See? I learned some Spanish on this trip.
Ok, I lied. I didn’t really pick up any Spanish on this trip. I cheated and consulted babelfish for a translation of Home Sweet Home.
The point is: WE’RE HOME!
Archive for the 'travel' Category
What the heck happened to Vacation Days 3 and 4? Sheesh! This vacation is flying by!
I’m exhausted and don’t have the energy to blog too much right now, so just a quick check-in to say that I’m still chugging along and having a great time on my Mexico trip.
Today a few of us skipped the walking tour in the morning to rest a bit and I’m glad we did. The rest of the day was jam-packed.
We’ll have a little more time in San Miguel tomorrow morning, so I’ll catch up on all the sightseeing I missed, but I’m happy to report that after five days of not being able to find reasonably priced postcards anywhere we went, I found some today for 5 pesos each (50 cents each). Now, that’s more than I usually like to pay for postcards, but I could afford it since I’m doing a lot fewer this time around (sorry, peeps who are getting left off this time). I’m almost done with them and tomorrow I must find a post office and hopefully they’ll get to people in a reasonable amount of time.
Everyday is a busy day and I’m not going to waste my vacation blogging (too much), so I’m off to get some shuteye for another big day tomorrow!
After staying up way too late, we got up early and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. In retrospect, this might have been the meal that did me in (I started feeling sick before lunch, and despite what people think, I SWEAR I didn’t drink the water here!). But at the time, the breakfast was quite lovely.
Day 2 was incredibly jam packed!
After breakfast, we met up in our hotel lobbyat 8:45am to climb aboard a bus for a day of sightseeing.
As we drove through Mexico City, our tourguide Maria pointed out various historical buildings along our route. Our first stop was Plaza de las Tres Culturas (”Square of the Three Cultures”) which is in the Tlatelolco neighborhood of Mexico City. We got out of the bus and took pictures and walked around the entire square, viewing the remains of Aztec temples, entering into the Catholic church of Santiago Tlatelolco, and walking by a massive housing complex built in 1964. This space also has a memorial called “Memorial 68″ to remember the 1968 Mexican student demonstrations and the Tlatelolco Massacre victims and survivors. The name “Three Cultures” is in recognition of the three periods of Mexican history reflected by those buildings: pre-Columbian, Spanish colonial, and the independent “mestizo” nation.
Our next stop was Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (”Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe”). There are actually two churches (the old Basilica and the modern Basilica right next to it) built on top of Tepeyac hill, north of Mexico City. The site is nearby the place where it is said Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared in front of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin. The new Basilica is arguably the most important religious building in Mexico. It houses the original tilma (or apron) of Juan Diego that shows the icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Officially known as the “Templo Expiatorio a Cristo Rey,” the construction of the old basilica began in 1531 and was not finished until 1709. When we went inside, there was a considerable amount of restoration being done; scaffolding seemed to be up in every direction! The old basilica has been sinking since the city was built on a former lake.
Since the old basilica needed renovation, the new, (much) more spacious, basilica was built between 1974 and 1976 by the Mexican architect Pedro Ramírez Vásquez. It is a massive circular building constructed in such a way as to allow maximum visibility for the image to those inside. Up to 40,000 people can take part in Mass in this space!
But the most impressive thing about this place? They were displaying the tilma (kind of an apron) of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin. Here is the story (from Wikipedia) about his apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe and why this was the chosen location of the basilica:
As a widower, Juan Diego was prone to long periods of silence. He walked every Saturday and Sunday to church, and on cold mornings, like other members of his Indian tribe, wore a woven cloth called a tilma, or ayate made with coarse fibers from the maguey cactus for cotton was only used by the upper class Aztec.
On Saturday morning, December 9, 1531, he reported the following: As he was walking to church, he heard the sound of birds singing on Tepeyac hill and someone calling his name. He ran up the hill, and there saw a Lady, about fourteen years of age, resembling an Aztec princess in appearance, and surrounded by light. The Lady spoke to him in Nahuatl, his native tongue. She called him “Xocoyte,” her little son. He responded by calling her “Xocoyata,” his littlest daughter. The Lady asked Juan Diego to tell the bishop of Mexico, a Franciscan named Juan de Zumárraga, that she wanted a “teocalli,” a sacred little house (church), to be built on the spot where she stood, in her honor, where:
“I will demonstrate, I will exhibit, I will give all my love, my compassion, my help and my protection to the people. I am your merciful mother, the merciful mother of all of you who live united in this land, and of all mankind, of all those who love me , of those who cry to me, of those who seek me, of those who have confidence in me. Here I will hear their weeping, their sorrow and will remedy and alleviate all their multiple sufferings, necessities and misfortunes.”
Recognizing the Lady as the Virgin Mary, Juan Diego went to the bishop as instructed, but the Spanish bishop, Fray Juan de Zumárraga was doubtful and told Juan Diego he needed a sign. Juan Diego returned to Tepeyac hill and explained to the Lady that the bishop did not believe him. He implored the Lady to use another messenger, insisting he was not worthy. The Lady however insisted that it was of the upmost importance that it be Diego speaking to the bishop on her behalf. On Sunday, Juan Diego did as the Lady directed, but again the bishop asked for a sign. Later that day, the Lady promised Juan Diego she would give him a sign the following day.
