---

The Hsueh Family...went to Macaroni Grill for Angela's birthday.

Emily's fish...Grilled Halibut... Lightly seasoned halibut topped with a tomato basil relish and served with creamy pesto Parmesan risotto. Great plating...love the colors...

Emily's mom is vegetarian to a degree. She'll have dairy products like milk/cheese and such but eschews many underground vegetables such as onions, green onions, and garlic. She'll have potatoes and ginger though. The root vegetable diet restriction is actually common enough that a few of the Asian airlines offer meals without them. Anyways, finding the right entree was difficult at an Italian place, since almost of the sauces have onions/garlic in them. In the end, she got this monster salad that was just right.

Standard seafood linguini...

Lobster Ravioli... Decadent lobster-filled tarragon pasta topped with sauteed shrimp, asparagus, tomatoes and lemon butter sauce. The sauce was quite good...

Cake was huge...they had a waitress sing "Happy Birthday"...she had an awesome voice.

Voicecon was last week...it's a conference where all the phone system companies get together and show off their new stuff. Since we're a client of Avaya, they invited me to their party at SFMOMA. It's been awhile since I've been so I was eager to go. No photography in the galleries but they allowed it in the atrium so I got quite a few pics of the event. The Avaya logo is red so they "painted" the whole area in red lights...very Star Wars-ish for some reason.

The wine was certainly flowing that night...lots of wineries around the Bay Area represented.

What you see here is a crab shot. Basically, a bunch of crab meat on top of spicy shrimp cocktail sauce. YUMMM...

I tossed quite a few of these back...VERY DECADENT. All the meat with none of the fuss...I feel bad for all the children who picked the meat but were not allowed to eat it...

...or peeled the succulent shrimp...

Yummy polenta and the lamb....hmmm, the lamb was so lean and tender.

The lamb skewers were good too...presentation reminded me of roadkill porcupine...:-P

See what I mean?

This was mushroom over halibut over rice. Rice was in a green Thai curry. Emily would have loved this one...

Yerba Buena Museum (across the street) has these really cool floodlights...very Wizard of Oz.

---

My neighbors (who are all incidentally Indian) like to leave their door's open when cooking. It makes the hallway smell of Indian spices...I love Indian food but this smell isn't like Naan & Curry. It's a different pungent sort and I get pretty pissed of when I have to smell it everytime I step into the hallway. The building management has sent flyers asking to stop this practice (shoot, if whatever you're cooking causes a smell so bad that you need to air out the apartment on a regular basis, something is wrong) but it seems that either they can't read or don't care. Most likely it's the second one. Whenever I see the door open, I just want to stick my head in and say,"Well naani, what is for dinner today?" I'm just glad that the smell doesn't get into my apartment. That would be hard to live with. (Edit: This morning, I went outside and the smell was wonderful...I don't know what dish it was but man, did it smell good. Still, I don't know if if these moments are worth the usual stuff...)

Apparently, they can also fit 5 people in the same space that I'm living in. I've seen parents, kids, and grandmother all living together in some of the units. Perhaps, they have a rollout bed or airbed that they pull out at night.

People registering at SEMICON, this is where a lot of semiconductor companies get together to show off their new products. Not as flashy as E3 but they're trying...

Live Reggae...yep they had bands outside the different Moscone buildings...

Live Jazz...these guys were great.

Apparently, they had Beer Halls years ago at this event but got rid of it. Now it's back...I asked Sassy if it looked authentic and she said "Yes, pretty much".

Huge Stein...Sassy saw some people dressed up in lederhosen and started speaking German but they alas were only actors who did not speak a lick of German.

Crazy bright wall in the office...everytime, I walk by, I kinda need to shield my eyes. :-P

---

Almost all of these pictures were taken with my Canon S60. I didn't merge them along with the pictures from the Rebel XT hence the delay in uploading and posting them.

