omg i soooo want another dog now!!

when we were in chicago, one of the guys had a 12 wk old yorkie. she was soooo cute and small. only 1.7 lbs, tofu is a porker compared to her!! she peed everywhere though hehe i dunno if i can go through the whole puppy stage thing again but i'm totally wanting another dog-they're soooo cute when they're young!!!

halloween

over the weekend we tried to look for a halloween costume for tofu, but they didn't have much at the pet store. maybe because it was only 2 days away?! all they had left was L, which wouldn't have fit her. there was a cute santa suit, but i think that was meant for christmas hehe. oh well, next year we'll have to plan ahead!

there weren't that many trick or treaters this year, so we have a lot of extra candy. maybe next time we should give out several pieces as opposed to one, but we trying to ration it- i seem to remember there being a lot more kids last year. maybe my memory is just faulty. and it seems like kids don't really like chocolate, they like stuff like lollipops. how silly, now i know what to buy next year, the cheap stuff! and keep the chocolate for myself!!

vietnamese wedding

on sat we attended yet another wedding! we have 2 more to go, one more in dec at hotel deanza/ming's, and then one more in march 07 in NY.

i would say about 90% of the ceremony was in vietnamese, so it wasn't very enjoyable =/ and it was long too, 1 hour. it even had a vietnamese choir and lots of singing. the church the wedding was in was very pretty though, st francis assisi in evergreen/yerba buena area of sj. if you haven't been there, it's a really nice area with huge houses. and the bridesmaids wore hot pink dresses and the groomsmen wore hot pink ties, hehe. like bright fuschia pink. apparently there are a lot of vietnamese catholics. who knew?

the ceremony was at 1pm and ended around 2, the reception was at 6pm so went home to catch the end of the cal game! omg. it was a very crazy game.

so we head to the reception site and arrive at 6:30pm. the reception was in this banquet center in willow glen chinese food catered by samkee i think, the decor reminded me a lot of a prom. the reception didn't start until 8pm!!! so it was kind of boring sitting there for an hour and a half, but we chatted with my fellow coworkers. (it was a coworker's wedding). anyways, dinner took a while too, we didn't get our last dish til about 10:30!! i think it took so long because they had over 40 tables. crazy

so things to know if you are ever invited to a vietnamese wedding:
1. if it's in a church and you don't speak vietnamese, skip the ceremony because you won't understand a thing
2. go to the reception very late!!!

prison break

my new favorite show!!! has some nice eye candy too, wentworth miller is a hottie. i stayed up til 3am friday night watching season 1 and ended up having some bad dreams. oops. it's still good though, i just wouldn't recommend watching it nonstop for 6 hours until late at night =P and lucky for me, FX was having a prison break marathon of season 2 during the weekend!! i missed the first 4 episodes, but was able to tivo everything else. so i read up on what happened in the episodes i didn't record, and watched the rest. yay i'm all caught up now. i'm ready for tonight's new episode!!

wheeeeeeeee

i'm on a sugar high! we have several bags of halloween candy that i've eaten a lot of already, and for my sister's bday we had THREE cakes/pies! guava cake, lemon cheesecake, and a fruit cake. omg. there was so much leftover that we split each of the cakes into 3 pieces (one for me/julian, one for my parents, and one for my sister to take back to berk). so we have a huge slice of each flavor in our fridge. in addition we made some cinnabun muffins on sat night from a mix that we bought at costco. the muffins are HUGE! they're the size of those large costco muffins. so we have soooo much sugar. just thinking about it makes me sick. i feel really gross, ate way too much sugar this weekend. i'm going to hide the halloween candy........urrghhhhh

WAHHHHHHHHH

I GOT STUNG BY A BEE ON THE TOP OF MY HEAD!!!!!!! OOOWWWWWWWWIEEEEEEEEE

I THINK I'M GOING TO AVOID THE FIELD AT THE PARK FOR A LOOOOONG TIME. THIS IS THE SAME FIELD I GOT STUNG ON THE BOTTOM MY FOOT!!! BLEH.

attractive or not?

here is the new trend: leggings and skinny jeans...



i think the long sweater and leggings is kind of cute but i'm not sure if it would look good on me. it's so popular, i wonder if i should just buy some cheap leggings to try out??? it seems totally trendy though, do i want to buy into the trend?? i'm also pretty sure skinny jeans will look very bad on me because i don't have long skinny legs so that's definitely out.

things i'm doing

i'm reading the memory keeper's daughter, very good so far. i think i'm going to buy the korean drama "full house", only $20 including shipping, so not too bad. i added the first season of prison break to my netflix queue, first disc should be coming soon, hope it's good! i def watch entirely too much tv. new shows i've been watching this season: brothers & sisters (i like), six degrees (not bad), and ugly betty (is ok-very devil wears prada-ish) what's cool is that you can watch all the episodes on abc.com for free!

we've also been trying to find some new restaurants to eat at, but there's not much in the south bay. bleh. plus the combo of too much eating and too much watching tv is not good!

chicago

yay! we're going to chicago 2nd weekend of nov! we're going with simon and staying at one of their friend's place who's doing his mba at univ of chicago. yay!! hopefully it's not too cold by that time!!

little sheep

when julian, lor, i went to taiwan to visit shal in taiwan last year, we went to this mongolian hot pot place and it was really good. so recently i found out about a chain called little sheep mongolian hot pot. i looked it up and found out there was one in union city! so julian and i went on friday night and it's the same stuff! so if you've never been you should try it! they use all these chinese spices to flavor the broth so it's very flavorful.

this weekend simon also let me borrow a korean drama called my name is kim sam-soon. i've been watching it all weekend, it's ok. i think it's better watching it in korean, but too bad i don't know korean. the english subtitles are not very good and the chinese dubbing is horrible. when they speak in chinese, they cut out all the background noise, so if there's music, it stops when they talk, and starts up again when they stop talking, so it's kind of weird and very distracting. there's a really cute half korean/half white model/actor named daniel henney. i don't think he really knows korean because he only speaks english in this drama hehe

blah

i've been feeling very blah lately, kind of in a funk. not really feel like doing anything...maybe it's the changing weather. i haven't felt like working out (not like i ever do...), cleaning, or cooking. urgh. the daily routine of life is so boring. ugh. i'm on call tomorrow for work from 8am - 8pm so i have to stay close to home so i can login if there are any problems. bleh.

i want to take a trip somewhere but julian has used up most of his vacation days and we just got our silly property tax bill so i guess maybe we shouldn't. i did start researching greece again and i think we're going to go for our 2 year anniversary next year. yay, i guess that's one thing to look forward to, but seems sooooo far away

those with ibm laptops...

looks like their batteries have been recalled for certain models

check to see if you need a new battery!

sketch

two weeks ago we went to cal football's first home game against minnesota (yay we won!). before the game we stopped by 4th street in berkeley. i never knew that area existed! it's like the nice area of berkeley with a lot of higher end eating & shopping. anyways, the point of going there was to stop by sketch, an ice cream shop. I tried their jasmine tea granita and peach. The jasmine tea granita was so so good, very refreshing! It seems like there are a lot of new ice cream/gelato places in Berkeley now and actually Sketch isn't really ice cream or gelato, they use Strauss milk (not cream) which has a butterfat content of 7-8%, gelato has a butterfat content of 4-6% and ice cream has a butterfat content of 11-16%.

anyways, if anyone is ever in the area, you should check it out. it's not really close to campus though, it's near 80 and university ave but i want to go back to that area just to explore/browse! it's weird how i never knew of that area before. an interesting coincidence is our wedding cake baker moved to that area in berkeley recently (she was previously in emeryville) so when we go pick up our anniversary cake next weekend, i think we'll have time to look around! some other places in berkeley that supposedly good are Ici and Gelateria Milano.

tivo and hbo

i recently saw a message in our tivo inbox saying that their "vip" customers could transfer their lifetime subscription to their new HD box for $200 because they no longer have lifetime subscriptions on new boxes (and usually they don't allow transfer of subscriptions from box to box). i thought $200?!? but i thought i would check it out anyways, it might be cool to be able to record stuff in HD. so i went to tivo.com and the HD box is $799!!!!!!! ok, i don't need HD recordings that badly. and i looked at their new pricing, 3 years is now $369!! and we paid $300 for our lifetime subscription. so i guess we'll have to keep our tivo box for life!!

we recently canceled our hbo subscription, for the last year we've had a special price of an extra $10 for hbo, but on our last bill it seems like the deal has ended. instead of $10 extra, it became $30 extra!! whoa! so that means no more entourage and hbo movies. and when we called to cancel, they didn't try to convince us to keep it with a special deal. boo.

little miss sunshine

this movie is freakin' hilarious!!! and for those that know me, most of the time i never use such strong vocabulary, it's usually ok, pretty good, etc but this movie was really funny, definitely recommend it. i even want to watch it again when it comes out on DVD!! go watch it! =D

amazing story

about a blind teen, watch the video on the right hand side also!

back from LA

ok i'm going to try to keep this short, drove down to LA wed night, no traffic, had a happy reunion with julian. thurs went to disneyland, not that hot, longest wait was 20-25 minutes. space mountain is very thrilling, definitely won't go back unless with kids though- very family oriented.

