A lot of new pictures up on my picture site.

The biggest update is that Ashley has moved away. :( Very sad news. But of course we couldn't let her leave without a day of fun.

Some highlights:

Started off the day hiking in Muir Woods




Oysters in Point Reyes




And what would her last biblestudy be without a game of spoons?






More pictures here.

Man... this picture cracks me up! We stopped by this ... exhibit that had a sign saying "Paint 4 Peace."

Sad news. My partner in crime is leaving for greener (bluer?) pastures. Ashley is moving to Hawaii in January. We had to squeeze in one last camping trip while we could.

My parents (and a few others) thought we were crazy and that we would freeze to death. Having a good sleeping bag is key. Although, we thought maybe they had a point when it started raining Saturday morning.

I have to say though, this was the most posh camping trip we've been on. Drive in campsites, flushable bathrooms, showers (even though we didn't use them), and a fire pit.

Now on to the pictures. If you have never been to Big Sur, the 3 hour drive is definitely worth it. The color of the water is unreal. Felt like we went somewhere tropical.

Andrew Molera State Park.


Making breakfast (side note... I know how to start a fire... as long as I have 2 matches)


Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park (McWay Falls)


I guess the next camping pictures I post up will be from Hawaii! That's something to look forward to.

More pictures here.

I've been having some pain in my left shoulder blade/neck area. I thought it was because I was sleeping a little irregularly lately.

But I think I finally figured it out. My purse is too heavy, and I always carry it over my left shoulder. I need to learn to consolidate.



On another note, Onni, Happy Birthday. Show me what it's like to be 30 and FABULOUS!

Is it possible to overdose on pumpkin pie even before Thanksgiving is actually here?


I'm not sure, but I'm on a one-woman mission to find out. :)

I think it's the cold weather.

But all I want to do is curl up in front of a fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate... reading a good book or knitting away.



man, that makesme sound like a granny.

I love going to Napa. This time we checked out Sterling... it's beautiful there.







Fall-o-ween :)
By far the best costumes of the night




My parents getting an impromptu golf lesson on the putt-putt

Let's go to a Warriors game!

Who's in?

My department went to go volunteer at Gli.de Memorial on Monday afternoon.

I'm not very happy about the prospect of wearing a hairnet


But doing my best to be a "team player"


And here we all are back at the office for lunch


Yes, I work with a lot of Asian women.

Man...

I had no idea HE was coming to the Bay Area.


I would love love love to see him live.

Sweatin with the Oldies


I've been really lazy lately, and working out hasn't been at the top of my priority list. So I compromised with myself. I would check out a class at the gym, and if it sucked, I could just sit in the hot pool/sauna. Sounded like a good plan to me.

Here is the class description:
24 Aqua
This popular water workout includes cardio and resistance training to help tone and sculpt without impact to the joints. Resistance tools may include buoyant water weights and noodles.

Sounds like a good class, right? Only it was everything you imagine water aerobics to be. I was by far the youngest person in that pool. And by the time I figured out the class was lame, it was too late to cut out.

The class instructor has got to have the easiest job there. In the beginning, peopler were just jogging around the pool, and he'd show up every few minutes and say, "turn around" and we'd start jogging the other way. It also took me a while to figure out that he was practicing dance moves while we were jumping around in the pool. I kept mistaking his body rolls for the actual workout we were supposed to be doing.

At one point, he was doing pelvic thrusts (part of the workout), and swinging his shirt around above his head.

I guess it was an ok workout because my legs are sore. But let's just say I won't be going back. A day later and I still smell like chlorine. And the striptease was a little more than I want from a workout.

I don't consider myself a violent person, but man, MUNI gets me worked up sometimes. I really wanted to punch a wall during this morning's commute.

My normal commute takes 45 minutes. I hop on the train in front of my house, and get off at the last stop. Here is today's commute:

-Take M from home, get off at West Portal.
-Get off at West Portal, take shuttle to Van Ness.
-Get off at Van Ness and wait FOREVER for a train (letting a few packed ones go by).
-Get off at Civic Center and hop on BART.
-FINALLY get off at Embarcadero.

