Monthly Archive for January, 2011

This was the candied lemon peel I was making until 1am last night., originally uploaded by @jozjozjoz.

Basically, it’s sugar syrup and sugar, rolled in sugar. On some lemon rinds.

Los Angeles, CA
1/31/2011.

-J
Pecked out on my iPhone. Sorry for any typos.
www.jozjozjoz.com

[Photo] The Participating orgs at #BTforum & @8asians is listed first!, originally uploaded by @jozjozjoz.

Yay! Above all those "A" / "Asian" organizations!

Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA
1/26/2011.

-J
Pecked out on my iPhone. Sorry for any typos.
www.jozjozjoz.com

The panel at #BTforum, moderated by Craig Robinson, President & GM of KNBC TV, originally uploaded by @jozjozjoz.

Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA
1/26/2011.

-J
Pecked out on my iPhone. Sorry for any typos.
www.jozjozjoz.com

At the CEOs/Presidents Forum "Breaking Through: Advice from the C-Suite" #btforum, originally uploaded by @jozjozjoz.

Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA
1/26/2011.

-J
Pecked out on my iPhone. Sorry for any typos.
www.jozjozjoz.com

At Pa Pa Walk San Gabriel: oyster omelet, XLBs, and green onion pancake, originally uploaded by @jozjozjoz.

I have never been to Pa Pa Walk mostly because it’s always crowded and also
because I have an aversion to human feet in close proximity to my food.

Before you get too grossed out, you should know that the "decor" at this
place goes along with the "walk" theme and the pictures of food on the walls
are in "frames" in the shape of human feet. Yuck. Evidently I can’t even
deal with human feet cartoons near my food because this really bothers me.
(I realize this is probably an issue that only affects me so don’t let it
affect your decision to eat here.)

Anyway, we had gone to Shaka’s Hawaiian Flavors in Alhambra earlier for
dinner but I had already eaten at ~4pm so I wasn’t hungry and was just
planning to get a Hawaiian shave ice. But their machine was broken so I
just drank a bunch of ice tea instead.

After we left Shaka’s, I was still sad that I didn’t get any shave ice, so
we went to Pa Pa Walk to get Taiwanese shaved ice. Since there was a wait, I
got hungry while reading the menu and ended up ordering a bunch of food for
another dinner.

Whenever I try a place I haven’t been, I like to order these items (if they
have them) to see if I will have to come back and order them again in the
future. I liked all these dishes, but not enough to stand in line for them.
Maybe if I want shaved ice, though.

Pa Pa Walk
San Gabriel, CA
1/23/2011.

-J
Pecked out on my iPhone. Sorry for any typos.
www.jozjozjoz.com

We even devised a clever "tattoo transfer system" w/ Sharpie on foil… Just press & voila!, originally uploaded by @jozjozjoz.

What good cousins we are… To nicely plan out the tattoo (instead of just randomly drawing a mustache on him). We planned and practiced!

Also, remind me never to drink with my cousins.

Los Angeles, CA
1/23/2011.

-J
Pecked out on my iPhone. Sorry for any typos.
www.jozjozjoz.com

Heading into a LOTR:FOTR screening and the guy ahead of me was dressed like Gandalf, originally uploaded by @jozjozjoz.

There are a good number of people dressed up here. But this IS a Lord of the Rings screening, after all. (I ran into my old co-worker Merri M outside.)

And there is a small Renaissance Faire outside in the courtyard of the Egyptian Theatre. Oh, Hollywood… I love you!

The Egyptian Theatre
American Cinematheque
Hollywood, CA
1/22/2011.

-J
Pecked out on my iPhone. Sorry for any typos.
www.jozjozjoz.com

Scoops! I got banana + yuzu and maple + Butterfinger, originally uploaded by @jozjozjoz.

Yoshi got green tea and strawberry.

Scoops on Heliotrope
Los Angeles, CA
1/17/2011.

-J
Pecked out on my iPhone. Sorry for any typos.
www.jozjozjoz.com

Yoshi entered us in a contest called “Don’t Touch My Package,” sponsored by Aqua Resorts, where we are supposed to share our worst travel stories. If you have been reading jozjozjoz.com for a long time, you may remember this story from New Years Eve 2004 (original post with working pop-up footnotes).

I think the contest was supposed to end yesterday, but if you want to give us a vote in support, click here & vote for us. (We seem to be in first place, so here’s hoping we actually won!)

by Yoshi

For our New Year’s Eve celebration in 2004, my girlfriend (J) and I stayed at an overbooked and very crowded Four Diamond hotel in San Francisco. We weren’t even able to check-in on time because the staff was innundated on all fronts.

When we finally did get into our room, J decided to take a shower to get ready to meet our friends for dinner. She had just gotten out of the bathroom when we heard someone trying to unlock the door to our room. Whoever it was was jiggling the handle, sliding the keycard in and out, but was unable to get in. We figured they either had the wrong room or the wrong floor, and when they went away, thought nothing else of it.

Ten minutes later, J was sitting on the bed putting on lotion and I was on the edge of the bed, channel surfing and watching ESPN. Again, we heard someone trying to gain access to our room, only this time, the door opened. (Should I remind you that J was BUTTNAKED when we heard the door swing open?)

