Bloggin'......

Hong Kong Museum of History

I got a free day today, so I went to Dimsum with my Uncle and Aunt in Tsim Sha Tsui. I love Hong Kong. It's so easy to get around, even though it's such a big city. We caught up over some great dimsum, though I had just visited less than a few months ago. They think it's great, since it seems I visit probably more than their own children!

We milled around for a bit to let our food digest, and then decided to visit the Hong Kong Museum of History. I love history, so learning about new facts and experiences is always exciting for me. The museum tour started out at first a little indistinct, i thought. It had a display of the different rocks, sediments, and minerals found throughout Hong Kong, which gave a pretty generic explaination of the formation of Hong kong about 400 million years ago. Lava flows, rocks form, ice age starts, glaciers split, rocks re-emerged, ice melted, water flowed, and now there's Hong kong.... But then the museum got interesting. From Paleontology to more recent archeology and findings, the museum brings to life the history of Hong Kong through the ages of the Chinese Dynasties, the opium wars and cession to Great Britain, and the subsequent return to the Chinese.

Most interesting was the exhibit about Hong Kong during World War II, and its occupation by the Japanese. It lasted three years and eight months, but was probably one of the darkest periods in Hong Kong history.

My favorite part was learning about the more recent pop culture of Hong Kong, especialy following World War II. Hong kong as everyone knows, became a new manufaturing center for all kinds of toys, clothing, and electronics. My Uncle and Aunt had distinct memories about living in Hong Kong during that time. For me, I was learning about history, but for them it was about going down to the corner store because it was the only place that had radio. They had also, at one time, lived in a section of Shek Kip Mei and had just moved, right before a devasting fire destroyed that section of Hong Kong in 1953.

I learned a lot in this trip.

Dinner in Central

A funny thing happened on the way to dinner tonight... I called my friend Cindy and we decided to meet up at the MRT station in Central. It's a pretty big station, so she said to meet her under the MRT entrance closest to the HSBC building. Ok, that's simple enough, I thought. Unfortunately, I ended up in front of some other HSBC building on the wrong side ot the MRT station! In the end I was only a half hour late, after calling her and finding her on the other side of the station. I got a picture of the real building, in case for the next time, of course....

Hong Kong

I'm traveling again this weekend, and I've just arrived in Hong Kong. This past week has been incredibly busy, trying to tie up loose ends in the ofice and closing any open issues I still have at work. But at the same time it's so liberating to get away from the office, and escape the daily grind for, well, maybe for, a little while.

Anyways, not much to report on yet, nothing really exciting happens when I'm on travel. =P I'm staying just north of the city in Sha Tin, and we decided to go down to the Hong Kong Waterfront to take in a little bit of the view and a little dinner.

Napa Valley

Sorry, I have not updated with any posts, lately. It's been pretty busy around here, but here's a link to some of Sabrina's pictures from our trip to Napa Valley last week to tide you over. =P

	Sabrina's Napa Slideshow, 2005 (1 album)

Napa Valley - Beringer Winery

The last winery that we visited before heading home was the Beringer Vineyards Winery in St. Helena. But instead of just tasting wines, we had planned to take a wine and food tasting class at the estate. The class provided us a sampling of a Beringer White Zinfandel, a Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir, and a Cabernet Sauvignon, and an instructor demonstrated how sweet, sour, savory, and salty foods can change the taste of these wines.

Napa Valley - Artesa Winery

This morning, we visited Artesa Winery down in the Carneros region. This was a really cool winery, its architecture very modern, and its tasting room is very no-nonsense. It was there to purvey wine. We picked up our favorite wine during the tasting, as well, a 2003 Gewürztraminer.

Eric and Ivy's Wedding

We also attended a wedding this weekend, where our friends, Eric and Ivy, got married on the grass at the Boundary Oak Golf Course in Walnut Creek. It was a bit breezy, but everything turned out great for the happy couple. I could not have imagined a better evening for them. Congratulations, again, Mr. and Mrs. Eric and Ivy!

Napa Valley - Old Faithful Geyser

After the vineyerds, we visited the Old Faithful Geyser in Calistoga on a whim. There were signs all over the valley that pointed us to the geyser, that since we had come this far, we could not have resisted having come to Calistoga and not have seen the geyser. We went and we saw the geyser, but, in the end, we were thoroughly disappointed to see, that for some reason, all it did was spout water. We got a pretty good laugh about it, having our expectations built up so much, having seen so many signs for it from the road. It is unique enough that there are only three geysers in the world.

Napa Valley - Sterling Vineyards

We visited Sterling Vineyards in St. Helena, today which is a winery situated at the top of a small mountain, and to get to it, you must ride a cable tram over their gardens and vineyards to reach the top. The tour itself was a self-guided, self-paced tour, which really suited us well. We really loved the winery and how it's archetecture contrasted with the area around it. We actually spent a lot of our time sitting around the veranda just looking out over the valley. It was something a picture cannot fully capture in one frame.

Napa Valley - Mumm Cuvee

For the weekend, Sabrina and I decide to take off for a little get-away to Napa Valley. We each took the day off from work, and were on the road by noon. We wanted see if we could make it to at least two wineries in the day, but in the end we only made it to one, the 3 o'clock tour at Mumm Cuvee Winery, makers of fine Sparkling wine in Rutherford. It may sound disappointing, but our slow start actually gave us more time in the day to appreciate the winery.

We learned about the making of sparkling wine on the tour, the grapes used in the process, and the simple reason why you cannot call a sparkling wine, Champagne (it's not from Champagne, France). =) We also took in the winery's famous Ansel Adams exhibit, and enjoyed a good sampling of their sparkling wines. Cheers!

