amazing job. She is really nice and very easy to work with. I’m going to use her for anything else I need altered (special occasion or not!)

Bella Bridesmaid – selection of dresses was decent but the dresses are pricey since they’re designer dresses. I went to the OC store, and the owner was wonderfully nice and easy to work with. She was very friendly and helpful with a recommendation for a make-up artist.

Yau-Fuw – she was my make-up artist. She doesn’t really do make-up that much anymore given her job and family responsibilities but she is awesome! Very energetic personality, and her make-up skills are really great. She makes you look amazing while still looking like you. She also gives lots of tips on which make-up to use on a normal basis!

Debbie – she was my hair stylist. We had some miscommunications in the beginning, but I’m glad I didn’t give up on her. Overall, she was very reliable and affordable. I loved the hair on the actual day of, and she was super friendly and amenable to various requests.

The Wedding

2011-05-14T22:50:00.000-07:00

The wedding is now a memory. Six months of planning, and I have to say that it all went really smoothly. I even got to have my Smashing Pumpkins wedding, which I didn’t really think I would have. J

We all met up on Friday for the rehearsal at the Bowers Museum. We spent a bit of time getting organized, figuring out where everyone was walking from, etc., and introducing everyone to each other, and it was soon off to dinner at McCormick & Schmick's. The dinner was good and casual. Duke had a few impromptu words to thank everyone, and the rest of the evening was just to enjoy each other’s company. We also gave gifts to the wedding party, and Duke’s “joke but not a joke” gift of a Phantom lapboard for Wayne and John was a hit. Haha. I gave all the ladies various skincare products, hopefully to their liking.

The one random memory that I’ll just jot down is that the event contact person who had been working with me to get everything set up had a pretty absurd assumption. When I finally met her I figured she knew I was the bride. Oh no…Shortly after arriving, she asks Sharon & Sean if they are the bride and groom. Uh…what? They point to Duke and me, and the lady says “Oh, I thought you were the mother of the groom b/c I usually deal with the mother to set up the rehearsal dinner. I was a little confused how you could possibly have a son who was of an age to get married when you look so young!” Wow…that’s pretty silly. Common sense sometimes escapes people, I guess.

We transferred all of the various wedding items after dinner (party favors, menus, table numbers, programs, etc) to Chelsea’s car, and she was completely organized and ready to go! She was absolutely essential, and I’m so grateful to have a friend like that who can understand my zaniness and execute exactly what I had in my mind in reality. She and Sharon (as well as their significant others) ended up being great, responsible point people from doing hair, setting up tables, maneuvering parking, and manning the video camera. Awesome friends!!

My mom, sister, and I headed to the Fairmont Newport Beach to stay for the night, and we woke up bright and early at 7:30am on Saturday. I slept pretty well given the circumstances with only an hour in the middle of the night where I was a bit anxious and awake.

Our make-up artist arrived at 8am, and her bubbly personality was definitely a huge positive to get us started and awake. Duke’s mom and niece joined us in the room to get their make-up done, followed by Erika and Lisa. Our hair stylist arrived around 10am and started working her magic. The suite was a bit small for a suite but big enough to have make-up and hair going on in different rooms so we could stay on schedule. Sharon came by with lunch, and it was her turn to do hair for Duke’s mom and niece.

Time passed pretty quickly and we surprisingly ran very much on time. At first, I thought it was pretty crazy that we were starting to get ready at 8am when we didn’t have to get to the venue until closer to 4pm, but we really did need all that time to get everyone just right and not rush. The photographers came around 2:45pm to capture the getting-ready shots, and I knew right away that I’d be happy with them. I had only met Kwon (the primary photographer) in the studio once sincet Andy, the owner of the studio, did our engagement session. I had some apprehension not knowing Kwon’s style but he was really great and particular with what he was trying to capture, and you could tell he had an artist's mindset. I’m very anxious to see the final pictures since I have a feeling they will be absolutely fantastic!

After we were all ready to go, we headed over to the venue. I walk into the reception hall, and Chelsea is on top of it all. The vendors were all awesome and responsible – the lighting guys were already setting up, the florist was there, the bakery had already delivered the cake, etc.

We got our bouquets and boutineers, and we headed over to the south side of the museum for wedding party shots. This side of the museum is the more historic/Spanish architecture side, and I’m glad that we were able to have some good shots here since the rest of the wedding would be on the more contemporary side of the museum. We were fortunate that we were the only wedding that evening, so the entire museum grounds were open to us without any hassle.

Time flew by, and it was already 5:30pm and time to go hide in the auditorium. There was a back passage through the auditorium that connects outside through a fire escape, so you can get the to start of the aisle without anyone seeing you. Guests came very close to 6pm, so we actually started about 15 minutes later than scheduled to make sure people were there and ready. We lined up, and it was soon show time.

The string trio kicked off the evening with Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring for the Seating of the Mothers. Duke’s dad escorted his mom, and my brother escorted my mom. The bridal party walked down the aisle to Canon in D. Avery was our flower girl, and she did a great job helping Dylan as he bore the ring bearer responsibility (carrying our actual rings!). There was much debate if he could handle it but in the end, it was great. He walked down without dropping anything, and presented the rings for my brother to hold. Much more meaningful than giving him a pair of ghetto, fake rings to pass off, in my opinion.

My dad and I walked down the aisle to Con Te Partiro (the song most often associated with the Bellagio fountain show these days). I walked in, and the ceremony looked exactly the way I wanted it to, if not better. All the chairs were filled with our closest friends and family, and it really felt like a small, intimate ceremony. I started feeling pretty choked up even before we started walking down the aisle. I said I love you to my dad and put myself in some danger teary territory! And, as I walked down the aisle, I saw my sister with tears streaming down her face which of course made me well up even more (this was a shock to me since I didn’t expect it – she's not usually the most publicly sentimental person - apparently she was already feeling teary and then Duke’s mom was balling at her seat which of course triggered waterworks everywhere else!).

So it turns out that it was really good that we had helped write the ceremony b/c to be honest, I really couldn’t listen/hear the words for what they were when the officiant was saying them. It’s a strange thing standing there staring into your future husband’s face with everyone watching you do so. The officiant did the best she could, but she was probably the low point of the entire wedding. She used this e-reader type device (not sure which one), and it seemed like she had never used it before. She would lose her place and pause at random (and obviously not sensible) places, fumble around the e-reader trying to find her place, and continue. It disrupted the flow a lot, and I really don’t know if people understood what messages we were trying to convey. She also seemed to have trouble with the microphone which gave her some feedback, and sounded extremely nervous.

Nonetheless, the vows went over well. Duke spoke clearly and so did I. Duke did forget the length of our vows though since he thought they were done after a set that said “as long as we both shall live” which usually would be a concluding statement, but we did have a couple more statements after that. He was a bit surprised that they kept going, but oh well, it made people chuckle a bit. Duke was actually quite good about being a little silly in a serious occasion, and every time he saw me about to tear up (I am a sentimental sap), he would make a face at me to make me laugh so I wouldn’t cry.

I had another “almost-crying” moment when I was wrapping up my vows and putting the ring on Duke’s finger. My voice quivered, and it was just a bit of a flood of emotion. It’s always surprising to me that an inanimate object like a ring could mean so much and have such an impact on how I’m feeling. Symbolism is a powerful thing, much more than I’ve ever really given it credit.

The ceremony ended with a “Duke, you may kiss your wife” so we had a quick kiss, and Duke gave another quick kiss as he covered our faces with his hand while pointing to the parking lot to distract people. That made people laugh, so third time's a charm, and he now used the bouquet to cover us and he went for another kiss, and some more people laughed.

We had our recessional to “In My Life” by the Beatles. Not sure who recognized the song, but it was cool. The ceremony was very short. Including the processional of everyone walking down and to the end of the ceremony, it was about 15 minutes. We actually have the ceremony on video so I’m really glad that we had decided to set up a camcorder since I wasn’t able to see what everyone else could.

After the ceremony, people were ushered into a hallway for the cocktail hour. The strings continued to play in there, and everyone enjoyed the hors d’ouevres while we did family and friend pictures outside. I wanted to spend some time in the cocktail hour, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to. I only had one of the hors d’ouevres, but I heard from all the guests that they were an enormous hit! J I did taste most of them during the tasting, so I knew that the food would be well-received. We had ahi tuna on a sesame cracker, short rib skewers, artichoke & cheese, and duck confit on a risotto cake. The only one I had never tried was the artichoke one, but it seemed to be a good one particularly for the vegetarians.

Everyone was seated promptly and on time, and actually earlier than we anticipated. Because I didn’t have any time during the cocktail hour, we were going to let it go for an extra 10 minutes so I could mingle a little, but when we came out to extend it, everyone was already seated. We rolled with it, and it was then time for our Grand Entrance. We walked in to Miserlou (the song from Pulp Fiction) which brought a strange glance among the parents since they didn’t know how to walk to such a song. Haha. The rest of the wedding party was really cool about walking out with some energy and dance moves, and it was then time for the toasts.

My dad went first, and I could tell he was nervous. He welcomed the guests, and then went on to talk about some other historic events that also occurred on May 7. He spoke a bit about me obviously, and gave some jokes about making sure that Duke did some household chores (no husband has been reported being murdered while doing the dishes or laundry or taking out the trash). Even though the speech was more formal, he made me cry. It’s my dad. I can’t help it.

My brother followed his toast as Best Man. I wasn’t sure how it would go down since he seemed to prepare the least out of those who were supposed to speak, but it ended up being a good speech (despite a white lie about flipping a coin and letting Lady Luck decide if he'd let Duke and I start dating). Haha. My dad stole his thunder on his jokes though b/c he, too, wanted to comment on helping out around the house, and challenging Duke to do them since he’s uber-competitive.

Duke’s friend, Mark, followed with a groomsman toast. We figured that it wouldn’t be too great if this was purely the Cindy show (my dad, my brother, and my sister with all the toasts), so we had to have at least one person who knew Duke before me and could fairly represent for him. Haha. Mark’s speech was actually really good. We don’t know how much people appreciated some of his anecdotes (size of chat logs that he and I have had in a short amount of time when we first met) but we did. Mark has been a great friend to both of us, and it was cool to hear a bit of how he’s thought that Duke has grown since being with me. I, of course, am heavily biased into thinking I’m the best thing for him, but it’s a nice affirmation to see that I really did make a difference in his life, and his friend can notice the positive influence too.

The last speech was done by my sister as Matron of Honor. Consensus was that she had the best speech. My sister isn’t traditionally an outwardly emotional person even though she is inside. She tried her best not to make the speech sentimental since she didn’t want to cry, but she started off the toast almost crying anyhow. She said a lot of nice things about me, and how close and important we are to each other. And, she was really great about talking about Duke’s involvement with her kids, etc. acknowledging how we set up a slip 'n' slide in our backyard just for him, and buying dough and other materials just to make pizza with him. Usually, Duke and I are the type of people to always give to others and talk up other people, so it was really special to hear that those deeds aren’t unnoticed and that people do appreciate us.

After the toasts, dinner service began. Duke and I sat at a Sweetheart table, so it was just the two of us. This was the first quiet moment I had, and I finally was able to get a look around. The venue looked amazing. The flowers looked awesome. The cocktail tables had these cool vases filled with water encircled by orchids and metal wire; the main tables had beautiful tall vases with Manzanita branches and Sorbonne lilies as a base, coupled with some subtly falling orchids.

The party favors blended in well (they were personalized pint glasses of Eat, Drink, and Be Married). The teal uplights in the room were a great accent. I don’t know if they were completely necessary but as the night grew darker, it gave the room a warmer feel. The menus and napkins looked perfect with flower accents. The cake looked amazing with a pinspot light and the cute panda topper. I know I wasn’t able to see all of the details, but from what I saw, it was exactly what I had imagined. I loved the clean, modern look. I’m really looking forward to seeing all the photos.

The first course was the lemon-crab risotto. We hadn’t tasted this before the wedding, but it turned out to be pretty good. I thought it had a little bit too much cheese for my taste, but at least there were large chunks of crab in there, and the risotto was cooked nicely. I was happy with the dish. Other guests thought it was the best risotto they had ever tasted! Duke and I were finished with our dishes as people were still being served, so we decided to make our rounds.

The photographer was really great about keeping us very efficient. We greeted each table and took a photo with each group. We didn’t spend too much time mingling at this point, and just went around to each of the 10 tables in a pretty quick fashion. This was really cool to me, actually, since it was important that Duke and I had time to actually eat our dinner. After all, I found the Bowers Museum venue as a result of finding out who Patina Catering worked with! Hehe.

The main entrée was a dual entrée with filet mignon and dover sole, accompanied by “corn-sotto” and asparagus. Amazing. The steak was to die for, and cooked absolutely perfectly. I was really happy we decided to go with medium-rare since we were told that often the steaks have to sit due to the large volume being cooked, and by the time you eat it, they are medium. So, if you start with medium, they may become well-done. This is exactly how it was for our steaks anyway since they were medium when we ate them. Anyhow, the dover sole was pretty good – nothing too fancy but it was a good contrast to the steak.

We got numerous compliments about the food such as “We’ve been to 15-20 weddings, and this had the best food!” and “Wow, the hors d’ouerves were amazing. I was eating plates and plates of them”, etc. I was really happy since we are big food-lovers, so having awesome food was a definite must, and it seemed that the quality was high enough for people to really appreciate the difference. J

After dinner, we showed our slideshow. We had a bit of 1-minute snag when one of the two screens didn’t come down, but it was quickly fixed, and the show was restarted. A lot of our family members said the slideshow was the highlight of the evening for them, and many requested copies of it, so I’m glad that it was a hit. It took hours and hours to get it the way we wanted, so I’m glad it was appreciated, and of course, it’ll be a great keepsake for us as we get older.

It was then time to do our first dance to “Hey There Delilah” – a very atypical song, probably, but it means something to Duke and me. We first heard it when I was living in New York, and there are some relevant lyrics in there for us. Our other song is “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” but those lyrics are pretty morbid and probably not appropriate for a wedding. Haha, though the song did make it into our dinner service music. J

The first dance was a bit awkward since Duke and I have no idea how to dance. Even though we were only supposed to dance there for a minute and a half, it felt like an eternity so we gave the DJ a very obvious “let’s cut it short” look, and he did so. Haha.

Then it was time for the Father/Daughter dance which was to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, the Israel K. version. My dad isn’t a big dancer either, and was completely nervous and awkward! I felt really bad for him since he was clearly just looking at everyone looking at us, and having random ramblings to me. It was probably the most scatter-brained I have ever seen my dad, but I think the whole wedding situation has thrown him for a loop. I’m the youngest daughter, and extremely close to my dad, so I think he dealt with the wedding in some not so ideal ways, but I don’t think he could really let himself feel what he really was feeling…if that makes any sense to anyone except me.

After a minute and a half, Duke’s mom and he joined us for the next minute and a half of the song. They seemed to have some sentimental moments with some more tears from his mom. Hehe. She definitely wears her heart on her sleeve, and Duke loves her so much that I’m sure his rendition of the Mother/Son dance will be much different than what I would perceive.

The obligatory dances were over, and the DJ called everyone onto the dance floor for a group photograph. I don’t know how these turned out since everyone was on the same level floor, but we’ll see. It’s a cool idea anyway, and it was actually a DJ gimmick to get everyone on the dance floor. He played “Earth Angel” right after the photo, which kept people dancing a bit but a lot of relatives already went back to their seats. “Johnny B. Goode” followed (yes, in that order, specifically as a tribute to Back to the Future – Duke’s idea, obviously). I don’t think anyone caught that, but Domingo got it so it was worth it. Haha.

By this time, the dance floor was almost completely cleared out. We don’t have a dancing group of friends, I guess. The DJ tried pretty hard to get everyone dancing, but what can you do. People preferred to sit and mingle and chat.

Because the dance floor was pretty sparse, we accelerated the timeline of events and did the cake cutting. The wait staff wasn’t really ready for that change so there were no plates or forks at the cake table, but we improvised. I actually had to ask the photographer how to cut the cake b/c I had no idea, so he told

me to cut a piece off the 2^nd tier. With Duke’s hand over mine, I basically mangled the cake pretty badly, and it made the whole crowd laugh. It made it more fun actually that I messed up. Haha. Since we didn’t have any forks, we both gave each other a piece using our fingers, and we didn’t make a mess of each other which was cool.

After the cake, a number of people started leaving. Many of the guests with kids (or kids waiting for them at home) were saying their goodbyes. I felt bad that I couldn’t spend more time with certain people, but everyone was really understanding, and still seemed like they enjoyed themselves. My relatives soon followed as they had plans to go to a casino. Yep, you read that right. Even before the cake-cutting, my aunt came up to me to ask what else was on the agenda b/c they were planning on going gambling. That’s the clan for you, I guess. I felt it was pretty rude, but then after some thought, I didn’t mind so much since I’d rather have them have fun doing what they want to do instead of feeling held hostage at their guest tables being bored.

A good number of friends were still there to mingle with, and we had some good dances with Avery and Dylan. Dylan became the late-night dancing superstar. He started breakdancing, and doing some freeze-poses. It was pretty hilarious. We have no idea where he learned all his moves! Too bad the photographers had already gone by this time b/c there would have been some awesome shots. Hopefully some of the other guests captured some good photos. Who knew that he’d be this shy ring bearer, turned center-of-attention breakdancer. Haha.

The cake was cut, and unlike most weddings, everyone was eating the cake! Yay! The cake was as delicious as when I first tasted it at the bakery, and it was a huge hit. One of my friends actually asked for another slice. J

We did some more dancing and chatting with friends, and the DJ then announced that he had been trying to figure out when to play “Mayonaise” all night (it was a must-must play), and this was the time. I had been chatting with some friends on the dance floor, and as soon as the song came on, I let all those around know that this was my anthem. That song was my life. It has been my favorite song since I was what…14 years old? It’s gotten me through the thick and the thin, and if anyone knew me back in high school or college, they know that the Pumpkins are a huge part of my life and influence on who I am today.

So, Duke was across the room when the song came on, and he came on to the dance floor, and we danced. I completely broke down. Balling. The mix of emotions that I have felt for the last 16 years listening to this song, with it culminating at my wedding, dancing with my now-husband. Inexplicably emotional and overwhelming. Even though there were still a lot of people around, that song, that moment, it was just Duke and me…(and Billy Corgan). It was perfect. How everything played out was just perfect. The fact that people didn’t dance that much allowed us this opportunity to have an extremely personal moment at the wedding.

At the end of the song, the DJ said that that should have been our first song. While to some extent, I see what he’s saying, it would have been a completely different moment. Knowing that you’re putting on a show and dancing for an agenda item would not have had the same flood of emotion. That’s why I say that it was perfect. All the things that could be perceived as negative (lack of dancing) gave us the perfect night.

The DJ played a few more songs, and it was soon time for the last song which was “The Last Song” by the Smashing Pumpkins. I love the song and of course it is the last song. Duke and I started dancing, and everyone who was there encircled us and brought the votive candles from the tables into their hands to wave the lights around like at a concert. It was amazing. It was again, perfect. Unique and emotional. Duke and I sharing another last, special moment to conclude the evening, literally surrounded by our closest friends – you can’t beat that.

The DJ said that he’s been doing weddings for 14 years, and he has never seen anything like that before. It was wonderful. My friend said “You had your Smashing Pumpkins wedding!” Indeed, I did. I had so much fun. I cried so much. I laughed so much. I loved so much.

The evening concluded, the vendors all came back on time to clean up, and everything just went so well. The museum told me that all of the vendors were a wonderful pleasure to work with – so professional, on-task, and respectful of the environment. I was so happy that everything went so smoothly. I have to say that I was and am really proud of myself. All the organization and mass orchestration was well worth it.

In summary, I think the snafus were: the stumbling by the officiant during the ceremony, the overcast weather (but hey, at least it wasn’t all sweaty and hot), Hayli who had an extremely bad allergic reaction to the flowers (she had to take Benadryl and get eyedrops since she was so awfully swollen), the missing slideshow screen, and the missing utensils at the cake cutting. Even though these things weren’t “perfect”, I’d say those mishaps aren’t too bad, considering all the other things that could have gone wrong. And, at first I thought I’d say the lack of dancing/party energy was a negative but I wouldn’t give up how the evening turned out with the Pumpkins songs for a million years. This was more my style of a wedding anyhow – low-key, fun, relaxed, and sentimental.

The highlights: seeing everyone come out to spend the day with us (from all walks of life – family, Jr. high, high school, college, GS, and Oakley friends plus all of Duke’s Mudders and other friends and family), seeing some people cry and feel for us like they’ve never shown before, the outside ceremony being absolutely picturesque with the fountains going in a small courtyard, the food, Dylan’s breakdancing, the slideshow, all of the details, the Pumpkins, and Duke understanding me and how I am and who I am.

After the ceremony, a group of us (Wayne, John, Mark, Brian S., Vin, April F., and the Cam-man who came out after the wedding) went to Lola Gaspar which was right next to the museum. We had a couple drinks (of course I had to top off the night with my drink of choice, Tanqueray & Tonic; we had a beer & wine bar only at the museum), had some laughs (including me giving Mark a hard time solely b/c it’s so much fun for me), and soon enough it was 1am and time to head back to the hotel to get some sleep.

The next morning, we woke up to rush and pack since we had invited some people (primarily out-of-town guests) over to the house for a casual bbq. We went and picked up Wayne, headed to Costco, and cleaned up the house as best as possible. All my aunts came as well as Erika and Jeanne, Duke’s mom’s cousins, and Vin and Mark. It was a full house, and we barbecued some hot dogs and burgers. It was fun to have everyone over, let them see the house, and see where we are settling down and hoping to start a family.

After people left, we were so beat tired but it was time to pack for the honeymoon. Neither of us got much sleep (I got about 3 hours; Duke about 1), and it was time to head to the airport at 4am. My dad dropped us off, and we flew into Miami for a stopover. We’re now on the plane over to the Paris with about 4.5 hours left to go. I’ll be blogging every day’s adventures so I can counter my terrible memory, and also share the adventures with those of you who care to read them. J

THE END!

Lots of Wedding Stuff & the UK

2011-03-24T19:53:00.000-07:00

I can't believe the last time I blogged was in early February. Where does the time go?!

Rest of February

Cake
I went to do a few cake tastings with my sister, and it ended up being a pretty easy decision! We found a bakery that made cakes that were the most delicious and the most affordable vs. the other two that we tried! What else can you ask for? We'll see how the actual cake turns out on the wedding day, but I'll remain hopeful. :)

Bachelorette Party
I had my bachelorette party in Vegas during the last weekend of the month. It was a blast! I was so happy that so many people were able to make it out, including some that flew in for it which was a wonderful treat!! Everyone was from different parts of my life - family, high school friends, Wall Street, Oakley, and also a recent friend I made last Oct at my cousin's wedding. Everyone ended up getting along really well, and I was so happy that people finished the weekend having made some new friends.

