happy new year!

Happy year of the pig! I spent the weekend eating lots of New Year's foods, at my parents' house and at a family friend's house. Then, I actually managed to deep fry some sweet nein gau of my own at a friend's house yesterday night. That is, I took pre-made nein gau and fried it; I didn't make it from scratch. Small steps.

massive cultural gap

I was talking to a friend the other day about why I get along better with my grandfather than my grandmother.

The average conversation between me and my grandfather goes something like this (in Taiwanese, of course):

me:	Hi Grandpa, I'm glad to hear that your hip is better.
gf:	Yes, but my eyes are still not very good. How about you, how's work? Are you very busy this month?
me:	No, it's not bad right now, I just had a deadline last week.
gf:	What are you doing for exercise these days?
me:	I've been playing in a basketball league once a week, and my team practices once a week, also.
gf:	Do you have any fun upcoming plans?
me:	Yes, I'm going to Hawaii with my friends, and we are going to hike and kayak and maybe go windsurfing.
gf:	Maybe it's best if you don't go windsurfing; it's dangerous.

The average conversation between me and my grandmother goes something like this (again, in Taiwanese):

me:	Hi Grandma, how is everything?
gm:	Good. Are you getting married soon?

Okay, I exaggerate. But it's not far off, I swear.

My friend was saying that she has a similar problem with her older female relatives as well; they tend to be concerned primarily with whether we have boyfriends, when we're going to be married, and whether we're planning to have children soon. In contrast, our older male relatives are interested in our careers, our hobbies, and our daily lives.

We concluded that the cultural gap between American 21st century women and Taiwanese early 20th century women is much, much larger than the typical gap between grandparents and their grandchildren. Having that realization made me a little sad, but it doesn't stop me from feeling irritated when talking to my grandmother.

wedding overload

I was counting the other day and realized that I'm scheduled to attend nine weddings so far this year:
- Charity & Mark: February 17th, in Stanford/San Francisco, CA
- Jane & Bert: April 8th, in Beverly Hills/Pasadena, CA
- Justin & Jennifer: April 14th, in Dallas, TX
- Ann & Duong: April 21th, in San Ramon, CA
- William & Kimara: May 12th, in Lanesboro, MN
- Ingrid & Christopher: May 27th, in Verona, WI
- Kathie & Steve: June 2nd, most likely in Palo Alto, CA
- Angela & Perkin: June 9th, in Menlo Park/Redwood City, CA
- Wen & Mehmet: June 24th, in Los Gatos, CA

Last year, I attended six weddings:
- Spencer & Stephanie: May 28th, in Novato, CA
- Stephanie & Edwin: June 17th, in Seattle, WA
- Steve & Jocelyn: August 12th, in Sonoma, CA
- Debbie & Hsien: October 7th, in Long Beach, CA
- Sherry & Brian: November 11th, in Woodside/Milpitas, CA
- Spencer & Erica: December 30th, in Honolulu, HI

I was unable to attend a seventh wedding because it was also on May 28th (Emily & Bob, in Monterey, CA), and an eighth (July 2th in Boston, MA) was cancelled. I chose not to attend a ninth (Linda & Leon, October 14th in Richardson, TX) because it was one week after Long Beach.

That's (at least) fifteen weddings in two years. I was curious as to whether I'd been to that many before 2006 in my entire life, so I started cataloguing them:
- Tina & Minh: October 29th, 2005, in Milpitas/Campbell, CA
- Lisa & Matt: October 8th 2005, in Sugarland, TX
- George & Diana: May 7th 2005, in San Jose, CA
- Alwin & Connie: July 24th 2004, in Sunnyvale/Cupertino, CA
- Elaine & Alex: May 8th 2004, in Laguna Beach, CA
- Sergio & Nicole: August 9th 2003, in Boston, MA
- Katelyn & Laurent: June 14th 2003, in Redwood City, CA
- Alice & James: October 12th 2002, in Shanghai, China
- Cindy & Andrew: September 7th 2002, in Boston, MA
- Ken & Bo: May 31th 2002, in Tiffin, OH
- David & Elsa: May 11th 2002, in New York, NY
- Mabi & Michael: February 2002, in Burlingame, CA
- four of my parents' siblings' weddings (1983, 1984, 1993, January 2002)

Turns out there were sixteen pre-2006 weddings, and there have been fifteen post-2005 weddings so far. Does that make 2005/2006 some kind of inflexion point?

In general, I'm happy to celebrate weddings with my friends and family, but my wallet has been complaining a bit lately, especially for the out-of-town ones. Well, it's hard to complain about an excuse to go to Hawaii, but Minnesota? Wisconsin?? On the bright side, given a finite number of friends and relatives, there should be a finite number of weddings to attend, I should hope.

I am looking forward to this weekend's wedding; the ceremony is at the Stanford Memorial Church, and I haven't been there since I was a flower girl in my uncle's wedding (1984, see above). I don't remember it, but I have the pictures, and they're beautiful. Plus, the reception is at the Asian Art Museum, which I do remember from school field trips, and that should be gorgeous as well.

Update: I've been told that the Asian Art Museum has moved. I guess I should have realized that after visiting the new De Young last month. Oh well, it'll be fun to check out the new location, anyway.

Swiss chocolate

A coworker arrived from Switzerland a few days ago, and brought with him a large amount of Swiss chocolate. By large, I mean that our team has been eating it for several days now, and we've consumed maybe a fourth of it, tops. I'm so spoiled now, I can't even eat Godiva anymore. I certainly can't eat Hershey's.

Vegas highlights

I got back yesterday from yet another sleep-deprived, smoke-filled Vegas trip.

This time, I did head back to the Fashion Outlets in Primm this time, and had a productive shopping day.

On the food side of things, I finally got to try Bouchon Las Vegas, where I had a yummy bucket of mussels, accompanied by French fries. I topped that off with a plate of cheese; I've forgotten the other two (one was sheep's milk, one was cow's milk) but my favorite was the Garotin, which is a fairly mild, soft cheese made of goat's milk.

The next night, we ate at Rosemary's Restaurant, which is a good 15 minutes off the Strip, but is well worth the drive. I had a $49 prix fixe, with a parmesan souffle and wild mushroom ragout appetizer, roasted rack of lamb entree (+$10 surcharge), and a chocolate bread pudding, espresso ice cream, and vanilla creme anglaise dessert. All three of the dishes were extremely good; I felt the souffle was the most creative, and the lamb had no aftertaste at all (like New Zealand lamb), but I enjoyed the dessert the most. We were also treated to a savory bread pudding amuse, and homemade sweets after dessert.

I was finally able to eat again the next day at around 1:30pm, and at that time we headed to the Paris Sunday brunch. It was $25 per person, and well worth it. My favorite dishes were the puff pastry with the chicken stew inside, the king crab (of course), and the chocolate tart dessert.

The non-food activities mostly involved drinking and gambling. On the first night, we went to Caramel, a lounge inside of the Bellagio, and had lots of expensive drinks. I think I spent over $100 buying a round of Lemondrops for six people. Afterwards, we were fairly tipsy, and managed to entertain ourselves playing nickel slots for a couple of hours before heading off to bed.

The next night, I actually meant to get a decent amount of sleep, but three of my friends entered a poker tournament starting at 11pm, and after three hours, two were still in it, so of course I had to stay and watch. On the bright side, one of them finished third in the tournament, making a couple hundred dollars. On the other hand, the tournament finished at a quarter past 4am, so I didn't get to sleep until sometime after 5am.

