A relaxing and fun week

We couldn’t go to Yosemite last weekend because we couldn’t find any reservations for camp site or nearby hotels. I am pretty sad… and I hope we can eventually make it this summer. However, after a long trip to Vegas, it was nice to take a break. As usually we played some basketball, tennis, table tennis. Other than the usual activities, there were some spotlights.

I got my first salsa lesson last Monday. I was shy in the beginning, thanks to the very funny instructor, I wasn’t as nervous. And after a while, I guess I got used to it. Just getting the steps/ spins right took all my attention already. I told a friend that I am taking salsa class, she said “sexy”. I was laughing so hard. If you ever see me dancing, you would never use that word on me haha. I have no dancing ability =P but just think it would be fun to try it out hehe. Yesterday was the second lesson. We learned something fancy: the guys has to pop the ladies, like swing their bodies around without moving the positions. I don’t know how to describe it. I felt the ladies were hoping not to get a back injury from that. Haha.

There was a bank robbery 3 blocks away from where I live. When Jess and I were eating in a near by restaurant 2 weeks ago, all the sudden we heard policy on a helicopter accounting the description of the suspect and tell people to report if they see him. We were joking if it is just the bank in front of us. Last week I went back to that restaurant again, and the owner told me that it was indeed that bank and the suspect was caught the next day. There were several police cars and helicopters. Even the FBI came. I thought those things only happen in movies. But I guess movies are based on real lifes, isn’t it.

I watched Ratatouille, a movie about a rat that can cook. I usually don’t like cartoon movies thinking they are for kids, but this one is pretty cool. The animation and graphics were so good; the water looked very real, which is pretty hard to do. It is always amazing to me how smart people are, and what we can do. Technology is quite a magic, isn’t it. It is hard to imagine what the world would be like in 10 years =P Other than being amazed by the animation, I liked a conversation in the movie. Daddy rat, “You cannot change nature”. Little rat, “Change is the nature”. I agree, I don’t believe in following the fate. Some people look for happiness, but some people create happiness. “The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes their way”. Indeed.

Crystal, Tony and I went to kayaking again. (Pictures can be found here.) Crystal was on her own; Tony and I share a kayak because I don’t think I can do it myself. The most fun part was when we trying to ride the wave to get back to the shore. Our kayak rotated a little and wasn’t straight and tipped over… and I happened to be underneath the tipped over kayak. For a second, I was thinking to myself, “I don’ t want to die yet!!!!!!!” hahaha glad that I got out a second later =P Fun times. I told Crystal that she should try tipping over sometime, because she was the only friend who hadn’t. “I will sometime maybe without trying”, she said. Hehe

A month ago, I got email from coach saying we should work out. Only until yesterday I actually went with Tony. (I cannot do work out on my own… too boring…) I feel that I am much weaker now… I cannot do as much weights as before. The only thing got better maybe is my tolerance, I can run better now. Gonna go running with Tony and Yehia after work today. Should be fun =)

Rucks is going to Israel in about 12 hours. I admire those who can just go after their dreams. It needs a lot of courage. !Rucks, שיהיה במזל Take good care! Ani mitga'agea elaich!

two weeks full of fun

Hmm… I haven’t been updating my blog for almost 2 weeks, because I was too busy having fun here! =P hehe Now that I am only my way back from Vegas, I finally got some free time to write about all the fun I had in the past 2 weeks. Sorry this blog seems way too long... if you don't have time, you can just read the headlines =)

1. Die Hard & Bubble Tea & Board Game, Friday, June 30

Jess (For those who don’t know, she is my house-mate-to-be and I am her old-wise-one in WILG) came to San Diego to visit last weekend. On Friday, Jess, me, Tony, and Yehia (they are interns from Qualcomm also, we met playing basketball =D and they are the ones that I have been hanging out a lot this summer, fun guys) went to watch the movie Live Free or Die Hard. It was pretty good I think. I was kidding that after watching this movie, people would appreciate (or hate) my major (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) a lot more haha. After that we went to a Chinese bubble tea place to chill. I don’t know why they call bubble tea Boba in Taiwan… in Chinese, it also means girls with big boobs… so I never call it that… but maybe that is why it is popular hahahaha. It was a very cozy little shop with free board game rental. If you never played Blokus, I would really recommend it, it is fun and has a lot of strategy. Especially, unlike Taboo or other board games, it doesn’t require large vocabulary or history/ fact knowledge – perfect for someone like me!!! Haha After spending about an hour or two relaxing and fun hours there, we headed home to prepare an upcoming exciting day: jet skiing!

