Awesome Weekend

Had a really awesome weekend. Friday night tried out Kozue in Wallingford for dinner with Ani and OP. Sushi was ok, think Ani’s udon is their specialty and better, OP had spicy tuna on rice. I think next time I’d go for either udon or chirashi. Sake was wonderful.
Saturday we went for our first hike for the year to Lake 22. It used to be our hike 2 at Cedar Spring camp during fall orientation, so we typically go at the end of Sept when it’s still pretty summer-y. This time the last 3rd of the trail + the loop around the lake are all covered in snow. Very different scenary and made the hike even more interesting. Typically it’s just a short hike with mild elevation gain. But now, since there’s only 1 fresh track around the lake (presumably by a tall man), I had to hop and leap to match steps through the snow (otherwise there’d be a deep drop every step of the way). Legs were soar for a couple of days after… Anyhow, had a lot of fun from the hike. We left Seattle around 7:30 am, stopped for McD breakfast and started the hike at 9:05 am. We arrived the lake around 10:30 am (including lots of waiting time for OP), took about an hour going around the lake (and had lunch too), and got out around 2:30 pm (OP arrived 30 minutes later). Then we stopped by a small diner by highway 2 for lunch. I was still full from my sandwich so I opted for beer instead. Here is the funny:

Kim, “what beer do you have?”
waitress. “o we have just about everything: bud, bud light, bud draft, bud light lime, miller, miller light………..”
Kim. *in search of key words other than bud/ miller*
waitress, “…….red hook, brass hook…”
Kim, “RED HOOK IT IS”

We got back to Seattle around 4 pm. Showered and did some studying for the day. Later that night we met up with Shameek and Mrinal for beer/ food @ Schultzy’s.

Got up early Sunday morning and studied while Ani was still snoozing. Went to Costal Kitchen for brunch for the first time (with OP, of course). It was AWESOME. or perhaps, like the usual conspiracy theory, they make you wait so long that any food tastes good. I had Kathryn’s Grand Slam + side of spicy hash. So awesome~ Filled my need for pancakes and maple syrup, as well as sausage, eggs and hashbrowns (except hashbrown was disappointingly not spicy at all).

Then went home, studied some more and met up with OP for our complimentary haircut @ 7Salon. Cut out a lot of ugly/ grown out/ unhealthy hair and got some bangs. It was fun to be in a nice fancy salon for once. Nobody else but OP or Ani seem to have noticed :p

Went to Nectar in Fremont to see Delhi 2 Dublin. The show started about 2 hours later than expected, but the band is very energetic and the music was a lot of fun. The downside was the place was small and everybody was very excited and jumping up and down (and front and back); I really didn’t like people jumping around in my personal space. Went to bed around 1 am.

Struggled a lot to get up around 4:30 to go row Monday morning. Got changed, had coffee and ready to go. Didn’t realize that it was pouring really hard until I stepped outside of the building. Turned around and went back to bed.

Hopefully it won’t be as bad tomorrow morning. Last Friday’s practice got cancelled at the last minute due to strong wind.

Freezing Cold Seattle

We had a pretty darn cold week last week. While it didn’t rain (i.e. no clouds, i.e. COLD!!), it was just really cold.

When I noticed that the weather forecast says -5 degree Celcius on my iGoogle homepage, I went ‘Holy Crap!’ and it looks like it’s not getting any better tomorrow and staying mostly in the negative Celcius for the rest of the week.

Wish I could work from home and not have to brave the cold outside until we leave for the airport to warmer land.

First Official Night at My New Apartment

After the big move last Saturday, and countless shifting of stuff from Wallingford over to my new apartment in Eastlake, couple of shopping trips, and several nights of slow unpacking, I am finally staying over for the very first time.

So far so good.

Despite the fact that there’re still boxes lying around the place, the kitchen looks too clean, and the shower curtain rod is still at risk of falling down any time, that I have 2 beds in my bedroom and I’m typing while sitting on my little bed… I’m overcoming my fear and angst against the new apartment and the new furniture (including the stupid bed scam that I got into).

Skiing at Crystal Mountain with all my brand new gears tomorrow with sister. o so exciting~ It’s gonna be sunny!!

I’m still… not sleeping yet. Have to be up in 5 hours…

Weekend and Furniture

Chilled on Saturday, went for some Costco shopping (bought a boat-load of dried mangoes), followed up with Asian groceries. Awesome to realize that they are so close to each other. We have to start planning our grocery shopping every fortnight.

It’s was snowing the whole weekend and we were hoping that we could make it to Snoqualmie (closest and relatively safest) for some skiing on Sunday. However, when we were leaving Seattle around 8:30 am, it was snowing even within the city limit. We could tell that the visibility in the mountains would be no good for driving or skiing, so we gave up

Turned around and decided to pay the French bakery on Eastlake a visit. I’ve heard Susan talk about it and finally had a chance to try their infamous croissant. It was really tasty, with crispy crust on the outside and cheese, ham and egg on the inside (think he got the breakfast combo, I just stole a couple of bites hehe). It was a nice and quiet early Sunday morning, and we were inside with warm coffee in hand, watching it snow on the Seattle streets.

As I’m moving in less than 2 weeks, I’m working hard at finding some furniture to help make my 1 bedroom apartment more comfortable and homey. Since we didn’t have anything else planned for Sunday, I convinced him to go window shopping at IKEA with me. He ended up buying a few closet organizer (FINALLY! AWESOME!) and kitchenware (I get to try out his wok before deciding on owning one yay. It’s pretty good so far $10). I realized they no longer sell the 5-color tea light candle holders that I loved (they got ruined by melted candles) but I found some other nice looking ones.

