Dawn Rising Sun

After graduated, I thought life would be easier, no more examination and no late night study anymore, it will be wonderful life. However, after working then I know it was wrong, examination is still continue and late night overtime sometime needs to complete your task. Well, working still need performance review every year, it is just another form of examination, which you need to crunch your brain to remember what you did in the past one year. I am agreed that my memory isn't that good enough to remember every detail and I am admitted that I am lazy to tap my keyboard and scrible my history. Honestly, I totally have no idea what to write. Life... keeps on taking examination even though you grown up, it never skip. C'est la vie. Yes, I am bored, can I just write what I like? And, I know the answer is no :P

Long ago, Ai Choo introduced me good buffet in Spirit Mountain Casino, but we didn't really have chance to visit there, finally we decided to take our Christmas dinner at Spirit Mountain. On Christmas, the buffet in Spirit Mountain is serving with dinner style from noon to night and of course we need to pay at dinner price, but we think it might be worth if it has extra dishes. We paid about $19 a person for buffet, but there were a lot of selections, international, Asian, America, seafood and a lot of starters plus deserts, wow I think this could be the best buffet that I have ever had in Oregon. SL was more concentrated on seafood dining and I preferred to try different variety of foods instead, all after all, we really ate a lot, until we are full without need to take dinner anymore. After lunch, we walked around the casino, it is just like a little hotel in Las Vegas, a lot of slot machines and some game rooms. Well, we are not a gambler, and we don't believe that we can ea...

A month after Thanksgiving, it's Christmas coming, it seems like a festival which is more important than New Year because a lot of shops are closed on this day for celebration. It's a day to celebrate birth of Christ, but I see more commercial purpose are hidden behind advertisement nowaday. In Woodburn Company Store, they advertised the last chance sale of the year on Christmas Eve, therefore SL and I took a few hours to Woodburn and did some so-called "last chance" shopping (well, radio boardcasted there will be another after Christmas sale in some places). Anyways, shopping is something that we can do during cold, rainy and short daytime winter. Especially, SL and I will be backed in two months time, therefore we would spend some times to survey if we missed something out of our shopping list, so that I could "take care" of them. Christmas Eve, the night before Christmas, another meaningful day in western country, every people would have party, reunion an...

After having ipad, I started using e-book as one of my reading media, well it is a new experience. Sometime, when I love a book and thinking to buy it, I would think twice whiter I want to own it in paper format or in electronic format. For now, I am still new with e version, therefore it took me quite some time to make decision. I keep thinking what are pros and cons between the traditional and technology reading method, here I found some conclusions. For reading in paper format, we can have the book physically, holding it in hand and flipping it for information, it is a real experience. At least, you really carrier a book, and you can share it with your friends if they also like to read it. However, I also find some benefits for using e reader, you can immediately search for new vocabulary once you find a new word, just tapping on it and meaning will show up soon. I like this e-dictionary tool because I am lazy to flip through dictionary myself that made me normally skip the word. An...

十二月了，我到美国来公干也已经有一年了，这个月份为我带来了好的回忆，也带了伤感的心情。 二零零七的那一年，我与梁在这个月注册了，当时还担心结婚真的会是爱情的坟墓，但还是嫁了，现在的我是幸福的。 二零零九的那一年，我的外婆离开了我们，到了另一个世界了，刚才看了那时我写的回忆录，悲从中来，也想起外婆在我们小时候说故事的情景，原来人是真的能够永在怀念中的，我们姐妹三人应该会很怀念她吧。 人的生命是那么的脆弱，再怎么会跑会奔的人都是无法逃过死神的催命，所以我是崇尚及时行乐的，外婆却是节俭的人，她一生存了一些钱，好辛苦存的血汗钱到后来被一个亲戚给骗了，我可想她的伤心，但却难以帮忙，其中原由我也不知道谁是谁非，但是有谁会不心痛那笔自己无法花的钱就这样让人给吞了？ 回想外婆的一生，她似乎都没有真正的享到清福，在临走之前还带了一丝的伤心。当时与小妹见面时，听她说起外婆在临行前的遭遇，其实自己也有点开始的感慨人生。世界面面观，有时还真的是需要在你最脆弱的时候才能看到你最不想见到的事，看书看戏多了也觉得不稀奇吧，只是没有人希望会发生在自己身上罢了。 想到那里，让我对生命感到恐惧，我希望自己能够在自己失去一切之前就挥手道别，那样我还能够带着美好的心情而走。 每当我看戏或看书，看了某些剧情，我就会问梁如果我们在那样的情况，他会怎样的面对呢？而我又会如何度过呢？其实，一切的问题只是白问的，因为人不在当事中，是可以篇出一大堆美好的情景，问也只是为了安慰自己把。然而，梁现在对我的心却令我了然于心的，这是所谓的幸福吧，有此回忆，夫复合求。