We left for Vegas on Fri afternoon, and it ended up being a terribly long drive with traffic. We stopped at In 'n' Out for dinner, and continued on into the Strip. We stayed at Planet Hollywood, and we had a few drinks at the bar when we arrived.

On Saturday, we went to a cafe in Paris (Mon Ami Gabi) for brunch. The cafe was amazing!! They had these wonderful crepes, and everything was so perfect! They seated us in a room of all windows, so we could see outside to the "Eiffel Tower" and the street. It was beautiful.

Afterwards, we went to the Bath House at The Hotel at Mandalay. I heard it was the best spa in Vegas, but honestly, I was quite disappointed with the treatment. The amenities are absolutely fabulous and so serene, and I guess that's what the big draw is, but my masseuse wasn't anything impressive. The prices were also very steep considering the quality of the treatment. My sister had a disaster facial with an overly aggressive aesthetician who ended up making marks all over her face from being so rough!

I haven't had a treatment at the spa at The Venetian, but if I were to choose a spa again, I'd rather go there. The amenities were much more expansive than the Bath House, but refer to my old post about our experience there (and I'll never recommend the nail salon!).

Anyhow, after the spa, we headed to dinner at Sage. We all really enjoyed the food - I had the scallops dish which was exquisitely cooked. However, of course, no experience can just be dandy. Our server was the absolute worst. He introduced himself, and all was fine, but then he disappeared for a really long time. We kept waiting to order, waiting to order, and he totally saw us just sitting there. He ignored us completely. We finally asked a different server about the menu, and he gave us the specials and took our order even though we weren't his table. Ridiculous. Then, as the night continued, the service remained horrible. The saving grace was the busboy. He was a cute, very nice young guy who was very attentive to us, and would nag the waiter when we needed something. It was pretty crazy that a busboy would have to do that for us, but our server was just so rude to us. And, to top it all off, when the server did come over, he would crack a joke as if we had a rapport with him...Um...we all hated him?!

Anyway, I'd like to leave it with a glowing recommendation b/c the food was great (desserts were very average though - oh, and the server took that order for us and got it wrong. What a dumbo), but the server was just so beyond bad that I really can't give it a thumbs up. Duke later told me that Sage has quite a bad reputation, so I guess I'll second that for the overall experience we had. Beautiful restaurant and food, but hire some good waiters! Thank goodness for the awesome busboy b/c without him, we surely would have disputed the gratuity charge!!

Alright, so after dinner, we headed to a male revue - Thunder from Down Under. Let's just say it was absolutely hilarious and ridiculous. It was a lot of fun with all their cliches. The best bit was when a guy jumped on a table and pretended to pour beer all over himself, just so he can do a hair whip with wet hair. Haha. So outrageously ridiculous. After the show, we headed to the Cathouse and then to LAX - both were clubs at the Luxor. Dancing was fun, and we had a surprise appearance by some R&B artist that was popular a long time ago, though I had no idea who he was. Hehe. And even now, I can't remember his name.

Sunday, we went to Noodle Asia at The Venetian. Chinese noodle soup is the best thing after a night of drinking. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm craving it!! Haha. We then walked around the Canal Shoppes so that Meg could recover a little from a pretty rough night, and it was soon off to the driving. Duke drove back with us, so he had the lucky job of driving around with a bunch of girls gabbing away for hours. :)

March

Dress Fitting
I had a great Mother/Daughter day. My wedding dress and my mom's dress for the wedding came in! Hooray! All the hoopla, stress, and anxiety that the store gave me with my dress was all for nothing! The store kept saying that I was super late in the buying process since I started 5 months ahead of the wedding date instead of 6-8mos, and despite my paying super rush fees, my gown wouldn't arrive until 2 weeks before the wedding...but they were wrong! The dress came in way earlier than expected, so that was terrific news!

My mom and I went in for our fittings, and signed off that we liked the gowns. We stopped off at the mall so my mom could have a mini-shopping spree at Sephora provided by yours truly (for her birthday), and then we headed over to a tailor that my coworker recommended, and she was great. We'll see the final product next weekend, so hopefully I can still stand by that statement. She has been doing wedding gowns for 15 years, and she's much more affordable than what the store was going to charge! I did have a weird black-out bout though. I was terribly sick with the flu/cough the week after my bachelorette party, and was having 103 degree fever for a couple days, and I wasn't fully recovered but was feeling pretty ok. Anyway, I hadn't really eaten much that day, and while I was trying on my dress, everything started to get really grey and black! It was so frightening. I started overheating, and just had to sit down. I've never fainted before, so this was a pretty scary experience for me. The tailor gave me a candy, and my mom and I jetted off to a restaurant to have lunch before finishing the fitting. I had to get some sugar or something!

Anyway, we went to Brodard. I had heard absolutely amazing things about this place, but eh, I thought it was alright. Maybe I ordered the wrong thing, but we both got noodle soups and shared a spring roll. It was really cheap, but I didn't really think it was anything out of the ordinary.

So afterwards, we went back to the tailor and finished up my mom's fitting. Then, we headed to the bakery so I could give them a ribbon for my cake. So convenient that everything is so close by. :)

The following week was pretty much shot b/c I was basically a sick zombie and then poor Duke caught it too. He had a horrible fever for a couple days, and it was such a bad bug. We both lost a ton of weight inadvertently, and were just so weak. It turned out that two of my friends who came to the bachelorette party also caught the same bug! Booooo...!

Engagement Photo Session
Last Friday, we had our engagement photo session. What a day!! It was an early start so I could get all my hair and make-up done, and we went to the studio around 11am. Andy ushered us into a room so he could look at all of our wardrobe that we had brought with us. I thought we had brought a lot of stuff, but he didn't seem too pleased with what we brought! He is a very blunt person, and made a lot of off-color comments but it was still pretty funny. I'm no fashionista, so I don't take anything personally. But, thank goodness my sister had a bunch of dresses for me to bring! Otherwise, I'd really have no outfits that would meet his approval!

We started off in the studio in an all-white room. It was pretty strange getting your photo taken with nothing else going on, but hopefully they turned out well. Duke had issues making a proper smile so Andy chastised him quite a bit. Haha. He also made fun of Duke's natural stance, which is always to stick his belly out! It's horrible. But, I got my fair share of digs too with comments like "Oh, your legs are not too good so don't let them touch." Yikes! Luckily I don't have too many body issues, so I was just happy he told me b/c I don't want to turn out badly in the photos. Haha.

We did a couple outfit changes in the studio, and even had to do this weird roleplay where Duke and I had to pretend to not know each other (uh...that's hard to do - we're not actors!), but I guess it's all about trying to capture those "stolen glances" on film. We'll see how those turn out. Duke was supposed to pretend he was a photographer, and he was given a camera prop...little did he know that that was a real camera thing! Duke fiddled around with it, and messed up all the settings and shocked Andy. I guess no one else really fidgets with it? But, it turns out it's some lens that is separate from your camera that you can take a picture through, and it gives it a vintage, grainy look. I didn't see it myself, but that's how Duke described it.

The studio also had this tiny bed that he had us use as a prop, and when I say tiny, it was really tiny! Duke sat down on it, and practically pushed the mattress down to the ground. Pretty funny.

Anyway, we then packed up our stuff and hit the road. We first went downtown next to the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and took a few shots around the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art). I had never been there, and that was probably the most fun area to shoot in. I hope they turn out nicely. I think there were some cool backdrops and angles, so we'll see.

We then took a loooooong drive north of Malibu to Zuma Beach. We took some beach shots, and then drove up a bit to a field on the other side of PCH to get some nature shots. We did that rotation for probably 4-5 stops with different coastlines and nature backgrounds (one beach shot was with us at a volleyball net which was kinda weird but maybe I just don't see the artistic vision until I see the photos).

The photo shoot was pretty fun though, albeit very unnatural! I'm very curious to see how the photos look b/c we felt pretty awkward the whole time. There were a lot of "Don't look at the camera" moments, coupled with weird instructions like "Play with your toes"...Huh? When do I ever play with my toes? That was weird, so I adapted it into a "Scratch your ankle". Haha.

We also had a running scene, where I tried to run like a girl. Despite my trial, Andy still yelled "Run like a girl! Not like a warrior!!" That was pretty hilarious b/c that -was- me running like a girl! So I had to try again, and he had to yell in a sissy, girly voice "I'm a girl, I'm a girl, I'm a girl" so I could prance around in a cutesy, girl run. Hilarious! But weird.

We took photos until about 6pm, and then headed back to the studio (in a ton of traffic). We didn't get back til almost 8pm, and we rushed off to make our dinner reservation at Ocean & Vine.

This restaurant has a nice location and a nice atmosphere, but eh, the food was good but forgettable. I had an Open Table coupon, so I figured we'd try it b/c it had good reviews, but it was just alright. I doubt I'd go back.

Anyway, so the full day concluded, and now we just wait a few weeks to see them all. I'm quite anxious to see!!

UK
On Sunday, I headed straight to the UK for work. My friend Aneema graciously came out to the airport to greet me, and spend about an hour with me! I couldn't believe she traveled all that way, but we rarely get to see each other now that she's out here, so it was wonderful to catch up, even thought it was brief. I did get to see her pregnant though so that was fun (her 2nd baby and I missed seeing her pregnant the first time). Once my colleague arrived, she and I part ways.

I stayed at the Four Seasons, Hampshire (in Fleet). Oh, how I miss the Four Seasons. I used to stay there a lot when I worked at GS, but really haven't since I've left. It's the best hotel chain out there, as far as I'm concerned. Such beautiful hotel grounds, flower arrangements, wonderful service, spacious rooms, the most comfortable beds, and all the other details too like a free shoe shining service straight from your room. :) The hotel had an amazing layout as well with a glass hallway that connected the lobby to the restaurant area and meeting rooms.

One of the evenings, we had a break so a few of us walked down the countryside path and went to see all the different animals roaming about. We saw some big English cows (they have curly hair!), bulls, and calves, and also got to see a couple huge pigs, and a number of sheep in the distance. It was funny to see houses situated out there, and to think about that type of lifestyle. There was one house where the kids were playing in their yard - I can't even imagine how different I'd be if I grew up in an environment like that. Not to say it's bad at all since it's so peaceful and beautiful, but just so different!

On one of the nights, we went to an old English Pub called the Gameskeeper. It was quite nice - more like a gastro pub as they call it since they serve fancy food. I started with mussels (delicious!), had a seabass (a whole fish, not a filet) which was alright but kind of a pain to eat b/c of the bones, and finished it off with the best dessert I've had in a long time - sticky toffee pudding with homemade custard. Wow, that was good.

We also spent a half-day at Go Ape which is basically going through an obstacle course through trees. It was fun, but I have to say that the Ropes courses that I've been on were better since they foster more teambuilding and camaraderie. This one was individually challenging but you didn't really need to rely on anyone else during the whole day, and at times, it felt quite solitary which defeated the whole purpose, I thought.

And, during my last night, I went to Central London for a drink and dinner with a couple colleagues. We ate at a place called Cote which is a French bistro. I had some mussels and frites. Yum yum. I was going to get a creme caramel dessert but the waiter dissuaded me and said I should get the frozen berries with liquid white chocolate on the side. I got that, but I regretted it! It wasn't that great. Oh well.

I then made it back to Heathrow where I checked into the Hilton. Going from the Four Seasons to the Hilton is quite a drag, but I can't be spoiled forever. :)

And I guess that concludes this overwhelmingly long post!

Miscellaneous

2011-02-07T22:53:00.000-08:00

Wedding planning has taken over much of my life. Most of the major things are taken care of, but now I have to go through all the details. It's definitely a different experience when everything is decided solely based on what I want. It's much easier to defer to someone else or let someone else put on the show. :)

Otherwise, it's been spending time with the family, taking care of stuff around the house, and other random stuff. I did go to a show on Saturday with my mom - Ballroom Dancing with a Twist. I bought her tickets for Christmas for her and my dad, but my dad had no interest in going so I went instead. At first, I thought it was a pretty rookie show since the theatre was so small, but it ended up being a pretty entertaining show. I didn't recognize a lot of people, but apparently most were all very well-trained dancers with a ton of accolades. There were people from Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance (I did recognize one of them), and there were some songs sung throughout by American Idol contestants (a couple I remembered, but one I had no idea about).

In a way, the show made me sad b/c these were the people who didn't really make it, and are left to do some small shows in order to do what they love. I'm not sure if that type of show is what defines success as a dancer, but it definitely makes you feel bad for the singers.

Nonetheless, we had a good time. I think the highlight of my evening was seeing Jane Seymour live - I used to love watching her on Dr. Quinn, and also seeing Tabitha & Napoleon who are one of my favorite choreographers on So You Think You Can Dance.

Aside from that, family stuff was a bit hard for Brandon this week. He had a fall on concrete and had to go to the emergency room with a hematoma on his head. That was pretty scary but he ended up being fine. Then he went in for surgery to fix a skin condition and had to undergo anesthesia. We all expected post-op to be hard, but man, what a trooper. He slept through the night, was crawling around and playing like nothing happened. :) What a tough kid.

Christmas and New Year's and a little bit more

2011-01-21T20:10:00.000-08:00

I didn't take any time off this year for the holidays, but it was still plenty of fun. Duke and I bought a huge tree, standing at 9.5 feet, and bought it from a local tree farm that grows them. The tree was really affordable but wasn't a typical douglas or noble fir. It was some strange bush like tree that we were both allergic to upon contact. Haha. I don't think we'll be getting that type again.

Anyhow, we spent a weekend decorating the house with lights, and setting up the tree. The week before Christmas, Duke's family came over. Our families finally met each other after six years of us being together. Haha. It turned out better than I thought though. We went to Shogun for dinner, and by the end of the night at the house, the moms were paired up, the dads were paired up, and the sisters were paired up. Duke and I hung out with the kids, and I would say it was a successful evening.

On Christmas Eve, my brother and I hung out with Eric and Jim to play some pool. And for Christmas, the rest of the family came over to celebrate our first Christmas at my house. It was a lot of fun actually. On the day after, we were supposed to go over to my parents' but ended up making some last minute plans to go snowboarding with Dan. That was probably my third time going snowboarding, and it was fun making some progress plus there was fresh snowfall so it wasn't so bad falling all the time. I'm still horrible but at least I made a few successful turns.

After 4 days of work, it was time for another 3-day weekend. New Year's Eve was spent with Sharon and Sean for dinner at Raphael, then we all met up with John and Susan for a comedy show with Adam Carolla. I've been a big fan of Carolla on his "Week in Rage" on the Kevin 'n' Bean show, but this live show was terrible. There were some funny bits, but it just felt like he had no idea how to fill the time since it was probably a longer than normal set. We ended up being forced to watch this pilot of a sitcom that never aired...and for good reason! The show was not funny, and seemed like a lesser version of Everybody Loves Raymond. The most ghetto part was the countdown to New Year's, and they showed the countdown for 2010. Lame lame lame.

Anyway, so 2011 went off with a fairly tame start but at least we were with good friends.

Also the big time-consuming activity in December was finding a DJ. Duke and I interviewed about 4 different DJs and wow, what a difference in personalities. We finally found one though that we were happy with, so I'm glad that is done. Next up are invitations.

Oh, and I guess the other event was Duke and I taking an 11 mile hike uphill (I think we ended up climbing 3000 feet high). We were pretty sore for a few days, but I'm happy we got some good exercise. We did get sad news that his dad's cousin suddenly passed away though. His family ended up coming over to bring his dad to the airport in LA, and last weekend, he was here for a few days.

I guess that's it. I feel like this was probably one of the worst worded posts I've had in a while but oh well. I'm too tired to go and fix everything. I had to work until 2am last night so I'm really tired.

Wine Blog

2010-12-15T22:51:00.000-08:00

My good friend started his own wine blog. For any of you interested in learning more about wines and wine pairing, check it out. I added a link on the right - it's called The Half Filled Glass.

Acoustic Christmas

2010-12-15T22:48:00.000-08:00

Duke and I went to Night 1 of KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas concert at the Gibson Amphitheatre. We were running late b/c of some unanticipated traffic going into Hollywood (stupid of me to not expect the traffic). Since we were late anyway, we stopped at the food court area of Universal Citywalk for some Pink's Hot Dogs. I had never tried the place but had heard of it, and it was pretty good. The guacamole dog was gross, but the chili & nacho cheese dog I had was very delicious!

So we walk over to the theatre, and we find our seats. We came just as Anberlin started playing. We missed A Day to Remember and Switchfoot completely, but eh, that's life. There was a time in my life where I couldn't understand for the life of me why people would come late to a concert, but I guess I'm now older and have gone to enough concerts that I'll only put in effort when I really want to see the act. I was going pretty much just for the Pumpkins anyway who weren't scheduled to start until 10:45pm as the last act.

Anyhow, here's the quick rundown:

Anberlin - they were ok. I wouldn't go out and buy their album, but they were decent enough for a newer rock band. Fairly generic sound, in my opinion.

The Dirty Heads - wow, I wanted to shoot myself. They were a terrible reggae-version of Beastie Boys. I'm not a huge fan of rap anyway, so this was really testing my patience. The radio hit they have was more like reggae which was decent but man, I had no idea their main angle was this rap style.

Cake - who knew it was this old dude who kind of reminded me of a rabbi. He loved his little blender looking ball thing that made a spinning crank sound. He was fun, despite some of his rap stuff. Lots of old radio hits which brought me back to the 90s.

Bad Religion - they were the stars of the night. What threw me for a loop was that the lead singer looks like a gym teacher and a random dad! It was crazy. He was balding in two spots, wore a regular polo shirt, and was just belting out these Bad Religion songs like nobody's business. It was just a weird sight/sound combination. They have been rocking for 30 years, so I guess he's the definition of an anti-poseur. He rocked looking like a random dude. Haha.

Jimmy Eat World - pretty generic. I knew some of their stuff, but nothing too special. I was happy they played a Christmas song though (the "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart..." song). They were the only ones to do anything Christmas-y.

My Chemical Romance - they're popular. I never really heard much past their radio songs, particularly Black Parade. But, they are very good. I might consider getting their albums. In a weird way, the lead singer reminded me of Billy Corgan, so you know I'm going to like him. Haha. Not so much the way he looked, but some of his mannerisms were very Corgan-esque, I thought.

Social Distortion - I got bored. A couple radio hits but otherwise, it was this crazy looking older guy with tons of tattoos looking like an Al Pacino-like rock star.

The Smashing Pumpkins - they're why I came. I always love to see them play, even though it's just Billy now. The setlist wasn't exactly what I'd wish for them, but I just saw his pre-concert interview and how he plays what he wants and doesn't really want to just play all the old songs since he feels very different than when he wrote them 10+ years ago. I guess I can understand that, but that still doesn't mean I can't wish to hear some of my old favorites. They did play some of the older stuff - Drown, Eye, Tonight Tonight, Today, Stand Inside Your Love, and Heavy Metal Machine but there were some new ones too which I'll have to shamefully say I don't know the titles of. Was it their best show? I would say not even close. It was very similar to the LA Invasion show I saw a while back, and not as good as the show at the Sunset Strip Music Festival. All these new shows don't hold a light to the ones back in the 90's though. Sad, but it's just a different dynamic with new people. And plus I probably have lost a lot of that light in my eye and crazy obsession in my heart that I had as a teenager.

Overall, not a great show. I'm glad I went anyway, since the last time I went to Acoustic Christmas was when I was in junior high, and South Park was just becoming popular. Ha.

The Big 3-0

2010-12-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

I had my big milestone birthday. I'm no longer in my young and hip 20's...as if I were ever hip. Haha. The birthday weekend was actually pretty low-key actually. Duke and I just hung around, and went to dinner at Shogun which is a teppan place. Surprisingly, it was very good. I'm always shocked when we find good cuisine out here since 98% of restaurants around here are big chains, and all the other restaurants are average to mediocre. It turns out Shogun is a mini-chain with multiple locations, but whatever, I'm happy it's delicious - it's Benihana but a bit cheaper. Plus they have these funny porcelain drink glasses that they use for certain cocktails which are yours to keep. My favorite was the Sumo glass which has a hole where the sumo's belly button is, and you put your straw in there so you're drinking out of his BELLY. Haha. That is so hilarious to me for some reason.

Anyway, on my actual birthday, Duke had to leave for work, so I actually spent the evening by myself! My parents had taken a trip to Vegas and were originally going to come surprise me for dinner, but they ended up being stuck on the road for some obscene amount of time b/c of some highway work.

Thanksgiving

2010-12-15T21:59:00.000-08:00

I had two Thanksgiving holidays this year. I went to see my parents on the actual Thanksgiving day, and my dad cooked his famous and most scrumptious lobster. It was just the 3 of us, so I had all the helpings of large lobster chunks of meat that anyone could ask for. Spoiled for sure!!

We just hung around, and ended up watching this 4-hour epic of a movie called Red Cliff. It was actually a very good movie. There were a ton of battle scenes, so if that's not your thing, then don't bother. It's a movie detailing a famous battle in Chinese history during the time of the Han dynasty. I later found out that a majority of the movie was all made up by John Woo. He figured he was going to tell a more personal story based on history, so why not make it a more compelling story which wouldn't be detailed out thousands of years ago. It was well done. Plus, one of the main characters was played by Takeshi Kaneshiro who is amazingly good looking. I first saw him in the House of Flying Daggers, and what a nice surprise to see him in this movie too. Ok ok, enough gushing, but man is he cute!! Haha.

Anyway, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, I woke up at 5am ready to tackle the Black Friday deals, then I hit snooze. Then I hit off. I was just too tired to think about battling the crowds when I didn't have any big-ticket items on my list to buy and potentially save on. My parents and sister's family came over to my house, and we started Thanksgiving part II. My dad went to work in this huge Jennie-O turkey I got, and we hung out and played with the kids.

I introduced Super Nintendo to Dylan. Tetris Attack was a bit too complicated, but we played Troddlers fairly well. He watched his dad and I play for a while so he understood that the basic idea was to make blocks and jump on them, but he didn't really fully understand the goal of the game. I was just happy to have him learn how to use the controller. He was pretty impressed with every block he made and every jump he made. It was super cute. What a milestone. Haha. :)

Anyhow, after the turkey was cooked, we heated up all the sides we bought from Fresh 'n' Easy, and they were delicious! I also baked some cornbread from a Marie Callendar's mix, and that was just so-so. All in all, it was a really nice relaxing Thanksgiving weekend.