Now, the hotel room was designed so that there is a long hallway with the bathroom door and the closet on either side, and the hallway opens into the room. The closet doors are mirrors. So in the reflection of the closet mirror, I saw this skinny thirtysomething Asian man walking into our room. I also vaguely saw the reflection of J scrambling to get under the covers of the bed.

The guy looked kind of confused as I stood up and said, “What are you doing? Excuse me–this is our room!” He said something like, “No, this is my room, what are you doing here?” Not wanting to argue about whose room it was, I walked toward him and he asked, “Did you look in the safe deposit box? I left something in there.” I said that we hadn’t and he moved foward, as if wanting to check the box himself. I guess he hadn’t caught that reflection of my naked girlfriend in the mirror, after all. (Whew!) I said, “Why don’t you wait outside, I’m going to call the front desk.” He agreed, and I slammed the door and threw the bolt, which we really should have done in the first place.

J took this opportunity to jump out of the bed, grab a robe out of the closet and then run to the bathroom and lock the door. I think this took her about 1,000,000th of a second. By the time she unlocked the door for me, she was already on the phone (in the bathroom) with the front desk, hearing the apologies of the woman working there. Apparently, after his first attempt the man, had come downstairs and told her the key didn’t work, and she was so busy that she just issued him another one, without first verifying that he was supposed to have access to the room.

J very calmly, I might add, explained to the woman that no matter how sorry she was, J still needed to speak with the Manager. She was then transferred to the manager’s line, but no one answered the call. J then dialed the operator and demanded that Security come to our room and again requested the Manager.

“You will not put me on hold again for the Manager. You need to find them right away!” she screamed at the operator from inside the echo-y bathroom.

The Manager had gone out to the front desk to see what was going on, and was therefore not in her office. The operator then said that Security had already been dispatched to our room and they were currently speaking to the people in the room, which was incorrect, because by now, J and I were both in the bathroom. So J went out (still wearing nothing but the robe) to speak to Security and I got on the phone with the Front Desk Manager.

After many “I’m so sorry this happened” and reassurances that we were in no danger, she offered to move us to another room and upgrade us to a suite. I wasn’t going to argue with that so I said that we needed a little time for J to get dressed and for us to pack up our stuff but we’d be ready to go very soon. Then I had to go out and play referee for the security guards and J.

J was yelling in the hallway, so much that people were coming out of their rooms to see the commotion, and then the Head of Security came to see what was going on, and we had to explain the whole story to him, too. Both security guards at first didn’t believe that we were in the right room, and were very confused.

I told them that the guy says he had left some stuff in the box and they asked, “Well, did you check the safe?” Um, no, why would we have? Since we didn’t want to use it, we hadn’t looked to see if the previous guest had left anything in there. We let the security guards into the room to check the safe and hey, it was still locked. Go figure.

The guards decided that they needed the Front Desk Manager to sort all this out, and left with an scared-looking Asian woman who had been standing in the hallway this whole time with a bunch of luggage and bags (presumably our intruder’s wife, who, incidentally, spoke no English) to go downstairs.

We packed up our things, J got dressed and we called downstairs to tell them we were ready to move. They sent up a bellman to collect our bags, and we relayed the story to him. He looked rather astonished, and said, “I think I’d be mad if that happened to me,” and showed us to our fancy corner suite. The first thing we did after he left was to throw the bolt on the door. (We learn quickly!) Then we explored the suite, which consisted of a living area with a half bathroom, a bedroom and huge bathroom. Very swanky digs.

Room service brought up a complimentary bottle of champagne a little while later with a nice handwritten note of apology from the Manager, and we finished getting ready for our night out and had a lovely rest of the stay. In fact, after dinner, we invited our friends back to see our fancy suite and we all rang in the New Year there, instead! So actually even though it was our worst travel experience, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.

But we did learn the important lesson from the whole experience: no matter how nice your hotel is, always deadbolt your hotel room door!

California Gold: The sunset as seen from the 101, originally uploaded by @jozjozjoz.

On the way back to LA via the 101 since the Grapevine is closed.

Somewhere in CA
1/3/2011.

-J
Pecked out on my iPhone. Sorry for any typos.
www.jozjozjoz.com

How I make sure my glass doesn’t disappear. Also my failed retirement plan (losing lottery ticket), originally uploaded by @jozjozjoz.

Bay Area, CA
1/2/2011.

-J
Pecked out on my iPhone. Sorry for any typos.
www.jozjozjoz.com

My first piece of butter mochi of the New Year! (I got a corner piece!), originally uploaded by @jozjozjoz.

Actually, Auntie J used an all-corner pan, so there were lots of corner pieces.

And I haven’t actually eaten them yet, they are sitting inside the glove box (the magical dessert box) with a piece of peanut butter mochi.

Bay Area, CA
1/1/2011.

-J
Pecked out on my iPhone. Sorry for any typos.
www.jozjozjoz.com

My first peanut butter mochi of the year!, originally uploaded by @jozjozjoz.

Mmmmmmmmm!

Bay Area, CA
1/1/2011.

-J
Pecked out on my iPhone. Sorry for any typos.
www.jozjozjoz.com