This was taken on the Mission Peak trail. The last time I did this was before the Peru trip. Judging from the look on Chris' face, he's never been hiking with Asian girls before...at least not when there's no shade. Only made it 1/3 of the way up (if that). Still it was good effort.

Google Map (that winding path is the path to the peak)

I almost never post pics from chain restaurants but as the first picture from Boston Market and I grew up with Boston Market as well, I just had to make an exception. Truth be told, I like the sides better than the chicken. Oh, they've also decided to add beef to their menu. I think besides spinach, the other sides are herb roasted potatoes and stuffing.

Every Thursday is Farmer's Market in this plaza near work. They're usually somewhat overpriced but the produce is very fresh. A lot of my coworkers get fruit here.

Oy, this is the worst Japanese restaurant I've been to in a while. Look at how small the salmon is!!! Just because it has plating doesn't make it ok to serve it. And look at the Dynamite!!! Grrrrr....horrible place. Prices were just like any other Japanese restaurant too...

Yuri Japanese Restaurant
3810 Mowry Ave
Fremont, CA 94538
(510) 795-6701

Took Emily to watch Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" at the War Memorial (SF Opera)...I'd been once before to watch "La Boheme" but this was the first time I got to really look around.

It's been awhile since I've worn a coat. I want to wear my BR sport jacket but I'm still looking for the right slacks. At this point, it just goes well with jeans.

Emily the Opera-Goer

This is the view from our original seats in the Grand Tier (actually a little higher since we would have had first row here). In the end, I sold them through Craigslist (that person was very happy since I got a very good price for them) and got seats in the orchestra instead. At that point, they didn't post a seating chart which made getting seats that you wanted very difficult. Eventually I found one online and was able to get seats a few rows from the front and pretty close to the middle aisle. When we got there, there was a cute guy (sitting by himself). "Unfortunately", I was a gentleman and let Emily go into the row first which meant that she couldn't sit next to him. hehehe I'm sure she would have done the same had a hot single gal been sitting there.

The cast was wonderful (Emily and I liked the Countess the best). Loved the overture especially but the set was also very well designed. Didn't put 1 and 1 together until later that the Barber of Seville and the Marriage of Figaro are actually parts of the same story (Barber being Part I and Figaro being Part II). In Part I, Figaro helps the Count who the eventual Countess. In Part II, Figaro wants to get married to a girl, who the Count wants to get with.

I completed the Google Da Vinci challenge (was able to guess what the last movie would be and actually came up with a bunch of answers for possible questions...helped enormously). Only the first 10,000 to answer the last question got one of these cryptexes. Both me and Angela got one. Actually she got hers wayyyy before I did. It was only many weeks later that I got mine. Apparently, they got my address wrong and couldn't deliver it. Anyways, the guy handling this promotion actually googled my name, found my website, and contacted me through there. Crazy huh? It's very well made and actually somewhat heavy since the entire thing (except for the white rings) is made out of metal. I didn't win the ultimate prize package though.

The company I work for had a whole branding redesign...my new business cards came in a neat little box. Very creative. In case you can't tell, persimmon is our company color.

It's great having contacts within the hotel community...we had a meeting with all the top SF hotels which was held at the new St Regis. Gorgeous hotel...they even have a fire fountain that turns off as soon as you put your hand close to it. The 12 blinds in this room were pulled down all at once...a very neat effect.

Went paintballing with Ted's friends in Hollister. That's Emily on the right...as if you couldn't tell...hehehe...robot visor and everything.

TAG Paintball
There's no address so suffice to say that it's off of San Benito St
Google Map (those little dots are paintball obstacles)

Emily loads up...in the end, Emily only lasted a few rounds before calling it quits. Paintballing can actually be quite painful if you're not wearing enough protection. When you're playing speedball (close quarters paintballing), I can't see how you can go out just wearing a t-shirt. That's pretty much asking for pain.

Paintball's are quite colorful aren't they? At this place, if you rent the gun from them, you have to use their paintballs...I've already got my gun picked out if I decide to do this somewhat regularly.