Exhale Spa

2010-12-15T21:43:00.000-08:00

November 13

Just a quick review for anyone thinking of going to the Exhale Spa in Santa Monica. I checked it out because of a deal I had from Hautelook, and I'm glad I did. It was probably the best massage I've ever had...and I've tried several spa places through the years, so that's actually saying a lot.

I won't endorse the spa completely though because of the following:
- It was under construction when I went, so there was no real entrance into the spa. Instead, we go to a random guest room floor, only to be greeted by a folding table that is set up as a make-shift reception desk. Pretty ghetto and not what you think of a high-end spa or the Fairmont Hotel. Because of the construction, you're forced to walk up and downstairs between the locker area and the treatment rooms, and are forced to go through the gym. Walking past sweaty people in your bathrobes isn't exactly tranquil. But, it was under construction so it's not an issue forever. But, you would've thought there could've been a better solution?

- The spa area was tiny...like teeny-tiny. There are two chaise lounges, a few magazines, one steam room, one sauna, and two showers. I went with my Mom, and it seemed like no one else was there. We saw one other person while we were there, and just with the 3 of us in there, it felt cramped. For the price, you'd expect much better amenities.

- The facial was terrible. My aesthetician wasn't very thorough, didn't really seem to know what she was talking about, didn't do a great job with extractions, and was more of a salesperson than anything. She was definitely one of those pushing products at you. I hate that.

BUT, the redeeming and overwhelmingly positive experience was the massage. The masseuse made up for all of that negative. Her name was Deja, and she is this petite woman who has the strongest hands. What an intense, awesome massage. I wish I could go there all the time!!!

Engagement

2010-11-10T00:07:00.000-08:00

So after years of diligence on each other, Duke and I decided that we're going to get married! He popped the question on November 4, a random Thursday. He did actually surprise me which is quite a feat since I usually ask a lot of questions and am too smart for most of his antics. Haha.

When I was at work, he told me that we should go for a run in the evening. I never turn down an opportunity to run with him since it's a rare occasion, but I thought nothing of it. I came home pretty tired and very hungry, and was irritated that he wanted to run right when I got home. We got into a little spat (I'm not a happy camper when I'm hungry) b/c I always eat and leave time for digestion before I go run. He kept urging us to go run so finally I succumbed and was just going to get it over with since it was only a couple miles anyway.

Anyhow, we start running and he's out of breath and starts walking. I keep going but doubled back to just walk with him home. As we round the corner back to the house, he says that we should race to the house. He's a better sprinter than me so I knew he'd win but whatever, let's race. We get back to the house, and I went into the kitchen to check my phone. Duke comes in panting, sweating, and out of breath and says "I won the gold medal, but here, you can have the 'silver' medal" and he hands me the box and falls onto the ground.

??? I told him he couldn't be serious. He didn't open the box for me, didn't get on his knee, and didn't even ask me to marry him. He just thrust a box at me. I encouraged him to do it properly, and he replies "I don't have to get on my knee! I'm on my back!" I encourage him some more, and finally he gets on a knee and just holds the box. I tell him he needs to open it and ask me. He finally does. But he doesn't put it on my finger. I give up, and just do it myself. He replies "I'm thirsty."

It was probably the most non-romantic proposal ever but I guess that's what you get when you've been together for over 5 years and have talked about getting married for a year.

The ring was the saving grace, I guess. It's a really nice looking diamond and it fits perfectly!

After the non-proposal gesture of a proposal, we decided to go out for a nice dinner. It was about 8:30pm at this time and restaurants near me close pretty early, but I ask him how about going to Kotobuki! I call the restaurant and they're open til 10pm so we haul our butts over 40 minutes away to go see Hiro and Tatsu. We hadn't been there in a long time since I moved into the house, so they were happy to see us and we were happy to eat the food!

It's pretty funny - Hiro was the first person to hear that we were engaged. We hadn't told either of our families yet b/c we wanted to have dinner first. Once you start calling/texting, you know you'll be on the phone for a while. Heh. Anyhow, the food was Awesome as usual, and it was a fitting meal for the occasion.

It was also quite funny to go there later than we had normally gone before b/c Hiro and Tatsu were drunk! Haha. They were so funny. Hiro started humming wedding music and commanded Tatsu to give us a toast. Tatsu started rambling about how happy he is and how we're the nicest couple in the whole world, and that he is happy b/c weddings make Hiro jealous and feel old. What a riot. Haha.

So that's it. I'm engaged!

Halloween

2010-11-09T23:47:00.000-08:00

On Halloween weekend, we stayed in and put up a few ghosts outside and got ready for the trick or treaters. We were going to throw a party, but everything is just so busy that we opted not to. The trick or treaters proved to make us busy enough!

We had to go run some errands, so before we left, we set out a big bowl and platter of candy. When we got back home (~6:30pm), all of the Reese's and all but one Fun Dip were gone already! I guess we'll never know if some teenagers took the whole bunch but I think there may have been that many trick or treaters. Between 6:30pm-8:30pm, I'd say we had another 30-40 kids ringing our door! We actually almost ran out of candy and had to drop in some Ghirardelli squares that we had at the house. Haha.

Reese's and Fun Dip were definitely the hit, as were the white chocolate Kit Kats (I'd never had these before - they're yummy!). Twix and Twizzlers and the other varieties of Kit Kat were only so-so but as I said, we pretty much ran out of candy so it didn't matter.

We didn't dress up this year either. Maybe next year. I was also a pooper at work - lots of people dressed up. There was a group costume of tetris pieces made of painted cardboard boxes that fit into each other. That was pretty cool, actually. They even had a giant-sized nintendo controller and the old-school Russian music. Fun stuff.

Nike Women's Half Marathon

2010-10-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

October 17 weekend:

Duke and I drove up to the Bay Area on Friday night - I went pretty much straight to bed and he and my brother headed to play some cards. I woke up the next morning to an empty house! They stayed out all night but came back in time to drop me off at the CalTrain station so I could head up to SF.

After arriving, I met up with my friend Liane who was running the Nike Women's Marathon with me (well, I was only doing the half and she was doing the full). We were staying at our old junior high school friend's place and he has the most amazing condo! Super modern everything. Very nice. And what's even nicer is that their friend from high school (who I have never met) let a couple of us stay at his condo since he was out of town. That is so beyond nice, I almost can't comprehend it!

Anyway, we had some coffee and then headed over to the Race Expo. We picked up our packets and then headed over to Chloe's for some brunch. The food was pretty good despite a long wait. We then spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at the condo and watching some TV. It's always important to stay off your feet the day before the race!

We headed to Zero Zero for our pre-race carbo load dinner. We met up with 3 more of our junior high school friends. It was a mini-reunion of sorts and it was so much fun! One of them was my best friend in 7th/8th grade and we had lost touch after about 9th grade. It was crazy just putting everyone into context again in their adult lives. Everyone was very successful and seemed very happy.

The only downside of the evening was the restaurant. The food was very fair, but the service was atrocious. None of the food came together and was piecemealed to our table over the course of 4 hours. Our party was not that big - why would dinner service take that long?? Everyone had finally been served their meals, and I was the only one out, and finally they give me my entree whose portion size was half of everyone else's! They claimed that my pasta was not the "airy" pasta so it was more dense and by weight it was the same portion...but yet I was still hungry after eating my 3 mouthfuls. Go figure. It was a disappointment but whatever. The one surprise was the homemade soft-serve ice cream which was topped with olive oil & salt. Weird topping! But yet it worked in a weird way making it taste a little like popcorn.

Anyway, we called it a night so we could get some very important shut-eye and were up the next morning at 5:30am. The race was starting at 7am so we made our way to the start line and joined the 20,000 other participants. The energy was great just as it was last year and the race was soon on its way. I hadn't trained a whole lot but the last couple weeks were pretty intense so I felt good during the race. The race was done very well with lots of cheering stations and it was a lot of fun. I finished in 2.5 hours which was expected - I should've pushed myself harder since I wasn't tired at all but I really enjoyed the race. Hehe.

After I finished, I met up with my friend Seanna who came out to cheer me on. It was awesome having someone greet me at the finish! I've never had that, actually since friends either run in the race or I'm by myself! It was fun having a cheerleader. Hehe. It had started raining so we sought some cover pretty quickly. We found a nearby Inn which had a little restaurant where we had some breakfast. We chatted it up for a few hours and headed back out to the finish line to find my friend who was running the full marathon. Unfortunately she didn't make it back in time (you have a max 6.5hrs to complete the race), and we saw her on the shuttle taking people back to the finish. Then it was like a movie...

The shuttle stops, she yells out to me, and I run over to her and we start running that last quarter of a mile together to cross the finish line. I was so proud of her. She completed 24 miles before getting picked up by the van so it was quite an accomplishment still. We took some photos and then some bits of a fiasco started. The bag check people lost her bag. We spent quite a long time trying to find it to no avail. We finally gave up and then it was impossible to find a cab. We ended up riding on the most cramped bus ever back to the heart of the city where we could catch a cab. We finally end up back at the condo, and get some good news! My friend's bag was left on the bus and the driver found it and was going to head into the city to drop it off to her. Super nice.

The rest of the evening came to a close after we had a little snack at Panera and it was back to the CalTrain station. I met back up with Duke and we headed to a Chinese restaurant for dinner before making the drive back. We left much later than originally planned and ended up getting home close to 3am but it was worth it. The race was a success and plus I got to take my brother's fish back to my place. I got 2 African cichlids and the best pleco ever. The pleco fits the tank nicely and cleaned my filthy algae-ridden tank in 2 days!! Crazy appetite...

Anyway, so now I'm sick - a combination of my coworkers and nephews being sick, not sleeping enough, and probably hanging out in the rain for a while probably had something to do with it. Hopefully it passes soon - coughing my brains out is not a fun time. Nite nite!

Boston Wedding

2010-09-29T01:37:00.000-07:00

September 16-18:
I flew into Boston on Thursday evening, I had my first flight with kids in tow, so it was my sister, brother-in-law, and 2 nephews. The flight overall was ok but fairly tiring since the baby was pretty fussy and we had to take turns standing up in the aisles which just feels like you're in the way all the time b/c you are... I waited for my parents to land, and my cousin came to pick us up to bring us to the hotel. We basically dropped my parents off, and I headed over to my cousin's place. I was her maid of honor, so I was on duty to be at her beck and call but she was the easiest bride-to-be! She was super laid back and didn't really need me to do anything but chit chat with her. :) We ordered in some delicious sushi and just had a nice evening talking about the logistics of the days to come, and what needed to get done.

Later that night, my brother came over and we went to a couple bars with my cousin and her fiance. We stopped in at a Latin bar and then to a really cool-cat type of lounge.

Friday morning, we wake up to start bringing some boxes over to the Intercontinental Hotel. We checked into her bridal suite and after a mini-fiasco (they gave her the wrong suite that was promised to her beforehand), we got everything settled in. The suite was fabulous - very spacious, full kitchen, and plenty of room for all the festivities to come.

The rest of the bridesmaids start trickling in, and it was soon time to head over to our nail appointment at MiniLuxe. It was this cute nail salon, and we all got mani/pedi's. I finally had a french manicure that I was really happy with! Not anything too crazy, and it looked really simple and clean. Yay!

Afterwards, we parted ways with the bridesmaids and mothers, and my cousin and I headed over to her hair salon. She needed to get her hair prepped for the next day, so I just bided my time reading magazines while she was getting worked on.

The afternoon was soon gone, and we rushed back to the hotel to change and head to the rehearsal at the church. She was getting married in the most gorgeous chapel - one of the most historic chapels in Boston - the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. The aisle was so long, so it was going to be a curious affair to have Dylan who is only 3, walk down that aisle as the ringbearer.

Anyhow, the rehearsal was simple enough, and we were off to the rehearsal dinner at a local Italian restaurant, Mamma Maria. This was a superb meal. We had appetizers served family style so we all got small plates of each appetizer, and it was spectacular. I can't say enough about the food here. There were these delicious scallops, awesome raviolis, and much much more. I ordered some lobster-filled ravioli as my entree and it was described as "silky" which I thought was funny when I first read it...but then I ate it, and totally agreed that that was the word to describe it! We all had a great time at the dinner, hearing various speeches from the groomsmen and bridesmaids with interjections from my cousin's fiance's father after every speech. He was pretty drunk and it was very comical to hear all the random stories he wanted to share. After the dinner, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the big day.

We woke up bright and early at 7am on Saturday. It was looking to be a magnificent day. We were all a bit worried since it was grey and rainy the previous two days, but the sun was out and not a cloud in the sky. Two make-up artists (formerly from Shu Uemura but the store closed down so they're now freelancers) and two hair stylists came in to make us all pretty. It was a lot of fun, and everyone looked really great. The bouquets were in, the photographer arrived, and it was soon off to the church in the limo.

We arrived at the church, and we gathered outside for a while, and Erika was in the limo left alone to be with her thoughts. Soon enough, it was show time. As we all congregated in the church, waiting to walk down the aisle, I saw Dylan who was eager to do his duties and he was in a great mood. I gave him a high-five and he was soon down the aisle with his dad. I have to admit I was welling up just a bit - the emotions of a wedding and seeing my nephew walk down like a big boy just was a bit much. But, I collected myself, walked down the aisle and joined the best man near the front.

My cousin came out as elegant as ever, and it was really a beautiful ceremony. The pastor was also quite funny, starting the ceremony with some wise words from Stevie Wonder "I just called to say I love you. I just called to say I care." Pretty funny. There were some Bible readings and then some Filipino customs from the groom's side that were done, and before we knew it, the ceremony was done.

There was a 5-hour gap between ceremony and reception so we headed back to the hotel suite and had some snacks and drinks. It was nice relaxing, and I actually fell asleep for a nap (sitting up, of course so as to not mess up my hair and make-up). Haha.

We arrived at the State Room for the reception around 6pm and it was the most beautiful venue. There were huge bay windows overlooking Boston and the harbor. Perfect lighting, perfect table settings, perfect everything. I told my cousin I felt like I was in The Wedding Channel or in a catalog, it was all so perfect.

We started the evening with the cocktail hour and raw bar, and the food was exquisite - there was tuna tartare, raw oysters, shrimp ceviche, smoked salmon, and also some hot plates - my favorite was this prosciutto wrapped fig. Oh my gosh, it was delicious. I was really happy that we were able to enjoy this along with the guests and actually get the chance to mingle and eat the food.

After the hour was over, we took our places to make our entrance. All of the couples were announced, and we formed two lines (think Soul Train). Erika and Mark dance their way through the path we had made, and each of us went through to do our own dance. My partner and I tried to pull off the Carlton and I'm sure we looked absolutely ridiculous but it was fun.

Dinner was served, and while the food was good, the rehearsal dinner could not be topped nor the raw bar. The reception went ahead with most of the customary items - first dance, father/daughter dance and mother/son dance (the groom was actually crying with his mom; it was rather touching), garter toss, and bouquet toss. They did the cake cutting to the side without announcement, but that was done as well.

Oh, and we had the best man speech and my speech. I started off starting to well up and having my voice crack through the tears. Oh boy, not again. I cried through the entirety of my speech at my sister's wedding, and I was determined not to do it again! I took about 15 seconds, collected myself, and then did the rest of my speech tears-free. Haha. I can't say it was a great speech - maybe too long but I've known my cousin my whole life so there were a lot of memories to share!!

Anyway, the rest of the night was pure dancing all the way. There was an awesome live band (the lead singer looked like Joseph Fiennes from Shakespeare in Love and Flash Forward). They were very versatile, playing a range from The Beatles to Lady Gaga to The Killers. The setlist was quite good. Everyone was having such a great time that we actually extended the party by an hour!

At midnight, the night was over, and the groom was pretty drunk so I ended up sharing the car back to the hotel with the newlyweds. A little bit out of custom, but oh well, they needed the help carrying stuff back and making sure the groom made it back to the hotel ok. After I dropped them off, I joined some other guests at the hotel bar. It was cool hanging out, and it was absolutely hilarious when all of them thought that my brother was my younger brother (I say b/c of his immaturity but of course he says because of his boyish good looks). Haha.

Anyway, I crashed that night exhausted, and woke up the next morning for the Chinese banquet lunch. It was held at a restaurant in Chinatown (I forgot the name) which was very good, actually. It was the traditional 10-course meal but all of the food was up to snuff.

Afterwards, we only had a few hours before we had to head to the airport so I just hung out in the hotel lobby. I said bye to my brother who went exploring on the Freedom Trail, and met up with my sister to head to the airport. The flight home was fine for me - I heard the baby was really difficult, but I was sleeping almost the entire way and they let me sleep. Dylan did have his first bout of airsickness though, and we thought he had to throw up as he got really clammy and nauseous as the plane was about to land. Poor thing. But, once we were on the ground, he was his peppy self and very excited to go to the baggage claim and be fascinated by the carousel.

The weekend was super busy, but really oh so much fun. Of course there were bits of family drama here and there but I want to remember all the good things about the wedding since there really were so many.

Busy Busy Busy...

2010-09-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

Here's a catch-up post...I've been busy! I think most of these updates will be an abridged version...

August 14: Sue, Elijah, and Owen come over to have a playdate with Dylan & Brandon. We had a great time hanging out, and it was nice for my sister to see Sue again too after so many years. Elijah took Duke out for a bike ride at one of the trails out by our house. Duke had a pretty rude awakening about his fitness level, seeing that Elijah wanted to keep going but he was almost keeling over dying. Haha.

August 15: John, Susan, Avery, and Wyatt come over to play with Dylan & Brandon. We busted out the slip 'n' slide - Dylan's 2nd time on it but yet he wasn't as enthused about it as the 1st time. He wanted to play with the water but didn't really want to try sliding around. Avery was pretty gung ho about it, but couldn't really slide down the whole way, so we pulled her along. It's super cute seeing Dylan and Avery play together though - they ended up jumping over this sprinkler thing we have, and having just as much fun.

August 21: My family went to Providence to celebrate my Dad's birthday. It is a 2 Michelin star rated restaurant, and I was pretty eager to try it. I remember last year, we took my Dad out to Spago which is also highly rated but I was a bit underwhelmed...Not the case at Providence. I highly recommend the place. We all did the prix fixe dinner and added a couple of the house specialties. Refer to my brother's post for the actual pictures and all the dishes. The amuse bouche was exquisite, and the best amuse bouche I've ever had. Each of the trio was a mini-cocktail but prepared so uniquely and deliciously. One was a "gin and tonic" which was alright, but the greyhound was awesome. This was a gelatin grapefruit bubble with some vodka inside. Sadly, I can't remember the last of the trio but just know that it was amazing as well. :)

My other favorite of the night was the Santa Barbara prawns. It reminded me of eating amaebi (the live sweet shrimp you get at sushi restaurants), but much larger. They were baked in salt at some incredibly high temperature, and cooked to perfection - just almost slightly raw but cooked. Sooo yummy.

I won't go dish by dish but each was superb. Ah, I can just think back about the meal and feel so satisfied all over again.

August 28: Jeanie and I met up to go to the Sunset Strip Music Festival that day. We started our day by going for a run, but realizing that we had locked ourselves out of her apartment. Doh! After some chicanery, Jeanie was able to luckily find a friend of hers who was home, obtain a lock picking set, and pick her own lock! Voila! It was a bit of a nerve-wracking ordeal, but ended up being a good story.

Afterwards, we had a light lunch at Urth Cafe which was quite healthy and good, and we were soon off to the Sunset Strip Music Festival. We got there in the late afternoon, and didn't really see many of the local acts play, but poked our heads into a number of the classic venues - Whiskey a Go Go, Cat Club, Roxy, and Key Club.

As the evening started, we got to see the acts we came to see - Slash and the Smashing Pumpkins. Slash took the outdoor stage first, and put on a pretty good show. He played with Myles Kennedy for the most part who did a fairly good job of their own music and of impersonating Axl Rose on some of the classics like Sweet Child O' Mine. The encore had a special appearance by Fergie who really livened up the stage and had so much energy dancing around and jumping around, doing cartwheels and such.

After they finished their set, the Pumpkins came on to play. I will say that I felt like Billy Corgan has gotten his groove back. The last couple times I saw him play as the Pumpkins, but without any of the other original band members, it felt strange and you could almost feel that he felt it was strange too... But, this time around, you really did feel like he was comfortable, happy to be performing, and having the right to perform as the Pumpkins. They played a good balance of new songs and older songs, obviously having most of the pop songs (Today, Tonight Tonight, BWBW, Zero, Ava Adore, Eye, etc)., but he did squeeze in Hummer which I don't get to hear live often which is one of my favorites from Siamese Dream. Some of the newer stuff isn't half bad either, so that was nice too since I haven't been a huge fan of some of the solo stuff he put out or the most recent non-Smashing Pumpkins but Smashing Pumpkins albums.

The crowd was fairly respectable but of course you'd have one notable jackhole who tried to screw around too much. It actually was pretty wild b/c security was warning him to calm down but he shouted back at them, only to have them try to reach across the crowd and yank him out. Of course he battled and fought, but it was like a witch hunt when the crowd who despised him all worked together and threw him over towards security so he could get ejected. Haha. The power of masses.

Anyway, overall I was very happy to have seen the show. It was also the first time I ever took in a camera so I was able to snap some pictures, and I took video snippets of every song. It's nice to know I have some tangible memories saved on a hard drive. :)

After the show, Jeanie and I went to the Alibi Room since I never tried Kogi's before. I will say that I was quite impressed, and the food lived up to the hype! We had some kimchi quesadillas, bbq beef soft tacos, and a couple drinks. Yum yum.

September 4-6: Labor Day weekend - Duke and I used the weekend to shop for a BBQ and patio bar chairs. It was on our to-do list for quite some time, and we finally decided to cough up the cash and just get an awesome BBQ that fit into our island. I didn't know that islands were built around a BBQ, but I do now! Luckily, we were able to find the one that fit our island's empty hole exactly. We made the purchase on Saturday night, and decided to leave the installation for Sunday.

On Sunday morning, we took our first mountain bike excursion on the trails by our house. Duke took me on the one he and Elijah went on, and showed me where he tuckered out. We ended up going to the end of the trail which actually in total isn't that long, so we figured to go back to the main road and start going up this fire road where we saw other bikers. We start pedaling up this hill...up and up and up and up...we turn the corner, and more uphill! This was a big freaking hill, and we have no idea where the top is. We take a couple breaks, walk some, pedal some, and after a long while, we decide to call it quits. We want to try and hike up it one of these days to see how high it really gets, and to see if there are trails at the top you can go on. It would be such a bummer going through that huge feat again, only to find nothing at the top. Well, you would get a nice view, but we'd want to have some fun on the bikes up there somehow.