Packing up camp

Like all good trips, it has to come to an end. Check out was by 12 o'clock, and we were on our way by 11:59AM. Not much to report on, because we just drove home. In traffic. Very slowly.

I hope everyone had a safe weekend.

Camping at Emerald Bay State Park

Camping out in nature certainly has it's benefits. A big part of the weekend was to bike the Flume Trail around a portion of Lake Tahoe, but I was still slightly injured from white water rafting last weekend. I was actually kind of glad how things turned out, because it left me more time to spend relaxing on the water and in a chair.

After breakfast, and after the bikers in our group took off to start their trail ride, a few other friends and I hiked up to a peak near-by our campgrounds and took in a wonderful glimpse of Lake Tahoe. Well ok, maybe it wasn't a hike that a lot of people imagine coming from me, we walked up to the overlook, which was only about 200 yards away. I was looking to get away from work stress, and I think the weekend turned out a lot better than I anticipated.

After overlooking Lake Tahoe, we...

Played on the beach
Had lunch
Slept
played cards
and strung up Mike's bike in a tree.

All in that order, and that was only upto five o'clock in the afternoon.

Camping at Emerald Bay State Park

This will be just an update, but I went camping this weekend. Grace, Ann, Newton and I drove up late Friday night to Emerald Bay State Park in Lake Tahoe. We drove up late, because we had to work late Friday before taking off for the weekend, but luckily, much of the rest of the group had already gone earlier in the day to hold and setup our camp.

Eric's Bachelor Party

So I get a frantic phone call from Eric on my way home over the weekend and the very first thing I hear was Ivy laughing really hard in the background. She was uncontrollable, and I'm sure she had to leave the room. Josh and I had just dropped him of at his house after spending the weekend at his bachelor party. The very next thing Eric asked was, am I alright? My first inclination was, no, I'm pretty sore, but before I could answer, he says, "I just looked at my bruise and it is blue, black, AND RED!"

I immediately started to laugh, but I tried to bite my tongue, because I knew he was pretty serious, and he was walking around with a limp earlier. He's getting married in two weeks! Then I whimper in pain too, because I was just as banged up as he was!

We had just finished a weekend where we celebrated Eric's last days of bachelorhood. The guys had taken him out to a night of steak and booze Friday night, but as it turns out, the guy turns out really to be a cheap date, having gotten sick part way through the night from drinking a glass of wine and a mojito. I met up with Eric, Charles, Josh, Danny, and Alvin on Saturday for the rest of the party where we were to whitewater raft Class III rapids along the American River, north of Sacremento. I know Class III rapids are easy, but in a moment you'll know how hard it really was.

We drove on up to Davis, where we overnighted in Alvin's apartment. We didn't venture out too far, but we played poker most of the night and ate lots of pizza. It was my kind of bachelor party. It was the next day that we went on up to the river to get set up for rafting. The last time we went rafting, we rafted class four rapids and we thought that was pretty easy. Nothing like a bunch of guys going down the river, right?

Within the first ten yards we had our first man overboard! Our guide had decided it was time for us to learn a few white water rafting tricks, his favorite being "surfing" the rapids. In all the years past, we just rode the rapids and shot the chutes. Nothing to it, we just had to keep the boat level. In "surfing", you have to swing the boat around, mid-rapid, and paddle hard into the rapid. You'll end up on top of the rapid, riding a wave. It is crazy during those moments of calm over the rapid, but just like surfing, there is a crashing end to it all! Charles was the first man overboard, and the boat was narrowly saved from flipping.

We went to fish him out, and somehow the guide pipes up, want to try it again? Holy shit, was my first thought, because I don't swim! Interesting.... We paddled back up the river, I more sheepishly then the others, and we tried it again! Let me repeat my self, we PADDLED back up the river, and hit the same rapids again, and this time, the boat got rocked even harder, and Eric and I both got tossed in the water. That makes three of us in the water in the first TEN MINUTES of rafting, compared to NEVER in all the other times.

Luckily I popped to the surface with the life jacket, it really works! But that wasn't where the excitment ended. We rode the rapids and shot the chutes, like the other times as well, but there was one rapid down river, that was waiting for us. It was the biggest rapid of the river. ...and we were going to surf it.

It was called Troublemaker. Luckily it wasn't called "Widowmaker", I don't know where I've heard that one before, but we saw the other boats shoot through it and we were there to make them look bad. After one group cheer, we squared up the boat, and prayed! Literally. We hit the rapid, and paddled, swung the boat around, and paddled as hard as if our lives depended on it. We almost made it, to the top of the rapid, but could not hold onto the rapid, and was about to shoot back down the rapid. ...or so I thought! That was when I saw another rapid shoot down in front of me, and tossed almost all of us in the air like ragdolls!

I was tossed into the water, along with three others. But this time the rapids were more violent, and we were only half way down. We were taught to curl up like a ball, if we get caught in a rapid like this, where you will likely be sucked to the bottom. Curling up protects you from being tangled in anything in the river, and helps you resurface much easier. I curled up, but with all the violent swishing around, also hit several rocks on the bottom of the river! Right in the buttocks and lower back! OUCH!

I finally resurfaced, about 30 to 40 yards from the boat down river, but that was pretty crazy! Eric and I were the only ones hit by rocks, while the others got away fairly unscathed, hence why Eric called me about my bruises. Though, my bruises are not as visually stimulating as Eric's, I've got a bump the size of a small baby's head on my back, and it is incredibly painful!

I wish you well in marriage, Eric!