So far I’ve settled a deal for 2 outdoor folding chairs + bowl that could be used for floating candles at $20. One of my friends have a spare round table which I would check out soon. Also looking at a couple of mattresses/ couches. Mostly have to figure out the logistics and pricing; we’ll see how that goes.

hopefully this would all pan out nicely.

Ski @ Stevens Pass

Went skiing at Stevens Pass on Saturday with Adriana and Ani. It was snowing like nuts. After the fact I realized my sister went to Stevens Pass on Sunday as well and the road condition was much better that day -_-|||

Adriana is a visiting scholar from Brazil so she hasn’t seen as much snow as we had before, not to mention skiing. We spent 3 hours driving to Stevens Pass. It’s typically a 2-hour drive but took much longer because my little ford focus needed chains and I couldn’t drive more than 30 mph with those on. Meanwhile other big SUVs/ AWDs/ trucks swooshes by on the shoulder at 80 mph. Scccaarrry! When we finally made it, Ani and I spent a couple of hours getting Adriana a head start before her skiing lesson in the afternoon.

She did pretty well and fell very little, but the gears tired her out so we took a lunch break. I didn’t get breakfast before we came out so I was starving for a mucho macho nacho Meanwhile both Adriana and Ani enjoyed their burgers and curly fries.

After we send Adriana off to skiing lessons, we took off for a few blue runs. It was snowing really hard and very cold the whole time.

On and all it was a fun day at Stevens; can use a little less snow on the road.

It Snowed in Seattle on Thursday

It started snowing on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning Wallingford had a thin blanket of snow. In true Seattle fashion, the #26 was half hour late and the #44 never came.

We had a sun break later in the morning. Got a couple of snap shots from the deck. Snow was mostly gone by the afternoon. Our team was in a full day onsite-offsite. It was nice and fun to put all ideas on the table and plan for the coming year.
Work got really busy and frustrating on Friday. I was very upset.

Crystal Mountain Last Sunday

It was lots of fun meeting up with my cousin and sister and their significant others last Sunday for skiing. I haven’t seen the cousin for 8 years but it turned out pretty well.

I was the greenest skier in the group but they were patient and considerate, doing mostly green and some blue runs, slowing down to wait for me in case I need help picking up loose gears. My sister is a pretty experienced skier so she taught me how to use the ski poles to time turns and how to come down steeper slopes, which would eventually bring me up to the black diamond level. For a 4th time skier, they said I had pretty good form and skied fairly well. At one point we were going to give a black diamond a try but it turned out to be too foggy, so we came down a green instead.

The mountain is much bigger than Snoqualmie Pass. It has more and much longer runs, so it’s less crowded. It snowed the whole of last week and during the time when we were there, so the condition was really good (especially when compared to the sunny/ icy/ slushy days in Snoqualmie).

My First Black Diamond Run (Sort of)

We skied in Snoqualmie Pass on Saturday. It was very sunny and warm. We left Seattle around 7:45 and started skiing around 9. The runs were very icy, with tire marks from grooming. We did various blue runs in the morning and took a break for lunch. Baked potato with chili’s and cheese and bacon bits was awesome for lunch

We then took the shuttle to go from the Central to West summit to try out different runs. After a long wait in the sun the shuttle finally arrived and we took off for West. Since we weren’t familiar with the runs in West, we ended up in a green run and some overly easy blues. Then I discovered that a run that goes from West back to Central which looks like a bunch of traversing and coming back out from the middle of Central.

“No wait at the shuttle and no hauling gears around? Awesome!” I thought.

We started off traversing to the far right of West arriving at the lift of a black diamond run “Wildside” (and for a good 5 – 10 minutes I was standing in the middle of the mountain looking for him, who disappeared in sight after falling). After getting off the long lift ride we had to go down a steep, narrow and swirly path. He wasn’t very comfortable in his skis yet so he was slowly side-stepping down after another girl who also seems to be having some trouble. I figured it’s just going to take a bit of control (i.e. braking) to go down the small and narrow slope once they’re off, and it worked out nicely. We then continue to traverse on the fairly narrow trail (where beginners tend to fall and block the way) through a tree line and came out to the open – mid-slope of a black diamond run in West summit

He decided to take off his skis and slide down on his butt, while I was observing others struggling downhill with skis and snowboards alike and figured there must be a way to go down with maximum control and minimum falling (reeeeally don’t want to lose my skis and ski poles like I did earlier on a blue run mid slope on a black diamond; this black run was also where we saw, in previous week, an off-leash snowboard flew off the mountain and all the way down to the restaurants). He probably spent 1/3 to 1/2 the time I used to come down – I continued to struggle mentally mid slope for another 5- 10 minutes, then decided to follow path of another struggling lady (“I’m just trying to figure out how to get down safely” “me too”). I traversed slowly to the far right, paying attention to skiers/ riders flying/ falling downhill while trying to go as far low as possible without picking up uncontrollable speed. I was almost half way down when I hit the tree line/ side of valley and can’t quite go any farther without turning around. But there was a group of snowboarders who happened to have fallen right where I would fly straight towards if I were to turn around, so I waited and waited until they got up and continued.

The rest is mostly history; I turned around, ran straight over where the riders were, somehow tripped and had my 1 fall, filled the back of my pants with slushy snow but managed to keep all my gears on, I got up and let go of fighting the mountain and managed to the bottom of the slope, and complete the final stretch of the run, which is a green run.

yay we survived :’)