Pepper's Here!!

Pepper scheduled his R&R around his 30th birthday. Magically, it worked out that he could come here and he made pretty good time. He was set to leave Iraq Feb 13, but since he had to catch a flight from there to Kuwait to Germany to here, we weren't sure exactly when he'd arrive.

Fortunately, he was able to fly out from Qatar and avoided Germany and arrived here Feb 15 in the afternoon. I didn't get the email until a few hours before, so I showed up to the airport hungover with no makeup, but really excited. He barely missed VD, but at least he was here for his bday.


After work, we hauled it to TST to catch the Symphony of Lights, but we missed the show. So we took a few pictures and went to Knutsford Terrace for a sub-par Spanish meal. The tapas were ok, but the paella was pretty yucky.


Then, since I never hang out in Kowloon, we went to the Temple Street night market.


Then we stopped at a locals bar to use the bathroom, and that's where I found some Lucky Money TP. I should have taken a roll.


We were both pretty beat, so there was no stop at LKF, but already, Pepper is causing a stir with the Hongkies.

CNY Day 2: Always Running to the Fireworks

Chinese New Year is so special that it requires 3 days as a public holiday. It's too bad CNY this year fell on a Thursday and I only really got 2 days off of work. CNY is serious though. When people close down, everything is closed down. Some of my vendors are completely unreachable for two weeks or more.

Anyway. CNY. Day 2. Fireworks.

I am always.... ALWAYS... scrambing to see fireworks. One year Pepper and I were stuck in Venice traffic on 4th of July. Another 4th, actually the 3rd, Chris and I were doing circles around Columbus watching the fireworks from the loopy freeway. And last year Turnip and I were running through our hotel to get up to the roof to see the fireworks.

My friend Daven works on the 42nd floor of IFC 2, which is the 5th tallest building in the world with a view of the harbor. We ran up to the office to see the fireworks and it was a pretty long show. The end was pretty spectacular.

It was cool, but then, you are still reminded that you are in a B of A office.




A ride in the lift.


Then we were really klassy and brought a bottle of champagne to the bar, and the servers didn't care. It was only hours later when the manager saw the bottle that it was confiscated.



Then there was a little bit of bar hopping and then we ended up at Evisu for JAAEEEGGERR! It was my best idea all year.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy Chinese New Year Everyone! It's the year of the rat!

What a special holiday it was in (almost) China. It was pretty exciting as all these beautiful red lanterns and decorations appeared everywhere, as well as tons and tons and tons of orange trees. Because my street is lined with flower shops, right before CNY, the sidewalks were full of little orange trees. I woke up on Thursday to take pictures of them from my window, but they were gone. Everything was gone. Everyone was gone. Stores were closed. I stepped out to get breakfast and it was like that scene from Vanilla Sky in Times Square. It was eerie how dead it was, but then again really nice!

CNY is all about family, so people stay at home or go to visit relatives and most expats go out of town. So it was dead. The few of us that remained went to Daven's party, complete with two turnables and a tandoor.





And then we hit the Fong for some Absynthe... I didn't even know the Green Fairy made an appearance here... and then there was this whole debacle getting into Cavern, so we left faster than we got in, and we tried going somewhere else but they thought we weren't cool enough, and Alexis and I ran up to Dragon-I which to our shock was closed, and then for the remainder of the evening and a better part of the morning we shook our tailfeathers at Homebase, which we now endearingly call Homeboys.

Now, there's no replacing "Muscle Relaxer Girl" who was once infamous in Silver Lake, but this guy... I love this guy. It's pretty special to fall asleep at the foot of a stripper pole. Please meet Big Baby Buddha.



And that concludes day one of CNY.

Never Tell a Straight Boy You'll Protect Him from the Queens.

Is this blog becoming a diary of my battle wounds and meals? Why yes, yes it is.

I acquired this lovely bruise at Home Base, which we've renamed Homeboys for the particular clientele. Ah well, we didn't care, it was so much fun we didn't leave til 7 am.

Gung Hay Fat Choy / Kung Hei Fat Choy

Big Pimpin on the High Sea

Jocelyn invited me to go on a junk cruise around the south part of the island, with her two pals from out of town.


The four of us had the yacht all to ourselves and it was pretty badass.


Jocelyn.

We were really really lucky because the past two weeks have been very cold and damp. The night before was rainy and we had little hope for sailing on Sunday. But Sunday turned out to be perfectly sunny and crisp. I cannot remember the last time I felt the warmth of the sun. The tall buildings make us borderline vampires. I never have to wear sunglasses.


Jumbo Floating Restaurant in Aberdeen.


Ocean Park




Our captain, who also owns a local restaurant, made us a delicious bbq lunch.












Lamma Island, great for seafood.


Cyberport


A giant apartment building with a hole.

A PAC-10 Tribute

I had a late invitation to dinner on Saturday. We went to Tribute. It didn't occur to us until later in the meal that except for one, we were all PAC-10.



Starting with me and going clockwise:
The Wildcat/Arizona, and reached the 2 month mark in Hong Kong.