fri went shopping in beverly hills, everyone wears designer jeans and bags there, julian said i must feel right at home haha. celebrated our anniversary at mastro's steakhouse, it was good, loved the bone-in filet. very loud though, not exactly romantic, but had a good time. stayed at the beverly hilton which had an awesome flat panel tv in our room and a teeny one in the bathroom too.

next day we drove to brea where our next night's hotel was. i watched the cal football game (so sad) while julian went to the rehearsal. later we went to the rehearsal dinner at orange county mining co, the food was ok. we left early so we could hang out with some friends at the grove (a nice shopping/eating area that is open late) we went to a lounge and had some dessert wine and then went to ice kiss in k-town for some shave ice.

sun was our anniversay and the wedding day. we went shopping in the brea mall, 3:30 i dropped julian off at the wedding site to take pictures. i went to borders to read magazines and i bought the book alice recommended -house of spirits.
5pm went to wedding, it was at the richard nixon library in yorba linda. when i dropped julian off at 3:30 it was much hotter than it was at 5, but still incredibly hot. 90 degrees vs 100 degrees. at least i wasn't wearing a tux =P

the couple getting married was jewish so they had a lot of jewish customs, it was interesting. at the start of the reception they played hava nigala for 15 minutes so it was very festive with a lot of dancing and clapping

for those that went to our wedding, they were the couple that liked to swing dance, and their first dance number to beyond the sea was really good.

mon we drove back home, hit traffic on 152, which ended up taking an extra 1.5 hours. tofu was very happy to see us when we came back. ok, that's our trip in a nutshell, too lazy to elaborate any more

happy one year anniversary!

to the love of my life, to many more years of happiness! *smooch*


every time i look through our wedding pictures i fall in love with my dress all over again...and my bouquet! so pretty

reunited

yay, i'm leaving for LA this afternoon and i'll be reunited with julian. we'll have lots of quality time together, instead of staying with julian's parents we'll be staying at a hotel fri-sun nights for our anniversary. yay.

while he was gone, i went to TWO baseball games!! isn't that unbelievable? on sat i went with jody and her bf to SF. we had brunch at dottie's true blue cafe which was very good. the wait was about 45 minutes though. i think it's worth the wait! i had a whiskey fennel sausage, mushroom, spinach scramble. and i got a banana chocolate chip muffin yum. after brunch we went to a giants game because jody wanted to check out at&t stadium. the weather was very nice and the giants won! on mon we went to an A's game against the red sox. it was very chilly but the A's won 9-0!! whoa!!

california adventures

i just bought our disneyland tickets, and NOW i'm wondering if i should have gotten the park hopper pass instead of the single park pass. has anyone been to ca adventures, is it worth it?? oh well, it's probably too late anyways, i don't think i would be able to exchange them if i wanted to. maybe next time. i'm not sure what possessed me to want to go to disneyland cause for the last few years i've been telling julian the next time i want to go is with our kids (and i haven't been there since i was 12). but recently i was thinking, hmm, if go when we have kids, we can't ride any of the roller coasters! so since julian keeps on saying how he wants to ride the new space mountain and we have a free day in LA and i get discount tickets from work, i decided why not? :)

p.s. thanks for the hollywood bowl suggestion alice. i went to check it out and it looks really cool. unfortunately all of our nights are booked with dinners & wedding activities but i definitely want to try it some time though!!

bleary-eyed

i woke up this morning at 5am to the sound of a txt message. yes!! my dear hubby has finally decided to contact me! woo hoo. so i quickly check my email and he says he's on icq. so i login and we chat for a little bit. yay. anyways, it seems like it's not very fun over there so i'm half glad i am not with him. he says it's very hot and muggy and since they are on a chinese tour(they're visiting china now), half of each day is spent going to places to buy things. oh, here's a direct quote "it is is one big infomercial just trying to sell us stuff". he said that most of the sales people don't know english (and julian, his bro, and mom don't know chinese) so there's a big communication problem. from the sound of things, doesn't seem like they're having a good time. oh wells. one more week until i see him again, it was nice finally able to talk to him. it feels weird not speaking for so many days. anyhoo, hopefully now i can rest easily. i've been averaging 5-6 hours/night when i'm used to 8, so i'm pretty exhausted. i feel like the bags under my eyes have tripled in darkness.

huff

i'm very upset because i have yet to hear from julian since he's left for malaysia fri night!!!!! he has not called or emailed, so i have no idea where he is/what he's doing/if he's ok. is it just me, or is that very inconsiderate??? he made me promise that i'll email him at least once a day, but what's the point if he's not reading them or responding?? hmph. he better have a veeeeery good reason as to why he hasn't contacted me!!! yet another reason as to why i've become an insomniac. sigh.

mild insomniac

my parents went to yellowstone for the week so my sister is home alone also. she came over last night to sleepover. i spent the whole afternoon indoors because i had to wait for the stupid comcast technician to come fix our on demand. it hasn't been working for several weeks, the appt was sun 12-4pm, and he didn't end up coming until 4:10 or something. sigh. but at least it's fixed even though i wasted so much time just waiting around. titanic was on hbo so i watched that while i was waiting. so anyways, now that our on demand was fixed, my sister and i started watching season 3 of entourage. on demand is so cool! =P

i think both my sister and i are both nervous sleepers. i can only really fall asleep when i feel "safe". if i'm home alone, i get really paranoid. every little noise freaks me out and i start thinking bad thoughts like, what would i do if a robber came? what if he tries to kill me? these are the kind of horrible things that keep me awake at night!! i end up waking up every 2 hours and it takes me a looong time to fall back asleep. ugh.

poor tummy

my stomach was feeling queasy, so i woke up at 3am today. i think it was the starbucks frappucino bottled drink i had earlier. i slept at 1am, so i'm going on 2 hours of sleep. i've been watching vh1 top 20 music videos for the last 2 hours, and now it's 5am. yesterday was tofu's birthday, so she's now officially one years old! julian is off to malaysia/china with his family so i'll be home alone for the next week and a half. i'm really paranoid about staying at the house alone, but hopefully it'll be ok. i'll be driving down to LA next wed and we'll be celebrating our one year anniversary! we're debating whether or not to go to disneyland, can you believe ticket prices are now $60?? at least i get a 20% discount from work. we're not really doing anything exciting for our anniversary, we're just going to keep it low key. i'm just going to be so glad to see him after being apart for 2 weeks. ok going to watch some tv and hopefully i'll be able to sleep a little later. tummy still feels funny. it doesn't help that julian isn't around, i think i've gotten used to him sleeping next to me, feels weird without him =(

plants have lots of fiber!

after tofu the terror chewed up the plant, she went poo 3 times in the span of an hour. and the poo was green!! usually she'll only go once on our walk. that was yesterday. today it is now almost 3pm and she has yet to go. she usually goes every morning when she wakes up. apparently eating plants disrupts your bowel movements, so learn from tofu, don't do it! =P

bad tofu

who would think such a cute innocent dog...





could create such havoc????




our poor poor plant. we just got it this weekend and i told julian we should probably move it because tofu was going to do something to it, but he said he would clean it up if she did. she left it alone last night when we went out to dinner at krung thai, but the plant did not have the same fate today when i came home from work. SIGH!!! the red arrow indicates where the 3rd stalk should be, but is now a stump!

hrmmm

ok, i guess i should make an entry but i don't really have anything to write about, just some random stuff. even though i'm done with school, i still feel like i don't really have time to take up any new hobbies. i wanted to start playing piano again and maybe take up jewelry making, but i just can't find time for it! and if i want to play piano i would have to somehow transport the piano from my parent's house to our house. and i have no idea where we would put it, but it's something i would like to do...eventually! hopefully sooner rather than later.

after work around 6-6:30pm we take tofu for a walk, come back around 7-7:30pm, make dinner which usually takes about an hour. eat dinner, and by that time it's around 8:30-9pm. watch some tv or a dvd, read a book, check email & web surf and then it's time for bed!

ant invasion

yesterday when i went to the kitchen to heat up dinner i saw thousands of ants crawling from our stove to our sink. it was TRES gross. i brought out the Raid can and started spraying them like a crazy woman. Even more disgusting was cleaning up the ant carcasses. The whole time I was secretly cursing Julian for playing ultimate while I had to deal with the ant crisis. I vowed if they came back, he would have to deal with them haha. today when i was making lunch i saw a few ants, so i had to Raid them again, but not like yesterday. ick ick ick

on a happier note, i finished watching all the 24 DVDs! i'm waiting for season 5 to come out. i feel bad for jack, his love life sucks. but i'm so so glad that tony and michelle ended up together. whew! that was nail-biting. anyhoo, i think i'm going to take a break from watching tv DVDs for now, i still have season 1 of lost and season 2 of nip/tuck to watch. i kind of want to watch the Sex and the City DVDs again, but I let Julian's mom borrow them all so they are currently in LA. i'm hoping i can get them back when we go down in Sept. i'm reading devil wears prada right now, it's a little different from the movie but it's good also.

