fob2001's Xanga

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Tue, 13 May 2008 01:50:33 GMT

holy smokes i am getting married soon.

EuroTrip VI: MYKONOS

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:18:16 GMT

Greece has a bunch of little islands, and we went to Mykonos. It was probably one of the best places that we went to for the entire trip. We had to take another ferry from Piraeus to Mykonos. It was really windy on the ferry. We also had some problems with booking the ferries... our one tiny disaster in Europe, but it didn't spoil this awesome trip so it's not worth writing about~

The entire island of Mykonos has a uniform color scheme: white and blue. Greece is pretty much built on rocks. Mykonos is known for its beaches, and windmills.

All the buildings are the same colors. It's kind of neat. We stayed at a place called the Kymata and it's right by the famous windmills of Mykonos.

On the left above is a general view of the towncenter. It's gorgeous. White and blue houses made of rocks. On the right is a picture of "Little Venice". It's sort of like Venice because the buildings are on the water, but in my opinion, it looks much better than the real Venice. Venetian water is very brown, dirty, and smells a little.

We ate at this restaurant the most. It was right on the water, and the sunset was nice. I had a lot of seafood pasta, and I also tried the lamb. The dishes look very simple and normal, but they were delicious... best lamb I've ever had.

So this is Paradise Beach... There are a bunch of other beaches on the island, but this one is the best straight beach. There's one called Super Paradise Beach, and it is a gay one, I think. Oh yea, these beaches are all nude beaches... It's like Adam and Eve. But anyway, the water is really clear, and you get to see little fish swimming in it. The sand is crazy nice. I don't know why people pay more than $50 for Aveda skincare products like their exfoliants... because this sand was like the same thing, except that there was lots of it. You rub the sand on your feet, and it feels smooth, not sticky or dirty. This was the best beach I have ever been to... times a million.

We also walked around the old port in the towncenter, and that's when we found Petros...

It's the famous Mykonos pelican! He decided to take a walk into the restaurant, then to the streets, and we followed him. A bunch of other tourists stopped what they were doing and decided to follow the bird, too. It was kind of funny. The shop owners were upset that the pelican was stealing away their customers.

Jessica really missed Andie and Bailey so she went crazy with taking pictures of other people's pets. The dog belongs to the owner of the gyro place that we ate at. The best lamb/pork gyros ever. The cats were kind of random. There are cats everywhere in Mykonos.

We did laundry in the room and hung them up. They didn't dry very well. I also left my flip flops in Mykonos. I left them by an old Mykonos man's "house". You can see that his door is rotting away. I have a theory that this guy is a long time native of Mykonos who refused to change his lifestyle. He's not really a homeless guy since he obviously has a home, and no one is taking it away from him... but he looks like he's just living in a junk yard.

Jessica decided that we should get a caricature done. All along, I thought it was a bad idea. The guy looked like a schmuck, and it turns out that my 10 Euros just went down the drain. This was the ugliest picture I have ever seen. I am never getting a caricature done again. I got robbed by a perv. .... since we got robbed of 10 Euros, the punishment for Jessica was no more gelatos for the rest of the trip!

While we were killing time in Mykonos, waiting for our ferry back to Athens, we stopped by the only Catholic church that we found. It looked pretty plain and simple.... but it's a lot more "elegant" than the hundreds of Eastern Orthodox churches in Mykonos. Most of the churches were smaller than the size of my bedroom, and shaped like an igloo.

The sunset on the ferry was nice, but the view of Mykonos was much nicer. I want to go back~

EuroTrip V: ATHENS

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 14:23:17 GMT

I didn't really know much about Greece. I learned a little about the mythology stuff, and also the weird teacher-apprentice homo stuff that was the norm in ancient Greece. I also knew that Pete Sampras is Greek-American, but basically American... Mark Philippoussis is Greek-Australian. I know that gyros are freaking good, but Greek salads... not so good. I know that I'm intimidated by Nicholas Peppas, the UT BME/ChE professor because he's kind of mean. He is Greek.

