The Senakams | Corgi + 3

Eva and Bryson's Most Excellent Adventure

Hey folks, we're back!

9 days of non-stop traveling with our 2 kids (2-legged and 4-legged), we've visited the most mangnificent coastal redwoods and pristine beaches, punctuated with feeding and changing Eva in the strangest places (on a tree stump in a redwood forest, next to a dead seal on an otherwise gorgeous beach, under a 30-foot Paul Bunyan statue, etc, etc...). That and Bryson eating and rolling in countless unidentifiable rotten objects (thank goodness the dead seal wasn't one of them), we've had one heck of a road trip!

Having just had a root canal today (ouch), plus dealing with Eva's latest "development", aka refusing to take the bottle all day (oh fun), I'm just too exhausted to write a coherent post. Just want to post some pix before they become some faded memory.

This is the view from the yard of the house we rented in Fort Bragg. Wish we had more time to enjoy it.

 

This house has a little glass-enclosed nook with a view of the ocean where this queen bed is. Hands down my most fav feature of this house. Even diaper-changing's more enjoyable here.

The first time Eva petted Bryson! And it's not staged, I swear! Awwww...

 Our sweet little girl at the house (seconds before she started wailing for something)

 

Hiking at Founders Grove, inside the famed Avenue of the Giants. We didn't drive through the drive-through tree, turns out there are many of them and I figure they're probably just as gimmicky as the Paul Bunyan theme park (ok, they're actually called Trees of Mystery), which we've already visited- hey, they're the only redwood forest in the area that's dog-friendly, you'll just have to overlook the Paul Bunyan-ness.

 Totally cheesy, but in a cute way

Ultra-man -girl 

Lion King Queen 

Beachside diaper-changing (the dead seal is just out of sight here, we didn't realize it until we sat down on a log on the beach and started feeding her after this diaper change... in fact I mistook the seal for a log, thank god I didn't actually sit on it. After we identified what "that funny smell" was, we quickly evacuated)

Taken just before we identified said dead seal. Eva was probably thinking, "Hey mommy, it doesn't smell quite right here and it ain't my poopy diaper"  

Dawn breaking over our rental cottage next to the Coquille River in Bandon, OR. There are salmons jumping in the river and cows mooing across the bank. Totally zen.

After reading some stories that morning with Eva, I propped her up on the couch so I can get a sip of water or something. She then proceeded to "sit" there and giggled to herself for the next few minutes, all pleased with herself. Next thing we know she'll be walking around and asking to borrow our car keys (like that TV commercial, ya).

Oh and good thing we're at a coastal town coz she's totally into fish and chips...

 washed down with some beer formula (which explains the slightly buzzed look)

Bryson totally enjoys strolling among the tide pools at Sunset Beach near Charleston, OR. I think he might have helped himself to some mussel sashimi.

Hmm, not sure what's so funny, guess you'll have to ask her

Bandon Beach, OR. Not only are Oregon's beaches drop dead gorgeous, they're all super dog-friendly. If my SAD isn't so bad, Oregon would be a great place to live in.

Going off to find some sea junk for dinner coz my people never feed me

You guys go ahead and go home. I'm staying.

And while we're gone, Picasso's parents (aka Auntie Rita and Uncle Brian) helped supervise the remodeling of our loft. We can't be happier with the result, but it's also mixed with sadness as this is their farewell project... they've just left to move to Florida. Bryson's already given Picasso his Skype ID, plus Picasso has just started his own blog, so we should be able to stay in touch. Bon voyage!

Our Babymoon!

We're back from our babymoon and 3 busy, busy days of last-minute baby prep!

But before we go into that, I'm sure you want to know how Bryson's doing with his Addison's. Remember last week he had a small set back, throwing up and having diarrhea with severe drippage for 2 straight days (sorry, tmi but you get the picture).

We were worried sick that it was his Addison's acting up, turns out it was just some icky stuff (probably other dog's poop and other miscellaneous crap) he feasted on. Whew! It ran its course and now he's once again his perky usual self :) We're going back to the vet next week for more testing, will keep you all posted on how he does then.

So, back to the babymoon... This is the first week of my maternity leave (just 4 more weeks to D-day, can you believe it?!), and I literally worked till the minute before hubby finally peeled me off my computer and packed me into the car so we can take the hour-long drive to escape reality for a few days.

Our destination is the rustic yet luxurious Carneros Inn, somewhere halfway between Napa and Sonoma. Think sprawling vineyards on rolling hills, dotted with clusters of cottages, cozy restaurants, a world class spa, all interconnected with pretty orchards and gardens and outdoor gathering places. (Sorry you probably couldn't tell that from our sub-par photos, it's hard to shoot when you're carrying around a watermelon. But you can see them here on Flickr if you'd like)

It could easily have been the most relaxing trip I've ever been on, except... well, I'll just say this- ladies who are or ever contemplate to be pregnant- do NOT plan your babymoon in the last month of your pregnancy.

Just imagine this- whenever you're upright, you feel like your bladder's about to explode; you lie down for some relief, and now you feel like you're suffocating with the baby up in your lungs; and when you finally have no choice but to haul yourself up to go pee for the 10,000th time that hour, you flounder around like a beached whale, and you can only hope that your spouse on receiving your distress call would go fetch that small crane and come hoist you up. And these are just the atrocities fun stuff I could mention here on this G-rated blog.

With that and a couple of freaky moments thinking I'm going into labor (I lost this while in Napa, oops), our trip consists of mostly laying low at the resort...

Reading my new Kindle (my wedding anniversary gift from hubby :>), having alfresco breakfasts in our bathrobes on our tiny little private patio...

    

... getting pampered at the spa, then tanning back in our patio au naturale so baby can get some vitamin D too (sorry, no pictures of that, you wouldn't want to see it anyway)...  

... eating stuff I'm not supposed to at the Oxbow market (oysters with sips of chilled, white wine, shhhh...), and taking long, cool naps under a fully-blasting A/C (except for this one unfortunate incident where hubby got himself into the dog house messing with my temp control and the blatant cover-up attempts that ensues... but we won't go into that now).

 

Above unfortunate incident notwithstanding, we're a couple of happy campers at the end.

 

And now we can go back to freaking out about getting ready for a potentially early arrival *shudder*. Stay tuned!

Happy Mother(-to-be)'s Day!

Thanks everyone for your suggestions on our doggie-baby car situation! I'm sure we'll be trying quite a few of those out :) 

And as if the gods in the heavens heard our plea, just after I posted the last post, I found an article called "Dog and Driver" in the current issue of Bark Magazine that covers almost everything I asked about. Check it out if you're wondering the same!

And by the way, Happy Mother's Day to all the moms (and moms-to-be) out there! Love to hear about what you received (or gave) on this special day.

Hubby surprised me (on behalf of our daughter-to-be) with a bunch of cute little things- a gourmet icecream sandwich from my new fav icecream parlor Ici, a box of kanom krok (a tasty coconut-custardy Thai dessert from the temple), a couple of books, including Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing (super psyched!), and a hand-written card signed by daughter-to-be (awww... soooo sweet!)

I know some of you have already whipped up your versions of a few projects from this book, love to hear which ones you like most! And speaking of sewing, here's a little progress update...

As I was looking for relatively fool-proof, straight-line, simple baby projects to try my hands on, I found several versions of instructions on some very cute cloth diaper burp clothes.

It really is almost fool-proof: you cut out a piece of your favorite cotton fabric, sew it onto a pre-fold cloth diaper (that's super absorbent by design, I found this organic one by Gerber), and voila! You got yourself some fancy-schmancy burp cloths. 

 

And as demo'd by Bryson:

 

And as I'm now on a roll (can you tell?), I sewed a matching blanket to the mermaid burpies (don't you just adore this Heather Ross line?), which also happens to match the new Bumbleride stroller we just got (OK, it's a bit matchy-matchy but I can't help it!)

Here is Bryson again as our demo-baby, wrapped in my hand-made baby blanket (and yes, that's Picasso peekaboo'ing in the corner):

 

I know you folks probably aren't dying to hear about how excited we are about all the bells and whistles this stroller offers, but hey, all-terrain air-filled tires? Multi-adjustable back rest suitable for newborns? Universal car seat adaptor? Rear suspension? And a cup holder?? All at 19 lbs and about 1/2 of the cost of a Bugaboo??? That was enough to keep us quivering with joy for days.

And last but not least, as we're celebrating Mother's Day, can't not include some cute cuddly pictures of our first born, taken while we stayed this past week in the city while I attended a convention (Picasso's with us for 2 weeks while his parents are out of town):

 

 

Good nite :)

 

 

¡Viva! La Mexico?

Now that I'm 4 months pregnant, we're reconsidering our choice of New Zealand as our next vacation spot. Well, that and hubby being laid off complicated by a serious lack of cash would be another reason.

I've received numerous serious warnings from women who have recently given birth that we HAVE TO go on a "babymoon" before becoming parents. Their disheveled and sleep-deprived appearance makes this warning difficult to ignore. 

So here we are, trying to come up with a short-ish trip we can go on without breaking our bank. One place that came to my mind was Baja California in Mexico, a short 3-hr flight across the border from us. Seemed like a good idea as we're one of those odd birds out there who live in a border state who's never travelled to Mexico. And if you've seen the Sex and the City movie, I bet you too were drooling over that gorgeous oceanside Mexican resort the girls stayed in, see below (which I later found out to immense disappointment that it was just a movie set in Malibooo...).

But when I mentioned it to a friend (who's obviously either very travel savvy or a total hypochondriac) asked me, "But wait, don't you need shots to visit Mexico? And eh, aren't you pregnant??"

Oh yeah... Forgot about that. I checked out the CDC travel website, and lo and behold, they advise a ton of vaccines for travellers to Mexico, and most of them are pregnancy category C (i.e. things I wouldn't touch unless I absolutely need to).

And even though some friends swear that they've never gotten a shot before traveling to Mexico and has never gotten sick, heaven forbid if I contract any diarrheal disease (as in Charlotte in Sex and the City) WHILE being pregnant in a foreign country? Not a pretty picture.

So, we're now considering alternatives, probably something within US soil so vaccinations and exotic tropical diseases won't be an issue. We've considered other parts of California (easy and we can bring Bryson along but not so exciting), the Pacific NW (nothing like a constant drizzle on a vacation...), Hawaii (we were there TWICE last year)...

Any suggestions for us? Somewhere good for a weeklong vacation that's fun but low-key, with some outdoor stuff to do (suitable for a somewhat rotund, pregnant woman), preferably with good spring weather... is that too much to ask?

And by the way, even though we're not going to Mexico this time, just curious, for those of you who've been or are going to visit, did you get vaccinated before your trip?

Day 19: Dreaming Sheep

Earlier today, Hubby casually dropped this magazine ad in front of me.

"Isn't this nice?", he said, pointing at the fine print.

Squinting, I realize that this is an ad offering $1500-off the 2nd ticket if you buy one roundtrip economy-class ticket from San Francisco to New Zealand with Air New Zealand.

"Well, I guess, $1500 off sounds like a good deal." I said. But wait... "$1500?! How much is a ticket between SF and New Zealand??"

I thought this is for sure one of those "deals" where they give you what looks like a whopping discount, only that it's over a hugely-inflated price.

But when we looked up ticket prices on the internet, including my fav, kayak.com, that gives you prices on every day of the month (e.g. Feb 09) you're considering flying in a easy-to-read grid, this is what we found:

If you're like me and can't make out the fine print, it says that it averages about $1500 for one economy-class ticket between SF and Auckland, New Zealand!

OK, I'm shocked, for (1) it really is THAT expensive to fly to New Zealand that time of the year (you gotta pay to get that mid-winter tan, I guess), and (2) that ad is no joke, it actually is a pretty decent deal.

Hubby had tried for YEARS to persuade me to go visit that continent with him, something about the simplicity of life and beauty of nature, which I totally get. I do adore that movie Whale Rider. And Lord of the Rings. And I wanna Zorb.