Right before we left for the airport, one person (who had lost a lot of money over the last few days) decided on a whim to put some money on roulette. He walked up to the nearest table, and put $20 on 24, and $20 on 28. He wasn't watching the wheel, but several of us were, and we were completely stunned when the ball hopped in and out of 0 and landed on 28, netting him $720. It was a great way to leave.

gone skiing

So after two days of staying up until 3am, I actually managed to wake up at 4am on the third day, to get on a bus to Tahoe. We hit the slopes at Squaw Valley at around 10am, took an hour long break for lunch, and then skied right up until the lifts closed at 4:30pm, for over five hours of solid skiing.

Until this week, I hadn't been up yet, since I'd been hearing such horrible things about the snow this year. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised. There were definitely some very bare and/or rough spots (the top of Emigrant, except a narrow stripe in the middle, and most of Solitude was horrible) but there was good skiing to be had on Shirley Lake, Red Dog, and a few other places.

Every year, I always think that I forget how to ski, but then when I get out there, I realize that not only do I remember how to do it, in fact I quite enjoy it.

Chou time

It's been a very Jay Chou-centric weekend.

The original plan for Friday was to see Curse of the Golden Flower at the AMC Mercado, but when the movie showtimes came out for this week, we discovered that Golden Flower had been yanked already. The next closest showing (in both time and place) was the 10:45pm showing the the Metreon.

So, Friday after work, a bunch of us headed up to the city, got some tapas at Thirsty Bear, tried to get dessert at Beard Papa's only to discover that they'd closed at 8pm, and snuck some Just Desserts into the theatre instead.

I had pretty low expectations going in, since Golden Flower had gotten some bad reviews and was being yanked so quickly, so I actually enjoyed the movie quite a bit. The visuals were stunning, and the acting wasn't bad (it's nice seeing Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat speaking Chinese instead of English). Of course, my roommate most enjoyed watching Jay Chou in his role as Prince Jai.

For dinner on Saturday, we'd planned a group outing to Sushi House in Alameda. I'd never heard so many recommendations for the same restaurant from so many different people before, so we had to try it. The rolls were yummy and the portion sizes were super generous, but it was the tempura ice cream that I liked the best; it was huge, well made, with a cake-y batter, and had raspberry sauce on the side (which sounds strange, but was delicious).

Since we were already in the East Bay, we then headed over to Music Tunnel in Richmond, which is likely, after all these years, still the best KTV in the Bay Area. Usually when I go to karaoke, we sing mostly English songs, because most people don't read other languages very well, but this time, I had invited my cousin to join us, and she's fluent in English, Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese. As a result, we not only sang more Chinese songs than ever before (including at least ten Jay Chou songs), but we actually had some Japanese songs on the program as well.

the best laid plans...

My mother has always wanted to go to French Laundry, except that it's so hard to get a reservation that we've never had a chance.

I thought it would be a nice gesture on my part to secure a reservation for my parents' 30th anniversary, which is coming up in two months, so I blocked out my calendar starting at 10am for four straight days. (The reservation policy is that you can call starting at 10am two calendar months before the date of the reservation.)

Yesterday, I got through to a "reservationist" at 10:23am, and all the tables were already full for dinner on Thu 3/29 (lunch is only served Fri-Sun).

Today, I enlisted my sister as well, and the two of us dialed and redialed four phones (two cell, two land) until I finally got through at 11:08am. The good news was that there were actually some tables left for Fri 3/30. The bad news was that the tables were 4-person tables, not 2-person tables. I made a reservation anyway, since I had spent all this time already, and anyway my parents might enjoy the company.

So, I was somewhat satisfied with myself, until I got a totally unrelated email from my mom, in which I learned that my parents are going to be out of town that day. Argh!!!

Now I'm trying to decide whether to sell the reservation, invite some friends to go (unlikely, at $240 a head), or what.

goodbye, athena

I'm losing my Athena account next week.

Athena is MIT's campus-wide distributed network. Basically, an Athena account is a Unix account with a gig of space, an HTTP server, and lots of other random utilities like Matlab and LaTeX, etc. I could have kept it by continuing to act as a volunteer online consultant, but my knowledge is increasingly outdated and it started to seem like I was just mooching off the system.

Besides, I don't really use my account much anymore. I used to use it exclusively for email (go MH!) until Gmail came along a couple of years ago, and I used to host photos on it until I traded up to a 7.1 megapixel camera, and 1 gig wasn't really big enough anymore. Now it's basically a place for me to keep random notes and bits of data, so it shouldn't be that hard for me to give up the account, but it does feel awfully strange; kind of like I'm letting go of my college days. I guess it's about time.

a few good restaurants

I like trying new restaurants, so it's been a couple of good food weekends for me.

Two Fridays ago, I went to a birthday party at E&O Trading Company, in downtown San Jose. It's a Southeast Asian place that serves small plates, which can be shared family style. The food was fine, but I mostly remember the excellent cocktail that I had before dinner; I think it was a martini of some tropical flavor.

That Saturday, four of us waited the half hour that it takes to get into Queen House, in downtown Mountain View. I live two blocks away but have only been there twice due to the long wait times. But, it's always nice to have some cheap ($40 for 4, plus leftovers), authentic Chinese food. This time we had beef noodle soup, black bean chicken, salt and pepper pork ribs, a clay pot stew, and some stir fried Chinese veggies. Mmm...

Since Monday was a holiday, I was able to make it up to the city to eat with some friends at Helmand, an Afghan place which is located in a sketchy area of North Beach but is actually very nice inside. I had a lamb shank dish, which was good, but several people ordered the lamb chops (Chowpan?), which was better. I'll probably get that next time.

This weekend, Friday dinner was at Left Bank, a not-too-expensive French restaurant that has several locations throughout the Bay Area. We had booked the private room at San Mateo, for a birthday party, which turned out to be a good thing because we had a few bottles of wine and some people got a a little loud. I had the skirt steak (much better than Cheesecake Factory) with fries, and am now completely hooked on their fries.

We went upscale on Saturday, eating at Silks inside of the Mandarin Oriental. I'll have to recommend this place to my parents; my mom has a thing about noisy dining rooms, so she'll love the hushed atmosphere as well as the Asian fusion food. I actually liked the amuse bouche best of all the food that night; it was a raw oyster in a delicious onion-y, vinegar-y sauce. I had a clever "Eggs, Ham, and Toast" appetizer (the "ham" was crispy suckling pig, etc.) and rack of venision entree. Dessert was a coffee souffle, and then we were treated to a creamy-smooth hot chocolate with "Snickers" whipped cream on top. Service was really good; they took longer than usual to serve the main course, and someone came to apologize, well before I would have thought to complain. When our waitress presented the bill, she told us that as an added apology, our desserts were on the house. Bonus!

On Sunday night, I finally tried out one of this year's Dine about Town menus, at the Moroccan restaurant aziza. The restaurant is in the outer Richmond, mixed in with the Chinese grocery stores, so it's not very appealing on the outside, but once we went inside I was impressed by the cozy booths, exotic but not cheesy music, mood lighting, and curtains everywhere. The food was yummy and the portions were generous; I had three courses (lamb sausage with yogurt, couscous aziza, and almond chocolate cake), didn't finish my entree, and was completely stuffed.

Hawaii (Kauai, Day 6)

The last day of the trip was pretty chill; there were only three of us left, and we didn't have any big items on the agenda. Our flight back to Honolulu wasn't until evening, but checkout time was at noon, so we went ahead and packed up anyway, cramming all of the luggage into our compact-sized rental car.