decorating

i guess it's time for a new post! let's see, after living in our house for almost a year now, we've finally decided we should probably start decorating more hehe. now that i'm fairly certain tofu won't be biting on our furniture and destroying it, we can buy some new stuff. so we already have a new sofa and we just bought a new coffee table this past weekend, i would like to get a new dining table and a nice entertainment unit. the entertainment unit that i want is 8 inches too big, so it wouldn't fit into our little hatch area (i have no idea what it's called) plus our tv is too heavy so we would need to get a new tv as well i think!? but first things first, we still have to sell our old sofa which is taking up the dining room space and i want to get rid of a huuge desk we have in the guest bedroom. i think we probably need to pretty up our guest bedroom also. and our walls are so so bare! need some more decorations, like mirrors and art and such.

eaten alive

so on sunday we decided to take tofu on a walk when it was cooler, so we went out around 8:30pm. we walked to the park and i've never seen so many people out walking around! i guess everyone must have had the same idea as us! anyways, so she did her usual running around on the field and julian and i watched her as usual. it started getting really dark so we headed home.

the next morning i woke up with bug bites EVERYWHERE!!! when i first woke up i just noticed one on my stomach. hopped in the shower and came out, and noticed ALL these bug bites at the bottom of my feet. throughout the entire day i kept on finding new bug bites everywhere!! back of my knee, upper thigh, arms, shoulder. they weren't as itchy yesterday, but today they are driving me nuts! argh. i guess it must have been on our lovely walk on sunday, i seriously hope it was not anything from our bed! julian only got 2 bug bites and somehow i ended up with 20!! i seem to have really bad luck with that park, stung by a bee, eaten by bugs. i'm very wary of going there now, sigh.

the heat is killing me!!

it's so hot!! our house doesn't have A/C so having NY weather without A/C is HORRIBLE!!! it's like an oven! we have a fan basically running the whole day (and even at night when we're sleeping because our bedroom is super hot since it's upstairs) which helps a bit, but now i use a spray bottle and spray my body with water every 5 to 10 seconds. it actually really helps a lot. and we're making a lot of ice to put in our water. ugh. i think we might need to invest in a portable air conditioner, i don't know how it works, but i went to fry's today to buy a new phone and i saw 2 people buying them. and there was also a sign that said that all the portable air conditioners were sold out, haha. i think those that were buying them were buying ones that people had returned. i'm afraid to see our electricity bill next month, but i guess it probably would have been less than if we did have a/c and used it. too bad tofu can't talk, i wonder if she's hot?! she's still able to run around and stuff, so i guess it's not so bad. i can't wait until this heat wave is over!!!

new responsibilities

i guess i've been so busy with all my vacations that i've forgotten to update about my work situation. now that all my vacations are over, it's time to work hard again. so my manager announced in may that he was retiring at the end of june (after 39 years with my company!!) my manager's manager wanted to try a new process in finding a replacement for him by having 5 employees interview the candidates and i was one of the chosen ones to be on the interview committee. one of the candidates was my team lead! and another one was someone that had interned in my dept a few years ago and i used to go to lunch with her occasionally, and the last candidate i didn't know at all. so right before i left for las vegas we did all the interviews and our committee decided that my team lead was the best candidate. after we talked with our manager's manager, she basically said whoever we chose would be the next manager. so now my team lead is going to be manager, that leaves me with the most experience on the team. so it looks like i'm going to be groomed into the team lead position, but for now since i'm the only one doing a lot of the coding, they need to get more people onto our team to train. so yay, a change. i think it'll be fun and i guess i'll have more responsibility, we'll see how it goes!

new york

i guess since all my friends are lazy-butts i'll have to do a quick recap of our 3 day weekend in NY. =)

in ny we stayed with sharon who is interning during the summer in manhattan. she has a lovely studio apt on the upper east side. shal and i flew out from CA fri night (on different airlines) but we both arrived in ny at 7:30am. we had a lovely time on the subway trying to figure out how to get to her apt. the line we were on converted to another line so it wouldn't stop at the station where we were planning on switching trains! so several people gave us different routes we could take and finally we just picked one. we finally ended up at her apartment at 9:30!

sharon and shal showered and we had breakfast/lunch at ess-a-bagel. they were huge and pretty good. sharon and shal got poppy seed bagels so they had a lovely time trying to pick them out of their teeth hehe. at 12pm we had an appointment in bloomingdales with chanel to get makeovers just for fun. the 3 of us looked very pretty, i forgot to take before and after pictures! ah well. nancy and alice met up with us in bloomingdale's. after our makeovers we walked back to sharon's apt so nancy and alice could drop off their bags. we ended up chatting for a long while and couldn't really think of anything to do. eventually around 4 or 5pm, we decided we needed to get off our lazy butts. the only thing that got us motivated was FOOD! haha so we went to shake shack in madison square park. the 5 of us shared 2 burgers (1 with just portabella mushroom, 1 with portabella and meat patty) and a large strawberry shake. they were yummy. then we decided we needed to try another snack, so we walked really far to washington square park area to mamoun's where we shared one shwarma (i think that's what it was, i have no idea, i just ate it haha) it was ok, a little lamb-y. after our little snack jaunt, we went back to sharon's apt to get ready for dinner haha. yes we are pigs, all we did was eat(which seems to be the norm for all my vacations!) we had dinner at les sans culottes, we had a very interesting appetizer. it was a rack of SEVERAL sausages and a basket of fruit. here's a pic.

it was ok. the entrees were big but weren't that great. and for dessert we had flan or chocolate mousse. after dinner we tried to get into bed (a lounge), but they would only let us in if we bought 2 bottles (which 5 girls would NEVER be able to finish) so we opted out and decided to go to hotel gansevoort's rooftop lounge in the meatpacking district. the lounge is beautiful and had lots of pretty people (including us of course!). we were lucky enough to score some seats so we sat there for a few hours just chatting and enjoying each other's company. around 1am, we headed back to sharon's apt. she was able to borrow an air mattress so 2 girls on her bed, 2 on the air mattress, 1 on the sofa!

sunday we met up with sharon's friend dave and had brunch at norma's in le parker meridien. they told us it was a 2 hour wait, but we only ended up waiting an hour. the food was ok. afterwards we went shopping. spend a loong time in strawberry and then went to bergdorf goodman, where alice and i got really cute clutches and i got a pair of jeans. by the time we were done with bergdorf, we had to walk back and rest/get ready for dinner. nancy wasn't going to join us so we said goodbye to her and off we went to dinner. we had a lovely dinner at babbo and ate some really good italian food. after dinner alice went back to philadelphia and sharon,shal, and i went back to her apt. for dessert we wanted to go to serendipity, but they told us the wait was 2 hours! we went at 8pm and they told us to check back in an hour. we stopped by dylan's candy bar and bought lots of candy and then decided to just go back to the apt (only 3 blocks away). we were too lazy to go back at 9, so we just went back around 10pm (sharon fell asleep by then, so it was just me and shal). we asked how long the wait was and they said 45 minutes, but we told them we came at 8 so they gave us the next available table! whew. we both got the frozen hot chocolates and they were yummy, very refreshing. and i loove chocolate! that night shal and i planned out what we were going to do the next day and marked everything on a map.

on monday sharon had to work, so it was just me and shal. we walked to central park took a picture at bethesda fountain next to the lake. she wanted to see the turtle pond but we got very lost, and ended up walking through like a jungle/forest type area. there were no signs or maps anywhere and all we could see were trees and we had no idea where we were. eventually we found our way to the main road and finally found the silly turtle pond!! we spent over 2 hours in central park wandering around aimlessly!! at first we thought there weren't any turtles, but when we looked closely we were able to see them. so next on our agenda was to go to soho and lunch at dos caminos. we took the subway but apparently silly me left our map that contained ALL the locations we were going to visit the rest of the day on the subway. so when we got off, we had no idea where dos caminos was!! we ended up asking someone in kenneth cole and he told us where it was. dos caminos had yummy guacamole and mojitos, but the cactus pear margarita was so so strong!! i actually ordered the margarita and shal the mojito, but i couldn't drink mine because it tasted so nasty, so shal ended up switching drinks with me. since it was so strong she became very happy and we ended up giggling a lot haha. since we didn't have a map, we stopped by duane reade to see if they had any. we found zagat and looked up all the places we were going to go to! whew. we then shopped a bit in soho. my feet were so so so tired, we walked around so much! after shopping we went to joe's pizza to try some new york pizza, supposedly it was in spiderman. the pizza was pretty good. next door was beard papa's and shal didn't want a vanilla cream puff like i recommended and instead got a chocolate eclair. afterwards we walked to magnolia bakery to buy some cupcakes. since we're super pigs we cabbed to buttercup bakery to buy some more cupcakes! we ended up buying 10 each to bring home. we went to both so we can compare who had the better cupcakes, i think magnolia's were a little better but buttercup had better flavors. for dinner we met up with sharon at sushisamba and of course sharon arrived drunk haha. she was very wired during dinner it was funny. the food was ok. when we got back to the apt sharon crashed and fell asleep.

tues morning we flew home! our flight was at 7am so we got a cab at 5:30am. our taxi driver drove super fast because we arrived at jfk around 5:50!! he dropped off shally first, and then somehow got lost trying to get to my terminal. i was in the taxi an extra 15 minutes, i was afraid i might miss my flight!! but luckily the lines weren't long so i was able to make my flight =) it was a fun trip, the weather was great (no thunderstorms at least). i'm already wanting to go back!!! it was nice to have free lodging (thanks sharon!), and i used my frequent flier miles so my only expenses were the shopping and food, not bad!

