Today, Jason and I needed to do some grocery shopping for dinner (turkey tacos), and we were walking to the car. Of course I totally forgot where I parked my car and was just walking. All of sudden I realized we’ve already walked past my car. So we stopped and turned around. When we were turning around, Jason was making fun of me that I was getting old since I couldn’t remember where I parked my car. I was looking on the ground for some unknown reason and all of sudden I see my “Y”! I just couldn’t believe it. I totally thought it was gone and I’d have to go buy a new one. I was just so happy. Now I’ll have to be extra careful when I wear the necklace.

Oh, if you like penguins, check out their penguin cam. 

Last night, after installing the new iTunes 7.7, I started browsing the new App store. I found a bunch of software that I really liked, and ended up buying Super Monkey Ball for $10, along with bunch of free applications such as AIM, Remote and Epocrates. Of course, when I was buying these, there were two things I didn’t know. One, I didn’t realize that once you click on the “buy” button iTunes immediately started downloading the application, I’ve been so used to using my shopping cart for everything. Two, I didn’t realize that after I’ve bought these applications, I couldn’t use them because I didn’t have the newest firmware yet that would allow me to actually play the game or whatever. I also had another sign that I wouldn’t be playing Super Monkey Ball, my cable went out! I get Comcast’s Cable internet, and I guess something happened and the cable for the entire block was out. I went to bed, hoping that I would be able to get 2.0 installed in the morning before heading to work.

This morning, while I was eating breakfast, I continued to click on the “check for update” button, after a couple of tries, it told me I could update! Yeah! The software download and install took another 20 minutes. After all that, the phone finally restarted was ready to be activated and synced. Here came the problem, the iTunes store couldn’t be accessed. I kept plugging and unplugging my phone, but nothing worked. I kept getting an error message. By this time, it was 30 minutes later than when I planned to leave, my phone was non-working, and I was really frustrated. I decided to give up and went to work. Of course, at work I read all about people’s woes getting their phones activated. Apparently Apple didn’t quite anticipate the demand, and their iTunes servers were overloaded. Lots the purchasers for iPhone 3G had to go home and activate instead of doing it in the stores. I really think Apple could’ve done a better job preparing for this. Releasing a product worldwide will really overload your servers, even with all the time difference.

I finally was able to activate my phone and sync it up just now. Let me tell you, Super Monkey Ball is fun!!

When you first walk into the spa, you see a reception area, and that’s all. Once you are checked in, they lead you through a set of doors which leads to the main lounge area. This lounge area has lots of comfy large leather seats and sofas, it’s here where you wait for your appointment. Then you can go into the women spa area, where the lockers are and you can change into a nice, long, soft hooded robe. In the spa area, there are also a sauna room, steam room, some water treatment room, a large jacuzzi, and showers stocked with body wash, shampoo and conditioner as well as a shaving supply area. There is also a large dressing area, with blow dryers, straightening and curling irons, and combs and brushes, and lots of nice smelling and expensive hair products. Of course there are an endless supply of clean and fluffy towels.

My appointment was set for 4pm. I arrived around 3:30, waited in the lounge area a bit for my friend, then got into the locker area to get ready for my service. By 4pm, we were in the lounge and our respective aesthetician came looking for us and led us into our own treatment rooms. I had the deluxe H2V spa-style facial. After I removed all my jewelry, and got underneath the cover on a nice and warm bed, my aesthetician, Bettina, started with a gentle scrub of my face with warm towels. She proceeded with two face cleaners, and then one mask, extraction and one more mask to calm down the skin. In between masks, I had my arms, shoulders, neck, chest area, legs and feet all massaged. All the products she used on me were H2V which is a special Burke Williams brand and were available for purchase in the lounge area. The 80 minutes for the facial passed very fast, I felt like I hadn’t quite relaxed enough. I almost wanted to ask her to repeat the facial one more time. My friend and I relaxed in the women spa area, sipping cold lemon/lime water, eating cucumber slices and banana. I went into the sauna to sweat out some toxins and we took our time showering and getting ready for dinner to meet the boys. Oh, before I forget, there’s also a men’s spa section. I saw quite a few guys coming in and out as well. After all, the guys need facials just as much as we gals do.

Overall, it was a really nice way to relax for a couple of hours, and it was worth every penny. I think J would agree with me too, he commented at dinner when he touched my face that it was “as smooth as a baby’s bottom”.

Day 1: Hearst Castle

Day 2: Paso Robles Wine Country

Day 3: Santa Barbara

Day 4: Driving (Santa Barbara-Universal City)

Day 5: Universal Studio

Day 6: Getty Museum

Day 7: Joshua Tree Nation Park

Day 8/9: Disneyland

Day 10: Driving Home

Front view of the Mission

Inside the main hall.