Back at the house, we start tackling the BBQ installation. It should be simple enough - just slip the BBQ into the hole, but oh no...it was a huge endeavor. The BBQ is huge and weighs more than 200lbs, and it was just Duke and I mounting that thing. Duke is a big guy, but come on. This was a ridiculous weight on an extremely bulky item. We of course had some snafus b/c the island isn't built exactly to configuration (not quite straight and with weird angles to prevent some pieces from fitting), but eventually we were able to get everything squared away. It took us all day.

At night, we christened the BBQ and had our first steaks grilled on them. They were quite good, considering neither of us know how to BBQ.

The next morning, we went to pick up some patio bar stools we found at this building company. They are some nice looking chairs, so we're happy to have found them, and they are very comfortable! The rest of my family - parents, sister, brother-in-law, and nephews all came over. My dad brought over a ton of meat, so we basically ate all day - ribs, steaks, chickens...stuffing ourselves silly at a meat fest!

September 11: Yesterday - I'm finally caught up! We went to Adventure City for Dylan's birthday party. It is a small theme park geared towards young kids, so that was pretty fun. I think most of the adults were bored since they sat around all day, but the day went by pretty fast for me. I played a lot of arcade games with Dylan, took lots of photos of all the kids, and just ran around a lot. Even though we had fun, I wouldn't say I'd recommend the place - it's in a somewhat dodgy part of town, and the park is pretty small while Knott's Berry Farm is just down the street.

Anyway, so that's that for now. My cousin's wedding is next weekend so I'll continue to stay busy for just a little bit longer. I have to write my speech soon!

Las Vegas

2010-08-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

I went to Vegas for my cousin's bachelorette party. Duke and I drove down and took a stop at M Resort to check it out. We met his dad and sister there since he was heading home with them, and I was going to meet up with my cousin and her friend. M Resort was nice but not nearly as spectacular as I had thought it would be. We also ate the an oyster bar, and it was really subpar. Service was terrible and disorganized, and the food wasn't that great either. There was tons of sand and rocks in my oysters. Yuck. There was also this chef who had no idea what he was doing - he would look in every cabinet to find what he was looking for. Very strange.

Anyhow, I met up with my cousin and her friend, and even though it was only 3 of us, the trip ended up being so much fun. We walked around to see all the new sights on Friday night. I haven't been to Vegas in quite some time, so it was awesome seeing all the new casinos. Aria was gorgeous - the City Center complex is just an amazing structure. We went to a pub there and had a few beers, lost some money at crap, and called it a night.

On Saturday, we headed to Paris to eat some crepes for lunch and made our way over to Mandalay Bay for our spa appointment. Originally, I had thought we were going to the Bath House which I had heard was the best spa in Vegas, but it turned out that we had our reservation at the Spa at Mandalay. Oh, boo!! The spa was still nice, but it was fairly simple - treatment rooms, sauna, steam room, and a central pool area which had different small pools of varying temperatures. We relaxed there until it was time to head back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

We went to Le Cirque after extremely high recommendations from my brother and Duke. The restaurant had quite a funny decor with a circus theme. The best part was the ceiling which had these big billowy drapes of all kinds of colors. What fun. It made me want to turn the room upside down and jump onto a big pillow. But I digress.

We had the pre-theatre prix fixe which is different than what my brother and Duke had. I have to admit I was a bit underwhelmed. The food was good, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't the best meal I had ever had. The service was also very stuffy which made the meal slightly uncomfortable.

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel and polished off a bottle of vodka. We had to gear up for our American Storm show. Haha - how ridiculous that we went to a male revue but hey, it was a bachelorette party. We gave my cousin a bachelorette sash and we all wore leis, and hit the town. The show was actually very funny and a really good time. The group of guys were probably the most horrendous dancers but they were pretty good at playing up the crowd and getting into the seating area to harass people.

After the show, we headed over to Caesar's to go dancing at the club Pure. It was pretty packed despite Vegas being noticeably unpacked. We danced for quite a long time, and finally called it a night around 4am. The next morning was pretty painful. Checkout was at 11am and after a long night of drinking, we all just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep some more. We went over to Venetian for some lunch, and had a great idea to go to a spa! We went for a pedicure (which also included use of the spa amenities), and it was such a mixed experience.

The spa itself is the most amazing spa I have ever seen. I didn't even get a massage or facial there but I would love to return to the spa. The amenities are unmatched and so much fun - lots of neat little spa rooms, a nice jacuzzi, and the best part was this coed area which was a huge lounge. There was a Wave Room which had these recliners and a huge dome ceiling with blue-green water projected on it. It was so peaceful, and a perfect nap room! I dozed off there for quite some time.

The reason why the experience was mixed was b/c of the Salon which was where we had our mani/pedicures. The lady I had was absolutely horrible. You could tell she was so annoyed that she had to do her job and constantly rolled her eyes at me. It was the most uncomfortable time. She even spent time using a brush to clean out her bracelet - it was so bizarre. Anyhow, the treatment was for 30mins, and 15 mins into it, she brashly hands me a piece of paper to sign that I received the treatment. I signed it, and she sent me on my way to the cashier. I told them what had happened, and that my treatment was cut short, so they ended up billing me 50% off. Even though they gave me a discount, I was really just appalled that such a high-class spa would employ such terrible people. There are so many unemployed people, and they have that type of person there! Argh. Also, my cousin had a situation with her treatment too with the employees giving her attitude. It was unbelievable that the 3 of us all had different experiences in the same place.

Anyway, back to the positive side, the spa really was what we needed. Before we knew it, it was time to head to the airport to drop off my cousin's friend. My cousin and I then met up with Duke and his family for dinner at Hofbraus Haus which was this crazy German theme restaurant. There was a live band playing German music, and even had these waitresses paddling customers. It was a very weird thing to see. These people were also not pretending to paddle, they were full-on slamming these wooden paddles onto people's behinds. Why anyone would volunteer for that is beyond me! Haha.

Well, that concludes the Vegas trip...Lots of activity, lots of fun.

Sedona

2010-07-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

June 28 - Day 1

We drove in to Sedona yesterday to check in to the Enchantment Resort. It was the highest rated resort so we figured we'd splurge. After arriving, I understood some of the reviews - the room is very average and definitely needs updating (the TV is a 19" RCA tube, for instance). But, we haven't even used the TV so it doesn't really matter, but I can see why people would expect the rooms to be much fancier given the 5* ratings and high prices.

After checking in, I was also unimpressed by the front desk staff. The woman asked if we had ever stayed here before, and I said no, and she proceeded to give no helpful information afterward. I asked about hiking trails, biking trails, etc., and she had no knowledge and told me to call concierge. I thought that was very bizarre - again, given the high rating, you would think the staff would be better trained.

We meandered around the property to see what was available - pool, hot tub, tennis courts, croquet court, bocce ball, pitch 'n' putt (it's like a blend of golf and miniature golf). We then went into the Mii Amo spa which was definitely the highlight of the place. The spa is very peaceful - each locker room is equipped with the standard showers, sauna, steam room, and hot tub. Outside, there is a large outdoor pool and hot tub as well as an indoor wading pool. There was also a fitness room as well as a room for the classes. I picked up the daily activities schedule, and it was time to plan our days ahead.

After our tour, we wanted to do at least one small activity while it was still daylight, so we hiked up a small trail to a vista point. The views were pretty spectacular as you could see all the various canyons surrounding us. I took some photos but I think a lot of the canyons were in shadows b/c of the time of day but hopefully some will turn out decent enough.

We then ventured into town to get some dinner. We randomly chose this place called Olde Sedona Bar. Let me just say that this was probably the worst place I've ever eaten at. The bar seems fine enough but people must get piss drunk there - there's a sign that addresses people who never close out their tab and leave their credit cards overnight, and how a certain % gratuity is automatically charged. Strange. Anyhow, I ordered a Caesar's salad with chicken and Duke had a chicken caesar sandwich. The service was very slow b/c our waiter had 8 tables outside plus us who were inside. The guy was busting his butt but he was just responsible for too many tables. Anyway, so when I got my food, the salad was truly disgusting. The lettuce was soggy and I even had pieces of brown lettuce. Ooh, yum. And, Duke's chicken sandwich had a shrimp shell in it. Uh...how does that happen. It was pretty funny though - Duke just picked it out of the sandwich, put it on the table and continued eating. I stared at it, and was appalled to think that a shrimp shell was in a chicken sandwich. Needless to say, I will never be coming back to this place.

After we got back to the resort, we headed to the hot tub and pool. We relaxed for a while, and were soon joined by these two kids, ages 6 and 11. We thought it was strange they were out swimming by themselves at 10pm but whatever, they were nice kids. We raced across the pool for a bit and hung out in the hot tub with them. We decided to call it a night since we were pretty tired and these boys were very talkative so we started heading back to the room. But, of course we passed the ping pong table so figured we would play a couple games. We're both quite rusty at it but it was a fun time, and we tied after a few matches.

Back at the hotel, I watched another episode of Breaking Bad (very good series if you haven't seen it) and went to bed.

Day 2

The morning started at 9am with a photography tour/discussion. Duke went into town to buy some shoes since he can't wear black-soled shoes to play tennis, and I went to a photography session. There were 2 other people from the resort and the instructor was Larry Lindahl who is a professional photographer. We talked about how to capture the right light in a photo, how to incorporate foreground-middle ground-background in each photo, etc. It was actually a fun time and very relaxing. We walked around the resort a bit to snap some photos, and he pointed out a few things with different perspectives as you walk around a subject, how light changes the colors or shadows, etc. It was also nice since we were all able to ask various questions and it was a small enough group where it was quite informal and fun.

I met Duke back at the hotel room where we had a quick lunch. We decided to test out Duke's new shoes and play tennis for a half hour before I needed to head to the spa. It was 12pm and we decided to play some tennis. Given that the weather has been extremely dry and at 100 degrees, this was not a wise choice but it was still fun. Soon enough, it was time to go to the spa for my massage. I booked a package deal to have a 90-minute massage and a 90-minute facial. The massage was first, and at first I was thinking it was very average but in the middle of it, I found myself halfway sleeping and really enjoying the relaxation from the massage. Maybe it's b/c I usually don't book 90-minute treatments, but I will say that the therapist woman was very gentle but applied the right amount of pressure when it was needed.

Meanwhile, Duke went on a mountain biking excursion which I'm pretty happy I missed. I later saw the trail (while hiking) and it was super rocky and treacherous on a bike. I think I would have killed myself doing it! Duke enjoyed it though but did acknowledge it was very technical and too difficult for me.

After the massage, I met Duke out by the pool and just as we were getting settled in, a woman instructor asked us if we wanted to do Aqua Aerobics which was a class at 3pm. We figured we'd give it a whirl, so we joined the instructor and one other resort guest. The class was pretty relaxing and there were a few moves where you could feel your muscles working but overall it was pretty soothing. Duke was a really good sport about it despite him being so tall in a 4' wading pool doing these random exercises with floating barbells and a floating noodle. His favorite part was at the very end of the class where you put one noodle under your neck and one noodle under your knees so you're floating like a boat. Your partner moves you around in circles and back and forth so you feel the water flowing under you. It was nice and relaxing.

After the class, it was time for my next treatment which was the facial. Again, I found myself halfway sleeping, it was so relaxing! They put different cleansers and creme on my face, two masks, and also gave me a hand and foot massage. I also had some extractions done which was good since I've been feeling like my face was sort of congested as of late. Anyway, the treatment was very soothing. Meanwhile, Duke went to a Restorative Yoga class. The woman who taught the Aqua Aerobics also taught the yoga class and convinced Duke to go. Apparently it was a lot of lying down and breathing various sounds. Duke said he kept laughing even though everyone else was serious. Go figure. Haha.

We headed back to the room to change for dinner. We went to a place in town called Fournos Restaurant. It received great reviews on Yelp so we figured we'd give it a try. The place is exceptionally small, only with about 7 tables. You walk in and feel like you're in a house - the chef is in the kitchen on the right, and you sit on the left at some tables. The chef is Ivan Flowers - I'd never heard of him but I guess he's pretty famous as he said he has his own TV show.

The waitress brought us bread and some delicious dipping sauce made of olives, garlic, oil, and cilantro, and it was really lovely. Duke gobbled down a ton of bread and wanted to buy the sauce but unfortunately it had to be refrigerated and there's no why we could preserve it in our cooler for the next few days.

For appetizers, I ordered "World Famous" meatballs and Duke had some lobster bisque. The meatballs were very good and had just the right amount of spice. My only complaint though is that you could tell that the meatballs weren't made fresh that night, and they were heated up for our meal. The meatballs are quite large, so even though they were smoking hot, I had a number of cold bites in the middle which is never anything you want to experience at a restaurant. The flavor was great but this was a huge detractor for me. Duke, on the other hand, was extremely pleased with his soup and said it was the best he'd ever tasted.

We were then served our complimentary salad which was a very basic salad with some romaine lettuce and fresh ground pepper.

For entrees, I had pork osso buco and Duke had mahi mahi with lobster pasta. The pork was very tender and flavorful and was served on a bed of little pearl pasta which was very tasty. There was a good amount of tomato and eggplant flavoring with bits of spinach as well. I've never had this dish before but had heard of it, but it's served as a large pork piece with a big bone.

Duke's dish presented very well, and he seemed to enjoy it quite a lot. The fish was served with porcini mushrooms, olives, and avocado. The lobster pasta was served separately, and while he enjoyed it, I thought the sour cream flavoring was a bit too powerful for my taste.

We passed on dessert since we were incredibly stuffed but it seemed like they only served tiramisu anyhow which I'm not a fan of. Overall, the place was a pleasant surprise - the setting was very dismal as it sits on the same lot as a motel but inside, it has an old charm. The food had its drawbacks but overall it was a very good meal. I would go back to the place, and I know Duke would. He loved the restaurant and was impressed by the chef (partly b/c he's a motorcycle rider as well).

That concludes the day, and we are beat. Tomorrow is an early start with a hike so we'll see how the day goes.

Day 3

We met in the spa lobby for our guided hike, and piled into a van. The group was split into two, and hindsight is 20/20 as we realize we were in the less than ideal group. We got dropped off for a trail which actually connected back to the resort. The guide was a very nice woman but she was not very knowledgeable and wasn't too much of a guide. The hike ended up just being a stroll along a dirt pathway, and was quite rushed since the guide was basically speedwalking through the whole thing to get back to the resort since she had to teach a yoga class. Duke and I ended up being the stragglers b/c we stopped to take photos and enjoy some of the scenery. We did end up merging on to that rocky mountain biking path I mentioned earlier, and that's when I knew I shouldn't go biking in these parts!

When we got back to the resort, we ran into a couple people who had gone on the other hike, and they were saying how it was really awesome, very rocky and steep, required hiking shoes, and they saw all kinds of different views and nature (even a dead deer carcass). They asked how ours was, and we tried to answer without answering. :)

We went back to the resort and decided to fully satiate our hiking experience (since this hike wasn't much of one), and went along some other trails around the resort. There was a pretty nice hike, which required a really steep climb up some rocks. The end point was a bit disappointing though since you really busted your butt climbing, thinking you were going to reach some peak overlooking the canyons, but you end up in the middle of a canyon, just above the forest. Oh well.

We had lunch at the Yavapai cafe, and enjoyed a fairly decent meal there when it started to pour down rain! The staff had told us it was the start of monsoon season and we were able to experience that firsthand. We started the day in a sunny environment, and very quickly, the grey clouds rolled in with torrential rain. But as monsoon weather does, the rain stopped after about 20 minutes and it was back to blue skies.

The rest of the day was hanging out at the resort, and we tried different classes. There was a back stretching class and a chakra yoga class. Both were pretty mediocre classes but they were relaxing anyway, just nothing too athletic. The instructor even admitted that they made up chakra yoga which isn't even a form of yoga. The class mixed in random poses and a lot of chanting. Pretty bizarre. I can understand why Duke thought his other yoga class was so ridiculous since this one sure was!

Day 4

We spent the day in town in Sedona driving around to various shops. I found some neat gifts for my mom and also bought Dylan a birthday present. It's super cool - it's called a belly bank which is a big piggy bank that zig zags coins into a belly. I've never seen anything like it, so figured I'd pick it up even though his birthday isn't for a couple months.

There were lot of nice arts & crafts stores, and even a large warehouse of leased spaces for local artists to sell their stuff directly to the public. There were tons of knick-knacks, jewelry, and clothing. Duke got pretty bored, but I was entertained. :) My mom would've been in paradise since she loves that sort of stuff.

We spent our last evening playing tennis where of course I got huge bug bites! But, we ended on a relaxing note and went swimming and spent some time in the hot tub. We had dinner at the Mii Amo (spa) cafe, and the food was very good and healthy. And, as we had been concluding every night, we spent a number of hours watching Breaking Bad.

Day 5

We checked out of the hotel and started our drive. We wanted to make a stop into Phoenix to get some Hard Rock Cafe shirts, and we ended up spending the entire day on the road stopping randomly at various stores and such. We also went out of our way to eat at Whataburger since it was a chain I've never tried. It was pretty good.

As we reflected on our trip, we both agreed that we were so happy we stayed where we stayed, and can't imagine experiencing Sedona any other way. I don't know if we'd return to the resort since it's pretty pricey, and for the price, we weren't fan of the rooms. They really need better extermination - there were huge insects in our room as well as ants crawling all over. But, that being said, Sedona is a really small town so there's not much to do if you don't have all these resort amenities at your fingertips. If you're an avid hiker or biker, you could spend every day doing that but I'm not able to do that every day for that long so I was very happy we had the relaxing version of Sedona. I could imagine it's a great place for a group of girls to go to and just hang out and spa all day. It was wonderful how open everything was - no checking in to the spa, just grabbing whatever you needed whenever you needed it.

The other bit of advice for anyone considering this resort is to stay on the Enchantment side. The Mii Amo spa sells these journeys for thousands of dollars and jam-packs your day with an itinerary of activities, but as a guest on the Enchantment side, you are privy to all the same classes and spa amenities. The only difference is the number of spa treatments you're not getting/paying for. Perhaps the rooms are nicer but is it worth paying that much more for that? We felt like we were getting the same experience for a fraction of the price. There was a guy I met at the photography session who was on one such journey, and we saw him over and over again throughout the week.

Anyhow, that's enough for this post. It's long enough!

Alexander's Steakhouse

2010-06-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

Over Memorial Day weekend, we headed up to the Bay Area for my cousin's graduation for nursing school. While we were out there, my brother and I decided to treat my parents to a nice dinner at Alexander's. I will say that this was one of the finer dining experiences I've had and a great value for what you get. It's a bit pricey but you do feel like you get your money's worth.

We started our meal with an amuse bouche - a small piece of hamachi tartare:

We shared two appetizers: scallops and hamachi shots. The scallops were perfectly cooked and adorned with some delicious mushrooms. Popcorn was also an unusual topping, but it worked!

The hamachi shots were heaven on earth. I mean that when I say it. It was just the best morsel of food you could put in your mouth with some lovely flavors from the ponzu sauce coupled with fresh hamachi and just the right amounts of herbs. I think I could eat a whole bowl of this stuff! They were the quintessential appetizer since they definitely whet your appetite, and solidified the fact that you were about to have a solid dinner service.

As for entrees, my dad had the special which was farm-raised bluefin tuna prepared three ways. This type of bluefin tuna is a very rare fish to be able to eat. The server told us that only 3 are flown into the US - one for the East Coast and 2 for the West Coast, and the restaurant was able to get half of one of the fish. Bluefin tuna from the ocean is almost extinct, so this is the more eco-friendly alternative . After sampling a piece of the fish from my dad, I will say that it wasn't the best I've ever tasted. I didn't think it tasted inherently different than other pieces of good tuna. I'll opt out next time it's offered just b/c it was extremely pricey and seems like such an ordeal to get this type of fish.

Nonetheless, the fish was a beautiful piece of fish:

My mom had grilled yellowtail. The little spheres around the fish were surprisingly delicious. They were some sort of crispy rice ball with some wonderful creamy sauce inside.

My brother had a nice piece of T-Bone steak which also had 3 types of salt for the steak:

Despite all the great entrees, I will humbly say that my choice took the prize for best entree. I got one of the specials as well, a huge piece of bone-in filet. I ended up only eating half of it and my dad had the other half. I haven't had a really exquisite piece of steak in quite some time, and have been very disappointed with some of the better steakhouses I've been to in the last few years, but hooray for Alexander's. Steak can be cooked well, and my food-snobbish palette can be pleased! I would highly recommend anyone order this if the special is offered. Absolutely delicious.

To accompany our entrees, we also shared a side of mushrooms and also a side of duck fried rice. The fried rice was a bit salty though so I was a bit disappointed on the sides:

And, on to dessert. We had two different ones - Cloud Nine which was made of profiteroles and almond cake and Hot Rod which was a sponge cake with jalapeño sorbet. Cloud Nine was ok - nothing too special in my opinion, and Hot Rod was one of the most interesting desserts I've ever had. The jalapeño sorbet was very unique and a really interesting taste. I liked it quite a lot. The sponge cake was very soft but I didn't think the flavor was that great. Both of them were good but I'd say that relative to the rest of the dinner, dessert was a weaker point for the restaurant.

And that concludes the dinner. Next time I'm in the Bay Area, I will definitely be back! I loved it. Great service, great food, great ambience. Oh, and I did try one of their cocktails which was also very unique and flavorful, so drinks are good too! :)

Where does the time go...

2010-05-25T20:11:00.000-07:00

It's been almost 1.5 months since my last post. I hate that my life feels so busy these days that I don't have time for myself anymore or any time to keep up with my blog. Every time I write, I feel like it's a catch up post, and I lose all the details of the memories that I never wanted to forget.

Life hasn't ceased being busy but I'm forcing myself to take a break tonight...!

May 8
We threw a housewarming party on Saturday which was an open invitation starting at 2pm. It was a really great time. It felt like we had 3 different parties. The first batch arrived in the afternoon, and it was a good relaxing time plus a couple kids running around like crazy. Haha. A few of them had evening obligations, so they left as other people started arriving. It was pretty funny seeing all the Hapa kids though (2 babies, 2 kids from 3 different families), but I guess that's the future as all the cultures start mixing...

The second swing of the party was in the evening, and that was when the house was most full. We actually had to make sure we were mingling enough but I think Duke did a better job of that than I did. There were some old friends who I hadn't seen in years, so it was difficult to tear myself away from some good conversation!

