Italy Blog: Return

Return 5/30-5/31

In order to get to the Milan airport from Florence we had to take a train from Florence to Milan. From the train station we had to take a 1 hour shuttle to the airport. Because the shuttle doesn’t run late at night and we had an 8am flight, we decided to finish our trip up by spending the night at the airport.

We got to the Milan airport at 5pm and proceeded to find things to amuse ourselves until we could check into our flight. We talked to the representative for British Airways and he told us how we go about redeeming our VAT (European sales tax). He also told us that for you cannot check into the flight until about 6am. We had 13 hours to kill at the airport with a cart full of luggage (we ended up buying a lot of souvenirs.)

To pass the time we read various books we had bought, surfed online, watched downloaded episodes on Ming’s laptop and generally just walking around the airport to keep us from sleeping. I did sneak in a 20 minute nap but Ming was a trooper and stayed up the entire time.

6am finally rolled around and we checked into the flight. We then talked to 2 other people who all gave us conflicting answers on how to redeem the VAT. So, we have talked to 3 people who work at the airport and not a single one of them gives you the same answer – you gotta love Europe. Bleh. Ultimately we figured out what to do and then went to our gate and waited for boarding time.

The rest of the trip passed by in a blur because we slept the entire trip. We were so happy to come back to the states and I couldn’t wait until I could sleep in my own bed again. Even our shower, which has absolutely no water pressure, was a welcome sight to me after having to put up with the European showers.

I’m glad to be back in the states and it’ll be a long time before I want to go on another plane ride.

Italy Blog: Florence

Florence 5/27-5/30

The only train tickets that I was able to buy ahead of time (while still in the states) was between Venezia (Venice) and Firenze (Florence.) When we arrived at the Venice train station we realized that I bought the wrong tickets. I had bought train tickets for another train station in Venice and not the one we were at. Ouch. I had no idea that cities had multiple train stations and I thought that Venice was small enough that it should only have 1 train station – boy was I wrong! The Tren Italia website certainly wasn’t very helpful either since it simply asked me what city I was departing from, not which train station I wanted to depart from. Ultimately we ended up sneaking onto a train (and risking a fine since there wasn’t enough time to buy an actual ticket) which would take us to our actual train station that I had tickets for. We had approximately 2 minutes between the time from when the train [that we snuck onto] got into the station we had tickets for and for us to high tail it onto the train. It was definitely a lot more stress than we needed at 9 in the morning.

Finally we made it to Florence and the weather forecast was for rain. This time our hotel was close enough to the train station that we were able to walk. By the time we got to the hotel the sky looked ominous and we were so tired that we didn’t want to do anything except eat lunch.

We had lunch at the restaurant next to our hotel and that was probably the best meal we had in Florence. Ming had a pasta dish with duck and I had a pasta dish with porcinis. We shared the most amazing steak: a 1 kilo (2.2 pounds) bisteca alla fiorentina. It is basically a huge porter house cooked medium rare (they cook all steak that way in Italy) and extra virgin olive oil is drizzled on top of it. We thoroughly enjoyed the steak and it helped to put is in a better frame of mind.

By the end of the meal it was raining steadily and we went back upstairs to grab our umbrella. After having gone to Hawaii and getting caught in the rain season (on our very first vacation together) we have learned to always bring an umbrella. I am glad that we brought it b/c it made all the difference when we were in Florence.

The rest of the day we meandered around for various site seeing and shopping. Florence is definitely a walking city. Everywhere you go is about 10 minutes by foot. Florence is like a real city, e.g. people live on the upper levels of buildings and commercial stores are at the bottom.

Towards the end of the trip, when our feet started aching and my back was begging for me to sit down and rest we decided to head up to the clock tower near the duomo (yup, Florence has a duomo too.) The clock tower is 414 steps and it doesn’t have an elevator. We thought that 414 steps was easy (considering we had already walked nearly 50 miles for the entire trip by that time.) We failed to realize that the steps were incredibly steep, there weren’t any hand rails and it was basically a very steep ascent up several meters. Finally, huffing and puffing later, we made it up to the clock tower and saw Florence from a bird’s eye view. The city was breath taking. I love the terra cotta roofs and it makes me want to get one for my house – just kidding Ming!

On the day of the wedding we were dressed to the 9s (it is a wedding after all) and took a taxi to the rental car company. We had to drive a rental car to the wedding since it was on a remote estate in the middle of the countryside. The wedding was great and Ming saw a lot of old acquaintances. We had a fabulous cocktail hour followed by a 5 course meal. The biggest bummer of the evening was that it was cold and I hadn’t brought a jacket (it had been in the high 80s the entire trip) because I didn’t think I’d need one. That night ended up being very chilly and heating lamps had to be brought out to keep the guests warm. I borrowed Ming’s jacket for the entire evening to stay warm. Dinner lasted until 11pm and that’s when we had to head back to return the rental car … that’s where the excitement began …

We got back to Florence ok and decided that it’d be best to return the rental car to the same location we picked it up at because they had a garage attendant who could call us a cab back to the hotel. Originally we were going to return the car to another location so we only had driving directions to that other location. The exciting part of this trip occurs now since it is a near nightmare trying to navigate the streets of Florence. Basically we had to deal with the crazy motorists (who create lanes on their own and don’t follow what’s marked on the roads) and we didn’t have any directions to where we were going. We drove around for about 40 minutes trying to find the car rental return and a gas station. Everything in Italy closes early and there wasn’t a single gas station with an attendant open at midnight. Finally we drove into a gas station that had a pay machine and had the lights on. We couldn’t use our credit card and had to pay in Euros to get the gas. Once we filled up we couldn’t figure out how to get our change back. Apparently the pay machine only knows how to take your money and not give any change back. Ahh! After struggling for a few minutes we decided to forgo our change and got back on the streets to try to find the car rental return. Around 1am we gave up (since that is when the gas station attendant would have left to go home) and we got back onto the freeway again to go to our original car return location.

We found our original car rental return location easily enough and dropped the car off. Now we had to find a cab to take us back to the hotel. It was past 1 in the morning and we were both sleepy and tired. The problem now was: how do we hail a cab when we were in some remote, industrial area? We didn’t know the phone number of the cab company and they don’t have any yellow pages for us to find the phone number. We were about a 40 minute walk away from our hotel so we started to make our way to the hotel, hoping to find a free cab on the way. We’re dressed to the 9s, in a strange city, and it’s late at night. Do we feel safe? Nope. I clenched Ming’s arm the entire way because I had this ever present fear that someone would come up to us and mug us. Eventually we made it to the hotel, the entire time never seeing a free cab. We then proceeded to drop into bed and snooze soundly since we were leaving the next day.

We were so ready to go home at this point!

Italy Blog: Venice

Venice – 5/24-5/26

We took the train from Milan to Venice. Tren Italia (the system which runs Italy’s trains) is pretty comfortable but it doesn’t come close to comparing with Japan’s ShinKanSen (bullet train) system. Overall, I was happy enough with Tren Italia and the trip between Milan and Venice flew by, particularly since I was asleep for most of it.

Venice is a beautiful city. The buildings are amazing and architecture is astounding. I can see why people call it a romantic city. It is a city with many canals and the only way to get anywhere is on foot.

From the train station we took the vaporetto (a water bus – a big boat) to the hotel. We originally thought we’d take the varporetto everywhere since it was the only option to get anywhere (other than by walking.) The varporetto we took ended up being very crowded, slow because it made every stop, and thoroughly unenjoyable. Once we made it to our stop (45 minutes later) we decided that we’d walk everywhere rather than experience the vaporetto again.