Bell tower

Garden in the mission

After Ventura, we made our way down to Unviersal City. Before getting there we also made a stop in Santa Monica and watched the sunset on the famous Santa Monica Pier. I’ve been to the place a few times, and each time it never fails to amaze me how many people are there. I know it’s a very popular tourist destination, but I think local people also enjoy it very much. After checking into the hotel, we decided to find a place for dinner and ended up at a random Thai restaurant based on some Yelp reviews. I don’t remember what the place was called (I know, I know, should’ve written it down). It had a nice atmosphere, it had very few lights and all the tables had candles. Our food was really good as well. What really amazed me about the restaurant was its location. It was located on a large boulevard, but not surrounded by any other restaurants. It just seemed a really random location. I think that’s one of the reasons why I don’t like L.A., there are just too many random, small neighborhoods and it’s really hard to get to know the city. After dinner, it was time for bed so we could get up early and go have fun at Universal Studio.

We got to Santa Barbara on Christmas Eve, there wasn’t much happening in town. When we got in, we noticed it was really windy. We were walking around State Street where all the restaurants and shops were located, and our eyes were getting watery because of all the dust. We finally settled on an Italian place, and when asked for seating choices, we picked outside. That was, until we sat down and realize there was a layer of dust on the table. So we moved inside. Apparently the Santa Ana wind had been blowing, and all the dust from the big fire in the summer just got stirred up again. We had a decent, but not memorable dinner.

Next day (Christmas day), we decided to go to the beach and lay out for a couple of hours. It was still really windy, so we didn’t last too long. One interesting thing was J and I both called our parents on the beach, and both gloated about how it was around 65 degrees and we were spending Christmas day on the beach, while our families, both located in the East Coast, were freezing. Then we went to drive around town. We went to the Santa Barbara Mission, it wasn’t open of course but it was still nice to take some outside pictures. We ended the day enjoying a beautiful sunset at the beach.

Nice view of the beach, and J playing Superman?

Sunset in Santa Barbara

Mission Santa Barbara

The Nativity Scene outside of the Mission

Drive to and from Paso Robles. One’s taken in the morning, and the other in the afternoon. In the distance is the ocean. Isn’t that an amazing view?

Castle Winery. I bought a couple of wines from them

First winery we went to, Robert Hall.

It took us a while to figure out where to go on this trip. Both J and I had places we’d definitely want to go. For our first day, the plan was to drive down, enjoy the scenery, take a late tour at Hearst Castle, and then spend the night in San Simeon/Cambria.

After getting a few final errands done in the morning, we finally left Campbell around 11am. I have to say, the drive down south along route Highway 1 was really pretty. We’ve gone north on Highway 1 before, and going south was much prettier than going north. We pulled out in a few scenic areas, look at the pretty ocean.


We made it to Hearst Castle a little before our tour started. The castle was build by William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper tycoon. I have been to Hearst Castle many years ago with my parents. I remember think this was a really pretty place. Some interesting stats: the castle has 56 bedrooms, 41 fireplaces, 61 bathrooms, and 19 sitting rooms (from the website). We had a late tour of the day, starting at 3:50. The castle was so pretty in the evening sunshine. We took lots of pictures at the castle, I have here a few from the outside, the inside was just way too dark for my little point-and-shot camera. If you ever get the chance, the castle is a must visit. It’s about a 4 hour drive from San Francisco. So if you are ever in the Bay Area, take a trip out to Hearst Castle and it will be worth your time.

Orange trees in the garden of the castle. Apprantly all the fruits are not picked. They either get eaten by the animals or fall on the ground. I thought that was such a waste of good fruit. Couldn’t they pick the fruit and give it to charity or something?

Casa del Sol. It’s a guest house. Now, I think I would like that as my main house. It also have a huge terrace facing the ocean.

Neptune Pool. Who wouldn’t want to take a dip in that?

Casa Grande, in the evening sun.

After about an hour of the tour, we went back to the visitor center and watched a movie about the building of the castle. Overall, this was a really fun day, and a good start for our road trip.

Update: 10/30/07, got IMAP for my main personal account.
11/1/07, got IMAP for my other Gmail account. YEH!

First up was Avenue Q. A friend of mine was going to see it and and it sounded interesting. So I got a couple of other people to join me and we all enjoyed this very very funny show. It’s described as the adult version of Sesame Street. Personally I’ve never watched Sesame Street, but I thought this musical was great. It is about Princeton, a newly college grad, who comes to New York city hoping to do something big. He could only afford to live on Avenue Q. Princeton, together with his interesting neighbors, struggles with finding jobs, dating, and maybe finding a purpose in life. After watching the show, we couldn’t help but sing some of the songs like “everyone’s a little bit racist”, and “the internet is for porn”. I have to say just one last thing, the puppets having sex, with different positions on stage was a bit odd. But really, it’s a great show. If you find it coming near you, it’s definitely worth the ticket. The soundtrack is equally great.