Among so many bread, I love croissant the most, however I wasn't too confident for making my own croissant because I think it is actually quite complicated procedure to make a success croissant. After I studied some steps, I still wasn't too sure if I really can make it. It took me quite a lot of time to decide to have a homemade croissant on last weekend, I took about two days to processed my dough and shaped it, then baked them, because it needs very careful and a few process to make a good dough. Finally, I had my first batch of croissant (14 counts) baked from oven by Sunday night. Well, it really look like croissant at least. To me, it still doesn't really meet my requirement becuase I expect it would be softer than what I got. However, SL liked them, he kept saying it was nice. No matter what, SL gave me more confident to make the second batch. Hopefully, I could improve my croissant next time, baking skill gain from experience, I should keep studying and pay more att...

Yes!!! Finally we got our LCD monitor from Best Buy this evening, which we ordered it online during Thanksgiving, I am not sure if it is the cheapest deal, but price is just within our budget and spec just meet our requirement, we didn't want to spend time to queue, therefore we decided to get it online, it is same price as you buy it in store during Black Friday morning. After getting the package, SL was so excited and read instruction and did the setup and I just left him alone to do that, he preferred to spend time by himself without anyone disturb him. Wah, I tested the monitor, it was nice, just good enough for me to read waveform and doing some debug, my eyes can feel relax a bit, but I felt like I am still in office and working =.=" Anyways, this is more comfortable way to work at home, right? Another thing is, resolution of this LCD monitor is still less than my laptop, where my laptop is 1920x1200 and LCD monitor is 1920x1080. Well, my laptop is quite high resolution,...

Wow, I found there are a lot of free books from kindle, well it would say free old book, they are actually free when the copyright is expired, I think after a certain period of it published to the world but I am not sure how is the exactly period, 68 years? Well, they are old but I like it. I remembered that my landlady in UK had a collection of Jane Austin books, I was wondering how was it, were they that nice? But I didn't read them before. And now, I found they are actually free to read, perhaps I can spend sometime for my reading hour. After having a iPad, I found that I spent less hour in front of my laptop, maybe it is a good thing to me, that mean I got something to do beside just working, my life just has more fun now. IPad is a multifuncitonal pad, which contain many things, it is just size of book, but contain a lot of books, well some are need to purchase, but it is convenience :) Sometime, I hate myself for spending too much time on company laptop, iPad is another tool ...

There are four days off during Thanksgiving, from Thursday to Sunday, this is the happiest and longest holidays for American, the same for every year, I feel that I spent these four days fullness with SL, we did a lot of things and relaxed for our holidays. Shopping, resting, cinemaing, playing and my baking, I did four baking during these four days, average once a day, mushroom tart, lemon pudding, danish butter cookies, and bread, I like baking more and more, especially when I see SL keeps eating :p it is fun and happy time for me. After we purchase my Artisan stand mixer, we didn't buy a bread from supermarket until now because I baked them myself, though they weren't as good as what we got outside, I still think that I can be improved. Last night, SL and I had dinner at a French restaurant and that was the first time we ate bread at outside, French bread was so wonderful, I just felt that my bread still needs a lot of improvement to catch up with what we got from outside. T...

After we did all our shopping, SL and I just dropped by to Washington Square as we got information from online that Apple Store would offer some special deal on Black Friday morning. Since I am thinking to have an e-reader and ipad is in my choice, then why not we just take a peak ^_* Then we found that would be $41 discount on ipad product, it was attractive enough and finally I decided to get the ipad upon Kindle DX. To double confirm, we enquired the salegirl if iBookstore got application support in Malaysia, I think there is not much Apple staffs dealed with international customers, or international customers never care how Apple provides their service, the salegirl didn't really clear with their application. However, she is pretty helpful and asked around with colleagues and searched for information from "Apple dictionary", then she told us that we can get iBook application in Malaysia but maybe with different content as US version, but we definitely can get support....

November 25th of this year is Thanksgiving of US, usually many shops in US will launch for great sale on the day after Thanksgiving. However, it is a little bit different this year because many shops started their event earlier, Walmart broke their record and opened on 12:00am of Black Friday, their slogan for this year is shop when you are waiting, and some stores in Woodburn started open at 8pm of Thanksgiving night, then create midnight shopping madness in US. Yes! I think this is my craziest shopping experience in my life so far, we started our shopping spree at 9pm until 8am of the next day, a fully sleepless night and stopped at a lot of shopping points, I can't imagine that SL and I can really make it. After having dinner, SL and I prepared to go out for our shopping at around 8pm of Thanksgiving day, I wore a lot this day because I know that I need to spend the whole night at outside and it would be quite cold to me. Our first stop is Woodburn department store, there is a c...