Venice has a lot of alleys which are great to explore and a ton of piazzas (plazas). After 3 days of exploring the alleys and piazzas, however, they start to look alike. There are gift shops on every block (multiple on a single block) and you cannot go anywhere without running into one. Venice is truly a city for tourists. All of the gift shop owners speak English and they are prepared for you (meaning high prices for everything.) All of the restaurants have English menus and the waiters all speak varying degrees of English.

The most negative memory I have of our Italy trip occurred in Venice. We had one particularly pompous waiter who demanded that we pay him a tip. In Italy there is a cover charge to sit at a table. It is understood that you do not pay servicio (tip) unless you feel that the waiter has earned it. We paid our bill and upon seeing that we did not leave him a tip (we didn’t think he had done anything to earn it, and he routinely made us go out of our way to get his attention for simple things including getting the check) told us that servicio wasn’t included in the bill and waited at our table until we gave him some Euros. I was too surprised at his audacity to put him in his place like he deserved. We gave him a servicio just to get him away from us and we will be sure to never go there on any return trips.

We explored the city a lot and walked around aimlessly. The biggest downside to Venice is the amount of tourists it gets. Because there are so many tourists it makes it impossible to enjoy the city just as it is. Anywhere you go you bump into a handful of tourists, making it impossible to enjoy the city for its true character. The number of tourists kept us from enjoying Venice and we were ready to leave before all 3 days were up.

As we were leaving Venice we learned a regatta was taking place on the grand canal. It would have been something exciting to see but we were too tired of Venice by then to care and we were happy to be moving onto the next city.

Italy Blog: Milan

Milan 5/22 – 5/24

After we checked into our Milan airport it was about 9pm and we were ravenous. Ming and I walked around the neighborhood surrounding the hotel to try to find somewhere where we could eat dinner. We stumbled upon a place called Rendez Vous and this restaurant ended up being the place we have the fondest memories of.

Rendez Vous is the neighborhood watering hole. A watering hole in Italy is not some dark, dreary, dive-like bar. Their watering holes are actually quite nice. Their patrons dress like Europeans (generally dressed in nicer attire that is a step below semi-formal.) We saw plenty of patrons who were dressed in clubbing attire but they were simply going to eat and not go to a disco (the European word of club) afterwards. People came in and out of the restaurant and it was obvious they frequented the restaurant a lot since they’d chat with the restaurant employees for a spell before leaving.

The employees of the restaurant made us feel very welcome and acted very warmly toward us. They made excellent recommendations to us for entrees and even came by our table strike up side conversations with us while we were waiting between courses. Giovanni and Luigi were the two most memorable employees who started talking to Ming about football (in America we call it soccer) and even told him that the championships were taking place the next day. After showing him the back dining and entertainment room, they even gave him a trick pen to shock him as a joke. It worked at first, but the pen seemed to break after a few shocks. Ming must have been stronger than they thought. They invited us to come back for dinner the next evening and go in the backroom to watch the football game on one of the large LCD tvs they had set up. They told us that the entire room was going to be full of football fans and that we should join them. Since we loved our meal there we agreed that we’d come back the following night and watch football with them.

The next day we explored as much of Milan as we could. We saw Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. It is truly something which you need a tour guide for. You do not realize the amount of creative genius Da Vinci had until you listen to the tour guide dissect each part of the painting and look at it from afar. It was very enlightening to see the Last Supper since I don’t know anything about art – I’m an engineer, not a liberal arts major! ^_~

We did a lot of shopping around Milan since it is one of the fashion meccas of the world. Unfortunately, we didn’t buy anything in Milan since prices were too high and I wasn’t willing to pay for any of those price tags that the designers were commanding.


Milan has a Duomo. All of the Italian cities have a Duomo which is unique. The Duomo in Milan is amazing. It is very large both in height and area. It has many intricate carvings in it and it’s something that only pictures can describe. Look at the pictures area to get a better idea of what I am talking about.

We found out that Italians, and perhaps all of Europe, are very lazy. The shops and restaurants close down for a siesta in the afternoon. I don’t know what the Italian word for siesta is so I will continue to call it a siesta until someone corrects me. They close down anywhere between 2pm-5pm. As a shopper it makes it very hard for me to do much when the city has virtually shut down. We went to a store similar to Filene’s basement (but with names like Gucci, Prada, etc) only to find it closed for its siesta. Ming and I sat on the sidewalk and had to wait for it to open up again. Coming back to it at a later time was not an option because the store was in a part of town which was completely removed from where we were staying and sight-seeing.

The whole day we tried to buy football jerseys to support the Milan team. The football championship was between Italy and Liverpool, England. The Italian team happened to be from Milan so the whole city was cheering on its home team. We tried to find a street vendor who had a Milan jersey for sale but couldn’t find any. We found a few vendors but they didn’t have any cool jerseys for sale; all of theirs were boring and had uninteresting patterns on them. Apparently most vendors come out at night, prior to the game’s start. Dejected we headed to Rendez Vous without a football jersey to cheer on the home team.

Upon arriving at Rendez Vous we found that the back dining room was indeed filled with football fans. We all ate together, cheered together, and shared great comraderie. It was my first time watching a soccer game all the way through and I find that I enjoy watching it more when I’m surrounded by passionate fans and when there aren’t annoying commercials in between plays. Italy ended up winning the championship, although the end of the game was a close one. Giovanni strolled back into the room waving a flag and wearing a jersey shouting “fuerza Milan” (roughly meaning something like Milan’s force kicks butt.) Everyone was happy and we all sucked down limoncello and port to celebrate. All and all it was really fun and we met a lot of great Italians whom we practiced our Italian on … but they kindly switched to English for us to improve the conversation flow. Giovanni even gave Ming the flag and jersey as a momento to take home so that we’d always remember that Milan kicks butt. I think that Ming may start wearing that jersey once we get back to the states. ^_^

Italy Blog: Arrival

Arrival 5/21-5/22

We chose to fly to Italy on British Airways. Neither of us had previously flown on this carrier before and had heard good things about it. The flight was uneventful but comfortable. The flight attendants were nice and the food was much better than United. We each had the obligatory alcoholic drink aboard the flight. ^_^

I watched The Holiday movie on the first leg of the flight (SFO to Heathrow.) The movie was a chic flick and one that was best watched for free. I probably wouldn’t see it again but it was an entertaining enough movie on a very long flight.

Once we arrived in Heathrow we had a 4 hour layover until we boarded the connecting flight to Milan. The Heathrow airport is huge. We walked around the food and shopping area and it was much larger than I would have anticipated. I saw a lot of wine and alcohol stores as well as many name brand stores. I cannot remember all of the stores that are there but the most memorable one is Pink. I have been told by several people that Thomas Pink makes terrific button down shirts. The shirts are pricey (70+ pounds each) but it is well worth it because the cut of the shirt is vastly superior to any other brand. Ming and I wandered into this store and we should have walked right out. We were both running on very little sleep and hunger – not a good combination for shopping. I decided that Ming should try on a Pink shirt since he always wears button down shirts to the office. He ended up loving the shirts and knew immediately that Pink’s reputation as a purveyor of finely tailored shirts was well deserved. He chose a couple of shirts that he liked and then, being the great guy he is, encouraged me to look around the store. I found a shirt that I really liked and found cute. $500 dollars later we walked out the store and went in search of nourishment before the flight. Note to self: love the Pink shirts but I can only indulge that love once in awhile else I won’t be able to pay my mortgage.