I didn't get a gun or anything, just the jersey/paintball pants/mask. I was adamant about getting my own mask after the horrible time I had with rentals. Something about the stench and the fact that usually the lens would be all scratched up really made my past experiences suck. With my new mask though (Proteus 2), things were so clear and it was ventilating properly. The Proteus even has an optional fan that is made to suck hot air out of the mask.

The mask also makes me look somewhat like Master Chief. hehehehe...I'll have to get a closeup shot sometime.

Yi-Hui's boyfriend suffered the nastiest bruise out of all of us. Emily got hit a few times but not quite like this. This must have been pretty close range.

The guys head out for a last few rounds of paintball. It was REALLY hot that day (probably why everyone else was wearing shirts)...I ended up with zero bruises though. All the ventilation in the jersey/pants kept things as cool as it could possibly be with that much on.

Someone got my right in the mask near the mouth guard. Went right through the vents so I got to eat some paintball. As you can see, I wasn't really worked up about it. Actually, I had no idea I had that much on me.

---

We tried to go the tidepool at Fitzgerald Marine Preserve but got there a little late. Best time is early morning...at least according to the tide table here. 1.5 ft and below is the ideal time. Crab claw anyone?

Emily is camera shy at times...:-D

At least we got to see some pretty flowers.

These were really interesting since the petals are completely below the anther/filament.

I love the beaches near Half Moon Bay. Reminds me of home.

All hail Emily the Conquerer, Pillager of the 7 Kingdoms, Destroyer of Krandor, Beheader of Naborath, Scourge of Xion. :-P

Didn't have a tripod but my camera bag worked just as well.

Afterwards, we went to my favorite chinese restaurant, Joy Restaurant. They have a mysterious Chinese menu that I've only had some success in translating. However, it is my ambition to know every single character at some point.

Asian gangster throwing gang sign...lol

3 cup chicken was awesome as usual. Even Emily liked it.

Steamed sea bass...I screwed up...I should have ordered the fermented bean sea bass. That's what my family usually orders...

String Beans...I like them slightly charred but Emily doesn't. It's probably healthier not charred though.

Emily saw the birds resting peacefully on the sandbar (actually it was a shellbar since it was primarily made up of sea shells...did you know that a lot of roads use oyster shells as a base?) and decided that EMILY-LA (think Godzilla/Gojira) should emerge and bring terror to them. I was just happy that they didn't circle around and try their own brand of vigilante justice (think white/yellow/green bombs)

---

In the fastest turnaround of an album ever, here's the album for the trip we took last weekend up in Mendocino. Lots of abalone! Just look at these suckers...I'll try to add captions when I get a chance too.

We saw a man at Sweet Tomato (a salad bar/soup buffet chain) who mixed a bunch of soups together. From what I could tell, he mixed Chili, Clam Chowder, and topped it off with Chicken Noodle. I believe he was a bit indecisive.

I've grown up with these kind of salad bar/soup buffet places...first being a Soup Exchange in Irvine, then a Soup Plantation in Laguna Niguel. Over here (the San Francisco Bay Area), there are the Sweet Tomato and Fresh Choice chains. I did a bit of research and here's what I found out...

A Brief History of Soup

So in the beginning there were two: Soup Exchange and Souplantation. They were competitors throughout the 80s.

In an effort to distinguish itself from Soup Exchange, Souplantation created the Sweet Tomatoes brand for all new restaurants. Since both soup companies originated in San Diego region, most of the Souplantation restaurants are located in Orange County.

After Soup Exchange went out of business in 1991, Souplantations, in Orange County especially, continued to operate under that name instead of converting to Sweet Tomatoes.

Fresh Choice is a “new-comer” as it arrived only in 1986 and pretty much only in Northern California.

Google got a city-wide free wifi up in Mountain View...from what I hear though, it's not terribly strong in all areas and the bandwidth is only ok...here's the 411.