But then there are so many other places we have yet to see in the world: Costa Rica- where my uncles lives; Hong Kong- where my parents lives; Cambodia- somewhere we've always wanted to see, and close to Hubby's family in Thailand; Africa- especially Botswana, which I've become fascinated with after reading this series, etc, etc... all of which (well, maybe with the exception of Botswana) would be less costly to travel to.

So, what do you say, is New Zealand worth it? (Your feeback could very well save our marriage! Ha ha! No pressure now.)

Day 9: Slacker!

Let's see... 9 p.m. Sunday evening, time for a reality check on my weekend to-do list.

These are things I did NOT get a chance to do (or started but didn't finish):

(Note: Most things a responsible person should be doing, e.g. cleaning, cooking, picking up dry-cleaning can be found here. Slacker!)

• Unpack bags from trip, clean up stuff scattered all over the place, so we can...
• Roomba, whom Bryson thinks is his robotic half-brother
• Take Bryson and Picasso to corgi meet up
• Make ginger-scented squash soup (in my defense I made a different stew...)
• Make Chinese soup (thus still very yeet-hay)
• Find financial planner
• Finish this up so I can make a mad dash to pick up dry cleaning before they close for the weekend, which looks very much like I'll be failing at this point... 
• Finish printing 2 greeting cards at letterpress class
• Read all of your blogs and blogs you read and comment on all of them 

*P.S. I was really tempted to lie that we've at least unpacked our bags, so you don't think that we live like filthy pigs... but alas, I decided to be an honest (yet still filthy) pig.

This leaves us a rather short and pathetic list of things I actually did:

• Plan B: Take Bryson and Picasso to Point Isabel
• Do grocery
• Visit car dealerships to test drive my new company car options thanks for your input!
• Wander aimlessly at Michael's to see what crafty goodness is on sale there wasn't even anything good, what a waste of time
• Pilates
• Gym  OK, pretty happy with this and last one
• Go through all of Bryson's photos this past year and find ONE to submit to the mycorgi.com calendar Thanks for all your help!! I think I know which one to submit now...
• Daily blog

And just so this blog isn't just full of stupid lists, here's the Flickr album I was able to partially update with more of our road trip's photos (more pix to be added when I get some other stuff on my to-do list crossed off):

 

Day 7: A Green Company Car

I got this automated e-mail from my company this morning, notifying me that I'm eligible for a new company car.

New car? While we're laying off?? Something doesn't add up here... But when I looked at the choices available, it all starts to make sense.

For the first time in my brief tenure in the pharma industry, our company is offering exclusively hybrid (and clean diesel) options. About time! Not only does it make sense to the environment, it also makes economic sense, when you add up the gazillion tanks of gas the company buys over the years.

So, I scrolled down the e-mail, and see that my choices are: Toyota Camry hybrid, Volkswagen Jetta TDi (diesel), Ford Escape hybrid, and Saturn Vue hybrid (the Prius had been available in the past, not sure if we're out of stock or replaced by the Camry hybrid).

Judging from experiences from my disgruntled coworkers who've been stranded in the strangest of places, the Saturn Vue hybrid is automatically out.

For the rest of the 3, I did some googling online, and found in addition to some standard car reviews, that this green vehicle review site by the EPA to be quite interesting:

You can type in any car available in your state, and find out what their gas mileage, air pollution score and greenhouse gas score are. It even allows you to compare them side by side. I thought I'll never say this, but this is one government website that's super helpful! Try it out for your ride! *Note that the Lamborghini has a greenhouse gas score of a big fat zero! Boooo!*

I'll have to read a bit more about these options, anyone has any 1st-hand (or even 2nd/3rd-hand) experience to share about these car options, they're most welcome!

Day 6: Bryson the Rescue Dog!

I don't know if it's the altitude change or the fact that my brain had been briefly frozen these past few days, I'm totally discombobulated and unproductive all day.

Seeing that I don't have much chance of getting caught up with work, I organized the rest of our photos from the trip so at least I can be a productive blogger today :)

So, without further ado, here's a recap of the last wonderful day we spend in the Sierra...

I caught these delicate little snowflakes on our balcony's railing just before sunrise. Little did I know then that we'll have much, MUCH more of this stuff to come later in the day...

   

We've decided that since it's a sunny and warm(er) day, that we'll tackle the Morgan Pass Trail through the Little Lakes Valley in the John Muir Wildnerness all the way up towards the peaks at 10,000-ft elevation. Somehow it escaped my mind that there could still be considerable amount of snow at that altitude on a non-snowing day...

And so we took the hour-long drive towards the trail, but by the time we got near the trail head and found the last 1.5 miles of the road snowed in (and that there were no other cars around), we know we're not in for just a walk in the park...

   

We thought about turning back, but a peek around the bend at this drop dead gorgeous view the trail has to offer (that's a semi-frozen creek above, for those of you who don't live in snow country, like us), and the prospect of having the whole mountain to ourselves, we decided to pack on the layers, tuck our thermal underwear in and trudge on.

I don't know if it's sheer stubborness or our dogged optimism (no pun intended), we trudged on...

  

and on... to progressively deeper and deeper snow...

 

About a mile up from the trail head, there were these hairy moments where we couldn't even tell where the trail is and where it's just snow over vegetation. We thought about turning back (which would be a huge disappointment), and that's when Bryson the Snow Dawg Plow comes to our rescue!

Not only would he sprint/swim ahead and "plow" a clear path for us (seriously, he could get a job with DOT), he also somehow seems to know where the best footing is, leading us onto the safe path.

 

Good boy, Bryson!

Despite of Bryson's excellent canine/6th-sense guidance, we had to turn back half way as the snow was almost up to our knee cap and the hole in my sock was giving my big toe a tourniquet.

Even then, every step of this trip was totally worth it- not just for the fresh air and scenery, but also to watch Bryson thrive and flourish in what we've now discovered is his elements.

I dive! Jackie-Chan-style!

    

He's really shown us that even though he could be a couch potato at home, he's really a true corgi through and through- smart, loyal, determined, and one tough little guy who wouldn't let his vertically-challenged statute limit what he sets his mind to! Go corgis! :D

Day 5: Home Sweet Home

With every great roadtrip, there's the inevitable, long, weary drive home. Today's 7-hr drive was no exception. This is the part that I wish I could fast-forward like the stupid commercials that interrupt my shows on Tivo.

Now comfortably typing away at my oh-so-familiar computer at home, it seems a bit surreal that it was a mere 12 hours ago that we were 10,000 feet above sea level, tackling a grueling hike in knee-deep-snowed-in-bear-country in the high Sierras with Bryson.

Wanna know how Bryson did this time in chest-deep snow? Stay tuned! I promise a more detailed report of this epic hike as I'll (hopefully) acclimate back to reality at sea level over the next 24 hours.

Day 4: Election Day in Ansel Adams Wilderness

It was a very strange feeling as we found ourselves completely removed from civilization today, hiking in the remote and sublime Ansel Adams Wildnerness Area, while the rest of the country is busy voting for our next president.

We casted our absentee ballot before we left, and we've been glued to CNN on TV ever since we got back to our lodge, but somehow it still feels like we're missing out on this big, historic moment.

If you go on to read our account of the day, you'll see why we felt like we're no longer part of society for a few glorious hours today.

Driving up Parker Creek Road off Hwy 158 (June Lake Loop) towards the Ansel Adams Wilderness area, just about 20 min. away from our lodge. Looks a bit like a car commercial...

   

We were the only car at the parking lot. In fact, we did not meet a single soul on the entire 4.5 mile trail (unless you count the wildlife). We sort of lucked out with the weather, too- it was in the hi 20's/ low 30's (brrrr!!), but it was sunny and visibility was excellent.

 

Hiking up the Parker Lake Trail, a nice and relatively short (4.5 mile round trip) and easy (600-ft elevation gain) trail. But at around 8,000 ft, you get winded quite a bit faster than you'd expect- well, unless you're Bryson, who sprinted up like a midget gazelle, which is quite impressive considering his legs are only a few inches long...

 

Whoa, see how muscular those little legs are...

 

At the last mile or so, subalpine meadow gives way to a subalpine forest covered in about an inch of snow, which leads ultimately to...

 

Beautiful Parker Lake! Froze my tush off just sitting there for this photo, but totally worth it.

 

And this is how we all felt at the end of the day. Absolutely pooped!

 

Day 3: Bryson the Snow Dawg!

Hola! We made it safe and sound to wintry June Lake late last night. No accident despite of snow, whew!

As we got here after dark, we had no idea what our lodge looks like when we checked in. Imagine what a pleasant surprise it was this morning when we woke up to this from our balcony:

We snapped this photo below while taking Bryson out for this morning walk (we're in the 3rd building from the left, the balcony on the second floor is where the above photo was taken). Aren't the mountains gorgeous?

While we were totally taken in by the gorgeous view, Bryson's nose was in overdrive as he's mesmerized by the scents left by "wildlife" around here- we were told bears and coyotes frequent the area to scavenge. Bryson is leashed every second from now on so he doesn't become part of the food chain.

Oh, and if you're waiting to hear about how he did in the snow, here he is:

 
 
 

LOL!! Those poor short little legs!! But as awkward as he looked, he totally adored the white stuff! Despite the freezing temp, he just refused to leave and get back to the car (mind you it's in the 20's out). That double coat that's only been causing problems at home finally redeemed itself!

A couple more photos before I succumb to my falling eyelids:

    

P.S. We also celebrated hubby's birthday today. Happy b-day, hon!

Day 2: Winter Road Trip!

A mere 12 hours after the last blog post, here I am again (I really hope I won't be boring you to tears with this daily blogging thing...)

But today, I have a reason to blog early, coz we'll be leaving for a road trip (yup, another one) in a couple of hours! It wouldn't be as epic as this last one, but it'll mark another first for us- taking Bryson to snow country!

We actually don't know if he's seen snow before (remember we got him as a show dog retiree), so we'll try out best to keep him warm and safe, e.g. bringing his coat and doggles, feeding him plenty and often (which in itself should keep him happy), trimming his feet fur so snow wouldn't get stuck, and keep our fingers crossed that he'll have a good time :)

So where are we going? This will give you an idea:

We're staying in this mountain lodge in June Lake, CA, which is just east of Yosemite, close to the Mammoth Lakes ski area. We've been to Yosemite a few times, but never with Bryson and never after it started snowing.

I've marked San Francisco and LA with pink arrows so you have a rough reference of the distance we have to travel. The red route is the more direct route that we would have taken if it's not snowing, but due to winter road closures, we're now taking the blue route, which according to google map will take us around 6 hours.

I'm giddy with a mix of excitement and anxiety (the venti coffee this morning probably didn't help with this weird feeling in my stomach either). I know we'll have fun hiking and exploring, but after a flip-over accident in the snow with my family a few years ago (where miraculously none of us was hurt seriously), I've been apprehensive about driving in snow.

Plus last I checked it's snowing up there, with a forecast of a high of 31 and low of 14 tomorrow. Brrrrrrr!!

It really seemed like a good idea when we planned this a few weeks back when it was nice and sunny... now it can turn out to be either a blast or a complete disaster. Wish us luck!

(P.S. I'm bringing my laptop as there should be internet access at the lodge. If you don't hear from us tomorrow, either internet doesn't work there, or we've perished in the snow...)

ENFP?!

No, I'm not swearing at you. Don't worry, I'll never do that.

I just came back from a training meeting in Phoenix, where we had to do that Myers Briggs personality test again. You know, that one that you've probably done in college, that supposedly tells you if you're an introvert or extrovert/ planner or procrastinator (which really makes for great excuses whenever you're late for a project) among other personality "types"?

As I've done this test quite a few times before, all I had in mind when I went into the training was "make it a painless 8 hours, pleaaaase", and "finish up early so I can take the earlier flight home".

But I have to say that the company did a good job this time picking a trainer that was able to make this all relevant and useful. Let's say I didn't catch the earlier flight and I didn't mind at all (which is a huge compliment for any training meeting).