We ate at a bar/café and, since this was my first time in England, I had to try something which was uniquely British. The menu had bangers and mash (mashed potatoes and sausage) and I promptly informed Ming that that was what I wanted to eat. I found it very tasty and I can see why the Brits like it so much. Next time I find myself in England, hopefully for a vacation and not a layover, I will have bangers and mash again.

We caught the connecting flight to Milan and then took a train from the airport, Malpensa, to downtown Milan. We had easy directions to take the bus to the neighborhood of our hotel and walk a few blocks, or so we thought. When we got off the train, everything was closed. Apparently, Italy shuts down after 7 pm with the exception of some restaurants and entertainment venues. We asked a few policemen where the bus stands were and they pointed towards an intersection across the street. After a good 20 minutes of wandering in that direction, we realized that their “directions” were way off, and the map that we had of “downtown” was a POS. The map didn’t show any bus stops and only displayed major streets.

By now, our luggage had grown pretty heavy and we decided to ditch the idea of doing it the Italian way and tried to hail cabs. In Italy, people are either friendly, indifferent, or rude. The first handful of cabdrivers ignored us. A few stopped in front of us at stop lights and what we thought was an invitation to hop in turned out to be a wagging finger saying “no-no”. With few options left, we stumbled across a cabbie who was dropping off his fare and agreed to take us to our hotel. On the way, we even provided reverse translation services for a song on his CD which he forgot to credit us for on the fare!

Back from Vacation

I'm back from vacation and still pooped. The next few entries will chronicle my Italy vacation ... stay tuned!

Allergies

Now that it is summer-like weather, the pollen count is extremely high. I had no idea how high it was until I stumbled upon this graph:



It's no wonder that anyone who suffers allergies has been and will continue to be miserable. I don't have allergies but the pollen is bad enough that I have near allergy symptoms. :( All I can say is that everyone had better load up on Benadryl, Claritin, etc. and pray for rain -- rain after I move into my new house :)

New Addition to the Household

Now before all of you think that we're having a baby, we're not. We have decided to get a puppy. Tonight we drove to the East bay to see a breeder and her puppies. She had a ton and we fell in love with all of them. Ultimatley we decided on one. We decided to get a female maltese. Isn't she cute?

Kimono Chocolates

These chocolates are so cute. They are being sold at Dean & Deluca. If my diet allowed it, I would probably order a box.

Spare Change

If I had some spare change lying around I'd get this ring:


Alas, I think I need to save my pennies for a long time before I can save enough for a new play ring. ^_~ In case you are wondering, that is a 2ct emerald and 1.49 carats in diamonds.

The full ad is here

Moving on Up

Space has gotten to be a bit too cramped in our 2 bedroom condo for Ming and me We have way too much stuff. Between the two of us we have:

• 2 beds
• bedroom furniture (night stands and dresser)
• desk
• desktop and laptop computers (too many to count)
• 2 orchids, 1 ficus, 1 planter box, 1 japanese maple
• snowboarding gear (snow boards, boots, goggles, helmets, etc)
• 2 bikes
• a ton of kitchen stuff including formal china, various gadgets
• a complete filled tool box
• and the list goes on ...

A two bedroom just wasn't going to cut it for us any longer so we decided to take the plunge and buy a single family home. Yup, we are moving to a larger place up north. We're moving to Belmont, which is really close to the city so expect us to be less lame and make it up to the city more often.

We thought we were really smart to buy a 3 bedroom house ... we've now made drawings (on the computer since we're dorks) of furniture layout and we've already completely filled up all the rooms! Somehow we managed to cram all of our stuff in a 2 bedroom but when we moved to a 3 bedroom we still filled up all the space. O.o I think we need to learn to stop buying stuff

Regardless, I'll be really busy during the next month while we pack, move, jet off to Italy, come back and attend Pat and Anita's wedding. We've got a whirlwind next couple of months ahead >_<

Sleep Deprived

I've been waking up early to go the gym and I've keep it up for 3 (maybe 4) weeks now. I feel much better when I wake up early to go to gym rather than going after work. When I wake up to go to the gym I'm up at around 6:45am. Today, my non-gym day, I was uanble to sleep past 7am. Try as I might, I just couldn't get back to sleep. It's Friday morning and I was awake and wondering what to do. Going in to the office wasn't an option (I just didn't feel like getting in before 8) so I had to find something to do to occupy my time. I ended up making myself a real breakfast and I ate it while watching the morning news.

It is now in the mid-afternoon and I am starting to drag but still holding up. I hope that this morning wasn't an indication that I'll also wake up extremely early on the weekend. >_<

Salad Week

In the continued effort to try to be better about what I eat, I have deemed this week salad week. I am trying out mbhide's advice and eating low carb meals for dinner. It's just past mid-week and Ming and I haven't gone crazy yet (but we are definitely tired of lettuce.)

Monday: Salad with romain lettuce, shredded carrots, sliced cucumber, tomatoes, orange slices, pan fried chicken breast
Tuesday: The same as Monday except with extra chicken breast
Wednesday: Laab Gai accompanied by mint leaves, lettuce, and shredded cucumber.

Laab Gai is a Thai preparation of chicken. Wednesday was, by far, our best and most enjoyable meal. We ate 3 chicken breasts between the two of us and savored every bit of it.

The scale hasn't reflected any difference in weight nor do I feel any different from eating salads all week. A visual inspection of myself doesn't show any loss in my tummy fat. :( Nevertheless, I will ride out this whole week and continue to eat salads/low carb meals at dinner. I don't have any more energy (nor less energy) but I'm sure that we're at least eating at least one meal which is healthy.

Tonight is Atkins burgers (hamburger patties wrapped with lettuce) and more salad. After this week I don't think I will buy lettuce for a long time.

Are You a Red Sox Fan?

If you are a red sox fan then you might want to start buying some furniture. There is a store which promises that any purchase made between March 7 and April 16 will be free if the red sox wins the world series. It's a great marketing blitz and they will actually follow through should the sox win the world series. I have no idea if the furniture is stuff that I'd consider buying (e.g. is it my style?) but if I was in the area, I'd definitely stop by and take a peek.

Here's the full story: http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2007/04/06/jordans_is_betting_sox_wont_win_series/

Puppies On the Brain

Isn't that such a cute maltese puppy? We aren't ready to have a puppy yet but I thought this one was so cute

Vegetarian for 3 Days

Do you think you could (or would want) to become a vegetarian for 3 days? I was recently made aware that devout buddhists will eat strictly vegetarian for 3 days after a fortuitous event has happened. They believe that because something good has happened (e.g. a raise, bonus, getting a new job, baby) they will celebrate by sparing the lives of animals by not eating them.

While I respect the belief system that buddhists observe I am not sure I could live by it. I am not buddhist but I have friends who are buddhist. Giving up meat for 3 days seems pretty hard to do, particularly when it could happen at any time. I happen to like my pig, cow, and chicken and preventing at least one of them from appearing on my plate (and not completely overloading on carbs to compensate) isn't easy -- it sounds like the equivalent of a diet to me.

Could you do it? Would you do it -- give up meat for 3 days everytime a "lucky" event happened to you?

Cucumbers

I hate cucumbers. For some reason I just cannot get myself to like them. I don't mind cucumbers in water or cucumbers as garnish (since I never eat them) but I don't like to eat slices of cucumber. They seem like a waste of my space on my plate. I don't care for the taste of cucumbers and they don't seem "refreshing" to me. I am generally not a picky eater but cucumbers is where I have a problem. I will pick cucumbers out of my salad and put them to the side so that I don't have to eat them.

