This evening, we had friends from Hangzhou over for dinner—from Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital as well as Hospital Number Two. The visitors had been here for two months, and most of them are leaving tomorrow morning to return home.
Category: Family and Friends
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Alice’s Birthday Party
On the weekend before Alice’s actual birthday, we had a group of friends over for an evening celebration. The menu, of course, was Thai food.
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La Sierra Graduation
My cousins Ariana Anugerah and Rachel Hechanova graduated from La Sierra University. Walking around on campus brought back memories of my alma mater. The entire campus mall area looked very familiar, but so much has changed throughout. Somehow, all the buildings seems smaller than what I remembered them to be.
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Mandy and Lawrence’s Wedding
For Mandy and Lawrence’s wedding, I traveled to Oakland International Airport, rented a car, and drove north. On the way, I had a chance to take night shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. The next day, I visited Muir Woods and had other excursions along various points on the coast. The afternoon wedding was absolutely beautiful. Mandy and Lawrence got married at Lancaster Vineyards, and the elegant reception took place in the wine cave. That was very special. I drove through San Francisco on the way back and made stops along the coast as well.
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Central Europe
I just got back from a whirlwind tour of Central Europe, which was my first time in that continent.
Starting about a week before my trip, I started a time adjustment schedule, moving sleeping and waking time by an hour earlier each day. During that week, I attended a meeting in Philadelphia, which neatly integrated into my schedule.
On Tuesday last week, I took off from ONT, transited through Denver and Washington, DC, and then landed in Vienna on Wednesday morning. The first hour was spent meeting up with friends from Thailand and making new friends. Then, we went to the Schloss Schonbrunn, Hofburg Wien, and then to old town around Stephansdom.
The next couple days took us through Budapest, Brno, and Prague. From there, we explored the more resort areas of Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad), Cesky Krumlov, and Hallstatt before going to Salzburg. The trip from Salzburg back to Vienna took us through the Danube Valley towns of Linz and Melk. From Vienna, we did day trips to Bratislava and Seegrotte, which features an underground lake.
The group from Thailand left on Wednesday afternoon while I took the City Airport Train back to town. I then had the chance to visit Museumsquartier, revisit old town, and sample The Original Sacher Torte at Hotel Sacher.
The travel back home took about 26 hours. At ONT airport, a fallen soldier received a military escort off the plane.
I had a great experience seeing Europe for the first time, and it’s nice to be home and have the weekend off to adjust to Pacific Daylight Time.
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My Birthday
My family took me out for dinner at Happy Family Restaurant for my birthday. Then, we also had a dinner at Orchid Thai Restaurant. I got to try out my new 50mm F/1.4 prime lens, which is quite nice for low light shooting.
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Sonya and Ramiz’s Wedding
It was a joy to take part in Sonya and Ramiz’s wedding. The ceremony was beautiful, and we all had a good time at the reception. The entire event was like a big reunion, with so many friendships renewed.
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Thailand
My first meal in Thailand was Pad Thai from a street vendor, and my last meal was also Pad Thai, but this time, it was at the airport. The street version was better.
Thailand proved to be as hot and humid as I remembered it, even though it’s supposed to be winter. Nevertheless, I had an amazing visit. The first stop was to our house. I didn’t remember much of it. The next day, we went to church and met so many friends from long ago. The potluck was amazing.
Right after church, a bunch of us went to Koh Chang (Elephant Island) near the border with Cambodia. We arrived at the Bailan Bay Resort late Saturday night, and after having dinner and wrapping up, we stayed in beautiful cottages perched on stilts. We spent two nights there. In between, there was fishing, snorkeling, swimming, kayaking, eating, and simply laying out. The water was the perfect temperature.
Returning to Bangkok on Monday, my parents and I went to meet up with some relatives. The rest of the week was spent with more eating, visiting, and touring. One of the highlights was on Friday—first visiting Pranakorn Nornlen, a boutique hotel. Then, there was the Emerald Buddha Temple and the Palace. Afterwards, we ferried across the Chao Praya River to Wat Arun to climb the steps.
There was more church on Saturday. The trip concluded with an eating tour at Siam. Then, I arrived at the airport via light rail and finished off the trip with a plate of Pad Thai.