I like reading, therefore I am thinking to own an e-reader, SL loves me so much and he allows me to have one by his expenses :) However, problem comes now because of too much choices of e-reader in market, which make me headache on which one I like most and want to own, Nook from Barnes and Noble, Sony Reader, amazon kindle and even Border has their own kobo as well, whatever until pandigital and so on so forth, they made my eyes keep blinking and my mind keeps changing from one to another one. After that, I also found out that ipad from Apple can also be used as a reader as well, what an attractive deal. For me, I prefer to have a book size reader, I don't like it too small which will hurt my eyes, then finally my mind narrow down to Kindle DX and ipad, then I couldn't make any decision to either of them. Then I did a lot of survey between this two e-reader. To be frank, Kindle DX is more user freindly for international wise, because its bookstore support a lot of purchasing f...

Today is Thanksgiving Day, this is a day to celebrate the fruitful year and give thanks on all blessing to us, people used to celebrate their fruitful harvesting on this day in old time. Well, there are more occopations nowaday, not only who involves in plantation will celebrate today. Since we are in US currently, therefore SL and I decided to have small feast for ourselves to mark this special day. We woke up in the early morning today about 4am, just for get a chance to buy Oregonian newspaper which we missed it last night, luckily we got it just at the vendor machine outside of our apartment, which is really thick and have the full version of big sale information on Black Friday, Black Friday is the craziest shopping day of the year, which mark the starting of holiday season and traffic will jam at many major route of the city. Of course I want to join the madness party, which is once in a lifetime for me, so that I can get my eyes opened :P After we got our newspaper, SL drove me ...

The day after snowed two days ago, temperature dropped immediatedly to below 0 degree celcius for whole days, it was freezing and nearly announced to arrival of winter, weather forecast said the Thanksgiving eve is most likely a Christmas eve, yes it too cold for the end of autumn. When I walked to our car from office last night, my face was left uncovered and cold breeze to my weak nose, now I just know that my nose is the weakest point of my body which creates a lot of problem. Immediately I caught a cold until today. Well, this is not my first winter, I did experienced twice in the UK and once last year in US, but I never fell to sick during winter. Am I become weaker? or older now? Winter still hasn't started, but I got the flu already, even on the day before Thanksgiving, this is not fun at all :( When people getting older, we need to take more care on ourselves, now I start to wear thinker to protect myself from cold weather, this is a must, you know? Actually, it is really i...

Winter is coming so soon this year, the first snow dropped at Hillsboro is 22nd of November, perhaps it is not so special to American, but it is special to me who is coming from tropical country. It was only 1 snow day in last year, but it was big enough to let SL and I enjoy to walk among the white world, which covered the whole Orenco neighborhood. Unlikely last year, the first snow is too light and stop in short moment, I just couldn't have longer time to catch it, then it stopped now, therefore I wish for second batch of snow. SL told me that our area is close to beach, therefore hard to have frequent snow, it is a little dissapointed me, snowing is just like a fairy tale to us, that I wish to experience as much as possible. When I was in the UK, I also saw some snow, once with my friends, another one alone and the last one with my mother and sister. When it was snowed in Birmingham that year, I could tell happiness from my mother's and sister's faces, it was their firs...

我有两个妹妹，一个很会画，一个很会唱，她们的程度都是到了professional的阶段了，现在只剩下我一个，什么专长都没有，现在回头想想，当初自己那么努力读书是为了什么意义呢？ 从小开始，我那两个妹妹各怀着自己的梦想，一个想当画家而另一个相当歌手，她们俩都非常的努力朝着那个梦奔跑，虽然成绩不算太好，但是他们在自己的领域上算是卓越超群的。至少，想当歌手的还真的是有人找她去唱歌，想当画家的也是有人找她开画展。 而我呢？成天都在电脑前，看图、看waveform，连眼睛看盲了也不晓得，想想如果真的是盲了，还会有人珍惜你存在的价值吗？在想当年，我的梦想是什么？我真正想做的又是什么？现在的我与当初的梦好像离得越来越远，每天的工作模式，让我根本就没能去想那个遥远的梦。 好小好小的时候，总觉得我那两个妹妹的梦想太过天真了，会唱歌、绘画画的人那么多？像那么平凡得我们怎么可能成为群星笼罩的明月呢？再多也只不过是群星中的一颗星罢了，为什么要去想那么遥不可及的成就呢？ 可是他们真的努力过，非常的努力往一个方向狂奔而去，她们现在在我的眼里算成功了，如果我也能像他们这样，我已经很开心了，毕竟他们现在的专长是得到了很多人的认同，连我也不能否认他们的技巧真的是能够与professional相比较的。 当初的我是否不应该放弃？现在的我也不能后悔吧？毕竟路是自己选的，只有继续走了，走走看看吧。 只是，我的妹妹让我觉得，有梦想就应该去追求，勇于追求的人必定会得到回报的，因为你的毅力已经带你跑了一半的路程了，接下来的另一半就让你的努力、天分与运气来完成了。 有时候，前途也是一场赌局，愿意放手一搏的未必会输得一无所有，也许需要一段被讥笑的时间，但是不代表你最后无法成为大赢家。而不敢下赌注的往往就只能将他想的带到梦里。

