Dawn Rising Sun

After long wait, it's finally snowing in Hillsboro, I thought that I wouldn't see snow after Christmas, but it was snowing this afternoon. It was about 3pm, I heard people were talking about snowing somewhere around my cube and I saw the snow signal from Weather.com channel, SL and I were so excited, we just decided to return home to avoid bad traffic of snow, of course we wanted to experience our first snow in winter 2009 together. After backed, we just too excited to walk around Hillsboro area for some photos taking, the world is turned to white here and it was so beautiful, finally I can see a thick layer of snow on ground, cars, building and everywhere, hopefully it won't rain, so that we still could enjoy this white world in few days later. Will this be the only snow for this winter? Hopefully that I still can see some snow after this :)

Due to a lot of good reviews about movie AVATAR and 3D version is especially recommended, then we finally decided to watch AVATAR 3D today, the ticket cost USD9 per person for 3D movie but I think the movie worth for the price because it is really nice. This is our third movie watched in US, Transformer 3 and 2012 were the last two, SL and I think AVATAR is the best among three and it was full house today which we didn't find this with last two movies. However, we kind of cannot accept US cinema free seating system because this would cause problem if all ticket sold for the same movie, this might need to split a group if they can't get to sit together. AVATAR is a movie about human is trying to invade Pandora (another planet) for getting valuable stones from there but they can't breath there, therefore they tried to create a method to inject people's soul into body of navi ( the creature from Pandora), then they could move easily on Pandora and explored it. Jack was one...

It's Christmas here, SL and I was thinking to stay home on the day because there was no much place for visit nearby our place, but we just think this would be wasted our holiday and we should have some celebration on the day, finally we decided to travel north of Oregon to Seaside and Astoria to have a day trip. This is our plan, we would go to Seaside beach first, then Astoria and back to home, which seem perfect, right? It took about 2 hours driving from Hillsboro to Seaside, and we stopped at a snowzone, where we saw a lot of snow there and they hadn't melted yet, I was so excited because this is the snow that I wanted to see, that they won't melt within a day, I think it was snowing there two weeks ago and it should be a big snow while we could see jungle is cover with white snow, too bad that I still didn't see snowing at here yet. Later, we arrived to Seaside beach, there was a "Lewis and Clark" statue to memorise them on their exploration, Lewis and Cl...

Actually, we went to Peacock last week, but I was too busy to write my blog, so that I only could record it today :D Peacock Lane is a lane with a lot of lighting of the resident's house along this lane, according to the board at the entrance, this lane started lighting at 1929 until now, it is 80 years of lighting, this is really amazing, I think they went through several generations on this lighting effort. When we were walking along the lane, we could see every house has their special lighting design, this lane surely should call as Peacock Lane, because it is as beautiful as a peacock during Christmas time. It might because of Friday, therefore we saw a lot of people were going to Peacock Lane as well and it was difficult to move every step, but it's worth to see those designed lighting.

Today is 22 Dec, a day so-called "Dong Zhi" in Chinese community, that means winter is started. Back to two years ago, SL and I were registered for our marriage on the same day, it was a lot of people registered on the same day. Therefore, today is quite meaningful to us, it's not only a festival to us, but also an anniversary, we had a small celebration for this day, that we made some dumpling, actually it was a lot of dumpling, which is our dinner :) We chose almond paste as our soup and red bean paste as the filling, we searched all recipes online and this is our first trial, it was really a nice experience though we couldn't make a perfect dumpling, we were still able to enjoy it and our filling is quite juicy, which was nice.

It's close to Christmas now, and I think it is a traditional for my team to have a gift exchange event every year before Christmas and we call it White Elephant Gift Exchange (WEGE). Well, I actually didn't have any idea about this game and this was my first time to involve this type of game, but it is a popular game in US, I think. For those whose new to this game, I have provided some description of our rules on this game at below, which is fun, I think I might organise this game next time after I back to my home country, I personally found it is entertaining and meaningful. During the game, we can chooseo our gift from the table in middle or stole the gift from other people according to our drawn number, this game is nice because you can choose the gift yourself though they are wrapped, but it's you to decide wheather to own it and unwrap it. There were a lot of gifts at the middle table: photo frames, mug, board games, rubiks cube, snacks, gift cards, painting, handbag,...