According to Juan Diego, he returned home that night to his uncle Juan Bernardino’s house, and discovered him seriously ill. The next morning December 12, Juan Diego decided not to meet with the Lady, but to find a priest who could administer the last rites to his dying uncle. When he tried to skirt around Tepeyac hill, the Lady intercepted him, assured him his uncle would not die, and asked him to climb the hill and gather the flowers he found there. It was December, when normally nothing blooms in the cold. There he found roses from the region of Castille in Spain, former home of bishop Zumárraga. The Lady re-arranged the roses carefully inside the folded tilma that Juan Diego wore and told him not to open it before anyone but the bishop. When Juan Diego unfolded his tilma before the Bishop roses cascaded from his tilma, and an icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously impressed on the cloth, bringing the bishop to his knees.
The bishop acknowledged the miracle and within two weeks, ordered a shrine to be built where the Virgin Mary had appeared. The bishop then entrusted the image to Juan Diego, who chose to live, until his death at the age of 74 — on May 30, 1548 — in a small hermitage near the spot where the Virgin Mary had appeared. There he cared for the chapel and the first pilgrims who came to pray there, propagating the account of the apparitions in Mexico.
Can you believe Juan Diego’s original tilma is still being displayed to the public here?! It’s amazing!
After this, we headed out of Mexico City toward Teotihuacan, an amazing archeological site. Between 100 and 500 A.D, an ancient people built a flourishing metropolis called Teotihuacan on a plateau about 25 miles from present-day Mexico City. With its accurately aligned avenues and a huge plaza surrounded by 15 monumental pyramids, Teotihuacan was bigger than any city in Europe at that time. It covered over nearly 8 square miles and 200,000 people lived there. Teotihuacan was built 700 years before the Aztecs began constructing their capital city of Tenochtitlan.
We had lunch at a nearby restaurant at La Posada del Jaguar Restaurante before an afternoon full of walking and CLIMBING! (I was already sick by this point, so I had a Fresca to drink and chowed down on plain bread for lunch and a little bit of someone else’s carne asada.)
Despite not feeling so great, I couldn’t fathom sitting on a the bus and missing out on the pyramids. We walked past the Pyramid of the Moon and down the Avenue of the Dead, leading us to the base of the Pyramid of the Sun. I climbed the steep steps of the Pyramid of the Sun and made it to the top! Whoo me! Even more amazing is that I made it DOWN! I made it to the base just as the rain clouds opened up and we made it to the bus before it started pouring. With this, our bus headed back to Mexico City, braving the crazy Friday afternoon traffic (which is only slightly more chaotic than traffic on a Friday in L.A.) before dropping us off at our hotel.
A bunch of us got together and walked a few blocks away for dinner at a place called Cafe du Taguba. We think the guy at our hotel must get a kickback for referring people here because by the end of the evening, we saw half our of group there! I had a yummy cheese and pepper tamale (only 23 pesos… $2.30!) and some more plain bread, but by this time, a headache had started descending upon me. The loud mariachi band that insisted on serenading our table didn’t help. My head started to feel worse and worse until I was ready to cry because I wanted to go back to the hotel and no one would let me leave and walk back by myself.
When our group was ready to leave, we stepped outside to find it POURING rain! And no one had an umbrella. I was beyond grumpy. We were going to cab it back, but after a few minutes, the rain stopped and we decided to walk back to the hotel.
Grateful to be back in my hotel room, I promptly lost my dinner and decided I was done for the night, as if it wasn’t totally obvious by that point (there was some discussion about going clubbing, but I sure as heck wasn’t going to be part of THAT!). By now, I realized that I had been nursing a baby migraine all night at dinner and now it was a full-blown migraine, hence the tossing of my cookies tamale. Our friends C & J went to the 7-11 across the street and bought me a couple of giant bottles of water as well as some drugs for my headache. I showered, drank about a liter of water, covered my eyes and promptly passed out.
Hmm. Maybe I overdid it??? Oh well, I don’t know if I’ll ever get to come back here, so I’m going to enjoy every minute I have here!
Stayed up almost all night packing. Went to bed at 2:30and got up at 3:30 to get ready to go out the door. Picked up a fellow traveler at 4am; headed toward the airport and arrived around 5am. Our tour group arrives en masse at LAX Tom Bradley Terminal to the Air Mexicana check-in area.
Breakfast at McD’s (wow! surprisingly few food choices at LAX at 5am!) and go through security. Flight from LAX to Mexico City is 3 hours. 10 minutes: they fed us breakfast! (A burrito or scrambled eggs; I opted for the burrito, but if I’d known they were going to feed us on the plane, I would have skipped the McD’s.) We arrived at Mexico City and cleared customs, but others didn’t make it through so easily. (When you are going through customes, you have to push the red button for your fate! If you push it and the panel turns green, you can go through. But if the panel turns red, they search through all your stuff. Several of our group members got searched.)
