Hawaii Day 0: Enroute to Hawaii

Flying out of YVR - the tickets were half the price less than if we had flew out from the US of A.  So strange that it'd be cheaper to be flying into the US than within it.  

First stop on landing.  Gyu-Kaku - 牛角. Best Japanese BBQ on Waikiki!

Today they had an abalone and beer special.. Mmmmm... Cowabunga!

Finally Alive Again!

Was a pretty crappy week this past week.  Barfing, fever, coughing, snotting, phelming... curling up into a ball every couple hours.

Spent $400 on hope to have a nurse practicioner come to give me a diagnosis.. of the common cold.  Though I am glad it was just that, since this was one strong cold.

Farmer Mson Saga: First Harvest

After a month, the cilantro and mint have grown up!

Little nephew 100 day dinner!

Little nephew - so smily! :)

In honor of his presence, I had 3 bowls of shark's fin soup. Wuahhahaha

BJ's Wedding

Another trip back to T.O.

This time for two main events.  BJ's Wedding and my lil nephew's celebration of life!

BJ's Wedding - lunch at a bar rooftop in downtown T.O.

Good beer (and drinks), and there was also AYCE oysters for appetizers - where I easily had a dozen :).  At first a few people felt bad taking one or two, but once we started talking, they no longer felt so bad.

The wedding speeches were pretty funny.

After the lunch gathering, we went back to the hotel room to rest, or in our case, do a push up competition and make funny faces next to passed out people.

With the heat (and probably age), we were all a little bit out of it in the evening.  Ended up at a club, where we drank a little bit more, danced a bit, and wished the newly weds the very very best!

Congrats BJ and Terie!

Farmer Mson Saga: Automating Watering with a Drip System

Watering consistently is hard, and since we will be out of town quite a bit the next month, I had to make sure our plants get the water they need.

The solution: Drip System.



Cost: ~$105... Automation doesn't come cheap!

Farmer Mson Saga: Initial Planting

Finally gotten around to starting to take advantage of our yard.  Today we finally put in our plants.

What is being planted:
- Strawberries, watermelon, 2 kinds of tomatoes, edamame, cilantro, mint

Hopefully they turn out!

Proposed Layout:

UW Engineering Day - Breaking Down Kidney Stones Demo

Today I was volunteered to help run a booth for the UW Engineering day. It was a booth that demonstrated how ultrasound can be used to break down kidney stones (at least that's what I got out of it).

The idea is pretty cool, and it was cool that it can be visualized (the setup was that a plate was submerged into water, and by tuning it so that it was at resonant frequency, the water would ripple and the water would 'jump' out. Obviously, once I took over the demo, I made it really jump :P.

The second part of the demo was to relate this 'jumping' effect to that of being able to break down stones with the vibrations.  For that there were test tubes of rocks, and by putting it near where the jumping of the water occurred, one would see the rocks move, thus completely the demo.

Reminded me of Project Batcape.  It was pretty fun I thought.  At one point, I remember a lady coming over and asking about the 'kidney stone' demo.  Hahaha - guess word got around about the demo.

Sushi Kashiba

So after both of us having been basically taken turns not being in S. town, today we finally meet up with the doctor friend I met on the plane 4 months ago.  And what better place to go than Sushi Kashiba - a place we've been wanting to go to but haven't.

Before diving in, a little background - Sushi Kashiba was opened by Shiro and a few others chefs in Seattle.  Yup - the same Shiro that used to be at Shiro!

Shiro is said to the be the Godfather of Seattle Sushi... And we were lucky enough to sneak in for a quick picture with him right when we sat down as the bar was clearing (even though we didn't sit at the bar.  Wuhahahaha!

We had their omakase and it was pretty good.  The fish was pretty fresh.  The Uni and Toro were really good (so I ordered seconds!).

Also got a bunch of Hawaii food recommendations, since Ms. Doc lived in Hawaii for a little bit in the past.

Fun times - need to do this again!

The menu for the night:
- Madai fishcake
- Otoro handroll
- Sushi Part I: Albacore tuna, Tuna, Madai, Hirame (Flounder)
- Sushi Part II: King salmon, Sockeye, Ebi, King Mackerel (over hay), Toro (aburi style), Hokkaido Scallop
- Sushi Part III: Geoduck, Ikura, Uni, Eel
- King crab roll
- Toro and Uni handroll (not part of the omakase - I ordered this separately :) )
- Tamago and Miso

BJ's Bapa

Finally got a chance to shoot a machine gun!  Di-di-di-di-da!!!

...Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!