我还记得，小时候我外婆总爱讲故事给我们听，有两则的故事一直记忆犹新。 第一则故事是说有一家人在墙上挖了两个洞，一个大洞、一个小洞，访客到了他们家便问为何要挖两个洞，主人便告诉他说他家养了两只猫，一只大猫、一只小猫，所以必须有两个洞，因为大洞给大猫过，小洞给小猫过，之后访客便问为何不只挖一个大洞，那么大猫和小猫都能够经过了。这故事带出的意思是我们不应该只在设定的框框里思想，而必须更加的创新创意的解决问题。 第二则故事是说泥与沙的不同，当我们用沙来搓模型时，它将无法凝结一起而散了，但是当我们用泥来造模型的话，它却能够结合成坚固的模型，这是因为沙是散的，而泥是团结的，所以我们必须学泥那样团结，这样才能够创造成功。 除了这两则故事，外婆也喜欢告诉我们她在日战时的故事，多么的艰辛、多么的恐惧，他也会告诉我们她以前嫁给她的丈夫如何地对她不好，每晚在身体与心灵上的受伤，以至最后的远走高飞。其实外婆与母亲的婚姻失败故事时常令我对婚姻产生了些许的恐惧，我害怕自己成了第三代的失败。 从小，都是外婆照顾我们姐弟，母亲忙于自己的事业而疏忽了我们，有时我想外婆跟我们的关系或许比母亲还要亲吧。小时候的记忆，外婆占的空间比母亲的还多，我们都是与外婆同床共枕，一切不安的心情都是他来慰籍的。 上一次与外婆见面是两个月前，当时的她还是那么的健壮，能够自己走动、做东西，一点的虚弱都看不出来，还是那么的爱看那部台湾剧--《爱》。 当我来到美国公干之后，小妹开始告诉我关于外婆的健康，在这几个星期的时间，它突然间虚弱了，无法自己移动身体，四肢无力并需要别人的照顾，还需要穿着纸尿片来预防不经意的漏尿与排便，这完全跟我前两个月前见到她的记忆完全不一样。 今天早上，当我在公司里开启了我电脑的时候，我收到了小妹的报急讯息，她告知外婆与马来西亚时间星期二晚上十一点停止了呼吸，这简直是晴天霹雳，外婆在我的记忆里还是两个月那么的健康，虽然最近听过小妹提起她的虚弱，但是我还是无法想象那种虚弱会在几个星期内就让一个人离开，我真得无法接受。这整天的心情也不太愉快，偶尔会想到以前与外婆的记忆。 放工回家之后，我拨了通电话给小妹，问她关于那边的情况，她说那时有关胆的疾病，外婆突然在这几个星期内突然身体肿胀了起来，身体也开始变黄了，我想应该是黄疸病吧。知识，我还是我无法想象那一切的一切是怎么发生的，黄到底是怎么得黄？肿到底是怎么的肿？...

This Sunday, SL and I didn't plan for any outing, but we were really busy for our whole afternoon as we had a lot of plans for this day. Just right after lunch, SL and I started to decorate some lighting for our apartment, this is lighting for Christmas and New Year season, we just want to create some celebration environment. After some discussion, SL and I have decided to make it a heart shape on our window, which is the only design that I could think for that moment. Well, we really spent some time on putting our light wiring on our window, but it was pleasure that we did it together. The sky was still bright when we did the lighting, therefore it didn't look special on our decoration, but I believed it would be different during dark as the lighting would make it clearly to view. Photogharph taken on our design from our apartment After we had done with our lighting design, we just continued with next tasks, that cooking mission is, and we planned for long to bake a cake and m...

Yahoo!!! That is another weekend, I like weekend, it makes me feel relaxed :P SL promised that we would have some better meal during weekend, that we could go to somewhere nice for a meal either lunch or dinner for Saturday or Sunday, this allows us to have some try out for food in US. Before the outing, we had a lot of discussion over the week and we saw a lot of Applebee's advertisement this week and they are having an offer USD20 for two people share with an appertizer and two entrees, this is worth because normally we need to pay USD10 plus for an entree and around USD7 for appertizer, this offer really save us a lot. We left our house around 1pm for lunch to Applebee's, then we placed our order with boneless buffalo wings as our appertizer, riblet basket for my entrees and fiesta lime chicken for SL's entree, but we attracted by their dessert which made us decided to place an extra order with hot fudge sundae for our dessert, it is only USD1.99. When our dishes were co...