First, we headed up Waimea Canyon Road back to see the Kalalau Lookout by day. Unfortunately, there were clouds completely covering the valley, and we couldn't see a thing. We walked the mile to the Pu'u o Kila Lookout, hoping things would be better there, but they weren't. Undaunted, we decided to hang out for half an hour or so, to see if the clouds would burn off (it was about 11am at this point).

For about twenty minutes, we continued to see nothing. In the last ten minutes, the clouds started to ease up ever so slightly, so that we could almost see green beneath the white. Encouraged, we stuck around, and were rewarded for our patience by an awesome show, as the clouds slowly drifted, rolled, and melted away. Every minute, the view would change again, and it would still be spectacular.

It was pretty hard to capture the magic of that hour on camera, but I certainly tried. Here are two of the better photos:





Afterwards, we walked back to the Kalalau Lookout, which had also cleared up. At one point we were treated to another of the many rainbows we had seen during our trip:



It was around 1pm when we started driving back, and we were hungry, so we stopped in Waimea at Jo-Jo's Clubhouse, a famous shave ice place that nevertheless looks like a cross between a barn and a shack. Never judge a book, right? We had the Tropical Rainbow (guava, papaya, and lilikoi), with macadamia nut ice cream and azuki (red) bean underneath. Ice cream, ice and beans sounds like a horrible combination, but it was really, really good; the best shave ice I'd had during the whole trip.

We checked out the Red Dirt T-shirt store next door, although I didn't buy any T-shirts (my socks were already permanently red from all the hiking anyway), and then drove back to Poipu Shopping Village for some real lunch. We ended up having hot dogs at Puka Dog, which serves hot dogs in a huge enclosed bun, with "garlic lemon secret sauce", as well as an assortment of tropical relishes (mango, pineapple, banana etc.) and optional lilikoi mustard. The food were good but overpriced; essentially $6-7 for a fancy hot dog.

From there, we were off to Wal-Mart (yes, there is one on Kauai), to stock up on macadamia nuts, cookies, coffee, and other goodies, and then to the airport. One person was on the 7pm flight, and two (including me) were on the 8pm flight, so we just checked in early to wait at the gate. Amusingly, after the 7pm flight finished boarding all passengers, the counter agent asked if there were any passengers who were ticketed on the 8pm flight, who wanted to go early. Of course we did, so in classic Hawaii fashion, we just hopped on, which got us to Honolulu an hour early; plenty of time for a leisurely dinner before boarding our San Francisco flight home.

Hawaii (Kauai, Day 5)

Day 5:

Several people left early, so by the fifth day, we were down to four people, one of whom was leaving the next day. We decided that we were rested enough for another hike, so right after breakfast, we headed back out to Ke'e Beach to hit the Kalalau Trail. The plan was to hike the first two miles to Hanakapi'ai Beach, see how it went, and then decide whether to attempt the two mile side trail to Hanakapi'ai Falls.

We started a bit after 11am, and the first quarter mile or so was fine. The rocks were a bit slippery due to the slight rain showers, but the path was definitely manageable. However, soon after that we soon found ourselves slogging our way through all different kinds of muddy terrain. Some parts of the trail were steep and covered in slippery mud. Other parts were flat and covered in sticky mud, the kind that threatens to suck your shoes off, or rocky and muddy both, so hikers were forced to choose between the two:



On the bright side, the scenery was consistently gorgeous for most of the way:





Near the end of the two miles, there was a stream crossing:



We had neglected to bring sandals or water shoes of any kind, so our options were to cross barefoot, and risk stepping on something sharp, or to cross in our hiking shoes, and let them get wet. I chose the latter; others in my group chose the former.

Since the going was slow, it was about 1:30pm when we made it to Hanakapi'ai Beach:



The beach is divided in two by the stream, and although the water is shallow by the time the stream reaches the coast, it was still an interesting experience to walk across it; the ground sinks a little under your feet, until you are almost knee deep in cold, runny sand.

Anyway, we sat on the beach, ate some sandwiches, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Because the beach can only be reached by hikers (or kayakers), it's fairly peaceful and uncrowded. While we were eating, we spotted a crab:



After hanging out for about an hour, we decided to head back and see if we could get some snorkeling in, rather than going on to Hanakapi'ai Falls. We were able to slog our way back through all the mud and get back a bit after 4pm, at which point we drove a short distance to Ha'ena Beach Park and hit the beach. Tunnels Beach is within walking distance of Ha'ena Beach, so we walked in that direction, before venturing into the water. The currents were pretty strong and there were several warning flags flying, so I decided to just lounge on the sand with my camera, while the guys went snorkeling in the shallow water. Here are some photos taken from Ha'ena and Tunnels:







Afterwards we rinsed off a bit, although some of the mud from the Kalalau Trail refused to be washed off, and started to drive back to Poipu. We were hungry by the time we got to Hanalei, but decided to try a restaurant in Lihue instead of going back to the Ching Young Village again. Since the sun had already set, the driving was a bit more treacherous, since there are almost no lights on the northern half of Hwy 560, so it was past 8pm when we arrived in Lihue, where four very hungry people descended on the Lihue Barbeque Inn.

The restaurant was filled with locals (in fact, we felt slightly out of place), the atmophere was casual cafeteria, and the food was homestyle and cheap. For instance, the specials cost about $10-12, and included soup, salad, and dessert. We split a delicious macadamia encrusted crab cake appetizer as well as some onion rings, and then each ordered a special; I had the chicken katsu, and mint creme pie.

We finally got home around 10pm, and took some very hot showers before heading off to bed.

Hawaii (Kauai, Days 3 & 4)

Day 3:

We were all pretty tired the day after the Nu'alolo hike, so we decided to take it easy. First, we drove up to the Ke'e Beach, at the very end of Hwy 560 on the north shore. The famous Kalalau Trail starts from this point, and extends for 11 miles across the Na Pali coast, but we weren't about to attempt any part of it that day. Instead, we hung out on the beach and did some swimming, and although we were close to shore, we saw quite a few fish.

Here's a photo of the beach, with the beginning of the Na Pali coast in the background:


After a couple hours, we headed for the Hanalei Bay pier, where we signed up for a 90-minute surfing lesson. The instructors (two for the six of us) gave us huge, wide surfboards, showed us how to paddle and how to stand, and then spent the next hour pushing us into waves. I was able to stand up most of the time as long as the instructors were pushing us, but then they gave us 20-30 minutes of free time with the boards, and I couldn't catch a single wave. Later I talked to a friend who surfs, and she said it was likely that I was having timing problems rather than issues with paddling strength. Apparently you have to catch the wave with an accuracy of about a foot or two, otherwise you'll completely miss the wave. I now have a whole new respect for surfers.

Here are some of the other people learning to surf in Hanalei Bay:


At this point we were really hungry, so we rinsed off and headed to the Ching Young Village in Hanalei, which is a shopping center with lots of shops and restaurants (none of which are Chinese, despite the suggestive name). We ate at the Polynesia Cafe, where I had a Kalua Pork sandwich and some yummy fries. We also bought several homemade desserts to take home, including a coffee macadamia cookie, a lilikoi mousse cake, and a macadamia fudge coconut tiramisu cake. We topped the food off with a shave ice from Shave Ice Paradise, which was not as good as Matsumoto's, although we were now better at picking flavors (guava, lime, and li hing mui, aka preserved plum). Some people also grabbed coffee from Java Kai, and then we drove the hour and a half back home.

Four of us were staying together in the condo at the Kiahuna Plantation, so it took about an hour or so for us all to shower and get cleaned up. Aftewards, we hung out organizing pictures and using our free internet connection for awhile, and then invited the other two people over for dinner. We had bought groceries the day before, and so we were able to produce a spaghetti dinner, with ground beef, onions, and mushrooms in the sauce, and salad and French bread on the side. We all split the Polynesia Cafe goodies for dessert. I really do enjoy having a kitchen and living area when on extended vacation.