We had lots of drinks and snacks, but I think the big hit was the cheese ball that Duke made. My cooking skills are limited so that basically meant I was throwing some frozen items in an oven. :)

People hung out for a few more hours, took tours of the house, and everyone seemed to have fun meeting new people, etc. It was a day full of good company, and it made me feel so fortunate that we were surrounded by such wholesome, great friends. We had some of my old high school friends, coworkers, and Duke's friends all mixed into one group. Pretty nice time.

The third party started after everyone left except for 2 of our friends. We stayed up playing video games, singing some god-awful karaoke, and trivia until late at night. It was a great night, great day, great memory.

Since then...
I've had some family time with my nephews, and spent some more time getting to know Brandon. He's a big eater these days, and loves to be held. Dylan is still as crazy as ever with oodles of energy. We also did a photo-shoot at the house for my sister's family. I'm not a very experienced portrait photographer, but it was a lot of fun trying to take some shots so I'm sure we'll experiment again soon.

This past weekend, I spent time in San Diego. We went kayaking which was a bit rough given the high tide, and I got flipped over on the way back in from the hectic waves but it was fine. I also tried a Wave House for the first time. I had never heard of it before but it's an artificial wave machine, so we were able to boogie board down it. The first time was fairly fun, but then they turned up the water pressure. The 2nd time was much more of an aggressive ride, and I ended up pummeling underwater and sloshed around. It wasn't too much fun! All the guys loved it, of course, but the girls opted to turn the water down or just chill out in the hot tubs instead. Hehe. The rest of the weekend was full of a lot of drinking and entertaining conversation.

And now I'm back to work, and despite the fun time, all the stress is back in full swing. Lots of transitions going on right now, and I was promoted a few weeks ago so I'm in a new role which has been a rough start. I hope it gets better soon...

Brandon Arrives...

2010-04-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

I got my phone call at 3am to let me know that my sister was in labor. I headed over to the hospital around 5am where I found my nephew asleep, my sister waiting for the baby, and my brother-in-law looking exhausted. We chatted for a bit, had some breakfast and continued waiting. Hours passed, and the nurse examined my sister and said that the baby wanted to come out now. The doctor was paged, and Dylan and I meandered in the halls taking random photos of whatever was on the walls. I thought it would take longer, but literally 10 minutes after we left the room, we were called back in. Brandon was born! Wow, that was fast. No complications, and baby was born healthy and with a lot of hair! It's quite contrasting to all of us as kids since we were all born practically bald. Haha. He was born 7lbs 11oz, 20.5 inches long. I forgot how small they are when they're first born.

The next couple days have been with Dylan, and my parents came to visit the baby yesterday. Last night, they all came home so it's a full house yet again. I'm pretty exhausted myself, but it's back to work tomorrow - at least it'll be Friday.

New York & Other Happenings

2010-04-13T00:11:00.000-07:00

Wow, how time flies. I can't believe it's already April... I really need to keep more up to date with my blogging. Let's catch up... After my mom's party, the rest of March was basically filled with errands and continuing to organize around the house. It's amazing how all the little things you never think of just consume all your free time.

Over Easter weekend, our friends John and Susan came over with their two kids to play with Dylan. We had a little Easter egg hunt in the backyard which was super fun and cute. Their daughter is about 3.5 years old so she was faster at finding eggs than Dylan, but he did find one faster and was very triumphant indeed. He had a lot of fun, but it was the first time where he was really homesick. I only had him at my house for Saturday, but he asked to go home a few times throughout the day. I think he senses that his little brother is coming soon so has a lot of separation anxiety with my sister these days.

Last weekend, I had a short trip to New York for my cousin's bridal shower. I spent Friday flying, and then met up with a friend for dinner at a local Italian restaurant in Battery Park. I met her daughter who is now 10 months old.

It's crazy how much things have changed. I hadn't been back to NY for 3 years. It's neat to see all the little things that are different - all the subways are upgraded now, and some even have a nice digital display which is dynamic as you go stop to stop. When I was last there, there were still some atrociously old subway cars and you'd be lucky to understand the subway driver announce the stops as you went by.

I met up with my cousin at her future sister-in-law's apartment, and soon enough were back at the hotel. We stayed in Park Slope in Brooklyn where I had never been. I had heard that Park Slope was nice but the specific area we were in felt a little seedy. Oh well.

On Saturday, we headed to Tribeca for the bridal shower. My cousin's future in-laws were busy prepping and they did a fantastic job with some classic flower decorations and lots to eat. Plating was terrific - elegant glassware filled with fruit, assortments of macaroons from various bakeries in the city, carafes of juices, shrimp and chicken skewers, etc. The shower had a couple bride & groom questionnaire games and some time for opening gifts. The most shocking was when one of my aunts (a very quiet, conservative woman) gave my cousin some sexy lace underwear. It was pretty hilarious seeing some neon green panties when the rest of us were giving her gifts for the home like sheets, towels, salad mixers. Haha, how funny and unexpected.

After the shower, we had a little time to go shopping in Soho. Overall, the neighborhood felt the same but most businesses were different than what I remembered. A few Japanese-inspired stores popped up which were pretty cool. I grabbed a couple shirts, and soon enough it was time to meet up for dinner in Koreatown. I tried to get a reservation at my old favorite place, Dae Dong, but reviews told me that they closed down. How sad! I used to eat there at least every couple weeks! We went to Kum Gang San instead which was still there, and ended up being a nicer place for a large group anyway. My cousin from Queens also met up with us along with his son and wife. The meal was delicious, and I stand by my judgment that NY Korean food is better than LA's despite what everyone else tells me!

Afterwards, we parted ways with the family, and my cousin and I headed off to Cooper Square Hotel for a few drinks with her friends. It was a very trendy NY-esque place, and it was a relaxing evening. A friend of mine stopped by for a very short while before he went along his way for more exciting adventures. I'm too old for NY, it seems.

On Sunday, I said goodbye to my cousins and aunt, and went to Astoria in Queens to visit a friend. We had brunch, and before we knew it, two hours had passed and it was time for me to scramble over to the airport. It was absolutely fantastic catching up again, and it's too bad that good friends can't be just an arm's length away. Everyone is so scattered these days with their own lives, but I guess that's life.

Going back to NY was nostalgic in some sense but truthfully, it affirmed to me that I made the right decision to leave and go back to CA. The four years I spent there were super busy with work, filled with the most delicious food, and jam-packed with bars and checking out the trendiest of neighborhoods, but in the end, I am a homebody who loves to spend time with family and lead a quiet, ho-hum life. Maybe I'm boring, but that's who I am. It was really interesting to be surrounded by go-getters again, and see how ambitious maybe I once was or would be had I stayed. I think if I had stayed I would either have changed my person and become more quintessential NY or I would be sad. It's a weird realization to accept one's own choices and changes, and realize that memories don't need to be reminisced in a nostalgic way.

When I first got on the plane to NY, I was thinking that I wished I had planned my trip for longer since there were still so many more people to see and things to re-live. But after the few days I spent there, I really was ready to go home. I really surprised myself but I think it was a really important step for me to be truly happy with where I am in my life today, both personally and career-wise. Even though I took a step back in many ways, it was a step forward in other ways. Of course I would have loved to see all my old friends who are in NY that I didn't have a chance to reconnect with, but time was short and I'll always have e-mail and phones to rely on. :)

Well, this blogging has ended up being a rambling but the story continues! I had a very eventful and tiring flight on the way back. I had a stopover in Chicago, and shortly before the time to board, we were notified that our plane had mechanical problems and was grounded in Indiana. The airline had to try and find an aircraft to take us back to CA. After waiting and waiting, they announced that they found us a plane. Hooray! We head over to the new gate only to find out that the plane we were supposed to be on was a 757 and this one was a 737. What did that mean? This plane could accommodate ~30 less people. This plane only had 30 rows whereas the other plane had 36 rows...There was a 20% chance that I could be left behind in Chicago, forced to take a flight the next afternoon (all the morning flights were already booked).

The airline asked us to all re-check in and one by one, people were re-issued tickets except for people with assigned seats greater than row 30. I go up there, confidently expecting a ticket b/c I had a seat in row 15. "I'm sorry, we don't have a seat for you right now." I was confused. How can this be? The plane continues to fill up, and I am left with a small group of people wondering what our fate was for that evening. The attendant goes on the plane to double-check if every seat is full, and they have a few more spots left. A couple names are called, and finally my name is called! Yay, it's like winning the lottery! But wait, another man steps up to the counter at the same time as me. I look at him, and ask him if he has my last name too. He has a similar sounding one but not the same. We ask the attendant which one of us he called, and he didn't recall but the boarding pass was printed. He reiterates my name, and apologizes to the man. Apparently I was the last name to be called and I got the final seat. Whew! How lucky!

I get on the plane and finally understand why my row 15 was an unlucky one. Apparently on the 757 plane, row 15 is like any other row but on this 737, row 15 was the exit row aisle. They assigned all the original plane's exit row people to this plane's exit row thereby giving my seat to someone else. Fantastic luck! It all worked out in the end, and I was able to make it home. I did manage to watch Young Victoria on the plane which I didn't really think was a good movie at all. It did interest me enough that I'd like to read the real biography one day, but the movie set up all these plots and characters and abruptly ended, in my opinion. I thought the story was just ramping up but then it was immediately followed by text summarizing the "and this is what happens..." part. I was very confused.

Anyhow, that's the latest and greatest from me. I'm off to bed after sufficiently relaxing. I just got "Barry's Boot Camp" in the mail today to try an at-home workout and man did it kick my bootie. I actually felt dizzy so I only did 75% of the exercises which is pretty weak sauce since the whole workout is only 21 minutes. It's super intense which I didn't really expect but maybe I'll be more prepared tomorrow to actually do the full workout now that I see how fast everything goes.

Til next time... (which will be an update about my new nephew-to-be hopefully!)

Surprise Birthday Party

2010-03-08T22:58:00.001-08:00

Over the weekend, we successfully threw my Mom a surprise birthday party. She was so shocked and speechless, it was pretty awesome. Recall I just bought my house, and 3 weeks later, I have 15 people showing up on my doorstep! It was really a whirlwind getting everything ready at the house, and in the end, it all worked out. All the relatives loved the house, and they already staked a claim for my house to be the future place for family get-togethers. Haha.

It’s amazing that the party was a surprise since so many people knew. There were a lot of close-calls when we thought the surprise would be blown but miracles do happen and no one said a word. All the relatives showed up on Friday night, and we started Saturday morning with some party decorating. My mom was under the impression that my sister and I were going to take her to lunch for her birthday, and she came by the house to find everybody already there. A lot of her sisters had been avoiding her phone calls for a month or so, and she actually was irritated at them for not talking to her, but at last she finally figured out why. Same goes for my brother – apparently he called the night before her birthday and spoke to my dad, and my mom was wondering why he didn’t even have the decency to talk to her that night. Haha.

We wrapped up the morning festivities with a slideshow, which was accompanied by a lot of exclamations and laughter, particularly at the old pictures we showed from the Philippines where they all grew up. We then went to lunch at BJ’s and then did some piss-poor gambling at an Indian casino. Dinner was held in LA which was really good except for the fact that they served 10 dishes in 1 hour! The food came out so fast that by the time you were going to try something new, the food was already cold! What a shame. But, I don’t think it mattered since everyone was just enjoying each other’s company.

Saturday night was pretty calm since everyone was really exhausted from the day and the previous day’s drive (people came from the Bay Area, Vegas, etc). On Sunday, we headed to get some dim sum and did some shopping at some of the local Chinese marts. The rest of the afternoon was full of Mahjong and random pairs of people watching some DVDs on their little portable machines. A pretty funny sight anyway. Sunday night was a late night as far as I could tell but I went to bed around midnight and still heard lots of talking. Everyone left bright and early this morning back to their normal lives, and I’m left feeling relieved that the party went off without a hitch and completely tired after running around nonstop for the last month and a half.

I look forward to a good night’s sleep…but wait, of course no relaxation can be had since I now have to focus on getting my taxes done! Booooo!

Homeowner!

2010-02-11T18:57:00.000-08:00

I am officially a homeowner! Funny how dates turn out but it's my 5th anniversary with Duke and also the same day I close on my house. Crazy...

The weekend will be full of cleaning and packing, and I'll officially be moved in the next week or so! More updates to come but I figure I'll commemorate the event with a blog post. :)

A 3 Hour Meal...

2010-02-03T22:20:00.000-08:00

My coworkers, Duke, and I ventured to Sushi Wasabi this evening to celebrate my friend's acceptance into the UCLA business school. Sushi Wasabi, if you recall, is the sushi place of choice these days. I haven't had a better meal to date. Looking back at my old post, we had all of those items minus the giant clam and ono plus a few new ones:

- Monkfish liver (served as a sushi)

- Barbecue eel (I didn't particularly like this one since it "stung" and cut the inside of my mouth)

- Albacore stomach-side (different from the opening Albacore dish - served as sushi instead of sashimi)

- Raw scallop sushi

- Uni (I had a portion this time)

With this meal, I can officially say that I have beaten a restaurant! We were the first ones in for dinner, the last ones out, and ate one of everything that was available. It was pretty awesome. It ended up being a 3-hour meal, but the time passed really quickly. We had a lot of good laughs and enjoyed the melt-in-your-mouth sushi. The bill came out to be $140/person which is steep but considering how much we ate and the high quality of the sushi (plus factoring in the beers that a couple of the guys had), it really isn't that bad.

I can't wait for my brother to try this place out next time he's in town. He's also a sushi snob like me. :)

And, in other news, the lack of blogging is an indication that I have just been super busy. I am in escrow and hopefully going to be a homeowner next week!!! Crazy that my long journey of home-buying may come to an end. I think I may try to write a book of sorts (or a really long blog entry) of all the things that I've learned during this process and wished someone had told me about.

New Year's Eve: The London Hotel & Gordon Ramsay's Restaurant

2010-01-02T18:32:00.001-08:00

Duke and I met up with Sharon and Sean for NYE. We headed to West Hollywood to the London Hotel. Our dinner reservations were at 9pm but we ended up arriving around 7:30pm. We luckily didn't hit any traffic, so we had some time to enjoy the hotel rooftop. The London Hotel is absolutely spectacular. It's very refined and elegant, and just beautiful. The rooftop had a gorgeous skyline view of LA with a nice pool surrounded by cabanas and one of those fires that light up over scattered rocks/pebbles.

We had a drink up there and relaxed before dinner. I had Pimm's cup which I hadn't had since New York, so that was a great way to start the evening.

We headed down to the restaurant which I had been eagerly anticipating for months. I had heard the restaurant was fantastic, and I am a huge fan of Gordon Ramsay from Hell's Kitchen, so I was super excited to try out the food. The NYE package price was $140/person so pretty pricey but fairly reasonable for NYE.

The menu sounded delicious, and soon enough, our course started.

We were given our amuse bouche which was caviar atop creme fraiche inside a cookie type crust (I have no idea what the actual dish is called since it wasn't on the menu):

This was really delicious. The caviar was just a perfect accent to a light beginning. The other three people at the table were not as excited by it but admitted they didn't really like caviar. I, however, thought it was great and even scraped a few of the caviar that dropped on the napkin to eat it all up.

First course - Butternut squash foam infused with truffle roasted blue foot mushrooms:

At first sip, I thought it tasted bad, both because the texture truly was a foam (which was a bit unexpected by me) and the squash was a bit bitter. However, when coupled with the piece of buttery bread and the mushrooms in the soup, it was actually pretty flavorful and a decent dish. Nothing too spectacular, but it was good in its own right.

Second Course - Foie Gras and Game Terrine with Vegetable Picalilli, Micro Greens Onion and Rosemary Brioche:

I couldn't eat this dish. I know from previous experiences that I don't really like foie gras, and now I've definitely confirmed it. I tried really hard to eat this, but it was just so thick and had a foul taste. Blech. It was barely edible when combined with the bread but that large piece of foie gras and that small piece of bread meant that I still had a whole lot of foie gras left without any bread. I tried eating just the pieces of game embedded in the foie gras just to not waste too much of it, but it was just salty. Only Duke ate his piece, and forced himself to eat Sharon's. Sean and I both didn't finish ours, and ate about 1/3 of it before calling it quits. I can't fairly review this dish since I'm not a fan of foie gras but man was it rough.

Third Course - Pan Fried Loup de Mere with Braised Fennel, Leeks, Confit Lemon Grass and Ginger Veloute

This dish was ok. The fish was fair and was introduced as Sea Bass - I don't know if sea bass and loup are the same things. Anyhow, the fish taste was ok but a little bit dry for me. The accompanying vegetables were good. Overall, a fine taste but again, nothing that I would absolutely die for.

Fourth Course - Wild Mushroom Ravioli with Savoy Cabbage, Celeraic Cream, Thyme Sauce:

Another "it's ok" dish. Beautiful presentation, but it was just a large wonton type thing. After biting into it, it tasted strangely like meatloaf and mashed potatoes. I can't explain why given the list of ingredients, but it really had that reminiscent flavor. I expected a rich mushroom flavor, but it was more like a meatball with a nice pasta coat around it. It was also fairly heavy which I guess is good b/c it was just one ravioli as a course.

Fifth Course - Roasted Beef Tenderloin, Slow Braised Short Rib, Red Onion Puree, Potato Fondant, Port Wine Sauce:

This was my favorite dish. The beef was perfectly cooked - very tender and very flavorful. Each bite was delicious. The vegetables served alongside were also terrific. I thought it was a really clever dish b/c it was almost like a mini-full steak dinner. You had a delicious piece of beef with miniature portions of creamed spinach, mashed potato (served here as a potato piece), a side of vegetables (here as an onion). This was the quality of dish that I was expecting for all of the dishes. At least we had one.

Sixth Course - Ice Wine and Black Berry Soup, Fromage Blanc Foam:

Elegant dessert dish, but it was just ok. The first sip was a bit sour at first, but once your palate got acclimated, it tasted better. The berries were pretty tart which were countered by the foam but the wine mixed in a strange flavor. Sean did like this dish a lot though, but Sharon and I were mediocre fans of it.

Duke opted for the only choice on the menu - instead of ice wine, his course was - Selection of International Cheese, Condiment and Fruit Bread:

I ate the fruit bread b/c it had nuts in it, and the bread was actually pretty tasty - raisin/nut bread. I also ate the macadamia nut atop the red spread. Duke gave me a piece of the cheese on the left and said it was the same cheese as what Babybel is made of. I like Babybel cheese, but I didn't like this one. Maybe it was too fresh for me, but the flavor was way too strong. I am not a fan of raw cheese though, so you can discount my review of this dish. Duke and Sharon are both fans of cheese, and they both agreed that the cheese on the right was too strong, and neither liked it. A good chunk of that cheese was left on the plate for the waiter to take away.

Seventh Course - Milk Chocolate and Coconut Parfait, Kalamansi Lime, Dark Rum Ice Cream

To finish it all off, could I get an absolutely delicious dessert? Sadly, no...The chocolate was much like a chocolate mousse which tasted very ordinary. I had no hints of coconut in there which was also sad since I very much enjoy coconut. The yellow sauce was made of the kalamansi lime - I don't know if you've ever had one before, but it is the sourest lime you will ever taste. I am surprised that it was the sauce for the chocolate since it's an extremely powerful ingredient which I didn't appreciate. Way too overpowering and not exactly complementary. The ice cream was also an epic fail for me. It was like taking a shot of rum. I expected an ice cream with hints of rum but it was just pure alcohol which was way too strong for me.

And, at midnight, we toasted with our glasses of champagne and were served our coffee accompanied by macaroons:

I was expecting the yummy coconut macaroons but sadly, we were given this type of macaroon. They provided some visual enjoyment though - in the dim light at our table, they looked all the same, but with a picture with flash, we were able to see all the various colors. The flavors of each of these were also just so-so. There was this jelly type substance in these mini-hamburgers, and they tasted average.

The bill came, and all in all, the evening ended up being close to $200/person with no alcohol (the champagne was complimentary). Was it worth it? Absolutely not. I was truly disappointed in the experience, having had much better meals at half the price. However, price aside, I was most disappointed b/c I have been waiting so long to try a Gordon Ramsay meal. He is so critical of the chefs on TV, but alas, I don't agree with his taste at this restaurant. One day when I go back to London, I'll try to have a true fine dining experience at one of his restaurants there.

The evening was still a lot of fun though, thanks to the great company of friends. Too bad the food couldn't be as great.

Another Birthday and Christmas

2010-01-02T18:21:00.000-08:00

I've been quite delinquent again with my blogging, but to sum up, I went to Disneyland for my birthday, and it was good, fun time. Duke and I enjoyed most of the rides, and even though the park was packed, the lines weren't too bad with some strategic fast-passing. They gave me free admission and a big blue button that said Happy Birthday, and throughout the day, random employees would greet me and wish me a happy birthday. It was nice, and interesting to know that Disney again doesn't disappoint with all the details - to even train employees to look out for such buttons.

The highlight was the fireworks show which ended up with Disney creating a snowy night. It was quite a clever idea with soap-bubble machines atop the buildings along Main Street which simulated snowfall. It was really a special moment when you see everyone's eyes light up when they see the snow.

Fast forward along to Christmas, and the time was spent with my family. My brother came to town, and my sister and nephew were around as well. We had some good game-time, particularly with this PS3 game called Buzz! It's actually really fun, though it's peculiar that the game has a buzzing in device but yet you never buzz in for the questions - you just answer them without having to ring in. Perhaps some expansion pack uses it... Who knows.

My brother had some pretty funny moments with my nephew, so that was really neat b/c they don't get to see each other very often. My nephew is of the age where he copies everything, so it's pretty funny to see my brother pull out some crazy dance moves to have him copy it. Haha.

After Christmas day, I spent a few hours visiting my high school friend Gretchen who now has a 3 1/2 year old daughter and a 9-month-old son. How time flies.

The day my brother was heading back home, we decided to get some sushi at Kotobuki. His friend Jorge came along, and both he and my brother hadn't been to see Hiro in many many years. Jorge even had his bachelor party there 10+ years ago but hadn't been back since. They were both happy with the meals.

All in all, it was a really fun time. My break is almost over and back to work I go, but at least I had a lot of fun while I was off. NYE post to come next.

Oh No, It's the TSO

2009-12-04T18:51:00.000-08:00

We went to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra last night at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Here's my review:

In one word:

Gratuitous.

First Half:

Boring.

Second Half:

Better.

Joe Walsh:

The Best Part.

If you care to read the more detailed review, here it goes:

We arrive at the stadium only to find that our terrible seats were worse than terrible. We were on the top tier with a side-view of the stage. That's not the terrible part. The seat were unimaginably small. I am not a very big person, and those seats were painful. Once people started sitting next to us, we were sandwiched toast.