So, you must be wondering, what personality type am I? We answered a few pages of Yes/No questions on our preferences (i.e. not what we actually do, which is learned, but rather what we prefer to do, which is innate), and got rated on 4 dimensions. And the results are: *drum roll...*

I'm an ENFP:

Extrovert ("gregarious" and "expressive")
iNtuition (original thinker/ dreamer)
Feeling (an illogical, empty-headed bleeding heart, *eek*; P.S. I actually score only mildly favoring "Feeling" to "Thinking")
Perceiving (an indecisive procrastinator; surprise, surprise).

Which for the most part looks fairly accurate. I don't think it's even changed at all since my first "test" in college, which ironically told me I probably should NOT go into the field I'm in right now (science). But my inner ENFP tells me life happens for a reason and things will always work itself out. As in having a science career then finding second wind in a creative one and thriving in juggling the two. Wow, see how accurate it is! :P

I'd love to know what "type" you are!

If you haven't done it before, here's a free version of the test you can try online. Don't forget to share here :)

Oh, and as promised, here are the rest of the New England photos (click anywhere on the mosaic to open the Flickr set):

1. Couple, 2. 3.5 Corgis, 3. Father and daughter, 4. New England architecture, 5. Portland Museum of Art, 6. Pumpkin sees, 7. Lobster!, 8. Kayaking, 9. Paddle, 10. Going kayaking, 11. Falmouth House, 12. Team work, 13. Father and daughter, 14. Acadia National park, 15. Dancing weather, 16. Acadia shoreline, 17. Bar Habor, ME, 18. Blueberry!, 19. Groom, 20. Gorgeous bride, 21. Uncle Allan, 22. Me and my folks, 23. A Clear Fall Sky, 24. Flaming foliage, 25. Generations

By the way, I was tagged by the talented artist/teacher TAMS to divulge 7 "fun strange little facts" about myself (if you ask! :D). I guess my Myers Briggs personality would count as the first one? I need to think some more about the rest. More to come :)

Back from Mooseland

We're finally back from our trip to Maine! I know, we were so rushed to get ready we didn't even get to bid farewell here before we left... me bad!

And it was such a whirlwind of a trip. In 6 short days, we visited a friend up in Bangor, ME (rustic), saw the Acadia National Park (serene), visited a cousin's family in Boston (fun!), attended another cousin's wedding in Portland, ME (beautiful), and caught a nasty bug (yuck).

Afflicted with my current ailment, I gotta keep this post short so I can catch some much-needed snooze. Plus I'm taking off again tomorrow to Phoenix for work (argh).

   

Left: Flaming fall foliage, Falmouth, ME, just north of Portland. If there's one thing I miss about having "seasons", this would be it.

Right: Running into a herd of New England corgis in Bar Harbor, ME! The one in the back is a corgi/ Jack-Russell terrier mix, that crazy hair's too cute!

  

Left: Acadia National Park, ME- one of the oldest and largest on the east coast, but seems tiny compared to the sprawling ones like Yosemite and Yellowstone we're accustomed to in the west.

Right: This is the gorgeous house on the water my family stayed at in Falmouth, ME while attending the wedding. At $4K/week, we made sure we sat in every room and enjoyed the view as much as we can :D

 

The Falmouth house has beach access in the back and got these 2 kayaks lying around in the back. So the day before the wedding, my cousin who was about to get married the next day and hubby who can't really swim decided it's a good idea to take these out for a ride. Almost sounds like the beginning of a joke. (They did both come back safely though)

 

Hubby took full advantage of one of the delicacies of Maine in this breakfast in Bar Harbor- blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup, oh, and a blueberry muffin on the side, please.

 

Another delicacy of Maine- lobster! Apparently they're so ubiquitous they're even used to make compost. I guess with all the tourists like us chowing down on pounds and pounds of lobsters, you gotta find some way to get rid of the shells. Great recycling idea :)

 

The beautiful couple outside the church just after the ceremony. I still get sentimental at every wedding I go to...

OK, I know I said I'm gonna try to keep this short but looks like once again, I've failed. Brevity is just not my thing. But now, I really gotta go catch my beauty sleep. Hope this gives you a flavor of our New England rendevous. I'll post some pix on Flickr once I get back from Phoenix. Bye, again! :~(

Back from Mapleland

I'm exhausted but relieved to be home after a crazy week in Mapleland! Gosh don't I miss you all ;)

The first four days of my trip- the "work" portion- was surprisingly uneventful to the point of being mildly pleasant. The medical convention wasn't brutally exhausting, the little boutique hotel I stayed at was nice and comfy, I even had time to do some sightseeing/ shopping/ visiting with old friends during happy hour one day. All was good. Here's a snapshot of my after-hour expedition:

1. "Monsoon Gorilla"- great beer, great music, 2. Landmark CN Tower viewed from Queen St W, 3. Peek inside that "Much" Music MTV-esque show on Queen, 4. A gorgeous and quirky "computer-chip-esque" retro lucite Swarovski crystal ring that I *almost* bought (damn that 14+% Canadian sales tax)

*See my Flickr album for other photos on this trip*

Ironically, it was the last 3 days of my trip that's supposed to be my R&R time with family that turned out stressful.

From a disgruntled (and prejudiced?) employee of a rental car company who REFUSED to give me a car even though I have a reservation, to my parents being stranded overnight on their connecting flight, to arriving at my grandpa's vacant condo where we're staying to find it COVERED in dead flies... all hell broke loose...

Yes, those black dots are numerous fly carcasses that has blown out from the vent ALL OVER THE PLACE- on the carpet, beds, couches, dining room table, EVERYWHERE!! Imagine all the ensuing vacuuming. My parents didn't even bat an eye! My dad just brushed off the fly-bits and proceed to sit on the couch. My mom called me squeamish- is it just me? Wouldn't you be freaked out too??

Having spent a couple days at the fly-infested condo, imagine my dismay when I came home to find the "new" work laptop shipped to me (5 days late) while I was gone was NOT functioning properly...  3 hours on the phone with IT, found out multiple softwares were not even installed, and get this, someone changed my e-mail password without recording what the new password is and now I'm locked out (WTF?!). All the work that's backed up while I was gone continues to pile up... Argghhhh...

I need to go buy myself that ring. Now.

Out of Office

The blogger is out of the office effective Sept 21 - Sept 26. She will be traveling to Toronto, Canada on business without her computer, due to an unforseen (my a**) delay during the upgrade process at her company's IT department.

She apologizes that she may not be able to return your e-mails, voicemails, comments, texts, MMS, SMS, while she is away, but please know that she'd rather be here with you than traveling for work. Even if it's to the Land of Maple. Although she would rather enjoy visiting with her family in Toronto after the meeting.

For all non-urgent matters, please leave a comment here. The blogger will return any messages whenever she feels like it at her earliest convenience. If it is an urgent matter, please contact our offshore IT department at 1-866-ITS-UCKS.

Top 10 Kauai Countdown! { Part 3 }

I'm a bit sad that we're at the end of our Kauai countdown. We've enjoyed it immensely, both the trip itself and all the evenings sorting through photos and happy memories and recounting them all here on the blog... *sniff sniff*

But then we don't have time to get all sentimental here! Let's wrap up the top 3:

No. 3: Getting slow-roasted on Ke'e Beach

Ke'e is touted as one of the most beautiful beaches on the island of Kauai. Situated at the far north tip of the island as far as one can go by car, overlooking the legendary "Bali Hai" in the Kalalau Valley, with calm waters protected by a coral reef that's filled with an endless supply of fish, we can't imagine a more perfect place for swimming and snorkeling.

And thus on our last day on the island, we had a choice of either going kayaking or bumming around on this beach. We chose beach-bumming, which was a great choice, except...

The day was somewhat overcast in the Hawaii way (the cloud cover comes and goes), so we foolishly think we didn't have to reapply our sunscreen and proceeded to spend 7 hours being slow-roasted on the beach. You guessed what happened (hint: we're still peeling like a pair of flaky croissants).

 
We had a water-proof camera with us, but most underwater photos turn out blurry and caught about half the intended subject in my expert hands (Jacques' flippers could pass for an abstract shot though, right?)

We found a great spot under this network of pine tree roots to hang out. We love our cozy little nook, especially this great feature of hanging roots that we use as hangers for our food (see that hideous white plastic bag?). That way the ubiquitous scavenging chickens could only stretch their necks and gawk. Ha!

Found something pretty on the beach. Kinda spongy but tough, not sure what it is... but it makes me think of the ocean whenever I look at this photo.

No. 2: Flying over Jurassic Park

Need I say more? Even though it costs an arm and a leg, we knew even though it may mean eating ramen for a couple of weeks when we come back, we can't miss out on a helicopter ride in Kauai.

We did some research and ended up going with Blue Hawaiian. It may not be the most "exciting" tour group, but offers one of the best safety records, and the hugest windows that give you the best view possible (you can even look down beneath your feet, coz part of the "floor" is also see-through, so awesome!).

 

This spacious EcoStar helicopter seats pilot + 6: 2 in the front and 4 in the back. I realize we may have a problem when the receptionist told us that the "lighter" passengers will get to sit in the front (for balance), where the view is waaay better. 

Seeing that it's too late to diet (or even for a laxative), I contemplated under-reporting my weight (against all safety concerns) to get that coveted front seat! But to my dismay, they actually weigh you in before assigning seats (maybe that's why they have such great safety track records!). Just when I gave up hope, this beefy family of 4 walks through the door... what can I say, it was our lucky day! (Here I am in the front seat, right next to the pilot, yay!)

 

 
Swooping over ancient valleys and skimming across the crystal blue waters beneath you, it really feels like you're flying through a real life Jurassic Park. Worth every penny! (but do try to get that front seat).

No. 1: Hawaiiana!

I know you're probably expecting something about a white sandy beach or some spectacular hike here in the ultimate No. 1 position, but I think it's time to get out of the cliche, and announce (with a drum roll, please...) that No. 1 is all about...

Books! Books! And more books! Wait, wait, wait, before you boooooo!!! me, let me say that these are not ones that you'll find on amazon.com, but surprise vintage finds that gave us a glimpse of Hawaii as the great Polynesian kingdom it once was, and help us put what we see on this trip in context.

How this whole Hawaiiana fasincation started was at the beginning of our trip, we stumbled upon this neat little vintage book store, where we unexpectedly chatted up with the owner, and a few hours later, emerged with a sackful of great reads that transformed our understanding of the great people and history of this place. 

 

Included in these finds are these vintage National Geographic (that were letterpressed, remember?) from 1936-1959, capturing photos and stories chronicling the days Hawaii ceased to be its own Kingdom and became the playground for millions of Americans. It's truly eye-opening.

I'm so glad we found these books and magazines, coz even though we had to leave, it feels like we were able to take a little piece of the history of Hawaii with us.

And while laying on Ke'e Beach on our last day on the island, poring over this mini volume by Mark Twain about "Roughing It in the Sandwich Isles" (what Captain Cook called Hawaii back then), I came across this passage below that makes everything I wrote these last few days about Kauai trite and unnecessary:

"The date is 1840. Scene the true Isles of the Blest; that is to say, the Sandwich Isles- to this day the peacefullest, restfullest, sunniest, balmiest, dreamiest haven of refuge for a worn and weary spirit the surface of the earth can offer. Away out there in the mid-solitudes of the vast Pacific, and far down to the edge of the tropics, they lie asleep on the waves, perpetually green and beautiful, remote from the work-day world and its frets and worries, a bloomy, fragrant paradise, where the troubled may go find peace, and the sick and tired find strength and rest. There they lie, the divine islands, forever shining in the sun, forever smiling out on the sparkling sea, with its soft mottling of drifting cloud-shadows and vagrant cat's-paws of wind; forever inviting you, never repulsing you; and whosoever looks upon them once will never more get the picture out of his memory till he die."

Top 10 Kauai Countdown! { Part 2 }

With all my gocco cards safely shipped out all across the world (I have swap mates in Australia and the UK, crazy, eh?), I can finally come back and resume our Kauai countdown!

Let's see where we left things off...