Day 4:

The groom from the wedding in Honolulu decided to come hang out with us in Kauai after his family left town, and so early on the next day, he flew in to join us. One person picked him up at the airport and we all met up at Kipu Falls, a watering hole with a 20-foot waterfall. Both locals and tourists like to jump off the cliff into the waterfall, and/or jump from a nearby rope swing. After we munched on some malasadas (big doughnut holes stuffed with red bean paste) and other baked goods for breakfast, all of the guys did the rope swing, and one did the cliff jump as well. I passed on both and did camera duty. Unfortunately, we had one slight injury; one person hurt his hand crossing the stream to get to the rope swing, since the rocks were pretty slippery, so we decided to keep things chill for the rest of the day.

After leaving Kipu Falls, we drove up to Wailua Falls, which is quite a different kind of waterfall:


The official height is 80 feet, but according to our guidebook author, who actually measured it, it's actually 180 feet tall. As we were standing at the railing looking at it, a local told us a story of two men who jumped off of the side last year. One broke his leg on impact, and was waving at the second to tell him not to jump, but unfortunately the second guy couldn't hear him, so he jumped anyway, and broke his shoulder.

It was raining a little bit, so we drove back to Poipu and hung out in the condo for awhile waiting for the weather to get better. After an hour or so, it cleared up a bit, so four of us walked to the Kiahuna Beach, right outside our own door:


We checked out free beach chairs and towels from the beach hut, set them up on the sand, and then went swimming for a bit. On the left side of the beach, we saw several types of fish, including a long, thin, pencil-shaped fish, and a larger fish with black stripes. The right side of the beach was much rougher, but the waves were kind of fun, so we spent some time there anyway, before retiring to our beach chairs.

Unfortunately, we had only been lounging for about twenty minutes when the rain came back in full force, and we quickly returned the beach chairs and ran back to our condo. It lasted quite awhile, so we decided to get cleaned up in case the weather stayed bad, and our only option was to go get dinner. We had actually been quite lucky with weather so far (it normally rains a lot in Kauai in the winter) so I was afraid that maybe our luck at turned.

However, the rain stopped after about an hour, so we drove to the Spouting Horn, which was only a few minutes away. I'm not sure what it is about the rocks in Kauai, but apparently it's quite common for them to erode in such a way that the water comes in underneath and then spouts up through holes, looking like little geysers. The Spouting Horn is the most famous such blowhole, partially because it's quite large, and partially because the water makes a kind of mooing, whooshing noise when it comes out:


It sounds cheesy but is actually quite fun to watch, and there are all these little blowholes nearby, so we spent some time hanging out in the area and exploring the rocks (again bypassing the safety railings).

After we left, we headed to the Poipu Shopping Village for dinner. We were a bit early, so we watched the sun set, and I took some photos:


Then, we met up with the rest of the group at Poipu Tropical Burgers. The restaurant was recommended by the guidebook, but I wasn't all that impressed. The burgers were fine, although the guava BBQ sauce that I had on mine was a little bit sweeter than necessary, but the service wasn't great; one person asked to substitute a chicken patty for a beef patty, and they obviously had chicken, since there were several teriyaki chicken burgers on the menu, but the waitress refused, without even consulting the kitchen. She also seemed annoyed when it took us awhile to decide on our menu selections. Nevertheless, the food was decent, and generously portioned.

Hawaii (Kauai, Days 1 & 2)

Day 1:

Six of us who attended the wedding in Oahu decided to hop over to Kauai for a few days. We caught a pretty late flight out of Honolulu on New Year's Day, so it was dinner time when we arrived in Lihue.

After checking into our condo at the Kiahuna Plantation (on the south shore, in Poipu), we walked to the Poipu Shopping Village to get something to eat. The first restaurant we tried had closed at 7:30pm (maybe because of the holiday?) so we ended up eating sandwiches at e.b.'s Eats. The food was only so-so, but we were pretty hungry at the time.

Afterwards, we bought some extremely expensive groceries at Whaler's General Store. We were slightly horrified at the prices until we read in our guidebook, The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook: Kauai Revealed, that all groceries in Kauai were overpriced.

Day 2:

Our goal for the first full day in Kauai was to hike the 11.3 mile Nu'alolo-Awa'awapuhi loop. The guidebook recommended that hikers begin the loop by 10am, but we got off to a late start, and what with the hour and a half drive from Poipu to the Koke'e Lodge (where the loop begins) we didn't get going until about 10:45am.

Here's a map of the entire loop:


The first part of the loop, the 3.4 mile Nu'alolo Trail, is mostly downhill after a short initial climb. However, it was a bit slippery that day, since it had been raining just as we were starting out, so we stopped briefly to hunt down some walking sticks. After that we hiked straight on to the end of the Nu'alolo, and then onto the 0.4 mile side path leading to the Lolo Vista Point.

There was a good view of the Nu'alolo Valley at the end of the path, but it was obvious that if we hiked on past the safety railing, we could get an even better look, so we did so. We were rewarded with a better view of both the valley and the coast, and also discovered a nice flat patch of red dirt on which we decided to take our lunch break.

After eating, we retraced our steps back up the side path, and then started on the 2.1 mile Nu'alolo Cliffs Trail. Somewhere near the beginning of this trail, there was a strongly worded sign that warned hikers to proceed on the next quarter mile at their own risk, and indeed the trail soon became narrow and rocky, with a pretty scary looking drop on the left side. Luckily, that part was short. Unluckily, the rest of the trail consisted mostly of whacking our way through vegetation several feet taller than myself. The Cliffs Trail was certainly not designed for large hikers.

At the end of that trail, there was another side path, 0.3 miles this time, leading to a second vista point. We were making pretty good time, despite our late start, so we decided to check it out. In my opinion, the second vista was better than the first, with views of the Na Pali coast as well as both the Nu'alolo and Awa'awapuhi valleys.

Here's a photo (although it's not particularly representative of the view):


After a short water break and photo session, we headed back up the side path and onwards to the 3.1 mile Awa'awapuhi Trail. The last two miles of this trail are mostly uphill, and I started counting quarter mile markers well before the end. We made it back to the road at about 5pm, an hour before sunset, but still had the 1.5 mile downhill section of Waimea Canyon Road to hike, which took us another 30-40 minutes.

We got back to our cars and had some snacks and drinks (we had cleverly remembered to bring a 2 gallon jug of water, which we polished off in no time) and then drove up the last section of the Waimea Canyon Road to the Kalalau Lookout, to catch the sunset.

Although I was pretty hungry, I still managed to enjoy the view:



It took us another hour and a half to get back to Poipu, plus we stopped in Waimea for some more groceries (Big Save, cheaper than the General Store), so when we finally sat down to eat dinner at Pizzetti's, an pseudo-Italian place, I was starving. I ended up eating four ribs (with guava BBQ sauce), three slices of pizza, and a bunch of mashed potatoes and some other sides. I really can't say whether the restaurant was any good; the food tasted awesome, but I couldn't tell if it was because I was so hungry, or whether the food was actually tasty.

Hawaii (Oahu, Days 3, 4 & 5)

Day 3:

The wedding wasn't until 4pm on the third day, so that morning, we met up with some friends who live in Honolulu. They brought some delicious (and cheap!) garlic chicken bento boxes from a hole-in-the-wall place called Mitsu-Ken's, and we ate at one of the picnic benches in Kuhio Beach Park.