Regardless, we were looking forward to a great show. My friend and her husband saw TSO last year, and raved about it as one of the best concerts they had ever seen, and they are actually going to see them for the 2nd year in a row tonight in San Diego. I will have to talk to her to see if she still liked them after this year's show. Duke saw some YouTube clips, and was super excited to see them.

Anyhow, the lights dim, and the show begins. Duke and I are puzzled. We thought this was going to be an action-packed, rock show overlaid with Christmas music. Boy, were we wrong.

There was some Christmas music intertwined, but a whole lot of it was TSO original lame pop songs with some not-so-great lyrics or singing. And, to make matters worse, there was a story interlude after every song with some guy talking in a really low voice, muttering random crap about what Russians want for Christmas...some Stoli! Uh...ok. Then there was some more stories about angels and who knows what else. Every song ended, and the speaker would so eloquently transition into his story with an "And so..." Can you really not think of a better transition? There was also this random song sung by a homeless guy. What the hell is going on?

For an hour and a half, Duke kept looking over at me, and just saying "I'm sorry." I figured we were even since last year, I dragged him to the Pageant of the Masters which was a flop, so now we're even.

The show made no sense. The minute you thought you were going to enjoy a song, they ruined it. They had a very nice start to "Joy to the World" and then it morphed into some random weird song. They had a beautiful start to Pachelbel's "Canon" only to bait and switch it to something else. But, my favorite was their rendition of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" - they put absolutely nonsensical intonations into the song, and screamed the song. It went something like this:

HARK!!

The HERALD!!!

angels sing.

GLORY!!

to THE!!!

newborn

KING!

Peace on Earth and

MERCY!!!

mild

GOD!!! and

Sinners reconciled

...

You get the picture. It was absurd. The whole show was also accompanied by what is known as Hair-ography. That's when you can't actually sing or dance, so you have to hide behind all your hair. They were experts at the headbanging which could be fine but they were being so ridiculous headbanging to really quiet songs. Even when the girls would turn their heads left and right, they had to make sure ever strand of hair was flinging around.

And, to make matters worse, the lead performer constantly asked for applause. You know, the most annoying hand gesture of "Come on, come on, clap for me". There was so much gratuitous dancing, hair bopping, and running around like wild men on stage. There were acting like they were having such a great time but it just looked ridiculous.

The lead singer also liked to hold notes for a super long time. Yay, you can take a deep breath and belt out a note but it was just so long. It reminded me of Austin Powers urinating and he just kept going. The guitarist also did that with his feedback, and made his high notes last for way too long. Then, of course, ask for applause that they were just so awesome.

Booo.... And then, there was a break. The host talked about all kinds of random crap for a long time, and they ended up giving themselves a self-anointed awards ceremony. They introduced every single person with backstory, and even had a few speeches of "I'd like to thank..." Uh, what? Is this a concert, or just a gratuitous event where you have 8,000 people watch you do whatever the hell you want. Oh yeah, that's right, it's is just a gratuitous event.

Anyway, after the awards ceremony, they announce that there would be a special surprise just for LA, so we all had to make sure we stayed to the end. Great, they have to bribe people to stay. I guess it was a good bribe but plenty of people were still walking out.

The second half of the concert was much better than the first half b/c the Christmas story ended, and we didn't have to hear that dude talk. They even said he was the James Earl Jones of our generation...yes, I guess I don't have to continue to give evidence that this group is delusional.

The music was more upbeat in the second half, so at least there were a few songs that were pretty cool to see with the laser shows going on. There was also a lot of pyrotechnics with some blue and green flames too.

Then, the surprise came out which was Joe Walsh, former member of the Eagles. Duke knew who he was but I didn't. Even though I didn't know his song about a Maserati, he was an infinitely better performer than the rest of the TSO. He played a couple songs, and the audience was going wild. Most of the audience was of the older generation, so I'm sure they were very familiar with him.

Anyhow, the concert came to an end, and we walked out. I wondered if it was just us not being fans of the show, but most people were also complaining about the first half. All in all, I would highly not recommend anyone going to see the TSO. What a waste of time and money. I guess it was good for some comical memories like when there was some audience participation through clapping, and everyone else stopped clapping except Duke and the guy next to him (their apparent #1 fan). Duke kept on which was good b/c once he stopped, the other guy felt dumb and stopped clapping even though he had to resist the urge. That guy was an amazing fan though. He was playing air guitar to their songs the entire time, accompanied by his leg bouncing to the beat.

At least there was one happy camper.

Battle! Best Sushi in Orange County

2009-12-04T18:00:00.000-08:00

We've been frequenting Kotobuki Sushi Restaurant for quite some time now, enough that we can be dubbed "regulars". We absolutely love Hiro, and think the sushi he prepares is awesome (he even stamps it on his business card). The albacore sushi is always melt-in-your-mouth, the sauteed asparagus is to die for, and the shrimp hand rolls are with just enough sour and spice to keep you satisfied. As Duke puts it, Hiro puts more time and care into one piece of sushi than a chef does for an entire meal.

My brother first introduced me to Hiro a number of years ago when he used to live here. I experienced it a couple times, and loved it. Fast forward, and now I live in Orange County, and Kotobuki is as tried and true as ever. The best in OC.

I introduce Kotobuki to a few of my coworkers, and they are hooked. Within one month, one guy went back 3 times, another twice, not to mention Duke and I going about twice a month as well. One of my other coworkers was finally going to try it out, skeptical b/c he claimed that he had found the best sushi in Orange County at Sushi Wasabi.

The next day, he comes back with a mediocre review. We were appalled. How could you not think that was the best sushi?! He had some nitpicky items to review, so we discounted his tastebuds, but he told us that Sushi Wasabi was better. Now, as much as I am loyal to Hiro, I love me some good sushi. I had to try. Besides, my coworker is Korean but his dad was born and raised in Japan so they knew authentic sushi.

Duke and I venture over to Sushi Wasabi on a Friday night at 8pm. They close at 8:30pm. They had a Closed sign up. Huh? I walk in, asking if they are closed despite their hours, and they take a peek behind the sushi bar, and say "Sorry, no more fish." We couldn't get seated. What kind of crap is that? Don't have hours if you're not going to be open then!

We left disgruntled and decided to go to Kotobuki instead. And then, the unbelievable happened. We had a terrible time!! It was the most expensive meal we had ever had there (racking up a $220 bill for the 2 of us without any drinks), and the fish was not good. Hiro served a lot of cooked items too - yellowtail collar (ok with lemon; disgusting without the lemon squeeze), sauteed mushrooms and scallops (overcooked scallops and way too many mushrooms for 2 humans to ingest), etc. We didn't get our sushi fill, so requested some albacore which is normally my favorite. It was almost frozen! I couldn't believe it. Hiro never fails us...but that night, the fish was not good. The yellowtail was also too cold and didn't taste good. We did, thankfully, have one piece of yellowtail belly which was great.

We also were coerced by some adjacent diners to get this salmon sashimi dish which ended up being the same style salmon as the salmon sushi was just had...God only knows how much that dish cost us! How sad.

Anyway, after leaving Kotobuki that night, we were still in a dearth of good sushi. We decided to venture back to Sushi Wasabi. We arrived at 6pm on Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The place was packed. We walked in, "Do you have reservations?" "Uh...no." They look around, look at the time, and look around. "Ok, you can sit here." Wow, I've never been in a place that was such a wildcard if you could get seated. Reservations are a must here.

We sit at the sushi bar, ready for action. First course - Albacore from Canada, the chef proclaims. Wow, what specificity! And Wow, what an amazing taste!! That dish alone, and we were won over. It was so fresh and absolutely delicious.

Here's the list of remaining items we had:

Bigeye tuna from Hawaii

Red Snapper from New Zealand

Baked scallop with onions

Yellowtail from Japan - two pieces - one backside and one stomach side

Blue crab hand roll from Texas

Ono (I didn't get the location)

Salmon from Scotland (x2)

Raw Kumamoto oysters from Seattle

Spicy tuna handroll

Halibut from the East Coast

Uni (only 1 piece for Duke)

Giant Clam from Seattle adorned with a mint leaf

Chopped Toro

This was a fantabulous meal. Main highlights for me were the albacore, raw oysters, the blue crab hand roll, the yellowtail, and the chopped toro. Having said that, every dish was just perfect. The omakase was actually over after the spicy tuna handroll, but Duke and I can eat lot, so we ended up requesting the next few and the chef threw in the chopped toro for us to try as well.

The bill came, and it was just slightly more expensive than a normal day at Kotobuki (excluding that horrendous last visit), but not too much more. I was super impressed.

The next day, I told my coworkers about it, and they couldn't believe how impressed I was. We went back for lunch. Oh yeah, I am totally spoiled. We call the restaurant to make sure we can get seated (they're only open for about an hour during lunchtime), and they say they can. We arrive, and the waitress (presumably the chef's wife) looks at me, and says "Were you here last night?!" "Uh...hehe, yes!" She laughs, and tells the chef, and they are very amused that I would come back within 18 hours.

The lunch course was the same as my dinner course with the exception of getting a raw scallop and octopus sushi dish as well as a piece of uni, instead of the red snapper, halibut, and ono. Lunch ended up costing as much as dinner, so be warned of that if you're thinking of testing it out just for lunch. You might as well go for dinner.

In summary:

- Go to Kotobuki if you're in the mood for more handrolls, extra spices and lemons with your fish, and a fun time talking with Hiro.

- Go to Sushi Wasabi if you're in the mood for super fresh fish and traditional sushi. Each sushi piece has a very little amount of rice, so you end up having a wide variety of fish since you're not getting full without any rice.

Overall, I have to give it to Sushi Wasabi as the best I've ever had in OC. While it saddens me to say b/c Hiro is still awesome, Sushi Wasabi is just absolutely the freshest and most pristine sushi I've ever tasted. It even beats out some of the really pricey places like Nobu and Matsuhisa.

Ode to Nasonex

2009-11-12T22:26:00.000-08:00

Allergies and sinus problems all my life,

Tissues and headaches, so much strife.

Is the milk spoiled?

I cannot tell; I cannot smell.

I sleep upright for my nose to drain,

Sitting to sleep is definitely a pain.

Sniffling in meetings,

Blowing my nose,

It's just the story of how my life goes.

Until that is...

Nasonex was presented to me,

Simply amazing what a spray can be.

I now have five senses,

Amazing indeed.

Sometimes so lovely,

The bath gels and soaps.

Sometimes so putrid,

The odors from blokes.

A new world for me,

To explore and not just see,

I just want to say

Thanks to the Nasonex bee.

A Few More Mentions

2009-11-10T21:27:00.000-08:00

I forgot to say that while we were in LA, we ran into Conan O'Brien. How funny is that. We were at a pizza place on a Sunday afternoon, and saw him, his wife, another couple, and some kids. They all seemed like very nice people. Conan was much taller and skinnier than I would have thought, but his hair was still as outrageous as ever. :)

My other update is that I'm officially now on a diet! Maybe if I write it, I'll actually follow through with it. Haha. It's been 3 weeks since my marathon and I hadn't gone to the gym at all. The marathon training actually had me gaining weight - I think I overdid it with the "I need the pasta for my long runs!" so I've decided to focus on getting me back down to a more comfortable weight. I'm shooting for 12lbs which would bring me to the weight I haven't been since high school (eeks!) but we'll see what's possible. I think 7lbs is definitely doable but 12lbs will be a stretch.

I finally went to the gym yesterday, and did a varied cardio workout, mixing running, bike, and elliptical. Today was supposed to be some upper body weight training but since I'm feeling lazy (great start to my diet), I'm just going to do some Wii Fit Plus.

I picked up Wii Fit Plus the other day, and I love it! It's the same as Wii Fit but with extra games plus the much desired functionality to compile various exercises into one workout so you don't have to keep clicking in and out of each activity, disrupting the flow.

Alright, that's all the updates for now.

October, Gone and Went

2009-11-09T20:20:00.000-08:00

I figured I'd do a catch-up post, so let's rewind a few weekends ago. My sister dropped my nephew off with me at work, and my co-worker watched him while I got my hair cut...What a horrible idea! Dylan screamed for 45 minutes straight, freaked out by the strangers and seeing me inside and not with him. Luckily, the outside air conditioning unit scared him, and he started talking to my coworker who subsequently provided entertainment with his iPhone. He downloaded a Star Wars light saber thing where you'd jut your iPhone out, and it would make all the light saber sounds. Dylan was impressed.

After my hair cut, I met with Sharon for dinner at a small deli near UCI. It was perfect for Dylan who got to run around outside while we caught up. We ventured over to this spiral ramp and bridge, and Dylan had a blast running around and laughing.

Then...the fun stopped. Saturday morning, he woke up with a cough, and as the day progressed, he started having a fever. He was still in a good mood and had a hearty appetite but we just stayed in so he could rest. He started taking a few naps, and his fever started to escalate. It was actually pretty concerning b/c I've never cared for a sick child on my own before. He was not happy with the tylenol or getting his temperature taken (even though it was just under his armpit!).

Sunday morning, I was woken up by a BLEHCHCHCHCH...vomit all over me and my bed. Not a fun way to start a morning. I rushed to get him cleaned off, clean the sheets, and me, only to sit him down on the couch, and BLECHCHHC...vomit #2 all over him, me and the couch. I can't win. Clean-up routine starts again, and I'm really worried he's going to vomit everywhere. I called my parents to come help me out - just having an extra set of hands would have been super helpful that morning...By the time they came though, Dylan was stabilizing and no more vomit, thank goodness. We slowly weaned him onto food by starting with some juice, then rice, and later he started to feel better despite his continuing to run a fever. He also discovered his love of seaweed as he chased the jar of seaweed followed by "Auntie! Auntie! Seaweed!" Haha. Good to see him returning back to his normal self anyway.

My sister and her husband came to pick him up Sunday evening, and it took him another 4 days to really get better with no fever.

I went to see him again on Halloween, and he still had a cough but he was running around like his usual self. We went to the mall, and soon enough, it was time for trick-or-treating! I dressed up as a banana and sang Peanut Butter Jelly Time to him (reference the Family Guy episode where the dog is in a banana costume singing that song). Dylan dressed up as batman, carrying a spiderman head as his basket. Funny combo.

We went to a lot of houses, and there were a few very decorated ones, and Dylan loved it. He went to one house 5 times since it was like a little adventure every time. He was fairly inconsistent with the "trick-or-treat" and "Happy Halloween" but my favorite was when he looked through a person's window and said "Nice couch!" followed by him sitting on their patio step just hanging out. Haha. He was also a particularly greedy munchkin - a person would say to take one, and he would take one, and then just stand there. No matter how many "Ok, let's go! Thank you!" he just stood there, and eventually the person would say "Oh, I think he wants another" and he'd take another...And then another! After a few pieces, he would finally leave. Haha. It was a lot of fun though as he yelled out "Monster!" a lot, and really enjoyed himself. There was only one house that was really scary to him but otherwise, he knew what was real, and what was fake and just for fun.

I hadn't been trick-or-treating in so many years, and it was really fun to see all the kids everywhere. What fun. I'll look forward to doing that again next year. :)

Locks of Love

2009-10-25T22:08:00.000-07:00

I chopped off all my hair! Well, at least so I can get a 10" ponytail to donate to the Locks of Love. :) It's my third time sending in my hair, and it's a tradition I imagine I'll keep up with.

I look a bit like a mushroom but maybe if I do my hair properly tomorrow, it'll look better. This weekend was super tough - I watched Dylan since Friday night, and he's been super sick and I had the pleasure of being vomited on twice, and having to clean up all kinds of stuff. Yuck. Needless to say, today is a mushroom-hair day.

From One Terrific Nike Race to a HORRIBLE Nike Race!

2009-10-23T22:32:00.000-07:00

So, my last post was all about how I love Nike races, and what a great experience my Women's marathon was...

This is NOT the case for the Nike Human Race! I actually did this race last year, and it worked out fine, and this year I was going to do the 10K with a friend of mine. Neither of us live in LA, but we were excited to do this race again.

We register. After weeks and weeks, no information is available about race packet pick-up. The race is today, a Friday (starting at midnight). We receive information mid-day on Wednesday. Super last minute notice, and what does it say? Pick up packets at USC 11am-8pm Thursday or 11am-5pm Friday. Uh...WHAT?! You expect people to have to take off work to go pick up some damn packets which are MANDATORY to enter the race b/c your bib is your shirt? What??

Previously, I had searched around the internet looking for information on the race packet pickup details, and a couple posts said you could pick up at USC between 8pm-11pm which made sense since that would be convenient and the race started at midnight. I thought this would work out until I get their super last-minute e-mail which did NOT include this as an option.

My friend and I called each other last night, and didn't know what to do. Neither of us could make the trek up to LA during those times, and we didn't want to risk going there to pick up packets at the race, only to find out we can't get in.

I did, however, read ONE site from Facebook with this "Nike Ambassador" who responded to a question posted about picking up packets at the race site just before the race, and he answered Yes, that it was possible...But, yet no official confirmation on the nikerunning.com site would confirm this. Do we believe this one random dude who is an "Ambassador"? Why do none of the other forums confirm this?

We decided not to go, and throw our $25 registration fee to the wind.

Anyway, so out of curiosity as I sit at home at 10:40pm instead of at a race I signed up for, I checked the Nike website, and lo and behold, they now have it posted that you can pick up packets from 8pm-10pm at the race site. Uh...that would have been nice to know YESTERDAY! Plus, no e-mail notification was sent out to tell people that there was now a THIRD option to pick up race packets. Ri-DONK-ulous.

I was wondering why the Nike Human Race registration was so damn cheap at $25, and now I know that you do get what you pay for.

To the Nike Human Race USC organizers - you stink!!! I've run countless numbers of Nike races, and have NEVER experienced this type of disorganization and last-minute BS. Argghhh! It makes me so mad.

Ok, that's my ranting for one night.

Marathon: Run Like a Girl!

2009-10-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I ran in the San Francisco Nike Women's Marathon. I actually did it! I started my training 18 weeks ago, and I must admit I did cheat on a few weeks but for the most part (particularly in the last 1.5 months), I was pretty disciplined, and it paid off! I had a goal of finishing in 5 hours (my best half-marathon I ever did was 2hrs 25 mins), but I really expected to finish in around 5.5-6 hours. My 20 mile training run took 4.5hrs, and while I did walk a lot, I didn't know how much I could really shave off on race day. In the end, I finished in 5hrs 8mins. I don't have my official time yet from the race, but that's what my stopwatch read. :)

Let's start from the beginning. I flew up Friday night to San Jose, and hung out with my brother and Jeanie. Duke joined us on Saturday, and after playing some video games (we downloaded Brain Challenge for the 360 which is the best $5 value out there), we headed up to San Francisco. We checked into Hotel Mark Twain (boo, the hotel sucks so don't go there) but the location was great since all the race activities were in Union Square.

Duke and I went over to the Expotique to register and pick up my race packet. They had a lot of neat girly booths like free manicures, Luna bars & blocks, and also some more general booths for free smoothies (you have to blend them yourselves with a bicycle), chocolate (Duke made me stop by 3 times to get him some chocolate caramel Ghirardelli squares), etc. There also was a slew of treadmills to analyze your gait, but I had done that before at Road Runners.

We went back to the hotel to relax a bit, and headed out to find dinner. After some lack of planning and laziness, we decided to try and find a nearby Italian restaurant for my carbo-load dinner but as you would expect, all the Italian restaurants were booked. 20,000 participants in the marathon/half-marathon, and everything is full? Cannot be! Well, you're right, we found a place called Caffe Bella Venezia which had an opening...Suspicious as we were, we didn't have much of a choice. It had a "B" rating which is never a good start, and everyone's meals on their tables didn't look appetizing. The place was run by a couple Asian people so you knew it was going to be super authentic Italian food...I ordered a simple Spaghetti and Meatballs but that ended up being kind of gross. Everyone else's meals were also very below average so we all left very unhappy and unsettled. The only plus was that the place is dirt cheap with most dishes below $10. You get what you pay for. Bah.

We stopped by a nearby crepe place called Honey Honey, and we had a Nutella & Strawberry crepe which sounds delicious but I was disappointed b/c the strawberries were cooked and warm. Yuck. The crepe was also kind of small for the price. Bah again. The nutella was yummy though.

I ended up going to sleep around 9:30pm, and the rest of the folks went out to a couple bars. I woke up at 5:30am, got ready, and Duke and I headed down to the race around 6:30am. There was so much energy, it was absolutely fantastic. We took some pictures, went over to check out the start area, and soon enough, I was in line in my pace group section (10:00-11:59/mi). The race starts at 7am, and I crossed the start line around 7:15am. I waved to Duke, and I was off!

The first 4-5 miles was very crowded, and actually quite difficult to keep your own pace b/c there were a lot of people slower than you would like to be. They had a couple pacers holding up signs, and they had to keep spurting from slow to really fast to keep their average pace since it was difficult to just go at one speed. The morning was very brisk, foggy, and dark, but it was great running weather since it kept me cool.

Around mile 6, the massive hill started. Luckily, I reviewed the elevation chart before the race and expected it, but it was huge! I didn't want to burn out too fast so I walked up a lot of the hill. Through the course of the race, we ran from Union Square through Golden Gate Park, around some Lake (you couldn't really see it), and then onto the Great Highway. There were several hills on the course, but overall it wasn't terrible. There were lots of long straight stretches (particularly on the Great Highway) so overall, I liked the course (in contrast to Camp Pendleton which was one gigantic hill after another!).

At the halfway point, I was at 2:30 so I was right on pace for 5 hours. I was feeling pretty good, and really proud that I wasn't tired at all. Around mile 18, my legs really started hurting. My heart and breathing were good for the entire race, and the limiting factor was my leg muscles. Normally, I walk to take a break, but usually walking just helps me catch my breath, but there was no breath that needed to be caught! Walking was just as painful as running, so I ended up running despite the pain since there was no other remedy anyhow. At mile 20, I was at 3:50 which was great compared to my 4:30 last training, so I was feeling excited. Once I crossed that marker, I officially entered the "I've never run this far" territory so it was pretty motivating to keep on going to the home stretch.

The last 2 miles, I started to pick up the pace a little though I was still doing some hobbling-run, and at the last half mile, I heard a coach say that you just had to reach the 2nd stoplight which was visible, so I started to run as fast as I could (probably not too fast though since my muscles were totally dead). At the home stretch, the announcer yells "And here comes Cindy!!!" and some audience people yelled "Go Cindy!" and that was pretty awesome. I crossed the finish line in disbelief that I finished and felt good. I got my perfect little Tiffany's box from a firefighter dressed in a tuxedo (the boxes were on silver platters), and I made my way through the finishers' area. I picked up my t-shirt, grabbed a banana, and a silver foil to keep me warm, and tried to find Duke, my brother, and Jeanie...I didn't spot them on the way in, so I headed over to the Friends & Family meet-up area.