No. 6: Ihona Cottage Rocks!

When we saw this property on vrbo.com, we were skeptical at first... a beautiful cottage tugged away in the picturesque Kauai mountains for $85/night? Tired of the resort scene and having spent all our money on helicopter rides and zipline tours (oops, gave that away), we decided to give it a shot.

We couldn't be happier with this find! The Ihona Cottage turns out to be perfect for us. It's located in a quiet residential neighborhood (well, quiet except for the roosters) near the Sleeping Giant Mountains, is beautifully decorated, and has everything you'll need (and more)- snorkel gear, boogie boards, maps, DVD player, guidebooks, beach towels/mats/umbrellas, bug spray, sunburn lotion (which we took full advantage of), a well-stocked kitchen, washer/dryer, etc etc...

 

It even comes with the nicest owners, who drop us off fresh fruits on our steps that they'd grown in their backyard. And my fav's hands down their avocados! These avocados are HUGE- they're easily twice the size of a regular Hass avocado, and even more avocado-y if you can imagine that.

I know not everyone's into avocado (some say it's like eating butter- and what's wrong with that?), but if you're an avocado fan like me, you must try this avocado smoothie- just scoop out half an avocado, add ice, low-fat vanilla icecream (+ mango sorbet if you're not too crazy about drinking pure avocado), sugar (I used Splenda) and blend, blend, blend! Uh, sooooo good. I still dream about it.

No. 5: "Hey! I've seen that in Jurassic Park!"

The Waimea Canyon and neighboring Kalalau Valley is the backdrop of countless Hollywood movies- Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, 6 Days 7 Nights, you name it. And we can see why when we got there.

Even when you're standing there with red dirt beneath your feet, breathing in the misty mountain air, and looking down at the sprawling valley and silky waterfalls below you, it feels like you're looking at a movie set. It's so breathtaking it looks unreal.

(Doesn't this one look like one of those "Kodak shots" where you stick yourself in front of a photo canvas so you can pretend you've traveled around the world? Ha ha...)

No. 4: Zippeeee!!!

If you've watched Amazing Race, I'm sure you've seen their contestants ziplining and screaming their lungs out and think, "wow, I gotta try this some day".

Well, when we heard that they offer ziplining tours in Kauai, we booked ours weeks before we even bought our plane tickets!

We joined a company called the Princeville Adventure Ranch, their zip n' dip tour offers 8 zip lines with a refreshing dip in a river and a boxed lunch in between zips. And even though it isn't the fastest or most picturesque in the world, it still involves jumping off a cliff and zipping at 30+ mph over valleys and rivers (x8 times!).

 

The scariest part is probably when you first jump off and free fall for a little bit (due to the slack in the line). But once you got cruising, the rush you get is beyond description. That's Jacques doing a backward zip below:

We've only got our little pocket camera with us, but we got to use it to shoot some grainy videos. First, I tried it out shooting Jacques going down one of the shorter zips. No problemo, piece of cake:

With that success, I thought, "Hey, I can shoot one of myself going down. No problemo." But no, I have a tendency to overestimate my dexterity. And with the risk of totally embarrassing myself, here's the result:

 (I don't know how to edit out the yakking before and after the zip, feel free to ignore that. And warning- you may want to turn the volume down).

Whew! Sorry for the long post, easy to get carried away savoring every bit of your vacation. Top 3 to follow!

Top 10 Kauai Countdown! { Part 1 }

I've finally dug myself out of the sea of red e-mails accumulated over our vacation. Whew!

And now I can enjoy going through the photos and reliving our short but sweet vacation to Kauai, yippee! There's so much memories I feel like I don't know where to begin to recount them. I think I'm going to attempt to recap it in a Top 10 Countdown format, although I'm not sure if I can really rank them in any order, coz they're each awesome in their own way!

Well, let's try anyway...

No. 10: Eat, drink, and eat some more!

As a crucial part of any good vacation, sampling the local cuisine is every tourist's must-do. And frankly, it's an activity I can't say I mind partaking in over and over again.

First, there's the famous "shave ice", which is like an ice cone except that the texture is much finer, and comes in like 60 different yummy flavors.

Even though we tried to do shave ice at least once a day (it's the perfect heat-buster), we're far from covering the entire spectrum of flavors (we did get to blueberry, can you tell?). But from my experimentation, I have to say the best combo is lychee + pina colada shave ice over vanilla icecream + "halo halo mix". Delish!

And then there's the saimin (on the left below), which tastes kinda like ramen except it's more eggy. It's almost like a Chinese wonton noodle (but thicker). I can't say I'm too enthusiastic about that one.

What I AM totally head-over-heels about is the huge variety of seafood poke (Not poke! It's PO-KEE!)

It's like a Japanese version of ceviche. This place we frequented called "Fish Express" has at least a dozen different kinds of pokes, no joke!

My fav consists of the freshest chunks of tuna tossed in sesame oil, soy sauce, onion and wasabi mixed in with all that salty-fishy-islandy goodness... Yummm! If you like sushi, you'll adore this stuff. You can find some in my lunch box below (the red stuff), accompanied by a salmon lomi (the orange stuff), some delicious laulau pork, and a fat scoop of rice, which is served with just about everything on the island. I know it doesn't look very appetizing in this styrofoam box, you just have to trust me on this one, it's worth flying back to Kauai for.

 

No. 9: Chicken Run!!!

Eh, no, this one's not about eating. Here we're talking about the army of chicken that seems to carpet every parking lot every street corner every frigging inch of space of the entire island of Kauai!

They're like the pigeons / rats / squirrels of any urban area, in that they scavenge, reproduce rapidly and shit all over the place.

And as if that's not bad enough, they crow. All Day and All Night.

I think the roosters suffer from insomnia and just want to wake everyone up to share in their misery. I should've sprinkled Ambien all over the island so we could all get a better night's sleep.

Needless to say, it was an interesting novelty for us tourists for about half a day, and quickly became a major nuisance. We hear that this chicken situation began during the last major hurricane, when some domestic chicken got out and became "feral".

I think we should start a chicken pot pie factory on Kauai. :P

No. 8: Taro fields at the Hanalei River Valley

Finally, a glimpse of Kauai's scenery that you've been waiting to see! (Sorry for all the chicken and food stories, they're just too good to be left out of the top 10).

This photo really doesn't do the Hanalei Valley justice. Just imagine this scenery stretched to both the left and the right for miles and miles. This is one of the scenes that Kauai is most famous for that we've come to love: green, lush, knife-edged mountains jutting out from endless plains of taro fields.

We were told that many of these fields used to produce sugar cane, but since that's no longer economically sound, many of them are converted to produce taro (which I'm sure much is then converted to the local "delicacy", poi, which I've avoided like a pest since tasting it once many years ago. Imagine sour wallpaper paste. *gag*)

No. 7: Cliff-diving at Poipu's Shipwreck Beach

OK, disclaimer- we didn't actually jump, nor did we even think about attempting. And I'm glad we didn't coz just watching someone else dive off this 50-plus-foot/6-storey cliff into the blue ocean made my legs tremble (yes, that cliff behind me, people actually jumped off of it for fun).

Instead, we decided it'll be much for fun to grab a pina colada at the Grand Hyatt's pool bar next door, walk over, sit on the beach and watch other people jump. I have to say it was pretty entertaining after a few drinks with umbrellas and pineapple wedges.

We did eventually got up to the top of the cliff, just to check out how high it actually is. It's high. Especially after a few drinks. We got back to the beach promptly after snapping a few pix to avoid appearing in an "Intoxicated Californian Tourists Plunge to their Deaths" type of headline on the local newspaper the next day.

Are we only at No. 7?! Haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet! I guess we'd better continue tomorrow, as I still have to pack up and send out my gocco cards for the swap... Stay tuned!

We're Back!

We're back from our amazing trip to Kauai! Having just set our bags down and enjoyed an exuberant reunion with Bryson, we're now crashing from our adrenaline high, and feeling the aftermath of a week's worth of overzealous sun exposure.

We have so many photos and memories to share, but alas, it's time to nurse our thoroughly roasted skin, spend some quality time with Bryson (and Picasso, who's staying with us while his parents are vacationing in Bali), and catch some snooze. Here's a photo from our helicopter tour of the Kalalau Valley on the west side of Kauai to whet your appetite. More to follow!

 

Short Break

Don't hate us, we're going on a short vacation to Kauai tomorrow. Super psyched! :)

Hubby has somehow persuaded me to leave my laptop at home (plus we've booked a vacation rental with no internet access), so I guess I'll be "unplugged" in the next 8 days.

And if you're wondering "what are you going to do with Bryson?", rest assured that he's being well taken care of by Picasso and family as we speak. Here's him being tortured and deprived of nachos at home:

Oh, and one more parting note, by some small miracle I actually finished designing and printing 3 batches of gocco cards for the swap! What can I say, nothing motivates you better than a deadline before a vacation. Here's a sneak peek:

This is inspired by my last company meeting. If you can read the print you'll know what I mean. I'll elaborate when we get back.  

Be back soon! Will miss you all :)

Lick Observatory

You know I've got a new camera lens recently, and have been dying to try it on a subject other than Bryson (no offense, Bryson, you can still give me a Blue Steel any day).

So, when fellow photography/corgi enthusiast mrjoro invited us to the open house at the University of Califiornia Lick Observatory with promises with photo ops like this one, we showed up with all my camera gear (which isn't much) two hours before the event, totally psyched!

But as with all my best laid plans, there's always a fatal flaw.

I forgot to charge my camera's battery.

Yep, last time we went out I forgot my memory card. This time I double-checked on the card, but then sadly, neglected the juice factor. I didn't even get to use the tripod I just bought that day and lugged around with us the whole entire evening. *Kick self repeatedly*

Given my lack of preparation, I have precious few photos to show for it, below are a few of my fav's, and you can check out the rest here. For better coverage of the day, you can check out mrjoro's album here.

This is the main entrance at dusk. It's only about 20 miles from metropolitan San Jose, but it's situated way above the city in a totally remote part of Mt Hamilton, so it can get away from all the light pollution from civilization. The dome to the left is where one of the observatory's century-old telescope is housed, which is mostly kept for its historical significance and not used for research any more. 

 
We got a chance to get in to the larger dome for a public lecture about its history (above). And when the lecture was over, this wooden "floor" was raised about 20 feet by a century-old hydraulic lift, so we can step up to and look through the ginormous 57-feet telescope (below) that purportedly was used in the discovery of Jupiter's "5th moon" over a hundred years ago. (See the sliver of light? That's where the dome opens. It was quite a site to see it in action)

I'm no astronomy buff, but this place's colorful history and beautiful setting can totally sweep you off your feet.

 
Left: Me taking a photo of mrjoro snapping a pic :D
Right: Mrjoro taking a photo of me snapping a pic :D

Lazy 4th Weekend

Hope everyone had a good 4th of July weekend! We had all kinds of big plans, but with the crazy work schedule last week, we ended up abadoning all ambitions and just had a lazy (but even better) one.

For Friday and Saturday, me and my girlfriends were supposed to have a movie/spa/slumber party. But by Thursday, we realized we were kidding ourserlves to think that we'd have the energy to plan for anything (other than the slumber part, perhaps). So what did we do?

We shopped till we dropped (look at these shoes!), ate spicy Korean Tofu soup (yummm), drank a few bottles of good wine, chatted till we were incoherent, and fell into a deep slumber. Woke up the next morning still buzzed, nursed that with some strong coffee and greasy breakfast, and shopped some more. In other words, we had a perfect 2-day girlfriend get-together.

So glad I found these this weekend at Jeremy's! Aren't these the cutest and funkiest shoes ever? Reminds me of an old bathroom mat we used to have when I was a kid.

Then, on Sunday, Hubby and I got an invitation to take the 45-min drive out to Half Moon Bay to hang out with Brian, Rita and Picasso, who're spending some R&R time at this picturesque coastal town (which you may be familiar with if (a) you've seen American Pie 3, that's where Jimbo and Michelle got married at, or (b) you're a surfer and know what the Mavericks is).