2. Jet skiing & Seafood buffet & Beach & Bubble tea again! Saturday, July 1 (For pictures, click here)

Getting up at 8 am wasn’t so exciting for me, but it proved to be all worth it, so it was all good. As I mentioned, Jess, me, Tony, Yehia, and two other Qualcomm interns arrived at the jet ski rental place in Mission Bay at 9:30. We did not get to start until 10:30 because of the paper works; we had to sign our lives away! There was a safety talk about how not to crash, not because it is dangerous, but it is super expensive to pay for a tiny scratch for the jets! It probably hurts more than actual injury =P The guys all went separately, only Jess and me were sharing one together. Every driver had kill switch tied to the wrist, so that if the driver fell off, the jet would stop instead of run off by itself. I let Jess to drive first, because I wanted to take some pictures first. As some of you might have known, I still kept this “Asian tourist habit”. After we get to the no speed limit zone, I put my camera away. (Thanks to my slim Sony T7, I can fit it into the little water prove box they gave us to carry our contract / map.) The bay was in general quiet. The waves were not big. However, for a fast running jet, the waves were not small enough, especially before we got used to the driving. In the back, I felt like I was riding on a horse. Those jets didn’t have breaks, but without giving gas they would slow down a lot. So we could be going 40 mph and hit a wave then stop right there. Those were bad. Yehia did that when he was driving at 55 mph and fell off the jet. Too bad I did not get to see it, haha. It would’ve be hilarious. =P Jess and I weren’t that daring, our highest speed was about 45 mph. It was also quite hard to hold onto the jet, our hand / arm started to hurt. The funny thing was that the trigger for the gas was right by the right handle, so I have to use one hand to give gas and hold onto the jet. Sometimes when it went fast, I had to try really hard to control which finger to release which to hold tier. So sometimes when I was trying to hold tier, I end up making the jet go much faster by accident. We did not see the guys on the water, maybe because they were driving too fast for us =P I actually think sharing a jet was fun. This way we could talk, so we wouldn’t get very bored. Too bad fun times are always short, we had to return the jet after an hour. Poor Yehia not only fell off the jet, he also got lost on the way back to the rental place, so he ended up paying almost $200, but he said it was fun, including falling over.

After jet skiing, six hungry monkeys decided to go for seafood buffet. Yehia never had sushi before, so he was trying all those new things and saying it was heaven. One of the guys said to him, “you were pretty close to heaven before!” referring to him falling over the jet. We all laughed aloud. Best quote of the day.

In the afternoon, we did the typical San Diego activity: go to the beach! They probably went to swim and played volleyball. Why probably, you may ask? Because I was mad tired from getting up early and passed out once we got to the beach.

Sadly that Jess had to leave the next day to fly back to Cincinnati. It was such a very fun weekend! I cannot wait for her to move into the house! (By house, I mean WILG, where I live in Boston =)

3. San Diego County Fair, Tuesday, July 3rd (For pictures, click here)

Every summer, san diego has a about one-month-long county fair, which has a variety of entertainment. Such as roller coaster rides (relatively small), summer concerts, aaaaaaaaaaaaaand lots of food!

I booked ticket to see Switchfoot concert on Tuesday. Tony and Yehia came along for food. Had the experience from last year, I made them to leave work at 3:30pm (=P), it took us almost 2 hours to go to the fair ground which was only 10 miles away! Ridiculousness, Rucks would say! We parked at a off-site free parking lot, then took a shuttle over. They used those city site seeing buses for the shuttle. I got really excited to get to sit on the top level. It brings me back memories of when I was a kid. We had a lot of those kinds of double layer buses in Chonqing, China. Don’t know where they went when I grew older.

Switchfoot concert was pretty good. They were where active, running around on the stage and doing some cool moves when they play guitar. I liked their show a lot. The fun part of the day wasn’t the concert alone though. I couldn’t believe I let them convinced me to go on to roller coasters!!!!!!!! OMG I almost cried out lol I got scared even on the fairy wheel, when they stopped us when I was at the very top to let the people at the bottom out… gosh!!! I could’ve fall out! From the pictures Tony take, it seems to be very pretty to look down on top there, but I was too scared to look haha! The 3^rd and also the last one we wend to was the pirate boat. OMG when I thought it gonna come down it went higher! The worst part was when our butts left the seat! I thought I was gonna fly out! I think I cursed every time my side went up haha! Thank god Tony tried to make me feel safer on there or I probably would have had a heart attack. Though… Yehia did not scream any less than I did lol! Now I am more sure that I won’t ever go to six flags! Haha but… I had to admit… it was kinda fun though =) haha but I don’t know if I would go on another one again soon lol

4. Fireworks, Wed, July 4th (For pictures, click here)

I worked on 4^th of July so that I can take Friday off to go to Las Vegas (it turned out that we left after 4… I could’ve not take a day off…) In the beginning I wasn’t so excited about fireworks. I saw it last year… it was pretty but I wasn’t so impressed about it. At the last minute I changed my plan and decided to have a good dinner. The winner was Korean BBQ! Crystal was a big lover of Korean BBQ so she came up to join Tony, Yehia and me. We all get to know each other through basketball, isn’t that amazing? That is why I love basketball!!! =) Ballers are cool!!! =) So yeah the food was amazing! It was so good that we forgot about time… we ended up getting to fireworks about 10 minutes late. We had to park far away because there is absolutely no parking anywhere closer. Before we get to La Jolla Cove, we can only hear the explosion noise while the buildings on the street totally blocked the view. “I feel home” It took me a minute to process what Yehia was talking about. Finally we realized that he meant that in his country where war is common in daily life, and the firework noise sounded just like bombs. We laughed, but deep down I was a little sad. Why can not we just live peacefully? I hate wars… To me there is no justified war, because there is always innocent blood … Sigh, world isn’t so simple huh… I hope we can eventually reach a peaceful world…

