Recovery Day...

Waking up the next day, I continued to read the book the Devil and Ms. Prym by Coelho. I have to say that this author is pretty good. After reading the first chapter or so last night, I was just itching to find out what happens.

This book was a story about good and evil... and seeing if people are borne good or evil, or that a person always fights between choosing these two extremes throughout life.

The premise:
A person with a sad past comes to a small village where everyone is honest does the following:
1. Shows a villager a gold bar (enough to let her do whatever she wants for the rest of her life). Then he tells her that he will just leave it in a certain place. Knowing it is his, she could steal it and run off with it -- which would be morally wrong and a sin -- (thou shalt not steal)
2. Then he goes on to say that there are 10 other gold bars (enough to let the entire village never do work again), which he does not disclose where it is. BUT, he will hand it all over if the villagers does one thing... murder a person from the village. Those at the village have 7 days to do this act.
3. The villager is the one telling the entire village of what this man had said.
If you were the girl or the villagers, what would you choose?

After reading this book and yesterday's run, I remember how dull physical pain is compared to any emotional or psychological pain... haha. Even though I can barely walk without wincing, I think it would probably be far worse if I had to go through the psychological turmoil that Ms. Prym in this book had to go through.

Peking Duck and SBK

After a random facebook message of wanting Peking Duck, someone actually went ahead and organized a Peking Duck outing! So off we went to try it out. The place we went to was called O'Asian (in downtown Seattle).

It was a 'new style' Asian restaurant... very little round tables, pretty classy decor. Surprisingly though, the food tasted pretty authentic. The peking duck itself was decent... but it was pretty expensive! I think there were only 12 pieces of skin on the entire dish, with no other courses after. The service though was really good, so I guess that makes up for it. Definitely got to try the other place in Intl District and compare how the Peking duck ther fares.

After a filling dinner, we went to Seattle's Best Karaoke (SBK) to sing some songs - cuz it was still pretty early into the night. First time being there, and I was not impressed at all. Aside from the lack of booze (which I can grudgingly accept):
- the place wreaked and smelled. Not just the chairs, but the books were smelly on certain pages...
- they played songs off these big disk racks, which would fail to load songs every so often...
- It had an old number input style selection systems (the kicker was you can only enter a max of 12 songs at a time)...
- no AC and it was pretty muggy and hot...

So after that experience, probably won't be going back for a long long LONGGGG time!

Having said all this, we ended up singing for 3.5 hours... only leaving because we were getting kicked out cuz another group had booked the room. Ironic eh?

Thg Jog of No Return!

Was originally going to the library to pick up a few reading books, but after having a pack of bacon for lunch, decided I would jog instead. Becoming curious, I looked up the route I had been running. Turns out the path is actually about 3 miles. Which means that in the past year I have managed to go from a 5 minute run.. to running 5km :). Guess I finally completed one of my 'to-do's...

So back to today, wanting the best of both worlds, I looked up how far it is to the library... 2.8 miles one way. Having not jogged for 2 months, I probably shouldn't have taken this on... but meh, I wanted those library books. Worse case I would take the bus back on the return leg. So armed with the essentials (phone, keys), and extra items water, bus pass and a credit card, off I went!

So I was able to run most of the one way trip. Only walked twice for a little bit as I was going uphill. Never realized those hills were that steep! Total running time = 31 minutes... so I'd say I probaby got there in 40 minutes. Not too bad at all!

Once I was at the library, I went in and started reading one of the books I borrowed for a little bit (and also to rest a little). I am very glad to have made this trip! Because the book's opening was just amazing. This Paulo Coelho author is pretty good indeed!

Seeing the sun starting to set, it was time for me to attempt to jog back home. At the library, I realized that both my quads were pretty sore from the run (a good indication that I did a pretty good workout :P). If it was only that, jogging home would not be too tough because as I run, my quads would loosen up again and it will feel ok. However, the semi-expected issue came up... and this made the return home pretty tough! Having mostly run on trails, The impact with the concrete pavement that I experienced today did quite a number on me. And because of it, my ankles/foot were actually pretty sore from the run... to the point where walking caused my left foot to hurt. The interesting part of this was that the part that was most sore was not my right foot, but a part of the left foot that has never hurted before... EVER! I found it both surprising and amusing at the same time... haha.

Nevertheless, I started off jogging from the library, but within a few minutes, decided that I would stop jogging for fear that I might cause some permanent damage to my foot (seeing that I felt pain every step I took!). At this point, I could have used my backup plan and taken the bus, but being impatient with the bus system, I continued to march forward - turns out the time between buses == the same time for a limp to get to where he wanted to go...

