i want some cha siu bao....

Vancouver for the first time

On Saturday on my first trip to Seattle, we headed down to Vancouver. We were supposed to have left on Friday night, but then we got lazy and decided there's no point in going so late, so the plan was to go on Saturday morning. Morning soon turned too noon and we didn't leave until 11:30pm. Totally not accounting for the traffic on the road, we didn't get to Vancouver until 2:30! The whole way there, i was whining about how the aquarium is going to close and we were going to miss it (In case anyone is wondering, there was no line at the border and customs was very sweet). That's me at Stanley Park on the right.

We got to Stanley Park at around 3pm and took a tour of the aquarium....was totally not disappointed. I love aquariums, I totally wish I snuck to the Baltimore aquarium when I was right next to it. Regret of my life!

Anyway, the aquarium closed at 5pm and we got there at 3 so we had two hours to go around, which was sufficient for a good quick tour. We were just on time for the beluga show, but it wasn't that interesting. We skipped the dolphin show. I'm such a bore.

There were a lot of interesting marine life going on in the aquarium but the best one by far, unanimous vote between me and adam, is the jellyfish!!!! We got to see the entire life cyle and everything. Here are some of the images. Reserving the rest for facebook :P

Here's a picture of me standing in the middle of a tank. I fought for that spot with a 5 year old girl. The little tour around the tank gave me muscle pains since i couldnt stand upright and there was nothing in that tank. Served me right!

After the aquarium closed, we were gonna walk around Stanley Park for 2 hours, but as usual, our perception of time never hits dead on: we walked for 20 minutes instead of 2 hours. Our excuse was that we were afraid to venture too far because we were not in the right gear and we didnt want to get lost, but really, we all know it's the lazy factor.

We headed for Ben and Yvonne's in the evening to drop off our stuff and we all went out for dinner. The place Adam wanted to go was walking distance, but they told us no seats until 9pm. We ended up finding a random rotating sushi place and had some beer (well and a bit of sushi). Ben gave us a quick tour of downtown vancouver after dinner and we headed back to his place for some cranium and margarita! I found out that night that i can no longer drink tequila without reverting back to the state i was in at fed in sept.

I shall take this opportunity to thank Ben and Yvonne for their hospitality...Ben's the good looking guy in the pic. The not good looking guy is Adam.


And after a nice brunch at Milestone's, Adam and I headed back to Seattle. The Customs dude was really sweet too!

Big Night Out to the Space Needle

Thursday night was a big night out for us. Adam took me on my first tour of Microsoft and we went to see Lake Bill....which is really a pond. The campus is huge and really pretty, and by Lake Bill was a family of geese, which made me feel like:
1. home (cdn and all)
2. msft is a family oriented institute
of course, this was all an illusion, because msft is really just a big cult that sucks ppl in, chews on them, and spits them out. I've been bugging Ju about getting me a job there.

For those who don't know, the space needle looks like this:

This is me inside the souvenir shop at the bottom of the space needle. They were selling space needle noodles for a ridiculous price, but not as ridiculous as the pepper grounder next to me for $110.



It's apparently a lot smaller than the CN tower, but the inside is beautiful. We were seated in a seat that faces the window and like 360, the platform rotates so you can view the entire city at night. Too bad the food there was no good.

Night out with Ju

I got to see Ju twice on my trip.
The first night was the day after i arrived. He lovingly paid for dinner at Tap House Grill (the food there was aweeeesome) and then we went apartment hopping in his building. Unfortunately, all the people we know in that building lived in the same corner suite on different floors (except for Jesse who got the..uh..excuse my language, retard suite)..hahaha.

The second time was on Monday when I visited him at his building and brought him lunch. His office is huge, and his building is like 3452345235 times better than adam's. But all in all, it was a lovely lunch.

Unfortunately, I only have pictures of the first night cuz only adam likes to carry around a camera and snap away. The picture on the top is the two of us at tap house grill. (Don't) notice my hair - it only looks good the first day i style it. sleep on it and poof...i look like i just got off the boat. The picture below is ju in his apartment, notice the painting of him and his afro :P

Seattle Quick Summary

I got back from Seattle this afternoon.
My mom asked me if it was fun, and this was the blurb I told her:
"Umm, I had to work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Saturday, we drove down to Vancouver, saw Stanley Park and the aquarium, came back on Sunday, went to a crappy Premium Outlet and bought nothing, and I went on the MSFT campus on Monday and Tuesday, and that was about it."