Afterwards, we drove to Diamond Head Beach Park, and explored the beach a bit. It was much, much less crowded than Waikiki, and just as pretty:


We saw a couple of fishermen who had caught some eels, our friend explained to us about the darker, volcanic sand which we saw mixed in with the normal sand, and we did normal beach stuff like chasing waves and playing in the sand.

After a couple of hours, we headed back to our hotel to change for the wedding. We managed to get ourselves there a little bit early to check out the grounds of the Ihulani Resort, which was where the ceremony and reception were held. Everything in Hawaii is gorgeous, but the resort area is super gorgeous, with beautiful gardens and pools full of sea life (including stingrays and sharks). The wedding ceremony went off without a hitch, the seventy-odd guests appeared to have a fun time at the reception, and I myself much enjoyed the food, which was definitely above average for wedding food. The dessert was a "trio of brulees"; I've forgotten the flavors exactly, but I think one was coffee, one lilikoi (Hawaiian for passionfruit), and one vanilla. Yum.

Day 4:

We were leaving for Kauai on the fifth day, so we had a lot that we wanted to do on day four, which was also New Year's Eve. That morning, we drove up towards the North Shore, stopped at the Dole Pineapple Plantation for some pineapple soft-serve topped with pineapple chunks, and then proceeded on to Hale'iwa, where we had shave ice at the famous Matsumoto's. Afterwards, we stopped at several beaches along the North Shore, including Sunset Beach, and took lots of photos of surfers riding huge waves.

Here's one:


We had a late lunch at Romy's, one of the "shrimp shacks" near Turtle Bay, and then continued around the island to Kualoa Ranch:


There, we took a "Ranch and Movie Tour", during which they took us to the Ka'a'awa Valley and showed us some of the filming locations for Jurassic Park, Pearl Harbor, 50 First Dates, Godzilla, and more. My favorite was "Hurley's Golf Course" from the last couple of seasons of Lost. On the way back to Honolulu, we drove through the Valley of the Temples and stopped at the Nu'uanu Pali Lookout, which has a great view of the southeastern coast of Oahu.

For dinner, several of us went to Alan Wong's Restaurant. Since it was New Year's Eve, the menu was a fairly expensive prix fixe, but in the end it was worth it. We started with an ahi tuna amuse bouche, ate an appetizer of oyster, ikura (salmon roe), ahi, and crab, then had some kind of meat wrapped in a flaky pastry crust with two sauces, followed by an entree of our choice, and then an amazing dessert. I chose the rack of lamb, which was quite good, but I didn't eat much of it, because I kept eyeing the waiters who were carrying the dessert plates to other tables. When it finally came, I was really glad that I had saved room.

Here's a photo of our dessert:


On the far left is a "coconut" which is made out of a chocolate shell, encrusted in coconut flakes, with coconut ice cream inside. Next is a strawberry gelatin, followed by two kinds of cheesecake. On the far right is a crunchy chocolatey dessert that takes a little bit like a really good Kit-Kat bar; this was my favorite, especially because it had a cute little clock on top, in honor of the New Year's countdown.

After dinner, we went to the bride's parents' house, and set off firecrackers. Apparently, in Hawaii, everyone buys firecrackers in huge boxes from Costco; the cheapest box is $30 and has about 15-20 firecrackers inside. We certainly saw evidence of this on the drive over; every block had someone setting off small firecrackers, some on the sidewalk, some in their own backyards, and one person on his roof. As we got to the more residential areas, we even saw aerial fireworks, although it was a little scary when the ash rained down over our heads afterwards.

Here's a photo of one of ours:


Day 5:

We didn't do too much in Oahu on the last day, since we got home pretty late on New Year's Eve, so we slept in a bit the next day. Basically, we grabbed a quick brunch at Seaside Bar & Grill, a pretty cheap breakfast place in Waikiki, and then packed up our stuff and hung out in our hotel room for an hour or two until our flight. Then, it was off to the airport for the Kauai part of our trip!

Hawaii (Oahu, Days 1 & 2)

After a short, five day stay in Taipei, I was off to Oahu for a friend's wedding, and then a week of vacation in Kauai. I didn't have time to write about all the fun things we did while we were there, but I'm going to try to get them down in the next few days, before they escape my horrible memory.

Day 1:

We arrived at 7am, met up with friends at the hotel, went to Eggs & Things for breakfast. Eggs & Things is an extremely popular breakfast place (interestingly, open from 11pm to 2pm daily) and it took an hour to get a table. However, since it took half an hour to find parking, we effectively waited for only half an hour. I had some very yummy blueberry pancakes, which were light and fluffy but probably full of butter.

After eating, we headed to Diamond Head and "hiked" up the trail to the lookout at the top. Very nice views of Waikiki, as advertised:


I'm pretty sure I've been up there before, but it's been at least 15 years since I've been to Hawaii so I don't remember it at all.

That afternoon, we checked out Waikiki Beach for a couple of hours. It's pretty and all, but I don't really like crowded beaches; it took awhile to find a place to put our towels down, and there were tons of beginner surfers in the water. We only hung out for a couple of hours before we decided it was too hot to stay much longer.

For dinner, we met up with even more friends who were in town for the wedding. We decided on Petite Garlic for dinner, in part because they had a short wait compared to most of the restaurants in the area.

After dinner, we headed to Coconut Cafe, also in Waikiki. Some people had the $1 corn dogs, and others had shave ice and/or smoothies.

Day 2:

The next day, we went on a kayaking excursion with the groom, in lieu of a bachelor's party. We drove out to Kailua, on the east coast of Oahu, and the fourteen of us rented seven tandem kayaks from Two Good Kayaks. After a lengthy safety briefing, we were on our way.

We got our bearings in a small channel which was separated from the ocean by a sandbar, and then lugged the kayaks over the sandbar into the Pacific Ocean. About five minutes after we launched into the ocean, it started to rain like mad, which was a bit scary since it made the water choppy and visibility poor. We paddled through it and the rain cleared up about ten minutes later.

There are three islands off the coast of Kailua, a "flat" island, and two larger islands which both seem to be called Mokulua Island, one (or both) of which is a bird sanctuary. Our intended destination was the first Mokulua Island, but according to the safety briefing person, the only safe approach to the first island was to paddle parallel to the coast, straight towards the second island, until the first island was directly to the left, and then turn ninety degrees towards the first island.

My interpretation of the "safe" route:


Once we were in the ocean, it became obvious what he was talking about. The waves were coming from both directions around the two islands, except that the second island acted as a kind of buffer for the first one, so there was a channel about ten or twenty feet wide where the water was somewhat calmer, which could be used to approach a small beach on the inside edge of the first island.

Out of seven kayaks, five made it to the island within about twenty minutes of each other. The sixth kayak had some issues with the rain and choppy water and decided to land on the "flat" island instead, and the seventh kayak had an experienced kayaker onboard who decided to explore elsewhere. Of the five kayaks which reached the island, three capsized while attempting to land on the beach. My kayak landed successfully (yay!) after a tense minute or so, during which we were paddling as furiously as we could, to try to reach the beach before the waves got to us. The whole time, the people in the first two kayaks were waving their arms wildly in an effort to steer us to shore.

Here's a view of the second island from the small beach on the first island:


The ten of us tried to hike around the island, but were soon thwarted by high surf which made the rocks on the coast slippery. We munched on some snacks and hung out on the beach instead, before beginning the return journey.

As exciting as landing was, launching was even more interesting. The challenge was to get some speed before any large waves hit the kayak sideways, and then to paddle as quickly as possible out to the calmer water. Only one kayak capsized leaving the island, probably because the people still on land were helping, by pushing the kayaks as they entered the water. Once we were all afloat, we had a good time taking photos of each other and racing for various short distances, and one person saw a sea turtle poking its head out of the water.

