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| WHOA. Alright, I haven't been back to this blog in a long time. It's been shut down. Today, I decided to open it up again and set all my entries from high school public. Every single one. Even the emotional rants that were "protected." I've read through them all and I'm amazed at how much I've grown and changed since the beginning of Lowell to today. You can read through them whenever you want for a good laugh or just for memories' sake; your name is probably mentioned somewhere. In retrospect, high school drama seems so unimportant. Most of my entries are from when I was 15 to 17 years old. For some reason, a long time ago out of embarrassment, I deleted most of my entries from 2004-2005. I also deleted a previous Xanga which I had in middle school (2002-2004). It is one of my biggest regrets. So much lost information. I will never delete a single entry from this blog ever again... this blog represents my teenage years, which I'll never be able to get back. I'm going to be turning 21 really soon. I can't believe it's been almost 8 years since I've started this blog. I'm getting old... where did our youth go? Time travels so fast. Really in the blink of an eye. It's nice to reminisce every once in a while, but alas, I can't dwell on the past for too long. There's a whole new decade ahead waiting for me. Seize the moment! I gotta testify
Come up in the spot lookin' extra fly
For the day I die
I'm gonna touch the sky | | |
| College has been exhausting me lately. I'm almost never bored at Cal... and I love that. I'm half awake now, so I'll have a more detailed update sometime later on this week. I feel like I've been on a high since I left for vacation over the summer. What happened to the monotony of life? I can ask myself that everyday now... and it feels great. 
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| Movies watched over the summer + my rating:
Flawless.
[ A+ ] Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain (Amelie)
[ A+ ] Memento
[ A+ ] Fight Club
[ A+ ] Forrest Gump
[ A+ ] The Dark Knight
[ A ] Kill Bill Vol. 1
[ A- ] The Prestige
[ A- ] Kill Bill Vol. 2
[ A- ] Batman Begins (2x)
Extremely good.
[ B+ ] Goodfellas
[ B+ ] The Notebook (5x)
[ B+ ] Superbad
[ B+ ] Lust, Caution
[ B+ ] V for Vendetta (2x)
[ B+ ] Ocean's Eleven
[ B+ ] Wall-E
Pretty good.
[ B ] The Shining
[ B ] Monty Python and the Holy Grail
[ B ] Forgetting Sarah Marshall
[ B ] Se7en
[ B ] American Psycho
[ B ] The Devil Wears Prada
[ B ] Transformers (5x)
[ B ] Wanted
OK.
[ B- ] The Holiday
[ B- ] Kung Fu Panda
[ B- ] Gattaca
[ B- ] Cars
[ B- ] Juno (2x)
[ B- ] Casino Royale
[ B- ] Iron Man
[ B- ] 27 Dresses
Didn't quite hit me.
[ C+ ] No Country For Old Men
[ C+ ] The Incredible Hulk
[ C+ ] Cassandra's Dream
[ C ] How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days
[ C ] 13 Going On 30
[ C ] Clueless
[ C- ] Ocean's Twelve
[ C- ] The Breakfast Club
[ D+ ] Sydney White
[ D ] Kung Fu Mahjong
[ D ] Hitch (2x)
[ D ] Talledega Nights
[ F ] Forbidden Kingdom
[ F ] The Grudge 2
Don't know where to put.
[ wtf ] Pulp Fiction
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| Shanghai. 上海
Since I couldn't access Xanga in China, I won't have date-by-date, organized entries. I'm just going to write anything I can remember. So let's see.
First Impression:
I finally visited Shanghai again, the last time was six years ago. When I got there, everything seemed the same to me. People told me it hella changed, and I'm sure it did, so I probably wasn't very observant when I was younger. It was really weird to me, like capitalism to the extreme. Poor & rich people, old & new buildings, old & advanced technology, tons of malls... they're all right next door to each other. It was really hot there obviously, 90s at daytime and 80s at nighttime almost everyday. Pretty much the same weather as Tokyo. Really humid but I love it cause it's what summer's supposed to be and I get to keep a handkerchief for sweat, take cold showers, and be naked at home haha. It was crowded also, as usual, but very disorganized unlike Tokyo. I've seen cars, motorcycles, and bicycles go on the wrong side of the road, people walk in front of traffic like they don't notice it, vehicles swoosh right past people even if they're two inches away from them. Everyone runs red lights. Police don't give a shit. I LOVE IT! Sounds dangerous but I haven't seen any crashes. I totally prefer it over our robotic, organized traffic. It's more fun & natural, and less monotonous. I like it crowded also cause you get to see more faces. There are still tons of little shops down every block, people cooking authentic chinese food & selling stuff in the middle of the street, people chilling on the streets half-naked, gigantic malls everywhere, lots of bicycles and motorcycles and taxis, random supermarkets in alleyways, lots of people gathering in the middle of the streets to karaoke at nighttime... yeah, it's a lot of fun.
