On Our Own

Tuesday 2/1/11

Max and I decided to roam the city on our own today. We started the day with a tutorial from his mom on how to use the Metro and where all of the major stops were. Then we walked with Ivan down the street to the 24-hour McDonald's to use their wifi. Turns out it was a Hinet hotspot and you needed a subscription so we headed towards Starbucks instead. Starbucks turned out to be a Wifly hotspot (still need a subscription) but Max randomly got logged in and was able to connect. It was such a sad thing to stand with dead devices while watching Max roam Google maps looking for the next nearest free wifi spot. After trying a few more places to no avail, Ivan headed back and Max and I hopped on the metro headed towards Taipei City Hall.

The metro was quick and easy to navigate. There was a quick change of trains at the Taipei Main Station and soon we were back in the main shopping district. It took a while to orient ourselves because the shops were basically blocks of department stores that looked the same but were numbered A4, A8, A9, etc. Outside of one of them we caught a free wifi hotspot and sat on the bench for 10 minutes uploading pictures, looking up restaurants, etc. We walked around looking for Hankyu department store which was supposed to have a Uniqlo and a Muji store.

We wandered into a building called Eslite which was kind of like a Fred Segal on steroids. There were a lot of Japanese-esque mini boutiques and everything was super expensive. After a quick browse we headed to the next block which turned out to be Hankyu. The main floor was a lobby connected to the Taipei City Hall metro station (how did we miss this??) and the main department store. We headed down the escalator and saw Uniqlo (B1) and Muji (B2). I was pretty hungry at this point so we browsed the food court first. Almost all of the department store blocks had a food court in the basement. We saw a katsu place called Anzu with a long line and decided almost immediately to join the line. Chinese rule: if there is a line, the food must be good! Also, I caught a wifi signal in line so I was able to log into Facebook and check in on Foursquare. Turns out we had wifi access in the restaurant too so it was the first time it felt like we were eating back in the US... taking pictures here and there and uploading them while we waited for our food.

The katsu was amazing. It reminded me a lot like Wako: we were given toasted sesames to grind in a bowl and the katsu was served on a tin cooling rack. Max had the TORO black pig which was SUPER fatty and I had the tiger prawn with pork tenderloin which was delicious. It came with a salad and choice of soup too.

After that we did a little shopping at Muji and then headed up to Uniqlo. Jeggings seemed to be an in thing there and I tried on a couple of pairs but they looked horrible! Bad throwback to the nineties. Uniqlo was by far the most crowded store we visited -- there was a long line at the fitting rooms and it took about 20 minutes to finally get in.

On the way out we hit up the food court floor again for a snack. (Okay, actually for the wifi.) We had some fresh juice at Happy Inn. Max had the "green bean job tear" and I had a papaya yogurt. We picked up a crepe cake for Chinese New Year and headed home.

It was about a 10-15 minute walk home from the metro station so we stopped by a cosmetic store to pick up some face masks and the Taiwan version of Best Buy to see if they sold scanners so we could scan Max's baby pictures. They didn't have any standalone scanners so we headed back home. I was super tired and hurting all over so after a short rest (of stuffing face with CNY snacks) we headed to the Shilin Night Market for a massage. It was $600NT for a 45 minute foot + shoulder massage (about $20) that came with a snack and some hot tea. Each lounge chair had its own TV and headphones so I watched America's Next Top Model while squirming in pain from my masseuse lady's man hands.

After the massage we headed home and I went straight to bed.

Taipei 101

Monday 1/31/11

This morning we took a Taxi to Taipei 101 for some shopping and sightseeing. When we arrived, we headed to Shin Kong Mitsukosha department store first to grab some lunch at the food court. The food court was filled with all kinds of Asian food, kind of like the Mistuwa food court x 10. There were all types of Chinese/Taiwanese/Hakka food, Japanese food, Korean food, Thai food and some fast food places. It was so overwhelming it was hard to choose what to eat. I ended up with a pork katsu donburi and a Mos burger on the side.

After that we headed upstairs to do some shopping. The main floor of the department store was all beauty stuff. They had most of the same premium brands we have in the US like Chanel, Dior, Chantecaille, Cle de Peau, etc and also some premium Asian brands like Shu Uemura, Kose, Fancl, etc. I wanted to buy some makeup to bring back but there was so much it ws hard to focus. There were a lot of cute shoes and boots (from Europe? Brazil?) but they were pretty pricey. I wanted to see the selection at the cheaper night market type places first.

Next to that department store, there was a small indoor mall that had boutiques from all the major European designers. Some of the stores had a sale sign in front that read 3, 5, or 7 which means up to 30, 50 or 70% off selected items (respectively). It was hard getting used to and the boutiques were so small it was hard to tell what was on sale and how much it was on sale for. It seemed like the salespeople just memorized which ones were what since the items weren't marked.