Yesterday, Weather Channel forecasted there would be snow snower at our area Hillsboro from night till today, I was so excited with this news because this is the first time that I could see snow with the beloved SL by my side, this would be really different with seeing it alone in the UK. And, I even joked with him that I wanted to walk in the snow with him. Therefore, we kept waiting and viewing update from Weather Channel together, as we really wished to see snow last night, at least at 1am mignight. However, while we were waiting, we still didn't see any surprise until 1am, it was kind of dissapointment to us. Even after we woke up at the morning, that we still didn't trace any snowing at the night. And, we only saw some a few rain shower in this day, this is not a surprise that we really expected :( Anyways, I hope that we really could see some snow later in winter, the white Christmas would be the best, just as what my sister Renoir said, it would be really like a fairy ta...

Finally, SL and I can get online at the same time with Comcast, and we also can do it wireless now. For me, I think it really took a lot of debate on this but I think spending on a router for convenience is worth than using our time to rush here and there with a lot of dissapointment caused. It is an undeniable fact that my hubby is a super saver, which he would spend a lot of time on trying different method if this could help him to save some money, however I would prefer to spend a little more money to buy my time and convenience if that is not much different with price. To me, paying USD45 is reasonable for a router if compared to spend USD20++ for a power adapter, furthermore we didn't know if the USD20 power adapter is really usable for our old router. When we were driving here and there just to find the power adapter without any result, I just think it would be the best and straight solution. Actually, I found quite tired that always comparing price between two things althoug...

Hmm, I think cold weather would make people want to eat more, right? I found I am kind of taking more foods than usual recently, snack, bigger portion of food and more frequent on food comsuption. Actually, I am worried now if I would gain more weight if I really continue with this type of life :( Hopefully my hubby won't always pass me too much food, which is more than I could finish. And, I need to start controlled myself for snacks addiction, else I would turn to be a fat girl few months later :(

My hubby told me that winter is on 15th of December, but why do I feel it is winter now? There are a lot of places in US snowing recently and the weather is getting colder and colder these few days, it is too cold and I feel I caught a cold now already. Is winter that cold? Or it will be getting worse when time comes? I just couldn’t imagine how we can get through it. I really feel its coldness now, but I forgot my winter in the UK already, how could I get through it alone? Why I didn’t feel it was this cold when I was in the UK? Is US’s winter actually colder than the UK’s? Or this is because I am weaker now? When winter is nearer, the days become shorter now, that the sky is dark when I leave my office, actually I don’t really have much chance to see bright sky after I arrive to US, I think my skin will be turn less dark over the winter. However, I think people would find depressed for this short daylight season, especially to SL whose emotion is directly impacted by weather, I feel ...

It's a Saturday and we had planned to go to Mount Hood for a day out during this day, therefore we woke up in the morning and got ready to depart, then we found there was ice formed on our car, this is the second morning with ice formation, I think winter is close and the weather is getting colder lately. However, there was situation, that we couldn't get our car started when we tried to do it for several times, this made us down and SL could only call to the car rental for assist, then the car towing service came and recharged the battery, he told SL that was due to cold weather that made battery condemned, which is happening when weather turns cold. Then, SL found insecured with the car condition and we decided to exchange our car with car rental at Portland Airport, this took us about 2 hours to complete the whole process, then we just decided to cancel our Mount Hood visit. Ice formed on our car. It was just about lunch time after we had our car exchanged, then we chose to ...

This Monday, the last day of November, this is the day the vendor would take away our utensil in our apartment. Although we could expect that most of our things would be gone, we still couldn't imagine how our apartment would turn to. Therefore, we returned to home earlier, just to see how would our apartment look alike. Once we open the door, we just saw our apartment was almost empty, kitchen utensils were gone, towels were not there anymore, our bedsets, shower sheild, even telephone were all missing :( That was really a cleanup in our apartment. Fortunately, it was Thanksgiving last Friday, so that we could shop for some discounted items for our emptied apartment, then we just "refilled" it :) Due to SL's extension, therefore our apartment would not have utensils supplied after December, therefore the vendor was assigned to take away them. However, we were given some allowance for our utensils shopping, I would think this is a chance for us to shop some items here...