Stanford Steve, from NorCal and currently residing in London.

Jocelyn from Cornell. Whatever, we can't all be perfect ;) Been in HK for a couple of years and is moving to London

Alexis the Trojan, originally from Connecticut and moved here a couple months before me.

Beth-Washington, from Seattle but born in Van Nuys. (That's just a little too close to home) has been here a couple years.

Julie UCLA and from the greater Los Angeles area.

Kaleb UCLA, last resided in Manhattan Beach before moving to London.

How this happened I'm not really sure, but I think it's pretty cool. And a few pics of part of my meal. I missed the bufala mozzerella.

Some out of focus scallops and really tasty cruncy salty seaweed.


Red mullet. Hahaha.


Mmmm pasta.


Veal. The lamb was very good too.


Panna cotta. Aww yeah.

Now if only I could get some decent food at work!

Superbowl Monday is Not Quite the Same

Many of you were around for Superbowl last year at The Port, which was arguably the best superbowl ever. When you combine pals from elementary school, high school, and work with drinks and fried food, it's surely a good time. It was an entire day of fun in a divey bar in Valley Village.


Hauling it to a Superbowl party at 6:30 Monday morning does not have the same appeal. Superbowl parties here are hard to come by since it's "American Football" and not "Football." I was graciously invited to a private party in LKF, complete with a nice breakfast spread and drinks. Free free free. Sadly, work immediately followed so I stuck to coffee. What a waste.


Also sadly, the international broadcast did not come with the brilliant commercials. We had to watch cheerleaders instead.


Their faces have been obscured for their protection. I hear they are actually escorts.


God bless the Giants for coming through with the spoiler. Jocelyn, Alexis and Me are very happy campers. It feels good to do something American!

Question of the Day

I was snooping around on an acquantance's blog (is it really snooping if they publish something on the world wide web?), and I guess her blog host Vox offers a question of the day. I should probably move towards the question of the day rather than indulge myself in the same ol myspace survey, twice a day.

What are 10 things you've done that other people probably haven't?


1. Swimming with Stingrays.
I gotta start off big and then work my way down to some obscure facts. This was possibly the coolest thing I've ever done in my life. So cool, we went back for a second round on our last day in the Caymans. Because of Steve Irwin people are even more terrified, and it's just hilarious to see a big group of people freak out or grown men yelping and jumping. Once you get over the fear, if you ever do, it's an awesome experience. These animals are graceful and massive and it's like a little slice of heaven when they swim up against you, and it's terrifying when you feed them because they suck out the food with their teeth. You have to tuck in your fingers so you don't lose a digit.


2. Remained BFFs with my BFF from kindergarten.
Yes, she is the genius in front of the camera, and I'm the genius behind it. Sarah and I met in kindergarten and the rest is history. We had a fabulous childhood of playing outdoors and with She-ra and swimming and climbing up to the roof and making up dances... imagination was always in full force. We were pretty hideous children so we had to do our best to keep ourselves entertained.


3. I once lived in a football stadium. Seriously.
I liked it so much, I went back for a second year. The Arizona football stadium dorm (aka Navajo/Pinal) was spacious, compared to most dorm rooms. It was not loud during games, and there were always interesting people around. Laundry boy, Racoon girl, oh yeah, and this guy.


It was the bestest. That's where I met Meredith, Jay, Lexie and Gill. Sometimes we'd do Tae Bo in our room, or even worse, Jennie Garth's workout video! We'd cook strange meals and one time we broke the stove and managed to cut the power in the whole building. Jay worked the front desk and we would keep him company and draft renovations for the entry way. But mostly, we sat on our bench.


As you can see, years later, our butt prints are still there.


4. I got three stitches in my right index finger from opening a can of soup.
This happened while I lived in the stadium, sophomore year. I was by myself in the kitchen, opening a can of soup. I'm not so handy with the can opener, so I had to pull open the top and then sliced my finger. Three stitches. Yeah.

5. I peed in my pants several times in the first grade.

6. I threw up during morning prayer/Pledge of Allegiance in the 5th grade.


7. Decided I would rather go to Paris than get married.
Tis the season for my generation to be getting married and having babies. 12 years later, we're still not there yet, but that's ok. There's a group on Facebook called Everyone's getting married and I'm getting drunk. That's about right.


8. I finished my Bachelors before I was the legal drinking age.
My parents pushed my kindergarten to let me in, even though I was a few months past the cut off age. So, I was always the youngest. Last one to be able to drive, you know the story. I got to college at 17, and by OD'ing on the units and testing out of Spanish, I finished a little early. My last day of class, Anthropology and Minds, Brains, and Computers (psych/philosophy), was on my 21st bday.


9. I waited to have a cheesesteak until I got to Philly.
Maybe some people aren't that crazy, but I'm sure I'm not the only one out there. This was 26 years in the making, and I did it right with both Pat's AND Geno's. OMFG, that sounds so good right about now...


10. I had back to back gay halloweens. No really. 2006 San Francisco, 2007 West Hollywood. I guess this is only original if you're not a queen.



Props to anyone else who wants to tackle the Question of the Day!