Enter the food processor. I love my food processor and have extolled its virtues many times over. I used the food processor to shred the cucumber and, voila, all of a sudden I was ok with eating cucumbers. I think there is something about eating a cucumber in large chunks (e.g. a slice) which doesn't agree with me but somehow eating cucumber shreds is ok. Voila. I can suddenly eat cucumbers without wincing in dismay. I no longer have a food which I'm picky about (only picky about its preparation.)

Lesson to be learned: never rule out a food unless you've tried it prepared several different ways. I have, in fact, become enamored enough with shredded cucumbers that I am willing to eat it in salads (shredded of course) next week and it will be an item on my grocery list.

Camera is Ka-Put

My poor d-cam is done for. It no longer works. I found this out yesterday when I wanted to take a picture. *sigh* I bought my camera when I was in Japan 3 years ago and I loved it because it is blue. It can no longer take pictures, however. It's screen always shows black (even though you can still see all the sub menu items on the screen) when trying to take a picture. I think something is wrong with the lens. :( My poor camera .. I loved you but it's time to move on.

I now need to decide what my next camera will be. Since my last one was a Sony I will likely not get another one -- I don't want it to fail on me after only 3 years again. I might opt to get an SLR (Tony and Ben have them and they look amazing) but I'm not sure how much I will actually use it. If not an SLR then it will be a point and shoot again.

Good Way To Start Your Day

A year or so ago I used to wake up early to go to the gym before going to work. Today I was finally able to motivate myself to wake up early and get an "early" morning work out. I was out of the house by 7:30am today and got an hour in at the gym. After all is said and done (including time for makeup and hair ^_^) I was in the office by 9:20am today. *woohoo* I feel really energized and like I've accomplished a lot already. I hope this accomplishment bodes well for my Monday and for the rest of the week.

I already know of at least one bummer this week: having to commute up to the city for work. Grrr ... well hopefully I won't have to do it too many times this week. Commuting to the city is such a pain in the rear. You waste so much time sitting on the train (takes me about 2 hours for a total commute time) and I'd much rather go back to my normal 3mi. commute.

New Blog about Food

I have decided to create another blog which chronicles my adventures in the kitchen:

Strawberries and Blueberries

Farm Animal Truffles

These farm animals are just too cute. I'm not someone who celebrates Easter but I may just need to pick up a few of these cute guys. Williams Sonoma is selling these chocolates for Easter. The chocolates are almost too cute to eat. My favorite ie either the piggy or the cow ^_^

Prius is Worse than a Hummer

March 7, 2007
Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage
By Chris Demorro
Staff Writer

The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate ‘green car’ is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.

Before we delve into the seedy underworld of hybrids, you must first understand how a hybrid works. For this, we will use the most popular hybrid on the market, the Toyota Prius.

The Prius is powered by not one, but two engines: a standard 76 horsepower, 1.5-liter gas engine found in most cars today and a battery- powered engine that deals out 67 horsepower and a whooping 295ft/lbs of torque, below 2000 revolutions per minute. Essentially, the Toyota Synergy Drive system, as it is so called, propels the car from a dead stop to up to 30mph. This is where the largest percent of gas is consumed. As any physics major can tell you, it takes more energy to get an object moving than to keep it moving. The battery is recharged through the braking system, as well as when the gasoline engine takes over anywhere north of 30mph. It seems like a great energy efficient and environmentally sound car, right?

You would be right if you went by the old government EPA estimates, which netted the Prius an incredible 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 miles per gallon on the highway. Unfortunately for Toyota, the government realized how unrealistic their EPA tests were, which consisted of highway speeds limited to 55mph and acceleration of only 3.3 mph per second. The new tests which affect all 2008 models give a much more realistic rating with highway speeds of 80mph and acceleration of 8mph per second. This has dropped the Prius’s EPA down by 25 percent to an average of 45mpg. This now puts the Toyota within spitting distance of cars like the Chevy Aveo, which costs less then half what the Prius costs.

However, if that was the only issue with the Prius, I wouldn’t be writing this article. It gets much worse.

Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.

“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.

All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?

Wait, I haven’t even got to the best part yet.

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.

Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.

The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.

So, if you are really an environmentalist - ditch the Prius. Instead, buy one of the most economical cars available - a Toyota Scion xB. The Scion only costs a paltry $0.48 per mile to put on the road. If you are still obsessed over gas mileage - buy a Chevy Aveo and fix that lead foot.

One last fun fact for you: it takes five years to offset the premium price of a Prius. Meaning, you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses.

story

I guess everyone who thinks they are doing well for the environment should think again >_<

St Patty's Day Saturday

For some incomprehensible reason I woke up at 8.30am today. It is Saturday. I woke up earlier today than I normally do for work. I should go back to sleep but can't. I decided to wake up rather than toss and turn and inevitably waking Ming up. He's been working really hard this past week (waking up early and sleeping late) so I want him to get as much rest as possible.

I decide to wake up and start my day. Yesterday all the weathermen had forecast a beautiful day -- high of 80 in San Francisco. It is mid-march and we were going to expect summer weather? I was nearly giddy with joy thinking of all the things I could do to enjoy the lovely weather. As I walked into the living room (the curtains were open) I saw, with much dismay, overcast skies. Nooooo! Where was my beautiful sunshine that I'd been seeing all week? Gloomy clouds don't translate into warm breezes and sipping mai tais (ok, so maybe I'm stretching the mai tai thing) on the porch. Grrr... Maybe it will burn off and the skies will be sunny again. I hadn't, afterall, seen the sky at 8:30am all week so this could be considered normal.

I woke up and started to do some random things around the house killing time and waiting for my french bread batard to rise. I haven't blogged in awhile and I forgot to mention that last weekend I made french bread (for the first time) and Bo Luc Lac (Vietnamese Shaking Beef.)

Here are some photos of those cooking endeavors:






I am pretty happy with the way the french bread turned out and the shaking beef. These are definitely two items to be added to my repetoire. The shaking beef was really good and we gobbled it down immediately. I served it on a bed of lettuce instead of watercrest, no matter, it was still delicious. For more info about shaking beef, go here

Fast forward back to today ...

I made a huge batch of dough last weekend so today I am using up the rest of the french bread dough. I am going to make another batard since Ming really likes them and we bought some fixings last night to put on top of the bread (for our breakfast/brunch.)

It is now nearly 10am and I think I have come to grips with the realization it will not be beautiful and suny 80 degree weather. It will be dismal and overcast and we've got dinner in the city tonight for Pat's birthday. Damn, there had better be some green beer to make up for the lack of a sunny day

Adieu to Snow Season

We've had record (well, what I believe is record) high temperature lately. It has been in the high 70s for the past few days and it will continue to be warm. In Truckee, one of the more popular cities in Tahoe, it is in the mid-60s. By now I would normally have gone up to the snow 6-12 times. This season I have not been up to Tahoe at all because there hasn't been any snow up there. The few storms we did have didn't pile on much snow and it has all melted away. With the warm temperatures around I doubt that we'll get enough snow to make it worth my while to make the drive to Tahoe.

*sigh* Well I must bid adieu to Tahoe and wait until next season to make use of my boarding equipment

Milk Bread

With my previous mention of bread I decided that I wanted to try my hand at bread making. My first foray into the world of bread would be to make milk bread. Milk bread is something I ate as a kid. It's a very soft type of bread, individually portioned out. It is topped with a sweet glaze and I used to eat it for breakfast or as an afternoon snack.


