today was a very chill day. i woke up around 10am, and that is actually considered sleeping in for me. oh, saturday...how much i appreciate weekends now.

since i still have some meat and veggies in the fridge, i've decided to cook for lunch and dinner today.

lunch: fried sea bass with ginger/ green onion topped with soy sauce. leftover straw mushroom, black fungus and pork dish from last night. on-choy stir-fry. 

with the above, i cooked two cups of rice, which should last us for both lunch and dinner.

i've never cooked sea bass before, so today, it wasn't cooked all the way. i didn't flip it because the meat looked like it was going to fall apart if i flip it over in the pan. so with the meat looking all loose, i thought it was done already. oh wells. what's good about cooking fish is...if it's still a bit raw, put it in the microwave for a minute and it'll be a-ok!

farmville and cafe world. yes, i'm back to playing these facebook games. eh, it keeps me relaxed i guess. while playing the games, i could get my legs massaged with the machine Marco put under the desk. yay for OSIM leg massager! we're so crazy about OSIM. we currently own about four items from them: leg massager, waist twister, back massager, and head massager. lately, i'm thinking about going to Tai Mall to check out OSIM's eye massager since my eyes are really tired lately. i believe my vision has gone bad again. some words are a bit blurry when i look at them. dammit, back to contact lens again? possible.

while cooking lunch, i also started making the curry for tonight's meal. this time, i've added more onion and potatoes due to Marco's request. i still put a lot of carrots in there for my own sake. yay carrots!

after lunch, i vacuumed the entire house with my new vacuum cleaner! dyson dc26. we went to B&Q yesterday to buy clothes hangers and i saw the dyson vacuum cleaners. after seeing helen buy hers back in october, i really wanted one for myself. i LOVE vacuum cleaners that are super powerful. it's a weird fetish, but gosh, i just adore them, what can i do? the guy told me dc26 just came out with a new color, hot pink. yeah, so me! i was looking at the allergy one, which is dc22 allergy. it's about NT$2000 more, but it does look bigger and heavier. besides, we don't have carpets so we don't need one that's more powerful. all dysons are powerful...so dc26 works. oh, and only dc26 has the hot pink color. the guy even gave us a hard wood floor brush as a freebie! score! i used the mattress head to vacuum our mattress and the soft brush head to vacuum our sofa. yay for all the awesome heads!

in the afternoon, i've decided to take the dogs out to the department stores by the train station: FE & Shinkong Mistukoshi. Marco wanted me to return this puffy jacket from Levis and the dogs had to get a bigger size for the new clothes i got them from a random stall between the department stores. i actually did pretty well today, didn't buy anything for myself. well, at least not clothes. i did go back to the honey place in FE to buy their honey milk nougat...it was soooooo freakin' good. i also got the honey ice cream. yippy! so close to buying new skirts and dresses from 0918 though...good thing i controlled myself. after my shopping spree last week, i really need to stop. 

i started getting hungry and craving for my delicious curry, so i went home around 6pm. the curry was awesome!!! so perfect. you know, i don't want to brag, but i do make the best curry! after dinner, i finished taking pictures of my shoes and bags. it's been something i wanted to do for a while. it's nice to be able to look at my collection in a glance. i do have too many shoes and bags though. i need to slowly get away from this habit of buying shoes and bags. *sigh* 

it is starting to get cold, so i made a lavender bath tonight. while taking a hot bath, you must drink water so you don't dehydrate, so i made a cup of blueberry vinegar drink. yum! it's a weird combination, but i need the vinegar in my body. i've been eating too much meat lately and i need the vinegar to balance out my blood's ph.