Random Details:
+ I lived at my dad's brother's (uncle) condo for the majority of my stay. I usually live there when I go to Shanghai anyway, even though my family has a condo there. His condo is really nice, it's on the roof of a building, it's 2 floors and designed in a very contemporary style, the living room and bedrooms are huge, a huge balcony that overlooks all of Puxi, basically a luxury condo mansion? Haha.
+ Hm, I visited a lot of relatives and relatives of relatives when I was in Shanghai.
+ I went out to lunch & dinner almost everyday but always at the best restaurants in Shanghai. You guys have never had a real 生煎包 or a real 小龙包 if you've never been to Shanghai. It's heaven there.
+ I finally saw my dog Lulu. They bought her for me five years ago thinking I would come back, but I never did. This is my first time seeing my own dog, and she's already five years old. She's a breed, but iono what kind. She's so energetic that when she runs on the floor she's actually ice skating, doesn't bite, is very protective of the home (only time she barks is when she hears someone outside... you do not want Lulu barking at you, it's scary), likes to curl up behind people and sleep, likes to pose for the camera, and likes to lay on her back and be scratched. She understands Shanghainese, and she's cute as hell.
+ They have a rabbit too named Lulu, except he's old.
+ My squirrels, also named Lulu, died a while ago, oh well.
+ My 27-year old cousin has 2014 N64 games on his computer. Now imagine how many DS, GBA, NES, PS, PS2, and actual computer games he has on his computer. There isn't a game he doesn't have. Lots of fun.
+ My 28-year old cousin changed a lot physically, as in slimmer. I guess girls try to look their best when they're 28.
+ Shanghai has plasma TVs everywhere. Two in front of every elevator, one in every elevator, one in every taxi, two on every bus, ten on every train, two on every train stop, many in malls and restaurants, many huge ones spread across skyscrapers, etc. Big-brother society, yeah? But all they show on them are commercials.
+ Olympics stuff literally everywhere you look. Ads and whatnot. Saw Beijing Huanyin Ni on TV twice!
+ Ok, I am the REAL Olympics buff here. They play Olympics on five different channels, and I have watched them from diving at 8-9AM to tennis at midnight-3:40AM. I have watched every single diving, volleyball, track, swimming, soccer, weightlifting, shooting, air pistol, badminton, ping pong, basketball, handball, water polo, tennis, synchronized swimming, etc.. game that aired since the second day, LIVE. Let's just say, I have never heard the Chinese national anthem more times in my life.
+ Speaking of which, the Olympics opening ceremony was INSANE! Too bad US got it 15 hrs late. I thought the fact that half the world, and all the presidents, and all the athletes, and myself.. were all counting down this SINGLE TIME (8/8/08 8:00PM) in China... was just mindblowing. I got shivers all the way through the ceremony, and it made me proud to be Chinese. 5000 yrs. of history, bitch! There were tons of fireworks in Shanghai also. I'll never forget that. London 2012 admitted they can't top it, 'cause they can't.
+ Went to The Bund at nighttime. The nightview of 浦东 (Pudong) is so colorful and flashy. Nanjing Rd. is all flashing lights and shopping at nighttime too. I didn't do much shopping, nothing really interested me.
+ Went to 城隍庙, which was a tourist location but pretty fun. A lot of shopping and good food there.
+ Went to 新天地, which was another tourist location. I met up with my SF cousins 'cause they self-toured Japan and came to Shanghai. They wanted to go to that tourist spot, but it wasn't that great. A lot of bars and shopping. We ended up going to a bar but i didn't drink, I got watermelon juice and watched volleyball there, haha. I secretly wanted US to beat China, and they did yay!
+ Went to 浦东 during the daytime. It's a lot more modern there 'cause everything's new. Took a lot of pictures and stuff, then took this special underwater train ride back to 浦西. The train ride was very cool, I took a video of it.
+ Went to this huge park that has all kinds of fun, I don't know the name. It was so hot that day, I felt like I was in a desert.. so we ran home as quickly as possible.
+ I sleptover at my dad's sister's house for two days. It was really fun. When I was younger I used to sleepover there with this guy from Taiwan. He came over the summer to learn pinyin, and since he stayed at my aunt's house, we lived together and were best of friends. I haven't seen him since 1998 or 2000? Now he's in Taiwan and his brother's in F4. Yup, I'm two degrees from F4 haha.