The ingredients for milk bread. Excuse the skim milk, we normally buy low fat but all the low fat milk at the store had an expiration date which was too close to today


Me forming the bread into individual rolls


The rolls in the pan, shaped and waiting to proof some more. Proofing is when the bread grows larger in volume


The finished milk bread


Milk bread -- before consumption

The milk bread ended up turning out pretty well for my first try into breads. I didn't do such a great job forming the dough into perfectly portioned rolls but all and all, I am happy with the end result. The next question is how long it will last before we consume everything

Artistic Bread

We all know what artisan bread is: bread which is hand made (so it's got a few bumps and isn't quite as clean cut as Wonder bread) and is generally a lot more expensive but also more tasty. A few of us know what artistic bread is. Artsitic bread is bread which is shaped into creatures or some simple shape. The japanese are probably the most well known when it comes to artistic bread. Their love of beautiful foods has lead them to create cute little creatures out of bread. I have seen turtles, porcupines, etc formed of bread in various Japanese bakeries.

I recently stumbled upon a picture that puts the Japanese artistic breads to shame:



Those creations are actually bread O.o This is made by some shop in Paris. The full article can be found here. I think I should go to Paris now to try out this artistic bread and see if it is as tasty as it looks

Daylight Saving 2007

This Sunday is daylight saving time. Everyone in the US loses an hour. :( The rules for daylight saving changed this year in order to try to conserve more energy and ... blah blah blah. For some background on the changed date:


On August 8, 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This Act changed the time change dates for Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. Beginning in 2007, DST will begin on the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November. The Secretary of Energy will report the impact of this change to Congress. Congress retains the right to resume the 2005 Daylight Saving Time schedule once the Department of Energy study is complete.

more details

The one bright side to all of this is that we are expected to have a high of 78 degrees on Sunday. It'll be a beautiful day and even though we all woke up earlier we will have a gorgeous day to enjoy. What will you do to make the most out of the day? If I am feeling particularly motivated I'll wash the car and perhaps even BBQ again

Turkey in March

We had BBQ turkey tonight. Why did we have turkey? We had turkey because

1. we were craving it
2. it was a nice and sunny day, perfect for BBQ
3. we have been using a fool proof recipe for the past 2 years and the turkey is always juicy and delicious

Here's a pictography of the turkey and the cooking process:

Ming getting ready to BBQ the turkey


The turkey, all ready to go into the BBQ. It's legs and wings are covered to protect them from getting burned to a crisp


Ming checking the BBQ to make sure it's cozy enough for the turkey


2 hours later a perfectly cooked turkey

As always, the turkey was scrumptious. We started off by brining it overnight in a salt based solution. We then took it out this morning to dry out for a bit. 2 hours into the BBQ and the turkey came out, ready to be consumed :) I forgot to take a picture of dinner because we were so hungry and we ended up scarfing it all down.

I know that a lot of people don't like turkey because they don't care for the taste or it's normally too dry. One of these people was my auntie. She absolutley didn't care for turkey until she tried our BBQ turkey. It made her a convert and ever since she had it, she's never looked back. When we tell her that we are having turkey she's at our house as fast as the car can get her here.

Hot Pot, Nabemono, Shabu shabu

I wanted a claypot because I wanted to make a claypot dish with oysters. I did my homework and found out that instead of the normal Chinese claypot (which I think looks a bit gaudy) I could do the same thing with the Japanese version. The Chinese claypot looks like



The Japanese claypot is called a donabe. It is made out of a sturdier clay and is stronger and more resistent to heat. I like the look of the donabe a lot better than the Chinese claypot



Last night I made a claypot oyster dish with my new claypot/donabe and it was really yummy. Next is going to be hot pot/shabu shabu in it -- who wants to come to dinner? ^_~

Santa Ramen

Tonight Ming and I ate at Santa Ramen because we were craving ramen and had heard good things about this place. We also wanted to go do some grocery shopping at Marina after dinner.

We arrived at Santa Ramen at about 6.15p and there was already a line. O.o I knew the ramen was reputed to be good but I wasn't expecting a wait. We put our names on the waiting list and proceeded to wait until we were called. Luckily people ate pretty quickly and we only had to wait about 10 minutes before getting a seat in the 29 seat restaurant. We promptly ordered and waited for our ramen to arrive.

The ramen was very tasty but, as with most Japanese food, was laden with MSG and quite salty. It wasn't enough MSG to give you a headache but it certainly did make me reach for my water cup a lot. The ramen was really good. It was chewy and the broth was really tasty. Both of us had the stewed pork and roast pork in pork broth. mmm... We were lucky that we ordered when we did because 10 minutes later we saw the waitress put up a sign that said they were sold out of stewed pork.

Don't let the name fool you, stewed pork is really good. Stewed pork is really the pork belly which has been braised in a sweet, dark, salty liquid. It is the fatty pork cut of meat, found in "kau yuk mui choi" in Cantonese restaurants.

I couldn't finish all of the ramen so I asked for a to go container. The ramen was $11 per bowl. At $11 a bowl I expected that the restaurant would have some suitable take out container for the remainder of my dinner. Maybe in Japan they don't believe in take out containers (the employees were certainly Japanese and could have been born in Japan -- perhaps even the daughters of the owners) because when I asked for my to go container she came back with my leftovers in a zip lock bag. O.o Yes, my ramen and broth were all placed uncermoniously in a gallon size zip lock bag. Wow, that is the first time I've ever received a take out box that is a zip lock bag -- for broth!

All and all everything was really good and I'd go back again (1)if I didn't have to wait more than 20 minutes and (2) I only order enough so that I finish and don't require a take out container. I have heard that on weekends this place has over an hour for a wait and I'm not sure it is worth that. If you are in the area and are craving ramen, try heading over and see if the wait is short.

Real Time Weather Map

(click on the image to get a more detailed view)

With all of the rain that we've been getting it'd be nice to know what the weather forecast is, by the minute. I recently found out about Weather Underground and it shows you the weather maps in real time. Well, its got a slight delay but it is good enough for me. ^_^ It shows you when inclement weather is nearby. Yesterday I used it to determine when to go home. I left when there was a break in the weather and I wouldn't be completely pelted when I left the office.

This is a pretty nifty and useful tool. Whenever I need to BBQ again next I can use this tool to determine when we should put the burgers on the grill (and skip/miss the rain showers)

Ming the Phone

Motorola is introducing a new phone called the MotoMing. Yes, it's Ming's namesake phone.



I must admit that it is a pretty sexy and cool phone. It isn't completely sleek but it is packed full of new features. It has a stylus (yes, this is a phone and not a palm-like device) which has handwriting recognition. You can write chinese on the screen and it will recognize it. It's really cool and I can't wait to find it in stores to try out. Needless to say since this is Ming's namesake phone he'll be trying to obtain one in the near future

Happy New Year

It's officially the year of the piggy this year. Happy new year everyone!

We spent the weekend cleaning house and making Chinese New Year foods. Ming bought a 6 lb chicken for dinner. I have never seen a chicken that big and trying to cook one that big is really hard. We put it in an 8qt pot and it barely fit -- next time I cook a massive chicken I'll have to put it in the 12qt pot. O.o

This marks the first year that I will have to give out red envelopes. I am armed with crisp bills and plenty of envelopes. I hope everyone doesn't decide to descend on us and make us dole out more red envelopes than I'm prepared for ^_~

Disabling Your SSID

Lots of people have now learned that they should password protect their wireless network. Many others believe you should prevent your wireless network from broadcasting, thinking that it makes it less susceptible to attackers. Here's a comment about disabling the broadcast that is humorous and enlightening:


Disabling SSID broadcast makes your AP about as hidden as a duck sitting very quietly in broad daylight, in the open on a pond.

It thinks that not going Quack Quack, makes it invisible. If there is any kind of traffic on your AP it and it's SSID is as visible as any other AP.

