juice & snacks

In the past month that Ian and I have been married and living together, I’ve been trying to be the good wife and cook dinner as often as I can. For me it’s not just my old fashioned wifely duty, but it’s really something I enjoy doing because it helps me to unwind and relax as well as it helps support our efforts to save money and live healthy lives.

In the beginning it was really hard because I didn’t have any idea of proportions and would always cook too much even if we took leftovers the next day to work. I also had trouble using up all the produce we bought before it went bad. Over the past couple weeks I’ve gotten a little bit more used to realistic proportions and have done a better job at cross using the produce for different recipes so that nothing will spoil, but it’s still a work in progress.

Since as many know Ian is not a fan of cheese and he doesn’t care for pasta either so it’s been a challenge to find quick and easy recipes that will please us both, but with the help of Harumi’s Japanese Home Cooking, Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat, and foodnetwork.com, I haven’t done too bad even if I do say so myself.

A super easy but delicious dessert that we’ve discovered is this sweet apple pancake recipe. I’m sure the ice cream we put on top doesn’t hurt,  but it’s good all the same.

Lifestyle

Happy June Saturday, everyone! If you’re in the Bay Area this weekend, it’s gonna be a hot one!

Finally finished processing the photos from Cindy’s surprise party. You can check out the rest of my photos on my Flickr feed:

Cindy’s surprise bridal shower

Enjoy & stay cool!

Lifestyle

I follow the Seattle Mariners—aka my 2nd favorite baseball team on Twitter—and the other day they posted this article about Ichiro, one of my favorite baseball players. I was mentioning the article to Ian last night, and he suggested I write a post about it.

Reading this article just warmed my heart. It talked about how since returning to the Mariners, Ken Griffey Jr.’s presence has boosted the morale of the team, Ichiro in particular. The article said that for the past few years that Ichiro has been an island—not excluded, but not included, drifting on his own. I had always wondered how well Ichiro gets along with his teammates. I’m sure he speaks English, but I always see him use a translator in interviews and just reading articles about his work ethic and such I’ve always wondered how this translates to a major league baseball team.

In Japan, interpersonal relationships can be quite complicated. In fact, this is not limited to just Japan, but many other Asian countries as well. Factors such as age, status, etc. dictate how people are able to interact with each other, even still to this day. Because of this, Ken Griffey Jr. and Ichiro’s relationship is especially unique. Only a person with Ken Griffey Jr.’s status as a player would be able to mess with Ichiro as he does, tickling him as he warms up and teasing him about his style of dress. In fact Ichiro himself said that no one in Japan would dare to do it and if someone else on the team were to do it, he’d probably smack him.

I think the reason this story touched me so is because it was nice to be able to see that even in baseball multi-million stars make the effort to reach out to one another and bridge a cultural gap. I know that living in another country is not easy, but it’s so much easier when someone reaches out to you to give you a hand.

Lifestyle

It was my last weekend as a bachelor, & the fellas made sure I celebrated it in grand fashion. Without giving me any details, they told me to keep the weekend before my wedding open for fun & adventure. Good thing I took photos for most of the trip…it was hard for me to remember much of it. Here’s what I remember:

Friday night
I was feeling a bit nervous at work earlier in the day because of the lack of details for the weekend festivities, so I tried to loosen up with some shopping & some wedding errands in Union Square up in SF right after work. I took the 8:00pm train to rush home in time to meet the guys at my place at 9:00pm. They didn’t come in until right before midnight. I fell asleep waiting for them.

Apparently, Sci didn’t get much sleep either. He kept trying to open my fridge from the wrong end. Randy didn’t help; instead, he kept pointing & laughing at him:

The evening was spent gallivanting around Downtown San Mateo & finished the night off at Sci’s before the trip down to Pismo beach.

Saturday morning
Memory was hazy until Saturday morning, when I woke up at a quick pit stop at the Madonna Inn to check out the sweet bathroom. Not knowing what to expect for the weekend makes packing clothes suck, as I think I only packed two outfits. It’s okay, because I’m a guy & guys can get away with recycling clothes. MLIA.

No visit to the Madonna inn is complete without a visit to the iconic bathroom, complete with waterfall urinal that splashed all over your bare legs:

A quick visit to the usual Pismo Beach scenic areas before our our reservations made in the afternoon:

Saturday afternoon
ATV—the only way to get around on Pismo Beach!

Half of us have done it before, the other half picked it up quickly. Joseph picked it up later in the afternoon. After acting like fools & horsing around, the highlight of the ATV expedition was Clay & his life-threatening accident. Actually, it wasn’t that bad, but we were almost sure he broke his leg:

After a lunch of BBQ ribs & other good ol’ California fare, half of the team had to return to the Bay Area because of previous engagements, which left the rest of us to finish the trip down in sunny Los Angeles area.

After four hours of singing along with songs on Nano’s iPod nano (I just had to say that), we made it to the hotel just after sunset.

Saturday night
I gotta give props to my friends…they all drove many hours as my chauffeur without complaints! I hate driving these days (unless it’s an ATV), so I do appreciate their efforts.

Exhausted, we checked into our humble hotel room—five guys on two queen-size beds—freshened up to paint the town red. Instead, after gauging our energy levels, reading Clay’s pain-filled expressions on his face, & realizing we have an early morning, took it easy with a dinner at Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles:

…then tried to visit some spots on Sunset Boulevard after meeting up with some of the guys’ friends who were from the area.

Sunday
Church in the morning, then had a hearty lunch of Thai food with some of the guys from North Hollywood. Good kids.

Since I didn’t clearly recall the condition I left my place before I was whisked away from the Bay Area, I pleaded to the guys I needed to be home before Cindy visited my apartment. As the good guys they were, we booked it right after lunch, flying down Highway 5 & made it home in good time.

Thanks again for giving me this extremely memorable weekend, guys. Y’all are the best.

The rest of the holes in this story can be explained through my photo essay on my Flickr feed:

My last bachelor weekend

Enjoy!

Lifestyle, wedding

Anyone who’s been getting updates from Travelzoo or read any recent news articles knows that there are some great travel deals out there.

Last week United offered a tware (online fare posted on Twitter for 2 hours) for roundtrip between SFO and Sydney for about $650. It seemed like a great deal, until I looked into the domestic flights which were going to total about $800. If I booked the whole thing through Qantas, it was going to be about $1200. Turns out it was a good thing I waited because this week Qantas is offering deals for $458 roundtrip from SFO to Sydney. Since we’re wanted to visit Melbourne and Cairns as well, this bumps up our flight cost quite a bit, but we were still able to book our trip for well under $1000 including taxes and fees. Curiousity got to me so I checked our itinerary again today and it looks like the best deal is about $60 more than what we paid. Still a good deal, but I’m glad we bit the bullet and bought when we did.

I also used another one of my favorite travel sites today to book our hotel in Sydney. I have had good luck with the Name your price option on Priceline when looking for rooms in other big cities (LA, Chicago, New York, San Francisco), so I decided to give it a try. I feel comfortable bidding because you can choose your neighborhood, and I always pick 4 or 5 star hotels to ensure reputable places. I also like the excitement as you’re waiting for your bid to go through…it’s like you’re waiting to win a big jackpot. My bid didn’t go through for a 5 star hotel, but I bid for a 4 star at a little lower price and found a hotel that seems to be in a great central location and is almost 60% off the next best price I could find online.

More details to come but as for now, it’s official…we’re going to Australia for our honeymoon!

Lifestyle