Next, Sweeney Todd. J’s got a season subscription to ACT theatre in San Francisco. We go see about seven plays a season. Sweeney Todd was their opening act for the season. I had no idea that it’s a very popular story. But it’s been made into plays, and movies many times. The most impressive thing about this musical was that the entire cast play instruments on stage as well as act and sing. It’s just so wonderful to watch them. We stayed for the after-play Q&A session with the cast, and apparently there were water bottles hidden all over the stage. I didn’t not see a single person taking a sip. They were that good. This was their pre-show before going on the national tour. Once again, if they come near you, go see them!

I saw Jersey Boys a couple of days ago. I had no idea who Frankie Valli and the Four Season were. I only went because I kept hearing commercials about the musical and a friend was interested and could get discounted tickets from school. I’m glad I went. I realized as I was watching the show that I actually do know some of the songs. Some of the audience were apparently big fans of the group. I think a lot of people watched the show as they were watching a concert, not as just a musical. I don’t know how true the story is as portrayed by the show, but it basically chronicles how the band started and their success and their ending. I think it was made purely to showcase the music, which I loved. I came home and bought a Best of Frankie Valli and the Four Season album on iTunes. If you grew up with their music then this is a great show to see to bring back those fond memories. And if you didn’t, well, it’s a great way to discover who they were and fall in love with their music.

I walked today to the Presidio and back today. On the way, I was some gorgeous mansions, one where I could see through the windows of a room and see the ocean. There were also a lot, a lot of hills involved in my walk today, which proved to be a good opportunity to test out my iPhone. Too bad today was foggy, so my pictures came out pretty dark. Here are just a couple of relatively OK looking ones. The iPhone is a great companion on my walks, since it’s very helpful with the maps. Only if it’d provided elevation informations on Google Maps then I’d be all set.

Try to ignore the cars. The rounded top building far away is the Palace of Fine Arts.


The blue background isn’t sky, it’s actually ocean.

For those of you that don’t know, Nike Plus is a two piece sensor, one stays connect to the iPod Nano, the other piece suppose to go inside any Nike Plus fitted shoes. I don’t like Nike shoes, so I cheated by buying a sensor pouch that lets me tie the sensor to any pair of running shoes I’d want. The sensors will communicate with each other while you are walking or running, and record the distance, time and calories burned. After your work out, you can load the information through iTunes and also upload to Nike’s website. You can then set goals for yourself, or challenge other people to see who can walk/run the most in a period of time, or to see who can run the fastest mile. It’s great.

I’ve been trying to walk regularly, so I don’t lose. It’s hard to get myself going after work, but I tell myself that I can’t lose, because I know J will come up with some ingenious idea to really make fun of me. I’ve found a great website called “mapmywalk” that helps me calculate the distance of my walk, so I can compare the nano’s readings. Even though I’d done the calibrations on the sensors, it’s still nice to have another reference to know how much I’ve walked. Plus the website can show elevations for your walk, which is really necessary for walking/running in San Francisco. Here’s the walk I did today. It’s also a great way for me to explore my new neighborhood. Happy walking!

I was walking by the Apple store yesterday at Valley Fair, and noticed that the store was packed, and some people seem to be walking out with packages that look like the iPhone package. When I got home last night, I checked the iPhone availability online and lo and behold, they have iPhone in stock! So this morning J and I got up early to head over to the mall (all Apple stores are open at 9am for special iPhone sales). When we walked in, we asked the sales people if they have the 8GB one in stock, and of course they did! While we were getting mine, some other guy walked in, asked if they have iPhone in stock, and then said in a casual tone “I’ll take two 4GB”.

While I was buying the iPhone, I also got the Incase Protective cover, figuring I needed to protect my new toy. Once I got home I started the activation process through Itunes. It was super easy, my phone was set up to use within 10 minutes. I had no problem transferring my phone number from T-Mobile (I’ve been out of contract for a while now). I synced up all my contact information, my emails, some of my photos and music. I’m now enjoying the iPhone. It’s a great little toy. It’s hard to describe how fun it is, you’ll just have to go into the store and play with it. I’ll be returning the protective case though. The phone seems to get very very warm if I’m charging it and playing on it at the same time, and I’m concerned how the case will trap in the heat and cause some unknown damage. So once there’s more testing with these cases, I’ll look to buy one. Instead, I got a front invisibleSHIELD to cover up the screen, because the finger prints are driving me nuts after just half a day of use and I find myself wiping it clean constantly with the cloth that’s part of the iPhone package.