---

Finally got a freakin ironing board for my Rowenta Iron...I'd about had it with ironing my shirts on a table. Just doesn't work very well.

Last week, their was a woman at the BART parking lot in Fremont who had a LOT of difficulty parking. BART parking lots are notoriously narrow (causing many accidents...having been in 1 myself and having witnessed a few near misses). They are also usually 1 way. So this woman kept going back and forth in and out of the parking space while about 10 cars are trying to find open spaces. There's usually a mad rush rowards the end and while I was waiting for her to park, the last few spots got taken away. You can imagine the frustration of the people who got stuck behind this woman. Lots of honking and shouting and ugly faces. The parking spots were angled too...I have no idea why it was so hard for her to park correctly. Sigh. I wonder how many lives she affected that day with her poor parking skills. Perhaps she delayed a physician and so another doctor had to attend to an emergency at a hospital and someone died because that person didn't know the proper technique. Perhaps, I was meant to think of the solution for world hunger on my BART ride, but her actions stopped that from happening. Then again, I suppose she could have saved someone from getting into an accident or being in the wrong place at the right time. Such are the vagaries of life.

After the aquarium, we went to a place I found online called Massaro & Santos. Located on one of the wharfs in Monterey (duh...), it's on the second floor with big windows.

Massaro & Santos
32 Cannery Row
Monterey, CA 93940
Phone: (831) 649-6700

Here we have steamed Clams....so few!!! I think we're spoiled by Left Bank...at least the sauce was still good. However, now that Emily and I know how to make the sauce or liqueur, it seems a little less amazing.

Castroville Artichoke...Marilyn Monroe was the first Miss California Artichoke in 1947. The contest was held in Castroville...the Artichoke Center of the World. The festival is held usually in May. I used to dislike artichokes...now I like them if they're dunked in vinegar or some kind of cream.

Prawn Pasta with Cream Sauce...Emily didn't really eat a lot of it because the cream sauce was screaming calories...she tried not to listen but was somewhat unsuccessful.

Calamari Eggplant Parmigiano...the calamari pieces were HUGE...

Bouillabaisse Seafood in a Saffron Sauce...tasty but a bit on the salty side.

Scallops...ehhh...soo few!!!

---

I'm not going to write captions for all of these since you really don't need captions to enjoy these images...plus I'm trying to catch up almost a month's worth of posts. Hehehe...sorry.

The jellyfish were apparently an exhibit and not a permanent installment although I can't imagine why they wouldn't. The idea of the exhibit is to put real jellyfish alongside works of art inspired by jellyfish. What they should do is remove the artwork and put in more jellyfish.

Hard to take good pics of jellyfish up close through the thick glass. Good thing, I use digital or else it would have been prohibitively expensive to shoot as many shots as I did.

Comb Jelly refract light through their undulating cilia hairs. This causes the rainbow of colors. I should get a video of it next time.

You can actually see the jellyfish food inside this one. Jellyfish tentacles bring the food from the water to the middle of the jellyfish where it is ingested.

Jellyfish art...looks almost like the real thing!

We actually made two trips to this exhibit...at the end of the day, I had the bright idea of coming back when there would be less people. Most of the pictures shown here are from that second trip. During, the first one, you'd see hands all over the place.

I like this piece of jellyfish art compared to the other one.

Emily decided that an otter would be the perfect backpack so she caught one and strapped it to her back. The otter was unfazed.

I can really hear Emily scream "AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!" everytime I look at this picture...It was perfect timing of the emotional state that Emily was in...

It's like a small baby!

Not as cute but still worth a cuddle

---

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Day-Trip was very photo-heavy so I'm splitting them up into 2 posts.

Unbeknownst to many visitors to the Aquarium, a collection of strange beasts roam, frightening many young children. Here is one of them.

This exhibit shows fish getting their exercise...swimming endlessly around and around and around...none of them stop and say,"Waaaait a minute...I think I've been here before!"