Arriving back home in one piece, took a nice shower and then got ready for part II of the night, peking duck in S.town!

Imo and Trinity night

Having had a mystery drink that was unexpected strong (a B151 with Malibu :X) the night before, the Friday was pretty rough throughout the day - seeing I went to bed at 4am...

Troopers that we were though, tonight we would continue the outing and have the first Imo and Trinity combo night of the new year.

Supposedly we were to be at Imo by 8.30pm...but after getting home from work, I took a quick power nap and before I know it, it was 8.30pm. So by 9.30ish, we were there. Surprisingly, it was pretty empty...

Wasn't really in the mood for drinking today, so just sipped a little bit of sake and then we headed into the club. Got introduced to some "Indie dancing" which was pretty interesting.

By the time we left the club, I was exhausted and so called it a night...

Have to say that today was a struggle... guess I am getting old!

Umi Sake House!

After going there twice for dinner and having to give up because the wait would be too long, finally, today I finally got to try Umi Sake House! 3rd time's the charm!

The food was pretty good, and they were pretty unique. Had this dish with octopus as an appetizer, and that was REALLY good. After trying out other dishes, decided randomly to go watch a movie. Looooveee random plans!

We ended up watching an Adam Sandler movie called Bedtime Stories... A classic Adam Sandler movie - funny most of the time, has a little plot to thread the story together. Very nice and relaxing.

After the movie, we walk back out and on our way towards the car, we see 3 groups of 12 yr olds walking around at midnite... wtf? 12am in the morning, and kids are walking around. If it was only one group of little kids, then it'd be still a bit normal, but 3 groups??? That was just weird.

When I was 12, hrmm.. what did I do?

Reflection 1/8: Enroute to Seattle

After 2.5 weeks, it was time to head back to the west coast. The lines were pretty long today, and it looked like everybody everywhere was delayed... but me! I arrived in SeaTac at 11pm-ish - the expected time because of my connecting flight, but very many people enroute to Seattle weren't so lucky. Turns out the city got hit with snow for a few hours in the afternoon, and they had shut down the airport for a few hours. So all the flights that were suppose to arrive from 3pm to 7pm or so could not land and were all rerouted to nearby airports. Which meant that by 11pm-ish, the baggage claim was packed with people, and zero wait taxi line that usually awaited me was ended up taking me 1.5 hours+ to even get into a cab! On the way home, the taxi slipped sooo many times, that I was actually pretty scared.

So on the way back, I had a stopover at O'Hara, and as fate would have it, I would run into the person who lent me the Alchemist. What are the odds eh? Here I was in Seattle at the same city, working at the same place, and I would not run into her, but instead, I run into her at an airport I do not usually go to, out of all the possible connecting flights and stop overs location, it was this one.

This was the first time I had talked to her face to face for a few years now. I remember the last time we talked was when I was picking her brain about the life here, and it seemed more like a Q&A session with a frustrated/incomprehension face from her more than anything...

So this chat as we waited to board the plane was different. It felt awkward in a way, but that's to be expected :P. It also seemed like there was alot less judging this time around, so there was ALOT less frustration (which is good or bad depending on how you look at it)... but what kept striking me as odd was that here I was, always believing that it is not difficult to keep up a conversation with old acquaintances, but then with her, I can definitely feel the lack of topics... Good thing that as always, I can count on her to find stuff to talk about :P - to keep the awkward level from becoming overbearing.

The interesting thing was that while this slight awkwardness was floating around, I was able to at the same time, feel that calm state that I had never been able to quite grasp on my own. That feeling of just being content... be not thinking of anything else, my mind feeling like a blank canvas, not desiring and conjuring up ways to have more of anything and everything... Actually, now that I think about it, this probably partly explains the reason why it was hard for me to think of something to talk about with her... even back then... Of all the people I have met, I think she is the only one who can bring me to this state of mind. That or lots and lots and lots of booze... hahaha

Which makes me wonder. In my life, I have come to know quite a few people. Those who can inspire and motivate, those who can lead, would help others, are compassionate and considerate, are driven, are fun, are wild... which in turn becomes a catalyst for me to reach higher and try to enjoy life. But none of these catalysts (other than perhaps helping others), makes me feel content or happy. Why is that?

I seem to feel most content when I am in this blank state. Though in this state, I am headed nowhere... I would feel stagnant, calm and content but not indifferent. But then, isn't that better than being stagnant, agitated and indifferent? What about the state of moving, agitated and indifferent? Is the ideal case to be moving, calm and content, and not indifferent? How do I reach this state?

Revisiting High Class Bbtea Place

Been waiting a year for this... the high class bbtea joint!