We had a grand ole time at the Miramar Beach (near Half Moon Bay), where the dogs could run around the beach and play in the surf. I don't think this beach is officially an off-leash beach, but seeing that most every dog is sans leash, we figured we have safety in numbers (or we can run away really fast).

 

Crazy cross-eyed Bryson- life is tough when your mommy's luring you to pose for treats while the surf is looming dangerously close!

 
Bryson and Picasso in a mid-surf hug, just in case the other got swept away. "Duuuude, I'll miss you..."

(For more photos of the beach boys, check out our Flickr album)

After frolicking at the beach, we headed over to the famous Half Moon Bay Brewery for a microbrew and beach food. By this time the fog finally burnt off, so we could hang out on the sunny patio and not freeze our tushies off. This place is super laid-back and dog-friendly (think surfer-chic), there're probably at least two or more dogs under each and every table. We stuffed our face with ceviche and fish stew, and washed it down with pints of the most delicious amber ale. *BURRRP* 

Abadoning earler plans to continue down the coast to Santa Cruz after lunch, we made a sharp U-turn, drove our lazy asses home, and took a looong nap. Life is good.

Test Your Travel IQ!

I've been glued to my laptop this whole week, slaving away at project after project; but thanks God I have the case of red wine we got last week (there're still a few bottles left, I swear), plus this awesome Travel IQ test on tripadvisor I just discovered to keep me sane! (Yes, it's great to work from home, hmm...)

Click on this link or the screenshot below to launch your own test and you can see if you're as savvy a traveler as you think you are!

But don't say I didn't warn you, this is highly addictive and may cause drowsiness (after you've spent half a day trying to set and break new records while competing with your spouse who just won't admit you're the smarter spouse, har har!).

Do come back and tell me what your Travel IQ is! Can't wait to see if you know where Timbuktu is... :D

Wine Tasting with the Boys!

As promised in the last post, here's a recap of the fantastic wine tasting trip we went on with Brian, Rita, and the boys last weekend where we all had such a blast (and buzz).

Before making the 40-minute drive to the Livermore Valley wine country, the smaller and lesser-known little cousin to the famous Napa Valley 1.5 hr to the north, Rita hands out treats to Bryson and Picasso in exchange for good behavior when we get to the wineries (don't wanna ruin it for all the future canine visitors!). We're not huge wine snobs, just psyched that we can take these guys along to these dog-friendly wineries so close to home!

Livermore Valley Cellar was the first winery we hit. They're in a tiny little shack in the middle of a housing development, kinda a strange place for a winery. But they more than make up for it by making some damn good big-ass zin's. Check out their appropriately-named "Derriere Series" with names like "caboose" and "weigh behind". Cute. We also got their arcanum (a cab/merlot/syrah blend) and syrah, both are super yummy. Just thinking about them now make me crave a filet mignon or lamb chop, hmm... (*salivating*).

**At last check, LVC's website is loaded with viruses! Visitors beware**

Anyway, back to our wine-tasting day last weekend. It was a super hot day and LVC just wasn't big enough to accomodate all of us + Bryson and Picasso (all squeezed inside for the free A/C, of course), so we headed over to Tenuta Winery a few minutes away.

Brian and Rita told us the best thing about this winery (apart from being dog-friendly, as is LVC) is that they do barrel tasting. We've never done it before, and we're very happy to learn that this is how you get "first dips" at a good deal. Basically, you taste the wine when it's still in the barrels, then buy them as "futures" if you like them (i.e. paying a discounted price now and pick up when they're commercially released, usually a few months later).

And that's just what we did when we got there. We got to taste a really awesome primativo (essentially same thing as a zin, as I understand it), which we got for 30% (+ another 20% off since we got a case) off the final retail price. The down side of course is that we'll be thinking about it every day till we can actually get our hands on it when it's released this fall. *sigh*

 

The picture above on the left is the public tasting room, and the one to the right is our "private tour" to the barrel room in the back, which the boys enjoyed very much, being able to sniff out all the weird smells of fermenting grapes and wet oak barrels (they probably wonder why we like such foul-smelling stuff, just like we wonder why they like to roll in poop, ha ha).

And I have to say being taken "back stage" to the barrel room by the very patient and friendly Rich, seeing the inner workings of a small family-owned winery, tasting wines straight out of the barrel, and doing all that with our dogs by our side was a pretty unique experience. 

They've also invited us back during harvest season to process grapes with them- no stomping grapes I-Love-Lucy-style though (how disappointing!), but we'll be working the machines that pick grapes, and learn how they're pressed and processed. In turn we'll get a couple bottle of wines as our "wages" for the day. How fun is that?! (Fellow Bay Area residents- wanna bring your pooches and come join us? :>)

And below is Bryson before and after a nice glass of primativo. ("Nice buzz...")

Check out our Flickr album for more photos from this fantastic day!

Make Your Own Book!

Hubby recently picked up a new magazine, called Everywhere.

On the surface, it looks like any good ol' travel magazine, with one notable exception- it doesn't have the traditional set of editors and contributors- everything is written by travelers (supposedly everyday janes and joes like you and me), who just happened to have written their own travelogue (or a blog), submitted them, and those that are accepted now have their stories printed on glossies and distributed around the world!

And while I was flipping through this issue, I secretly imagine snippets of our blog appearing somewhere on page 72... ("hmm, our little wine country trip with Bryson will fit right in here...") 

And people at Everywhere must have anticipated that- coz on the very next page, I found an ad for something that addresses precisely that little dream of mine- it's appropriately named Blurb, a web-based service that invite you to "be a part of the modern photoraphy book movement".

Yes! You can print your own coffee table book!

Imagine, just your own photos and musings (that you can arrange in a thousand different ways on its many templates), it can even transform your entire blog into a Blog Book, all printed on glossy paper in a hard-bound volume. Whoa...

And if you're already drooling (like me when I first read about it), think about this: it starts from $19.95/copy, even if you only print one for yourself (price goes up with fancier covers and increasing # of pages, of course). Just think about all the Christmas/birthday/annivesary presents potential here... Suh-weeeet.....

This is a screenshot of a "Travel Blog Book" idea I'm toying with.

Warning: this will suck away all your free time. 

(P.S. JuLo- now you can do your scrapbook AND a Blog Book! *evil chuckle* :D)

Memorial Day Extravaganza!

For some reason, 3-day weekends always feel shorter than a normal one.

I think it's because we always start out being overly ambitious, planning to do too much that at the end, we completely exhaust ourselves and feel like we didn't even have any time off.

Such is the case this Memorial Day weekend (some people just never learn). To recount events, we'll have to start from that gloomy Saturday morning...

It had rained all night and the morning was still sprinkly. We were disappointed coz we thought we might have to cancel plans to meet up at Point Isabel with Bryson's corgi half-brother, Wally.

Oh no, you forgot? It's Wally! Recall that we met this handsome boy at the SF corgi meet up last year, and one look told us him and Bryson are related- and upon chatting with his people, we realized they are indeed half-brothers, sharing the same mommy and probably just one litter apart! Remember this?

Anyway, the day eventually cleared up, and we were able to hang out and let the brothers reunite. You can tell from the photos (all taken by the very talented mrjoro) that they had a fantastic time!

It's pretty funny that even though Wally is younger and smaller, he's the more outgoing one that often end up "protecting" Bryson when doggie brawls break out around them. What a great brother!

And you won't believe who we ran into halfway into the walk... Picasso! The day just keeps getting better :)

We ended our day with a yummy brunch at Sunnyside Cafe on Solano in Albany. Their breakfast sampler menu changes every week, and they give you 1/2-orders of 4 of their specials + 2 mimosas + fruit cup for 2 to share, AND they're uber dog-friendly. You don't get a breakfast place better than this :)

 
Left: Peanut butter caramelized banana french toast, yummmmm!!
Right: Wally or Bryson waiting for scraps? (Try to resist clicking on it and cheat...)

And after laboring for 5 hours at the letterpress studio on Sunday, we headed out for another short day trip to old town Benicia on Monday. 

Benicia is small town fairly close to us (30 min. to the northeast), but for some reason, we never head that way and thus have never been there. But after reading a few articles about this charming little town, we decided it's time to hop into the car with Bryson and go check it out.

And Benicia is just as advertised- quaint, historic, and smells like the ocean.

We greatly enjoy a stroll on the main drag- First Street, having lunch at a streetside cafe, browsing the ubiquitous antique shop (some closed due to the holiday though), and snapping some pix of our boy (these Benicia photos are taken by moi).

And that's what we love about where we live, it doesn't matter how long we've lived here, there always seems to be an unlimited supply of little coastal towns waiting for us to discover- and plenty of unspoiled hydrants for Bryson to lift his leg at.

  

See our Flickr album for more pictures from our Benicia day.

Road Trip Part III- Loooooong Way Home

It's been a most wonderful 8 days on the open road- bathing in the most gorgeous sunset in Sedona, spending quality time with Bryson and family, taking in the vastly diverse landscape across the continent.

It was really a fantastic experience, except...

What on earth do you do with yourself for 12, 13, 14 frigging hours stuck in a moving vehicle on a mind-numblingly boring road that doesn't seem to end?!?!!

Well, as we found out, first, you've gotta have plenty of snacks. And I mean, PLENTY. Coz trust me, the clock stops ticking when you stop masticating (wow, it rhymes too, so it must be true).

What got us through was 4 huge grocery bags of junk food, including a Costco-sized bag of beef jerky, various Chinese pastries (washed down with copius amount of coffee and red bull), chips, candies, cookies of all kinds imaginable, plus a medley of artificial-color and preservative laden garbage that I'm too embarrassed to admit that we've shoved in our mouth (OK, Flaming Hot Cheetos was one).

Secondly, you gotta keep your mind going, coz otherwise it'll disintegrate to mush or make you want to murder your spouse (or both).

And not being particularly prepared in this department, we resorted to making up games along the way...

The first game was "Harry Potter Trivia".

Yes, we are hopeless nerds. We even dressed Bryson up as a wizard and attended the HP Book Seven party last year. We entertained ourselves with questions like "What was Harry's address before Hogwart's?" and "What subject did Dumbledore teach before becoming headmaster?". (Answer: "4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging"; and "Transfiguration").

And by the way, I won, ha ha! Nerds.

The second game was the all-time road trip favorites: "Examine Your Body Parts".

First, I examined my pores. Every single one of them. Counted Bryson's too. Then, I tried to carefully excise all those pesky hangnails without making myself bleed (unsuccessfully so. Ow.). And lastly, I examined the corn on my feet. I've always been mesmerized by how grotesquely thick they can get.

And I mean, why are they called "corn" anyway? Do they taste like corn?

I was seriously tempted to answer this last question for myself when we clocked in like the 1001th mile and have been stuck behind this cow truck for the last 4 hours. But I decided against it to regain the last shred of dignity.

You can imagine our joy when we finally drove past the first bookstore along the freeway, and had the brilliant (albeit a bit late) idea that we should go get ourselves some books on CD! We gladly emptied our wallet of all cash for a whopping 15-CD set by our all-time favorite author, Bill Bryson (whom Bryson's named after).

This is truly our lifesaver- it gave us 16-hours of solid entertainment and kept us from turning into zombies. Best $75 I've ever spent, and definitely beats counting pores or corn-examination.

But if you ever go on an extended road trip and want to save yourself $75, go visit your local library and stock up on books on CD before you leave. You can thank us later.

(P.S. This is what Bryson does every night when we get to our motel. I don't think he knows how unflattering it looks)

Road Trip Part II- Family Time

Ola! We've spent these past few hot and humid days here in Austin (or more accurately, Pflugerville) with Jacques' family, eating, chatting, playing with the kids, breaking up kids' fights... and then eat some more.

Everybody ADORES Bryson and constantly want to hug and pet him, which sends him scurrying around the house all day trying (usually without success) for some quiet "Bryson time".

