US Trip Log

9/3: Arrived in San Francisco and had dinner with Darren and Cin @ Fat Wong's - yummy porridge!!

9/4: Left Suisun for Disneyland! 11-hour drive to LA with a very tiring scavenger hunt. Breakfast at Andersen's Pea Soup Restaurant and dinner at Cheesecake Factory.

9/5: Disneyland from 9:15am to 11:00pm. Hot and tiring. But, it was great celebrating with WAFFLE friends.

9/6: California Adventure. I rode Tower of Terror for the first time and it was great! I've always wanted to ride that ride. Drove back to Suisun and the drive was less than 11 hours. Thank goodness!

9/7: Lunch at Applebee's and afternoon at the outlets. Dinner at Mommy's.

9/8: Winery - V. Sattui and Consentino. Breakfast at Bab's by Suisun Marina and a bird landed on me while I was eating. Because of that, I knocked the syrup onto the ground. Dinner at Ella's with Joy and Marielle - very interesting cuisine. Tuna Tartare was good but not with so many mint leaves. Tomato soup is not good with parsley juice because it made it too bitter. Oh yeah, and that tall waitress at the restaurant...so tall!!!

9/9: Lunch at Korean BBQ Restaurant next to Porn Shop by the base. Dinner in Berkeley with FoodWhores in which Tony finally showed up. FIVE is the restaurant and the food was FABULOUS!!! Great choice, Phuoc! The Lamb and Duck we ordered were really delicious!!! I want to go back! Anyways, good get together with college friends. Afterwards, we went to Music Tunnel (five of us...but it was still fun) and sang for two hours. I love having Jeff with us...only he could rap. Haha.

9/10: Day in SF! Rode the BART into SF from Ashby Bart. Rode the Trolley from Powell to Hyde Street by Fishermen's Wharf. Lunch at Lou's something Restaurant and it wasn't good. Hit Pier 39 and Coit Tower afterwards. If you ever want to go to Coit Tower, take Bus 39 by Fishermen's Wharf...it takes you straight up. We took Bus 10 to these "Stairs to Coit Tower" and it almost killed me. Damn stairs. Then we walked up the steep hill from Hyde St. to Lombard St...the view was beautiful! Dinner in Berkeley and that includes Arinell's Pizza (neopolitan with garlic and mushrooms) and Top Dog's Lemon Chicken. YUM!!! Oh, no picture with Camp cuz it's under construction.

9/11: Drove to Golden Gate Bridge and it was misty!! We couldn't see anything. We even drove to the other side to get better views (which it was better). Late lunch at Spinnaker in Sausalito (overprized okay food). It's okay, we had dinner at Mangarosa that night and Phuoc was right, the Pumpkin Shrimp was awesome! We also had their gnocchi and it was DELICIOUS! I really recommend it...it was so good and different.

9/12: Discovery Kingdom with Ant, Cherry, Paulo and Jeff (not Seastrom). I missed rollercoasters!! I loved Medusa...but omg, ROAR is not smooth like before (I got so many whiplashes). Their rip roaring rapid ride is evil and got me super wet...damn you waterfalls! It was a fun day with fun people though. The shows were awesome...Go Shouka!!!

9/13: Due to the last three days and us not wearing a lot of clothing, we got sick. So on this day, we stayed home and slept...took medicines and slept more. No food for  us today except Chicken Noodle Soup.

More later...cuz I'm tired.

Almost got a ticket in Taiwan

I was driving in DanShui yesterday and making a left turn at a stop light. The left side, there are two streets - with an island in the middle. Normally, when you make a left, you would assume you have to make a left to the street on the right side of the island, right?!?! Well, I did that. When I turned into that road, I saw the marks and they were going the opposite direction! WTF?!?!!?! I looked and found out I was suppose to go on the left side of the island. It was round 7pm at this time and there wasn't good lighting on this street. Anyways, a cop on a scooter came up in front of my car and told me to stop. He asked for my license (at this time, I was like shit, I'm driving Helen's car and my Int'l DL is in my car)...so I just casually took out my CA license. He was like...ummm, where is your Taiwan DL? I was like, this is my license, and there's a Int'l one that comes with it but I forgot to bring it. He then went on about how I can exchange my Int'l DL for a Taiwan DL at a "Taiwan DMV" place. I looked all confused...and was like, okay...I didn't know...blah blah blah. In the end, he let me go.