So meeting up with VIP BBtea-er, we chilled and drank GREAT bbtea. Before we know it, it was already 2am.

So we talked about some pretty random things and everything, but though many things have changed, there are certain aspects that reminded me of her high school days. hahaha. Guess people don't really change all that much. Maybe it is true that change is not something that can be done easily... even after all these years and experiences...

One interesting idea that resurfaced as we were chatting away... Is it possible to retire in 5 years and do anything I want! Ahh... wouldn't that be a nice life...

The biggest question I guess is how. I mean, it does seem that it could be possible. It is restricted only to a few people... but they are proof that it can be done right? ...if only i have that great idea and drive!

New Year's Eve 2008

Getting home and then chatting w/ Hermie for a bit, I proceeded to go to a potluck thing to see an old friend. It's been awhile since I've saw her...almost one year... if not more!

Alot has changed in the past year it seems. Funny as it sounds, this trip back has made me realized just how much everybody has been moving forward, but I have not moved much at all...

But anyway, after having dessert and playing a few games and catching up, I proceeded to go up to Law's place, to find the Waterloo crew drinking away...

One game that caught my eye was Black Jack for drinks. It has all the black jack rules, and everyone rotates being the the dealer. Dealer plays against everybody else, and if dealer loses, they drink, and vice versa. It's a pretty scary game - since in one deal the dealer could drink quite a bit! Pretty interesting idea though.

Once the new year's kicked in, Law comes up to me, and within 15 minutes, I have broken my 3 drink limit... As the night moved on, we started with beer, then moved to drinking shots of wine with uncle, and even drank some hard liquor at some point. Ate at the wee hours of the night, and before we knew it, it was 6:30am and time for bed. Got up for dim sum at 10ish and recovered the rest of the day...

Another year, another yearly tradition! Thx Law for hosting another year.

Blue Mountain Part II

What an adventure this day was!

After waking up and watching price is right, went outside to see snow starting to fall. Didn't think much of it at the time - I mean, snow? in Collingwood, that's expected.

Then on to the car, and seeing on the dash a good ol' parking ticket. Nothing too bad right? Day could go better, but it's just a parking ticket afterall. Pay it when I get home, then I am good to go.

Start up the car, brush off the snow, and then went back into the car. Noticing that the mirror still had some snow on it, I rolled down the window, and brushed the snow off. Then pressed the button to roll the window back up. I pressed it... ... ... and nothing happened.

So here we are now, a little bit past noon, and it's snowing (blowing snow), we are in the car, and one of the windows is FULLY down. Snow was starting to full into the controls, and so I figured we gotta cover it w/ something (in case the snow gets in and melts, causing an even bigger mess). After a phone call home, I was told that in addition to the doors not working too well, that window I just pulled down 'normally can't go down cuz is stuck'. So thinking, AWESOME!, next step was to call CAA and see what they can do. Their response: sure, we will be there in 30 min to 2 hours...

In effect saying we are on our own for the next hour, we looked at a map, saw a Toyota dealership and thought, 'hey, let's go there and see what they can do'. So we started driving down, with snow blowing through the driver side, and all of us wearing our toques and big jacket like the day before when we went snowboarding.

As I am driving down, first I tried to go the no glove approach... which soon after I had to ditch and wear one glove (as luck would have it, there were no thin gloves so I had to drive with the thicker leather gloves). Pretty soon though my face was getting cold, so we pull up a red blanket and used that to cover the driver side where the window would be. Though because of the blanket, I could not see the left mirror, it was a reasonable trade-off, seeing as I held the blanket, I could feel the gusts of wind that would have landed on my face had I not have the blanket. I had two fully functional mirrors, so face vs. left mirror, bye bye mirror! :P.

I have to say, this was soooo ghetto, and sad to the point where by the time we got into town (which was about 15 minutes in), Swimming Buddy and I just started laughing. Sure we realize as we were in town that we had no more wiper fluid either, but how can things go any worse! In a little less than 2 hours since we woke up, we had an injured person, and 2 frozen popsicles. While we are laughing at our plight, we were debating heavily what we'd do if Toyota can't help us. Whether to:
a) turn up the heat and drive 1.5 hr on the highway to get back home
b) keep holding onto this red blanket as we cruise down the 400
c) drive to Canadian Tire and buy ceram wrap and duct tape to seal the open gap.
... after a few minutes, we decided to put these in the backburner, until it's confirmed that Toyota can't help us.