Bus ride to our hotel: The NH Centro Historico, just 1 block away from the Zocalo. After checking in, I went wandering the city with AC, but since we didn’t know what there was to see,we ended up walking through the Zocalo and then in circles until we got tired and went back to the hotel. I bought a hat for 40 pesos… or 4 bucks… score!
Our group had dinner together at the restaurant in the hotel where we had tilapia covered in some sort of strange pink sauce. It wasn’t bad, but it was definitely weird.
After dinner, a bunch of us wanted to have some coffee and since the door to the Starbucks connected to our hotel was locked, I declared, “Starbucks is closed!”
So a bunch of us started walking, looking for a cafe to sit down at. After turning down a couple of bars, we happened upon Café El Popular, which was perfect. We had desserts and pastries with our coffee and tea. (I had a Manzanita Sol: apple soda!!! Dammit! Why isn’t there apple soda in the States?!)
After our lovely dinner and coffee, we walked back to our hotel and we unpacked and got ready for Day 2.
Oh, and as it turns out, the Starbucks WASN’T actually closed. But I’m so glad we didn’t go there.
Our friends Kate and Nico, who live in a gorgeous home overlooking Lake Como, just launched a website of their new inn! http://www.cadelugadulza.com Check out the beautiful photos!
Ca de l’Üga Dulza means “House of the Sweet Grape” in the local dialect of Lezzeno, where we are located. While the name reflects our love of wine, l’Üga Dulza is also an expression used to convey “the sweet life”—generally involving copious amounts of good food and drink, plenty of good company and a great deal of lazing about.
And I asked because I didn’t know how to pronounce it either:
“It’s CAH deh LEUWgah DOOLzah.” The local dialect “u” basically takes the French pronunciation.”
The best part of our trip to Italy in 2006 was our stay at Lake Como… we can’t wait to return so we can stay at the new digs! (Maybe this time we’ll get a Clooney sighting… *swoon!*)
Check out the message I got from Kate about it…
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Kate Manning
Date: Fri, May 30, 2008 at 7:43 AM
Subject: Ca de l’Üga Dulza is online / è in rete / est en ligne!Greetings to all and sundry! Ciao a tutti! Salut tout le monde!
Just a note to let you know that our Lake Como inn / rental / bed-and-no-breakfast finally has an active Web site at http://www.cadelugadulza.com. Please come by and take a look around! If you have any questions that the site doesn’t cover, I would be more than happy to answer them. If you know anyone planning an Italian vacation, feel more than free to forward the link. I look forward to possibly hosting or hearing from you soon!
Solo un paio di righe per dirvi che il sito della nostra affittacamere a Lezzeno, sul Lago di Como è finalmente finito — http://www.cadelugadulza.com. Vi prego di dare un occhiata in giro! Se avete qualche domande dopo, mandatemela pure. Mille grazie a tutti voi che ci avete aiutato realizzare il progetto!
J’annonce avec plaisir que le site Web de nos chambres d’hôte est finalement en ligne — http://www.cadelugadulza.com (sera disponible aussi en français bientôt). Si vous avez une quelconque question n’hésitez pas à me l’adresser. À la prochaine!
Best wishes to everyone, cari saluti, et bien amicalement,
Kate Manning
Affittacamere Ca de l’Üga Dulza
“La Dolce Vita sul Lago di Como”
Località Cendraro Monte, 76/c
22025 Lezzeno (CO)
+39 338 549 30 16
Wow. Joz’s life must be extremely dull for her to be blogging about a new pair of shoes!
*Yawn.*
Yup, dull!
Anyway, I am going to be going on a trip at the end of June where I will be doing a lot of walking. The last time I spent good money on good walking shoes was back in early 2006 for our trip to Italy.
Over Memorial Day weekend, when we went to the mall to see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, we also swung by the Walking Store so Yoshi could check out shoes. Yoshi didn’t find anything, but funny how I ended up spending $100 on a new pair of shoes for myself!
Check them out: Women’s Merrell Plaza Bandeau
They’re a little ugly, but they are super-duper comfy! They are casual enough that I can walk in them while sightseeing, but not so casual that I couldn’t wear them for a “dressier” occasion.
Sadly, I still won’t get rid of my Munro walking shoes that I bought in 2006 even though I did get a lot of use out of them. Since they’re made of really nice leather, I am convinced that if I get a nice shoe shine they’ll be ok again.
Oh!
Do you want to guess where we’re headed this summer?
Since December of last year, I’ve gone on an out of town trip an average of twice a month. You would think that for a long weekend, I would want to go on a trip, but that would be wrong. I hate traveling during holiday weekends, when everyone else is traveling.
I had a lot to catch up with around the house; general chores and stuff. Yoshi is usually the one who cleans and stuff around the house (since I am so horribly bad at it), but I figured that I should pitch in so long as I had some “extra time.” Also, I made a mess of the kitchen, so cleaning some of the more awful messes (especially ones I cause) are really my responsibility. I should have made an appearance at Darleene’s birthday party on Saturday, but I since I am almost always using the excuse that “I’m never home” so I don’t have to clean, I figured leaving for a party on cleaning day wasn’t a good idea.
