Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Xi Zhi

As I was uploading the snow picture below, I found two other pictures in my camera that I'd forgotten about. They're of my auntie's house - where I stayed - in Taiwan and of the creek in which I used to play in when I was 10. There never used to be those walls around it; the right side used to be all vegetable patches and they led directly down to the creek. It's all polluted now, too. :(

It's the white-ish house in the middle.



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It's Snowing!

10 minutes ago...

I opened the door to take out the rubbish and - it's snowing outside! It was rain when I came home 3 hours ago but now it's snowing!!


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Sunday, December 24, 2006

Christmas Eve

I don't have the specifics of new job yet so I thought I'd go back to my old job while I wait for news. My first day back there was today and it was like stepping into a pair of old trainers - familiar and comfortable. Things were pretty much the same and the selling methods are still second nature to me, so it was very easy to slip right back into things.

There were five of us manning the store, including me; three were newbies (after my time) and one was a familiar face. The thing is, I have a tendency to run a pretty tight ship at work and the newbies were...meh. Let's just say that they're not conducive to running a tight ship -_-' and I was slightly annoyed. They're not very good at adding on to sales or up-selling so the sales weren't as good as they could've been. It also wasn't very busy at work; by all rights, it should be packed to the brim with people but it wasn't at all. Odd. Oh well, I enjoy working so it was nice nonetheless.

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The Guy In 34A

As I was waiting for Seating 4 to be called at Narita Int'l Airport in Tokyo, I thought to myself, "How come everytime I fly by myself, I never get seated next to a cute stranger? Never! How tragic." Finally my section was called and I boarded, counting the aisles '14...18...25...31...' to aisle 34. And whoa, I'm sitting next to a cute guy! Wahoo! That is, I was quite excited until he opened his mouth. *Sigh* Turns out he's gay. Figures, doesn't it? Just my luck that the first time I'm seated next to a handsome stranger, he turns out to be unattainable.

Well, my luck turned when it became clear that his console was broken - no TV, radio, light, etc. - so he was moved to another seat and I got two seats to myself! Being able to stretch out my legs to sleep was consolation enough. :)

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Saturday, December 23, 2006

Em & Charles' Engagement Party

Congratulations again to Em and Charles. :)

Tonight was their engagement party, held at Em's parents' place. Em's brother and his wife (Wes and Dina) drove up from California. Charles' parents drove up from Oregon and his sister and her husband (Gab and Dan) live nearby. I made sure I flew back before today to make to the party or she'd have my head and it'd be ruled justifiable homicide. Dem and I drove down together but, unfortunately, we had to leave early because Dem had to work (overnight shift; gotta love the retail holiday season...) but we had so much fun. The two families mesh so well and there were a lot of jokes and laughter all around.

It'd been ages since I'd seen Wes, and it was the first time meeting Charles' family. It was also the first time I properly met Charles, which sounds quite bad considering he's been with my best friend for, what, four years now? Yeah... Well, he's been living in Oregon and Em's been in Las Vegas, plus I've been in and out of the country for the last couple of years.

It was really good to see Em and her parents, and have the three of us (Em, Dem and I) together again. There was a lot of food - turkey, mashed potato and gravy, cranberry sauce, a green bean casserole and a brocoli and cheese casserole, dinner rolls - and drinks - red & white wine, champagne, pop, iced tea - and, of course, dessert was apple pie, pumpkin pie and apple streusel pie with whipped cream and tea or coffee. What a feast. The table, settings, and party accents were all in the wedding's theme colours: black and Tiffany blue. (Some people also call it robin's egg blue.) The colours beautifully compliment each other and everything was done out very, very nicely.

We also had a few games. The first game: each person gets two (plastic) silver rings and there's a buzz word that we can't say. If you catch someone saying the buzz word, you take one of their rings. It was funny whenever someone slipped - I caught Gab and Dan once each - and Dina managed to lose one of her rings! The person with the most rings at the end of the night wins an awesome prize. The second game: the Newlyweds Game. Each person writes two questions for the couple on an index card, one asking Em something about Charles and vice versa. The couple have to try and have the same answer to each question; it doesn't matter if they don't know the right answer - they just have to say what they think the other person will say. The person the question is directed to writes the answer down and the other answers his/her answer out loud; if the answers are the same, the person the question was directed to gets the point. Or is it the other way around... Anyway, the guests also have to guess the percentage of answers that each spouse-to-be will get right and the person closest to the results wins a prize. The last game was Pictionary.