So we got to Toyota a little bit past 1:00pm.. right about when they were closing for the day. I rushed in, told them our situation, then the mechanic comes out, looks at it and gives out what I heard as an 'uh-oh'. Before I had time to react to the 'uh-oh', the mechanic starts banging on the door panel and then the window magically started sliding up! Holding my breath as the window continued to creep up to its fully closed position, I had nothing but 'thank you's and 'you are the best' for the mechanic. Toyota at Collingwood - really nice people. I mean, it's the 31st, they are about to close up, and they are willing to check out a stray's car! What nice people!

So after an hour driving around town, the window was fixed! We decided to go for a quick bite and warm up before driving back. Having been delayed by Price Is Right and this little hunt for Toyota, we come back to see the 401 jam packed eastbound. So as we saw how 401 is packed from the 400 all the way to 403, Swim Buddy and I decided to use our great navigation skills to chart up a new route to get back home.

Good thing we did because it turns out there were two accidents that happened, clogging up effectively the entire section from Keele to Kipling. So getting on right after Keele, we hit ZERO traffic!

Dropped off Swim Buddy at the hospital to get a checkup on her hand, and I proceeded to go buy some chicken wings to prepare for the tonight.

Blue Mountain Part I

Waking up bright and early at 8:30am (the earliest I have waken up since I've been back), today began the trek to Collingwood for day of fun filled snow and mountains.

Debating the whole way whether I should ski or snowboard, I ended up trying out snowboarding... 2nd time in my life. This 2nd time I fell alot less on the bunny hill... I was able to actually make it down without falling a few times - but then again, this bunny hill seemed alot flatter than the one at horseshoe.

The worst idea of the day was probably being convinced to go up the non bunny hill on the first run of the day. Fell soo many times as I came down... and I swear there were times where I thought I was gonna die!.. lol. Good thing my subconscious survival instincts kicked in, and so I survived going down that hill! The coolest thing was that every time I fell, I could just lie there on the hill in the big star/snow angel form and rest... at any other non green hill, doing that would probably get me yelled at! In the past 10+ years, this is probably the 2nd time I've ever done that! (the 1st time was the week before at the bunny hill at horseshoe!)

So after that first run, we demoted ourselves and went back to the bunny hill. It took REALLY long to get up, because people kept falling off the conveyor belt lifts. So what we ended up doing was just walking up the bunny hill and going back down. After 3 or 4 runs though, tired of walking up, I braved back onto the big baby hill and tried going down it a few times. Fell quite a bit, but was slowly getting the hang of it.

So I was slowly able to do what the lesson we got last week at horseshoe had us doing (they were what I would call a semi-moon turn), but I never understood how that connects into a real snowboarding experience. But as I was watched from the lift, I got an epiphany as I watch one of the snowboarders come down the hill. The key lay in connecting these semi-moon turns... and supposedly when connected, they call that 'carving'. So trying this out on the next run, I was able to connect the first 5 semi-turns, and built after a decent amount of speed (for my level on the snowboard)... and then THUMP!

That THUMP came from my trying to make the 6th semi-turn, but failing because the transfer of my weight from heel to toe on the turn wasn't done properly. Falling backwards, my bum went down with a thud and then kablamo! Down I was, trying to get up immediately wasn't possible... lol. It was funny in a way, cuz I had to lay there for a little bit because I simply couldn't get up! I was able to get up and tumble down the slope eventually; but this fall took alot out of me and I never really recovered from it... All subsequent attempts down the slope did not hurt as much as this one, but I also fell quite a bit more...

After the numerous falls and falls, we went back to the cabin. As it turns out, on the first run, Swim Buddy had actually taken a pretty bad fall (a fall where the visor on her goggles popped out!). Unknown to us at the time, we thought she was fine. But back at the cabin, we checked out Swim Buddy's wrist injury and turns out it may have been pretty bad. So we went into town to see what we could pick up, coming back w/ aspirin and the location of the hospital just in case. But seeing its the 30th and pretty late, and that we were heading back out to TO the next day, waiting in the ER for 3 hours would not have done all that much. So instead, we iced the wrist for a lil while, and then I practiced my adhoc first aid skills and made a splint from what we had. A splint made from a hand towel, a bath towel, and a spachelor! :P. From afar, some may even think its a cast! haha. R-I-C-E... we did it all!

Seeing that we had this towel cast on Swim Buddy, we decided to stay in. Good idea because I was pretty hurt too after today!

So in summary, result from this day of snowboarding:
- Swim Buddy got a fractured hand :( -- found this out the next day...
- My bum hurts, both my wrists hurt...
- Concluded that the green hill is no baby...

I think I will ski the next few times I go to a hill with snow. Falling hurts! Maybe when I get those tushy pads, then I will try snowboarding again...