What I didn't know was that plane tickets into Greece are extremely expensive... so we took a 24-hour ferry. When I first heard about the ferry. I was thinking like... ferries in Bangladesh, with a dude rowing it, and you just sit on the wood chairs and get splinters on your butt. 24 hours of that would probably kill me. I would probably also jump off the ferry into the water. Fortunately, the ferry we took was basically like a cruise. It was called SUPERFAST FERRIES. We took a train from Venice to Ancona, Italy. From Ancona, we took the ferry to Patras, Greece.

Lots of 18-wheelers, RVs, and cars get on it. There are multiple levels of garages, and the ferry travels "super fast" The ferry had everything: disco, bar, restaurant, pool, casino, shop, and the world cup showing on many TV screens.

The cafeteria was pretty fancy, but it was pricy. The view from the boat was nice. You get to see some Greek islands as we pass by them in the Adriatic Sea. Besides the port fees and ridiculous price to ride the ferries during the peak time of the summer, there was one drawback to the ferry:

These cabins were terrible. When I woke up, I hit my head. It was also hot and uncomfortable. At least the shower and toilets were clean, though the shower flooded a little. When we got to Patras, we had gyros for the first time in Greece.

It was the cheapest meal that we've eaten, after spending a lot of money on food in the expensive cities. Greece is awesome.

We took a train from Patras to Corinth, then from Corinth to Athens. It was our "travel day"... Athens is one tough place to get to if you don't fly in. So many train rides, in addition to the day-long ferry. Once we got to Athens, we settled in a hostel called Athens Backpackers. It was run by Aussies. It seems like everywhere we went, the hostels were run by Aussies. Are there even any Australians left in Australia?!

The hostel was in a good location. We had a great view of the Acropolis from the roof, where there was a bar. We met a lot of people from Australian and New Zealand. It's weird to hear their Down Under accent even though they look Greek or Indian.

The view from the roof of our hostel was great when the Parthenon is lit up at night.

Of course, we visited the Parthenon. It was all ruins and very, very windy. There was a dog up there that looked like it was going to die. I gave him some water, but he didn't want to move. The temperature was definitely up to 100 or so in Athens. This city is one hot place.

We saw a couple of ancient Greek theaters. One of them was actually still being used for shows. It was a long climb up to the top of the Acropolis. We saw a lot of temple ruins and a great view of Athens. Greece is a whole bunch of rocks with some shrubs here and there. That's probably why beef is so expensive in Greece, and lamb is actually cheap. Yum~

Athens was a lot of walking around... shopping, boo. It was boring. We came across this intersection that was super crowded. It was just an American who happened to be in Athens... and the store closed down just so that the snobby American can shop there. The local media and "fans" were waiting outside with their cameras. It was none other than 75-year-old super model Pamela Anderson.

I was much more interested in eating more gyros for 1.60 Euros a piece.

EuroTrip IV: VENICE

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:12:00 GMT

We left Paris for a city in the water. I didn't really know what to expect out of Venice. I had no idea that the city was run by the mafia! Anyway, it's supposed to be like the world's most romantic city or something... so all the prices are sky high since the boys will spend it for their ladies.

We stayed at a place really close to Rialta Bridge and San Marco. The square is pretty impressive. We arrived close to the evening so it was already getting dark on the first day. No worries though- There were plenty of shopping to do. I saw purses all over the place: Fendi, Gucci, Burberry, Louis Vuitton. These black dudes were selling them on the side of the street.

But for some strange reason, Jessica refused to buy them!

Oh, right- They were fake purses. The funny thing is that the guys stood right outside the REAL stores and sold the fake stuff.... with a cop standing at the corner of the street, just chilling, checking out the tourists. The city is definitely run by the mafia.

Well, this is what Venice looks like. Instead of cars, people drive boats. Everyone has, at the very least, a 2 story house... though they were probably all 3 or 4 stories. Instead of "ground level," it's probably called "water level". The tides come in and out, but normally the bottom floor is under water.

I don't think I would ever live in the place like that. I prefers cars and a dry floor, thank you.