Thank goodness I speak Chinese like a foreigner.

He took a look at Marco while talking to me and probably thought he didn't speak Chinese, so didn't bother talking to him. Haha.

Okay, glad I got out of that one. I need to find my Int'l DL.

Alice - no appetite?

Seriously...I have no appetite for anything lately. I get hungry, but I don't know what to eat. Sometimes, I have these cravings, but when I actually eat the food, it felt..."eh."

What is wrong with me?

This past weekend went by really fast. Marco and I drove around Taipei on Saturday after work running errands. On Sunday, we attempted to take the dogs to the park near us...but there was a crazy freako who kept screaming, and the police came...so we left. We did try some ice cream moon cakes at our building's lobby and bought some for Autumn Festival.

Yup, almost moon cake time! No milk powder problems this year, so customs should not be that strict, right? I want to bring some moon cakes for Mommy...she is the only one who really appreciates that stuff. Haha.

It's the month where ghosts and spirits all come out. Everyday I see people burning paper money, putting out the food to feed the spirits, and praying. Let's just say this is a bad month to visit Taiwan because the air quality sucks from all the burning. Oh, and the mountain by our house was burning last week as well. When I came home, there were these ashes in my kitchen.

Oh man, I cannot wait to move to the new house. I won't talk to the interior decorator until January after CES, but man...how exciting this is!

I Love Curry

We went to a curry place for lunch today. For Gueishan Town, this place's curry is actually pretty good. The price is okay - (NT$140-170 per plate) and it comes with soup or drink!

It has been a while since I cooked curry myself. I need to find a time to do that because my curry is actually yummy! That is like the only thing I can cook that tastes decent. What can I say, I am not a housewife...my cooking skills is a 2 on a scale of 1-10.

Some time before I leave for California, I want to go get my bangs permed. It is just a bit annoying trying to blowdry it the right way. Some days look fine and some days look horrible. Maybe the stylist could cut it to the side. I'm really not feeling the full-on bang bang look. I'm also thinking about straightening my hair. Maybe after my US trip...

After lunch, we saw a model home near the restaurant so we checked it out. The place has four bedrooms and it's near an Elementary and a Middle School. We're actually looking at houses for his brother because they are thinking about moving to a bigger house. Since housing prices are rocket high in Taipei right now, they've decided to look around Taoyuan. Currently, the houses around their home (Banqiao) are super expensive. For the house I've just purchased in Taoyuan, I could only buy one half the size in Taipei. How sucky, huh?

Going to get a facial tonight. Blackheads...be prepared to be removed!

Relaxing Saturday

This past Saturday, I slept in and woke up at 10:30am. It felt so nice. Then Marco and I had cinnamon toast waffles for brunch. Since my period is here, I drank a cup of warm black sugar tea to prevent any unwanted pains.

The rest of the afternoon was spent doing random chores around the house and watching TV while Marco was playing with the computer (downloading etc.). We went to Tai Mall around 4pm to eat an early dinner and then watched G.I. Joes! I was going to use my movie coupons, but G.I. Joes is still too new...BOO!!! Oh wells. I wanted to watch My Sister's Keeper but I figured that is probably something Marco would not be interested in. This is probably a movie I would watch with my girl friends.

G.I. Joes was okay. It was exciting. I never watched the cartoons, so I watched it from a first-timer's point-of-view. The good thing is, I was never bored. Yay! My favorite character is Scarlett - she is so pretty and awesome!

Oh, for dinner, we went to Casa de Pasta - a new restaurant on the 6th floor. The food...eh. It was alright. I definitely had better pastas at other places. What else could I expect though? It's a restaurant in a mall. There are a bunch of other restaurants that are new on the 6th floor...I'll explore each one of them eventually. Something tells me that none of them will be extravagant though.

Oh...I remember now! We cleaned the house before we left for Tai Mall! Yup, Marco and I mopped the floors. It has been a long time since we did that...so the house felt sooooo spankin' clean afterwards.