California - Part 4

== Day 6 ==

L had to go to lab in the morning. I napped. She came back, we had a simple lunch, watched a bit of videos, saw some pictures off a particular photographer's blog (*wink) then we went to get some Caribbean bbq for our small house party. Jerk chicken, BBQ pork ribs and braised oxtail. Not to mention their corn festivals which tastes like Ham Chim Peng :)

== Day 7 ==

Spent the first half of the day lazing around at home, watching Finding Nemo again... Took a nap, then finally in the late afternoon we met Gabrielle at Gamble Gardens. She's our officiator at the wedding.

After that we went down to San Fran - L managed to get a night free at St Regis because of some Starwood Preferred Guest offer. Whoa the hotel is damn cool... coolest part of course, is that it would have cost 429 dollars if not for the offer!!!

Dinner was at this Japanese/ fusion place called Namu. The food was really good but the decor/ambiance left much to be desired. The shop front looked disappointing and the interior quite small and barren so it got quite noisy... We had to practically shout to each other... definitely not a nice date place.

 

 

== Day 8 ==

Had a really late breakfast at Vitrine, the restaurant at the hotel. We shared some black truffle omelette (I know, it sounds posh) and coffee. Lunch I planned to go Swan Oyster Depot... but on arriving there it looked like a messy cheap seafood bar. So we went to the sushi/jap place next door and got some simple jap stuff (sashimi, beef teriyaki, tempura, udon).

Then L drove me to the airport and dropped me off as she had so often. We had lots of practice at this already. The dropoff is the best way for me to go.

== Plane ride back ==

I got allocated 62C, this aisle seat near the back of the plane. A young guy came over and sat in 62A (there wasn't a 62B since at the tail of the plane where its narrow, only 2 seats could fit). He turned to me all friendly and said "hi". I wasn't really in the mood for conversation but I said "hi" anyway. Then he said he was flying with his girlfriend, but they bought the tickets separately, how he thought he could change the seats at check-in but the flight was overbooked as usual etc. and asked if I was willing to move. Which seat was she, I asked. 58F was his reply.

I was hesitant of course. Thing is with some seats there's a stupid box under the seat so you can't extend your legs. My seat didn't have the box and I wasn't sure if 58F had that problem. Besides, the guy next to me was pretty normal sized... what if the seat I moved to (it was a center seat) was next to two hugeass guys?

But I agreed to move anyway... I thought I was alone anyway, and these two lovebirds could enjoy being together. So I moved. They thanked me and I said it wasn't a problem.

2 hours into the flight, after our meal and the lights were switched off and I was enjoying the movie... a woman suddenly thrusted a plastic bag at me from the aisle. I was momentarily stunned because a) it was dark and b) I was enjoying my movie. I then recognised the woman as the one I changed seats with. I took the bag and she left quietly. Inside the bag was a cute handwritten note, "To say thank you for moving - Jess and Rob" and a bag of chocolates.

Aww... I felt all warm inside. I feel that we don't get recognition for good deeds often enough. Sure you get it as a child when your parents/teachers praise you when you do something good... but as an adult, you don't get that pat on your back. That little gesture of thanks was really touching. More importantly to me, its cool to be recognised as being nice - especially as I was, ahem, a money grubbing banker.

California - Part 3

== Day 5 ==

L had to go to her lab in the morning. I lazed around a bit, picked her up at 11, then we went to this tea place at downtown palo alto. They had all sorts of tea - white tea, green tea, Chinese tea, Darjeeling, Assam etc... They also served some nice sandwiches and quiches. Yummy!

After lunch she had another appointment, so I dropped her off at Terman - then went back home and lazed a bit more. At roughly 3, we went to V's thesis defense. This would be the second thesis defense I've attended in 3 days. It was quite fun - both student and teacher were poking fun at each other. Then I met L's labmates for a bit, went to V's after-thesis-defense-party for a short while (I snacked on cheese and biscuits and champagne) and then we headed off to (in my mind) the event of the day... Arcadia restaurant in San Jose.

The restaurant, an American Steakhouse, is located in this convention complex right next to the Marriott. It had this dark brown interior, very much like Spruce (which we went there just two days ago). I had lobster corn dogs, kobe skirt steak, and molten choc cake. L had a salad (blue cheese, pecan, apple), some dover sole, and lemon triffle. We also shared a portion of duck fat fries (I assume the fries were fried in duck fat!) Everything was good, but the steak I had was legen-dary. Beautifully charred on the outside and juicy on the inside, it was so good I savoured every little bite.

"Are you ok?", L asked, seeing my dreamlike state as I took my first taste of the steak. I only wished they had served me a 24oz portion instead...

California - Part 2

== Day 3 continued ==
So L had her hair made up for the photoshoot. Meanwhile she instructed me to get orange calla lilies... pretty specific eh. Called around but none of the florists had it. Went to the one at the Stanford Shopping Center and they had yellow ones. L was fine with it so I got them.

Then we went back, got dressed into our outfits, and started the photoshoot. Was quite fun. L got two friends to help out. We took a few pictures around the main quad, then we went to university avenue and took more pictures.