4th of july week

since we got both mon and tues off for 4th of july, we decided to use 3 of our vacation days to take the whole week off!

we went down to LA last friday afternoon, not really that much traffic. we had dinner at houston's. saturday we went shopping at south coast plaza (my favorite place to shop in LA!) all the stores were having some good sales, so i bought some stuff. had dinner at gina lee's bistro with some of julian's friends and watched superman afterwards. i thought it was ok. sunday we had brunch with some of julian's friends and went to visit the korean friendship bell. (yes we couldn't think of anything better to do haha) we drove by palos verde and every time we drive by i think about how nice it would be live there (they have nice houses next to the beach). ahhh maybe one day. monday we had lunch in alhambra, and went to the santa anita mall. at 4pm was the wedding for my coworker joe at the san gabriel hilton. the bride looked beautiful and she's so so skinny but she's only 22! it was incredibly hot outside, i was so glad the ceremony was short. sucks for the guys who had to wear pants and long sleeves! hehe. the reception was indoors thank goodness but the chinese food wasn't that good. the centerpieces were very nice though. it was more of a chinese wedding vs american wedding because the MC spoke in chinese mainly and translated into english occasionally. they played A LOT of games and the bride and groom didn't get to eat much at all!

tues morning we left for vegas!! woohoo! it took us about 4 hours. when we arrived it was overcast and wasn't as hot as i expected. we met up with jody and heeyup for lunch and ate at mgm at wichcraft - a sandwich place. it was ok. we gambled a bit and i lost $50 playing blackjack. jody and heeyup went back home and julian and i walked through cesear's palace and looked through some of the shops. it's changed so much since i last went there, there are so many more stores there! it's kind of crazy. then we walked over to bellagio and looked at some of the stores there. had some gelato at a new store with a huuuuge chocolate fountain in the front, don't remember the name.

we met up with jody and heeyup for dinner at mesa grill. essentially the 2 couples ordered the same dishes, except we chose 2 different appetizers. we both got the pork and a coffee encrusted filet for entrees. the filet was not very good but the pork was. julian was disappointed. afterwards we went to shadowbar where girls dance behind screens to create a shadow. there was one girl who was topless and had very large boobs. yikes! afterwards, julian and heeyup played bj for a little bit until julian lost $100 and heeyup won $100.

on wed we went to the las vegas outlet center at the end of the strip and it sucked. i definitely would not go back there again. we had lunch at a bar & grill in Rio which wasn't that great. went back to the venetian and wanted to go to the pool but it was closed due to lightning! bummer. i ended up taking a nap and then we went over to mgm. we went to the m&m store and looked around and then played bj a bit before dinner. i broke even but julian ended up losing another $100. for dinner we went to craftsteak (tom colicchio's restaurant from top chef - he also owns Craft in NY which i want to try one day) i got a roasted corn soup as an appetizer which was really creamy and yummy. for entrees i got a petite filet and julian got a kobe beef flat iron steak and we got 2 sides, white corn and potatoes au gratin. everything was good but the kobe beef was the best. for dessert julian got a cinnamon pull apart bread that you dip in caramel which was very tasty and i got some pineapple sorbet. we were quite full afterwards. we were going to check out tao afterwards since it was in the venetian and we could get in for free since we were guests, but we were too tired so we just went back to our room.

on thurs we had lunch at the bellagio buffet, it was ok. i like their sunday brunch buffet much better. we then walked over to the fashion show mall (took 30 minutes, but it wasn't TOO bad) we walked around a lot because we needed to work off all the food we were eating!! most of the time it was overcast, so it was warm, but at least the sun wasn't pounding down on you. fashion show mall is huge! i'm so jealous of jody, she'll have some great shopping and food on the strip! anyways, we didn't walk through the whole mall just the major dept stores - neimans, saks, macys, nordstorms. i want to buy some rock & republic jeans but none of them had a good selection i loved look at the shoes and bags they had though! afterwards we went over to the wynn hotel across the street. the hotel was ok, i loved looking at the shoes at manolo blahnik. for the ferrari display you have to pay $10 each so we just browsed the store. we walked back to venetian and were finally able to go to the pool! they have 3-4 different pools and one of them is just filled with lounge chairs. it was cool, i should have taken a picture. but the lounge chairs are in the water and the pool is maybe like a foot deep? so you can sunbathe but cool yourself down with the water. the water is pretty warm though.

that night we went back to bellagio and had dinner at olives. jody told us not to go because she said the boston one was much better, but we decided to try it anyways. the food was OK, we probably wouldn't go back. we got a tuna tartare appetizer and for entrees julian got halibut and i got the pea & mint ravioli. the service was incredibly slow so we didn't have time for the vanilla bean souffle that jody recommended!!! i was so sad. after dinner we went to see O, i didn't like it as much as other cirque du soleil shows, but julian's parents went to see Ka and really enjoyed it.

fri we had dinner at burger bar in mandalay bay which has pretty good kobe beef burgers. for dessert we stopped by chocolate swan and got a chocolate eclair and ice cream. the chocolate eclair was really good! then we drove home from vegas back to SJ!! took about 8 hours. we hit a little traffic about an hour into our drive because it was pouring and we saw an overturned truck and a section of the highway was flooded. other than that it was relatively traffic free. we went to pick up tofu from my parent's house and she was so so dirty haha. they let her roam around in the backyard so gets really dirty i guess. we gave her a bath immediately when we got home.

hooray!!

it's official, i'm done with school! my last grade has finally been posted and whew i passed. so I have a master's degree now, yippee. now i can REALLY celebrate in las vegas and new york! hooray hooray!

argh

my stupid bee sting is still very very itchy!! there's a large rectangular swollen red patch that is driving me crazy! i really hope it goes away soon.

i finished the 2nd season of 24! onto season 3!

i watched cars and capote over the weekend. both movies were pretty good. i now want to read in cold blood

san diego

we went to san diego last weekend. on friday we went to the zoo! it was really hot and my cheeks and nose got sunburnt. grr. and my feet were so tired from walking so much, the zoo is pretty big and not organized very well, so you have to backtrack a lot. here are some pics of my favorite animals

cute baby gorilla on top of it's mama


talllll giraffes


zebra - its stripes are so cool


swimming polar bear


polar bear after it's cool down session in the water


panda - this is the only one we could really see, but he was sleeping


on saturday was julian's brother's graduation. we had lunch in la jolla near his bro's apartment. and then we went over to ucsd for the graduation. it was hot! they had refreshments though, and we got this really tasty strawberry & mango icy drink. it was about 2 hours so it wasn't too bad. here's a pic with the graduate (although he actually didn't REALLY graduate, he just walked. he still has one more year to go! he wanted to walk with his friends so he did it this year instead of next)


after graduation we went to the UTC mall, it wasn't that great. but just walked around to kill some time. later we went to his bro's apartment to relax a bit before dinner. we ended up playing scattergories which was kinda fun playing with his family. for the letter "F" and terms of endearment, his mom put Fräulein ?? haha too funny for dinner we went to roy's, it was pretty good, better than our experience in hawaii.

sunday we went to brunch for father's day at this place called azul in la jolla. the view was gorgeous but the service and food sucked! oh well, i guess we were paying for the view, i would not recommend going there though. we ended up leaving at 2pm, and arrived back in SJ at 9:15pm. picked up tofu and went home! we were exhausted! we'll be driving back down to LA in another week or so, ugh!!!

just my luck!

you know how i don't like bees? now i REALLY don't like them! yesterday on our walk with tofu, i got stung by a bee!! on the bottom of my foot!!! waaah. on our walks we usually take her to a park which has a really large grassy area so we were walking across it and i felt this stinging pain on the bottom of my foot. I screamed and julian was like what? what? and i showed him the bottom of my foot and the bee was still stuck in there!! oy. so he flicked it off and took the stinger out. now my wound is reallllly itchy. there's a large patch of redness around it, i wonder if it might be a slight allergic reaction. but it's so hard to not scratch it, ugh!! so i guess i now know what it feels like to be stung by a bee. lucky me!

who's the shopaholic now?

not me!! check this out!! geez, look at all that hermes stuff! whoa!!

weekend happenings

i got a pedicure friday evening and i think i've decided i should either get a sheer pinkish color or a dark red from now on. i chose a shimmery pink color but i think it blends too much with my skin. and i think a fuschia pink color would be too bright.

julian's parents came up to visit this weekend because they were attending a wedding reception on saturday. and somehow we got roped into going as well. it was julian's dad's cousin's sister in law's wedding! it was in sunnyvale at the lion & compass restaurant. the food was ok, but the reception was kind of boring especially in the end because all they did was talk. so boring. oh well, i can't believe julian's family is so huge! so hard to keep track of.