I recieved a post card this evening, it is from my youngest sister in Costa Rica, I felt kind of touched to see her post card, she is good there and happy with her husband, I am happy to see that. It is about half year that I didn't see Phoebe, her postcard brought me a lot of emotion, I really wish that she will be happy in Costa Rica. She is a brave girl, who willing to give up everything that she had, for pursueing her true love, true love always like a fairy tale to me, you will live happy ever ending when you finally find it. However, nobody can tell if that is really true love until the end of life, only time can tell. Always, I tell SL that marriage is a gambling, you put all your youth to it but you can never know if it really can last forever until the end of your day. Phoebe's gamble even more, she not only put her youth, but her hometown, her friends, her fame, her career, her language, she really needs to start everything from zero in Costa Rica. If I was she, I don...

Sooner and sooner, it's about a month to Thanksgiving and of course everyone long waiting for Black Friday sale. Honestly, I am in Thanksgiving sick now, I wish to buy a Kitchenaid stand mixer for very long time and this wish becomes stronger recently, I can't wait and hope tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so that I can own it soon. Lately, there is an offer from Kithchenaid, that we could get a rebate on attachement when a more than 5 quart stand mixer purchase and most dealers provide $30 off on purchase as well, but this offer ends on November 6th, three weeks before Thanksgiving, that I am even sick on making decision wheter to purchase my top wish item immediately or waiting still to Black Friday sale. Sigh... this is human, when we have something good in front of us, we would wish for something even better, greedy human. I keep thinking if I can get a even better offer on Black Friday? If not, then I missed a chance to get a good deal now. Should I buy the stand mixer now? Or sh...

As we are in Oregon, it is not too far from Washington, therefore I kept talking to SL that I definitely wanted to visit to Olympic National Park during our stay in Oregon. There are three national Park in Washington state: Mount Rainier, North Cascade and Olympic, three of them are taking quite much of space in Washington state. Well, I think Olympic National Park started become famous after a series of books from Stephenia Mayor, of course most people could call it out. Correct, it is Twilight, the story takes place in Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, which is a huge area of rain forest, and I would say it is a collection of attractions, from gracier to rainforest, until lake, mountain, river and beach, it is a place of natural adventure. Actually, I started asking SL to visit Olympic National Park since 2009, it is one of my wish lists and finally we made the plan real on August 14th and 15th 2010, one for the good weather and another one because it was free entrance to all na...

It was long time that I didn't log into my blogger because I was too tension on doing my job, it was really far far behind the schedule, it made me felt stress, the first time for me that I hated my job so much and wished to quit. Where is my life? Where is my dream? Where is my blogger? My hubby even said I put too high expectation on myself, I don't know but I just think that I am so stupid and blame myself that how can't I finish it? Until tonight, when I logged into my blogger and saw a message who said s/he likes to read my blog, it made me felt warm because I thought that only my hubby read it. Therefore, I open a post again from my busy work, I actually like writing a lot and ever dream for being a writer. Well, dream finally is a dream, it's hard to come true, always I admire those who are brave to pursue their dream, because I lack of courage to do it. Anyways, I'm still writing (at my blog) and I feel happy to write ^_^ Hopefully, my nightmare will be gone...