By the end of the evening, I was tired of being home all day, and I whined my way into having Yoshi go to the movies with me. We ended up stopping by the drugstore to buy a stash of candy, grabbing a quick bite of pizza, and then watching “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” at the Century City AMC*. Boy, that is a long movie! It’s a good thing I looked at the running time (2 hours, 20 minutes!) before the movie started. I decided not to drink anything until the movie was almost over so I wouldn’t have to run from the film doing the pee-pee dance.
On Sunday, I made a quick visit to see Grandma and to run a quick errand near her place before driving back to OC to spend time with my Mom. Mom had been at a friend’s funeral service in the morning and decided to get gas and groceries on the way home. I had intended to extend my cleaning streak to help my Mom around her house, but instead, she asked me for help in making potstickers. From hand chopping the nappa cabbage to folding the potstickers, my Mom let me sit on the living room floor in front of the TV (as I did when I was growing up) and fold a couple of hundred potstickers. (I watched the movie “Clueless” on TBS and then kept flipping back to CNN as they were doing live coverage of the Phoenix Mars lander.) My Mom was taking potstickers as fast as I was making them, and throwing them on to the stove as she was pan-frying them. Yum!
I brought a couple of batches home, foolishly thinking that I’d freeze them and save them for another day but I ended up pan-frying them myself so Yoshi and I could pig out on almost all of them for dinner on Monday night. Yum! Gyoza!
But I skipped something.
After dinner on Sunday, I took my Mom to The Block in Orange to run a quick errand and do a quick walk-through of half the mall. We stopped into Bath & Body Works and tried a bunch of fragrant lotions and stuff. My Mom had the most fun trying on the flavored lip glosses. I tried pink grapefruit. She had fruit punch, which made her lips a bright pink. With glitter. Hilarious and so much fun.
Then we stopped by the house to drop something off and headed off to catch a movie. My Mom wanted to watch “Made of Honor” (since I had described it as a romantic comedy), so that’s what we watched. It wasn’t that great of a movie, but it had its charming moments and Mom was having fun, so I had a good time. It was about 11pm when Made of Honor ended, but Mom wasn’t done yet! We walked out of the theater and she said, “Let’s see another movie!”**
“Mom, there are no movies starting at 11pm on a Sunday night,” I reminded her.
“I don’t have to see the whole movie, let’s go see something that’s already started!” she answered!
Oh yay! I was going to be theater-hopping at midnight with Mom! She headed to “Harold & Kumar,” but not wanting to have to explain any potentially gross humor to my mom, I steered her to the Narnia movie I had already seen the previous night, especially since I knew there was at least an hour of that movie left to go. We walked into as a massive fight scene was happening and since there was no context of what what happening my Mom was confused.
“WHAT is going on here with all these animals fighting?” she asked. I had to explain that the animals were the good guys and the mean looking people were the bad guys. After that, it was all good.
Of course, by the time the movie was over, it was 12:30… way past my bedtime! Instead of going back to L.A., I spent the night in OC at my Mom’s house.
When I woke up on Monday morning, I was trying to leave early, but I had accidentally popped the trunk of the car the night before and the car battery died from the little trunk light being on all night. Ooops. Luckily, no one stole any of the Cup-O-Noodles out of the back of my car while it was open all night on the street in front of my parents’ home.
Anyway, I had to go get gas, so while I was out, I stopped by the movie theater and picked up a pair of tickets for my Mom to catch a matinee of the new Indiana Jones movie. I wanted to stay, but wanted to hit the road before the mad long weekend traffic kicked in. I made it home in 35 minutes flat. Nice!
*Through my old job, I have an Annual Pass for movies at AMC Theaters, good for me + 1 through the end of this year. Sadly, the pass I had for 2007 was practically wasted on me because I didn’t have time for movies while I was in school last year. I have resolved to make VERY good use of my pass this year now that I’m done with school and while I still have a pass. I most definitely won’t be getting a pass next year.
**As always, italics means it was in Mandarin.
Ok, so I’d like to keep playing hooky from writing in my blog because it was nice to be on vacation from it. I know the Twitter posts are short and boring, so I guess I’ll get back into the swing of things by writing something that actually resembles a blog post.
A lot of things have happened since graduation, which was only 2 or 3 weeks ago. I’m still working on my thank you notes and other correspondence.
My social calendar has kept me insanely busy, but I think I need to tone it all down and spend a little more time at home.
Work has been keeping me extremely busy. In fact, I’m sitting at the airport right now, waiting for a flight that is going to take me up to Sacramento for client meetings all day tomorrow.
In other news, my Grandma is in the hospital again. I found out late last night that they took her to the ER, I’m not sure why. I won’t be back in LA until late Friday night, so I won’t be able to visit this weekend.
Well the plane is here, so off I go…
Man.
I should never “do nothing” for too long because a weekend of doing nothing has my head feeling like writing a blog post is heavy lifting. Sad.
I didn’t go to the gym today (wasn’t planning to), but I will be there tomorrow. This “going to the gym” thing is scary. Who am I and what happened to the lazy-assed Joz we all know and love?