After we were done browsing, we walked to Taipei 101 which was a 4-story mall in the lobby. We headed up to the 5th floor which was the entrance to the observatory. After getting tickets, we waited in line for the elevator up. The elevator was super fast, something like going up 3 stories every half second. I got very woozy but it was a very short ride up. At the top we each got a little museum-tour-like speaker and walked around to take pictures and see the displays. There were a couple of gift stores at the top, a coffee shop and some other little things to do. After about an hour we headed down.

On the way down you can see the large damper ball which is this massively huge round structure suspended in the middle of the building that is used to keep the tall building secure and not sway in the wind. We also had to walk through the largest coral/jade shop ever before they let us exit. By the time we were done it was dark outside and we jumped into a taxi and headed towards Julia Wedding studio to look at our picture proofs. The traffic was horrible (New Years? Rush hour?) and it took almost 2 hours to get to the photo studio. We arrived around 8pm and it took about 2 hours to sort through 355 picture proofs to narrow it down to our top 42. The package we chose had 30 pictures included so we had to pay $1500NT ($30) extra per picture.

After Julia Wedding we went to the Shilin Night Market to eat traditional night market foods. Yup, this meant stinky tofu and oyster pancakes. At the beginning of the trip I was actually excited to try these things. I typically like exotic foods and it would be nice to like these "special" Taiwanese items but as soon as I walked into the stinky night market and actually saw the foods being cooked I was pretty grossed out. I tried the stinky tofu anyway, which was deep fried and didn't look bad, and got as far as putting it on my tongue before I had to spit it out. It tasted like really, really bad/strong fish sauce and literally stung my tongue. The oyster pancake would have been much better except it was drenched in this questionable red sauce. I took a bite (without the sauce) and actually enjoyed it until I got some gooey pancake part. I'm noticing that a lot of Taiwanese food is gooey. We ordered a couple other dishes like this oden-type soup with unidentifiable floating white things in it and some fried tempura fishcake which was good but had this pink sauce on top that I didn't like that much. After that we walked around some more to take pictures and I was just so tired (and grossed out) that I couldn't really enjoy browsing around. It was like an overly crowded flea market that smelled. There were rows and rows of clothes and accessories vendors and each played their own loud house/dance/pop music. It was craziness. After 15 minutes of being over stimulated we took a taxi home and I knocked out.

First Morning in Taiwan

The 14 hour flight here was brutal! It started out okay -- the flight was half-empty so we were allowed to move where we wished. We opted to take the first row to get extra leg room. After about 5 hours my back started hurting and I started getting restless. I watched The Kids are Alright, half of King's Speech, Love and Other Drugs, half of Mary Poppins and read a couple of chapters. I was determined to stay awake since we were arriving in Taipei at 10:30pm (6am PST). By about hour 12 I was not feeling it. My back hurt, my shoulder was in pain, my legs were aching and I started feeling nauseous from the airplane smells. They served porridge and the smell just made everything worse. I used a throw-up bag to "filter" the airplane air and sat with my head between my knees for the rest of the flight.

When we arrived in Taipei it was warmer than I expected. It was cool outside but the humidity made it easy to sweat. I was really hungry but too tired to do anything. It was about a 45 minute drive to Max's grandma's house in Shilin and I knocked out in the car. I had a bad ulcer and stomach pains when we arrived so we decided to go to the night market to eat something. I felt like a zombie but I knew I'd feel better once I got something in my stomach. We went to a random restaurant and had cold chicken, fried rice, sauteed vegetables, tofu and sweet and sour pork ribs. Amazing that such a random street restaurant tastes so much better than the over-greased Chinese food in LA! We stopped by 7-Eleven to get some tea eggs and tea and then headed back to the apartment. Max's grandma lives in a new apartment complex built by the Taiwanese government for government workers. (His grandfather was in the Taiwanese equivalent of the CIA.) Was I allowed to blog that?

I showered and knocked out and woke up at 7:30am the next morning. I forgot to turn my iPhone alarm off and the time automatically adjusted! In the morning I met Max's grandmother who was so happy to see us. We had some sweet soymilk and watched TV until Ivan and Max's mom woke up. After spending some time with the family, we headed out for some breakfast. It was about a 10 minute walk to the best Taiwanese breakfast I've had in my life. There was a salty soy milk which was served like porridge, scallion buns and some Chinese donuts dipped in sweet soymilk. Even the panfried radish cake was 100x better than the best dimsum in San Gabriel! Since I don't have my laptop with me pictures will have to wait until I get back!

We rushed back to the apartment to meet Max's aunt and cousin who was visiting from the U.S. too. We watched Asian music videos on TV while snacking on some fresh hand-rolled egg rolls (the cookie, not the appetizer) and Taiwanese fruit. Then his other aunt and cousin who live here came over and we had pork chop rice delivered to the apartment. Again, the best I've ever tasted. Doesn't even taste like any of the pai kut fan I've ever had in the U.S. The pork was so thin, tender and flavored. The rice was soft and sticky like Korean rice and it had really good steamed vegetables, corn and seaweed in it.