One picture was taken right in the middle of the road. J, our photographer, was like, "wow the lights look really cool. Wait here..." then he went onto the middle of the road while the lights were red. Took a couple of test shots then came back and said, "do you wanna do this?"

I was like, "in the middle of the road?"

"do you want to do this? I wont force you..."

after a bit of consideration, I thought, what the heck... this is once in a lifetime. So we agreed, practiced our pose at the side, then rushed to the middle, struck our pose and got our picture taken. We had a glimpse of the result on the camera and we were impressed! can't wait to see the real thing now...

== Day 4 ==

Woke up lazily late in the morning, had a small breakfast, then went to San Fran for our "Dine about Town" day. First stop was Spruce, a pretty hip/posh place at Sacramento shopping district. Nice dark brown and white interior. Was served by this white haired old gentlemen who looked and acted a bit gay. The food was really good. Started with a Tokyo turnip soup, followed by some mushroom trout thing (turned out to be salmon instead?!) and wrapped off with a delightful lemon pastry with ice-cream thingy. The soup was fantastic, the salmon flavours were subtle and the dessert was.. well, delightful.

Then we caught "Up" in 3D in this old classical theatre called the "Castro Theatre". While we were waiting for the movie to begin, there was this musician (organist??) playing old disney music with the theatre organ... man it was impressive! The movie was good too.

Dinner was at Campton Place. Quite a posh place as well, but we thought the food wasn't fantastic. The dessert was really nice though - I had basil braised strawberries with honeydew and vanilla ice cream. L had kinda like a lemon sorbet thing with meringue and oolong infused mousse. sweet...

Fun date :)

California - Part 1

== Flight ==
Arrived at the airport 2.5 hrs before departure. Joined a "bag drop" queue but it wasn't moving. Joined another bag drop queue. Moved about a foot after 5 minutes... decided to stay in the queue - at least there was progress. One hour later, I was only halfway there. The desk was closing in 10mins - one Virgin Atlantic woman came around asking, "San Francisco!". I hurried to her, was directed to another desk and within 3 minutes I've checked in my bags. Leaves me really puzzled why the hell I had to queue for an hour.

After boarding the flight, we sat quietly waiting for the plane to move off. But it never did. Bored, I fell asleep. An hour later, we were still in the same spot. Apparently there was a problem with some lock somewhere and it would have to get replaced before we could fly. Expected time? 2.5 hrs after scheduled departure.

Sigh worst flight experience ever.

== Day 1 ==

As soon as I touched down, I switched on my phone and gave L a ring. She arrived at the airport just as I collected my bag and headed out the airport. We then went to Iberia, this pretty cool spanish bar/restaurant place at Menlo Park for some really superb spanish tapas. She had a glass of red wine and I had Sangria. Super... then we went to Coldstone for ice cream. yummy!

== Day 2 ==

Woke up at 8.. lazed around, then went for breakfast at Cafe Borrone. She had belgian waffles with strawberries and cream. I had egg-cheese-ham omelette with a spicy italian sausage. flushed down the stuff with Chai tea and frosted mocha. Good food and really enjoyable. There was this hugeass German Shepard next to us, but for some reason she was really upset. She kept making this loud high pitched whining sound. Her owner was female and didn't really care that much about the dog... and when a guy came to the table, she whined even louder to the guy. We concluded that the guy was the real owner of the dog and she's unhappy that his girlfriend was left "in charge".

== Day 3 ==
Just started. L has to go to lab to feed some cells I think. I'll join her an hour later at a common friend's thesis defence. Then we're going for lunch somewhere, she's going to get her hair done, and we're gonna be taking some pictures around the campus.

Work Stress

The past week has been incredibly tough for me. My old boss has left. Two new colleagues came over from the "other side". One, who's younger than me but has about the same amount of experience (because he didn't need to do NS) talks a lot. He seems to like to hear himself. He never allows anyone else to talk. And by talking, I mean lecturing. After a day of "interaction" (in quotes because it was really one sided...) me and my other colleague were immensely pissed off... we finally confronted him and told him, in very subtle terms, "F off. you're not our boss so don't pretend to be".

The other one is almost the total opposite. He looks young but has 15 years of experience. He doesn't talk a lot, is very shy, and lacking confidence. Even I could walk all over him... But he's useless. He sat next to me and kept peering over my shoulder at my screens, not giving me one ounce of privacy. I hated it. I was so stressed about it, I finally told my new boss (who, bear in mind, is pretty close to him). I think new boss managed to get the message across to him, because he doesn't do it anymore (or maybe more discreetly).

New boss also had a 1 to 1 meeting with me. Wanted to know more about me, about what I thought were my strengths and weaknesses, what I can do to improve the business, about my goals and ambitions and how I want to achieve them... gosh it was like an interview.

I survived the week though... because...

... I'm flying off to see L tomorrow. I haven't packed yet... I guess I should start soon. Will be taking some photos, enjoying some food...

Don't think I'll be updating the blog for a week at least. :)