this is my last week of class!!!! i just have a final to finish, a presentation to give tomorrow morning, and then i'll be done!!! on thurs we're off to san diego for julian's brother's graduation. so if you have any recommendations of places to see or do or eat at let me know!!

new panera location

there's one pretty close to our house now, near the airport, just opened yesterday. yay! and the strawberry salad is back.

i'm seriously addicted to 24 now. i finished the first season and just finished disc 2 of season 2 last night. i have to take a break for a week though because i'm busy with school, but i want to see what happens next! argh!!

summer time

i love summer, it's my favorite season. love the warm weather, wearing sandals, and most importantly, has the best fruits! it's cherry season! haha. i even went to costco to see if they had those 4lb tub thingies, but they didn't. we went to the farmer's market and it was $7.50/lb!!!!! i just got a little and it was already $5. sigh. but they were realllllly good. i'll have to get them at the supermarket and hope my local costco gets theirs soon! it's also peach/nectarine season!!! we got some white nectarines from the farmer's market, yumyum. and julian's favorite is watermelon. so we've had a looot of fruit lately. it's kind of weird, during the winter we don't really eat much fruit because there isn't much selection other than apples and oranges. but summer time rolls around, we have fruits galore! i also think it's cold in the winter and i don't really like eating cold stuff. all the fruit i buy i always put in the fridge so it's too cooold to eat.

busy busy beeee

looking at the calendar i'm going to be so busy from now until mid-july. sigh. i just have two more weeks of class! then i'll be doneeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. you don't know how much i'm looking forward to it, but i have a lot of work to do though so my next two weekends will be busy doing HW!
in 2 weeks we're going to San Diego for julian's brother's graduation
2 weeks later we're going down to LA for a wedding and then las vegas (sooo much driving!)
and then a week later i'm off to new york!

i'm looking forward to all my trips, but dreading these last two weeks of school!

oh yeah, i saw X3 also. did anyone that saw it stay through the credits? they had a little teaser scene afterwards. anyways, it was quite intriguing =P i didn't really like X3 that much, the plot was very weak. but i guess it was for the action, so it was still entertaining!

french laundry

so i guess i've been neglecting my blog, but i'm too lazy to write anything (it'll take waaay too long)

so here's another photo entry:

French Laundry


salmon tartare coronet (very very good!)


oysters & caviar (very very good, one of my favs)


lobster mitts (very very good, another of my favs)



mango sorbet


very very veeeeery stuffed

all the courses at french laundry were very good except the 2 meat dishes (rabbit & lamb) which was kind of odd because most other places we've been to the meat dishes are the best. the desserts were also very good, we were soo soo stuffed, they also had a lot of extra little things before & after the meal. another interesting thing is that they only bring out bread on certain courses, and each time it's different breads to choose from. i only posted some of the dishes, because there are so many. some of them are half-eaten because i forgot to take them at the beginning like the one below of the lamb. oh, and the waiter commented on the funny way i ate my lamb because i like to cut everything before i start eating heh

mission impossible 3

we watched mi3 this weekend, it was better than i expected. i didn't want to watch it because i seriously can not stand tom cruise anymore after that whole katie holmes (i mean, kate cruise!!) episode. ugh. grosses me out. anyways.

there's one scene in shanghai where tom cruise is running and he's shouting "zou kai! zou kai!" (move in chinese) and after that, simon used the phrase the whooole weekend. we watched it fri night, and he used it all of sat when we were sf. plus he says it really funny too, his sounded like joe thai..haha.

simon's gf was visiting for the weekend and so were two of julian's friends. on sat we went to golden gate park (a veery nice day) and we walked around the de Young museum in the park, it was a fine arts museum i think. we were only in there for an hour or so. ate at a good japanese restaurant called maki in japan town.

sun we went to eat dim sum and waited an hour cause everyone was going for mother's day i guess. parking was annoying too. and for dinner we went with my mom to layang layang (malaysian) pretty good, julian liked it!

this weekend was soo busy and sooo much eating!

show recommendations in vegas

avenue q has been cancelled in las vegas! apparently the wynn signed an exclusive deal with avenue q to only be in vegas and not go on tour, but i guess it wasn't making enough money or something, so it's been cancelled! so now we don't have a show to watch when we go in july. but now that it won't be at the wynn, they will be going on tour to a city near you soon!

so now we need some recommendations on some good shows. the shows we are considering: all the cirque shows except zumanity because we've seen it already (ka, o, or mystere), lance burton (i dunno about this but julian suggested a magic show heh) i think those are our only choices, so most likely we'll try to catch a cirque show. but which one??

we have a ghost!

last night our vcr mysteriously started recording at 2am. it was very very weird. our vcr is old so it makes a lot of noise when it starts recording so it woke us up. the only thing that i have set for recording is a weekly wed 8-9pm recording which i set 3 weeks ago! i checked the vcr date & time this morning and it is set correctly. hrmm. i have no other explanation and neither does julian, so i've decided that it was a ghost! freaky! and the remote was next to the tv on top of our drawers, so we didn't sleep on it and it's too tall for tofu to reach!

picture entry

this was when we first got tofu, she's so small!


so cute!


this is her fat stage when we didn't give her a haircut for a looong time. she looks sooo big! i didn't think she looked that bad in real life haha


tofu likes to sunbathe, she always goes to find the patch of sun on the ground or on the sofa


another sunbathing photo and chewing her toy!


this is what she does a majority of the time, sleep!!


her tear stains are a lot better now. we have some pics where it looks sooo bad. and we now keep her hair a lot shorter! much cuter that way. she's almost 9 months and hasn't had a potty accident in the house for a while now! and she goes peepee outside now, but poopoo is still inside but always on her pad. she has done some naughty things while we're gone though, like eating a huge slice of carrot cake that we left on the coffee table! and knocking over (and breaking!) a glass we had on the table. i guess it's our own fault for leaving stuff on the table, ugh. at least she doesn't like our shoes! she's our little sweetie pie but i'm soooo glad the puppy years are almost over. she is so much better now that is older!!

halfway there

5 weeks down, 5 more to go. i'm chugging along, i'm mildly stressed with the schoolwork, i'm really hating writing a 2-3 paper each week. even though it doesn't seem like much, i hate using my free time to do such things. in addition i have to work on my 8 page midterm as well. yuck.

we're going to our first wedding of the year this saturday. since we have so many weddings to go to, i've bought several new dresses hehe. oh yeah, and the coworker that i said that was going to propose soon? well he did. and the wedding is going to be in dec! not next year as i thought! so there's another to our long list of weddings. supposedly 2006 is a lucky year to get married. and 2005 was a very bad year to get married. good thing i'm not superstitious!

claim jumper

for all those that miss claim jumper, they're building one in fremont!

24

we're finally at the point where we've finished watching most of the movies on our netflix queue, and now we can go back to watching tv series dvds. so i am getting the first dvd of the first season of 24!! it seems like everyone seems to think this show is very good, so we'll see if i get hooked! then i'll have 4 more season to catch up on ! yikes!!

i still have yet to watch the first season of lost (but i saw the first half in reruns last summer, but i want to watch the 2nd half!)

good night, good luck (i think it was nominated for an oscar) was sooooo boring. i stopped watching after the first 15 minutes. plus it was all in black and white. i thought walk the line was pretty good though, i never knew johnny cash was that famous, weird!

mall closed on easter

we tried to go to the mall easter sunday, and it was closed! i thought the malls only closed on christmas and thanksgiving?? it was a bummer!

another easy week

well, my team lead is vacationing in hawaii this week, so i'll be spending another week working from home! i haven't gone to the office very much at all this month. i think i'll be able to survive the entire month only getting one tank of gas! crazy. i only drive to/from class. if i didn't have class i think the only times i would leave the house is when i take tofu on walks! the weather is FINALLY starting to clear up. i can't believe we had 20+ straight days of rain. it felt like we were in seattle or something!

anyhoo, we're going to visit la this weekend. i'm a little nervous. the last time i saw the in-laws was when they came to visit for chinese new year parade in feb, and i guess afterwards they told julian that they were hurt that i didn't call them mom and dad. oops. i didn't know i was supposed to do that! is that normal?? i thought they were supposed to ask you to call them that? well in any case, they told him they felt i wasn't accepting of them or something and they felt snubbed. now i feel very weird because of course that was not my intention at all, i'm just clueless i guess?? but should i say something?? i mean, i'll call them mom and dad (it feels very weird to though!), but should i explain why i didn't before?? sigh. maybe i'm just being worried over nothing but i really have no idea what they're thinking or what they think of me. oh well, i guess that's the fun in having in-laws eh?

mark your calendars!

ben & jerry's free cone day on tues april 25th!

week one down, nine more to go

i survived my first week of class! i can already tell that it's going to be a tough quarter. i have class every day mon-thurs. i LIVE for fridays! the class work isn't actually so bad though (hopefully), but it's just a pain to go to class every day after (or before) work. i seriously can not wait until i graduate.

i'm thinking about taking some jewelry making classes in the summer. i'm trying to create more options for the future when/if i decide to quit my day job after having kids. but that's still 2-3 years away =P

one of my friends at work is going to be engaged soon! he has the ring and is going to propose soon. he is already working on the wedding website! it's kind of weird, they even went to a bridal show two months ago. i think his gf is very eager to get married heh, already started the wedding planning before being engaged! anyways, looks like i'll have at least one wedding to go to next year already!