I am so full, it's barely 2:30pm and I feel like I've already gained 5 pounds. I'll be back later hopefully. It is a pain to type on a Chinese keyboard btw... Ｔｈｅ　ｓｅｔｔｉｎｇ　ｋｅｅｐｓ　ｇｏｉｎｇ　ｂａｃｋ　ａｎｄ　ｆｏｒｔｈ　ｂｅｔｗｅｅｎ　ｄｉｆｆｅｒｅｎｔ　ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒ　ｓｅｔｓ．

Day 1 in Honolulu

It always amazes me how much you can get done in one day on island time. We flew into Honolulu early, so we arrived at 11AM PLUS gained 3 hours on the way over. We both stayed awake during the entire flight (I'm completely caught up on Gossip Girl now) and were starving by the time we arrived.

We took a shuttle to our hotel and checked in our bags before heading to the streets in search of food while we waited for our room to be ready. We tried out Iyasume Musubi, hidden in a back alley by King's village and shared a spam/cucumber musubi and a salmon onigiri. Afterwards we walked about 10 yards before sitting down at another restaurant, the highly-rated Jinroku. I loved the laid-back atmosphere and the teppan-style open kitchen with skilled Japanese teppan chefs. (My first time seeing an actual Japanese chef at a teppan place). we shared a pork and cheese tonpei yak which was an omelet of cheese and slices of kurobuta pork topped with a cream sauce, a tomato-based sauce and takiyaki sauce. After devouring that in mere minutes we shared a crispy chicken negiyaki dish, which is like okonomiyaki but green onion-based instead on cabbage-based. It was amazing as well. We ended our lunch(?) with their popular milk pudding.

After our two mini meals, I stopped by anlocal spot for a quick massage. The tension in my neck and shoulders have been a lot worse lately and I think I've gotten used to the constant dull pain that results from it. After the massage we walked around for a bit before checking back into the hotel at 3pm. At the hotel we unpacked, arranged for our car rental and luau reservations, took a 20-minute nap and then was out the door by 4pm.

We headed down to the beach to enjoy the sunny weather and our 35% resort-wide discount on food. We hung out at the Banyan Court watching surfers while sipping on a lava flow and munching on spicy taro and sweet potato chips dipped in a crab and spinach dip. Max spent a few minutes in the sand/water before we headed out towards Diamondhead to do more discovering.

As we got closer to Diamondhead, we decided to take the 1-mile walk inland in Kapahulu towards Waiola Shaved Ice. I was still pretty full from our snack but needed the walk so we went. It was a long, sweaty, smoggy walk but we finally made it... Only to find out it closed just 10 minutes before we arrived. No worries, we headed up the street to Leonard's Bakery for their famous piping hot malasadas (Portuguese donuts). We sat outside eating our donuts when a local started engaging in conversation with us -- all about food. Masa was a 3rd generation Korean local that was excited to hear that we were as interested in good food as he was. One topic lead to another and an hour later we were STILL taking down his food and hotspot recommendations. Then the friendly, older gentleman offered to take us around on a quick ride to show us how to get around and then take us back to our hotel. Sincerely hospitable offer but of course I was hesitant. Well, Max wasn't and he accepted! We piled into his Ford F350 and started on what ended up being an hour-long tour of old town, freeways, Chinatown, downtown and even included a stop at Liliha Bakery where our impromptu tour guide bought us some creme puffs. I was a little weirded out (and scared for my life) but this guy was so nice, friendly, funny and genuinely good-natured.

He finally dropped us off in Waikiki around 8pm. Max and I walked around a bit to browse the uppity stores like Louis Vuitton and Chanel in our sweaty summer clothes and flip flops before deciding to have a late dinner at Ramen Nakamura, which is famous for their ox tail ramen. As we were waiting for a seat, Max noticed that Cheech from Cheech & Chong was dining alone (the only other non-Japanese person in the joint). The ramen was amazing and the ox tails were delicious dipped in their ginger-shoyu sauce. The gyoza were meaty and unique but the fried rice left some flavor to be desired. We ended the day at ABC stores to buy essentials for tomorrow.

Phew, what a day.

Turning 30.

What better way to turn 30 than a week-long celebration of favorite eats, discovering new places and epic performances? Since my birthday fell on a Tuesday this week, I took advantage and indulged myself through two weekends to celebrate. No holds barred. No want gone unwanted.

Yoga.
I guess you could say it all started at Purple Yoga on the Saturday before my birthday. This is the first time I took my mom and I quickly learned that at 52, my mom kicks my butt in both cardio and endurance departments. Kind of an embarrassing realization at 30.