As the only dog in our little family of three, he's probably a bit overwhelmed by the warm reception from his large extended family in this household... I just counted and there are 14.5 of us under this roof! That is 6 adults + 2 kids + 4 dogs + 2 kitties + 1 fish (fish counts as half).

Whew! Now that's a family.

Cousin Nitro the greyhound, Auntie Jessie and Cousin Tyler all want to shower Bryson with affection (Bryson: your love is suffocating me...)

Cousin Toby the golden retriever (who just got shaved for summer for the first time!)

Feeding turtle with Tyler, Sara and Jack at the back of a restaurant (there were literally hundreds of hungry turtles there fighting for the few morsels of bread we were tossing in. I think they were actually eyeing the kids...)

A typical dinner time- everybody (of drastically various heights) patiently waiting for their bowl, surprisingly well-behaved

Cool Cousin Tyler- gotta love those pouty lips!

"I say go poop, Toby!!" Jacques' mom looking quite menacing as she waves the plastic baseball bat in the backyard, trying to get Toby to stop playing and do his business. She was actually one of the first few female cops back in Thailand in her younger days, so she does have a lot of experience with baton-waving. (She really spoils the dogs rotten)

Look! There's a treat RIGHT NEXT to his mouth and he doesn't even notice it! I don't think I've ever seen him this pooped.

Halfway There- Reporting from Sedona

Hello from Sedona, AZ!

Thanks to everyone who's given us tips and sent us well wishes on this trip! We're absolutely exhausted but still giddy with excitement after a 13-hr drive, followed by a hot, dry day exploring the breathtaking red rock country in Sedona.

We'll post more photos when we get home, but in case you're all wondering what we're up to (or mostly what Bryson's up to), here's a brief recap of these last 2 days...

Our 8-day cross-country trip yesterday started with a bang- if you'd call a speeding ticket that...

Can you believe it? Right smack dab in the deserted Mojave Desert, this CHP patrol car came out from the middle of nowhere! Shucks!! I swear they must hide behind these joshua tress eating donuts all day, just waiting for us to drive by so he can pull us over. SHUCKS!!!

Showing off his assets- the pair of robust Iron Butts as soon as we arrived in uptown Sedona. "If you've got it, you gotta flaunt it!"  Geez...

Embarking on one of the many hiking trails- Wilson Canyon in this photo- amidst the striking red rock landscape.

Not so easy to get up the sandstone ledge with those short little legs, but we made it!

What happens to your feet after hiking on the red dirt trail if you're a corgi...

Getting wind-swept and sunburnt hiking up to this view, but totally worth it
(OK, OK, that was a total lie! We were actually wind-swept and sunburnt, that's why we drove to this "scenic lookout", got out of the car, walked 2 minutes and had a fellow tourist snap this photo for us. Ha!)

Howdy! Sheriff Bryson's in town! We stumbled upon this local art fair, where this guy was selling all kinds of cute doggie baseball caps and cowboy hats. Everyone was ogling over him all over town, "Ooh! Look at that cuuuute corgi!" "Awwww... can I pet him?" We're just hanging onto his coat tail like his accessories. *sigh*

Iron Butt Competition

Call us crazy, but tomorrow we are going to embark on an 1,800-mile "epic" road trip from Emeryville, CA to Austin, TX! Yee-haw!

And yep, Bryson's coming along :) And this will be the first time he meets his "cousins", aunt, uncle and other set of grandparents for the first time! Too exciting!!

As you can see, we would have traversed more than half our vast country by the time we get there. I swallow a hard gulp every time I look at this map. Definitely an iron-butt challenge (Bryson could probably out-sit all of us with those infamously "sturdy" corgi butts).

It'll take a back-breaking 25-hour drive if we go non-stop, but we figured we'll pass by so many new places we've never been to before, that we might as well take it leisurely and visit these places along the way.

So, the plan is to drive to Sedona tomorrow (784 miles, approx 12 hr), spend a day there on Sunday (can't wait to experience all the "energy"), then drive through all that's lovely Texas (probably stop a night in Abilene, TX), and spend 3 days in Austin with family.

Next time you hear from us here, we won't be in Kansas California anymore!

Big Island Bliss!

Just came back from my marathon meeting in San Diego yesterday. I'm exhausted, and our place's a mess with half-unpacked luggages and 2 week's worth of mail strewn all over the place...

But I can't deal with any of that now. I feel so lazy that the only thing I can bring myself to do was to tiptoe around the mess, unpack my camera, load up the photos and savor the short but sweet trip to Hawaii. Flipping through the pictures, I can almost feel the salty breeze on my face and black sand between my toes again... Hahhhhhh.....

I'm also too pooped to write a whole heck lot here, so feel free to check out our Flickr album for more details of our trip. Here're a few photos to get you in the mood.

Hanging out by the pool at the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel, vodka & tonic in hand, blue ocean in sight, da bomb!

Tales of the Two Coasts: Left- on the Hilo (east) side among lush forests on our B&B's (Emeraldview- highly recommended) balcony; right- falling asleep swinging on a hammock overlooking the fine white sand of Hapuna Beach on the west side

Driving under a towering canopy of fig trees on a quiet country road in Puna (southeast and more local part of the island)

 
Revisiting the same soda machine! This is the exact same archaic machine in the exact same location since our trip there 3 years ago (picture on right was from 2005)! Notice the newly accquired rust at the bottom of the machine since our last visit. Almost like a time-lapsed photo, ha!

MUSUBI!!! A Hawaiian delicay- a layer of fluorescent red Portugese sausage over rice, wrapped in seaweed sushi-fashion. Looks kinda gross but actually quite delicious. Mahalo to the Hawaiian people for such a great addition to the culinary world!

Hello from Hilo!

A.. LO..... HAAAA!!

It feels a bit surreal that not 48 hours ago, I was still slaving at my desk, and now I have both feet firmly planted in this tropical paradise. It's so beautiful here that I'm afraid if I blink too hard, I might wake up and find myself at my desk half way through an expense report... *shudder*

We obviously didn't come here to spend precious time at the computer, but I want to post some pictures so all you guys at home can drool in deathly jealousy! Ha har!

If it's any consolation to you, it's been raining quite a bit here- just like back home in SF, we heard- but in typical tropical fashion, it pours for like 15 minutes and it clears right back up. And these last 2 days we're in Hilo which is on the east and "wet" side of the island, hence the rain. Tomorrow we'll leave Hilo and head towards the drier, warmer Kona side, so we can attend our friend's wedding there on Sunday.

And now, the teaser...

Hanging loose in our red Mustang convertible. Woo hoo! (pardon the convertible hair)

Having breakfast on our private patio at our B&B, Emerald View in Hilo, while admiring the water fall below (you fall asleep to the sound of the water fall, which is nice except that unlike my sound machine at home, you can't turn it off. Hmm...)

 
Left: Umauma Fall. We paid $11 to see this, while most every other fall on the island is free. Well, we did our part to prevent a recession here
Right: It's not a white sand beach- but we appreciate Hawaii for its lush rain forest just as much (if not more)

A bridge built back at the time before Hawaii was a state in the Union. The bridge spans over the Nanue River, along the old Mamalahoa Highway, an eerily quiet country road that makes it possible to imagine what old Hawaiian life must be like way back when

Hiking in the middle of a recent (1990) lava flow that decimated the town of Kalapana and the famous Kaimu black sand beach in the Puna area (southeast of Hilo). Today, a smaller "new" Kaimu beach can be reached at the end of this trail, and that's where we had our picnic lunch, while ruminating on the power of mother nature.

Dirty feet @ Kaimu black sand beach. This sand reminds me of the filling of a Chinese sesame bun (yum...)

Hermosa Beach

I'm in Hermosa Beach in Southern CA this week attending our first team meeting for the year.

When I first got here, I thought, oh great, we're going to another meeting in a beautiful location, where we schlep from the airport to the hotel and back without even knowing what Hermosa Beach looks like (this is a picture from our hotel, Beach House's website).

 

But guess what, we actually had a "team building" exercise built in to our schedule this meeting, and even better, it's not one where they hold you against your will in a cold conference room playing silly games...

So what did we do? Our new boss took us boating in Marina del Rey! Woo hoo!

Even though I'm not a huge fan of boating (or anything having to do with being in/on the water, really), we had a great time. We took turn driving the boat (my first time, glad to report that no one died when I took the helm), while the rest of us sat back and sipped wine by the setting sun. It was chill... I think I'll be a much more productive worker if we have more meetings like this.

 

R&R in Carmel

As much as I complain about the demands of my job and Jacques' terrible work schedule, there are a few things I really appreciate about our jobs: (1) My flexibility of working from home, which means occasionally we could steal a couple of work days and go on a mini-getaway... (2) Jacques' ability to get "industry" rates on these mini-getaways, without which there wouldn't be ANY mini-getaways due to our budgetary constraints...

Like this past week, we worked like maniacs for a few days, then packed our bags, took a couple bottles of wine, swooped up Bryson, and took the 2-hour drive down south to Carmel for some R&R time.

While the weather was still kinda wet and gray and cool, we caught this moody sunset on Carmel City Beach (where dogs can frolick offleash, much to Bryson's delight).

We then went back to our suite at the Quail Lodge Resort in Carmel Valley, where we sipped wine, ate room service (my guilty pleasure), watched a movie (Paris, Je T'aime, a slightly quirky, sometimes-charming sometimes-annoying collection of short stories about Love in Paris), and drifted off to sleep to the sound of crickets chirping... OK, we're spoiled!

But it's so nice to spend some quality time with each others. It reminds you to look at the world around you, feel the breath in your lungs, and take the time to appreciate the good things that you have in life. You do come back a less bitter (or bitchy- for me) person.

Bryson working his way up a very steep sand dune... Look at his strained face, he's pushing soooo hard to get up there... those poor short, little legs, they crack me up! Look at our Flickr album for the entire series of his heroic efforts up this dune.

Da Beach rocks!

But not as much as a comfy bed at the end of a hectic day

Big Island... here we come!

The beginning of the new year has been so hectic, that I had this incredulous conversation with my friend Aimee the other day:

A: Hey, so when are you guys going to that wedding in Hawaii?
I (looking at the calendar): Eh... the 24th, I think...
A: What?! This month? That's in 2 weeks! Aren't you excited?

That's when the moment of clarity came upon me...

OMG! We'll be in the Big Island in 2 weeks!!! We've been so busy we forgot to get excited about it...

I know, that's crazy, who forget they're going to Hawaii?!

The truth is we booked this trip soooo long ago (it's for a friend's wedding) that we didn't realize the day has slowly crept up upon us, so much so that I completely forgot about my resolution to lose enough weight to get into that bathing suit again.... *sigh*.

Plus we've been to the Big Island a few years ago, where I sprained my ankle on that notorious hike (pictured here) where I had to be rescued by paramedics out of the volcano at 2 a.m.. Oh, and we're all smiles here coz that's the beginning of the hike at 4 p.m. (yes, we were stranded on a live volcano for 10 hours...)

But apart from this small mishap, we had SUCH a blast! We luau'd, we snorkeled, we kayaked in the ocean along with dolphins (or more like Jacques:paddle and me:snapped pictures of dolphins), we ate lychee-flavored shaved ice and lots of gravy-smothered SPAM... in other words we gave ourselves the royal aloha treatment.

OK, picturing what we did last time totally psych me out!

I just can't wait to dip my toes in the clear blue water, watch coconut trees sway in the breeze from a 2-person hammock, and fall asleep to the sound of lapping waves... Ahhhhh........ what bliss.

And here are more photos from this last trip. Count down begins now!

A White Christmas

Just as we were complaining about the weather in Seattle, we were showered by an unexpected flurry of snow on Christmas day, bringing us a very appropriate white X'mas. It was quite lovely.

It's our niece Chloe's first X'mas, and there must be a Rule Book for Infants they all secretly read that tell them to "ALWAYS look the other way when they gather you around and make you stare at a black box standing on 3 metallic legs that emits this horrible white flashing light- you could lose bowel control"

Check out our Flickr album for more X'mas pix!

The Amigos Make Headline News in Dixon, CA!