We also lived really close to the fish market. Just like in Asia, I guess, people go out there to set up. Stuff is cheap, and the fish smells bad. Jessica was much more interested in the fresh fruit market next to it.

So this is the famous St. Mark's Basilica... which also means LOTS and LOTS of....

PIGEONS!

Jessica wanted to take a picture of her feeding the pigeons, but let me tell you that she did not. These are fake. She basically grabbed a couple of kernels of pigeon food (corn) out of an entire pack that I bought... made me take a picture and got so scared that pigeons were actually stupid enough to walk near her since it only looked like she has lots of food.

She screamed and threw them out there really far away from herself so that the pigeons would chase the seeds and be nowhere near her. There you go. She fed the pigeons.

I actually got in trouble, though. I thought it would be funny to throw the kernels at Jessica so that the pigeons would follow her. While she was running away from the pigeons, another flew right in front of her and she jumped and fell backwards. Luckily she didn't hit her head, but she was grumpy.

But it's all good. I paid an arm and a leg for a 20-minute gondola ride. You can have a view of the city again. Lots and lots of bridges. Lots and lots of water. Our gondola man has been in this gondola business for 7 generations. There was a lot of "traffic" on the streets, and some boats would bump into others... but not ours. He called the other dude a bad "driver." I couldn't get over the fact that the boat is their primary mode of transportation. The policemen are in police boats. Taxis were on water. Buses were on water.

When we were on land, we ate new things. Jessica ordered a salmon pizza with rocket. Rocket is a vegetable... and it tasted like poo. I ordered mussels as well as a plate of cuttlefish pasta covered with black squid ink. It may have looked like squid poo, but it was yummy.

We were having a great time about halfway through our EuroTrip

EuroTrip III: NICE

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 01:36:12 GMT

Nice was nice. Yup. I think of all the places we went to, Nice had to be in the top 2 or 3. It was very relaxing, and not as much walking. We stayed at a really convenient location, and Jessica was not grumpy because she got to SHOP... j/k

So, Nice is basically a little French town by the water. You go to Nice to relax and to lie on the beach. I'm usually not a beach person because I feel gross after going to the beach. I hate feeling sticky and sandy... and stinky. I guess European beaches are not like that.

What's so different about this beach? Instead of sand, it's ROCKS! You really need some good padding underneath or it will hurt like crazy. Walking along the beach barefoot really hurts. The water was extremely cold. I threw a bunch of rocks as far as I could. I hope I didn't hit any swimmers in the water.

I miss football

This sissy girl had escargo for the first time. Actually, I had them for the first time, too. They were delicious. I had to capture the moment because the idea of Jessica eating a snail is.... I don't know, impossible? As you can see in the last picture, she stuck that in her mouth so fast that it was just a blurrrrrrrrrrrr

The owner of the hostel had the cutest grand-daughter. Aimee and I became good buddies. She came in the room, and we hung out. She is my first French friend. Even though she didn't understand any English, we were definitely dawgs.

Right outside the place we stayed at, there was this gold man standing around with his buddy (silver man). He grabbed my woman and demanded money! Jessica screamed really loud and probably startled all of France. She was louder than those World Cup crazies. Anyway, he rubbed his gold skin on her hand and left his nastiness on her palm so I did not hold her hand the rest of the day.

In the last day or so at Nice, we went to the area known as "old town". There's lots of activities going on, but I wasn't too interested that day. We were supposed to climb up all those stairs to the top, where we could get a full view of Nice. Unfortunately, we were blocked off by that gate because we went too late.

Actually, I wasn't that upset because it saved me from climbing what seemed like stairs for the Empire State Building. Phew~

So while we were in Nice, I MISSED one of the most amazing NBA Finals performances ever by D.Wade. I'm not so sure that he was Jordan-esque. I watched Miami tie up the series at 2 the night before I left for Europe. That was an incredible performance. I doubt that he topped that performance in games 5 and 6. Either way- my fantasy baseball teams were dying at this point, but I didn't really miss the Internet that much because of this:

EuroTrip II: PARIS

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:50:42 GMT

I'm sitting at my very own desk in the grad student office, and I'm taking a break from reading articles. There is no cell phone reception here.