Shau May.
Nothing beats a late night run for Shanghai pan fried dumplings in San Gabriel. Did the usual, and ended it with sipping on a mango delight on the car ride back home.

Alcove Cafe & Bakery.
On Sunday, Max and I took the dogs for brunch in Los Feliz. It was Max's first time and the food was delish, as always. We shared some crab cakes to start and I had the country breakfast. Cora was a little barky (as usual) but we were able to keep the two somewhat under control. This was Lulu's first real outing since her radiation therapy.


Hollywood Bowl.
Later that night Max and I went to the Hollywood Bowl for a performance of RENT directed by Neil Patrick Harris. The show was amazing, a gazillion times better than the time I watched it at the OCPAC. The cast was captivating and talented (especially Aaron Tveit as Roger and Nicole Scherzinger as Maureen) with the exception of Vanessa Hudgens as Mimi who made certain scenes just flat out awkward. We shared some great prosciutto, cheese and breadsticks and had probably the best time I've ever had at the Hollywood Bowl.

Good Stuff.
Even though my week was full of meetings and (gasp) work, Max and I happened to sneak away to Good Stuff on Tuesday for an actual birthday lunch. I only had 50 minutes and because of the long wait for a table, we ended up rushing through the lunch and spent almost the entire time on our respective phones, answering e-mails and IMs. Oh well.

Surprise party.
At 3pm I was thoroughly surprised at work with a Susie's Cakes celebration cake, gorgeous flowers from Effusive flowers and, well, Max. He and Jo-Anne set up a fake meeting for me and some of my favorite co-workers joined for a quick cake break. Max won major points with the co-workers.

Ayaka.
After work we took the long trek to Diamond Bar to take Emi and Ayaka out to dinner. We said hi to my Athai and family and then headed to Guppy's in Rowland Heights for a quick dinner.

Ridiculously good looking people.
My sisters surprised me at home with an epic ViJo production. Yona blindfolded me as soon as I arrived and walked me into a completely redecorated living room. They set up an entire stage complete with curtains and stage lights. The show was funny, heart-warming, sentimental and ridiculous all at the same time. I was so touched that they spent so much time putting this together, and put so much effort in performing it!

Bottega Louie.
On Wednesday we headed up to Bottega Louie after work for a quick dinner before a show at the Staples Center. This was our first time there (I got the idea from seeing Flo's pictures from lunch earlier in the day) and we were so impressed with the place! The entire restaurant/market/bakery had raised architectural ceilings, almost like an old bank. The place was white and airy and the food was so good. We shared the portobello fries which I still dream about and two pastas that were great, but not spectacular. I wish we had a place like that near work. And I also wish I had enough of an appetite after dinner to order some desserts and pastries.

Lady Gaga.
After dinner we went to Lady Gaga's Monster Ball Tour at Staples Center. It was a-ma-zing. We had great premium seats (from Max's work) that were really close to the stage, but unfortunately we were perfectly situated to the side of the stage. We saw her profile the entire time and sat right underneath the LCD display so our visibility was a little compromised. We were a little distracted by the 'little monsters' around us -- some young, some old, some high and some barely clothed -- but all in all it was an amazing show and quite the experience.


Mermaid Restaurant.
Milton and I shared a happy birthday happy hour at a dive bar called Mermaid Restaurant in Hermosa Beach (his choice). I rode over there with Jo-Anne and Megan and Max met us a little later when he was done with work. We started with some light drinks and ended up ordering sandwiches and such for dinner -- it wasn't half bad! I have to say though we were the youngest people there. And the most Asian.

Beach Par-Tay.
And the partying continues, though this one was work sanctioned. Our annual summer party was at the Beach House Inn in Hermosa Beach. After a morning of hectic work, client reviews and internal meetings, we all headed to the beach for a half day party. There were sandwiches from Jersey Mike's, lots of drinks and various activities like massage stations, live music, volleyball games and an Over the Line tournament. I left a little early but had a decent time just lounging inside the suite. (The weather was much too cold for an actual beach party, sadly.)

Shopping + Food.
On Saturday Max and I headed to Rodeo Drive for some lunch and shopping. We had lunch at Il Pastaio (Max's first time, my second) and it was very good. (Sense a theme here?) We had what was probably the best prosciutto I've had in my life, some burrata, a zuppetta (clams & muscles in garlic tomato broth) and a lasagna. Needless to say we were stuffed and got up promptly to walk it off. We headed to Christian Dior to size my finger for my birthday gift, an 'Oui' ring, but not before wandering into Ilori and buying me a pair of sunglasses, one of my many self birthday gifts this year. There are two situations where I completely indulge in shopping for myself: when I'm on vacation and the weeks leading up to and after my birthday.