After we returned the kayaks, we drove back to Waikiki and got cleaned up for the wedding rehearsal dinner, which was at a Chinese restaurant called Royal Garden Chinese Restaurant in Honolulu. After ten courses of Chinese banquet food, we went home to sleep off the food coma.

Taiwan for tourists

Yesterday at dinner, I asked my siblings where they would take their non-Taiwanese friends, if any ever came to visit Taiwan.

We actually came up with a decent list of non-food destinations for Taipei:
- Taipei 101: Currently the tallest building in the world, and in a newer area of town.
- The National Palace Museum: Home of all the priceless Chinese artifacts which were stolen/rescued by Chiang Kai-Shek in the late 1940's, before the Cultural Revolution.
- Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial: There's a lot of debate over whether he should be memorialized or best forgotten, but the memorial itself is worth a look.
- Shih Lin Night Market: The most famous night market; lots of Taiwan street food like stinky tofu, oyster omelets, and bubble tea.
- Lungshan Temple: I feel like I've been there but I don't really remember. Nevertheless, it's supposed to be a good example of a traditional Buddhist-Daoist Asian temple.
- Snake Alley: Pretty gross, but where else can you watch a snake get cut open as its blood is spilled into a soup bowl?
- KTV: Private karaoke rooms are all over the city, but there are lots on Lin Sen North Road: V-Mix, Cashbox, Partyworld, and Holiday.
- Shi Men Ding: Where all the trendy local teenagers hang out and shop.
- Yang Ming Shan: A national park north of Taipei, which has some good hiking and decent views.
- Beitou: Beitou is a resort town a bit north of Taipei, that has natural sulfur springs.

We had a harder time coming up with places to visit outside Taipei:
- Kending National Park: One of the best national parks in Taiwan, located at the southern tip of the island. Includes E Luan Bi Park. I remember it being quite pretty (over fifteen years ago!).
- Queen's Head Rock (Ye Liou): Ye Liou, in northern Taiwan, is full of strange rock formations, the most famous of which strongly resembles a woman's head in profile.
- Fo Guang Shan Monastery: A Buddhist monastery which features a gigantic golden Buddha statue surrounded by hundreds of smaller Buddha statues.
- Tainan: Previously the capital of Taiwan, Tainan is rich in colonial history (Dutch, Spanish) and yummy snack foods.
- Kaohsiung: The second largest city in Taiwan, and the largest harbor. I seem to remember it being only about an hour away from Tainan by car. Starting next year, it will take 90 minutes to get from Taipei to Kaohsiung by high-speed rail.
- Sun Moon Lake, Ali Shan, Yu Shan, Taroko Gorge: I haven't been to any of these places, but they're all famous and/or national parks.

That's enough to see and do for at least a week or two, isn't it?

life on the Pacific Rim

Two days ago, I was reading about the spate of small earthquakes which hit the East Bay recently and thinking morbidly about what to do if a big one hit the Bay Area while I was out of town.

Then, yesterday evening around 8:30pm, while we were standing in the lobby of Partyworld KTV waiting for our room, we felt a definite ripple, and then heard a popping noise from one of the huge, multi-story long chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. We quickly moved to a safer area, just in case. It turns out there was a large earthquake off the coast of Pingtung, on the southern coast of Taiwan, followed by a series of aftershocks.

mmm...dumplings

There are lots of yummy things to eat in Taiwan, and I've had many of them over the last few days, but I never leave without having gone to Din Tai Fong. Can't beat their dumplings...



We always horrify the waitstaff with our American-sized appetites; this is the third consecutive year that our waitress has tried to convince us our order was too large, and it's the third consecutive year that we've finished everything that we've ordered.

This year, after we sat down, they brought out a little contraption that consisted of cloth stretched over a folding metal frame:



The waitress set it up at the corner of the table between my sister and me, and looked at us expectantly. We gave her a blank look, and she explained it was for our purses.

I thought this was absolute genius. I'm always slinging my purse over the back of my chair (where it often falls because the chair is curved or someone has bumped it), or wedging it between my back and the chair (where it pokes me while I eat), or holding it uncomfortably on my lap (where I proceed to drop food on it). Why don't we have these things in the US yet?

hero worship

My mother tells me that every time the Yankees' Chien-Ming Wang picks up a win, one of the Taiwanese newspapers dedicates a full page to Wang, to celebrate the achievement. (Wang is the only successful MLB player to come out of Taiwan so far.) This makes that newspaper hugely popular on the days after his wins, and people (my cousin among them) run out to the newspaper stands in the mornings to buy copies before they're gone.

Here's one from his 18th win:

Christmas travel

For the last few years, I've been meeting up with my family in Taipei for Christmas. My brother flies in from Baltimore, my sister from New York, and my parents and myself from the Bay Area. It's nice because everyone has Christmas off, so we don't have to worry about lining up schedules, and we get to visit Taiwan while the weather is pleasant (usually in the 60s). The downside is that plane tickets to Asia are really expensive during the winter holidays, and we've had several travel mishaps over the years.

Last year I wrote about the nine hours I spent waiting at LAX after our connection from SFO to LAX was delayed, but I didn't mention that that same day, my brother's luggage was lost while he was connecting in Seattle, and when he finally got his suitcase back, his Playstation and all his games had been stolen, not to mention a bottle of expensive cologne.

This year, my brother was originally supposed to fly United from Baltimore to San Francisco, connecting in Denver, and then he was going to have dinner (with my uncle's family and me) in San Francisco before getting on another flight to Taipei. My parents were in Taipei already and didn't realize how bad things were at Denver International, and I didn't realize he had a one-stop flight, so it was my uncle, whose daughter's classmate had been stranded in Denver for two days already, who realized that we needed a contingency plan.

I spent an hour on hold with United before getting ahold of a reservations agent, who told me there were no flights from the East Coast to San Francisco, and no other rerouting possibilities, so our only option was a full refund. I asked her sarcastically if she was going to refund the international leg of the flight, and of course she said no.

My parents then scoured the internet and found a one-way, $700 flight on US Air, connecting through Philadelphia, and arriving at 7:40pm, which was only half an hour later than the cancelled United flight, so they quickly booked it. (A cheaper JetBlue flight from Dulles to Oakland sold out before they were able to buy it.) At that point we thought everything would be fine.

Well, my sister made it to Taipei, with only a two-hour delay. My brother made it to San Francisco with a half-hour delay, arriving at 8:10pm. Unfortunately, that made him too late to join us for our sushi dinner, but we bought him takeout and brought it to the airport. Then, the bombshell. US Air had lost his luggage in Philly. They said it might come on the 10:00pm flight, it might come on the 10:45pm flight, or it might come the next morning.

The Taipei flight on EVA Air departed at 12:05pm, and boarded at 11:20pm, with check-in closing at 11:05pm, so he waited for the 10:00pm, didn't see his bag, decided it was cutting it too close to wait for the 10:45pm as well, and tried to file a lost baggage claim. US Air told him that if he filed the claim, they would be unable to release the baggage to EVA Air once it arrived. So, he went to the EVA counter and got checked in, but in a classic travel moment, was told that EVA would be unable to get his luggage unless they had a lost baggage claim from US Air. He went back to the US Air baggage claim area, and while he was waiting in line with the other 50-odd people to file his claim, he found his bag, which had come on the 10:45pm flight. He quickly grabbed the bag, hauled ass back to the EVA counter, got his bag checked in, and made it to the gate about 10 minutes before boarding.