Anyway, so once we got to Paris, we had to walk everywhere. We were wusses and just weren't cut out for walking around Paris. It was a grumpy first day in general... until we figured out how to use the subway system. Even though I took French in high school, I could only make out a few words here and there. There was no way to communicate in French for us. Here are some pictures:

We went to the Arc of Triumph on Champs de Elysses (not sure if I spelled that correctly and too lazy to check.) It was a big ole arc with a big ole French flag under it. That street was incredibly expensive. We ate at this cafe and spent 50-60 Euro. I had frog legs. Yum. Eating in Europe takes forever. The point is to enjoy your meal, enjoy the drinks, have a nice conversation, and people watch. The chairs are all facing the street... and you just stare at people, I guess. That part of Europe was not my cup of tea. I'd rather eat good food and get outta there.

Of course, we went to the Eiffel Tower because it's the cool thing to do in Paris. It was very crowded, but the weather wasn't too bad. We still did quite a bit of walking, though. Jessica gets very grumpy when we have to walk far.

At night, we took a cruise on the river and saw the Eiffel Tower light up. It was hotness. The cruise took us by places like the Louvre and the Notre Dame. There were people camping out along the river. They were the real backpackers with tents and stuff... we were weak and had real shelter. (But I think some of them were just hobos.)

We went to Notre Dame, carved out of wood.... just kidding. I thought this was the most amazing piece of work ever. It's Notre Dame, carved out of wood, and it sits inside the Notre Dame. I have a newfound appreciation for something like this because I had to do something like that for a part of my senior design project... and it was just rectangular walls that were much easier to carve. (Thank you Jeannie and Lina~)

And that's me, the hunchback... with my Esmerelda.

You can't leave Paris without going to the Louvre. I read The Da Vinci Code on the plane and in London before going to the Louvre... (then finished on the beach in Nice.) It's a pretty cool place. I didn't really understand what the big deal was with the Mona Lisa. I just laughed at all the fobs who were trying to take a pictures of the painting and got in trouble. The people who stand at museums and yell at people for taking pictures have the worst job in the world.

We also went to the Moulin Rouge... well, we went to the outside of it. I couldn't go in for several reasons: (1) the shows were ridiculously expensive, (2) it was boobies galore, (3) it was boobies galore. Jessica felt uncomfortable. The entire street is filled with sex shops. When we went back to the hostel, I asked the front desk lady about the Moulin Rouge. Apparently, it's "classy"... but the other places on that street are not. Typically the rich folks go there. I had never seen the Moulin Rouge the movie so I had no idea what to expect.

It was a short stay in Paris. The city was nice, but too rich and too much walking for me. We went on to Nice (pronounced "Neese") to relax on the beach. More to come...

EuroTrip I: LONDON

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 22:12:13 GMT

Depending on how much time I have... here's my series of my trip to Europe. Part 1 is London. We left from Houston to go to London via Toronto on June 14...

London had a terrible exchange rate. It was almost 2 USD per GBP. The cheapest stuff we ate there, of course, was Chinese food. We did the usual stuff that you're supposed to do in London. I'll post some bad quality pictures because they've been compressed to fit into ofoto.com to be shared. Hopefully these will come out to be a lot better when we print the original pictures.

The eye of London near Westminster Bridge. We also got to see Big Ben (Hsia), the clock tower.

This is London Bridge, and we didn't fall down. We also went to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards, but it was so crowded and hot... It was semi-entertaining watching the soldiers and horses butts.

Tower of London was probably the most informative and interesting thing for me because I'm a dork. Tower Bridge looks cool. There are bridges everywhere. Anyway, in the Tower of London, Jessica wanted to check out the Crown Jewels even though we didn't really know exactly what Crown Jewels were. Too bad we MISSED IT the first time around and had to go back to see it again. They just looked like big ole rocks to me. They were sparkly, but I definitely would not pay $50 million for any one rock. I would use that money and buy the Houston Astros, Rockets, and Texans because their management is terrible. Thought about dealing Roy Oswalt or Berkman?! Traded Rudy Gay?! Drafted Mario Williams?! .... okay, back to London.