Ok, fine, we did other stuff too, like went out with Ju on Wednesday night and did apartment hopping (basically going through every unit of his building and checking out random coop's units....). On Thursday night, we went to the Space Needle. On Friday night we went pub crawling. On Sunday night, we went out for Indian food and a tour of UDub. On Monday night, we celebrated Adam's bday at Rock Salt Seafood.

Since Adam has all the pics, i guess i'll post some as we go....stupid adam. The picture you see is a pic of the floating bridge in seattle. they apparently have bridges that float right above the water. As you descend down to the bridge, sunshine reflects off the water...Seattle is amazingly beautiful and insanely green. If only there were more to do.

Image below pretty much sums up seattle for you...

Flying to Seattle

After a nice lunch with Nick at Cora's yesterday (for once there was no lineup; apparently the key is to go on a weekday at 2pm..haha), he dropped me off at Pearson where I waited for 2 hours before getting on the flight. I think I somewhat count as a frequent flyer now since I have flown to Baltimore once, DC twice, NYC once, Sacramento once, LA once, and all over China, HK, and Taiwan in the last year or so. The customs guy was pretty awesome. I had to fill out a form that specified where I would be staying in the states and I had no idea where Adam lives. The conversation went like this:

"Where are you going?"
"Seattle"
"What are you doing there?"
"Visiting my Boyfriend in Seattle, he's doing an internship at Microsoft"
"Where will you be living" points to the empty address box.
"At my boyfriend's house, but i dont know his address."
"Are you sure you're not staying at a hotel?"
"No...at my boyfriend's house...it's just that he's picking me up at the airport and driving me there so I don't know the address...."
"Are you sure you're not staying at a hotel?"
"Oh! Er..yes, I'll be staying at a hotel!" takes the form from him and writes in Hyatt.
"Does that say Hyatt?"
"Yes" embarrassing smile.
"Have a good trip."

The guy at the security check was also pretty cool. After my stuff went through the X-ray, he pointed my sealed ziplock bag of my perfume and moisturizer under 100mL each and asked me if it was my bin. I hesitantly said yes, thinking to myself whether i had gotten the 100mL wrong but he gave me a thumbs up, a wink, and said, "NICE!"

The flight was delayed, as per usual. I was standing next to a couple who were clad in LV. Except for the dude's jeans, they were polo. I stare too much.

I saw two movies (i still can't get over how great the AC personal TVs are). The first was 27 dresses and the second was P.S. I Love You. I cried from the beginning to the end for the latter movie. The flight attendant who came by serving drinks gave me a wad of tissue. How embarrassing. There's also an outlet below the seats for plugging in electronic devices. I take back what I said about AC when I lost my luggage, they're pretty awesome (though I hope I didnt speak too soon).

Arrived at Seattle at 8:30pm-ish and it was too dark to see anything. By the time we got some takeouts and got back in, it was almost midnight, which is like 3am on the East Coast. This jet lag is no fun.

More on Seattle itself later.
And a picture for those who have been calling my hair fobby: it's soa not!

Ex-Fairytale

I was watching a Taiwanese show the other day and they were interviewing this celebrity in Taiwan who had revealed in another interview that he rips all the letters and cards he receives from his girlfriends right after he reads them. This revelation generated a wave of responses, mostly negative of course. People everywhere felt offended and called him cold-hearted, stone-hearted, etc. The interviewer asked him about his thoughts on the responses and his defense was that there's no reason to keep those type of things. He claims that he's pretty smooth about it when he does it. First of all, he rips it in front of the girlfriend, so not behind her back, and he tells her that he already remembers what was written in his heart.

Setting aside the questionable defense of "ripping" the items, as opposed to just tossing them out, as well as the believability of his cheesiness working on his girlfriends, his fundamental rationale is not without merit. What do you do with stuff like love letters and cards your ex's give you? What happens when you get involved in a new relationship? At what point in your life is it legitimate for you to be re-reading them and reminiscing?

I keep all my old things. I have cards and letters dating back to grade 1 or something, from anyone. I rarely go back to read them, especially the ones that are written by classmates on Valentine's day or bdays that just says "Happy whatever occasion". But are you allowed to throw the material proof of these sentiments out? They were thoughtful at the time of the exchange, but do we need to store the cards to remind us the worth of the sentiments they represent?