Valentine's Recap

After my oopsies I must say that dinner went very well. We had Jap chae (Korean noodles normally eaten as panchan) and double choc cake with choco frosting.


Jap chae with a Chinese twist. I added fresh bamboo shoots to it.


Chocolate cake!


mmm... cake

My V-day Oopsie

Last night I wanted to get a head start on my choco cake in preparation for Valentine's day. I wanted to have the cake made the day before so that I could add the frosting the next day, when the cake was cooled. In case you weren't aware, my previous post mentioned that I wanted to make choco cake for Valentine's day.

I got home at 9pm last night and made myself a quick dinner. By 10pm I was ready to make the chocolate cake. I was in a groove and I was doing really well (considering that I had forgotten to take the butter out ahead of time to make sure it was room temp) and it was in the oven by 10:30pm. No sooner had I placed it in the oven then I realized, "oh crap, I forgot to add the chocolate!" I made chocolate cake and didn't add chocolate -- sigh. O.o I think it must have been too long of a day for me for me to have forgotten something so crucial.

I didn't want to eat what could be terrible cake so what was I supposed to do? I cleaned up everything and started again. I ended up making another batch, with chocolate, of the cake. I was baking until nearly midnight last night! When I went to bed the whole house smelled like chocolate. O.o

The lesson that I learned is always double check that I've completely read the recipe prior to sticking the item into the oven. I hope this choco cake is good since I invested so much time into it!!

Baked Donuts

Donuts are so tasty but oh-so-bad for your health. Imagine my surprise when I came across this article for baked donuts. O.o Baked donuts!? I can't believe that .. well just in time for Valentine's day I suppose. It's a way to enjoy a favorite snack w/o putting your arteries in danger.

If they can make a Homer Simpson donut maker, I guess baked donuts aren't that far of a stretch.

Love Is In the Air

Valentine's day is almost upon us and we see nothing but advertisements for roses and chocolate. What are you goign to do to celebrate? Sit at home and treat it as thought it is another day or will you go all out and spend the (approx.) $110 dollars on a gift that retail forecasters are hoping for and eat out at some fancy restaurant?

You may ask what I am going to do for v-day and my answer is this: eat cake (a la Marie Antoinette's famouse "let them eat cake" statment.) I'm planning on eating some choco cake with a custard frosting. That is my v-day. Flowers and restaurant atmosphere are completely optional. All I really want is cake. ^_^

Too Much Anna Nicole Smith

As we've all heard by now, Anna Nicole Smith has died. You can't go to a single news source (be it paper, internet, or TV) without hearing about her death. Her passing has generated a ton of media traffic and every single reporter is talking about it. I see her picture wherever I click to while on CNN, Yahoo, etc.

I'm frankly tired of hearing about her. The media is treating her as if she was some terrific person who died in the prime of her life. In reality, many of them (myself included) sneered when her name was mentioned and thought of her as a major annoyance. She hadn't done anything to deserve praise or "oohs and ahhs." If anything, she was the epitome of what happens when you (pardon the phrase) take a girl out of a trailer park and swathe her in millions. I hardly think anyone would consider anything she'd done as admirable.

She's received more media blitz than when a president passes away. Now, c'mon, isn't that saying something is completely wrong with our value system? If a diplomat or president (or someone else who's done something to better society) dies, he doesn't recieve nearly as much attention as this. We keep hearing all these statements from PETA (and I will sneer at this particular name since I think that they are just a bunch of radicals who bully their way into everything), celebrities, etc who claim they knew her well and loved her. If they knew her so well and were such good acquaintances, why hadn't they spoken up before now? We hadn't heard a single statement from one of them during all of Anna's tumultuous times (death of J. Howard Marshall, who-is-the-daddy-scandal, death of her son, etc.) Why now? The reason they speak up now is because it gives these clingers a chance for some media attention (again, our media is giving way too much airtime to this story.)

Bottom line: move on. This story was noteworthy for all of about 5 minutes. There are plenty of other things happening in the world which are more important.

Princess to Wed Commoner

One of my vices is to read gossip about the stars. While I love to read about Hollywood stars I equally (if not more) enjoy reading about royalty. My magazine of choice is Hello Magazine. It is based in Britain and always has lots of juicy gossip about the royal families of the world.

The latest bit of gossip is about Princess Alexandra. She was married to the heir of Denmark but they divorced a few years ago. The princess is 42 years old and born in Hong Kong. She has a bit of Asian blood in her, which might account for her youthful appearance. She looks fabulous for 42!



She is set to marry a 28 year old photographer later this year or sometime next year. Someone as gorgeous as her is going to marry someone who is 14 years her junior. Whoa. There are plenty of women who marry men who are younger than them (think Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher) but ... it's hard to fathom it happening to royalty. With her marriage to the 28 year old commoner (Martin Jorgensen) she loses her Princess title. She's giving up a lot to marry him so he'd better be worth it!

If you were to marry someone who is younger than you (by a huge amount), what qualities would he have to possess in order for you to lose your currently cushy status? For us mere commoners, I suppose it'd be the equivalent of some high powered attorney marrying a farmer in the midwest. I suppose a farmer is a bad equivalent since farmers will make a decent living whereas a photographer is more of a fly-by-night occupation (sometimes its lucrative, other times it is dismal.) You'd really need to marry for love and be ready to sacrifice your current lifestyle for a more humble one.

The Dreaded Scale

I have finally come to terms with myself and realize that I've gained way too much weight in the past few months. I've only been married for 7 months but I've also put on a ton of weight during that time period. This acceptance prompted a prompt trip to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy a scale.



I bought a scale to help me figure out how much I weigh and to hopefully chart my weightloss. I've been going to the gym again and trying to be smarter about what I eat. This scale is my motivation to do well...

Dark Chocolate M&Ms

I bought some dark chocolate M&Ms over the holidays. I love dark chocolate so I thought that I'd give the M&Ms a shot. I love to snack on M&Ms and I love dark chocolate -- sounded like a perfect combination. Upon trying the M&Ms, however, I was sadly disappointed. It doesn't taste like dark chocolate and is like the normal M&M. There is too much of the candy coating and too little chocolate to discern (at least for me) any difference between plain M&Ms and dark chocolate ones. :p Next time I will just buy the plain M&Ms and not waste my time scouring for the dark ones.

New Dessert Fave

I ate at Juni the other night with a friend. The food wasn't spectacular nor memorable -- and certainly not for their prices. The best part of the meal was dessert. I had mango sorbet and completely enjoyed it. I found out that it wasn't house made, nor even made by some Asian brand; it was made by Haagen-Dazs. O.o It was probably the best mango sorbet I've ever had. It tasted just like the little manila mango and it wasn't too sweet.



It only has 120 calories per serving (there are 4 servings in the container) and all of the ingredients are ones that I recognize. There isn't any corn syrup or other weird (aka bad) perservatives or sweeteners. I am definitely going to stock up on a pint or two of this the next time I go to the grocery store.

Orchid SOS

My orchids aren't doing very well. They look sad and droopy and dark green. I want them to be healthy and flower so I did a bit of research on the 'net. I found out that you should use sphagnum moss to fertilize the plants and help them get healthy again. I bought some of what I thought was sphagnum moss but it turns out that I bought the wrong kind. :( I bought sphagnum peat moss. The difference is that the peat moss is the decomposed version of sphagnum moss and isn't as effective. *sigh* Well, nevertheless, I put the sphagnum peat moss on the orchids and hope they do better. I'll check on them again in about a month and compare how they are now.