Total commute time today: 1 hour 15 minutes.


I'm already in a pissy and violent mood. The annoying email from the annoying person at work isn't helping things. If you need to talk to me today, be very careful.

Very Interesting Read

"In men, keeping quiet during a fight didn’t have any measurable effect on health. But women who didn’t speak their minds in those fights were four times as likely to die during the 10-year study period as women who always told their husbands how they felt, according to the July report in Psychosomatic Medicine."

haha

I ran out in the middle of the day today to run some errands. There's a man that sells churros in front of the MUNI station. Apparently he's a regular there.


How did I JUST find out about this??

Good grief!

I need to do something about this hair. It's in this in-between stage and on the verge of what I refer to as "fried."




Onni? When are you coming home? ;)

Only the Giants can blow an 8-3 lead...

Some random pictures we took around Insa-Dong (YES! Ashley was in Korea!)

I'm ready for change.


Bring it.

I joke around with a friend that I've become a "coffee addict."

I've been needing a cup every morning. I'm trying to cut down to half a cup a day.

This morning on the MUNI, this girl sat down next to me, coffee in hand. As soon as I smelled her cup of coffee, I started salivating.




Somebody help me.

Wagbags

We each received one when we checked in for our permit at Whitney. Luckily for a one day hike, we didn't have to use it. But I guess it beats getting giardia from the water because of human waste buried too close to the water source. Ick.

I am so sore!


Waterskiing + (attempt at) wakeboarding + football + frisbee = a very very tired and sore Chris.

Ashley is planning another waterskiing/tubing trip for our church this Labor Day. This might become an annual thing.

We were running down the list of people that signed up and it's 5 guys and us 2 girls. That's a constant theme for me up here... where are the girls?? (I'm sure the guys ask the same question. haha)

But don't you worry. Ashley and I represent! We're the only 2 out of the group that know how to waterskii. That's why we're paying a little more for the package that includes the tube, skis, wakeboard, kneeboard. Hopefully one of those will work for everyone.

Here's to many, hopefully not too painful, wipeouts!

Seattle was a lot of fun. The entire time I was there, I kept thinking, "I could totally see myself living here."

James was kind enough to also go up this weekend and show me around his hometown. Here he is looking very excited at the prospect of entertaining me for the next 2 days:



I did the normal touristy things there: Pike Market, Safeco field, Snoqualmie Falls, The troll, the Locks, Gas Works Park.








But the highlight had to have been hanging out with my friend Sharon. Her family used to live in San Francisco back when we were in middle school. Our families have kept in touch throughout the years. It's great when our friendship is so easygoing and comfortable after all these years.



Sharon, I'll be waiting for you and Monica next Spring!

More pictures on the link to the right. The really awesome pictures? They're from James. :)

Adam, Ashley, and I took the youth kids to a youth rally in Fremont Saturday night.

Right before we officially started, Adam leans over and asks me, "do you smell garlic?"

At first I panicked. Did I eat garlic that day? I even sniffed my arm (thinking the smell might be coming from my pores).

It wasn't me. haha.

But you figure you get a room full of 700-800 Korean kids in one room, you're bound to smell garlic from somewhere.

More to come soon...

Simplicity.



That's what I'm shooting for these days. I got a sudden urge to tackle the clutter in my room. Every time I get this feeling, though, I start going through my stuff... and in the end only get rid of maaaaybe 1 bag's worth of junk.

But I'm determined to be different this time. I want to get rid of the clutter in my life... focus on the important things. I think my room is a good place to start. No visitors. Things will be "under construction" for a while.

No better way to clear the head than by taking another vacation. Seattle, here I come!

Difference between guys and girls #12584738:

(does not apply to Janet)


My coworkers took off work from 10-2pm today to attend the Bill Walsh memorial at Candlestick (Monster) Park. One of them purposely drove to work today and paid the $25 parking fee so that they could all go.


Now I was a big fan of Bill Walsh and that 49ers dynasty. But... that's a bit much.