Huge tank with lots of big fishes...pretty much sums up a lot of Monterey Aquarium right there.

Oooh a sunfish! I've caught a few of those in Animal Crossings.

Kayaking is not as easy as it looks...you have to be very synchronized with your partner to get anywhere.

Hey, this lunch sandwich was actually very tasty! Add Monterey Jack to the list of cheeses that I like.

Do otters know how cute they are? Look at those paws! Awwww....

Sylvia and her husband William were in the Bay Area attending a wedding. Sylvia and Emily go way back.

It's very cool to see how schools of fish swim as a unit. It's not as organized as "Finding Nemo" would have you believe but I think it'd be funny if humans walked around like that as well.

Group Picture Time!

Going to the aquarium is sometimes just a way to help decide what you want for dinner. Hmm...crab sounds pretty good.

Starfish are cool. No doubt about it.

This shot wasn't intended to be "artsy"...with low light, no flash, no image stabilization...this was the best I could get. I probably could have used a higher ISO but I like some of the streaks.

Sand dollars in their usual habitat...although they kinda just look like a bin of dead sand dollars.

You think those spines would deter me from eating you? Hahaha yeah right.

Difficult to get plankton on film. They move pretty fast and out of my selected depth of field. This was like number 10 of 20 shots.

We watched feeding time at the main tank (the 3 story one)...

OMG! They're eating him alive!

I spent a TON of time at the bird exhibit. I had my zoom lens with me but nothing beats getting really up close without them flying away.

These birds look like they're spearing themselves whenever they are grooming.

Hmmmm...mash of dead stuff and maggots. Yummm!!!

That orange beak is cute.

Emily is excited about picking up some food for us...

Remember hon...I want fresh!!!

I dunno...are rays good to eat?

Sometimes choosing what you want to eat can be difficult.

Yes...crab is good...2 please!

The tidepool overflow rushes over this corridor. Kinda cool.

Moray eels are scary...wouldn't want to be caught in a bathtub with one.

Uhhhh...presenting Emily the Moray Eel?

Yeah kid...you have no friends...only people that would play with you is your family. Loner!

That jaw looks like its practically unhinged from the head!

That is one freakin cool view...

So the next one will be the Jellyfish Exhibit and then Dinner

---

I'm a month behind in posts again!!!! Aargh!!!

So we're going camping next weekend up in Mendocino...very much looking forward to that...I still remember my first camping trip with my dad when I was little...even if it's only for the weekend, I think I'm going to enjoy it a lot. I would have taken a day off (have around 15 days of vacation now) but Emily doesn't accumulate as quickly as I do and she needs to keep them for the November Washington D.C. trip. I'll be there at ACR for about a week, we'll meet up and spent a few days there together before heading down to Williamsburg. Afterwards, we'll probably spend Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania with Emily's friend Sylvia. The last time I was in Washington D.C. I did get to go to all the monuments but only the Air/Flight/Space museum out of all the Smithsonians. It's so awesome that all of the Smithsonian museums are free. If I lived around there as a kid, there wouldn't be anywhere else I'd rather be. Since the mayor is a crack junkie and the socioeconomic situation of families living in D.C. isn't inspiring, it makes even more sense.

We decided on getting airbeds for camping but it was still difficult finding the right ones. In the end we went with 2 Queen Coleman AirBeds (my tent is huge) from Wal-Mart. Hopefully, my calculations are correct, I should probably double-check them as I used Visio to lay out the tent floorplan. HAHAHAHAHA

Doughy Bean things that Emily loves...with Peanut Powder...when Emily was asking about them, the waiter got really offended that Emily called it by its ordinary name. He was all like "This dish is one of our signature dishes...its not a [insert ordinary name here]." These were first introduced to Emily by my Aunt Jackie.

Turning the cable car...

This man only knows 4 flute songs...but he knows them really well. I can only remember him playing the Godfather Theme Song but it was pretty.

hehe...I like taking pics of fellow photogs...

esp when they make interesting poses...