Bergamot Station.
We headed to Bergamot Cafe afterwards for some coffee (easiest way to get some Intelligentsia coffee that I know of) and stopped by Hiromi Paper to say hi to the sisters and to a few of the gallery showings to gawk at art.

"Drinking night."
Drinking night was a complete failure. We all had a large pho dinner at Pho Tasty and were too stuffed (and bloated) to drink anything at the Korean drinking place we found in Cypress (called Royal Square). So after a poor attempt to down some beer and soju, we gave up and went to music studio for karaoke instead. Yona was a remote nazi, skipping every song she didn't like, Aai sang too loud, Henri took himself way too seriously, Vina sang her usual eclectic choice of songs and Max was too shy to sing into the mic. I wasn't.

Athai's again.
We visited Athai again but this time took my mom + sisters. Kee Kiu was also over. We hung out for a few hours just talking and catching up. It's the most amazing thing in the world to be able to spend my birthday with my 92-year old great grandmother!

Irvine.
On Sunday I had my "main" birthday party. My sisters, friends and various family met up in Irvine to watch Eat Pray Love and then we headed over to Tokyo Table to indulge ourselves in lobster dynamite, mochi gratin and honey toast. And about 20 other dishes. We stuffed ourselves silly, had great conversations and ended it with sake bombs. Oh, and we took sticker pictures.

Sick day.
On Monday, Max and I took a sick day to join Mason and Marcela for brunch at Old Vine Cafe. We had a nice quiet meal and then walked around to shop a little. Then we headed to South Coast Plaza so that Max and Marcela could spend their gift certificates on sunglasses. After that we headed separate ways and Max and I shopped for some patio furniture. After complete failure, we headed home to rest, and then back up to LA to pick up my 'Oui' ring. Even though we arrived in Beverly Hills half an hour before the store closed, Olympic Blvd. was completely shut down for President Obama's visit and we were unable to crossover to Dior before they closed. Instead we joined Yona and Aai for dinner at Il Buco. I am IN LOVE. The pizza was delicious, the calamari was perfect, the prosciutto was heavenly (same restaurant group as Il Pastaio) and the pastas were tasty. Oh, did I mention how perfect the apple tart was?

Ok, I am spoiled.

More Doing

Today marked my first weekend of more doing, less complaining about not doing. I took Friday off to keep a closer eye on Lulu since this week will be the last of the worst. I ran a few errands: went to the dry cleaners for what seemed like the first time this year, picked up some bird seeds at Petco and set up my new bird feeder.

Later that night I drove up to Little Tokyo to meet up with Max, Vina and Henri for dinner. We arrived a little early for our Sushi Gen reservation so we had Happy Hour at Haru Ulala first. This was my first time at Sushi Gen and I was quite impressed. It's been a while since I've had good sushi and this really reminded me again that the sushi/Japanese selection around home is crap.

On Saturday I woke up a little later than I would have liked but was able to make it to the 1PM Hot Yoga class. This was the first time I've done it so early in the day, luckily it wasn't too hot out. After yoga Max and I went to Mimi's Cafe to share a plate of chicken tenders. They weren't as tasty as I remember them to be in high school but it was a nice, quick, light lunch. (Except for the giant French Onion soup with 1000 grams of sodium.) After our lunch outside we went to Trader Joe's to shop for groceries for dinner. We invited Max's mom and Ivan over to finish up the steaks from Robinson's Prime Reserve.

I looked up a couple of recipes online and decided to make white truffle risotto and butterscotch budino. (The recipe was from Pizzeria Mozza) Both dishes came out good but weren't very popular -- the risotto was too heavy and I think everyone thought the budino was too sweet/flavored. Which is how it's supposed to taste but I didn't have any cookies to help balance it out.

Later that night Yona and Aai came over to spend the night. We had our usual 1-hour of bickering about what tv show/ movie/ netflix/ appleTV to watch and then I called it a night.

Today (Sunday) I work up a little earlier (10am) and made omelets for everyone. After breakfast Max made us all coffee. I took a couple of minutes to prune the garden and realized the empty dirt patches in the front really bugged me so Max and I visited Martinez nursery and Home Depot for some plants. I wanted a perennial or evergreen border around our front steps so we wouldn't have to worry about replacing them all the time but we didn't find much selection. We found more flowers to fill out the front, hopefully they're the type that are evergreen in Southern California. I also took all of our dead/dying cosmos out from the front and replanted the ones that were "salvageable" in the back. Seems like I'm starting a little patch of "random flowers" in the back, let's hope it doesn't grow to look too awkward.

After buying plants we went to play tennis at Shadow Park with my sisters. We did an hour of tennis, did a singles tournament, then played basketball. After I stubbed my toe we abandoned the basketball courts and went to the mall to get some cherry lemonade. Walking into the food court got all of us hungry so we headed to The Loft for a proper dinner.