So right now I’m in love with my new toy. I keep finding cool features, and cool little details about it. I’ll report it back after I have it for a while and let you know what how it’s doing.

We sat around having a couple rounds of beer and water. I had to wait for the cable guy to come between 3-5pm. While we were talking, we all noticed my upstairs neighbor was playing his music rather loudly. I explained that I noticed that when I came to do my walk-through and the landlord said she would mention to my neighbor that I was moving in. J decided to go introduce himself and see if he can get the neighbor to turn down the music a bit. After a long talk with the neighbor, and I even eavesdropped a bit at the door, he came back down. Apparently after J introduced himself and said that he noticed the music was a little loud, the neighbor’s response was “well, I’m not turning it down”. Wow, didn’t quite expect that answer. Apparently he’s a DJ and needs to listen to his music pretty loudly. He also said something about I should expect this because it’s apartment living. Whatever! I haven’t since heard anything really loud from above me, so I guess I’ll let it go.

Ok, back to the moving day. After the cable guy being delayed, K and T left since they needed to get back to the south bay. The cable guy finally showed up a little before 6. Got my cable installed. Oh, I was supposed to get a $20 credit since they didn’t show up on time. We’ll see about that when the bill shows up.

J and I figured since we could have the truck ’till next morning, might as well go shopping in Ikea and buy the big furniture. What a mistake! Anyway, we went to Ikea and shopped. I got a nice table to put next to my kitchen in my living room for all the kitchen stuff that won’t fit in my tiny, tiny kitchen. That thing was heavy! J and I barely carried it up three floors. I even dropped it on my right foot once, and it’s still a bit purple.

We then decided to do an after-hour drop off of the truck. That’s when we really ran into problems. I first had to make a copy of the contract. After driving around for what seemed like forever, we found a Safeway with a copy machine that takes coins. Then out to the U-haul place to drop off the truck. We were told on the phone that it was no problem to drop it off after hours, and that we just needed to place the key and a copy of the contract in the drop-off box. Well, guess what? There was no drop-off box! After searching for that forever, we decided to just leave the stuff in one of the boxes at the entrance of the lot. We finally made it back to J’s place (my new place was a huge mess and we couldn’t really sleep there) around 12:30am.

Next day, I woke up to call the U-Haul center. Apparently they don’t do after-hour drop off, none of the San Francisco locations do. Well, I wasn’t told that! They called me back after they found the key and finished the paper work, and told me that they were going to charge me for an extra day, because I didn’t call until 10am and they didn’t finished the paperwork until 11am. I was so not going to let them, especially not after all that trouble we went through to drop off the truck. I had to call back again the next day to talk to the manager, he agreed to refund me for that extra day. It was just not a pleasant experience with U-Haul.

Hopefully I won’t have to repeat this experience for another couple of years. And when I do, I’ll be making enough money that I won’t feel bad about hiring professionals to do the moving part. Now all I have to do is unpack, fun!

I’ve walked this footrace several times in the past. It’s always around my birthday weekend, so I have very good motivation to do it. I truly enjoy it each time. When you are walking, there are people in crazy costumes, or naked, pushing carts full of alcohol. There are people partying on the side walk, with music blasting away. There are serious runners, including the winners who finish running the whole course under 40 minutes. We, on the other hand, finished the course in 3:21:19. I know this time because starting this year, for all registered runner/walkers, you get a chip to place on your shoe so they can record the exact time it takes for you to finish. This is really a great experience. If you’ve never done it, it’s worth to come out to San Francisco just for this. I can’t really imagine this event happening anywhere else but there. I really do love this place.

A nice butt shot to start the walk.

Tradition salmons that go against the stream every year.

Rooftop onlookers, including Santa Claus and Easter Bunny.

This seemed to be the best shot I have of people-filled uphill Hayes street.

“White by birth, trashy by choice”. Kinda funny.

A nice pirate ship. J’s reaction was “what do they do that they have the time to build this?”.

” Chug, Chug, Chug!”

Star troopers who finished the walk already, and heading back.

The pacific ocean, the finish line coming up!

Oh, one interesting fact about this race. I saw a neighbor, who normally lounges in the apartment complex’s pool in the minimal Speedo outfit, walking the course naked, completely naked! Good thing I only saw him mostly from the side, from far away. I had no problem recognizing him since I’ve seen him at the pool a lot, and at the apartment gym quite a bit. I’m definitely trying to block the image of him at the race. Good thing I’ll be moving, I won’t have to see him anymore, until next year’s Bay to Breakers that is.