OK, it wasn't exactly headline news (I have a tendency to exaggerate if you haven't noticed yet), but Bryson and Picasso were indeed mentioned in ths Sacramento Bee article this past weekend as the "mariachi musicians" who attended the Dixon Corgi Faire! (Check it out, how cool is that?).

We were totally psyched as we took the hour-long drive to Dixon, a small town close to Sacramento, on that bright and sunny morning this past weekend, as this was our first time attending this annual fair that we've heard so much about.

When we arrived, we found the place buzzing with at least 100 corgis and their people, we were in total corgi cuteness overload! And right at the entrance, you can have a picture of your corgi taken with "the Queen". How appropriate!

And as we soon learned, the idea of this "fair" is quite simple- there's one big ring in the middle of this exhibit hall where all the exciting "contests" happened, surrounded by rows of spectators and a few booths from vendors and breeders.

The contests go from the fairly standard, e.g. Cutest Costumes, to the fairly outrageous, "Your Dog Can Eat WHAT?!", where corgis were offered things like raw jicama among other atrocities. The winnning dog actually ate jicama (and possibly asked for seconds). Corgis, go figure.

When the costume contest came around, we put the boys in their "famous" 2 Amigos outfit that Rita so talently sewed from scratch. They were super duper cute!! But so was their very stiff competition- a little schoolbus, a little pony, a pirate (Grrrr), etc etc... 

And guess what... they narrowly beat out their competition and snagged the title!! Woo hoo! We didn't have a ribbon to show you (and what's up with giving ribbons for herding instincts and not for Cutest Costumes?! Err...). Anyway, bragging right is probably all we need :D

And just to prove that being cute isn't their only forte, they also participated in the Limbo Contest. You guess right, exactlylike the human version, where they have to go under a bar without tipping it over. As you can imagine, the smallest corgis (aka puppies) won hands down, while both Bryson and Picasso gave it their best.

But by the 3rd round, Bryson all of a sudden decided it'll be more fun to jump over than to go under... People bursted with cheers and laughter, and I swear I've never seen him look so proud... Just leave it to Bryson the creative attention-seeker!

All in all, we had fun meeting other corgis, their people, and participating in the various games. Bryson and Picasso got gobs of attention, we won the much-coveted costume contest, everyone went home happy :)

Yes, we had fun! Just glad that we didn't have to eat jicama.

For more photos of the day, see our Flickr album.

Orlando- Where the Magic Lived (and Died)

Hello from Orlando! Yes, amidst a beautiful fall weekend in San Francisco (and Jacques' birthday on Saturday), I've flown here to the humid oven that is Orlando, FL to cover a convention.

I can't imagine that it wasn't that long ago when Orlando used to mean this to me:

 
(Photos courtesy to various sources on the internet, i.e. I forgot where I got them from)

Squeezing to get a front seat on Main Street to watch the parade under a sky lit up by firework, sticking out a finger "E.T.-Phone-Home style" flying over a plastic full moon on the nostalgic E.T. ride, visiting "Future World" in Epcot Center where you watch "families in the 21st century" eat spaghetti with state-of-the-art nuclear-powered sporks. Those were the days when coming to Orlando meant having a silly good time.

Well, coming to Orlando has taken on a different meaning since I've begun my career in the pharmaceutical industry. Orlando, home of one of the largest convention centers in the country, hosts a variety of medical conventions throughout the year. My job would be to attend one of these conventions to cover the latest and greatest in my therapeutic area.

In this case, I'm attending the ginormous American Heart Association Annual Scientific Session. Cutting-edge science in cardiology is being reported left and right for 4 full days, and it's attended by almost 30,000 physicians and researchers and pharmaceutical folks from all around the world. It was quite an eye-opening experience when you're here for the first time. This is my 4th year here.

My day pretty much consists of getting up, going to the convention center, attending breakfast meetings, lunch meetings, dinner meetings, after-dinner meetings, heading back to the hotel, do some more work on the computer, take an Ambien, go to sleep.

OK, once in a while, my coworkers and I do fun stuff like sneaking out to the nearby outlet mall and engage in some retail therapy in between meetings. But we don't do that often enough.

So, here's an updated picture of what Orlando means to me these days:

 
(Photos courtesy to my Sony Ericsson Walkman W580i cell phone)
Left: Walking until your feet become one bloody blistery mess in the 40+ acres (yes, I said ACRES) of convention space
Right: Catching up on e-mails and reading reviews about the day's studies reported on sites like www.theheart.org till my eyelids fail to operate

I'm ready to go home.

An (almost-)perfect day in Sonoma

I'm still feeling too lazy from our spa day yesterday in Sonoma to write much, just want to post some pictures of this gloriously beautiful day before this becomes last week's news...

(If you're looking for pictures of the spa, sorry you'll be disappointed. The Rebel just wasn't the right piece of accessory to lug around with a plush cotton robe. The spa at the Sonoma Mission Inn was quite nice though.)

We started the day visiting the Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen, 15 minutes north of Sonoma. The park currently sits on "Beauty Ranch", where legendary writer Jack London called home and got inspiration from for most of his later work. We were hiking down the Beauty Ranch trail in the photo here, where I thought we were all absorbing the beauty of nature and thinking some zen and quiet thoughts, only to find out when I caught up with my girlfriends that their neurons were all firing about what business we should go in together... "SERENITY, people!!!" Let's say I didn't feel so serene after lecturing my friends that we should all be feeling serene.

I have to thank my friends for trying to get into the Jack London-nature-serenity thing. See, they're even reading about Jack London's study here in "the Cottage", which is his old residence on the Ranch, now a museum showing glimpses of his colorful life as husband, writer and traveler. What can I say, I love my friends.

Rolling autumn vineyards viewed through an old wall of the ruins of the Kohler and Frohling winery on the Ranch, damaged first by the 1906 great San Francisco earthquake, then by fire in 1965. If this photo doesn't conjure up some serene thoughts, I really can't help you.

I'm not a quoting person, but this quote from Jack London (probably inspired by a scene just like this right out of his windows) describes quite accurately how we felt after an (almost-) worry-free day soaking in the beauty at the ranch and getting pampered at the spa with some of your best friends:

"...I have everything to make me glad I am alive. I am filled with dreams and mysteries. I am all sun and air and sparkle. I am vitalized, organic." - Jack London

For more pictures, take a look at our Flickr album.

Life BC (Before Chaos)

Pure chaos. That about sums up this past week. You'll agree if you've read the last few entries. Plus I'm starting to develop a cold. Just perfect.

It was only last weekend, but it seems like a lifetime ago when we spent a blissfully quiet and content day with Bryson at Point Reyes National Seashore.

No crying babies, no limping on crutches, no runny nose.

Only strolls down picturesque streets of the quaint little town of Point Reyes Station (where Princes Charles and Camilla visited 2 years ago), munching on organic salads and downing pints of the finest ale (which Bryson also got a taste of, shhh...), and slurping down oysters harvested fresh from the sea and shucked right in front of your eyes.

With our stomachs full, we filled our day hiking in hills scattered with rutting tule elks (Bryson is safely out of their way), getting our feet wet and salty on the dog-friendly beaches with Bryson, and visiting the famous dairy farms that produce much of the "Happy Cows Come from California" dairy products.

We take blissful days like these for granted, and only now stuck on my butt with crutches by my side do I realize how fortunate we are to live the lives we do. I hope this is the end of the series of chaotic events, honestly, I'm quite done with it.

 

 
Dairy cows, oyster farms, a Pulitzer-prize winning community newspaper- you can find it all in Point Reyes

 

For more photos, check out our album on Flickr.

Oops, I did it again!

No, this isn't a tribute to Britney Spears' appalling come-back attempt.

I'm referring to my stupid ankle, sprained and swollen like a black and blue balloon, again, for what seems like the umpteenth time, just after I got back from Seattle today. All because I am too stubborn to admit that my body can no longer handle what my mind demands of it.

How did I become an ankle-spraining expert?

It all started when I was playing basketball and sprained it real bad when I was 16, I was on crutches for almost 2 months and it hasn't felt right ever since. It was explained by one doctor to me that once your ankle is injured like that, the nerves may not grow back right and your ankle gets "dumb", not being able to sense and react to uneven terrain, making you more prone to future sprains.

And thus the cycle begins- I would sprain it, be on crutches for a few weeks, start rehab (but never finish), gradually feel better, forget all about the last sprain, get reckless, and sprain ankle again. Rinse, and repeat.

So, my ankle-spraining ritual is not unlike the Harry Potter movie sequels- it happens about every other year, and they just keep coming.

This time, what got me is this short but steep (1000 ft gain in <1 mile) hiking trail that's only 15 minutes from home, the Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve.

This picture doesn't do this trail justice (the pix is from Wikipedia, BTW). The gorgeous panoramic view at the summit (together with your boiling blood) makes you feel so renewed and invigorated.

Unfortunately, it also instills a sense of invincibility and recklessness.

I quickly realized that I was going down too quickly when I started losing my footing just after the descent. But it was too late, I heard a pop in my ankle and I was immediately gripped with pain and a terrible realization of what's to come from my years of experience. 2 hours later, I crippled back to the car with the help of a friendly stranger and a very patient Bryson.

I knew perfectly well that it's going to be risky going up by myself with Bryson. But once you're faced with the challenge, the prospect of giving in to your fear just isn't something I can stomach.

And it's this same mentality that has given me so much trouble with my ankle through the years. I've always subscribed to the motto that "if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything." Well, maybe my ankle is just too darn dumb for this mind-over-matter attitude.

I mean, other than "oops", what can I say?

Beginning of the Rest of Your Life

It's been a blur of a seemingly endless cycle of breast-feeding (or attempts of), burping and diaper-changing in the past 24 hours since I got to Seattle to join in on my new niece, Miss Chloe's Welcoming Committee.

I've heard plenty of cautionary tales, but the experience has been even more exciting and exhausting and puzzling as I could ever imagine. One minute you look at the angelic little face and that fuzzy feeling gushes from the bottom of your heart, the next minute milk gushes from her mouth all over your hair and you wish you were somewhere else.

Thank goodness they have a supporting cast the size of a Broadway production, with notable veteran Baby-Raising award-winners, namely her mother- and sister-in-law. What a difference experience makes.

One thing you learn quickly is after the whole birthing process, women lose all sense of modesty and everyone becomes impervious to bloody and fecal matter.

This afternoon, my sister in a rare moment of lucidity remarked that she felt like she's in some kind of a parallel universe these past couple days where reality doesn't exist. I welcomed her to the beginning of the rest of her new life, and made a mental note to self to refill my birth control as soon as I get home.

Look, I have one dimple, just like my mom

 
Left: The nameless dad...   Right: Presentation of Chloe the Trophy

This is a sign to leave me alone. Adios!

 

Bryson and Picasso go to Napa Valley

Picasso is staying with us again as his parents went on vacation, and the buddies are ready for another adventure- this time they have their minds set on a more grown-up trip- so off we went to Napa Valley, Calistoga to be exact, "Sideways"-style.

The deal is Jacques got a last-minute offer from work to spend a free night at Calistoga Ranch, one of the Top 50 Resorts in the country. Seeing that their rooms average a whopping $1000/night, plus the fact that it's less than a two-hour drive from us, we can't help but drop everything and take the boys there to have a taste of the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

(For more photos, click here)

Calistoga Ranch, we have ARRIVED! Where's the Welcoming Committee?

 
Left: Right: Golf cart ride to our private lodge (Bryson: Please don't hold me like a baby in public)
Right: Quiet lake on the property (that's the restaurant house near the center and our lodge is one of the houses on the left)

Our One-bedroom lodge: with the sleeping unit to the left, connected to the living unit to the right by a patio with its own tree

The brothers checking out the living unit: wow, this is nice, can we move here?