We came home to a messy house -- the plants we bought earlier had to be planted, the dishes from the morning weren't done, the downstairs was a mess from having 4 dogs running around all day. Of course a cluttered house means a cluttered mind for me so I'm doing a little here and there to get the house presentable so I can relax in these last few hours of the weekend. I guess it's time to mop now.

Summer Recap

So apparently not only did I not survive June, I let July fly by as well. Here is a rundown of the craziness of this summer.

Lulu's mast cell tumor.
This was of course the one that threw us all for a loop. Right when I was getting comfortable with my financial plan and getting everything in order, life takes me, chews me up, slaps me around and spits me out. All about Lulu's fight for cancer here.

iPhone 4 for everyone. And their moms.
I love and hate my iPhone 4. Love everything that it is, hated that I waited 11 hours in line for it. I reserved my iPhone 4 at the Manhattan Beach Apple store since I wasn't able to get through to purchase online. Little did I know, so did a thousand other people so the line for reservations took all day. Somewhere in between I had Aai wait with me for a couple of hours, take my place for another couple of hours, Milton bring me lunch and then ended the day with Milton and I finally getting our iPhones at 7:30pm. That day I ordered Aai's online and Max did the same for him and Ivan. Later that week (when it was clear stores would never have unreserved stock) I put mommy and Vina on the waitlist. It's been several weeks and now we all have iPhone 4s. Well, except for Yona who is saving herself for a white one.

Backyard grilling.
We had our first backyard grill yesterday, although there wasn't much "backyard" happening except for Max grilling steaks while keeping Shadow and Cora away to prevent them from knocking over the grill. Vina, Henri, Aai and I were inside preparing the rest of the meal: broccoli puree soup, trufflex mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. It was the perfect meal. The steaks were from Robinsons Prime Reserve and the tastiest ever, Max snuck open a bottle of Overture and the side dishes came out perfect. (Except the potatoes could have used more cheese + salt) Now I'm dying to finish out outdoor area so we've been shopping around for patio sets. Though based on outdoor furniture pricing, we will likely be shopping around for a while.

Work is busy.
But when is it not? I am still the only "experience architect" at the agency and this week started being shared across all accounts. That's not fun when you take into account all of the institutionalized knowledge attributed to each business. The COPA laws associated with marketing to young children online. The bank's seemingly hundreds of products and features associated with mortgages. Investing advice for retirees over 50. My brain is tired.

Things are about to get crazy.

There are so many things "about to happen" that I feel compelled to write a pre-cap. The weekdays have been pretty dead at work, so much so that it has prompted me to update my resume and start a collection of samples for a portfolio. There are a lot of transitions happening, the largest being that I am back to being a department of one. This is good in the sense that I have full control of developing how UX will integrate with the agency's creative and strategic process, but bad in that I am now stuck with the busy work of our more monotonous clients. But, starting this week I have begun to feel the effects as I am spending less time at my desk and more time doodling in meetings.

So in addition to being spread thin on all accounts + the occasional pitch, I'm also bogged down handling life stuff during work hours. I spent three hours on phone/e-mail/texting arranging auto insurance for all three sisters. I spent a good part of today working out business license/tax stuff for Closet Therapy. (Darn you City of Los Angeles for trying to make money off of me!) I will be spending the next two mornings at the doctor and dentist. And my lunches are booked for random co-worker birthday lunches, baby showers and a creative happy hour.

This Saturday I am taking Max to a surprise event, so more on that after the reveal, but the next morning we are flying to Vegas to spend a long weekend at the Wynn. We'll hopefully get some good eating, shopping and photo-taking done! After that it will be a short week at work and then doggie beach on the weekend.

The week after will be a huge week (hopefully) with the release (announcement?) of iPhone HD. Hopefully the new iPhone will be available right away so I can have a functional smartphone for the rest of June's planned trips! So that brings us to mid-June, where Max and I will be going on our 3rd NorCal trip. It'll be my first time staying at the W and I am really looking forward to spending a day in the city alone capturing photographs while Max is at his conference. We are ending the trip with a short day in Napa -- mostly to have brunch at Ad Hoc.

Then at the end of June I will be returning to Las Vegas solo on a journalists tour for my blog. 4 days all expenses paid -- sounds too good to be true. I don't have all of the details yet but I've checked out the PR company and so far everything sounds legit. Now it's just getting over the fear of spending four full days with a bunch of strangers... nerve-racking yet exciting at the same time!

The tour ends on Friday so I'll be back at home just in time for a 4th of July BBQ if we decide to have one. If we do, that means we'll have to get a patio set and grill for the backyard ASAP.

Oh boy, will I survive June?

Weekend Recap

I had an interesting weekend full of babies and puppies. After all, it is Spring time right? On Saturday Olivia Zee had her red egg & ginger party. I think red egg parties are traditionally celebrated when the baby is 1 month but in Livi's case, it was her 100th day party. The brunch was set at Descanso Gardens and deliciously catered by Patina. After watching the baby festivities we took a nice stroll through the gardens to enjoy the roses in bloom among other cool plants.