Ironically, my brother would never have gone back to check the 10:45pm flight if he hadn't been given wrong information by US Air about whether to file a claim. But in the end, everything worked out perfectly (except that my parents spent $700 on a one-way domestic flight), with everyone (and their clothes) arriving in time for Christmas dinner.

California cold

It's been really cold recently, in the Bay Area. Normally when I say that I mean that it's 50 degrees and I have to wear a jacket, but it really is cold this time; overnight temperatures are in the low 30s (South Bay) and high 20s (North Bay).

Unfortunately, after nearly six years back in California, I seem to have lost most of my cold weather clothing. I did manage to dig up my down jacket, but I can't find any gloves except ski gloves, I don't know where any of my thick socks went, and all of my turtlenecks seem to be of the thin cotton variety. If this lasts much longer I may have to go shopping.

sports guy

I used to read Gregg Easterbrook's TMQ column regularly, until I got fed up with his preachiness, and I still read Peter King's MMQB every week, but my new favorite sports column is Bill Simmons' Sports Guy. Recently I've found myself forwarding snippets of his columns to friends a couple of times a week, because he's just so damned insightful. (I'm sure that must be annoying, so sorry guys!) Plus, I really enjoy his writing style: casual, intense, and full of great metaphors. Can't get enough.

walking

Last year, they started giving out pedometers at my work gym, in a effort to make us healthier. I'm never one to pass up free stuff, so of course I got one.

It's funny what happens when you give pedometers to a bunch of driven, competitive people. I myself never take elevators anymore, unless the destination floor is at least five floors away. I also choose to walk rather than drive short distances (e.g. 1/2 mile) now, which is contrary to all of my Californian driving-culture upbringing.

Anyway, it's now been one whole year since I started wearing the pedometer, and according to my log, I've walked at least 3,026,087 steps over the past year, for a total of 619.24 miles. Not so bad, for a code monkey.

gingerbread houses

Last weekend, I had a gingerbread house making party at my place. We spent most of the morning baking gingerbread (thus ensuring that my kitchen and my hair would smell like gingerbread for days) and making icing cement. After the guests arrived, we assembled and decorated the houses in teams of two, and then held a contest (every team getting to vote).

I was pleasantly surprised by people's patience and ingenuity; some teams had construction problems, and other teams had decorating mishaps, but in the end, every house held together, looked good, and there were tons of cute, creative details.

Here are some photos:

house with a snowman	carousel
Fenway Park	my house
bunny house (winner!)	lots of gingerbread houses

fantasy sports meets math class

This is is a brilliant idea. I once taught a summer science class to a group of 5th and 6th graders, and was constantly racking my brain for ways to relate the class material to their everyday lives.

I haven't played fantasy football in two years now (the managers in my league were super hardcore and keeping up meant that I was checking fantasy news several times a day), but during the years that I did play, I was constantly calculating and recalculating scores on game day. I'm sure a creative teacher could come up with some kind of math-related ranking scheme too; there are some pretty complicated spreadsheets out there for evaluating fantasy players.

book reviews

A couple of months ago I decided I was going to try and review books. I read several books, and even started writing about a few of them. I wrote a couple of paragraphs about When the Elephants Dance by Tess Uriza Holthe, a WWII novel set in the Philippines. I quite liked the book, and was able to describe why, but got stuck on finding concrete examples from the book. I think it reminded me too much of high school English.

I'm thinking maybe I should review something else, like movies, or restaurants, which would feel less like work. I like reading a lot, but I've always been less fond of analyzing books.

Eastern Europe photos

Prague
Vienna
Bratislava
Budapest
Istanbul

Eastern Europe, part 5 (Istanbul)

We arrived at the airport in Istanbul a little after noon, met up with a friend, and took a shuttle to our hotel. We were staying in Sultanahmet, which is the most touristy area of Istanbul (it's actually a huge city, with tons of small neighborhoods, and over 12 million people!). The rest of that day was pretty chill; we walked through the area next to the Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque, and made our way down to Eminönü, next to the Galata Bridge. We checked out the Spice Bazaar (very colorful and very crowded) and then went to Hamdi for an early dinner. It turned out to be a good thing we were early; the restaurant is apparently quite popular, but because it was Ramadan, hardly anyone was eating until sunset. They told us we could stay for about an hour, which we did. We all ordered kebabs of different types (I ordered lamb, or "shish") and shared a Turkish pizza. Afterwards, we hung out by the water for a bit before heading back to the hotel.

The next two days were quite busy; we spent several hours at the Topkapi Palace (more impressive than I had expected, and slightly reminiscent of the Alhambra), and then visited the Aya Sofia, the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar, the Suleymaniye Mosque, and took ferries to Üsküdar and Kadiköy. I particularly liked the Aya Sofia; apparently, after it was converted from a mosque into a museum, they started examining the walls, and eventually, excavated several 14th century Christian mosaics. Now, these are on display right next to all of the Islamic symbols that decorate the interior.

We also had some interesting food experiences. The first night, after dinner, we went to a cafe where they had water pipes and served apple (and other flavors) of Turkish tea, and we saw whirling dervishes on stage. The second night, we grabbed dinner in Kadiköy; we were in a hurry not to miss the last ferry back, so we walked into the first decent restaurant we saw. We were definitely the only tourists there (people kept giving us curious looks) but the food was cheap and yummy, and the service was good, although the staff spoke no English at all. Luckily the food was on display, and all we had to do was point, and they would dish out plates for us. Afterwards, we went next door, bought a huge box of baklava and other sweets, and then rushed back to the docks in time to catch a ferry back.

On the last day, we didn't have as much of an agenda, so we wandered around Karaköy near the Galata Tower, and then went to check out Istiklal Caddesi, which is a large, modern shopping boulevard in Beyoglu. The locals in this area wore almost entirely modern dress; it was hard to find a woman wearing a headscarf, and many women were wearing sleeveless shirts and tank tops. In fact, we passed by a group of twenty-somethings all dressed in Goth gear. This was in stark contrast to the area by the mosques, where women in full burkas were sometimes seen. At the end of the street is Taksim, where there is a small park and a monument commemorating Atatürk, the father of modern Turkey.

From there, we walked all the way to the Dolmabahçe Palace, built in the 1800s in the European style of the time. It cost an arm and a leg to enter the various museums, so we just walked around the exteriors and had some Turkish coffee at a cafe outside, on the water. We had a grand plan to walk over the Bosphorus Bridge from Europe to Asia, so we kept walking all the way to Ortaköy, where the bridge begins. Unfortunately, we were told the bridge was now closed to foot traffic, so we just hung out there for awhile. We had some yummy snacks that reminded me of scallion pancakes (but more doughy), had kebabs again for dinner, and checked out an arts-and-crafts market by the water. I liked Ortaköy perhaps the best of all the neighborhoods that we visited in Istanbul. Unlike Sultanahmet, Eminönü, and Karaköy, there were almost no tourists, so consequently there were no hawkers trying to sell us boat cruises and trinkets. On the other hand, it was a fairly modern area, so we weren't quite as out of place as we had been in Üsküdar and Kadiköy, where people tended to stare curiously at us.

We flew out of Atatürk International the next morning, after a set of very thorough security checks; a full baggage screen before even entering the airport, then a manual search through carry-on baggage and a very strict pat-down at the gate. Amazingly, it was all very efficient and took almost no time at all, which was a stark contrast to the TSA treatment we got at JFK when we caught our connecting flight.

Anyway, after almost 20 hours of travel, we finally arrived home in the Bay Area, having had no major travel mishaps during the two weeks, and with over 1200 photos to look through. I'll post a few of my favorites in a few days.