I probably did the worst thing you could do post-race which was sit down for 45 minutes, but I just didn't have the muscles to force myself to walk around. After a while, I saw Duke come over, and he explained that they missed my finish! Booo! I wasn't mad though since I was on a runner's high, I guess, having just accomplished my biggest feat yet. It's a shame no one saw me cross but I'll be looking for the photos that the race posts up to capture those moments.

Overall, the race was awesome. I think I definitely picked the right marathon to run. San Francisco weather was perfect for running, even if the fog covered up some of the scenery; the women in the race were amazing and so collegial, caring, and energetic; there were plenty of aid stations for vaseline, band-aids (luckily I didn't need any), and lots of water/gatorade stations as well as Luna bar/blocks and chocolate (I didn't eat any of those but I did have my 2 Powergels I brought with me); and they had lots of entertainment areas with bands, cheerleaders, DJ's as well as cute signs of "Run Like a Girl", "Laugh Like a Girl", "Just Do It Like a Girl", "[...] Like a Girl". Safeway also had some nice signs too saying "This is your marathon because..." followed by signs of what you gave up "sleeping in on weekends", "nursing blisters", "going through 4 pairs of shoes", etc.

I would also say that there were lots of street intersections allowing for spectators, and the majority of the race had tons of friends and family of runners cheering us on. It was really an awesome encouragement. Team In Training was also a huge presence at this race with lots of participants in purple, traveling from pretty much each of the 50 states. It was pretty cool that people traveled so far, and lots of people had the reasons why they were running "In memory of...", "A survivor of...", etc. For a race that size, I continue to love Nike races. They're so well-organized and we got to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

So, after the race, we went to eat at Texas Roadhouse where I had a delicious ribeye and mashed potatoes. Carbs and protein - yay!! It was really tasty, and I was pleased with the restaurant but I felt bad for Duke b/c he had to take benadryl for the 2nd time this trip (first time was when he tried some of my crepe). I felt bad for him...

We then got back to my brother's house to relax, and Duke started his trek back home. The remainder of the evening was a lot of Brain Challenge as my brother and I competed.

This morning, I got on my flight, and now I'm back home. The marathon is over, and it's 1 day after the race...I can barely walk. I think I developed plantar fasciitis or something in my left foot b/c my arch is hurting a ton. It makes sense that it's just my left foot though b/c my right leg muscle was hurting a lot during the race so I'm sure my left side had to compensate a lot. My right knee was shot and completely raw yesterday but it's feeling better today. I don't think I've had this type of pain in my foot as excruciating as this though. I actually debated getting a wheelchair at the airport but decided it was probably good for me to walk on it and get the muscles a little stretched out. I hope it recovers soon since I promised a friend of mine that I would run the Nike Human Race 10K with her this Friday! I might just end up walking it if this pain persists.

Alright, well that's a long post but it should be! What a huge time commitment, and what a great accomplishment! Yay for me. I'm really proud of myself and happy with my time. :) It might also be my goodbye to long-distance running though since my knees and shins had quite a hard time during training. I may just stick to 10K's and under from now on.

And with that, good night!

NASCAR!

2009-10-15T22:38:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, Duke and I went to the Speedway in Fontana for some NASCAR racing. My friend gave us free tickets, parking pass, and pit passes. Neither of us had ever been to Nascar, so we figured why not go experience it firsthand. My old high school friend Gretchen and her family used to go all the time, and they invited me a number of times but for one reason or another, there was a conflict. High school came and went, and I could finally see what all the fuss was about...or not!

We arrive there, only to get stuck in this huge line of cars to get into the various parking lots. We notice a couple things (to be expected): 98% of cars contained let's say, "non-ethnic" people, and probably 80% of cars were American-made cars. We then pull up to the lot, and see the true meaning of tailgating. There are tons of cars/trucks/vans with portable bbq's grilling some food. People are just hanging out, smoking, drinking beer, and bbq'ing.

We venture into the race area, and after a lot of walking, we finally find where the entrance to the central part of the race area is. The track is super slanted, much more than either of us expected, and you had to stand at an angle just to keep your balance. We took a few photos then headed to the Pit Area. This was pretty cool actually - it was one big advertisement. Everything had a logo - whether it was the station, the flag with the number on it, or even cardboard cut-outs in the middle of tires - there were sponsor companies. My favorite was the flag that had the Hamburger Helper guy on there. What the heck?

The M&M's station was by far my favorite overall though, and that led me to root for the M&M's driver, only to find out that he was really ill, and had to get substituted mid-race. Oh well. He didn't win or come close to it but apparently he's pretty popular though since a lot of people had M&M's racing jackets.

After meandering around the pit, we walked around outside and looked at all the vendor booths. We also grabbed a great long sausage from Juicy's which was overpriced but yet very delicious.

Soon after, we found our seats which was close to one of the final turns. We were pretty high up so you can easily see the whole track. The race gets ready to start after a whole slew of announcements and the driver waving at us, and it was really loud. At first I didn't mind b/c the loud noise came and went as the group of cars drove by, but with enough time, the cars started to separate, and it was soon just one loud noise all the time. Stupid us, we forgot our earplugs at home which we bought the night before just for this purpose!

So, I greatly underestimated the length of the race. This was the Pepsi 500, so the cars were going to drive 500 miles...Even at their average 170-180mph, that is a really long time. I was really really bored in the middle 2-3 hours, and actually wanted to leave but Duke said we should finish the race and see who wins. It turns out that it's good we stayed b/c the best part of the race was at the end. With a few laps to go, the drivers actually start competing so they're starting to pass and make all these crazy maneuvers. There were a couple sideswipes into the grass area, and a crash involving 4 cars that took 30 minutes to clean up, so that was pretty exciting to see (no one was hurt). In the end, Jimmie Johnson (I had no idea who he was but I remember his name now) won, and beat out the Pepsi driver Jeff Gordon.

To sum up, this was my first and last NASCAR event. It's more exciting to see on TV b/c you can actually hear the commentators, and see the beginning, go do something else since you're not forced to stay at the TV, and see the end. I'm glad I went to experience it though, and checking out the pit area was really cool.

My Longest Distance To Date

2009-09-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, I ran 20 miles!! Woot woot!! I can't believe I actually did it, but hooray! I walked a lot of it but also ran a lot of it, so I'm feeling more confident about my marathon. The half-marathon at Camp Pendleton crushed my spirits, but this run made me feel much better. My breathing wasn't too hard, and my heart didn't feel like it was beating out of my chest. The limiting factor was my leg muscles, and feeling the pain from my ankles. I'd rather that be my limit than having to catch my breath. I pretty much have been hobbling everywhere for the last 1.5 days b/c my ankles really are shot, but I'm recovering ok despite a pretty ugly and big red blister that formed on the top of my toe. It burst yesterday by itself so it's not painful.

I also have to give a big shout-out to Brooks shoes. I bought 3 pairs to try them out, and 1 of 3 is turning out to be the great running shoe. It's the Infiniti 2, and at first I thought it'd be too narrow since I have somewhat wide feet but they actually fit like a glove. They've provided great cushion and support for my run, and much superior to my other shoes I was running in.

As for the other pairs, I bought the Dyad 5 which it turning out to be more of a walking shoe for me since they're heavier and wider. It's good for my orthotics though so during the day, I'll wear those. The last pair was the Ravenna which was a huge disappointment b/c they're too small! Much to my chagrin, I read some shoe store websites saying they run 1/2 size small. But of course, the website on Brooks doesn't disclaim that! Grrr. Anyway, it's too big of a pain to ship them back to where I bought them so I'm giving them to my mom who hopefully will be able to fit them.

Anyway, 3 more weeks to go before my marathon! Craziness!!! This past week, I ran 4, 9, 5, and 20 miles. This coming week, I'm scheduled for 5, 9, 5, and 12 miles...Starting the ramp-down until race day!!

Busy Busy Weekend

2009-09-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

My busy weekend started with the Camp Pendleton Half Marathon. Sharon and I met at the race to get checked in, but soon enough, we said our goodbyes since she's a super fast runner and I'm a super slow runner. :) The course started and it started hard! The first few miles were uphill, and I was already feeling pooped, but I trekked ahead...The course was an out-and-back, so at Sharon's mile 8, we intersected and I was between mile 5-6. Man, I still had so long to go and she was already on her way back! Soon after, I started getting more and more tired. Around mile 8, I was starving! My stomach was grumbling and I really felt like I had no energy. I regretted my decision to just eat cereal and not one of those power bar things, or I should have packed a little snack bar with me or something. I started walking (how sad!), and I walked for a couple miles. I got a little re-fueling at a gatorade station and downed a few cups to replenish some electrolytes, but I only was able to run a couple more miles. I had just a couple miles left, and I kept telling myself that I could definitely do that! ... or so I thought! I just had nothing left. I was really discouraged. There were even points where it hurt to walk and I didn't know how I would ever do a full marathon! I could barely do half!!

Camp Pendleton also had a 3-hour time limit before they would send a van out to go pick up any stragglers and get them off the course since it wouldn't be safe to stay out on a military camp after a certain time, and I was so scared I was going to be picked up and shuttled back! How embarrassing...but I do have to admit it crossed my mind to just hang out on the course and wait to get picked up. Haha. I was so tired.

I ended up crossing the finish line at 2 hours and 55 minutes! I was shooting for 2hrs 30mins, so this was way slower than I thought I would be. I have to really get my training in gear b/c this half nearly killed me and my full is in 4 weeks!!! Oh no...!

Anyway, after the half-marathon, I had to hurry as best I could (my muscles were totally dead), and drove back home to get cleaned up, and head straight to south Pasadena for Dylan's birthday party. I ended up showing up and hour late which really sucked since the party was only a couple hours, but I made the best of it. I snapped some photos, jumped around the bounce house, and climbed up some tubes and went down some slides with him. Those tubes were really hard to climb up in. They're definitely not meant for adults. Hehe.

The party was Spiderman-themed, and the cake had a pretty cool Spiderman drawing on it. There were a lot of other kids that came, and they left with some Spiderman goodies.

Afterwards, I drove over to Temple City to visit my friend Dee and his new daughter. His baby is 4 weeks old. I forget how small newborns are!

The rest of the evening was back at my sister's, and I entertained Dylan a little bit but I crashed pretty early since I was so sleepy from the race.

Today, I went over to Skin Spa with my mom and sister for Spa Week. We got a facial treatment each for $50. I haven't had a facial in years - I only had one before in NY, so this was a different experience. The spa was located in a completely empty shopping plaza but I had read rave reviews of the place, so I was still hopeful. The facilities were not as new and fresh as I'd imagined with just a small steam room and sauna, but I didn't end up using the facilities anyway. I was called in for my facial appointment, and the lady talked to me about my cleansing technique.

She started up this steaming thing in my face to open up my pores, and peered at my face under this fluorescent lit magnifying glass. She told me my skin was really sensitive and might even be pre-rosacea, asking me if I had ever gotten it checked out by a dermatologist! I never thought my skin was that bad but she made me feel like it was horrible! Maybe it is - who knows!

Anyway, she cleansed my face, did a light exfoliation, then started the extraction. Wooo-eeee, the extraction hurt!!! It made my eyes tear up quite a bit b/c it hurt so bad. There were all kinds of things she was popping and then would tweeze out some smaller things. She even made me open my eyes to see some blackheads she squeezed out. It was pretty nasty.

After the extraction, she used this high frequency electricity thing to combat infection. I didn't feel it at all so have no idea what it really did but whatever - anything to help, I guess. The last part of was the relaxing part where she put on a mask and gave me an upper body and scalp massage.

I felt like it was pretty clinical but really good for my face. I checked in with my sister and mom and she they totally different experiences! They were told about how great their skin was and how there were little to no extractions to be done. They also didn't get the exfoliation with a brush nor the high frequency electricity thing done to them. I was the bad-skin one of our trio, I guess! In any event, all three of us thought that we would go back and enjoyed our experience there.

After the facial, I headed over to Glendale to see Sue and her new baby boy who is 3 weeks old. She had a really complicated delivery, bad medical care from some residents who had no idea what they were doing, and a whole house construction! Craziness. Finally, things are a little more settled now so she can concentrate on the baby before she heads back to work in a few weeks. It was nice seeing her though as a mom.

I can't believe two of my high school friends are now parents! Who would've thought that when we were 12 years old, we would be visiting each other and babies! How time flies...

Anyway, now I'm back home and relaxing watching some TV. Back to work tomorrow which will be crazy as ever I'm sure since this past week has been horrendous but life goes on. I gotta get my running back on track again too. Bah!

Half-Marathon

Dylan's Birthday party

Dee's Baby

Skin Spa

Sue's baby

La Jolla Adventures

2009-09-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, Duke and I ventured over to La Jolla. We drove down after work on Friday, and checked into the Grande Colonial. I got a great deal from Perfect Escapes (they give you little extra perks at 4 and 5 star hotels). The location was terrific, just a short walk to La Jolla Cove and right in the middle of La Jolla Village. It was pretty late when we arrived, so we took a short walk out to check out the beach. I was actually really disappointed b/c I brought all my beachwear but soon realized that this wasn't really a beach. The sand was very limited, and there really wasn't any place to just lay out or what not. It also smelled of some rotting starfish or something. It was pretty weird.

On Saturday, we woke up to enjoy our free breakfast! The free perk I got was free breakfast every morning we were there which ended being a $50/day value. They don't give you a dollar limit but they say you can get one entree, one side, and a drink. The restaurant was pretty swanky but I'm glad the food was free. Given the awards and the decor, I expected a lot, but the food was very fair. I ordered this short rib 'n' hash thing, and it was pretty strange for breakfast since it was really heavy. Duke wasn't too fond of his omelette either, but the service was great! :)

We took a walk along the beach to where we were last night, and it was really different in the day. We saw the seals at La Jolla Cove which was pretty cool. We walked out along this walkway strip, and saw the lazy seals. A couple of them swam in from the ocean, and took 20 minutes to actually jump onto the rock. No wonder they just lay there all day. It takes so much effort to get on the rock!

Afterwards, we took a walk up along the road, and saw a ton of snorkelers and divers. It was super crowded so we opted not to go down there. Instead, we stumbled upon this house which was a store and also served as the entrance to the Sunny Jim Cave. We paid a few bucks each to go down the staircase, and it was pretty cool...until we got to the cave. The cave was pretty unimpressive but the staircase down from a house into a cave was pretty cool. The tunnel was built almost 100 years ago to let the people view the cave, and they still use it for the same purpose now. It was pretty funny going down there though b/c I had to duck through the small tunnel, and Duke is more than a foot taller than me so you can imagine he was blocking the whole tunnel and had to burrow up to get down there. Haha.

For the afternoon, we decided to go kayaking. We searched on the internet, and found a place that had a kayak/snorkeling combo. Duke had gone kayaking before in Catalina and didn't like it, but he had never gone snorkeling, so I figured it'd be a good bet. We took a walk to the northern part of La Jolla which was a good 20-30min walk, and grabbed some lunch at this little sandwich place. The food took forever to get to us, but whatever, we had some time to kill before our kayak tour.

We get to the La Jolla Kayak tour place, and get suited up with our life jackets and snorkel gear, and soon enough, we were off to the beach! The waves were pretty crazy b/c of the nearby hurricane turned tropical storm down towards Mexico, so it was pretty freaky getting on a kayak and forcing through these waves, but it was also exciting. We paddled out to this rock area where there were seven caves. It was near where we walked earlier in the morning, so it was kind of funny to walk all that way just to paddle back to where we came from. Anyhow, we anchored our kayaks to our tour guides' kayak, and plopped in the water to do some snorkeling.

We were supposed to see leopard sharks but ended up seeing a whole lot of cloudy water, kelp, and garibaldis (these bright orange fish). We also did see a few larger schools of small fish which was cool. Too bad the water wasn't too clear though - I've only gone snorkeling one other time which was in Hawaii, and that experience yielded much better sightseeing. Heh. After a while, I started feeling seasick so I was pretty ready to get kayaking back to shore. When we get closer to shore, we see the waves are pretty strong still, and it was a roller coaster back in! It was pretty fun with the slight feeling of danger that you'd topple in but it'd be alright if you did. :)

After our check out, we walked back to La Jolla Village, cleaned up, and headed out to dinner. We chose George's which had 3 different levels - a high-end, a bar, and an in-between. We tried going to the middle place which had an upper deck view of the ocean, but their wait was really long so we ended up going to the bar/restaurant which only had a 30 minute wait. This restaurant experience was fabulous. We had a small table outside (but enclosed) with a nice view of the ocean. Our waitress was great with all these small little touches to show she was paying attention. Duke ordered a risotto, and I forget what food allergy there was but she misunderstood him and thought he wanted a side of olives (which had nothing to do with the dish), and he joked saying he wouldn't mind...Voila! His entree came out with a side of olives! It was pretty funny.

My dish was ok - I ordered the sea bass which was a local one, not Chilean, and what a difference...for the worse. I didn't quite like it since it was kind of dry, but regardless, I still give a rave review for the restaurant. I ordered a couple cocktails which were great, Duke's food was really good, and the service was exceptional. For dessert, Duke had the creme brulee (surprise surprise), and I ordered a chocolate brownie cake which alright.

On Sunday, we wanted to relax a bit, and took some walks along the beach. We went back to visit the seals, and see them swim around. The waves were even more hectic than yesterday, and we got splashed a few times, and there weren't any seals on the rock since they were getting swallowed by water anyway, so we saw quite a few of them swimming through all the torrential waves.

For lunch, we went to The Spot, and had some "Chicago style" pizza. From a pseudo-Chicagoan, it wasn't Chicago style! It was slightly thicker than regular pizza with a bigger crust, but it was no deep dish! The waitress also clearly had no idea what Chicago style meant, but had to use the term a lot b/c it's on their menu. Regardless, it was a decent meal.

We then stopped by the Prospect Bar which had a really cheap happy hour and a wonderful view...but then we realized that you really do get what you pay for. The drinks were horribly mixed, and the appetizers we got were near inedible! We left pretty quickly after that, and decided to walk along the shore, and just sat and talked for a while. The moonlit ocean was a beautiful spectacle. Ah, so calming.

On Monday morning, we eat our last free breakfast, which was probably my best one since Saturday's meal wasn't too great (I had some funky french toast), but this morning I had a delicious waffle with some fresh berries. We went to say bye to the seal, and headed back home. There was a little holiday traffic but not too bad.

Later that evening, we stopped by Best Buy for their Labor Day sale, and picked up Guitar Hero 5 and Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 as well as Trivial Pursuit.

The rest of the night was game night for GH5 which has turned out to meet my expectations since GH4 was dreadful!

And that concludes the Labor Day festivities!

The Rest of my Weekend

2009-08-24T00:03:00.001-07:00

Outside of the spa date (per my other post), I had a really nice weekend. I drove to LA on Friday night, and woke up early to go on my old running course from Venice to Santa Monica and through Palisades Park. The roundtrip is about 9 miles, I think. Jim and I used to run that on early Sunday mornings, so it was a bit sad to run it by myself but yet great to be on the same course again. It's such a good run since it's flat and is mostly on asphalt or dirt, so it's much easier on my knees. All the longer runs I've tried here are on sidewalks and full of hills! Boo... Anyway, the run was great, but I didn't run the whole way since I've been out of shape a bit with my shin splints and knee problems, but between the walking and running, at least I did the mileage I needed to.

After my run, my family and I went to Empress Pavilion to eat some dim sum in old downtown Chinatown. Duke and I went there once before and weren't too impressed, but this time, the food tasted better. Only bad thing was that there wasn't as much variety, but from what we got, the quality was pretty good. Dylan then saw this little toy post office truck, so we bought it for him. He's super intrigued by it and loves it, so it was a good buy. I also picked up some more bamboo - I now realize that when I picked some up last week at 99 cents per stick, I got ripped off. Hehe. I got a huge bouquet of bamboo for $8. My sister also picked up this ornate bamboo plant that sat in this wooden boat with Chinese writing that says Smooth Sailing. Haha. It was really cool looking though.

Afterwards was my spa experience, and then I came back to have some short rib stew that my dad had cooked. Yummy yummy. We all went to sleep fairly early, and then Sunday came with a morning full of errands. It took way longer than I thought, since we were originally going to go to the beach, but the errands took 3 hours! I then had some lull time waiting for Dylan to take his nap but too bad when he woke up after it, I had to leave. I'll see him next weekend though.

I headed down to Long Beach to see my friend Kallista. We hung out at her mom's house in this super relaxing backyard. It was great to catch up, since we don't get to see each other too often, and she just came back from a 2-month trip to India as part of her MPH program. It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

That concludes my weekend...it was busy in a very good way. I love it!

Tikkun Spa

2009-08-23T23:29:00.001-07:00

I had a spa date with my friend Sue on Saturday at Tikkun Spa in Santa Monica. It was a great place which was very clean and brand new. There were a few rooms - three of varying heat as well as a cold "ice" room. The jade room was the least hot, and I wasn't sure what the benefit was but they had a little blurb about why it was good for me. After sitting in there for a little while, my massage therapist got me for my 90-minute deep tissue massage.

I have been wanting to get a massage for months now, but just never got around to it, and this is just what I needed! It was one of those "it hurt so good" moments, where I was really in pain after some of the deep kneading, but I knew that my muscles needed that beating up since I have some really tense spots buried in there. It was also neat to get the work done on my legs since I've been training for my marathon, and have been suffering from shin splints so it was good to get those massaged a lot too.

It definitely felt like an acupressure type massage with some very painful pressure points, but in the end I had a really relaxing head massage which nearly put me to sleep. It was great all in all, and if I lived closer and/or had a lot of money to splurge on spa treatments all the time, I would definitely go back a whole lot!

After the treatment, I met back up with Sue who was hanging out in the regular day spa area and her friend who was there. We sat in the 2nd hottest room called the Himalayan Salt room, and they had these large salt crystals that you could put on your body, so I put some of those hot stones on my knees and such. Not sure what this did for me either, but I enjoy sitting in these types of rooms. We then cooled off in the Ice room which wasn't too cold - set at 62 degrees. We then sampled the clay room which was the hottest one, and laid down on the bamboo mats there. This was really relaxing too, and I would've stayed in there longer but my friends had to go. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to go in the green tea jacuzzi so I was kind of bummed about that. And, their steam room wasn't functional the day I went, so too bad on that front as well.