I've been rocking these new glasses I got from Korea.

The thing is... I usually wear hard contact lens. They're different than soft lens in that they take some getting used to. You have to train your eye by wearing it a few hours each day (in increasing increments) until your eyes get used to them.

So here's the dilemma. I like my new black-frame look. But it's also been 2 weeks since I last wore my contacts. So I put them on this morning, in order to retrain my eye. I can't let it go too long or else I'll have to start out wearing it like 2 hours a day. But I might have already crossed that threshold.

Right now, I want to scratch out my right eyeball and it's barely 9am. I don't know if I can suffer through this til the end of the work day. Being blind in one eye is sounding a lot more comfortable right now.

at the movies with my boyfriend... he's quite large

I'm back and swamped at work. But not too busy to update! (My coworkers tell me I've gotten darker!)









More pictures on the link to the right.

Janet - those flowers pictures are for you. My aunts kept commenting I must love flowers because I kept taking pictures of them.

Yonsei crew - I miss you.

Some random observations about Korea:

- We got carnival-type fish as a present with our pizza order
- Our pizza dough was made with rice flour... very chewy
- Rest stops in Korea are awesome
- I am the "Son" family women's arm wrestling champ (2nd to my sister, but she wasn't here to defend her title)


More to come later.

I was walking towards the Ferry Building today to meet Janet for lunch. I passed by the Starbucks barista on the street and she waved "hi" to me. Should I be comforted by that, or a little ashamed of myself?

I'm leaving for Korea tomorrow.

2 weeks of no work! Wahooooo!!

Countdown to Korea: 6 days!!!

2 years ago, Ashley and I had our first bonding experience at the inter-church ping pong tournament. We came in first that year (see profile picture).

Things started off a little rough for us. We lost our first game, although it was very very close.



We ended up playing the same team in the finals. After 5 VERY intense games, we were victorious in the end!

Here we are holding up our goods. Everyone knows that first place deserves a gallon of olive oil. Beats towels and toothpaste.






(Whitney pictures have been updated with Ashley's photos as well)

First off, let me start by saying, I MADE IT TO THE TOP OF MT WHITNEY!

Secondly, if any of you guys are interested in attempting this hike, come talk to me. I'll talk you out of it fast.

This trip can be summed up as an adventure of misadventures.

The week we were leaving, we started calling around to reserve a campsite. Why we didn't reserve one as soon as we got our permits, I have no idea. We found out there were a couple of walk-in sites, and decided to wing it.

The drive took roughly about 8 hours. We drove through Yosemite and stopped for some pictures.

The back side of half dome...



Some pretty lake



(Misadventure #2) We were planning on doing this hike in one day. Starting at 4am and approximately ending around 8pm. After reading numerous books on Whitney, we realized we never read the one actual piece of information that was the most important: the permit paper. It said that day hikers must pick up their permits from the office by 5pm on the preceding day of the hike. Luckily, our permit was for an overnight trip so our pick up time was extended til 10am the day of our hike.

This meant that instead of 1 hour of hiking in the dark, we were possibly in for 2-3 hours in the dark.

When people talk (complain) about Whitney, the first thing you hear about is the 97 switchbacks. But people never talk about the switchbacks the first 4 miles, the rock stairs after that, and another 2 hours worth of switchbacks after the 97 switchbacks.

(Misadventure #3) After the first 4 miles of switchbacks, we reached Mirror Lake but lost our way looking for the rock stairs. We spent about an hour "rock climbing" trying to find our way.

Here is Ashley being a trooper and checking out the route for us



After about an hour of this, we finally found the trail. We looked up in the sky and saw this (and took it as a sign)



After the 97 grueling switchbacks, we were greeted with this view



We thought we were over the major grind, but we didn't realize we had another 2 hours' worth of hiking ahead of us. At this point, we were so exhausted... we knew we'd make it, but we could care less if we made it or not.

Proof that we made it





We started at 8:40am and ended at 11:40pm. Neither of us threw up from the altitude, but it definitely had an effect on us.

I think I'm done hiking for a while. :)