odds and ends

it's been raining like crazy here, urgh, and doesn't look like it'll stop in the near future. SF set a new record, 25/31 days in march were rainy!!

my team lead is now in israel (i didn't end up going despite him asking me two more times if i was SURE i didn't want to go heh) but i have to prepare some material and give a presentation at 7am wed.

class begins this week..i obviously dread it because i had a dream that for one of my classes the assignment was to write a paper by hand using carbon paper! it was the oddest dream in the world.

julian is going to go to alabama again! either the end of this week or early next week. boo.

some more reality shows i'm watching

top chef: from the creators of project runaway. a bunch of aspiring chefs have 2 challenges each week. it's set in san francisco, and each week a guest chef from a well-known san francisco restaurant is brought in. their challenges are kind of ridiculous though, and some of the contestants are very snobby and hate the challenges. for example, one challenge was to cook monk fish for children. another was to use ingredients from a gas station to make a dish. another was to prepare a dish the night before that can will be reheated with a microwave the next day. so the snobby contestants are like...children?? those are not my target audience, i want to be a chef in a fancy restaurant, i'll never have to deal with kids yada yada. and for the microwave challenge, they TOTALLY look down on the microwave, saying how they're top chefs, they don't USE microwaves blah blah. some of them are so stuck up! heh. anyways, it's fun to watch, i like to watch cooking shows but it never seems to inspire me to actually cook. i wish i could learn through osmosis!

nanny 911: hmm...all i gotta say is i really really hope i can control my kids. i'm starting to think i should push back kids even further hehe. one memorable episode had one little girl that refused to wear a diaper, so she would poop everywhere in the house...and if she DID wear a diaper, she would take the poop out of her diaper and show it to her parents. one time, she woke up her mom by wiping her poo on her face! lovely eh??

i've added supernanny to my tivo season pass (i guess i'm trying to scare myself out of having kids haha) and also real housewives of orange county. i haven't seen an episode of either yet, but hopefully they'll be entertaining.

check it out

the modern swan lake is in sf now... March 21 - April 16

would it be too much to watch it again even though i just watched the regular one 2 months ago? julian doesn't really want to see it hehe. he thinks ballets are boring and will make him fall asleep. but do you know what he is basing it on??? a mexican ballet he saw on video in spanish class in 8th grade! sheesh. i should just make him go watch one live!

sf opera is actually having a surprising number of operas this season, the subscription i'm interested in is the Beginner's Guide to Opera with Rigoletto, The Barber of Seville, Carmen, and Don Giovanni.

has anyone seen any good musicals lately?? i think in vegas we're going to try to catch avenue q but i've been so out of it i don't know what's good on broadway now. and the shows coming to sf are not good boo. well, hopefully i can catch a musical in ny! i'll be visiting sharon in july hooray! i can't wait to sweat buckets =P

over the weekend

ok, i guess it's back to posting about things i did over the weekend, not much else to talk about...so! we've been taking advantage of my spring break (no class, no hw) and knocking off the movies on our netflix list! we watched brothers grimm (sucked don't watch it, i fell asleep), longest yard, and kingdom of heaven. yes, they have all been out on dvd for a looong time but we're that behind! longest yard and kingdom of heaven were both ok. the bad thing about netflix is that if you don't send in your movies to be received mon, you won't receive new releases for a loooong time. i've been waiting for walk the line but it's been on "Long Wait" for a few weeks now. sigh. i think it'll be another few weeks before we actually get it, bleh. but smart me caught on that for new releases they send them out on mon even though the dvd comes out on tues! so for movies that i really want to see, i have to mail them out fri or sat. so we'll be getting memoirs of a geisha tomorrow (the day it comes out on dvd). yippee

we also watched inside man, it's a pretty good movie. and jodie foster carries 2 birkins in the movie! oh, sat we went to great america for julian's company picnic again. we only rode top gun and invertigo (my first time). both are so short! great america sucks. they have a new survivor thingie, but it wasn't open yet. and the food was as bad as always. =P

sun we took tofu to a doggie park...we're trying to socialize her more with other dogs. man, she barks sooo much. it's embarassing to take her anywhere because she's so loud! i think we made a little tiny bit of progress. she actually sniffed a dog from behind without barking. but she still barks like mad when a dog is approaching her head on. and she scared this one dog so much that it started to whine..i felt so bad for him! other dogs kind of get mad and chase her around so they run around with tofu barking heh... just have to be careful that other dogs don't get so mad that they bite tofu! or that tofu doesn't bite them! it's kind of scary! at least the park we went to had a separate area for small dogs and big dogs, but we're going to try to take her there every week so she can get used to it. oy! it's so draining!

oh yes, and today was my lucky day! i was able to get through on the french laundry reservation line after only 3 minutes so i could make a reservation for dinner may 27th (memorial day weekend!) i've tried 2 times before last year, and i couldn't get through for 30-45 minutes both times! and by the time i did get through, of course there were no more reservations left. so anyhoo, julian and i had our phones armed and ready at 10am and lucky me was able to get through! hooray! now i hope the food is as good as everyone says!

for all those speeders out there

while driving to work today, i saw a car stopped by a "cop". Now this was no ordinary cop...the car he was trying looked like an ordinary car. It was a Ford Taurus, I saw it from the back first and I saw that it's tail lights were flashing (like a cop car). and as I drove by, saw that he had his police lights in the front. There were no lights on the top of the car. It totally looked like a normal car! And this "cop" was wearing a plaid short sleeved shirt and jeans! But he was wearing his badge around his neck. I could see it from 2 lanes over. Anyhoo, cops are getting sneakier! If you were just driving around I don't think you would notice that it was a cop car until it's too late. So the moral of the story is, don't speed (too much) =P I speed, but try not to speed too much over the limit! hehe

i'm officially on spring break! woohoo! i get a 1.5 week break from school =P doesn't seem like much but it'll be a relief. 3 more months and then i'll be freeeee

let's see, i don't really have that much to blog about. yesterday i moved to my new office, we're in a new building now, the one that the gym is in. i now don't really have any excuse as to why i shouldn't go. before it would be, it's across the street, tooooo far. now it's right downstairs, i walk by going to and from my office but i'll only be going 2 or 3 times a week to the office so we'll see. anyways, we've been trying to walk tofu every morning and every evening, so that's my new exercise. it's better than what i used to do (nothing) so it's a start.

oh. over the weekend the weather was sooooo beautiful. we went hiking at mt tam near sausalito. the view is gooooorgeous. and i wouldn't really call it hiking, it was more like walking up little hills to see the view. it's really pretty. and the weather was so nice on sat. and since we were hanging out with julian's friends, the talk with the gf always ends up being about birkins haha. so hmmhmm, i guess that's what i'm saving up for! even though i didn't really like them to begin with i've seen sooo many pictures of people carrying them now and they're growing on me. it's still a very classic bag, but if you get it in a nice bright color it makes it less boring i think. i've recently joined a purse forum and it's adding fuel to the fire! i see countless pictures of pretty bags and get soooo tempted. and man, there are some craaaazy purse people, if you guys think i'm addicted, you should see these people! i need to win the lotto i think =P

vacation

i think the only thing that keeps me sane is having something to look forward to vacation-wise. julian went to alabama (again!) last night. he went last month too, but both times it's a short trip, only 1-2 days. with all this travel over there, he's now a silver medallion member on delta. and this trip he got to go first class! (but according to him, delta airplanes really suck and first class is not that great) he now has a lot of delta miles, so we're thinking of what to do with them! we can get two tickets to mexico/carribbean, or one ticket to europe. we're trying to keep the vacations this year low budget since we want to go to greece next summer.

so far the only thing we have confirmed is LA july 4th weekend for a wedding, and then drive to vegas for 3-4 days. so if any of you guys want to join us, we'll be there july 4-7th. and most likely staying at mandalay bay (because julian wants to try the cool pool...or something)

julian's parents are going to china for a week in august and they **REALLY** want us to go. but neither of us are too keen on going. i feel that we (or at least julian) should go, but i dunno, he doesn't want to heh. but can't really say that to his parents right? so yeah, i dunno what's going to happen with that, julian doesn't want to spend money on a vacation he doesn't want to go on =P

next possibility is going to switzerland in nov, i think airfare is pretty cheap then, and we'll have free lodging, so that would be cool. we want to use the delta miles before delta goes kaput, since they've filed for bankruptcy. But does that mean anything though?? didn't united file for bankruptcy too? anyways, the problem with using frequent flier miles is that they're so restrictive and limited, it kind of sucks. if we don't end up using the delta miles to go to switzerland, i would want to use them to go to mexico/carribbean in dec maybe. we were thinking of cancun, but after the hurricane last year, i think it's still kind of a mess there. so maybe the carribbean. oh, i also have a free united flight! which i think i want to use to visit sharon in ny. gotta use all the free flights before they go kaput!