I got through almost the whole day without Guitar Hero until I broke down at around 6pm and played for like 40 minutes. But my hand is still all cramped up for all the GH from yesterday, so I was sucking royally and got yelled at by Yoshi to “STOP PLAYING!!! STOOOOPPPP!!!” I took the hint and stopped.
I screwed around online for a while today. I had Facebook scrape my entire Outlook contact list and added about 50 people on Facebook at one shot. They’ve been “approving the adds” all day. Yikes.
What else?
EB and I had a long call today and the long and the short of it is WE ARE GOING TO SAN ANTONIO FOR THE FINAL FOUR AND THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME THIS COMING WEEKEND! GO BRUINS!!! WHOO HOO! I AM SO EXCITED!!!
Ok, I’ll turn my caps lock off now, but YEAH! I’M EXCITED! (Oops. It’s going off now, I mean it this time.)
Thanks to EB for securing the tickets… so EB, Yoshi, my Bro, and I will be heading to the Alamo next weekend to cheer on my boys from Westwood. Yee haw! None of us have ever been to the Final Four and who knows if we’ll ever go again, so this is exciting even though all this travel is taking a huge chunk out of my bank account.
Yoshi is a HUGE basketball fan so this is my present to Yoshi for supporting me through my grad school program for the last couple of years. My brother is having a big birthday next week and this is my birthday present to him. EB has just been wanting to have cool people to go with, and let’s face it, who is cooler than Yoshi and my Bro? (Everyone knows I’m not cool, but people put up with me because all my friends are cool.) Oh, and I just love my alma mater, so we all have different reasons to be excited.
Have I mention that I’m excited? I may have forgotten to slip that in this post, so I just thought I’d put it in here, just so it’s perfectly clear that I’m excited.
It has been well over a decade (almost two) since I was last in San Antonio. Maybe if I can find some old pictures of myself at the Alamo, I will try to recreate them when I’m there.
More about this trip later, I’m sure. (Here’s my dopplr listing)
Morning:
Woke up in SF
Breakfast near hotel
Noonish:
Check out of hotel
Yoshi drives us down to SJ
Afternoon:
Visit briefly with Yoshi’s parents
Nap in SJ
Late Afternoon:
Leave for LA. Yoshi does the first 100 miles or so, but I drive the rest of the way
Night:
Back in LA
Work on guest list for graduation party
Sleep in own bed. Yay!
2/25/2008 11:14pm ET
I feel like my eyeballs are going to plop out in front of me!
I forgot to bring my contact case with me so I couldn’t take my contacts off and put my glasses on instead. My eyes are so tired!
I took a little nap already but I got hot and thirsty so I did my favorite thing and used the on screen ordering system to get myself some Ginger ale and water. I know, I know… I’m usually all about the Diet Cokes but I still have a bit of flight left and don’t want the caffeine to kick in too soon.
This is has been the best trip and I’m sad I have to go back to “real life” (work) tomorrow but it was really good that the Bossdude let me take time off so soon after I started. I really needed this trip.
DC has always been a special place to me. For me, it has always been a place that helps me re-assess my life and transition. I can’t explain why this is but every time I have been faced with major transitons, being in DC has helped me clear my mind and focus on a new chapter of my life.
I knew 2008 would be a transition year for me… with the end of my MBA program looming and this new job as two major changes, I felt this trip allowed me to spend time with some people I truly love and to talk about some of the things on my mind.
I re-connected with old friends, met a few new ones, and got to know a few others better on this trip. The other thing that happened was that I was able to look back and really appreciate all that has happened in the 8 years since I lived in DC. I have grown so much and lived so much since then and am so grateful for the wonderful life I’ve been blessed with and also for the awesome people in my life now.
Anyway, before I get too sentimental, I just wanted to put these thoughts down while they are floating around in my head. Pecking this out on my iPhone is not helping with my tired eyes problem and we just hit some turbulence so Ill wrap this up for now.
One more fun tidbit… After landing tonight I’ll be going directly to OC instead of going home. I’ll be working out of the OC office so I’m trying to reduce my commute time tomorrow morning by getting down there tonight. Glad I packed extra clothes and that I have a place to stay down there. Too bad I won’t see Mom while I’m there… We are both in the air right now… She is on her way back to Taiwan as I return to LA. More on that another time.
Sent from my iPhone
UPDATE: Did not end up going to OC, so will be in LA. Whew!
What a day!
I landed bright and early at Dulles, which I think was the first time I ever flew into that airport. I heard that shortly after my flight landed, many flights were canceled due to inclement weather (sleet, icy conditions). In fact, while in the shuttle to my friend’s home, we were listening to the school closure announcements on the radio.
I’m staying with my good friend Jan, who I haven’t seen in literally 5 years… the last time I was in DC (around the time I started blogging, I think). I couldn’t believe how great it was to be in the same room, instead of exchanging an email, card, or phone call with her.
My flight landed before 6am Eastern time, which would have been 3am my time, but I was wide awake by the time I got to Jan’s place, which was sometime after 7. I wanted to nap since I only slept about an hour on the plane the night before.