We finally get to La Jolla Cove, and it is proved to be the best place for anything at any time. The fireworks looked like right above my head. It was much better than watching far away. I think it was my best fireworks experience so far. If I have a chance I would come back to La Jolla again next July 4th.

5. Las Vegas, Friday, July 6th (For pictures, click here)

Mike (a NAVY friend I met through Si, a good high school friend who is in NAVY now, from last year) bought ticket to the World Series poker game, so I tagged along with Si. I heard about Vegas ever since I was a kid, but this weekend was the first time I ever got a chance to go. Since I am more a person about nature, I wasn’t so excited about artificial buildings that much, especially I don’t drink nor gamble. However, experiencing Vegas is always one thing should be done in life, isn’t it?

Because Mike couldn’t get off work till late, by the time we got to Vegas it was almost 10pm. We did not do much that night due to the fact that Mike has games the next day, did not want to disturb him, since it was a pretty important event for him.

The next day we found out that all the shows are pretty much in the evening… guess the day-night is shifted here in Vegas just like in MIT haha. We finally found one magic show that is at 2pm. It was pretty cool. Tigers(!), people, birds and even amtrak came out from no where! Sometimes I wonder how they did those tricks hehe, but I’d rather not know them, because that would kill the fun part. Sometime life isn’t all about truth, is it. Hehe. The tigers were really cute, I love cats, big cats =)

After the show we just hopped around the hotels. OMG that was painful, 110+ degrees was not so nice to us. I had to drink so much to make sure I wouldn’t get dehydrated. With the experience in Caribbean, I learned to put sun scream over and over again, because sun burned was not fun at all. We went to bunch hotels. I think for inside, I liked Bellagio more, but outside, New York New York and Paris was prettier with the Liberty Statue and Eiffel Tower. Even though I was from NY, I never went to the Statue, so it was quite fun. Eiffel Towel was just amazing, especially at night with the lights on. Too bad due to timing issue we missed the chance to going into the tower. I wasn’t so sad about it, because I am more amazed by its architecture, which would be better to see from outside. I guess I got this from my dad who was doing architect work. However, I think Si got really disappointed. It was one thing she really wanted to do, which I did not realize… Sorry, next time, poor one.

Warning: this paragraph is not good for kids’ eyes. So yeah Mom, tell Alina and Justin not to read it haha, though it is not really bad. So, since I don’t drink nor gamble, to make my Vegas trip special, I had to go see a stripper show, right? Hahaha I made Si to go with me to a male one instead of a female one. I think if I were to see a female one, I would either be bored or be too jealous hahahahahahaha. The boys definitely had nice bodies. They dance pretty well too. The fun part to me was to see other girls in the audience getting brought up stage. They were pretty wild haha. The boys sometimes come down to the audience to interact with the audience; I was trying to avoid them the entire time haha. I am still a little conservative after all. Glad it was birthday of the girl sitting right next to me, and her friends were pretty loud, so that the guys usually pass me to their group. Phew! There was a older lady, like 50 ish (?) sitting right behind me. One boy picked her out because of she was the only over 25 (maybe 30) lady there? I forgot what he said, but afterwards, her group of friends (or maybe daughter?) were laughing and she said, “hell yeah, I am ready to do it!” I couldn’t help laughing still haha Wild mama. Don think I would pay that much to see this kind of show again, but it was a good experience for life I think haha. To clarify, they don’t really strip down to nothing. Disappointed… haha I am just kidding!

Because Mike and I both need to work the next day, we cannot stay around for another evening, and also because there is no show in the day, we decided to just go home. After 6 hours of drive we got back to San Diego, and I found myself feeling cold! With the experience of the desert, I found San Diego truly heavenly! Haha

Alright, I think this was my life time Vegas trip, don’t think I love it enough to go back again, or at least not in couple years. However, I think it was a nice trip =)

Now I am finished up this blog… it is Monday already, and I should go back to work now, actually… maybe lunch haha. Today I am going to salsa dance class with Tony. I know nothing about dancing, so I really hope I won’t embarrass myself too much…and I am really looking forward to our possible Yosemite trip this weekend! I love nature! =)

*** I cannot believe you actually managed to finish reading this looooooong blog!!! I hope it did not bore you too much! Thanks very much for reading it! Thanks for caring about me! I miss you all dearly! ***