This was the view above while we waited in line for the cable car.

It was Emily's first time aboard the cable car.

the perspective while riding is different than when you're on the sidewalk

Emily the farmer lady was hesitant about being on the outside but after awhile she seemed to enjoy it and not be afraid of falling off.

Emily auditions for "Chorus Line"...

Ghirardelli Square...I've visited this place so many times throughout the years....almost never changes.

Some berry concoction at Ghirardelli...TASTY...

...to the last lick!!!

"Emily...Emily Hsueh", the secret undercover CIA agent. So inconspicuous.

I definitely want to get one of these for my office. So ZEN...

I had an interest in an Er-Hu back in college...never got one but it'd be interesting to see how difficult it is to play.

Think no Evil

I took Emily to Sushi House for the first time. Always better to go there in two...anything more and you're looking at a 45 min wait. Here you see Emily exercising her brain via DS.

Sushi House
2375 Shoreline Drive
Alameda, CA 94501
510-865-0999

It was an excellent deal getting this sushi boat for the two of us. If you ordered this individually at any other restaurant, it would have cost $60-$70 bucks easily. Those a la carte places really rip you a new one. The thing that separates Sushi House from other places is the freshness of the sushi. REALLY GOOD STUFF.

Is that a gleam in my eye?!!! You betcha!

Oh the Lion King...I can sing its praises for a LOOOONG time. It's a CA roll with Salmon wrapped and backed on it then topped with tobiko, mayonnaise, and soy sauce. You can't go to Sushi House without having one of these...it's probably not too hard to do...need to get a toaster oven though. I'm in the market for one. There isn't a picture of us leaving the restaurant but I can tell you that we pretty much rolled out of there on our stomachs.

---

After Stow Lake, we went to Aqua for dinner. For people going there in the future, they DO NOT have an a la carte dinner menu...only prix fixe no matter what intenet review you read. Pretty expensive restaurant but you really do get EXCELLENT service. This was the tealight holder there. Very intricate. Looks like a winery scene...or a marijuana farm...can't tell.

Aqua
252 California Street
San Francisco, California
415-956-9662

Classy interior...I love the big bouquets of flowers.

The chef's teaser had if I remember correctly...cherry tomato with goat's cheese (Edit. Thanks MLE!)...Crab essence with asparagus/avacado foam. And a crabcake...the restaurant Moose also had a teaser...lobster essence in a shot glass. This is only the second time I've had a teaser.

Emily pretends its tea time.

One of Aqua's specialties, the Tartare of Ahi Tuna. What sets Aqua's apart is the fact that they prepare it table-side. Here's what it looks like before they mix it...

...and afterwards. Made from Moroccan Spices, Lemon Confit, Fresh Herbs, Sesame Oil, and a Quail Yolk! The sesame oil and the yolk are surprising as ingredients.

Emily loved the Parmesan-Black Pepper Souffle...I got to eat the Sea Urchin! :-P It was dunked in Chive Butter...thats a little bit of Dungeness crab on the left.

Hawaiian Walu
Prince Edward Island Mussels, Pommes Alumettes, Infused Curry & Chardonnay Jus...pommes (fries) always adds pizzazz to any dish.

Black Bass
Porcini a la Grecque, Herb Vinaigrette

White Sturgeon En Papillotte
Cabbage, Tarbais Beans, Smoked Duck & Razor Clams...the beans gave the sauce a distinct navy bean like texture...the sturgeon was juicy which was surprising. I wonder if it's hard to prepare...I thought that the blend of veggies and sauce were perfect next to the sturgeon.

Gateau Basque
Poached Peach, Rose Sorbet

Candied Apricot
Lemon Thyme Ice Cream, Arlette

Oak Spice Creme Brulee
Cherry Gelee, Pinot Noir Sauce...this ended up being considered the best dessert on the menu.

Coconut Souffle
Exotic Fruit & Chocolate Pearls

I like the candied berries...

---

could not open XML input