raising our standard of living

No internet connection this week, so I'm writing this and will post later.

Our move was ok. A big thanks to K for trying to have a "stress-free-M move". There was still more than enough cleaning and moving left for me Saturday and Sunday after I got back from NJ, but I suppose it was ok overall. I packed, moved, and immediately unpacked all my kitchen stuff Sunday, so we're not starving or living off junk food. And we're now *slowly* unpacking the rest of our many boxes. Mass email with new contact info to be expected once I have internet & mail access again.

I also used a dishwasher to wash actual dishes for the first time yesterday. It's not the first time we've had a dishwasher, but I've always used it as just a dish drying rack in the past. I'll have to see how it affects our water & electricity bills before I go crazy with it.

I just noticed the new [free] blogger image hosting on the blogger front page... *without* needing to go through "Hello" apparently. The "you can fill up to 300 MB of server space with images" limit is a bit bleh, but it's still more generous than e.g. photobucket's 25 MB. I have yet to try it and will still prefer Picasa + Hello for posting photos (no limits so far that I know of), but it's definitely a cool addition for all other random pics.

movie catch-up

D always catches me up on the latest Asian movies whenever I come home... House of Fury, Tokyo Raiders, A World Without Thieves, New Police Story, A Moment to Remember, Azumi, Azumi 2...

We were discussing what makes us like a movie or not. I generally don't like movies with realistic endings... because "realistic" usually implies the 'good guys win and live happily ever after, bad guys lose' doesn't end up happening. It's sort of why my liking of Cowboy Bebop lessened after the ending. D, on the other hand, just likes unpredictable endings. "You see him about to fight the guy and the prediction is that he'll beat the guy and be able to get away. But he doesn't. He dies. Whoa! That was unexpected... interesting ending."

My brothers also tried to get me to watch 'A Tale of Two Sisters' with them. They told me it was a comedy, but sad in some parts. There's no reason for me not to believe them. So we started watching it... and a few minutes into it, I realized there was something odd going on. It certainly did not seem like a comedy.

Argh, I hate it when someone does that to me. I CANNOT watch horror films!!! Ok. It creeps me out... in the 'nightmares for the rest of my life' sort of way. I even hate talking about them. Ok, so I'm going to stop now.

A Moment to Remember was ok... I'm still trying to decide whether or not I liked it. It gives me the same feeling as 'Windstruck', without all the weird wind business. The female lead is the same person who's in 'The Classic' and 'Summer Scent' [drama].

Azumi... female kenshin? Even the ending [to #2] is Kenshin-OVA-ending-like. I think watching these types of movies with the addition of D's commenting is inuring me to Japanese blood & gore.

I also just saw the trailer for the Initial D movie... it would certainly help if I'd seen the anime. Maybe I'll watch a few eps to get a feel for it.

eh?

I saw L today, aka Ms. L. My brothers think it's weird that I met with one of my high school teachers, but it's all the same to me. Who says you can't foster relationships with previous teachers? It's just another person you've crossed paths with in your life. We went out for ice cream. The "ice cream" was an interesting texture... it was supposed to be sort of italian ice + cream mix. It was fun; we just chatted about random things (we talked for longer than when I saw N the other day...?).

R went to his friend's graduation up in north Jersey today. He spent all last night making her graduation present. It was cool to see him in action...

food at home

I mentioned to my mom that the 'luo bo gao' she made contained quite a bit of oil. She said my dad likes to have them pan-fried... of course, pan-fried, but it worried me that the pool of oil left in the dish was a lot more than if you got a plate of luo bo gao at dim sum, for example. She says, "it's vegetable oil", as if vegetable oil is supposed to be a great thing. And she said it's only occasional. Well, I've noticed that every dinner at home so far has included one dish that is fried -_-

Food and... wine. We have a plum tree in our backyard, which produced so many plums last year that my parents decided to make their own plum wine. My mom makes it sound really easy. I guess they must know what they're doing, because she gave me a taste of it and I'd say it was as good or maybe even better than the plum wine I tried at Ginza (the only other place I've ever had plum wine). My grandpa (mom's dad) used to make his own wine when I was young, so I guess he must have passed on some of his knowledge.

empty nest to come

R's graduation today... and now all 3 of us are done. Short graduation ceremony, but my dad still managed to lose the perfect-fit camera case that I bought him only a couple of weeks ago.

The pictures...

Several tries before he was FINALLY satisfied with his tie...


Tying a tie is tough work... need to get some zzz's...


My brothers all grown up...


I look like a midget next to them...