We celebrated our wedding anniversary today and SL decided to make a seafood fest for our lunch, lobster, scallops and mashed potato, he started to prepare at 9:30am. Then I just decided to make dessert to complete our dishes, lemon pudding, the one that I tried before but failed, I hoped that it could be good this time. After two hours of preparation, SL had his fest ready and mine was ready to bake, yummy yummy, seafood fest from SL was really delicious, I really loved it, lobster was so tasty and mashed potato was so soft to eat. After lunch, we watched "Nights in Rodanthe" together, but I think it was a bad choice because it is a sad ending story and made me cried quite a long time when Paul was died. Later at evening, we took an hour walk to Winco for grocery shopping then back to home. Well, it was a simple day but I felt happy because we could spend our day together and threw our work behind, it is the life that I wanted to spend on our big day :)

It supposed to be tomorrow is our second wedding anniversary, 27th of September, but we decided to celebrate it on Sunday because we can enjoy it full day and well it is 27th of September in Malaysia now :P I wished that I can just spend this day with SL and escape from work, hopefully that I can make it ^_^ SL is making huge lunch now for our celebration and I plan to make a lemon pudding for our desert.

Finally, I bought a bear that I long looking for in Philadelphia, it is the third in my collection, the first one is from a good friend, he bought it to me from Washington DC in 2005 and SL bought me the second one from San Franscisco in 2006. After four years, I found the third one by myself in Philadelphia, I would consider this is the best souvenior for me from my east coast trip ^_^ I kept looking for the same bear when I was travelling to different cities in US, but I couldn't get one until it reappeared in Philadelphia, happy happy, I am so happy, the rainbow bear seems like some special meaning to me from some mind of point :)

Sooner and sooner, SL and I are going on vacation soon, it will be tomorrow until the end of next week, I am feeling so stress lately, keep on working and forget so many things. I don't even put too much effort on planning for our New York trip, but SL didn't complain me and doing a lot of research and draft the itenary, I feel that I am the most fortune woman in the world ^_^ Stress for few weeks, I think this vacation is really just at the right time, pull me out from all the mess and relax for a week first before I step into dirt again. I think my stress always comes with vacation, recall from my previous trip, that I always need to sit in front of my computer for my work at the day before of departure, until SL complains to me. Anyways, I hope that I will enjoy on my New York trip, I am really looking forward for it. Thanks, SL.

I am quite busy recently, almost is working for whole day, my mind is even still thinking about my work during weekend outing, until my hubby complaint my "passion" on my job. Well, that's a schedule, I just didn't want to miss it, that created some problem between he and me, we got less sharing time and most of my time is in front of laptop :( When I told a friend this, she just told me this is my first time feeling pressure, perhaps she is right, is this really what I want? I start thinking now. For now, I still don't have kids and I don't mind that I spend more time on job, but what if after I have my kids? do I really want to live like that? Hmm... start thinking now.

The Ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles is occupied by Black Ball Ferry and they only depart four times a day, therefore we reserved our ticket online before departure to avoid crowd and unavailability of ticket on the day, there is an additional $11 for reservation fee and it costs about $75 for a vihicle and two adult on board. Due to this is cross border between Canada and US, we needed to arrive 1.5 hours earlier than departure time for custom and immigration checking. Duration of ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles is about 1.5 hours long, we still think the ferry facility from Vancouver to Vancouver Island is better and comfortable :) After arrival to Port Angeles, we took 4.5 hours of driving from Port Angeles to our apartment in Oregon, this can be considered a long journey to us. Ferry detail: http://cohoferry.com/main/

Out of Victoria Downtown, there are still some interesting attractions, some are still accessable by foot, but some you still need a car, however distance would make you feel tired if you walk there. Three are two attractions near to Rockland area, Goverment House and Craigdarroch Castle, they both have stunning building and beautiful garden, which just like a huge mansion. Well, we were walking to these two locations, so that we were quite tired, then I kept taking pictures when SL was taking break at bench :) The Government House is quite big to me and I like the garden as roses are blooming there. However Craigdarroch Castle wasn't as I expected though it still look like a castle in fairy tale, just it look too new to me. On the last day of our trip, we chose to travel by car for saving parking fee in downtown and so that we can travel somewhere further in Victoria. At the morning, we headed to Hatley Park, which is Royal Roads University as well, there we could find a castle st...

Victoria is a city located at Vancouver Island, I think no much people know how big the Vancouver Island is, but many know Victoria is a beautiful Harbour, my trip to Vancouver will not complete without visiting to Victoria. From many friend's mouth, Victoria impressed them more than Vancouver, it's true after I went to Inner Harbour, there is really beautiful and just like a Europe style town which accomodate Fairmont Empress Hotel and Parliment Building. During Sunday morning, SL and I decided to spend our time to walk around Victoria Downtown because parking was free on Sunday, so that we didn't need to worry to park our car on street. As our hostel is just at the city center of Victoria, therefore we didn't find hard to walk to attractions by foot, for sure we were walking for the whole day. First of all, we proceeded to City Hall and Chinatown area where was having public market, somehow I like to see something like this to know more their cultural. The Bay Center ...