+ I took the Maglev train and yes it's fastest train in the world. So fast that in a second I'm on the other side of Shanghai.
+ Shanghai train stations are so crowded, you need four escalators going down and four escalators going up and it's still crowded. Shanghai's "Powell" station is probably as big as the SFO. It's HUGE, looks like an airport, really modern, and it has several floors, you could get lost really easily since there's crowds going in every direction. Octopus cards? YES! I also like how when their trains go above ground, they go on like a highway thing so you sweep through skyscrapers in midair, unlike SF where our trains just go on the streets and kill people.
+ Shanghai has too many malls. We have 1 Bloomingdales, 1 Stonestown, or w/e. They have like 10 Bloomingdale-sized malls on a block. Just one block. And Shanghai's one of the largest cities in the world so imagine that. I swear they're everywhere, even underground is loaded with malls! You can't avoid them. They have every single brand name the alphabet could possibly produce. I get dizzy and sick from seeing so many. Capitalist much? They also have food courts at the bottom floor. Tons and tons of food courts, but unlike ours, the food is SO GOOD.
+ Basically, I love Shanghai.
+ As my Shanghainese and Mandarin skills improved, my Cantonese skills did the exact opposite.
+ I bumped into Weina @ the Shanghai airport. It was very random, cause she also went to Tokyo and went to a bunch of same restaurants and places as I did, and was going on the same plane back to SF. I also met this guy on the airplane (I like to meet random ppl my age from diff countries lol), he was sitting next to me and we started talking about a lot of stuff. He's from Suzhou and he's going with 14 other people fom his high school to Univeristy of Wyoming. I told him all the good places to go in the US, and iono, we just talked about a lot of stuff. It kept me from being bored, allowed me to practice my Chinese, and before i knew it I was in SF. I exchanged MSN with him since they all use that in China, and I'm like "if you ever come to SF I can show you around." Shoot, I am such a nice person sometimes I can't believe it.
+ When I got back to SF (went back in time 5 hrs whoo!), I was happy that I was finally with English speaking people, but it was so quiet, cold, gray, boring, and deserted. If I were in Tokyo or Shanghai, I would be out every night 'cause you can't possibly run outta things to do like you can here. I did feel a wave of depression before I went to sleep, but I'm happy that I got to go back this year. Sometimes I get the feeling that I broke up with someone or something... it's weird, but w/e. I'm cool now, even though I miss the busy citylife. School's about to start though grr. I want summer to last a lifetime!
Went to Sean's bday party a day after I arrived with uhh Jo Em Cart Tony Elaine and Darryl, who I haven't seen in a longtime. We played Cranium, ate at Hukilau, and karaoked @ night. We sang a lot of familiar songs, and my voice was all raspy afterward, haha. I also failed my driving test cause this stupid lady said I pulled over too quickly. She called it a "dangerous maneuver." I heard that black lady fails everyone, I'm so unlucky. I need to start packing for college 'cause I move in on Sunday! Packing sucks. Today I'm going to Jojo's bye-bye party, hope that's fun. Wow, I'm finally done with this long update. WHOOT. 拜拜!
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| Japan. 日本
7/29/2008 (Japan time)
We arrived at the Narita International Airport around 3 PM. It took us ten dreadful hours to go from 1 PM (PT) to 3 PM (JST). You could imagine how tired I was at night. When I first got there, I noticed some obvious differences: The bathrooms are dead clean, even the stalls where you have to squat to take a dump. Japanese people drive on the right side of the car and on the left side of the road, I like it better. Their stoplights are horizontal, aka green-yellow-red. Pedestrians have complete right-of-way; people walk in front of cars even if the cars are only two feet away from them. Surprisingly, no cars honk -- I guess they’re used to it. Japanese people are so ridiculously nice and polite it makes me paranoid about my own manners. It’s not fake at all either. Food is unbelievably delicate yet filling. They put half a cauliflower and two pieces of seaweed on a single bowl. Fortunately, they give you tons of bowls with all kinds of food... so you get really full. The waitresses at the restaurant actually wore those fancy traditional dresses and took tiny steps in their flip-flop-ish shoes (I don’t know the name for it). That was surprising, but what’s even more surprising was that I was in freaking JAPAN. I kept telling myself, I’m in JAPAN!?! HOLY SHIT. I’ve heard about Japan’s coolness and its history all my life, and now I’m HERE. I seriously couldn’t believe it.