The CHEAPEST and most entertaining event of London was West End Live. We were extremely lucky and just happened to be in London for this annual event. It's a promotional event for all the musical groups and other show groups to go on stage and sing a few songs from their shows. There are also other events going on, like dog shows, car shows, MTV's Pimp My Ride car, etc. All of it was completely free! We got to see the Blue Man Group, Mama Mia, The Producer, Chicago, Footloose, Guys and Dolls,

Did I say that it was all free? ... and we had front row view of this stuff because we're Asian and tiny and squeezed through the crowd.

We took a train ride to Wimbledon Park. Too bad I didn't have my tennis racquet and forgot how to play. It was still a nice walk around the park. London has the best weather out of all the other cities we went to... at least during this time of the year. It gets warm in the day, but it's nice and cool at night.

And then we took a nice underwater train ride to Paris~ Goodbye expensive city... and goodbye English

We would have a tough time communicating later on in the trip.

CHIPOTLE

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 14:57:05 GMT

There is none in Durham. The closest one is in Raleigh.

Euro Trip

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 05:13:40 GMT

just kidding...

I don't have pictures yet, but I will tell you why.

Air Canada blows. They like to book their connections flights SO CLOSE to each other that it is nearly impossible to make the next flight unless you pull some strings, or cry.

On our way to Europe, we went to IAH in Houston a few hours early like we were supposed to, since it's an international flight and all. To our surprise, the Air Canada check-in counter had no representative there. They just leave a note "Be Back at 3:15" or something like that... Weak.

On our way back from Europe, we left from Rome to go to Toronto, for a connection to Houston. The same thing happened. No Air Canada representative at the counter. The flight to Rome was delayed because some dude checked in his luggage and Air Canada couldn't find the guy. Instead of quickly going down there and pulling out his luggage, they looked around for him for half an hour before deciding to pull off his bags. Then the jerk shows up. Not many people go from Rome to Toronto. However, many people go from Rome to Toronto to somewhere else in the USA.... so, everybody was late for their connection.

When we got to Toronto, we had to go through Canadian customs, get our luggage, go through US customs, then check our luggage back in before getting on the next flight. We waited to pick up our luggage for 45 minutes... and everybody was late for their flights. We were able to go through US Customs very quickly because we went through the Canadian citizens line instead of the long US citizens line. =D

So we finally got on the flight to go back to Houston,... thinking that it's all over.

But we waited for our luggage for awhile, and one bag was missing. When we filed for a lost luggage claim, the lady told us that the flight was full, and they just start to pull off luggages and leave them in Toronto... then they wait for the next flight to ship the luggage to you. That's ridiculous. Since lots of people missed their connection from Toronto to Houston, there were quite a few bags left at the baggage claim, UNCLAIMED. I have never heard of that. They really pull off people's bags and just leave them there?

Why couldn't they have pulled off those bags of people who didn't even make the flight?!?

In that bag, I had my cell phone charger... so I only turn on the phone to make short calls. Also in the bag is the USB cable that hooks up the camera to the computer to transfer pictures... so there are no Europe pics yet.

Therefore, Air Canada sucks, and I will never ever fly with them again.

I think I'll be painting forever. The place is too big with too many hard-to-get spots on the wall trims.

The beginning...

Wed, 17 May 2006 02:22:52 GMT

of the end of my time in Austin...

my room is a huge mess right now. my desktop is broken down, cords put up, boxes all over the floor. the only places to sit in my room are the piano bench and my bed. i've managed to sell a dining room table and chairs, plus my computer desk. i'm not actually moving THAT soon, but i just got started early. craigslist is a good thing, except for the constant phone calls from people who aren't really that serious about buying and always want to cut the price down even lower.

my dresser will go next. all my clothes will be boxed up soon. it is a sad, sad week.

but i am graduating: Frank Erwin Center, Friday May 19th, 7 PM.