Pasta for Ladies .. of the Night

So I've got some anchovies that I'm trying to figure out how to cook up for dinner. Ming doesn't really care for them so I've got to figure out how to incorporate them into dinner where you really can't tell they're there. During my search I came across pasta puttanesca. I've heard of it before and it incorporates the anchovies in the pasta sauce ... sounds good to me. I read about its history and found out that it was served by ladies of the night in order to tempt men to come to them:

"This sauce is named for ladies of the night. They would place pots of it in their windows to tempt men into the bordellos. "

Whoa ... I'm going to be making an illicit sauce? I would never have guessed that something as simple as pasta sauce would have such a colorful history

Sudoku Mania

I got sucked into doing sudoku. I've been going up to the city to do work for a customer every now and then and it's a long train ride. I normally read the paper but eventually I finish the paper and it's still awhile to go before I get to my destination. I started doing a sudoku puzzle and I finished my first one yesterday. I understand why people are so addicted to this now; it's seemingly easy but it does take a bit of work at it. I've ended up going electronic and now I'm doing the puzzles on the computer (much easier than pen and paper since its ultimately easier to read on the computer than in a tiny little box on the paper.)

Call me crazy but I just joined the masses in loving this game. Well maybe not love but definitely hooked and once you start a puzzle, it's hard to stop until you finish

Scratch and Sniff Stamps

China has released some stamps where, if you scratch it, it smells like Sweet and Sour Pork. These stamps are to commemorate Chinese New Year, this year being the year of the pig. I wonder if scratching it will make people hungry for dinner ^_~

Article

Celebrating Tet

I'm not Vietnamese but I'm going to celebrate Tet at Tamarine Restaurant. I've been wanting to try Tamarine for a long time, especially since people have been giving it really good reviews. I've eaten at its sister restaurant, Bong Su, in SF and really enjoyed it. I can only imagine that Tamarine will be just as good as Bong Su.

I normally celebrate Chinese New Year so Tet will be a different experience. I'm looking forward to it since the restaurant will have different decorations and entrees out for Tet. They're even going to have a lion dance -- in downtown Palo Alto! O.o

Review: Kite Runner

I stayed up late last night (gasp, on a school/worknight) and read The Kite Runner. It is an excellent book and I recommend that everyone read it. It is about a boy who grows up as the son of the richest man in town (or among the richest). It takes place in Afghanistan prior to any of the upheavel. During the boy's childhood he grows up when the monarchy is still in power and it gives great insight as to what Afghanistan used to be like. Gradually there is a coup and social upheavel, causing the boy and his father to flee to America. As an adult, the boy is summoned back to Afghanistan and he sees how it has changed and how life has become unbearable when under the rule of the Taliban.

More than anything else, this book helped open my eyes to what life was like in the middle east. All we've ever heard is that its a war zone (since that is what its been like for the past 25 years) but it wasn't always that way. It used to be beautiful and "normal." Towns were prosperous and while not as "advanced" as the states, the towns had their own charm.

I also learned a bit about Afghan culture and how different it is compared to Asian culture. It was refreshing to hear the intricacies of their culture and how they also value the concept of family.

I stayed up very late to finish this book but it was a total page turner. If you haven't read it yet, it is a must read.

Happy New Year

Happy new year and welcome to 2007! What did I do to celebrate the new year? I played wiiiii!!! Since getting married earlier this year Ming and I decided to be ultra social and lay low. We spent the evening at home and played wii all night. Yup, we're a ton of fun. O.o

I love the wii. It's a lot of fun to play and since Ming has cleaned the house, we've got ample space to play it. I'm most addicted to Tennis (wii sports) and Zelda. I haven't really played other games yet since I'm trying to become a pro on Tennis and get further than just a wooden sword.

Hope that everyone had a good new years and didn't get too drunk. ^_~

How Unique Are You?

My full name (with my maiden name):

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 176 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

My new full name (married name):

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 49 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

I guess I'm more unique (and less chance of being mistaken) now that I'm married :)

Modern Mediocore Chocolate at Inflated Prices

I recently was made aware of a chocolate maker called Noka They have a very minimalist, sleek, and modern appeal to them. Their packaging is exactly what would appeal to the urban, minimalist.



I came across an article which does an in-depth review of Noka chocolate. Noka is sold at premium stores such as Dean & Deluca and Neiman Marcus. This chocolate, on average, goes for $300/lb. Yes, there really are 3 digits to the left of the decimal point. In France you can expect to see chocolates for $100/lb but $300?! Damn, that had better be some really good chocolate to warrant that kind of price tag.

It turns out that Noka is a chocolate which has basically been re-branded (from a company called Bonnat). Noka is a company which repackages chocolate made by another company and they charge a 1300% markup. O.o While the chocolate is decent, it is no where worth that much money (particularly since you can buy the chocolate directly from Bonnat). Noka is the most expensive chocolate that you can buy but I'd rather save my money and buy chocolate from Vosges or Amedei instead. At least those companies are actual chocolatiers and make their own truffles, etc. instead of simply taking the chocolate and melting them down into another mold.

Noka is very cool to look at but I'll take a bar of some other chocolate (by a chocolatier who actually makes their confections) any day.

It's Christmas Charlie Brown

Urban Outfitters is selling a replica of the sad Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It's so sad .. but really cute. We aren't going to have a Christmas tree this year but, if we did get one, this is the one I'd get. ^_^

We Have a New Bond

I saw Casino Royale last night, finally, and I really enjoyed the movie. It was a really long movie but had a lot of good scenes and the script was well written. I'm not a Bond fan by any means but I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It definitely surpassed my expectations.

I joined in with the masses when we all groaned upon hearing Daniel Craig would be the famous 007. He doesn't seem handsome enough to follow in Pierce Brosnan's footsteps. I should actually say that statement past tense. After seeing Daniel Craig's performance I was very impressed. He has a certain charm that grows on you and he portrayed Bond very well. He is in very good shape; his body was really buff! The stunts he did in Bond took my breath away and there were scenes where you could see just how hard his (ample) muscles were straining. O.o

All and all, it was a good evening and I'll rent/buy the movie when it comes out.

Start them Young

We've all had to worry about children who misbehave. Sometimes you just grin and bear it (and administer a bit of discipline.) How do you deal with children who lie? Better yet, how do you deal with parents who lie because their parents taught them to lie. O.o Yes, you heard right. I had the misfortune of finding that my cousin has been taught to lie by the parents. *ouch* Is it any wonder that children these days are much worse off then we were as a kid? When we grew up our parents had values and morales and always taught us to do the right thing. Somewhere along the lines todays parents forgot these lessons, and instead, do a 180 and teach their kids all the things that we were told never to do.

Well, now that I know kids these days are so terribly misbehaved, I'll just need to remember to never volunteer to babysit these kids.

Breakfast of Champions

This is what I had for breakfast today:

See's Candy and Milo (kind of like a malty hot chocolate)

Tis the Season

It's holiday time! I've been busy trying to figure out how to do x-mas shopping with the hectic workload ... how do busy people do it?

I've also gotten into the holiday decorating mode this year so I want to add some x-mas decorations around the house ... My mission: find a wreath to hang on the front door. I don't feel like going through all of the hassle of a tree this year but maybe next year :)

Happy Turkey Day

Happy turkey day everyone! Eat lots, be merry and give thanks to the oodles and oodles of turkey ^_^

The Devil Wears Prada

I finished reading The Devil Wears Prada and although I didn't have really high expectations for the book, I was still left feeling disappointed. Everyone in Europe seems to adore the movie so I thought I'd give the book a shot. Normally the book is always better than the movie so if the movie is good, the book is generally ten times better. Unfortunately, the book wasn't as good of a read as I had hoped. It definitely doesn't keep you hooked like the Da Vinci Code or any of John Grisham's books. Rather, it is through and through a chic lit book. I don't have any problem reading a chic lit book but I was expecting this particular one to have a bit more substance. The book is written from a first person point of view and .. the girl isn't very likeable. She catalogues her life working for as an assistant for some big magazine company and the book is all about how she slaves for a high and mighty fashion editor. The book didn't have any dull spots but, rather, just seemed boring. I love reading about fashion and the book was more focused on dropping descriptions about the fashion labels than it was about developing a complex and intersting story line.