On Sunday we had a puppy reunion at Runyon Canyon. Bori (Lady) and Dulce (Soda) came out to meet Cora for a hike. The route we take is getting pretty easy (probably because we walk it so slowly) so it was more of a hectic dog walk than anything else. It's so interesting to see how each of the puppies grew into their own personalities. Bori is territorial and protective -- and what a barker! Soda is such a sweetie and the smallest out of the three. So, what does that make Cora? She's still the crazy one...

Yard Work

So the hardscaping project is almost done, less a few blotchy areas that our landscaper needs to fix. We started to fill in with plants and flowers, experimenting with perennials and annuals (which have all pretty much died by now) and trying to figure out a proper place for everything. I'm surprised at how much purple we ended up with... the shrubs and flowers in the front planter all bloom purple as well as most of the ones in the pod by the driveway. We were also suckered into picking up some Asiatic Lilies for the back -- such amazing color intensity. Now it will just be a game to see which flowers will survive the summer, and then which will actually come back next year. :)

Trees and Disneyland

This past weekend was very outdoorsy, well, as much outdoorsy as I ever do. On Saturday we went to Sunny Slope Tree Nursery to pick out trees for the backyard. It was basically one long row of different types of trees. It got to be terribly boring until I started noticing some trees had interesting leaf patterns. I came across these two trees that I absolutely had to have!

The tree on the left is the Gingko Biloba, a slow-growing tree with fan-shaped leaves. Even though our contractor warned us that the nuts "smell like poo", we decided the extra care was worth it for such an interesting tree. The next tree is my favorite, the Liquidambar Rotunda. Its gummi shaped leaves immediately reminded me of dinosaur paws, hence it has been dubbed our dinosaur tree. This tree is probably the one that worries me the most as it typically grows to be 75 ft tall. Hopefully with careful pruning and shaping we can keep the size of ths one under wraps.

After a few hours at the nursery, we ran errands around Cerritos. We stopped by Best Buy to take a look at iPad cases (I can't stand my incase) and left disappointed. We had a ridiculously sized lunch at TGI Friday's for just $20 -- an appetizer, two entrees and a 1400 calorie dessert. After that we walked it off at the mall and Target.

On Sunday my sisters came down to check out the backyard. Then we drove down to Garden Grove for some Boiling Crab. The last time I had Boiling Crab was on my birthday. The wait wasn't too bad (about 40 minutes). I've noticed that I am much more into shrimp lately than crab. After stuffing ourselves silly we spent the evening at Disneyland. I wish I used the annual pass a lot more this year but so far have only gone a total of 3 times (I think). In the 3 hours we were there we rode Tower of Terror, Toy Story Midway Mania, Captain EO, Casey Jr. Circus Train, Pinocchio and Peter Pan.

I am partially terrified at how boring this post is. I guess when you're not in the mood to write, you can't make even Disneyland sound exciting. :P

My First Lesson(s)

Of course, just my luck, the morning after I finally bit the bullet and bought some tech stocks some lame thing happens with European debt and all U.S. tech stocks take a plunge.

But maybe it wasn't luck at all. If anything, this reminds me that I have to broaden my research and really start reading and keeping up. On the bright side, I only put aside negligible amounts to "learn" so this will be good practice for the long run.

Investing is so nerve-wracking -- I really see no difference with gambling. Sure, picking a stock or a fund can be a little more than an educated guess, but when you're in front of the computer ready to click on "buy", it feels just as risky as putting chips down on the roulette table. Screw aggressive growth, I am finding me some fixed income bonds for the rest of my allocations. >.<

Painting My Thumb Green

When we first started our backyard project I could easily fall into "themes" for the hardscape shapes, textures and materials, similar to the way I would approach any design project. However, when it came to plants, I was completely clueless. Partly because I am clueless when it comes to plants, but mostly because plants don't play well with my OCD. By their very nature (no pun intended), they are dynamic living things that grow, change and, well, look messy. I like order, symmetry and predictable growth patterns. So if I could design an entire softscape plan that stayed stationary I'd have no problem. Now, tell me to choose a tree that could potentially shed its leaves and berries or grow taller or sideways, and I am completely and utterly indecisive.

This weekend I put my concern aside and we visited a few nurseries as well as Home Depot and Target to start looking at what's out there. I've realized that I have such strong opinions on aesthetics that this may be easier than I thought. Why not take the same approach I have with decorating the house and just pick and choose what we like and deal with placement later? More and more our home is a collection of things that we either like aesthetically or mean something to us sentimentally so why should the garden be any different? This made it much easier to come up with a wish list.