When SL was attending to visa interview at Canada consulate, I just grabbed some tourism information about Vancouver Island outside of the office for reading, and I found that The Butchart Gardens would perform firework every Saturday night throughout this Summer (from July to August), coincidently our plan was landing to Vancouver Island at Saturday, therefore we decided to visit The Butchart Gardens on our first arrival day to witness the firework event. Well, I think this is a good plan because we would save some time on travelling because we would arrive at Swartz Bay of North corner and Victoria is located at south corner, meanwhile The Burtchart Gardens is actually at the half way from Swartz Bay to Victoria. Due to Saturday Firework, admission fee of Saturday is the most expensive compare with other day, there we paid about $64 for two adults admission. The Butchart Gardens, a garden which bloom for over 100 years, it is an artwork started by Jeniffer Butchart. Inside The Butcha...

Across the sea to south of Vancouver, there Vancouver Island is and Victoria is one of the city in Vancouver Island. Legendary from some of my friends, Victoria is a place worth to visit more than Vancouver mainland, therefore we decided to stay a day longer in Victoria. From Vancouver mainland, we need to get to Tsawwassen ferry terminal for 1.5 hours tour to Swartz Bay at Vancouver Island. Without too much worry about availabity of ferry, because it sheduled departure for almost every hour and we successfully boarded to ferry while we arrived to terminal about 15 minutes earlier. The total charge for us was around $75, which included a car and two adults, we were so excited because it was our first sail in America continental. Though we paid the expensive ticket for ferry, I still felt it was worth for it becuase I really enjoyed facilities on board as well as beautiful scenery on the sea, SL and I were walking in and out of the deck for some view seeing and wandering among the facil...

Since we had a car with us during our Vancouver trip, then we just decided to take a half day to go to further area, other than downtown and Stanley Park, of course it was a route that brought us to Vancouver's Tsawwassen ferry terminal. When we were heading to Beach Avenue and Sunset Beach for some beach view and Vancouver's Winter Olympic Inukshuk, we found there is a park with lot of bronze statues, they all are laughing happily with a lot of different poses, it is "Amazing Laughters" an art work from a Chinese. Then we just crossed the bridge to another side of Vancouver, the Vanier Park is a place for people to relax themselves with H.R MacMillan Space Center as the attraction of the Park, well we also walked along the Park for our relaxing walk. There are some special attractions in Venier Park, like Gateway to Pacific Northwest, Heritage Harbour, Vancouver Museum, Vancouver Maritime Museum, etc. There visitors can spend a day for their tour if you have enough t...

We decided only spent a night stayed in Vancouver as we got some comments from friends that the Island is more interesting than mainland itself. For visiting in Vancouver downtown, we just accessed to everywhere by foot because all attractions there were quite close to each others. In the downtown, there is a public library with special architecture like a coleseum of Rome, it was huge and beautiful and we were stopped by for some view seeing. Besides, you could find a steam clock at Gastown, which is operated by steam and I just couldn't imagine how can it works that accurately. When I stood beside it, I just felt it like a heater and kept myself warm. The clock would whistle every 4.5 minutes though at a short moment, it was still quite interesting. Of course, we didn't miss to take some photo of Gassy Jack's statue, he is the pioneer of Gastown and the town is named after him. When walking along the waterfront area, then we could see Canada Place just right sitting over ...

Just as World Cup ended at four years ago, then our relationship started, yes this years marked off a four years milestone of my relationship with SL. It was a tough year for us in 2009 because we needed to bear a lot of seperation periods, still we managed to get together finally for our anniversary celebration, it was our memorable period that I don't think we could forget it forever, of course it is our hot topic of this year. For memorise our suffering 2009, we decided to have dinner again to Saburo Sushi House this year, but we are happy mode now and we wished to overwrite last year. Yummy yummy, I was really happy this year, we really spent some quality time together for dinner and walking in Westmoreland Park later. Honestly, I always felt insecured on relationship but SL always makes me felt confident that we really can live happy ever after like fairy tale. Some relationships do last forever, I wish that we can have one and we can hold the hand together continue our journe...

For time efficiency use in our West Canada trip, we decided to visit to Stanley Park as our first venue because it is at north of Vancouver, which we couldn’t reach by foot. Admission to Stanley Park actually is almost free, except you want to visit for some exhibition area, and we only decided to drive around the park and stop at some viewpoint for a walk and photo captured. Though access to park is free, we need to pay for parking in the Park, it is CA2.50 an hour or CA10 for the whole day, we only paid at hourly base as we didn’t know if we could spend more than four hours in Stanley Park. Totally, we spent about 2 hours in the Park, however I think people can really spend more hours in there if you really look for relaxing day trip, like take a walk around the park, do some hiking, having picnic, sightseeing, so on so forth. Stanley Park is quite a big park for about 1000 acres, of course we couldn’t fully cover the whole park in two hours, so we only chose some interesting and eas...