I hope the movie turns out to be better than this book, that'd be a first, because all of Europe can't be wrong ... can it?

Love to Amazon

I love Amazon. I signed up for a trial of their Amazon Prime program. This basically let you get free 2nd day delivery of any items you ordered for 3 months. If you don't cancel within the 3 month trial period then you pay $79/year to continue the program. As with all trial offers, you will automatically get charged the $79 unless you cancel before the trial period expires.

I've been really caught up in work and before I knew it my 3 month period was over and I got charged the $79. *doh* I promptly cancelled the Amazon Prime membership since it was cool to have but not something that I really need. Today I received an e-mail that confirmed my Amazon Prime cancellation AND the CS rep also said they'd refund me the $79 since I hadn't taken advantage of it (meaning I hadn't ordered any items since they'd charged my credit card.) That is so cool! Amazon refunded my money even though it was my own error (I should have been more on top of things) and I didn't even ask for them to do this. Wow.

Amazon has made me a very happy customer and one who'll gladly keep ordering from again.

Jet setters

From dictionary.com:

jet set n. - An international social set made up of wealthy people who travel from one fashionable place to another.


Wealthy people huh? I don't think that I'm considered a wealthy person but I am a jet setter ... this weekend Ming and I are off to Boston. We're going to see all of his old college fraternity brothers and it'll be really cold there (high of 45). *brrr* I guess the only way to stay warm is to stay in Copley Place and go shopping. ^_^

Toys for All

Earlier I had posted that Ming got to buy the TV that he'd been itching to buy. The TV arrived and he's diligently been testing it out with 360 games. Since he got his TV it's only fair that I get something in return too ... so I bought a purse. It isn't just any purse, it's a purse I've been looking for for the past year. I finally found a purse that had all my requirements (roomy, leather, tote style) and I stumbled upon it here:



So now that each of us has some new toy to play with .. how do you find a suitable x-mas gift? O.o

New Toy

Ming got a new toy at the end of last week. In fact, I even went to buy him the new toy.



It hasn't arrived home yet but when it does, I have a feeling we're going to be glued to the couch for awhile. ^_^ The store will have to call us when it does arrive but I'm looking forward to it because it means that everything will be so much bigger and crisper.

Bringing Ramen on Vacation

If you had a limited budget for a vacation, do you think you'd
1. choose to go to an expensive and exotic location but *bring* most of your meals
2. go to a more modest location but go out to eat every meal to sample the local culture

Yes, there are people who have done the first option when going on vacation. Most people choose to live within their means and don't over extend themselves so much that they no longer have any money left for food. Nevertheless, I am sure there are a surprising number of people who choose to BYOB it on their vacation. O.o It's a crazy notion if you ask me but I guess there has never been a place where I've wanted to go where I can no longer afford to pay for my own food.

The people who BYOB it aren't the ones who are bringing food to a condo ... it's bringing ramen and any other instant food (e.g. granola, dry cereal) to some (for example) Caribbean island because they spent all their money on air and hotel and none is left over for food.

It doesn't seem like a real vacation to me unless I'm able to go mingle with people and eat out at restaurants with them ... figuring out how some of the locals eat or eat at some of the best restaurants the area has to offer.

What would you do? Would you spend all of your money on air and hotel or would you spread it out more evenly such that you have enough to eat at the local restaurants?

Back from Sin City

We went to Las Vegas over the weekend to celebate my sister's 21st birthday. My entire family went and we had good times. We took my sister to Tryst and got her liquored up (with the help from Mr. Effen Cherry and Mr. Belvedere) but the boys were disappointing. There wasn't anyone good looking and they were all old -- as in the same age as my dad! The music was good but the DJ jumped around genres too much for my taste.

We did a bit of gambling and we didn't do so well in that area. We ate a ton and overall had some good family time together and terrific memories.

The only bummer from the weeken dis that I ended up getting sick. =( Too much smoke in the casinos and a/c lead to me getting sick. *sigh* Well at least I can say that we had a good enough time this weekend to make up for me now feeling the ugliness of a cold.

Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dumb

I saw an episode on the Food Network featuring Paula Dean's sons and they truly are twiddle dee and twiddle dumb. The sons were raised in the south so they are supposed to have a bit of a southern charm to them and definitely have the southern drawl. Unfortunately, as I sat on the couch watching these two all I could think was "you guys cannot be for real." They go to various restaurants and show what the restaurant is well known for (cuisine-wise.) For having a mother who's become somewhat of a tv cook juggernaut they are really clueless. They act really dumb and as though they've never been in a kitchen before. They like to dip their grubby fingers into everything and always go "ooh ahh" over everything, especially bourbon or whiskey.

These guys act like completely simpletons. They are like southern frat boys who've been dropped on their heads a few too many times as a child. *sigh* This goes to show that nepotism is definitely not a good thing -- leads to us innocent TV viewers being subjected to 30 minutes of watching immature idiots on TV

The Cat's Away this Weekend

While the cat's away will the mice play?

I took Ming to the airport this morning. Traffic was horrendous; it took us an hour to get from Palo Alto to SFO. I am so glad that I don't have a long commute anymore. If I had to deal with bumper to bumper traffic (and stop and go) every day I'd go crazy. Right now I'm completely spoiled by my 3 mile commute. ^_^

Ming is away on business through the weekend so it means that I have from now to Sunday to do whatever I please. While he, lucky guy that he is, gets to go shopping at Riccardi, I am left in the Bay Area to find my amusements. What would you do if you had the entire weekend to yourself without worrying about repercussions?

Love Parade is happening this weekend but its become so commercialized that I'm not really incentivized to go. While I love the music that is played I don't look forward to seeing all of the commercial aspects of it that now exist.

I suppose I could take this time to clean house ... but I think it'd be better to wait on that so that Ming can join in "joys" of tidying up too. x_X

Oh the possibilities of what to do ...

What Celebrity Do I look Like?

I recently discovered this new site called My Heritage and it allows you to upload a photo of yourself and it then tells you how close you look compared to other celebrities. Its pretty cool. According to my results (I uploaded one of my wedding photos) I look most like Joey Yung followed by others (as seen below). The photo they have of Sammi is really out dated



Who do you most look like? ^_^

Fashion

Maybe I've been watching too much Project Runway but this dress from Fashion Week really caught my attention



I just had to share with it you because I love the dress but it's price is probably way out of my league and I'll have to be content with simply viewing it from afar.

Jusice on Fox

Last night I finally got around to watching the tv show Justice. It is a tv series about a group of lawyers who try to win a case for the defendent. The lawyers try to convince the jury that their client is innocent. At the end of the show you will see what actually happened and if the jury was right in their sentencing of the defedent.

I dont normally watch lawyer shows, e.g. Law and Order, CSI, but this one got me hooked. There was never a dull moment and I was completely at the edge of my seat (well, the couch) and trying to figure out if the defendent was really innocent. It's a really good show and I'll be hooked to it until 24 comes back on -- and even then I'll be watching both 24 and Justice religously