I did end up laying down for a few hours and woke up and took a much needed shower around noon.
I spent the entire day with Jan, who was busy working and taking a zillion calls (somethings never change) and also doing a few things on the computer. We spent the afternoon working on a side project together and by the time dinner time rolled around, we were starving. (All I’d had to eat all day was an orange!)
During the day I spoke to two of my friends. I was supposed to get together with one this afternoon in the city, but I decided not to go in since the weather was so terrible today. The other one (I haven’t seen her in 10+ years) is in Falls Church and we were trying to do dinner or drinks, but I was so distracted with Jan today, the day got away from me. Now I’m afraid I won’t see either of them on this trip and I say “phooey” to my suckage.
Anyway, for dinner, we ended up at Anthony’s Restaurant in Falls Church. It wasn’t fancy, but the portions were large, the restaurant was warm and we were able to have a long conversation and catch up on all we had missed in each other’s lives in the last 5 years.
We came home, took her little dog on a walk around the neighborhood (COLD!) and we talked some more until Jan couldn’t keep her eyes open anyway.
Needless to say, we’re still catching up.
I’m getting tired, but I decided to play with my iPhone for a bit and to take a few pictures for Yoshi. Here’s one I thought was funny…
This one was for The Other Yoshi, just to make him laugh. I call it “No paparazzi, please…” but I also sent it to Yoshi, who also liked it. Hee! There’s nothing like getting complimented on photos you take of yourself with a crappy phone cam right before you are going to go to bed.
Yes, I am wearing my cloudy PJs already. I’m ready for bed soon.
Ugh! Feeling nauseated and this is the best flight I’ve been on in a long time! I am absolutely thrilled by my first experience on Virgin America and I can’t wait to book my next trip on this airline!
So I literally ordered a couple of drinks from the screen in front of me and the stewardess (I don’t care if it isn’t PC to call them that these days) brought them to me in just a couple of minutes! Of course I am having some sort of allergic fit and she saw me SNEEZE all over my iphone (how embarrassing!) but then I 1had water and Ginger ale to take my pills with!
The flight from LA to DC was barely filled… Almost every person on the flight has their own row to themselves! I have been laying across my row of three comfy leather seats with my headphones plugged in and have been listening to a playlist of miscellaneous dance and 80’s music I put together during takeoff. The on-board entertainment system is equipped with some cool stuff like live tv and games and on board chat. Internet isn’t working yet but that’s coming soon. The games are a little sucky and the handset for typing is a little tough to use but there’s still plenty to keep you entertained. I’d say.
Oh yeah, another thing I like about these planes is that they have power, USB, and rj45 plugs between each seat so you can charge or use your electronical doodads during your flight.
Maybe someday I will fly first class and sit on one the massage chairs! But that might spoil me beyond belief!
Sent from my iPhone
Actually, it totally didn’t occur to me, but I forgot to put together my postcard list!
And I didn’t prepare my postage!
Oops! Oh well!
I guess no postcards this time; unless it’s someone whose address I know by heart…
Or maybe it’s just “no postcards!”
(It IS a short trip!)
Sorry I missed blogging yesterday.
Group paper due tomorrow and I finished it tonight. It was actually due last week but the Prof was supposed to give us feedback on our paper and didn’t get it to us until past the original deadline, so she gave us an extension. Lucky me, I was the one who had to write more and put it all together. Well, I volunteered for the “put it all together” part, so that’s my own bad.
Anyway, getting busy at work. Learning lots still.
Also cramming because I am going to Washington DC tomorrow night on a red-eye. My Thursday will go like this:
-Wake up, shower, etc
-Get stuff out of dryer & finish packing
-Go to work early and get on 8:30am conference call
-Full day of work
-Cram reading for class
-Go to class, turn in paper
-Take quiz at beginning of class
-Leave class at break
-Catch cab to LAX
-Get on flight
Yikes!
Glad I typed that out because I just realized I neglected to prepare something for my trip. Yeesh.
Will be in DC visiting friends over the weekend and then will get back to LA Monday night.
While I’m there, I am going to attempt to complete writing a paper for school due next Thursday. Bleh.
It only took me 7+ hours to get from Vegas to LA today.
And the sad thing is that I flew. I bet I could have driven back faster considering the time I left to go to the airport.
My plan was to fly during the Super Bowl and avoid the craziness that is Sunday Nights at McCarran Airport. So much for that plan.
In hindsight, I could have totally gone to a Super Bowl party, watched ’til the end and still made it to catch my flight in time.
Thanks to Yoshi for coming to pick me up at the airport so late. I could have totally cabbed it home, so I really appreciate it.
As soon I as walked through the door, I took off all my grubby clothes, put on a big fluffy robe and slipped my feet into my smooshy slippers.
Now time for a quick shower and off to bed.
Night!
Yay!
Heading to Vegas this weekend. Without Yoshi, tho. Doh.
EB and I were supposed to drive tonight, but I was too tired.
So I’m flying in the morning.
We DDR’d on the Wii tonight. Boy I suck at it.