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Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Taipei > Tokyo > Seattle

It feels good to be home.

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Casino Royale

I went and saw Casino Royale on Sunday. At first, I totally rejected Daniel Craig as the new James Bond because he's blonde (James Blonde? Ahahaha...) and James Bond's always had brown hair. The more I saw the trailers, however, the more he and the movie grew on me - I love action flicks afterall - and I finally went to see it. I really liked Craig in Layer Cake so I thought this one couldn't be too bad, eh? Yeah, it wasn't bad at all. I really liked the film and Craig surpassed my expectations, bringing a colder, grittier Bond - along with a massive ego! - to the big screen. Of course it helped that he's really built, too. Mm mmm.

There were several scenes in the film that took me completely by surprise: one was the shower scene (It's not sexual you gutter-mind!) in which Vesper Lynde's huddled under the spray, still in full evening dress, in shock after helping Bond fight off baddies and witnessing death. He sits down next to her, also in his tuxedo but sans jacket, and holds and comforts her. Awww... Made my heart melt, it did.
My favourite bit of the film was what Bond said to Lynd towards the end of the film: "Whatever is left of me - whatever I am - is yours." Double awwww...

Another one was Bond's first driving scene. It's a Ford! A Ford. Where's the Aston Martin?! Ahahaha. The Ford got replaced soon after, of course, by a gorgeous Aston Martin and all was right with the world once again. :)

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Monday, December 18, 2006

DP Gold Jacquard Dress

Am I crazy for liking this?

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Tuesday, December 12, 2006

1 Week Down, 1 More To Go

Good grief. I've been so busy in the past week, I've hardly been around at all! I've been working, running errands (like sorting out my bank details), helping my friend translate chapters from her English MBA textbook to Chinese, which drove us both a little closer to the edge of sanity (can't directly translate because English and Chinese sentence structures are so different; a direct translation leaves the sentence in scattered pieces), and going out with friends and family.

Sunday saw me at the same Cash Box in Taipei (near SOGO) that I went to with my elementary friends last month for karaoke. This time I went with my alumni friends - Claudia, Amy K. and Ray - and Jeff joined us later after work. After 3 hours of singing - I was deemed 'old' because the only Chinese songs I know are ones from over 10 years ago hahaha - we went and had Korean for dinner, hanging out there chatting way after we were done. Oodles of fun!

My second auntie took me and Ming Ming out to Jing Shan (Golden Mountain) on Monday for lunch and to bathe in the hot springs there. Hot springs are pretty popular in Taiwan and there are lots of places to do it; I remember we often went to Wu Lai when I was little and living here.

The place we went to provided massage services so we all had one. Now, I was thinking, 'Mmm, spa massage, nice and relaxing...' Whoa-ho, was I wrong. The massage was more Thai than spa! Bloody hell. My neck and shoulders feel like one massive bruise! It was supposed to be relaxing but I'm worse now than when I was before I got that damn massage.

Anyway, I'm getting more and more impatient to fly as the 20th draws closer.

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Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Moving Again!

I'm moving home! Okay, so I call many places home - I'm truly borderless as Tony says. This time I'm moving back to the US, and it'll be my fourth international and inter-continental move in the last 18 months. Ha, no wonder I'm broke...

Anyway, this time is for indefinitely. My plans were to work in Taiwan for a year but as we all know, plans can change...and they did. I've been offered a great opportunity that I can't pass up, and one's gotta do what one's gotta do.

I've enjoyed my time here in Taiwan, culture shock and all, but this decision is for the best - the practical and more realistic decision - for everyone involved. As much as I may like to stay here, it is really quite idealistic and wouldn't help my cause as much as moving back to the States would. Of course, I'd rather be moving back to the UK (that goes without saying) but I must be patient *grits teeth* (arghh). Things like that don't happen overnight as much as I'd like them to.

So to everyone back home, I shall see y'all again very soon. :)

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