all these possible trips, who knows if any will come to fruition, but having them to think about gives me something to take my mind off work and school!! =P at least we'll be going to vegas for sure...haven't been in so long! very excited to go! yippeee

crunchtime

it's the end of the quarter and i'm feeling the squeeeeze on my time. i have lots of things to work on, and i'm really looking forward to my "spring break". it'll be so nice to not have to go to class after work or wake up hecka early, but that will only last a week. i really hope i can survive one more quarter. just need to survive to june. hope.i.can.make.it. ugh. this week is the last week of class and next week is finals week. and this weekend julian's friends are coming to visit, so the pressure is on to finish a lot of my stuff during the week, so i'll be working on my paper about valuing inventory. wheeeeeeeeeeeeee at least lorentz and i finished our project in 4 hours yesterday! hehe. we created a de-crypter for yahoo messenger archive chats. sounds fun hunh? anyhoo, tofu still has some issues that need to be worked on so we've enlisted the services of a trainer for private lessons. our first one is tomorrow and we'll see how the assessment goes =P

tofu actually came home last night...when i called, the lady was like, oh tofu is doing fine, she is ready to come now. i was like, oh really? she doesn't have to stay overnight? and then she replied in a really confused, why would she ask that question tone, no you can come pick her up before 6. i was like...hmm...ok. so i drive over, and the receptionist was like, i thought she was going to stay overnight! i was like, yeah i thought that too but when i called someone told me i could pick her up. and then she gave me this whole spiel about how they usually stay overnight and yada yada like it was *I* who asked if i could pick her up earlier, like i'm some crazy overprotective dog owner! sheesh! anyhow, so she let me take her home and tofu was sooo out of it. still heavily drugged heh. i was kind of glad she could come home cause at the vet's, no one is watching the dogs, they just leave them in the cages. so i felt better that tofu could rest someplace she was familiar with. anyways, this morning, she seems back to her normal self. so that's good. the stitches on her tummy are sooo small. so interesting!

oh yeah, i talked with my manager's manager (she's actually here for a week from tucson), and she's ok with me working from my home, but my manager kind of wants to retain the office space, so she would prefer if i worked from home a few days out of the week and not the whole time, for the short term. and see about the long term. so that's ok with me. so i think most likely i'll work from home MWF. yippee. the only downside is that i won't be reimbursed for stuff like those that are working full time from home, like their DSL, phone, printer, etc etc. but it's ok, we'll be paying for that anyways, and i'm saving on gas =P

tofu's getting spayed today! we dropped her off at 8:30 this morning and she has to stay the night with the vet =( i have to call after 4:30pm today to see how it went. i really hope it goes ok! it'll be so weird to not have her at home tonight. eek, so anxious. 4+ hours to go! i can't imagine how i'll be with my kids. =P

working from home

now that i've started considering it, i can't stop thinking about how nice it would be! i talked with my teammate last week, but he said that someone who is planning on retiring this year already talked with him, and so they are going to switch places. so on mon i told my manager that i would like be a work at home employee, she was like...ok, i'll have to talk with my manager and i'll get back to you. so now it's thursday and she hasn't said anything yet. hmm. she was like, "why do you want to work from home?" and i gave this realllly lame answer of because i want to have kids soon. well, i thought it was lame because we actually have someone that is pregnant right now and i don't think she's requested working from home. and i don't really plan on having kids any time soon, but i thought it was a better excuse than saying i wanted to stay home with the dog. =P so i guess we'll see. all the coworkers that i eat lunch with are leaving the company, so i don't really have that much of an incentive of going to work, but i think i'll probably go in at least once every 1-2 weeks. i think if i end up working from home, i'm going to be sooo lazy. i'll never have to change out of my PJs, do my hair, change into my contacts, whoa! that means i wouldn't need to buy new clothes or shoes if i never go out right?? i'm sure julian thinks so haha

death to my career?

sooo, our move to the building across the street was supposed to be in may, but now it's been pushed up to march 21st. and i don't know if you guys remember, but 7 people were asked to work from home permanently, not really asked, forced. so one guy on my team has to work from home and he seems very unhappy about it. i'm seriously considering switching with him. should i?? i think one of the reasons i wasn't chosen to work from home is because i'm already kind of quiet, i don't really socialize with anyone and not really outspoken, so they want to maximize my exposure to everyone else. i think if i started working from home, it'll be even worse. and i guess in my yearly goals i always say i want to take some leadership roles yada yada (even though i don't necessarily want to, but i really have no idea what else to write?!) so of course if i want to go on that path, it's much better to stay visible.
so i dunno, i've been thinking a lot about what i want do in the future when we're starting to have kids. being at home will be very nice. i personally am not that career-driven, i just want to take home the money! so i think i'm going to talk with my teammate this afternoon and see how it goes. and if i work from home, we won't need a 2nd dog! =P everyone seemed to think it was a crazy idea, so we kind of nixed it hehe. but i found this PERFECT craigslist ad where someone wanted to sell their 1yr male maltese who was already neutered, had shots, mostly potty trained, that would have been perfect! oh well, i think one dog is plenty =P

crazy??

would it be crazy to get another dog??? julian and i are seriously considering getting a companion for tofu, but i dunno, it'll be even more work and more money. dogs are expensive! so i dunno, we're still thinking about it, but check out this cuuuuuute yorkie! sooooo cute. i'm not sure if we would get another maltese or a different breed. hmm. if tofu has someone to play with i won't feel as bad leaving her alone as much. she still gets really anxious when we leave her alone, still not used to it after 3 months or so!

chinese new year parade

so the last weekend julian's parents came up and we went to the chinese new year parade in sf. it was not that great, i wouldn't recommend going to see it. i had to stand on the window of neiman marcus (there's a small ledge) to watch, my feet hurt after a while! it was also kinda weird, cause it seemed like they invited the whole world to participate in the parade, lots of bands, albertson's, ktvu, waste management....?? i guess they were sponsors, but anyways, guess they needed lots of people to make the parade 3 hours long! julian and i actually took a coffee break (there's now a coffee bean near union square, it's sooo cool! their ice blended is sooo much better than starbucks frappucino!) and when we came back it was just in time to see miss chinatown. we were too far away to see if she was actually pretty though. but that was the only float i really wanted to see =P

i think i'm getting "senioritis". it seems like my heaviest workload is going to be in the last 2 quarters!! ugh! i could spread it out and take a class in summer, but i kinda just want to get it over with so i can be done with it! i REALLY wanted to go to greece after i graduated in june, but i did some research and it's pretty expensive =/ so i think it's going to have to be postponed until next year, cause this year is recuperating from last year where we spent tons of money on house, wedding, and honeymoon. sigh. we *might* go to switzerland in nov if it's cheap to visit one of julian's friend who is working there.

oooh, and my team lead asked if i wanted to go to israel at the end of march/april timeframe, but i dunno, it seems kind of dangerous. we're working on a new project with a team in haifa, so a bunch of team leads actually went in jan, and they said that there an explosion that was kind of close by! and my team lead was like "but it wasn't a big deal or anything.." heh so i dunno, we'll see. julian doesn't think i should go =P my team lead would probably go, but i don't really need to go, he just thinks that it would be good experience.

doggie flowers

more cuteness!! =)

new job for tofu?

she can become a purse model!! and then maybe they'll let me keep all the bags that she modelled with?? a girl can dream right? hehe =P the ads are sooo cute though!

weekend in sf

this past weekend, i went to SF on sat and sun! on sat simon took us out to a very nice dinner at la folie to thank us for letting him stay at our house. it was very nice of him to do that. the food was not that good though, still like gary danko better. after dinner, we went to watch match point. it was a pretty good movie. julian and simon kept on saying they wanted to watch it and said it would be good, so finally the day before we went to go watch it, i went to check out the synopsis. i found out it was a woody allen movie! eww!! from then, i had very low expectations because 1) he's a weirdo 2) he makes weird movies. anyways, the movie was kind of slow, but the ending was good. anyways, i think it's a good rental movie.

on sunday i went to sf with shal and some of her other friends to watch swan lake! it was soooo good. i really enjoyed it. i would definitely watch another one, any good recommendations??

preview for this weekend: julian's parents are coming to visit cause they want to go to the chinese new year parade in sf. so looks like another weekend in sf! stay tuned next week to see how it goes. it'll probably be something like "it was sooo crowded, couldn't see anything...never want to go again..." something similiar to that effect =P

nice weather

check out the weather in california this week!



not trying to make you east-coasters jealous, just trying to convince you all to come back! hehe
it's been beaaautiful this week, and the cherry blossoms on our site are blooming, lovely shades of white & pink everywhere! can't wait for the weather to start warming up!! although... it's been a pretty warm winter, i don't think i wore most of my winter jackets this winter! weird!

new haircut

ok, here are some pics...the first one is with my scruffy dog hehe she definitely needs a haircut soon! i was looking at earlier pictures of her and she was so cute! and i guess she WAS smaller! but i think it's because she has all that hair right now.
i guess my hair looks ok, but when i first got it she styled it after it got cut, it was sooo puffy and fluffy, i didn't like it at all. but look at my scrawny pony tail! it's so sad, no more hair. it's starting to grow on me..i guess. i'm thinking i can't have side swept bangs cause my forehead is too short..it's not exactly what i had in mind...oh wells!

happy chinese new year!

