Ah, how time has passed

Man, it's been a month since I last posted anything. I'm way behind in the frequency of my blog posting. I apologize. As it's been awhile, I'll just blog some random updates....

Friend, Sara, from Kansas visited me a couple weeks ago--she's one of my bridesmaids and it was so good to see her. She's probably the one bridesmaid I have that's known me the longest, since junior high for me. She was out here to visit potential medical schools and also just to hang out. I had such a great time hanging out with her, just getting used to seeing her everyday as I came home from work. Miss you chica!

Work has been busy as we've been wrapping up planning for our entire next release. Lots of spec writing and reviews!

Outside of all that, there's wedding planning of course. It's all the little details now. Over this weekend, I.....
- contacted a dance instructor for Matt and I to take private lessons from for our first dance
- picked up 200+ bamboo steamers for our favors in add'l to disposable cameras. I can't believe I caved in and got the cheezy disposable cameras with the wedidng imagery on them...but in the end, I can't resist seeing random photos from guests
- will be picking up our final invitations. Yay!
- completed envelope addressing for the addresses I have
- created a draft of a guest list for the bridal shower

There's also prepping for other weddings---we're heading to Matt's cousin's wedding in Mexico in less than 2 weeks. Being a beach wedding and all, all guests were requested to wear white. More specifically "ladies should wear a white summer dress and men should wear a white shirt with khakis". So today, we headed downtown in search of such attire. Matt easily found the perfect shirt at Banana Republic. I, on the other hand, still don't know what I want after trying on dresses at BCBG and J.Crew.

Tonight, we went to the symphony and saw their performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis which was very well done. Ah, so happy with the symphony. We definitely will subscribe next year. I'm a bit bummed though--I have yet to see a performance in which my fellow Smithie, Carolyn Kuan, conducts.

TV I'm watching....
Lots of great TV coming up with an all new season of The Sopranos and Entourage starting up.
Prison Break ended with Michael Scofield back...in prison.
24 is still rockin' it...though that last scene where President Wayne Palmer suddenly seems to go crazy because he's high on adrenaline was a bit much.
I'm getting tired of Renee from ANTM
Sadly, still watching the Pussycat Dolls show - I think it'll be a showdown between Asia and Melissa R.
Yup, still catching The Apprentice - I think it's obvious that Heidi's gonna win it all.
Did Grey's Anatomy take a huge break? I feel like I haven't seen a new episode in ages. Same with Desperate Housewives.

In the last couple days, been playing with this new service called Twitter that Aaron introduced me to. A bit hard to explain--but you can send in "twitters" (or very short posts about whatever) via text message, IM or directly from the web...and anyone who "follows" you will get updates via the notification method they choose (sms, im or web only). Additionally, it archives all your "twitters" onto your profile page. What makes it cool? I send an update from wherever I am and it goes out to all my followers. It's like a group text message. I feel like I've learned things about people that I normally wouldn't otherwise because it's mundane stuff that someone wouldn't normaly blog about or email about...like, for example, I know that on Friday, Mo played tennis with Abhi and Petey went to watch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and thought it was amazing. I also know that on Saturday, Mo went up to Vancouver for the day for an auto show and that my brother went to watch his friend Laura at a workout competition. I'm not really sure if this is going to totally take off or fall flat on its face...but I must say, after using it for less than 48 hours, I'm definitely intrigued. One related site that's a bit addicting is Twittervision, a mashup of live Twitter posts with Google Maps. Let me know if you have a Twitter account!

Idol 12 chosen

Last night, American Idol dwindled down to the final 12, the 12 that will move on to perform on the big stage. I can't believe I still watch this show sometimes. The talent this season is awful compared to previous seasons overall. There are some standouts, like Melinda Doolitle and LaKisha Jones...and I agree: the women are smokin' the men. I was utterly shocked last night when Sanjaya and Sundance were standing as the last two...and Sanjaya moved on. Come on! Really?! He admitted he can hula dance last week! His vocals are no where up to par.

i'm still here

hot damn. it's been a really long time since i've blogged. I mean, there was the random blog post from my dot but that was testing out one of Blue Dot's features as I'd probably blog more often if I converted some of my dots into blog posts. I mentioned this feature sitting at the Pyramid Brewery one summer with some of the Blue Dot folks...and now they've finally launched the ability to do this--woo hoo.

anyhoo--let me do some quick updating on totally random stuff that you wouldn't care about unless you really knew me. um....

So yes, still wedding planning. Working out invitations now and it's all little stuff from here on out. As of tomorrow, it'll be exactly 4 months before we get married--eeks! I'm actually way more stressed out now than I have been for the last 9 months that we've been engaged and planning the bulk of the wedding. Right now, it's all the small stuff, like programs, menu cards, table seating, etc. that are getting under my skin. My latest venture is trying to tea-dye a bunch of Chinese frog buttons to look more ivory and closer to the color of my invitations. [sigh]

Cats are doing well and lazy as ever. They still just "tolerate" each other. Speaking of cats, our neighbors recently adopted a new, 2 year old cat from the pound---and get this: it's 25 lbs. It's ENORMOUS. Fittingly, they named him Gordy.

Going to the gym more frequently. I haven't been as dedicated as I had hoped but I'm not doing too bad. Since getting engaged, I've lost about 10 lbs. and will hopefully lose more by the big day. Even if I don't, I'm pretty proud of the new workout schedule I've kept up...definitely healthier than I was last year. I started using a personal trainer at the end of last summer...then when that finished, I convinced Sri to continue with me with this trainer and it's been a blast. We're about finished up with our sessions...and may try to continue seeing the trainer every couple weeks just to keep up the discipline. Seeing a trainer has helped me most with discipline and also with overall education on what's best for my goals. I used to be totally scared of the treadmill and now I run on it pretty frequently!

We've also been going to the symphony pretty frequently. Matt and I subscribed this year and it's one of the best entertainment investments we made for the year. We've seen some amazing performers this year such as Itzhak Perlman, Hillary Hahn and John Lill. Next week, we'll be seeing Yo-Yo Ma!

My Dots for Thursday, March 01, 2007

i'm making a difference

This is neat--beginning today, there's a new charitable initiative from Windows Live Messenger. Join the inititative by going to this site, select the organization you wish to support (i.e. Red Cross, Boys & Girls Club, Aids Fund, etc...) and download v8.1 of Windows Live Messenger. Then, everytime you have an IM conversation, Microsoft will share a portion of the advertising revenue with the organization you've indicated.

If you already have 8.1, just add the following codes next to your display name to select the organization of your choice:
Text Code Cause
*red+u American Red Cross
*bgca Boys & Girls Club
*naf National AIDS Fund
*mssoc National Multiple Sclerosis Society
*9mil ninemillion.org
*sierra Sierra Club
*help StopGlobalWarming.org
*komen Susan G. Komen for the Cure
*unicef The US fund for UNICEF

[tags: windows, Windows Live, charity, microsoft, moohaha]

View my Dots on Blue Dot

Wiiiiii!

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!

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

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:

We also took a visit to see the Big Buddha (official name: Tian Tan Buddha), which I personally hadn't seen in many years. The last time I went, the only way to get there was via a torturous ferry ride so I was pleased to see that we could hop onto the subway and then take the newly opened Ngong Ping cable cars over the mountains to get there:

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.

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.