Finally, it was another holiday in US, it's Independence Day on 4th of July, and of course we couldn't miss it and planned our West Canada trip to Vancouver and Victoria. Before entering Canada, we would need to have a visa so that we applied for a day leave on Friday for this purpose. On 2nd of July, we woke up in early morning and headed to Canada Immigration Office in Seattle for Canada visa application to make sure we could arrive to the office before it’s opened at eight o’clock. We were arrived to Century Square of Seattle about half pass seven and there were a lot of people waiting at ground floor already, we felt lucky that we went early to avoid even more crowd at later time. Due to 1st of July is Canada’s holiday and 4th of July is US’s holiday, therefore 2nd of July was an extremely busy day for Immigration Office and only the applicant allowed waiting in the room, then I just left the office to wait for SL. In the meanwhile, I grabbed some tourism information bookle...

Tonight, I read on Jorge Larrionda profile, who is the referee in 2010 World Cup between Germany and England, he misjudged a goal which shot from Lampard and England finally lost to Germany with 1-4. Obviously, that is really a goal and everyone can see it clearly and media did analysis from his angle that he shouldn't misjudge it unless he is "blink". Including the line man, I think they both have eyesight problem by ignoring that ball. Beside the goal from England, referee in 2010 World Cup obviously got problem on their judgement, like games between Argentina vs Mexico and USA vs Slovenia, they both counted or uncounted a goal from what it should be. Also, a lot of diving case in the game and misjudged by referee, especially how Torres' special performance between Spain and Chile, which leaded a Chile player redcarded. If there is replay allowed, this type of cheating skill could be reduced as well. What is professional? I thought World Cup should reach certain sta...

Two weeks ago, it's Rose Festivel in Portland which las for about 3 weeks from May 22 to June 12, traditionally Windermere would present a history roses tour to people who love to celebrate the season of floral, honourly we were able to join them. Actually, there was a Rose Festival Parade would line up in Portland town on June 12, but we just too tired to join the crowd for that as we had experienced it at a week before with Starlight Parade, the Portland town was just congested with a lot of people until we all found hard to move, therefore we chose June 13 for our tour and we chose a few locations from History Roses Tour list for sightseeing: Pioneer Courthouse Square, Peninsula Park and Pittock Mansion. Every year when summer arrived, Pioneer Courthouse Square, the living room of Portland would be renovated with a lot of beautiful flowers, which made the Square looks different than what it was during other time, I pretty loved it. Our next destination is Peninsula Park, we didn...

After all group matches finished by today, I just felt soccer game actually kind of funny, it is just like a stage of Hollywood show, many players are acting on the field, especially those pretending injured or been "touched" by oppenents for getting some advantage for themselves, such as redcarded the opponents or getting a free/penalty kick. Among so many players, I think Torres from Spain (numbe 9) and Christiana Ronaldo from Portugal (number 7), I would say they are most entertaining and untrustable players in feild. As what I saw what Ronaldo did on Rooney backed to last World Cup and how Torres "performed" today to Chile, they are really good "actors" in soccer feild. How can they fall down on ground when their opponents didn't even touch them? I am pretty curious with how fragile they are, don't they know they are actually just on camera? Even though refeerees are blinked on how they acted, they can never escape from camera and just be a jok...

After Friday, I am actually quite dissapointed with England's performance in World Cup, the country actually is the strongest team in the group but they just got it draw after two games with USA and Algreia, it is really unexpected performance. Honestly, I still supported England team after four years but they just make me felt dissapointed, the team just seem cannot perform well to win and I think they also got difficulty to advance to the next stage. Perhaps, it is a sign to tell me to stop my hope on English? Because they always to be so unexpected :P

This evening, SL and I just discussed what was happened to us same time last year, when we were still seperated in two different countries. Then, I just remembered that I was addicted to a game that time because we had too much free time then. What is the game? It is "Restaurant City" from facebook. After a year, I still constantly visit the same game now, which mean we were on it for at least a year now, therefore I would say it is quite a successful game. At first, we were in Farm Town, but we gave it up half way to Restaurant City, which we didn't stop at there. I think Playfish is quite sucessful to create the game, the game doesn't need too much maintainance now and I only needed to spend a little time to refresh it, then it can continue to "alive", I prefer on this type of game :D There we need a lot of creative to create something special which can attract a lot of consumers to support it, else it will vanish in one day. This all is about business, we...