Eastern Europe, part 4 (Budapest)

I got off to a rocky start with Budapest; we arrived at the train station a little after noon, and were promptly accosted by dozens of people trying to convince us to take their taxi or to stay at their hotel. We finally made it out of the train station, and into the subway.

We checked into Adina Apartment Hotel, which was really nice; our suite had a kitchen, a huge living room, two half-bathrooms, and a bedroom. We managed to meet up with a friend from London, who had arrived earlier, and spent the rest of the day walking around. We saw the Opera House, St. Stephen's Cathedral, the Parliament (complete with protestors, that week), and then walked up Castle Hill to check out St. Matthias' Church. We wound up the day with a late dinner and some Tokaji wine, and then headed off to bed.

The next day, we hit the Royal Palace (also on top of Castle Hill, and gorgeous), and then walked over the bridge to Vaci utca, a touristy shopping street. At the end of the street was the Central Market Hall, where we found even cheaper souvenirs, spices, wine, and lots of other stuff. Then, we walked up the Gellert Hill and checked out the Gellert Statue and the nice view. Afterwards, we had dinner on a floating restaurant on the Danube, which was nice.

The last day was pretty chill. We did laundry in our hotel room (which took way longer than necessary) walked around a bit, eating at a cute falafel place for lunch, and checking out a bookstore (with Internet access). We went to the Gellert Baths, to try out the famous thermal baths. I was underwhelmed, but then again there are lots of thermal baths in Taiwan. That night, we bought 400 Ft (~$2) tickets to the symphony, which was playing at the Opera House. We heard the first half; a piece by Bartok, and then cut out so we could eat dinner and get to bed in time for our early flight to Istanbul.

another awesome radio morning

Two of my favorite songs, One Hundred Years by Five for Fighting, and How to Save a Life by The Fray, played back-to-back on Alice this morning. Such a lovely way to start the day.

Eastern Europe, part 3 (Bratislava)

I had read somewhere that Vienna and Bratislava were the two closest capital cities in the world (or maybe in Europe) and I couldn't pass up the chance to visit a whole other country only an hour away, so on our last day in Vienna, we headed to Bratislava, the capital of the Slovak Republic.

We arrived around lunchtime, and walked the 2km or so from the train station to the waterfront. There is a bridge in Bratislava, built in the later half of the 20th century, that somewhat resembles a UFO. We took some pictures of that, grabbed a quick (and very cheap) lunch, and headed to Devin Castle, about a 20 minute bus ride away.

The castle ruins are located at the juncture of the Danube and one of its tributaries, the Morava. It was constructed by the Romans sometime before the 800s, and was destroyed only in the 1800s. I enjoyed our visit to Devin Castle even more than Karlstein (near Prague); it was somehow more picturesque, and nothing beats a view over two gigantic rivers.

Afterwards, we took the bus back to the city and then walked up to Bratislava Castle, which is not that exciting to look at, but does also have a nice view; we took some pictures and bought some souvenirs up there. Finally, we ate dinner at a pub, where we tried to spend the remainder of the $60 we had exchanged for the day.

We got back to Vienna sometime after 10pm, and went straight to bed, since we were catching another morning train to Budapest.

Eastern Europe, part 2 (Vienna)

We arrived in Vienna around 2pm, but it took us the better part of an hour to get to our hotel, partially because Vienna has a variety of public transportation options, and they're not all that easy to decipher and/or well connected. Our international train arrived at Sudbahnhof, but we wanted to take the U-bahn to our hotel. It was about a 500-meter walk between the two stops, but it seemed much longer since we were dragging suitcases and backpacks.

Anyway, we finally arrived at our hotel, the NH Wien. It's located in a great area, off of a large shopping street, and just on the border of the Museum Quarter. We took advantage of the small onsite gym, and then showered just in time for dinner. The restaurant we went to was in the University area, so it was relatively inexpensive, and still yummy. Then, we spent the rest of the night walking around the Hofburg Palace and thereabouts.

We had only planned to stay in Vienna for three more nights, and wanted to take a daytrip to Bratislava, so the next two days were pretty packed. We walked around outside the Museum of Fine Arts and the Natural History Museum, saw the Hofburg by daylight, hung out in the Volksgarden and Rathauspark, and took the elevator to the top of Stephansdom. We spent nearly 3 hours at the Schonbrunn Palace, but even that was barely enough time to explore the interior of the palace as well as the expansive gardens. Afterwards, we went to the Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera) to queue up for standing room tickets (3.50 Euro), which was a really great experience.

First of all, we waited in line from 5:15pm until 6:15pm to get the tickets, and then immediately went to the standing room to claim our spots. We hung around there for the next hour or so, until the 7:30pm curtain, and then stood for the remaining 2.5 hours of the performance, finally heading out to dinner around 10pm. Sounds like fun, right? Okay, the standing itself wasn't so great, although we were quite impressed with all the 50 and 60-year-olds standing there with us. However, we did meet lots of interesting people while in line, including a couple of college guys from London who had some awesome cheap travel stories, some girls from Australia, and a Taiwanese student studying music in Vienna (who spoke only Chinese and German). The good thing about standing/sitting for 5 hours is that it makes people pretty chatty, so there were lots of good conversations to be had.

When we finally got out, we were starving, so we headed to Centimeter, a bar near our hotel. They had a 2-meter wurst on the menu, which we just had to try, and I ordered a chicken schnitzel which was excellent, as well. It was a satisfying end to an extremely busy day.

The second day, we hit the Belvedere (Austrian National Gallery), which has quite an impressive collection of Klimt's work, including The Kiss, and then Zentralfriedhof, which is a huge cemetery where Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, and Strauss happen to be buried. We wound up the day watching a performance by the famous Spanish Riding School (again standing room), which was interesting but not quite as impressive as I had hoped.

The next morning, we caught an early train to Bratislava, which is an hour away.

Eastern Europe, part 1 (Prague)

I got back from Eastern Europe almost two weeks ago, but due to my subsequent San Diego/Los Angeles trip, I haven't had time to organize my photos and/or (until now) post anything about the trip. I've decided that I'm going to write about each city separately, in chronological order, which means I start with Prague.

We arrived in Prague early in the morning, and spent three days there. Prague is an eminently walkable city, especially the "Old Town" touristy areas, and is very charming; the buildings have character and the bridges are gorgeous. In some respects it doesn't feel like Eastern Europe at all; the locals are trendily dressed and speak English fairly well, it's easy to find international cuisine, and even the restaurants serving Czech food have creative decor (for example, we went to a medieval-themed restaurant serving huge platters of meat).

We spent the first two days covering the main tourist attractions: the Town Square with the astronomical clock, the Charles Bridge, Prague Castle, the St. Nicholas Cathedral, the Jewish Quarter, etc. We also walked up a fairly large hill with an observation tower at the top, to get a bird's eye view, and to take lots of pictures.

On the third day, we took a day trip to Karlstein Castle, which was about an hour away. It was nice to get out of the city, away from the hordes of tourists (really the only downside of Prague) and see a smaller town. The castle was sufficiently historic (having been the home of Charles IV, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and the King of Bohemia), the hike was quite pretty, and the nearby restaurants served even cheaper food than we had found in Prague.

That night, we checked out Radost FX, a cafe/lounge/bar/club in the "New Town" area, which is where most of the locals live and work. It was really fun; the mostly vegetarian menu was yummy (coming from me, that's a big compliment), they had cheap cocktails (Brandy Alexander for $5), there were live band advertisements strewn on the tables, and best of all, we were probably the only tourists there.

The next morning, we took a 5-hour train to Vienna, arriving in the mid-afternoon.