Mrs. Ming or Plain Ol' Cindy

There’s a lot of debate about whether or not the girl should change her name to her husband’s once they get married. It can be argued either way, change or not to change. In the Chinese culture, the girl never changes her given name (her Chinese name). If her name is Amy Chan before they are married and her husband’s surname is Lee, then she is still known as Amy Chan by friends. When she is referred to in context, then she is called the wife of Lee. This pretty much eliminates the whole messy ordeal of “does she change her name or doesn’t she?” Dear god, my ancestors thought of everything. ^_^

I found it particularly funny when I was researching wedding stuff to find a white girl who was marrying a Chinese guy trying to “asian-ify” her wedding. Because of the aforementioned statement, she’ll never use the guy’s last name, at least when writing in Chinese. They made a sign that contained his Chinese last name (written in Chinese calligraphy) with her English name and his English name. Now while this may look really pretty, it is quite the gaffe. It’d be the equivalent of getting a bad word tattooed on yourself when you really thought the word had an entirely different meaning.

Moral of the story: While giving things an Asian twist can be very “in” and it can look very pretty, you’d better double check before embarrassing yourself in front of friends and family.

What a million dollars can buy you

If you had a spare million dollars lying around you could buy this 3ct pink diamond ring:



Or this tiny house in Palo Alto:



Hm... ring or house .... ^_~

Shoes, shoes, and more shoes

I received my wedding shoes over the weekend. I ended up buying a pair of Vera Wang shoes O.o I couldn't help it... they were so nice and tall and had point tips. I'm a sucker for pointy shoes



I also bought a pair of shoes at BCBG that are pointy but they totally messed up there. They gave me a pair of mismatched shoes! I didn't think to check the sizes when I left nor did they check it when they rang me up. My left shoe is now bigger than the right. Grr.. I bought the shoes in Napa so going back isn't a possibility. I called them up the next day and they're going to send the shoes to the Great Mall store and I can go exchange for the correctly matched pair. Phew... The only bummer is that I now need to wait a week for them to transfer the shoes to the Great Mall.

Night of Gluttony

Tonight I'm going off my "diet" (not really a diet but promise to eat healthy) and I'm going back to the Lobster Shack. They got a fresh shipment in of seafood and that means I'm going to dine on fried Ipswich clams and oysters on the half shell. Mmm... I love lobster shack. The food is so incredibly fresh and I don't believe I've ever eaten sweeter scallops other than at that restaurant. All the seafood is flown in from the East Coast (Boston, Maine, etc) and everything is fresh, servings are amazing, and quality is outstanding.

I think I'll have died and gone to heaven after my gorging of clams and oysters tonight.

S&P Clucks

Over the weekend Ming and I went to Sur La Table and found the cutest salt and pepper shakers. They are ceramic chickens and I think they're adorable. They are now sitting on Ming's dinner table.

Shoes

I finally found a shoe that I like for my wedding but
1. It's Vera Wang -- I just had to go designer, didn't I?!
2. Store doesn't have my size



*sigh* I guess the quest must continue ... shoes, shoes, and more shoes.

Bacon

I have inexplicable craving for bacon. I wanted bacon when we went on our ski trip last weekend but, sadly, bacon cravings didn't get satisfied since we ended up eating Canadian Bacon, not true bacon. I'm contemplating going over to Mollie Stones and getting some of their thick cut bacon. Mmm .. Bacon is one of those things that I rarely crave and I eat once in a blue moon. A couple of nice, thick cut slices of bacon with buttermilk pancakes or in an egg biscuit sound so good right now.

It isn't even lunch and I'm already trying to figure out what I want for dinner tonight/breakfast tomorrow. >_<

Addicted

I have something to admit: I'm got an addiction. I am addicted to watching 24 and Desperate Housewives. Both shows have got me completely hooked. I just finished watching all of season 1 of DH and I'm religiously hooked on FOX on Mondays at 9pm. I spent the better part of my day reading the synopses for all episodes of season 2 of DH. There is no stopping this insanity. Gotta get my fix in >_<

My crack addiction will end when the season ends, thankfully.

Pet Peeves

Today I started reading over someone else's code and realized that one of my biggest pet peeves is misspellings. It really makes it hard to read someone else's work when there are many words that are wrong. I wish people were more diligent and made sure that their submitted work had gone through a spell checker. Grr. You'd think that professionals would have pride in their own work to be able to send the sucker through the spell checker. Honestly, how hard is it to spell? It's something that has been ingrained in us since grade school.

Sick ... again!

I don't know how I managed to do it but I got myself sick, again! I've now been sick 3x this winter season, all within about 1-2 weeks of one another. I would have thought that I'd have built up anti-bodies by now to defend myself but those germies are better than my body is at defending itself. *sigh* I hope this bout of sickness doesn't last long.