In addition to shopping for larger trees and shrubs for fillers, we stopped by Home Depot with Marcela and Mason to get ideas on which prettier flowers and plants we could pot. They brought us this great ground covering (I've already forgotten what it's called) that immediately inspired me to arrange a low pot full of cactus-looking things. We found this flat pot at Home Depot (it's actually for hoses) and filled it up with cabbage-patchy looking things. I'm hoping to put this on a coffee table or side table somewhere in the back as a centerpiece.

So, as if I needed a new hobby! This one, though, is immediately rewarding. Our backyard is only about 70% done but it's already made such a difference. We can actually hang out in the back now! We can sit and enjoy the breeze. Now I just have to untrain Lulu to pee on concrete so that she can come out and enjoy the backyard too.

Dear Diary

A few weeks ago on a sleepless night I started reading through some of my oldest entries and realized that I miss the personal, documentary style my blog used to be. Pictures are nice but I enjoyed reading detailed accounts of my memories even more. I am so glad I was so detailed (and wordy) because there are so many memories I would have otherwise forgotten. I miss the days when I wrote so freely (to an audience of one, myself) -- even on decidedly mundane topics such as what I ate for second lunch or how I procrastinated from studying. :)

So in efforts to resurrect my journaling, I will be here more often and with more words, no matter how painstakingly detailed. There are so many exciting things going on right now, I'd love to be able to look back at them 6 years from now and laugh at my frivolity.

Vintage Lulu

So I decided to be a complete cheeseball and play around with posing Lulu for a portrait. Then I made it look vintage and printed a giant canvas print for $6.99 (Mother's Day special!). I am so putting this up on the wall. In my sisters' apartment. Heehee.

Notes for next time: widen the depth of field and go for sharpness all around. I'm over this fuzzy bit.

Canon Wish List

I have created a "practical" wish list of sorts for my camera... a not-so-exorbitant wish list (IMHO) of lenses. I didn't go so far as to pick every "L" series prime lens available by Canon. Instead, I put together a balance of lenses based on my needs, wants and budget. I can't afford all of these lenses in one go, mind you, so when I say budget I am referring to the hypothetical budget I will be building this year as I hypothetically start to see a ROI through photography.

EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye, $719

My most probable next purchase, this fisheye lens will have a multitude of uses for both day-to-day shots and travel photography. I can already see wet doggy nose marks on the tip of the bubble. :)

EF 50mm f/1.4 USM, $379

One day, when I can say for certain exactly how this f/1.4 differs rom my f/1.8, I will sell my cheapy-fifty for this faster, ultrasonic version.

EF 85mm f/1.8 USM, $419

This will be another first-step purchase to practice portrait photography. If this focal length proves worthy over the 135mm, I will step it up to the EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM for $2199. For now I can fake my 85mm photos with my 24-105mm f/4 zoom lens.

EF 135mm f/2L USM, $1089

Speak of the devil, here is the 135mm. I played with my co-worker's 135mm for about 10 seconds at the office before I decided that I needed a DSLR camera and I needed this lens. Amazing portrait results. Okay, maybe this is my next lens.

EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM, $1999

This will be my super-duper I can take a picture of the eiffel tower from my hotel room even though I'm still in the U.S. lens. I just want it because it's pretty. *sigh*

So my to-do list will be 15, 135, 7-200, 85, 50. Actually, it will be battery grip, 15, 135, 7-200, 85 then 50. Or maybe battery grip, 135, 15, 85, 70-200, 50. Okay, who am I kidding, it will probably be in order from cheapest to most expensive. >.<

Photogenic

It's easy to practice photography when you have such good-looking subjects. :)

LA Road Trip!

We convinced my mum to replace her 2002 Nissan Frontier with a shiny, silver Prius. If you know how techonologically-resistant she is, you'll know this was a huge feat. My mum has been anti-technology for decades, holding on to her VHS and cassette tapes as long as she could. Last year we introduced her to the world of texting, yet she is still hesitant to give up her Motorola Razr for an iPhone. She's adopted YouTube and watching Korean dramas online, but does so on a 7-year old Dell desktop.

It took a few weeks but we convinced her that she needed the Prius for its mpg benefits... but now she's too scared to drive it! (Took a good 20 minutes for the salesman to explain how to put the car in park, and turn off the car with the smart key system) So instead, my sisters and I took it for a spin around town. The goal: how many food spots can we hit up on the way to Yona's apartment?

Angry bear.

The "Before"

We've finally broken ground in the backyard! Well, not we, exactly, more like hired hands? :) Hopefully we'll finish everything (hardscaping, landscaping and whatever else) by our deadline which is 1 year from the day we closed escrow. I can't believe it only took two days for them to dig trenches and lay down all of the drainage pipes. Next step is the sprinkler system.

It's such a tiny backyard -- hopefully when the project is done we will have made it feel more spacious~!