joy eats

just got back from my trip to Orlando with a few of my cloest friends. it's been fun but looking back, i think we should have save one day for spa and massage, because my feet hurt from walking 10 hours a day for the past five days. our week kind of went like this:

Sat.- MGM
Sun,-am: church/pm: Animal kingdom
Mon.-Epcot
Tue.-am: shopping/pm: Epcot
Wed.-Universal studio/Island of Adventure

Some of the hightlights:
-we met a co-worker of Sam's. she was very nice and i really enjoy talking to her and getting to know her. it was also very cool to see some of the products that our friend Sam had designed in Disnely stores.

-the Safari ride at Animal kingdom is a must see. it feels really real (they even make tire marks on the cement that looked like mud) and you get really close to the animals. (trust me, i am not an animal person, but this place exceeded my expectations by far, especially the Africa section)

- the worlds in Epcot are wonderful. Disney does such a good job with the details of each countries that it will make you feel like you're actually in Germany, Morocco, Japan... .

-the illumination firework show at Epcot is worth seeing. it's very impressive and the music is so moving.. i almost cry.. haha

-Spiderman and the Revenge of the Mummies are the two best rides at Universal Orlando. thrilling with good visual effects.

-it was a memorable trip for all of us. it's very nice to be able to go on these trips with close friends especially now that we're in different places in life.

i think i finally figured out why i like disney so much. the combination of workers who are so happy and friendly all day long, impressive details in decor, happy music and stories that are made into cute rides are what make Disney different than all the other theme parks.
so enough said, there is no place like Disney World, it really is the HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH!

it's our first day in Orlando! we just got in at 6:30am this morning, though super tired (because we only had like 4 hours of sleep) but we were all so excited about going to disney world... so we managed to visit MGM on the same day and didn't get home until 10pm. yawn...

i have been doing some travel planning with a few ppl this week and it was a lot harder than i thought it would be. There are just WAY too many places we want to go, it took us like 4 hours to finally narrow down to two possibilities: Spain/Portugal, or Italy. Then the hard part now is finding good deals and cheap air fares...which is not really possible in peak season (july and august). But i am already getting excited about going to Europe. Plus, i have never been on a trip with Canaan ppl before, so this will be interesting.
anyone interested in coming with us?

Went to visit a friend today whom i used to work with. I met her few years back and found out that her and her husband were trying to conceive for a long long time. They had done numerous tests and tried all sorts of ways to have a baby, but the responses were always negative. The doctor told her that she was capable of getting pregnant, but she just would not be able to hold the baby in her. She had mutiple miscarriage, and she was depressed. Back then, my comfort to her was that i would pray for her and in time God would bless them with a child. Six months later, the couple decided to adopt their first child and the baby came fairly quickly and is now 10 months old. But the big news came two weeks ago when my co-worker told me that she's expecting a second child. When i first saw the email, i assumed that she was going through the adoption agency again. But it turned out that she is actually 13 weeks pregnant with her first! To my shock, i didn't know what to say. So when i saw her today, i just sat there and listened in disbelieve about everything she's going through with this big news. In my mind i tried to reason the "how", but the only explanation for this miracle of life is God and His wonderful gift that He chooses to pour out on this couple. It's all Him!

One of my friend from LA came up to visit this weekend so we decided to go to Noe Valley in SF because we've heard that it's a cute place to walk around. I have to say that i wasn't too impress with the place, there weren't that much around but lots of cute boutiques with overpriced clothes. Two of our favorite stores were the Cheese Co. and the Chocolate shop that didn't have a name. The funny thing is that I actually learned a lot about chocolate from the store owner. The different regions grows different types of cocoa powders, and how the percentage of cocoa content affects the texture and taste of a chocolate bar. At first we felt really overwhelmed by all the different types of chocolate, but with his recommendation, we bought 4 different types to try. I would say that unless you like the dry cocoa powder taste, otherwise don't go for anything more than 75% cocoa content, it kinda taste like mud... At the end of the day, i think we all agreed that the dark chocolate with 65-70% cocoa is the PERFECT combination. It gives you the sweetness of a dark chocolate, yet you get the smooth and creamy texture of a milk chocolate. It was more than yummy... in fact we ate it all!

after a week of searching online and driving everywhere i can say i am definitely sick of looking at another apartment. As i am thinking about this, a chinese proverb comes to mind, "a penny of money, a penny worth of goods." ( some of the flavor is lost when you do direct translation you know). but it's so true! you get what you pay for. at first i decided that cost would be my first priority, but then i couldn't find any cheap apts. that are in good neighborhoods. and i sure couldn't find a cheap apt. that's large enough to host my friends. One of the cheap apt. i visited actually had a sign outside the office warning for poisonous gas in the area... sigh...
But all in all, i have to say that this process was good and the good ending is that i did signed a lease with my new apt. today! yay!

yay! after all these times, i finally got my own blog... it feels really strange to open my thoughts to the public.. some of my friends would consider me as a very private person (though i would disagree), so i suppose this blog thing can prove them wrong.. heehee.. kidding.