What else?
Lots to do tonight before I go, including voting. Muy importante.
Hooray for the little things, eh?
Last night I got hit with a horrible migraine. It actually started in the afternoon of my first day at the new gig, but I held it together pretty well until I asked Bossdude (pay attention: this is not the same person as BossMan or Bossguy, this is my newest boss: Bossdude!) if he had aspirin over dinner.
I made it home just in time to get sick, show off my new laptop to my Bro, and then promptly pass out in bed at the late hour of 8:30pm. I did not wake up until 10 hours later: 6:30am when Bro was leaving for work and he made sure I got up to get ready for work. My Bro rules!
It was really bad that I slept for 10 hours, not just because I wasn’t feeling well. Mostly, I was expecting to get 5 hours of (school) work done and instead, I got none done. Bad.
I wasn’t feeling too great after getting home (well, my OC home) from work today either, so I had to take a nap before having dinner. My Mom is the bestest and made the yummiest food while I was in OC. I wish I had more of an appetite, though. I also had to apologize for treating her place like a hotel the last couple of nights. I basically just came home, ate, slept, and had maid service. Not cool of me.
I also had to drive back to LA to get back to my real home (with Yoshi) tonight.
Anyway, I am going to be up for a bit tonight and then I’m going to get up early so I can get to my 7:30am doctor’s appointment before work tomorrow.
Whew! This is a nutso week!
Sorry if I don’t check in for a bit, but obviously, I’m totally crazy busy!
Oh yes, FYI, I will be going to Vegas to work this weekend. Not for the new Bossdude but for an old client I do bookkeeping for. As if I didn’t have anything else to worry about, right?!??!
Back in the day when I used to work for Bossman, we never got MLK Day off. He believed that Dr King did not work hard so that we could have an extra day off from work to go to the beach. So in compensation for our having to work on MLK Day, Bossman would select another day to take off,
While I absolutely appreciate and agree with Bossman’s sentiments, most companies just give us the Monday off in January.
That said, after our night at the Hyatt, Yoshi and I checked out of the hotel to have a bite to eat at Jerry’s Famous Deli in Beverly Hills. After that, we headed back to the reality of home.
Ahh, home. Love it.
(Written 1/22/08)
I spent all day Saturday at home trying to take care of the list of a million things to do. I tried to clean, but I just didn’t get around to doing as much as I would have liked.
Our friend Dave came over on Saturday night to keep me company and to help me set up the projector (which still doesn’t have a name) in the living room so we could watch a DVD. We ended up watching The Muppet Movie, which neither of us had seen in well over a decade. Even though Dave dozed off during one segment of the movie, we both agreed that the movie still stands up surprisingly well.
I had to work during the day on Sunday, but I was done around 4:30pm. This was roughly the time that Yoshi’s flight came in at Burbank, so I rushed myself over the hill to go do the airport pick-up myself. Since Yoshi’s stuff was covered in cat hair, we needed to go home and unpack as well as repack for our night out (remember the free night at a hotel?).
It’s a really good thing that we did not have to stay at our place on Sunday night because I really did not make a very big dent in the cleaning that needed to be done. As such, a night out in a hotel was a nice distraction from the reality of our messy place.
It did take us forever to get out of the door and over to the Hyatt on Sunset in West Hollywood (aka the Riot Hyatt). And as soon as we got there, we saw all the scaffolding and went “Uh oh, I hope the construction noise doesn’t start way early.” We got inside to check-in and they informed us that construction starts at 8am. The front desk offered to move us over to the Hyatt in Century City, but it ended up not making sense to do that. Plus, it turned out that construction wasn’t scheduled for MLK Day (the next morning), so we were in luck.
They put us in one of the newly renovated rooms, which was extremely nice. (I wrote a review on Yelp) It was so nice to spend time with Yoshi after being apart all week.
And for the record, no strangers attempted to enter our hotel room on this stay.
(Written 1/22/08)
As a kid, most of my New Year’s Eve memories involved having dinner (hot pot) at my grandparents home with the extended family and close friends. After dinner, the adults would drink tea (or sake) and sit around the table while talking. In the background, the TV would be blaring TV from NHK Japan: Kōhaku Uta Gassen or the Red White Song Battle (or Song Contest or Song Festival).
My family is from Taiwan, but due to the history of Japanese occupation there, my grandparents and parents learned to speak (and read/write) Japanese. So my personal New Year’s memories are a mix of Taiwanese and Japanese… with the Japanese coming from Kōhaku.
According to Wikipedia:
Kōhaku Uta Gassen, more commonly known as simply Kōhaku, is an annual music show on the New Year’s Eve produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK and broadcast on both television and radio, nationally and internationally by NHK’s networks and some overseas (mainly cable) broadcasters which bought the program. The show ends shortly before midnight (when NHK switches to a frenzy of “Happy New Year” greetings from around the nation).
