Jigna and Asayo came over tonight for a catch-up dinner at Rosebud and to pick up their bridesmaid dresses, which arrived super early from Netbride (my favorite company in the world at this moment). Jigna also happened to bring over the Wii that she had bought a week ago so we could play some games. Man, it's sooooo addictive! We played every one of the Wii Sports games: tennis, boxing, baseball, golf and bowling. The energy these games require range from leisurely (bowling) to extremely tiring (boxing). So incredibly fun, particulary with a group of people. I do have to admit the graphics are pretty 1990's but the interaction of the controller with the games are pretty spectacular...and at $249, it's not a bad game system (considering the main competitors are $500+) So tempting to get one...
Matt's birthday was this past Wednesday and I surprised him by booking the Caché at Canlis---yum, that was a delicious meal! We completely indulged with things like: fois gras, seared scallops with white truffle oil, fresh oysters, muscovy duck breast, australian lobster tail, cranberry bread pudding and grand marnier soufflé. The food was all prepared beautiful and came out rather quickly. The room itself was romantic and intimate with a chaise lounge in the corner and a telescope to check out the incredible view that we had of Lake Union. What a great private dining experience!
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Hong Kong
Our 2 week trip to Hong Kong was really awesome. It can be summarized with: lots of food, tons of shopping, seeing relatives and visiting tourist sites. This was Matt's first time ever to Hong Kong---Asia even---so we knew we wanted to squeeze in some touristy visits in addition to showing him all the food and shopping that there is. Here are some of the highlights from the trip:
Food
We had a lot of food--mostly Chinese with the exception of 2 Japanese dinners and a random Italian lunch. Matt was exposed to eating things he'd never eaten---and, as he would say now "if you're ever thinking twice about becoming a vegetarian, come to Hong Kong and it'll almost make you be one!". Some samples of things we ate: pig lung, beef tongue, duck feet, chicken feet, congee every morning with chinese doughnuts, suckling pig (i love the skin), steamed fish, fresh shrimp, dim sum, shark's fin, turtle soup (tho' Matt refused to eat the actual turtle), pigeon...
One of the more memorable dinners in terms of a great view was when Matt and I ate at the Peak at a Japanese restaurant called Kyo Hachi. Not only was the food great but we had one of the best views in the city---here's a picture where the restaurant is reflected in the glass with the vista we had while dining:
Shopping
Hong Kong is a shopper's paradise, whether you want some Chanel or a $10 knockoff Manchester United soccer jersey. We went there with 2 suitcases that were each only barely packed. We came back with 4 suitcases fully packed full of knockoff shoes (i.e. Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton) and sample clothing (i.e. Burberry). We also got Matt's wedding tux, a suit and two cheongsams for me to wear for the wedding. Knockoff DVDs were everywhere and we snatched up titles like Babel, Pursuit of Happyness, Blood Diamond, Good Shepherd and Curse of the Golden Flower. We visited practically every street market: Ladies Market, Temple Street Market and Bowring St. Market which stay open til 11pm or midnight. There, we bargained for cheap clothing and tchotskys. Some of the knockoffs there were obvious (i.e. Matt got some Calvin Klein knockoff boxers that said "GK - Galvin Kravinthy").
Touristy sites
A lot of the Vegas casinos are starting to move in and change the overall casino landscape there---when my family last visited, the main casino was the Casino Lisboa, which is this smokey, tiny, sketchy casino full of prostitutes and smells of the Triad (and it's still like this today). Now, the Wynn just opened (and looks like a miniature version of the Vegas one with all the same restaurants and clubs) with MGM Grand and the Venetian coming soon. Casino Lisboa is in fact building a new location to compete with all the new ones coming into town.
Food
We had a lot of food--mostly Chinese with the exception of 2 Japanese dinners and a random Italian lunch. Matt was exposed to eating things he'd never eaten---and, as he would say now "if you're ever thinking twice about becoming a vegetarian, come to Hong Kong and it'll almost make you be one!". Some samples of things we ate: pig lung, beef tongue, duck feet, chicken feet, congee every morning with chinese doughnuts, suckling pig (i love the skin), steamed fish, fresh shrimp, dim sum, shark's fin, turtle soup (tho' Matt refused to eat the actual turtle), pigeon...
One of the more memorable dinners in terms of a great view was when Matt and I ate at the Peak at a Japanese restaurant called Kyo Hachi. Not only was the food great but we had one of the best views in the city---here's a picture where the restaurant is reflected in the glass with the vista we had while dining:
Shopping
Hong Kong is a shopper's paradise, whether you want some Chanel or a $10 knockoff Manchester United soccer jersey. We went there with 2 suitcases that were each only barely packed. We came back with 4 suitcases fully packed full of knockoff shoes (i.e. Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton) and sample clothing (i.e. Burberry). We also got Matt's wedding tux, a suit and two cheongsams for me to wear for the wedding. Knockoff DVDs were everywhere and we snatched up titles like Babel, Pursuit of Happyness, Blood Diamond, Good Shepherd and Curse of the Golden Flower. We visited practically every street market: Ladies Market, Temple Street Market and Bowring St. Market which stay open til 11pm or midnight. There, we bargained for cheap clothing and tchotskys. Some of the knockoffs there were obvious (i.e. Matt got some Calvin Klein knockoff boxers that said "GK - Galvin Kravinthy").