 
Left: Chilling on our private patio, if it were not 90+ degrees that day, we would try out the cool indoor-outdoor fireplace
Right: Check out this bed! It's soooooo comfy... maybe you guys could try the dog beds

 
Left: Bryson checking out our own outdoor shower- "I'm not into public nudity, thanks"
Right: Wine barrels littering the grounds, reminding you where you are

Alfresco dining vs stealing from the breakfast table: hard to say which is more attractive

This is all very nice, but I'm kinda missing my daddy and mommy...

No trip to the wine country is complete without visits to a couple of wineries. Here we are at Clos Pegase. Bryson's verdict: Yuck! Look at all the grapes behind me, don't people know they're toxic to dogs?! (Our verdict: their pinot noir is quite nice)

Are we back in Europe? No, it's Castello di Amarosa, another new and gimmicky winery that seems to be popping up everywhere around Napa Valley. While I'm sure it draws in tons of curious tourists (we can't deny we were drawn in to take a peek as well), these places are really turning Napa into a DisneyWorld of sorts. I guess there's a reason why native Napa Valley residents hate outsiders so much...

Do we have to go home? We really don't mind staying a couple more days...

My Baby Sister's Baby Shower

"Surprise!", or at least that was the idea behind it...

You see, I've been planning this baby shower for my sister with my mom for the past couple months, but I've told my sister that I was just doing the remote planning but couldn't be there (they live in Seattle). Everything went as planned, I packed up all the goodies for the shower (filled a large suitcase), hopped onto the plane, got picked up at the airport by my accomplices (my parents), got to their place before she got back, even diverted her plan to go shopping to come straight home (not an easy task).

I was pretty smug that we're about to pull off the Surprise of the Century, but, my sister proved to be more astute than I give her credit for... As soon as she stepped through the door as expected, my mom went up and covered her eyes and asked her to guess who has come for her shower as rehearsed. I heard from my cover my sister's voice saying, "what, is Ivy here?". I was like, "Huh? How on earth did you figure??" "It's your shoes, dummy.... who else I know wears weird shoes like that?!" Damn, with all the painstaking planning, I forgot to hide my shoes and blew my cover... Lesson here? I should never work as a spy.

Anyway, spoiled surprise aside, the shower was a blast. Here's how the day went:

 
Left: My 8-month pregnant sister and her 5-month pregnant friend (man, that pregnancy glow does look nice)
RIght: Sisters! And Brother-in-law, of course

Don't ask me what she's doing here... maybe practicing giving birth and praying to the labor goddess for protection at the same time...

I got the idea from my Planner-Extraordinaire friend Aimee for this game, just a little friendly competition of "Paint a Bib or Onsie" for the new baby. It was an instant hit with all the guests especially the kids (although maybe not so much with the parents who have to rub the paint off of their face/hands...)

 

 

 
I think the hormone is getting to her...

Favor boxes that I slaved over, which coordinated perfectly with the invites.

Check out the photo album for complete coverage of the day.

OMG, we're famous!

Alright, sorry, the title is just to grab your attention. As you read on, you'll find out that we're not famous, not even remotely so...

But something happened today that made me feel *almost famous* for a brief few seconds. You'll recall that we took tons of pictures while we were in Europe, and we posted some of them on Flickr. Fast forward a few weeks, I got an e-mail in my inbox this morning, from someone who said they're a reporter writing a news article about long delays at Heathrow, and they want to use the picture depicting a monstrously long line at Heathrow we had taken for their report.

Is it AP? Reuters? Or at least NBC? OMG, we're going to be famous!! Well, my illusion of grandiosity quickly got popped like a bubble when I read on and realized it was for a public news website that anyone can contribute to... After I recovered from the sense of loss that fame has been robbed from us, I checked out the article and the news site, Now Public, and found that even though it's no Reuters, it's actually quite legit and informational.

And here's the article, with our picture depicted as a tiny but respectable thumbnail in the corner, with proper credit to us and everything. Check it out, it's actually quite neat, the idea that anyone has the power to contribute to the news that we read every day to keep informed of what's happening in the world around us. Feels like we're finally part of the digital revolution of the 21st century (at long last).

More photos from Europe

If for some reason you feel like you haven't seen enough of our photos from Europe, feel free to check them out here on our Flickr Albums:

Ones from Toronto and London
Ones from the rest of our trip in England
And ones from Paris

Enjoy!

Europe Extravaganza: Random Departing Thoughts

Just a few departing thoughts on our trip...

Before our trip, people warned us that Parisians are rude to Americans. We found out from our experience that it's completely untrue- Parisians aren't rude to Americans, they're indiscriminantly rude to everyone. Don't get me wrong, Parisians are rude, but not in a mean-spirited way. They're just rude in the I'm-too-busy-to-worry-about-anyone-but-myself kinda way, much the same as New Yorkers or Hong Kongers or any big city dwellers. And yes, some Parisians do look at you like you're stupid and not worthy of their time since you don't speak French- but it's not so different from what I experienced here in America when we first moved here from Hong Kong and don't speak the language.

So there you are, we've met the kindest, most gregarious cab driver, we've met the snootiest salesladies at LV ("touching of the merchandise is forbidden"), we've met the sweetest schoolchildren who got all giggly practicing English with us, and we've met the pushiest family who could win an Olympic gold for Line-Cutting. None of it is attributable to Frenchness or being Parisian. It's called human nature. I bet you can find all of the above personalities in every corner of the world, just disguised in different hair color, different accents, maybe different outfits, but probably the same stuff inside.

Another observation is how the French is completely obsessed about the quality of their food. Parisians just do not put up with crappy food and sell out to quantity (like we do). And one of the delicacy they seem to particularly favor is blood. Pork blood, duck blood, bat blood, you name it, you'll find it on a menu (OK, bat blood was made up). Anyway, it's so ubiquitous that I decided to try it out one day (which isn't quite as appalling as it sounds, we Chinese eat plenty of blood pudding as well).

And here's what I got:

Pork blood sausage (boudin noir) with grilled apples. Not even the fact that it's arranged in a bloody smiley face could cheer me up after I ate it... Not that it taste bad or anything, in fact, it's quite tasty, but after a few bites and you look down on the plate and see all that black, mushy, coagulated blood and think about where it came from and where the few missing bites are now, it literally made me sick... The lesson here? Don't ever think about what you're eating.

Having had enough blood to last me the rest of my life, I decided to go for something more traditional the next meal. Simmered cabbaged stuffed with meat and bathed in a tasty broth- totally unassuming, the best French comfort food before stepping out to a cool Parisian night

Left: Vietnamese spring roll (or rouleau de printemps if you're French) Right: roasted goat cheese salad, followed by cheese in your main dish and cheese for dessert (no amount of Lactaid will help you here)

And what's the Brit's answer to all those French gourmet food? Maltesers! (as you can tell I absolutely adore it)

And finally, some completely random pictures that just don't fit anywhere else...

We were at this department store in Paris called Printemps, where they were selling these 400+ euro leather helmets. Doesn't it make me look suddenly stylish and irresistable? (My hubby thinks so)

Speaking of my hubby, we actually spotted his long-lost brother (the other one) while having tea in London's Harvey Nicks. Seriously, they've got to be related, he just doesn't know it yet.

Rows of Vespas on a cobblestone street, soooo Parisian... (now all you need is a 400 euro helmet)

I think this sign at the airport says "Fake croc, real risk", or "Let's kill all those evil Chinese bootleggers!"

"Dear Bryson, wish you were in Paris with us. Here you can walk into any restaurant and be treated like a VIP. You might even meet a nice French poodle. Never mind, scratch the poodle. They may harbor French fleas..."

What, you taking a picture of me? I had no idea...

That's all folks, au revoir!

Europe Extravaganza: Part Six

Paris, continued...

Look, hon! I evaporated all other tourists at the Louvre so we can have the place to ourselves

And oh, looks like you need to refuel with some macaron power

The Museum at the Louvre consists of 3 expansive wings- Denon, Richelieu and Sully. We've been told that trying to see all 3 equates committing suicide with sensory overload, but there are pieces that just seem irresistable at each wing... so fueled by macarons, we took our shot at Mission Impossible- covering all the pieces we'd like to see in less than 3 hours spread in the 3 wings. By the time we finished the last painting and made the mad dash out just before closing, we felt like a couple of marathon runners crossing the finish line, limp arms flailing, feet numb and barely shuffling forward, exhausted but proud to accomplish such an amazing feat, then collapse in exhaustion... (and no, we did not actually see everything we had hoped to see, in case you're wondering)

Grand is an understatement to describe Les Invalides- you can probably see that glittering gilded dome from Mars. How rich do you have to be to pile on that much gold on top of a building meant to be a hospital?

One of our favorite museums- Musee d'Orsay. Not only did we get to see masterpieces like this (Renoir's Moulin de la Galette) up close and personal- unlike the Mona Lisa which you see through bullet-proof glass that's about a mile thick, it's also much more manageable compared to the Louvre. We also scored a bonus special exhibit while we're there- collection of the impressionism-era super-agent Ambroise Vollard. I had no idea who he was before we went in, but came out with a much better appreciation of how this one person has helped shape the world of impressionism the way we know it today. It's definitely one of the best 9 Euros we've spent in Paris.

We had no idea what museum this is, nor did we care. I didn't even know I was sitting in front of something that looks so impressive until I see this picture. I guess this is called Museum Fatigue Syndrome (and don't be fooled, the smiley face was strictly for photography purpose only)

Europe Extravaganza: Part Cinq

We tried. We really did. We tried so hard to avoid committing the one cardinal sin of traveling- packing in too much activities- but we failed. Paris is that kind of city that has something so intriguing around every corner, it just ruins every one of our plan to sit at a cafe or park bench and do nothing.

Despite of all the backaches and painful blisters, every bit of the abuse we brought on to ourselves was all well worth it. Climbing to the top of the twinkling Eiffel Tower at night, sipping expresso at a sidewalk cafe on a cobblestoned street watching the world go by, cruising along the Seine on a rainy evening, as cliched as they sound, we can now appreciate why they are cliches. They're so uniquely and wondefully Parisian that you wouldn't think for a moment "this could be anywhere else in the world" (which you sometimes do when you find yourself in the Starbucks in Hong Kong and think it looks exactly the same as the one in San Francisco).

The world is getting smaller by the minute, we're glad that we get to see bits and pieces of Paris, however touristy and commercial, exuding the French's pride in their history and their obsession with beauty and style and great food. We wouldn't trade our experience for anything else... althought next time we'll probably find time in our itinerary for regular naps.

This is one of the most romantic moments in Paris I can recall- us trotting along the cobblestone street glistening in the twilight after a shower, trying to catch the last boat that's about to whisk us away along the Seine to somewhere far, far away (or so we imagined)

The Seine under a moody sky

Looking for a bite with pedal power

 
Alternatively, we rode the Metro. One thing quite peculiar about it is how some train doors are still hand-operated. People have the habit of lifting the handle well before the train stops, which causes the door to open prematurely while the train is still moving, resulting in action-movie-like scenes where people leaped out onto the platform as if trying to abandon a burning building. I find that quite amusing.

Sacre Coeur- the funicular was under repair the day we got there, so we were both semi-dehyrated and delirious when we finally hiked up there (just look at that face...)

Eiffel Tower- from the Seine and from the West Pilier ticket line. It's just amazing how a pile of steel someone put together over 100 years ago became such an enduring icon of Paris

La Conciergerie on the Ile de la Cite, next to Notre Dame, where Marie Antoinette spent her final days during the French Revolution before her public execution. This is the main Hall of the Men-at-Arms, a beautiful medieval structure that drew us in (not only because of the splendid architecture but also due to the suggestion that this place may be air conditioned)

 
A mass was going on at the Notre Dame when we walked in- there's something about the way the place feels quietly holy and majestic even though it was overrun by noisy tourists. Maybe it's the grandeur of its legendary gothic architecture, maybe it's the way the sounds of the choir stirs angelically in the lofty nave, or maybe it's the hundreds of significant historic figures buried right under your feet here that makes you feel completely humbled.

Arc de Triomphe- OK, we've seen it. Now where can I get my expresso?

Ahhh... found it. Frequent refueling necessary to propel us through the rest of our itinerary