7/30/2008
I woke up around 3 AM and couldn’t fall back to sleep. We had a typical American breakfast in the morning, and then we were off on the tour. We crossed a 30 mile long bridge to get to a city called Kamakura. The first thing I bought when we shopped there was ice cream. Ice cream’s everywhere in Japan. So is tea. So are vending machines, probably cause it’s so humid there -- around 90s everyday. Just to let you know, there are 3-4 vending machines on every block; I even found a block with 11 vending machines and another with 12. There's even vending machines for hot coffee. Then we went to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, which turned out to a gigantic statue of Buddha. When I prayed, I looked up and was so amazed at how intimidating it was. Lunch was tempura, and that was when I decided upon my goal in Japan: to make some friends. It’s not that easy you know. I didn’t know ANY Japanese, was on a tour (tours don’t care about the native peoples), and needed the courage to talk to random strangers. But whatever, put that thought aside for now. We visited our last destination Odawara Castle, which is basically a museum that desperately needs air conditioning. Finally, we went to our hotel, which is by far the most AMAZING hotel I have ever stayed in. It’s above the ocean, it’s HUGE, and it has everything you’ll ever need -- massages, swimming pool, game room, etc. We were greeted with a special drink and a performance by a harpist. Then I decided to shower. I mean, not a shower. PUBLIC BATH. IT WAS SO FUN. ONE OF THE MOST FUN EXPERIENCES IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. Ok, long story short: I walked into the men’s side with a small towel and a big towel, took off my slippers, went into the room full of sinks (has blow dryers and mirrors and whatever you need), went upstairs to a room with a huge rack that held tons of baskets, took off all my clothes and put them in a random basket, grabbed my small towel, and slid open the door to the official bathing room. The bathing room is really dimly lit, with a pool of hot herbal water in the middle, and all around the pool are about 30 showers lined up against the wall. These aren’t typical showers. You have to sit down on a chair that’s 2 ft. high. When you do, you have a huge mirror in front of you with lights around it, a rack with shampoo / conditioner / body wash / face wash / facial moisturizing cream / facial skin-peeling cream, a bucket, and a shower head. You use the shower head to wash your body with hot water, and then you fill your bucket with cold water and rinse your small towel with the water. You then go into the hot pool and place the cold towel on your head (cools you down). You stay in the hot pool for 2-3 minutes, get out of the pool, and sit at one of the showers again. You shampoo your hair, soap your body, rinse until you’re all clean, and then turn around and go back into the hot pool for about 5-10 minutes. Then you’re done; you can get out of the bathing room and into the room full of baskets. Then you dry yourself off with the big towel, and wear your kimono. It was so fun, especially the bathing room. True, there’s like 20-30 naked men in the bathing room showering, walking around, going into the pool, coming back out, showering more, but NOBODY cares. Only Americans would be disgusted at that ‘cause they’re too overly self-conscious. The public bath was so chill and carefree, just another reason why I love Japan. After that, we had a traditional Japanese dinner, which was SO FUN AGAIN. The Japanese slid open the door, I took off my slippers, stepped in (with my kimono on of course), and the room was lined up with tables one feet high and legless chairs. I sat down on a chair (basically on the floor -- a woven carpet), and dinner was AWESOME. Japanese food in Japan is so different from Japanese food in America. Sushi is SO AMERICANIZED, I didn’t see ONE sushi on my ENTIRE trip. Real Japanese food is ridiculously good, I’ve never seen that stuff in my entire life. The waitresses dragged the trays along the floor and bowed to me as they replaced my empty bowls with even more delicate, delicious dishes. Of course I had to bow in return, haha. There was also karaoke going on, it was unbelievable. Japanese culture is so deep-rooted and FUN, and I was completely immersed in it.
7/31/2008
Started the day with the most LUXURIOUS BREAKFAST I've ever eaten. We got full wall-sized window views of the ocean, waterfall, and rocks as we ate. We then went to Atami, Shizuoka, and rode pirate ships to Fuji-Hakone National Park. In the park, we rode a gondola over Owakudani Valley and Lake Ashi. Tried to look for Fuji Mountain but the weather wasn't friendly enough. Visited the hot springs and ate a "sulfuric egg." Apparently the more you eat them, the longer you'll live. That reminds me, our tour guide also told us about this cool famous quote in Japan: "If you don't listen to me, I'll wait until you do. If you don't listen to me, I'll force you to. If you don't listen to me, I'll kill you." Something like that. Then we had the most LUXURIOUS LUNCH EVER. It was a buffet of the most delicate delicious dishes I have ever seen. The raw fish was heaven. Everything was heaven. I have a lot of pictures -- will post on facebook, no worries. Finally, the moment I was waiting for -- we were headed to Tokyo. Say that again? T-O-K-Y-O. Shit. Shit shit shit. SHIT!!!