Touristy sites
Although I go back every two years, I still enjoy going to a lot of the touristy sites because of how beautiful it is. Of course, no trip to Hong Kong should be without visiting the harbor:
And the views from the Peak are breathtaking:
The area around the Big Buddha has been really built up to cater to tourists. It used to be that the only food you could eat was the vegetarian meal provided at the Po Lin Monastery---now there's a Starbucks, ice cream store and a bunch of restaurants.
After we ate our vegetarian meal at the Monastery, we saw an interesting ceremony being performed by all the monks.
Macau
Since Matt is part Portuguese, we had to visit Macau, a former Portuguese colony. It's a really interesting mix of Portuguese and Chinese culture---you can see reflections of Portugal in the religion (huge population of Catholics), the architecture, the food and the street signs (which are all in Portuguese, Chinese and English). We took a day trip there via ferry and toured the small island in 4 hours (it's small enough to really get around and see everything that amount of time).
A lot of the Vegas casinos are starting to move in and change the overall casino landscape there---when my family last visited, the main casino was the Casino Lisboa, which is this smokey, tiny, sketchy casino full of prostitutes and smells of the Triad (and it's still like this today). Now, the Wynn just opened (and looks like a miniature version of the Vegas one with all the same restaurants and clubs) with MGM Grand and the Venetian coming soon. Casino Lisboa is in fact building a new location to compete with all the new ones coming into town.
New Year's
Lastly, for New Year's, Matt and I went out and decided to check out the infamous Lan Kwai Fong. We'd already been there for a drink the week before but I heard it was a crazy scene on New Year's. Indeed, there were just thousands and thousands of people out on the street. A total mob scene. There was even directed traffic to get into Lan Kwai Fong for crowd control purposes (which is good since this area was made famous in 1993 when 21 people died from the rush of huge crowds celebrating New Years). All in all, very fun New Year's.
Lastly, for New Year's, Matt and I went out and decided to check out the infamous Lan Kwai Fong. We'd already been there for a drink the week before but I heard it was a crazy scene on New Year's. Indeed, there were just thousands and thousands of people out on the street. A total mob scene. There was even directed traffic to get into Lan Kwai Fong for crowd control purposes (which is good since this area was made famous in 1993 when 21 people died from the rush of huge crowds celebrating New Years). All in all, very fun New Year's.
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Jetlagged all night
Matt and I got back from Hong Kong this morning after a 4 hour flight to Korea and another 9.5 hour flight back to Seattle. As much as we wanted to adapt back to Pacific time, we unfortunately were pretty wide awake for the entire flight...so by 1pm, the bed was looking too comfortable and we found ourselves taking a 5 hour nap for the afternoon. We woke up, ate some pizza and attempted to sleep again at 11pm. I woke up at 2am and haven't been able to fall back asleep since. Argh. It's now 5:16am and I might as well leave in an hour to hit the gym and go to work early, praying that I can last until at least 4pm.
I've got TONS to write about for the trip--it was totally fantastic. Coincidentally, shortly after my last post, there was an earthquake that hit Taiwan which damaged a bunch of oceanfloor telecommunications cables that connect Hong Kong and a lot of South Asia to the rest of the world. As a result, phone lines and Internet were unable to reach out to US and Europe-based destinations for over a week--pretty much the rest of the time I was there. That meant, no Internet at all in Hong Kong to any site that didn't end in a ".hk". Craziness! I didn't think it was possible to cut off telecommunications in such a major city. More so, what's Hong Kong doing still using cables on the oceanfloor? What about satellites? That whole event prompted a ot of news stories about the need to move to satellite since the ocean floor cables were so primitive. So there went my trip blogging...but I'll follow up with a huge long post about all the things we did soon.
I've got TONS to write about for the trip--it was totally fantastic. Coincidentally, shortly after my last post, there was an earthquake that hit Taiwan which damaged a bunch of oceanfloor telecommunications cables that connect Hong Kong and a lot of South Asia to the rest of the world. As a result, phone lines and Internet were unable to reach out to US and Europe-based destinations for over a week--pretty much the rest of the time I was there. That meant, no Internet at all in Hong Kong to any site that didn't end in a ".hk". Craziness! I didn't think it was possible to cut off telecommunications in such a major city. More so, what's Hong Kong doing still using cables on the oceanfloor? What about satellites? That whole event prompted a ot of news stories about the need to move to satellite since the ocean floor cables were so primitive. So there went my trip blogging...but I'll follow up with a huge long post about all the things we did soon.
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