24

Last season of 24 was amazing. It was a really good season and so far this season promises to be just as good. The season premiere (4 hrs) left me on tenter hooks and as long as they get rid of the weanie president (totally spineless man) then I'll be happy. =)

Back From Taiwan

I'm back from the holidays and I had a blast. Taiwan was so pretty. I went to the non-industrialized part of the island and it was very pretty. Met many of Ming's relatives and they were all so nice. Here's a small sampling of my photos...


River in Kaoshiung




I can fly!








Fanta with a moo moo print and lots of yummy food for lunch.


The 'woot woot' bridge






This was my home for the past few days. The bus is festive -- red and green


Our very awesome hotel room.


They gave us a plasma tv in the hotel. That's nicer than my tv at home!

Preparation for Taiwan

Tomorrow I leave for Taiwan for the Christmas holidays. I'll be there for 10 days and it'll be nothing but non-stop meeting Ming's family. There'll be 100+ people there and I'm bound to forget names and faces when bombarded with that many all at once.

Tonight I've spent the night packing and trying to make sure that I've got everything. Since I'm meeting most of these people (the Wu clan -- even though they aren't technically Wus) for the first time, I've got to look more spiffy than usual. *sigh* Ransacked the closet trying to find proper spiffy, winter attire and it's such a tedious and time consuming process. Everytime I pack for a trip I come back to the same conclusion: I really will probably end up paying someone some day to do my packing for me since I loathe it so much. O.o

I'm excited to go to Taiwan but, at the same time, a little trepidacious since I've got to be in Cindy-best-behavior mode. Each day in Taiwan will be packed full of activity and there won't be much downtime. I'm hopeful since I've been told I get (nearly) one day of shopping time. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up some trinkets for myself and for gifts to bring back home.

I hope everyone has a merry Christmas. Drink lots of spiked egg nog and go kiss under the mistletoe!

See you in the new year!!

Christmas Season is Upon Us

Since it is December now it is officially X-mas time. The incessant Christmas songs on the radio and Christmas decorations in the stores can finally have a purpose. I started Christmas shopping yesterday and it looks like this season is going to be harder than most. Since I'll be in Taiwan I need to get my gifts earlier than later. *sigh* I guess I can't procrastinate this season as I have in past ones. On the bright side, I can buy some x-mas gifts in Taiwan since my family will also be away for Christmas. ^_^

Post Tryptophan

Thanksgiving went extremely well. We made 2 turkeys and everyone gobbled them up, no pun intended. We BBQed the turkeys and they turned out better than I could have expected. The turkey was so good and I didn't get enough of it so I plan to make more this weekend. O.o Call me crazy but I haven't had too much turkey yet so this weekend's plans include more BBQ turkey. I hope we don't get rained out b/c the weather has been extremely temperamental lately .. good for boarding but bad for BBQ-ing.

2008 Olympic Mascots

China is hosting the Olympics for 2008. *bleh* Can't say I'm happy about hearing that nor supportive. They unveiled the mascots:


I don't like them. The mascots had such a good opportunity to be cute characters and now they look like ... knock off type characters. They remind me of the look alike characters that you find in Chinatown all the time. They're the same style of drawing as the wannabe Snoopy or something. *sigh* I would have looked forward to buying some Olympics memorabilia (despite my feelings over China) because the symbols sounded cute enough: fish, panda, olympic flame, Tibetan antelope, and swallow. I thought they'd be cute. Ugh. Boy how wrong I was. Just goes to show how China can take cute things and give it their on spin.

Hello Kitty at Neiman's

Neiman's now has Hello Kitty items for sale. Can you believe that Hello Kitty has now gone high ticket?

An adorable Hello Kitty® watch glittering with diamonds and a pink sapphire bloom.

• Pink alligator strap.
• Stainless steel case.
• Mother-of-pearl dial.
• Pavé diamonds, 1.6 total carat weight.
• Pink sapphire flower.
• Imported.

New Toys

Playmobil - Security Check Point



They definitely did not have this toy when I was a kid!

amazon link

Honeymoon location set!

Ming and I have finally decided where we're going for our honeymoon: Nuevo Vallarta. It's right outside of Puerto Vallarta and it's nicer and newer than Puerto Vallarta. We're going to stay at Grand Velas. It's an all-inclusive resort that offers beverages and food around the clock. They even have a pillow menu!!! O.o

Oy vey

Trust me to have the most expensive tastes .. I went dress shopping over the weekend and I happened to fall in love with the dress that is 4x more than what I was hoping to spend. The dress that I like is below:

The picture doesn't do the gown justice. The gown totally sparkles all over the place and, the most important part, I look so pretty in it. *sigh* Unfortunately, the dress is way out of the budget and I've got to find something else that doesn't break the piggy bank. x_x