Wearing a graduation gown over a long-sleeve shirt in 80-degree weather... but now we're all done...

bff

I saw N for a little bit today. Actually, I was a bit disappointed because I was really looking forward to seeing her and catching up. Instead of a nice long walk down the Jersey shore, it turned out to be a short one hour thing. I hardly got to know her life since after high school. When I see her, I still feel like I can tell her everything, but we don't talk enough to even barely tell everything. Is this how all long-distance friendships will end up?

start of week at home

Friday -
D and I drove out to my cousins R and S's graduation in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania... 2 1/2 hours, not too bad. It feels strange seeing everyone graduate; I remember them all being 3 feet tall... almost like it was yesterday. My two aunts from Rochester came down, too... and it was fun to see them. Lots of older generation family being together makes things lively. They all talk really loudly and the more happier things are, the louder they are. For any stranger watching us, they'd think we were fighting (especially since they wouldn't know what we were saying... speaking in some random Chinese dialect).

I'm really proud of both my cousins... it's tough to find people their age who are as responsible as them. I don't doubt R's intelligence since most of my family says he's really smart, but I hope MIT will strip away his little bit of arrogance. I'd never heard of this award until the graduation, but he did get honorable mention in the USA Today 2005 Academic All Stars. He's also doing the NSA Stokes Scholarship Program. I think he's crazy for committing to a 6-year requirement after college graduation right now, but I guess it's a pretty sweet deal. (Haha, yea, I do the horn tooting for all my family.) We are all paying for R's college tuition, so he better do something extraordinary.

Saturday -
Woke up at 8am to drive back to NJ for R's last violin recital. I give myself a pat on the back for being able to stay (mostly) wide-awake during the whole recital. R got to do a duet piece in addition to his solo. Oh, and it was the first time I got to see him with his glasses on for an extended period of time.


I'm going to catch up on sleep tonight...
Wedn night - lots of cleaning up & organizing - 4 hrs of zzz's
Thurs night - red-eye flight + 2 hrs of zzz's after it
Fri night - 3 hrs of zzz's
...so I'm really looking forward to it ^o^

hungry enough to eat my dress

...chocolate fashion show at the opening of the Salon Du Chocolat exhibition in Beijing Friday, June 10, 2005. The three-day event is being promoted as China's first chocolate exhibition, featuring 20 of the world's top chocolate makers, some of whom contributed to the edible dresses on display in the fashion show.
(Dec-2009 edit: links to 2009 show in Paris since the old link died >_<)



I made chocolate muffins today from Alton's baking book. Is yogurt or buttermilk the secret to muffin success? All I can say is - yummy ^o^

(mini) chocolate factory

Went to the Scharffen Berger chocolate factory this weekend... disappointing in some ways. The overwhelming chocolate smell was there, overwhelmingly so. But my vision of a big huge factory with lots of interesting machinery and chocolate oozing everywhere... was squashed. Oh, and the little oompah people... nope, none of those.

I think I'd already seen most of the stuff they taught about the chocolate making process on the 'Art of Darkness' Good Eats eps anyways. R beat me to this post, but no worries, I also have incriminating pictures...


The granite cacao bits musher thing... which is where the cacao beans go after they leave the grinder. The bits get mushed until it becomes a semi-smooth paste. (Scharffen Berger only has one factory... so this is where it ALL gets made. And the factory basically only has one of each machine type -_-)


We saw a doggy on our way out of the building. Poor doggy... 'death by chocolate' is literally true for dogs. I could just imagine some innocent child coming out from the factory - "Ooh, mommy, look at the cute doggy. He looks hungry... I want to feed him some of the chocolate we just bought... pleeease?"

I am a child until I wed

I just learned of another weird Chinese tradition/custom...
If [an extended] family member is getting married, I'm not allowed to receive a direct invitation. One invitation gets sent to my parents, addressed to our family (parents + children). My dad explains it as I'm still a "child" and children do not receive invites. I can receive direct invitations once I, myself, am married. Being married = am an adult = no longer a kid = yay? What happens if someone is 50 years and never wed? Bleh.

The custom is weird enough. What surprised me was my dad's reaction to me telling him that my cousin told me about this.
Me: Why would he follow such an outdated custom?
Dad: Of course he should! If he didn't, it would be a huge mess!

My mom takes it a step further. It is also customary for the engaged couple to personally call (via phone) each family and invite them, in addition to the snail mail invitation.

I don't understand, but it's useless to argue. What's worse is that I will probably end up following these customs just so my parents won't be giving me more stress upon stress during my wedding planning.

Or maybe I'll just send everyone an evite.