I don't really have an answer to that, and I think for the most part, people only throw them out after a while. Some people even have timelines: after 3 months, 6 months, 1 year of receiving them, or once they're past the point of celebration, such as Christmas cards. Once the objects have attained their values worth, they go in the trash bin. There are of course, many who will opt to keep ones with thoughtful and loving messages from special people and throw out the rest.

But keeping stuff from special people like friends you get to keep forever and like family whose ties you can't sever is easy? What do we do with Ex's material? I remember the last time I went through some of my old ex stuff and with some I think "wow, i can't believe how naive and immature we were" and with some i think "wow, that was so bs, i can't believe i didnt see through that" and then wonder to myself, really, what is the value in keeping these things?

The other day, I was in Adam's basement and I saw a corner full of pictures of his ex-girlfriend and a homemade postal board Christmas card with pics of them and loving words all over from her ex-girlfriend. He put them there cuz he doesnt know what to do with them. I looked at the stuff she made for him and i told him i thought she was very sweet. He responded with sad shrug and said, "Yeah, things were good in the beginning, but then eventually everything changed."

So really, in the end, the card with all those loving sentiments just became a sad reminder of how unreal your present reality can be. You may think that at this moment you love each other and want to be with each other forever, but one day, the feelings get lost, they fade, they change, and then everything you said in the past can no longer be held true. At that point, what do you do with those words and those thoughts? Their materialization--are they kept as a reminder of how much you were loved at one point or are they a reminder of how untrustworthy reality can be?

I haven't figured out an answer yet for this either, and at the moment, i still retain all my old momento. I'm secretly glad there weren't that many photos in frames to be kept around. Letters to be stored in a box is one thing, photos in big frames are another. I remember having the prom pic of me and brad up in my room and how uncomfortable that made mike. I put it away throughout our relationship and it resurfaced after. My excuse is that it's not about the relationship i revere, but about my childhood, my prom, my friends, and it holds true. But if you ask me what i would do with the frame and picture if it was not about prom, I have no idea. Maybe take it out and put it in another shoebox.

Nevertheless, all that previous rambling is really a preamble to the real question that I really want to figure out...should I be writing cards and making photo collages to show someone how much i love him? Do I want to be another ex-girlfriend one day who sits in the corner of someone's basement reminding him of his failed love? The cynic in me says that there is no reason i need to materialize my feelings. If we stay together, then the love is self-evident; and if we are not, then it would save us both the pain from memory. But the little girl that got buried a lot deeper wants to believe that, some day, these will become the proof that fairy tales do exist.

Let's hope I'm not wrong, for all of us.

My new do

every time i show a pic to a hairdresser, i get something completely different
every time i cut my hair, i say, im going to keep it long after this

and lo and behold:

I hate driving

The tire blew on my car today. It kinda looks like the pic on the left
As I was exiting hwy 85, on the on-ramp of hwy 8, i had to pull over on the side of bridge where cars were going at over 100km/hr.
It was the back left side, so it was pretty close to the road and i was at loss for what to do.
it wasn't like just a flat tire, but it blew to pieces.
After 20 minutes of calling around (to no avail really since we dont have CAA and everyone i know is in toronto) this guy in a white pontiac sunbird pulled over behind me to help me.

His name is Jesse, about early 30s, white, dressed in a shirt and tie. He told me to move the car closer to the side and he parked about 50m behind me closer to the lane so cars will see his car first and then he put on a bright orange raincoat, took the jack out of his car, and changed my tire to the spare. While he was changing it, he told me that he volunteers with the police force, mainly with the job of telling people something had happened to their family/friend.

"It's a hard job, but somebody's gotta do it," he says. He was dressed up nicely cuz he actually just had to do that. He also told me he's pretty used to helping ppl changing tires, the definition of a good Samaritan.I was very worried about his safety the whole time, due to the proximity of him to the road and the speed of the oncoming traffic; but the whole time he kept telling me to keep myself to the right so i dont get hit.

"People can see my bright orange jacket, but they can't see your green!" Honestly, I dont know what i would have done without him. I thought about just calling CAA myself but then i didnt even have a phone number. Another 5 minutes and i would have called the operator for a tow truck number, in spite of the cost. I'm so grateful for his help. I was so lucky to run into him like that.