( a couple of days late...) =P

hmm, let's see, the only thing i write about is things i do, do you guys find that interesting? i don't know what else i would write about though..oh well, this one will just have to be one of those boring entries.

sat afternoon i went to lab for my scu class, went to get my hair cut afterwards (i'm still undecided about whether or not i like it). i cut it shorter and she layered the heck out of it. the top parts of my hair are sooooo short. i don't think i like all that layering. the cut and blowdry lasted an hour, and then she spent the last 30 minutes layering everything even more!! i think the last 30 minutes of layering and cutting all the top layers shorter was un-necessary. in addition, i wanted side swept bangs...but they turned out REALLY short. so it looks kinda funky. i kinda have to gel it to the side so i don't look like i'm in 5th grade =/ the interesting thing is that EVERYONE notices my haircut though. usually when it gets cut it just looks pretty much the same, but everyone that sees me comments on it. i guess it is different...not sure if i like it =P

anyways, sat night we went up to sf to visit a friend, we went to eat at Brothers. Guess what kind of cuisine they serve. Korean! Isn't that an odd name for a korean restaurant? anyways. so most of the topic of the night was me and the friend (a female) vs simon and julian debating about why girls need to spend lots of money on clothes, shoes, handbags. and why they need to have a large (expensive) engagement ring (this was mainly simon's question..haha) oh yeah...the friend told me that 30th birthday is when you're supposed to get a birkin haha so i have something to look forward to i guess =P by then they'll be even more expensive because their prices go up around 10% a year !!! anyways, it was an entertaining evening hehe.

on sun we went to puppy class and tofu was her usual rowdy self, barking all the time. ugh. it's kind of embarrassing haha. i think she needs to go out in public more. but i taught her to shake hands (more like high five though) and julian's teaching her to roll over. it seems she'll do ANYTHING for treats! haha..so easy to train! after class we went to look at sofas. and ended up buying one! it was a really good deal that we couldn't pass up, so it'll be delivered at the end of feb! can't wait!!! only a certain color was on sale, so it's this brown color, i'm not sure i like it, but i'll take pictures so you guys can see it.

random tidbits

i actually don't really have much to write about, so i'll just put some random things. i'm supposed to be doing my hw actually for my class at 7pm, but i'm procrastinating! which is quite bad of me.

- tri-city (the huge sporting goods store) in fremont is going out of business!! they have a 50% sale now, but the store is EMPTY. and they don't really have any good stuff, so don't make the trip out there. my coworker told me about it on friday and i thought we would find some good deals but it really sucked. i think the sale must have been going on for a while...at least it was an excuse to eat at panera, hehe. it's kind of sad, do you all remember the commercials they used to have when we were young?? i do! well, it's going to be gone now.

- kobe scored 81 points yesterday in a single game!! isn't that insane ?? i usually don't like kobe because i think he's too arrogant, but i must give him props for being the 2nd highest scorer of all time. (i guess maybe he has something to be arrogant about eh?) the highest is 100 points by wilt chamberlain in 1962 or 1963. the 3rd highest is like 60 something points in 1962 or 1963. so it hasn't been done in 40 years! (i'm beefing up my sports trivia knowledge haha)

- watched brokeback mountain over the weekend, it was ok. i dunno, i didn't think it was best picture of the year good, but alas, my tastes and critic's tastes are vastly different.

ok, back to hw! =P

another busy weekend

i'm hoping this weekend coming up i'll have some time to decompress! it's been really hard to get back into "work" mode with such busy weekends. one of julian's friends came from LA to stay with us on friday (they came just to see the pre-broadway musical lestat! ) we had brunch with them on saturday at hobee's... simon starting moving out his stuff and julian helped..i just stayed home cause it was so wet outside! at night we went to the warriors vs lakers game. the lakers won! about 1/3rd of the crowd were lakers fans (julian & simon included) so i guess they were all happy hehe. i'm impartial, i didn't care who won =P

sun i had my all-day scu class. during lunch i went to tofu's puppy class, and just as i thought, tofu wouldn't stop barking! haha. the first 10 minutes was puppy play, and she basically barked the entire time, and was scared of all the dogs. all the dogs were a lot bigger than her, but sooo much calmer! eventually they had to put up a little screen so that tofu couldn't see the other dogs so she would stop barking hehe. hopefully next time will be better! she seemed pretty stressed out from the experience cause after class she basically slept most of the day!

i'm already really tired of class too...i have class mw nights and tues mornings at 7am. this is the 2nd week and i already dread the first half of the week. =( i just have one more quarter after this, and then i'll be freeeeeeee....no more having to pay expensive tuition!

seriously???

(i'm channeling grey's anatomy here...hopefully you all get it!)

anyways, can you believe how outrageous ticketmaster's fees are nowadays??? if you want to buy tickets to a show, the convenience fee for EACH ticket is $6-8, on top of that they charge you a fee for your tickets!! e-ticket is $7 and mailing your tickets is $5. why is an e-ticket $7??? and unfortunately for the show i want to see, they don't have a will call option. argh. i'm seriously balking at the fact of having to pay an extra $20 to ticketmaster! seriously!!! i'm wondering if i could buy them at the box office (this is for the new cirque du soleil show btw) it's worth a shot i guess, they'll be in town starting next week so maybe i'll go check it out and save $20!

date night

since simon has been staying in our house since nov, julian and i haven't really any time alone, so on saturday we went on a date! (simon's moving out this weekend, so it'll be back to two of us in the house again soon) anyways...we went to dinner at myth. i've been dying to try it! i wanted to go for julian's bday, but i must have called too late cause all they had available was 10pm! and this time they only had 5:30 or 9:30, so we had an early dinner. sheesh, each time i called a month in advance, so i guess you have to make them super early!! it was really good though. i had the ahi tuna and risotto, both were really good. julian had the cauliflower soup and pork tenderloin. the price is not that bad, comparable to boulevard another one of our favorite restaurants. for dessert i had a chocolate fondant cake, it was yummy, with chocolate oozing out the middle yuuum. and julian had a pear strudel. we were very very full afterwards, but it was good. i would recommend those two restaurants if you haven't been there!

afterwards we went to union square and walked around a little cause julian had to return something at french connection. most stores were closed, so we went to borders and h&m. afterwards we drove over the war memorial opera house to watch seinfeld. he was in town for the weekend and luckily i scored some tickets, even though i bought them pretty last minute. they only had balcony left, and those seats are faaaar. i couldn't even tell it was seinfeld, only when he talked. anyways, the show was funny, his opening act was good too, so it was a good night!

oh...we watched king kong on friday. i didn't really like it..and it was wayyy too long. i thought it would be good since everyone else seemed to like it, but it's just not my type of movie. i didn't like the plot and didn't like the action sequences. simon reallly liked king kong, but he didn't like memoirs or narnia (both of which i haven't seen yet) but now i'm thinking, i'll probably like them!

coffee table survey

which coffee table do you like better?
Option 1:

Option 2:


i'm still trying to convince julian that spending more money on a nicer looking table will be better in the long run...he's still not convinced. but i'm starting to really get annoyed with our current coffee table and want to change it soon, it'll be soo nice to have those little drawers and baskets to throw all our crap in so that the table doesn't look so cluttered. and i really want to get a new sofa too! why oh why is funiture so expensive???

this is the table that is 1/5th of the price, but does it look as nice??? i don't think so! it definitely looks inferior..and i think if we're going to buy something, we might as well spend it on something that we'll keep for a while!


ok please vote! and i guess you can make the cheapo one option 3, and you can vote for it if you want... =P

weddings weddings weddings

one of my coworkers (joe) got engaged during the christmas holidays! and his wedding is on july 3rd! i guess to make up for not attending any weddings last year (except for my own) i'll have many to go to this year. so if you any of you plan to have a wedding this year, don't do it on: 7/3, 9/3, 10/21, 11/25. =P it seems like the trend is to do weddings on holiday weekends! of the 4 weddings, 3 are during holiday weekends! (and 1 is my wedding anniversary!! julian is a groomsman so we can't miss that wedding) we know of 3 other people that are engaged, but don't know their wedding dates. i'm not really sure how many weddings we'll actually attend since a lot of them are not in the bay area, but at least i have something to look forward to! yay!

happy 2006!

hope everyone had a happy and safe new year's! mine was pretty dull, but my excuse was that my flight back from australia was on new year's eve =P i arrived around 2:15pm at LAX, drove back to julian's house to get tofu and say goodbye to julian's parents, and finally left for the bay area around 4pm. there was zero traffic so we got back around 10pm, with a peepee stop for tofu and a dinner break for us at innout. all we did was play board games =P i bought trivial pursuit pop culture 2! it's pretty fun, just like regular trivial pursuit, some questions are just so weird.

anyways, i am grumpy that i have to work today, ugh. work sucks. it's going to be hard to get back in the swing of things. but here are my resolutions for 2006:
save money and work out more. i don't know how well save money will go since i already want to buy new bags for myself, new furniture for our house, and scheming about travel plans! saving money is very hard for me hehe, but i'll try i guess. and i need to start thinking of a new work out routine, hmmm. does walking the dog count?? =P