I hope this spa survives. It's located in the heart of Santa Monica, right next to 3rd Street Promenade, but there is no signage. If my friend hadn't told me to look for a glass door with a keypad next to it, I would have never found it. I guess the place will have to rely on word-of-mouth to succeed so I'm doing my part with this blog post (despite me having a small readership).

The staff was super friendly and thoughtful, and all the main spa amenities were there. It's a Korean-inspired spa (without all the nudity running around which is why I never tried a Korean spa before), so it also offers Korean body scrubs and facials which I may try one day. The showers also had one of those exfoliating towel washcloths which were nice to use there. The only thing that I would comment as a downside is that there are some minor details that were missing. For instance, the washcloth in the shower was used by me, but it wasn't clear what I was supposed to do with it after my shower. I didn't want someone else to use it since that's gross, so I told one of the cleaning ladies that I had used it, and she said to not worry and she would take care of it...It's unclear how they know which have been used or not, but that seemed a bit strange to me. Same goes for the hair brushes and combs. Usually there's a separate bin for "used" combs and brushes so they can be sterilized, but there wasn't such a container so I left my used comb on the counter. The staff was very diligent about cleaning up everything very quickly but I just wasn't sure how people would know not to just put the combs/brushes back in the same bin as the new ones. And, the only amenity that I thought they didn't have handy was lotion - they had all the other necessities, but I didn't see any lotion which I thought was strange. Maybe I just didn't see it.

Outside of that though, the experience was terrific. There was fresh honeydew and watermelon available with some trail mix and of course the cucumber water. The spa was not crowded at all, so it made it even more relaxing since you could do whatever you wanted without fear of intruding in strangers' spaces. This was probably the best massage I've had in years (since my NY days), so I'm a happy customer. Next time I'll want to spend more time in the regular day spa though since I didn't get to remain as long as I had wanted to...

So, if you like spas, go there and try it out!

Lake Tahoe

2009-08-19T22:54:00.000-07:00

Last week, I took my first vacation since I started working again last fall. I went up to Lake Tahoe with my parents, and met up with my brother, Jeanie, Duke, and some of my aunts and uncles. The drive up was pretty nice actually, instead of taking the normal boring route, we took a more scenic route but it ended up saving us time and about 100 miles in the meantime! We went through a lot of small towns and such, and passed by a number of nice lakes.

When we arrived in Lake Tahoe, we checked into our resort, and went over to Harrah's to meet up with my brother. While there, we waited around gambling a bit until Duke arrived. He recently bought a motorcycle so it was pretty nerve-wracking with him texting me updates to assure me that he was alive. (I'm not comfortable with him being on a motorcycle). He came a couple hours late, and we later find out that it's b/c he ran out of gas! Apparently motorcycles don't have a gas gauge which seems crazy to me, but a key gas station was closed on Saturdays and another one had burned down. Luckily, a nice guy went and got some gas for him and saved the day.

After getting everyone settled, we had some dinner at the Cabo Cantina. Food was very blecch in my opinion but other people's dishes seemed to be ok. Afterwards, we decided to head back up to the resort. Our resort is atop three flights of stairs (some really long stairs), and I commented that my legs were already sore from the climb. My brother says that it's easy and he could go up them with no problem. Jeanie and I decide to challenge him, and to test if he could go up and down 20 times. He didn't want to take the challenge but said he would go up and down a few times to prove how easy it was.

As he starts climbing up and down the stairs, he was going super super slow...Jeanie and I were making fun of him a lot, teasing him to go faster...and then ...I look over across the balcony, and there's this HUGE bear!!! I tell Jeanie there's a bear, and we both look at my brother at the bottom of the stairs, and say "Hey dude...you need to come upstairs now...there's a bear." Thinking we were continuing to prod him for going so slow, he didn't believe us, and was like "Whatever, dude..." and he starts to accelerate a little...and then he spots the bear through the stairs and BOOM, he was already upstairs and in the condo. Haha. As he charged up the stairs though, the bear started sniffing and panting as it ran off. The bear must have thought my brother was charging right at him b/c of the angle of the hill the bear was on and how the stairs were positioned. Pretty crazy stuff. We didn't get any pictures for fear of my brother's safety, but it was one darn big bear. Duke missed all the commotion b/c his lazy butt was sleeping on the couch. Hehe.

Anyway, we played a couple games of Mu which is some sort of variation of Spades with a whole lot of rules. We were all super tired, but my brother was persistent about reading through all the rules. It ended up being pretty funny how many rules there were, since it took us over 30 minutes to actually start playing...but I guess it's a "you had to be there" moment to understand why it was so funny.

The next morning, we headed down to the lake, and went jet skiing. We lucked out in some ways b/c we got the last 2 Seadoos available, so Duke and I got a free upgrade for the superpower Seadoo. At peak speed, we went about 55mph which is pretty insane. It was super fun though, and really awesome to be out on the lake again. I definitely prefer jet skiing on the lake vs. the time Duke and I did it on the ocean in Catalina.

For some food, we went over to the Red Hut Cafe (I'll later learn that there are 3 locations). We went there last year, and it was some good local food. I had a waffle with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Yummy yummy.

We then headed over to the Fallen Leaf Lake trail, and hung out by this mini-lake for a little while. We took a lot of photos, and made a whole lot of pun jokes...So many that it got really irritating after 4 continuous hours of the puns...

We went to a very average dinner at the Horizon, and then bid farewell to my brother and Jeanie.

On Monday, my mom, dad, Aunt Helen, Duke and I took a hike. We couldn't find parking near Eagle Falls, so we went to this other hiking trail across from a scenic point. It ended up being quite a nice rock trail to go along, and we ended up going to see a small waterfall. The hike was fairly strenuous but I was really proud of my mom for being super speedy and she seemed to like the little trip too.

Tuesday brought a bike ride from Pope Beach to Baldwin Beach. It was a really easy ride alongside the roads, and we took a little detour near Pope Beach to see some old cabins and such, part of the historic Tahoe. There was even a blacksmith set up there too (though he was using a blowtorch which probably didn't exist back then!).

After our bike ride, we picked up my dad and went to the Chart House for dinner. The view was terrific, and our food was also superb. I had a very delicious flounder, and we also shared some mussels as a free appetizer. The dessert, however, was la creme de la creme...Oh man it was good. It was a chocolate lava cake which is my favorite anyhow, but they did a great job. I've had a few disappointing lava cakes before, so it was wonderful to re-live why this dessert is my favorite! :)

Later that night, Duke and I went to the casino to play some craps. All the craps tables were full though, so we decided to play slots in the meantime...and then we found Star Trek. Wow...talk about a well-designed slot machine. We ended up playing until 5am. Yes...for like 6+ hours straight. So, this machine was super fun. You have these great cushiony seats with speakers built into the seat as well as vibration from the sound effects. It's basically a very expensive video game. You unlock different levels for other types of slot games within the same machine, and the Bonus comes out fairly frequently so you're doubly hooked. You have a choice on the bonuses as well, with each level giving you 2 options of bonuses. Each bonus gives you a medal and sometimes more than one medal if you have a good run during a bonus, and the medals then unlock the other levels.

After a whole lot of time and money, we unlocked the next level, and were excited to try the newly unlocked level...which meant even more time and money. Haha...definitely a sucker play but it was honestly a lot of fun. Kudos to WMS Gaming for making a great machine. It'll definitely make a lot of money over time.

On Wednesday, I can't actually remember what we did...Maybe b/c we slept in after our late night of Star Trek... I know we ended up meeting up with my dad, and introduced Star Trek to him...he got hooked pretty quickly, but I had my fill from the previous night. Hehe.

That night though, we took a little ride around our resort to find a dark spot in the sky. It was peak time for the Perseid meteor shower. We saw some pretty large ones, and it was really cool. I felt very grateful to be in the mountains where the sky was dark enough for us to see stars! I don't think I would've seen any meteors out by where I live! Too bad my brother wasn't there. He used to wake me up when we were little so that I could check out the meteor shower every year. Ah, the memories.

Wednesday was also the birthday of my late Uncle...Still crazy that he's passed away. It's been 4.5 years since but it's still weird to think about it since it was so unexpected...

Anyway, on Thursday, Duke and I planned to take a drive around the lake and stop at some scenic points to take some pictures. We stopped by the D.L. Bliss State Park, and saw a sign that said 2 miles to the beach. We figured we'd just park up top, and ride our bikes down to the beach... As we were coasting down, the ride was great and then we realized it was severely downhill the entire way. Uh oh...the ride up was going to suck big time. We were already most of the way down, so we figured we'd head to the beach anyway. We admired some views for a short while, and decided to head on back up. It was really tough...at one point, my heart was beating so fast, and I was so tired that I felt like I had to throw up! It was pretty crazy. The altitude didn't help either, and I started wheezing too. Man oh man, what a workout. I ended up walking my bike up a lot of the way since it was just too difficult to ride up on the bike.

After we finished our climb back up, we continued on our way and stopped by a local market to recharge with some gatorade. Shortly thereafter, we stopped by a restaurant called Evergreen in North Lake Tahoe, and the food was ok. I had a salmon burger which was a little bizarre actually since it was all mashed up like a veggie burger. Anyhow, we continued on our drive and stopped by Incline Village which was this ritzy area with gigantic estates. We stopped by to go to a local beach but were quickly shot down b/c we didn't have a resident card. Bah!

We drove up a little bit to a scenic stop called Memorial Point, and I found the same spot as last year - my favorite place for photography in Tahoe. The waters are the most green, teal, and blue littered with large rocks along the shore. Duke and I climbed around on some rocks, and ended up going to this secluded beach. It was a pretty magical spot really. We hung around there for a while, and then called it a day.

Friday morning, I find out that my parents had thought about leaving that day instead of on Saturday. It was really confusing but we ended up going home. Duke and I were going to try water skiing but that meant my parents would just sit in the resort all day which is pretty lame. We decided to part ways, and Duke headed back on his motorcycle.

Before we left, we stopped by a couple arts & crafts fairs, and bought those water beads I blogged about. Saturday was a day relaxing at my parents' place, and then I headed back home to make sure everything was in order. I had a couple fish casualties but all the babies were still alive. I recently bought some sunburst platys, one of which had 20 babies. I still have 19 of them, and one of my South American cichlids also bit the dust.

Sunday was a quick visit in LA to see Dylan, and we went to the park to play tennis but the courts were full. Next time...

Alright, enough babbling and rambling...Nite nite.

Water Beads

2009-08-16T12:54:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a trip to Lake Tahoe which I'll blog about later, but just wanted to do a quick post on water beads! I've never seen these things before, but I picked up some at an arts & crafts fair in Tahoe. They look like marbles but in fact their squishy gels filled with water. They're actually made of contact lens material, and they absorb water and can water your plants over a month period, or just be used for some nice decorations with candles or something. They'll then shrink back to the beads, and you can re-soak them in water to blow them up again.

Here's what you buy - I bought blue, teal, and purple:

Each bag gets soaked in 1 quart of water, so I put them in some pitchers I had. Once you place the beads in water, you can start seeing them expand a little (this was after 5 minutes):

After about 7 hours, I decided to take them out of the pitcher, and strained the water out. I probably could have left them in water for longer since some of the beads were still kind of small.

Here's what they look like up close:

And, for the final product, I put them in vases and put some bamboo in there to live in. I mixed the blue and teal ones, and left the purple ones standalone:

I think they're really neat anyway, so thought I'd share. Upon a quick google search, they're widely available and it looks like my 3 packs for $10 was not a great price, but whatever, I would never have found out about them otherwise!

I keep meaning to blog...

2009-08-03T21:38:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been a month and a half since I last blogged. It's been on my to-do list for quite some time, and I'm at a point now that I'll probably forget some memories to write down and preserve.

I've also lost some pictures for the time being...Since my laptop died, I started using my dad's laptop so I think there are some pictures on there. I now have a new laptop which doesn't have any pictures, and my external hard drive doesn't have photos since May on it, so I have to assume they're on my dad's computer...I hope so anyway!

Since my last update, we took Dylan to Sea World. The park was much better than I thought it would be. I remember being pretty bored there when I was younger, but there's this huge Sesame Street playground area with rides, which is just great for Dylan. He knows all of the characters, so he was really in a fantasy-land. He got to meet Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Abby Cadabby. What fun! :) We saw the Shamu show and the dolphin show, and I fell for their little prank on the show where they pretended like an audience member fell in the water. Gullible me. Hehe.

A couple weekends ago, we were planning to go to the OC Fair, but it ended up being too hot, so my sister, her husband, Dylan, Duke and I just hung out at my place. We watched a movie and just relaxed over some all-you-can-eat sushi at Minato.

This past weekend, I spent a lot of time swimming at my parents' place. Dylan can't get enough, so we alternated who would take him swimming, and he went twice a day. He's getting good at kicking his feet now so maybe he'll be able to wear a little life vest and go try swimming on his own. He loved jumping off the step and having me catch him. It was truly some precious moments. I loved it. :)

He's talking a whole lot more now, asking what everything is called and sometimes just showing off by asking a question and answering it himself. His colors are a lot better now, and he's able to recognize a lot of letters and what they sound like. Not too shabby for a kid who isn't even 2 years old yet!

Outside of Dylan updates:

July 4

We drove up to the Bay Area to go hang out with my brother for 4th of July. We hung out at his house, played some video games, ate some grub, and even squeezed in some running. For the 4th of July holiday, we headed up to Half Moon Bay to visit Duke's friend at his condo which sat right on the beach. You could hear the ocean from the family room which was pretty awesome. Too bad the beach was typical Bay Area and had huge dangerous currents and riptides, so we didn't exactly have a beach day, but it was super relaxing and fun nonetheless. The fireworks show was also pretty awesome - we literally walked 2 minutes, and saw a nice show off the harbor. It was the most stress-free 4th of July fireworks event I'd ever been to since we were far enough but close enough. Just right!

OC Mud Run

Duke, Sharon, and I did the OC Mud Run in Irvine. I've been wanting to do a mud run for quite some time now, and Sharon promised last year that she'd do one with me, so this was our year! I was pretty excited but it ended up being a let-down. I'm glad I did it, but I wouldn't go back again. This was an inaugural event, and you could tell b/c the events weren't set up well for the crowds. Each obstacle had a huge line, and most were really lame like the "walls" we had to climb which were those construction cement blocks which people could hurdle. Each obstacle could be bypassed as well by just going off to the side which a lot of people did anyway b/c the line was ridiculous. We did every obstacle though and literally came in last. I think there were no more than 10 people behind us. Haha.

The mud pits were also quite disappointing b/c they smelled like manure!!! Who wants to wade through that?! It also was more like sludge than mud, and there were these plastic ropes that you were supposed to crawl under but they were so high you could just duck under them. It was pretty lame. The only fun part was this row of inflated rings to cross this river, but that also had its setbacks. Also smelling like duck poo-poo, we had to stand in this dirty river for 20 minutes waiting for our turn to haul ourselves over these inflatable balloons...Too bad most of them popped, and I even popped one too! It turns out they didn't think through the balloons, so the 10K race after our 5K and the noon races wouldn't have them...so that means those races really wouldn't have any obstacles at all! Bah...

Pageant of the Masters

My coworkers told me about this event in Laguna Beach called the Pageant of the Masters which occurs every summer. It's a show where works of art are brought to life by actors with great background scenery, lighting and very still actors in costume. It was highly entertaining... for about 30 minutes. :(

I was really disappointed, but maybe I'm not artsy enough to appreciate it. It was an amazing thing to witness but the show was 2 hours, and I was pretty sleepy by the end. However, I'm glad we had a chance to explore Laguna a bit though - I really should go there more often. We had dinner at Sundried Tomato Cafe which was excellent. The restaurant was a bit hard to find since the street numbers don't match up in any logical order, and the people we called at the restaurant couldn't explain where it was located, but we eventually found it. And, the meal was great. I'd definitely go back.

Anyway, after dinner, we went to the arts festival area before the show, and saw some interesting works of art - some were some fabulously polished photos printed on glass, others were very simple paintings on gold leaf, but yet others were weird works of art that I simply didn't get...

House Update

My house search continues with not much luck. I've had some pretty crumby agents - I'm on #3 already, and #3 doesn't seem very promising. It seems like every agent wants you to do all the work, and they just let you in to see the houses but don't add any real insight. They then populate some fields in the standard offer docs, and collect thousands of dollars if you successfully close...?

Redfin still seems like the best option just b/c I get half the commission back, and it's clear that you are supposed to do the work, and they have nice people working for them who don't make you feel like you're inconveniencing them by wanting to go on so many home tours. I've yet to have success purchasing a home b/c of a number of reasons but we'll see what happens...I might take a break for a month or so, and wait until the fall to see if the market looks any different.

The main shenanigans that are affecting me:

1) Short sales are so plentiful, and often go nowhere. The agents never have any idea at what point of the process a property is in, and it's a crapshoot whether there's a real opportunity to buy. Plus, the list price is often some hocus pocus just to generate interest but doesn't mean anything.

2) The banks are limiting inventory by trickling in foreclosures at a very slow pace. Right now, it is a seller's market. How counterintuitive is that...so much fuss about incentivizing people to buy homes but yet there are so few homes to buy. Foreclosures come on the market and are off the market within a matter of days - so quick that you often don't even have a chance to bid.

3) Investors are coming in with all-cash offers...which means their offers win...Their flipped properties are also now coming back to market where they put in some quick work carpeting and painting but you can tell it's cheaply done, and you don't know what else is just hiding behind a layer of cheap paint.

4) I don't know if this is a trend or not based on anything at all, but there are some new housing communities that are selling without any model homes to show. I don't understand how people get comfortable buying a house without walking through it. I've been to a few communities like that now, where they'll only have the upscale models or no models at all. You then have to rely on some pictures or a virtual tour? That's scary since I've definitely fallen for many a house based on pictures and walked through it feeling certain that it wasn't the house for me. I'm not sure if it's b/c builders got desperate trying to sell, and they sold models before a phase was complete...but maybe that's common practice? I have no clue...

Alright, enough housing talk...and enough blogging for now. I'm pretty sure I've missed some other key dates and events over the last 1.5 months, but that's all I can think of readily for now.

Nite nite.

Spago

2009-06-15T21:59:00.001-07:00

I had only tried a couple more casual Wolfgang Puck places, and didn't think much of it, so I was curious to see if I'd like his bread 'n' butter...Spago has the reputation and the 2-star Michelin rating to go along with it...

And well, sad to say, I was a bit disappointed. Either I really do have a "discriminating palate" or Spago is over-priced and over-rated. I wouldn't say it was a bad meal, but for >$100/person, I expected more. Maybe I am spoiled from the fine dining in NY that I've had over the years...

Anyway, here's my review...

Ambience: It's a decent-looking restaurant but nothing too fancy. The bathrooms are nice but just about as nice as any hotel or casino. There are some stained-glass-like windows on the roof which were nice. The art on the wall was peculiar, with more of a Spanish/country feel despite this restaurant not being either of those things. I would rate the outdoor section to be great though - it was beautiful the night we were there, and I liked the open-ness that the outside area (which was connected to the main dining room) gave to the restaurant.

Appetizers: I had a risotto with baby asparagus and crab. This was a spectacular dish. The chunks of crab were generous, and the risotto was cooked perfectly. I've had plenty of bad risotto in my life, and this was done very well. I loved it.

I also sampled some of the following:
- My mom's crab cake which was also very good - large chunks of crab in a nice sauce.
- A bite of my brother's tagliatelle - tasty but I expected a bit more here. It was a bit standard.
- A piece of my sister's sashimi appetizer - excellent presentation, fresh enough fish, but not the best I've tasted.

Overall, appetizers were strong - my risotto took the winning spot in my belly though. It really was delicious.

Wine: The sommelier recommended a bottle of white wine for us. I don't even remember the name of it but it was pretty darn average... All I know is that it was a member of the Chardonnay family but meh, I was not impressed with the wine choice. Boo for paying for an overpriced bottle which wasn't even good (and I'm not even a wine connoisseur)!

Entrees: I had the halibut which sat on a caramel corn sauce. Beautiful presentation. My issue was the fish! The sauce made the dish - the corn sauce was very tasty, but the fish, in my opinion, was a little dry. I was a bit disappointed that the sauce was really a requirement in this dish. Usually, I expect the actual meat to have its own delicious flavor, but this one really needed the sauce to make it something special.

I tried a piece of my sister's steak, and that was pretty good but again, I've had better steak, though I recognize this isn't a steakhouse.

I also had a piece of duck from my brother's g/f - out of the entrees I tasted - this was the best one. It was well-seasoned and just salty enough.

I didn't get to try my dad's fancy Wagyu steak ($150 for 6 oz leaves little to share) but he seemed to enjoy it a lot.

I also didn't try my mom's red snapper or my brother's salmon but they seemed to like it well-enough.

Oh, and I did see the most interesting mashed potatoes in my life. It was like dough! It was really strange, actually, since you literally could wind up the potatoes with your spoons, and it stretched around like dough. It kind of tasted like dough too - not my type of mashed potatoes but I give it high marks for something different for texture.

Desserts: Now I was really disappointed with desserts. We shared two very large desserts - a raspberry souffle and a creme fraiche pancake souffle.

The raspberry souffle was not for my taste at all. I thought it was more medicine-y of a raspberry flavor and a bit too tart. I only had one spoonful, and that was enough. The sorbet was also extremely sour which was a bit unexpected so I didn't particularly like that at all.

The pancake souffle was very interesting - presentation wasn't too suave since it looked like a collapsed pancake but the taste was different than what I've had before. I thought it would have been a little creamier but it actually was very light... Would I order it again? Probably not, but I'm glad I tried it.

Conclusion: I'm glad I went but I'm not sure I'll be returning. I think I had too high expectations given the ratings and reviews, and the appetizer set the standard really above what the rest of the meal turned out to be. However, on a positive note, everyone enjoyed the meal and we had a great time being together and celebrating my dad's retirement. That's what's important anyhow.

Pictures from our meal and a more positive review found here. :)

Houses...

2009-06-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

What do you think - assuming pricing is relatively equal:

a) 2,000 sq ft house with great amenities - Viking stove, Subzero fridge (these are top notch), small backyard but awesome for entertaining (stone bar built in, firepit built in), spacious upstairs bedrooms, but sucky downstairs (think tiny family room)

b) 3,300 sq ft house which needs TLC - paint, possible re-carpet, removing some door railings, landscape effort (the weeds are as tall as me), and backs to a fairly busy street (backyard is encased with a stone wall but past that wall is the street), but huge floorplan with spacious family/living rooms, great space for bedrooms.

c) neither, keep looking!