I ended up driving no more than 80km/h on the way back (the spare tells me i shall not for any reason exceed 80k). I had my warning lights on, as he told me, and it took me forever to get home. It was one painful night. It was the scariest when i was on the contruction sites (which was like half the trip!). I was going at 40-50k on the right lane and the car kept swerving right and left. At one point, i was surrounded by three trucks and i really thought i was gonna die. I didn't get home until 10pm and i left at around 6:30pm. driving at 60-80 and watching cars swish by me is a lot scarier than i thought.

The irony is that i was gonna go switch the tires tomorrow. Remind me never to listen to my mom again.

How I spent my last 3 weeks

It's been a while since i posted an entry. things have been pretty hectic and i've been short on time.

To start, I had a few papers due in the month of April, the last being a 20 page research essay due on Friday, April 25th. I had to finish the stuff before Wednesday however, as I work from Wednesday to Friday.

Friday (25th), after work, I came back to my apartment in Toronto and packed EVERYTHING

Saturday (26th) was moving day. I had put everything in garbage bags because i figured it would make the process of moving a lot faster since I wanted to go to Jay and Anne's birthday at Sultan's Tent on Saturday night. Nevertheless, it still didn't work out. After loading everything into the van and driving down to waterloo, then moving all my things up three flights of stairs into the new place in loo, it was already 4pm. What was even worse was that we still had to go to our old place in loo and PACK. By the time we moved everything into the new place, it was 10pm and we didnt get back to Toronto until 11pm. Not fun.

Sunday (27th) and Monday (28th), I had to finish off the docs that are due for a release by the end of the week for work. I'm so used to working on non-working days now.

Tuesday (29th) to Saturday (3rd) was spent in Boston. Adam flew off to Seattle on Saturday morning. By the time we got back to Toronto, it was almost midnight and we hurried to Danny's birthday to say happy birthday for about 30 minutes before we all went home and passed out.

Sunday (4th) , I got back to Waterloo and began unpacking. Everything was in garbage bags and I had to unpack each and every one of them. Class on Monday (5th) morning from 9am to 4pm and then more unpacking.

Anyway, in case anyone cares, here's a pic of the new room:



Today was spent doing household things like getting the hydro hooked up, talking to the property manager about cleaning the house and then supervising the people that are moving all the garbage leftover from the last tenants out.

The reason I had to supervise was because apparently the property manager had already gotten people to come by three times while I was in Boston to clean the place. Because there were stuff everywhere and the girl who already moved in didn't coordinate the cleaning properly, they couldn't do the cleaning they were supposed to. The one time they did come in to clean, they tossed out all my toiletry that i left in the washroom. According to Trisha, she told the cleaners that we wanted to keep the stuff in the bathroom but they tossed everything out anyway (well except for her stuff cuz she moved her own stuff in her room to be safe..)

At any rate, those people had thrown out a bunch of my things that are brand new. So far, I have discovered that they threw out:

• a five pack toothbrush unopened packaging
  
• 2.5 tubes of toothepaste (two of which are brand new unopened)
  
• my rinsing cup
  
• my razor (the expensive type)
  
• MY HAIRDRYER
  
• 36 pack toilette paper
  
• 200 Qtips in a box
  
• 1.5 bottles of liquid handsoap (one of which is unopened)
  
• 4 bottles of shampoo (two of which were HUGE bottles imported by me from TW)
  
• nailpolish
  
• 2 bottles of shower gel
  
• my loofah
  
• my piercing disinfectant

I'm discovering more things lost as the days go by. I am so mad.
Thus, i had to supervise the cleaning out this time to ensure that they don't throw out things that we actually own and want to keep, such as Elvin's mini fridge.

I'm leaving for Seattle for a week on Tuesday to visit Adam. I already have a ton of reading assigned from yesterday and taking out Wed-Fri working days, I have Sat-Sun to finish my readings and run a bunch of errands before I go off.

I had thought to myself that i would have a ton of free time after Adam heads off to Seattle but now it looks like I'm just lying to myself. Between work and school, i really need to manage my time wisely when it comes to free time. Hopefully I'll still have some time to go to the beach and rollerblade and rock climb like last summer...we'll see =(

More about Boston later, maybe.

imissyousobadicanbarelybreathe