I think that we can learn some history for world cup, do you still remember that is a country played in World Cup many years ago? which is Yugoslavia, however we don't see it now, but Serbia and Slovekia. That day, SL was curious what are Serbia and Slovekia? Because he didn't see this name before but it just appeared in world cup now, then he found out they are actually two countries from Yugoslavia after some wars happened in the country. After the war, Yugoslavia just broke down and splited into a lot of small countries, Serbia and Slovekia are two of them. Previously, I just thought world is peace in Europe, but I know I was wrong because they still involved in war, war will just happen everywhere when different ideas and over eager, no matter is it Europe or Asia.

World Cup start firing now and my hubby is one of the supporter, therefore I just put every crazy thing that we do recently under world cup preparation :P Such as what we did yesterday ^^ Few days ago, I got to know from some friends about offer from Target on Haagen.Daaz, Nestle or Dreyer's ice cream, you can get a five dolar gift card when you buy five of them, which mean I can get one at two bucks, well I need to buy five, but it is still cheaper than regular price. Therefore I would like to try if the offer is valid to my area and I got five boxes :P haha, it is enough for a month supply during world cup period ^^ Later at the night, I tried to make a cheesecake, it was my second making and I was kind of fail at the first trial few months ago, taste was nice but it just doesn't look beautiful to me. Then, I got some BKMs from my youngest sister, who baked a quite successful cheesecake two weeks ago, finally I got a cheesecake which still fulfilled my requirement (though I ...

It's world cup time again, once in every four years, which also mean SL and I have been together nearly four years because we know each other during world cup year. Four years ago, I just backed from England, therefore I still a straight England supporter, though I was not fancy with football (aka soccer)but I supported England a lot. Due to that, SL would invite me for watching world cup with England match and there was chance for us to know better with each other. Still I remember, SL had a bet with me that if France won the World Cup, then he would shave his hair. Actually, I really hoped to see how he looked like after hair shaved. Finally, Italy won the game, but he still shaved his hair just because I wanted to see ^.^ Honestly, I like how he looks without his hair, I liked to touch his head with those short hair, it was comfortable. After the World Cup, we started relationship as well and we walked together until now, and I know we would keep memorial our start time when Wor...

Last weekend, we just wanted to have something simple after our Las Vegas trip, therefore we decided to borrow Cultural Pass to Rice Museum in Hillsboro for a short trip. The museum is only opened at 1pm, therefore we went to Hillsboro town for some walks and galleries visit there. I got a sister, who studies Fine Art in France now and she wish to get a chance for exhibition in a gallery to start her artist career, therefore I wished that I could help her and explored galleries nearby my apartment. However, I just knew it wasn't easy to get started after visit, anyways I still wish that my sister can fulfil her dream in one day. Everyone surely has a dream, one of my sister likes painting and another likes singing, they are actually doing quite hard to move toward their dream, how many people can really be like them? It is really hard, because when you realized the difficulty to get there, you would stop and I am one of the person who gave it up. After graduated from my degreee, I ...

Finally, we left Las Vegas on May of 31st evening and we stopped by University of Nevada in Las Vegas for some picture taking, we were guessing if this university teaches hotel and casino management because it is just that close to those facilities. Anyways, it was just our thought of mind. Las Vegas can gamble everywhere, you even can find slot machine in airport’s terminal, which is a great income for the city and I think it is also a main attraction to visitors to this desert area. Las Vegas is a city that never dark before midnight, it provides fun and entertainment to people. However, it is just for visiting to me, I don’t think I would choose this place as my settlement because I couldn’t imagine how this city would change my next generation if we live there. To me, Grand Canyon and Red Rock Canyon are great tours as well because I can see something else than neon light, they share their greatness of creator and inspirited me to the mother of natural, no human can build a grand c...

As many people know, Las Vegas also is known as the Sin City in many aspects, people lost themselves in this city, get drunk, gambling and sex, no matter enjoying life or fallen, they are just a little bit different if you see it in other city. When you entered a hotel in Las Vegas, you will be pretty hard to find it without a casino, people bet they money to a machine, on a table, in a room, they bet their luck because that provides them a little hope for getting richer than last minute they were. Actually, SL and I are not gamblers because we just doesn’t like to put our money on risk, but we took it as entertainment and our budget was USD5 :P, just because we were in Las Vegas that we just wanted to know how it felt to be there. Finally, we used USD3 on slot machine, we lost first two bucks and we got back USD 4.81 at the last buck, which mean we got USD1.81 profit, which is less but that is enough than we lost every penny. That is feeling of gambling, you would feel upset when you ...