Tokyo. 东京
Let's see.. about Tokyo. Imagine this. All the guys are dressed semi-formally, white dress shirt tucked in dark-blue dress pants. Almost all the girls are in high heels and have makeup on. The streets are CROWDED like crazy but everyone is walking super fast and organized. Tons of people are on cell phones. Everyone's speaking super fast sexy Japanese. There's flashing lights and huge ads all around from stores and malls. Tons of immeasurably tall skyscrapers around. Technology everywhere. Toilets spray your butthole, on your butt, around your butt, dry your butthole, dry your butt, dry around your butt, and make you smell good. Very high-class. If you want to look for nail clippers any store will have 50 different kinds per nail per brand. Everyone's nice as shit. Yup, amazing. I met with my dad's best friend, he's so cool. And then I met with my dad's other best friend and she's so cool too. My dad's best friends were born in Shanghai but all live in Tokyo so yeah. I find it weird that if my dad chose Japan over USA, I would be Japanese lol. They brought their children (only know Japanese) and took us out to this hecka nice restaurant. I swear it's like eating in midair of Times Square with a full panoramic view of the flashing lights. There were 4 languages circling the table: My dad & his friends spoke Shanghainese, My dad & I spoke English, his friends & I spoke Mandarin, and his friends & their children spoke Japanese. I tested Sakura's English by asking her where she went in America, and her mom thought she was so smart that she began naming all these cities that sound like English but actually Japanese, and I go, "你到底在说日语还是国语啊？” GOTTEM. We cracked up like hell, haha. Food was EXCELLENT as usual. I tried some sake and some other Japanese wine that was pretty good. After dinner, we went shopping and to the top of this tower for night views. I visited the subway but didn't dare explore too deep because it is the most confusing subway system on earth. There's bazillions of trains going in every direction, and Tokyo underground is literally another city. The trains are used by 33 million people, talk about crowded. Then back to the hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and slept in the city that never sleeps.
8/1/08
Today's the actual tour of Tokyo. We visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office and the Meiji Shrine in Shibuya, Tokyo. There were a bunch of prayers left by visitors for the deified spirit of a former Emperor so I decided to write one too. Then we went to Asakusa, Tokyo, to see historic temples and go shopping at what seemed like a fair. Ate a hella good sashimi-only lunch. After that, we went to the Imperial Palace which was hella pretty, but I find it so weird that all this natural beauty is smack dab at the heart of a booming civilization. Went to the Panasonic Center, which was pretty tight. They have rooms strictly for if you want to play Wii, DS, etc. I saw a preview of the largest screen on earth, and the interactive touch-screen room wall. Saw laser keyboards, eye identification stuff, typical tech stuff in Japan. Went to Ginza, a major shopping district. I have never seen that many Chanels, Burberrys, Pradas, Guccis in my LIFE. And they're all huge buildings. The Apple store was ridiculous, they had clear elevators and at the top of the bulding they had a glowing apple in a block that spun 360 degrees. It was really hot and crowded with young people as usual, but so fun. We had Shabu Shabu for dinner (Japanese hot pot), which was really good as usual. I asked my tour guide how to say "tastes very good" and she said "oishii." So when my waiter came around and poured soup into the hot pot, I said "oishii!" haha. He was hecka laughing and he replied with some super fast Japanese. At the end of dinner, I told the waiter "Watashi wa nihongo ga hanase masen" [I can't speak Japanese]. He laughed and replied with stuff I didn't understand, so I said "Anata no itta koto ga wakarimasen" [I don't understand what you just said]. He hella laughed after I said that followed by more fast Japanese. Then I said "Watashi wa amerika kara ki mashita" [I'm from America]. And he goes, "amerika kara ki mashita?" And I go "Hai, hajimette no nihon" [First time in Japan]. He goes "Ooh blahblahblah fast Japanese." Then I had to go cause our tour bus was waiting for me, so he goes "Hajimemashite!" and I go "Hajime...mashite" [Nice to meet you]. And I go "Arigato... gozaimasu" and bow, and he does the same back. He seemed hella happy to meet me, I'm glad that I left a mark in his life. Then I left the restaurant, boarded the bus, and bye bye Tokyo =(. I'm so glad though that I accomplished my goal, I made a friend in Tokyo! I can now say I got a friend who works @ Nabezo in GINZA, Tokyo. Connections halfway across the world biznatch. And he's about my age too, like a high school or college student. There couldn't have been a better ending to my trip.
8/2/08
CHINA HERE I COME.
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