Literally “Red and White Song Battle,” the program divides the most popular music artists of the year into competing teams of red and white. The “red” team or akagumi is composed of all female artists (or groups with female vocals), while the “white” team or shirogumi is all male (or groups with male vocals). The honor of performing on Kōhaku is strictly by invitation, so only the most successful J-Pop artists and enka singers can perform. In addition to the actual music performances, the costumes, hair-styles, makeup, dancing, and lighting are also important. Even today, a performance on Kōhaku is said to be a big highlight in a singer’s career because of the show’s large reach.
While I don’t keep up with J-pop or really anything Japanese for most of the year, I always like to turn on the TV and have some Red White Song battling on to make it feel like New Year’s Eve with my family. And on the final night of 2007, I am happy to be staying in J-Town in SF with Kōhaku on the TV while waiting to meet some good friends from 8Asians and others for dinner.
May you ring in the New Year happily and safely!
This morning we got a call from our friend Dave (who lives in L.A. but is up north visiting his family) to see if we wanted to join him and his family at a Stanford Women’s basketball game at Maples in the afternoon.
Heck yeah! I love rooting for the tree!
Anyway, Dave was nice enough to get us tickets AND to sneak us into the awesome section where his family sits, just 3 rows behind the Stanford bench. (Thanks, Dave!)
It was not the most exciting of game since Stanford pretty much blew University of Washington out of the water, but it was still a lot of fun. The final score was 77-42. We did a little shopping at the Stanford Shopping Center and then headed back to San Jose where Yoshi’s parents took us out to dinner at By-Th’-Bucket Bar & Grill where we gorged ourselves and came home with tummy aches. (And I was being so good on this trip until now!)
After we got back, Yoshi was trying to take a nap, but I was goofing around taking snapshots of us. I don’t think Yoshi appreciated the hundreds of flashes that went off while I was doing this. Hee hee!
Later, Yoshi’s Mom was peeling hot chestnuts so I went to go help and we all watched a few episodes of Jeopardy! on TV.
Now it’s time for sleep because tomorrow will be a long day and we won’t get much rest tomorrow night, either!
YEAH MOCHI!
I usually don’t get to join Yoshi’s family until right around New Year’s Day, so I have never been able to take part in their family’s mochitsuki or mochi pounding (usually a few days before New Years) until this year.
Last night, Yoshi’s mom soaked 5 lbs of sweet glutinous rice (mochigome) before we went to bed and then we got up early this morning to pick up Yoshi’s Auntie J (who also soaked another 5 lbs of rice). We headed over to San Leandro where Yoshi’s Aunt & Uncle (D & K) hosted the mochitsuki in their beautiful home and (especially) kitchen. Another Uncle & Aunt were there when we arrived, probably with more soaked rice.
To be honest, there was no ACTUAL pounding of mochi as there were two mochi machines running which replaces the need for anyone to have to pound the mochi with a wooden mallet (causing wood splinters) or anyone to risk getting their hands smashed by said mallet while flipping the mochi.
That said, the mochi still needed to be shaped into rice cakes while HOT HOT HOT so we all sat around the counter while Aunt D pinched off pieces of the hot mochi and threw it at us to shape. Some of the ones we made were filled with red beans (yuck!), but most of the ones we did were plain.
Can I just say that fresh mochi is yummy?!?!?
Anyway, I can’t remember how many batches we did, but after a full day of mochi making, I was tired and I fell asleep in the car as Yoshi, Yoshi’s Mom, and Auntie J went to Costco to pick up a few things. After that, we had dinner at Mimi’s Cafe, swung by dropped some things off in Campbell at Yoshi’s cousin’s family’s place (we were introduced to the High School Musical game on Wii by the two older nieces), before finally get back to Yoshi’s mom’s place in San Jose.
So moch-i (much-y) fun!
I left LA around 5pm tonight and despite accidentally taking the 99 instead of the 5 and getting lost in Bako (I almost called you for help, LL!) , I made it to Yoshi’s parents house a few minutes ago. My Bakersfield adventure only sidetracked me for about half an hour and took me about 30 miles out of the way (oops), but luckily I realized my mistake at the same time Yoshi had called to check to see where I was.
When Yoshi and Yoshi’s parents realized I was lost, all 3 of them were trying to identify where I was. 3 people, 3 computers. Yoshi was looking on google maps; Yoshi’s Dad also mapped me the old school way: with an honest to goodness fold-out paper map!
Anyway, I stopped just once for a break and a snack and got a chance to catch up with friends on the phone (yes, I was using a handsfree device).
Right now I’m just trying to unwind and check messages. Yoshi + parents are screaming at the basketball game on TV.
Tomorrow I get up early to go pound some mochi.
And despite how dirty that sounds, I swear it’s not.
PS - I’m in the SJ area from now until New Years Eve and then we go up to SF for NYE. If anyone wants to get together, drop me a line.
That’s right.
I sent out 90 postcards from NYC.
Did you get yours? Let me know!
My cousin (Lois Lane) was the only one who guessed how many I sent out, and she guessed 50.
Sorry I was such a bad blogger on this trip. I know, I’m not good about blogging about my trips, but I tried.
I’m still trying to update the posts I previously started writing.
-In NYC. For realz.
-What did we do December 12?
And I’ll try to get to all the days in between, too.
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