I took my two babies out for a walk this morning, both of them on leashes. We were on the first floor and the elevator came. Two men were inside with a trolley, but they made room for us and pushed the "open" button to let us in. I walked in, and then the doors closed...yes, the button malfunctioned. Both dogs were left outside but I still have the leashes on the inside. I let go right away, but here is the problem: Mochi's leash was normal, so it slipped through and went to the other side. However, Pika's leash was the one that is retractable, so even though I let go, it would still pull on Pika because we were going up already. I was crying out so loud "my dog, my dog!!!"...wanting them to stop the elevator while freaking out because I'm imagining Pika being pulled up on the other side towards the ceiling on the first floor and probably choking to death. We had to go up to the fifth floor first because going down because that "5" button was already pressed. On the way down to the first floor, I was so dizzy and crying so hard...I was so afraid of what happened to both dogs. The doors opened and they weren't there. I ran outside and saw them both in the courtyard. You have no idea how happy I was they were both okay. The leash broke off of Pika...but I'm pretty sure there was some struggle on her side against the force of the elevator. 

Of course, I took Pika to the doctor right away and had her checked out. The doctor said there's some redness around her neck due to the pulling of the leash, but her joints seem to be okay. I have to keep a close eye on her though because sometimes the dog's respiratory is damaged from being tugged too hard by a leash. 

I'm so glad she was okay. I haven't felt this shocked and scared for a long time. I'm very thankful my baby is alive.

feelings for someone is such a weird thing

someone you spend three years with
you can stop having feelings for that person in...two months.

someone you've only spend two weeks with
your heart still skips a beat when you see their pictures, what they're up to, etc.

till this day, you still don't know what exactly about this person that attracted your attention so much.

can you...
have feelings for one person but not love him?
love someone but no longer have feelings for him?

i've always thought...you love, you have feelings...these two are parallel.
now...no idea what they are.

any idea?

it sucks to grow up. things don't make sense like they used to.

After over six months of looking around and speaking with interior designers...we have finally settled with one. You know, shopping around for the right designer for you was quite tedious. It took way longer than I planned to find one, but hey, I am spending a good amount on the new house so "that'll do" will not cut it. So yeah...YAY...they'll start all the big construction this week and it'll be ready in 1.5 month!

ORDER is the name of the company. Their main thing is making closets and cabinets, but they also offered free interior decorating...so we tried them out. Turned out, they were really helpful and was able to keep us closer to our budget than the other designers.

I'll TRY to take pictures throughout the construction period so you all can see what it's like to get your house all gussied up. Haha.

I haven't written in this thing in so long. That's what happens when you get older...less time for writing.

Guess who came to Taiwan and I got to meet up with this friend?

Sharon Cheng!

She is currently in Taiwan with her parents and we met up on Friday to hang out! Our first date in Taiwan. Fun!

First we went to PAUL, my favorite bakery, for some snacks. It was a warm afternoon and we had two desserts - yum! We had macaroons, but we weren't sure if they're the same macaroons as the U.S...tasted a bit different.

Anyways, I took Sharon bra-shopping after wandering around for a while. Wacoal it was! It is probably one of my favorite brands...next to Triumph. I got to see Sharon in her bra...but so did the sales lady. No big deal really. Fun times. Bra shopping in Taiwan is awesome.

For dinner, we went to Very Thai Restaurant (weird name, I know). Irene and her boyfriend, Elvis, joined us. I know, his name is really Elvis. You know how crazy Taiwanese are. Geez, my cousins named themselves Peach, Bubble...yeah, I don't get it either. The food was good, but the cocktail choices were limited. They only had Mojito. So what did we do? We went across the hall to Chili's and ordered three margaritas pre-dinner. Yeah!!! When we went back to Very Thai when the table was ready, we each ordered a Mojito. Too bad the mojito was too sweet.

After dinner, we went to Room 18. We were planning to go to Spark @ 101 at first, but we heard the cover was NT$1000, so there goes that plan. Room 18's cover was $700 and that covered two drinks...so hey, why not. Our bartender was cool and gave us good service. Grey Goose shot w/ cranberry juice for chaser. It was not enough for me, so we went back and got a shot of Absinthe. I've never had that...and boy, that thing was strong. 67% alcohol?!?! We might as well be drinking just rubbing alcohol. The taste was a bit minty, so I guess it was better than rubbing alcohol. Our stomaches were churning after that shot and dancing actually helped!

Left the club at 2am-ish...and that wrapped our night!

Thanks Sharon for calling me to meet up. It was fun!

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.