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The Mission Inn
We went as a family to enjoy the lights and decorations and for a post-Christmas dinner at The Mission Inn.
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Hong Kong and China
So it’s been almost three weeks of traveling. I left home Wednesday night, traveled through Hong Kong and China, came back home for a day’s layover, and then it was off to Boston on a red-eye. There was only enough time to get jet lagged, recover, and get jet lagged again. For this past week, it was sleeping and waking without any specific schedule, like being in no time zone in particular. Last night, things finally started to normalize.
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In China
This trip to China has been mainly about people, places and food.
I got some instruction on guqin playing from Liang Qiu while I was in Foshan. Then, I have been meeting up with mainly relatives that I have not seen for more than ten years. Most everyone remain the same, except for the then children, who are now grown.
The food has been good. Much of it is like home cooking. And after every meal, there are a lot of leftovers.
Tomorrow, I’ll be visiting another set of relatives.
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Hong Kong
The days are all blurred together because of the time change and the jet lag on this trip to Hong Kong and China.
Yesterday morning, which seemed like so long ago, I landed in Hong Kong. I haven’t been back since before the takeover in 1997. A lot has changed, obviously, but some parts are not much different. Much of the downtown layout is the same as when I remembered it. It’s good to see a lot of the relatives too, many of whom I haven’t seen for almost 20 years. I had a good time visiting, and there will be more of that.
Today, I crossed into China by bus. The immigration process took a very long time because they only had one line for “foreigners.” Now checked in to a hotel, I had dinner at this vegetarian restaurant, where they serve interesting things like vege-snails. I think I’ll go back tomorrow and try some other stuff.
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Church Outing
We went with our church outing to Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point, California. This is one of my favorite beaches, especially because of the nice lawn area above the stretch of soft sand. Even though we were just there a few weeks ago, this beach is always nice to visit.
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Salt Creek Beach
A group of us went to Salt Creek Beach. The weather was gloomy, but that made for nice pictures. As always, the water is really cold. Anyways, we all had a good time.
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Zhang and Zheng
Today, we had Dr. Zhang and Dr. Zheng over for dinner. They are both from the Number 2 Hospital of Tangshan, which is an orthopaedic referral center for that entire region.
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May Birthdays
For Andy’s and Aimee’s birthdays, we had several celebrations. First, it was at Cherry’s house. Then, we also had a surprise event at Delhi Palace.
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Huntington Beach
We all had a great time just lounging around at the beach, enjoying the cool weather and the bright sunshine.
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My Birthday
For my birthday, we made a simple meal of pizza topped with fresh and grilled vegetables. We also had grilled artichokes.
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Chinese New Year
Yesterday was Chinese New Year. Many of the plants in our yard are in bloom now, and all of it added to the atmosphere yesterday. We celebrated by having company over, and to finish off the evening, we had a dumpling-making party.
I took a break from making the guqin and resumed this afternoon. Progress has been much slower than I had thought. This partly because I’m routing a lot more carefully than before (and at finer step intervals). I’m almost done hollowing out the top panel to match the convexity.
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New Year and Friends
So, it’s the first Monday of the new year, and it will be nice to get back to a regular schedule. The last several weeks have been filled with a lot of activities.
For one, my dad had a major birthday celebration. It started out on the Tuesday before Christmas, and we planned events that lasted until New Year’s Eve. We went out the first night for dinner, and then on Christmas, we took a family road trip along the California coast, first stopping at Andersen’s Pea Soup in Buellton. Then, we toured Solvang, walked along Montana de Oro beach, took pictures at the pier in Morro Bay, and ended the day in San Simeon. The next day, we had a private tour of Hearst Castle in the morning. It was nice not being part of the crowds in the other tours. We then took Tour 3 in the afternoon. That afternoon, we drove to Santa Barbara. On Sunday morning, we toured the old mission and the courthouse. Then, we went to the SB Orchid Estate before the highlight—the outlet stores at Camarillo. I got my exercise walking around the outside of the stores.
On New Year’s Eve, a lot of friends gathered at Uncle Bing and Auntie Irma’s place. We planned to have another surprise for my dad. He was completely non-suspecting. It turned out well, and the 50 regular candles plus 10 trick candles were perfect.
Yesterday, Ben Chen and his parents (Dr. & Mrs. Chen) and Dr. Zheng & Connie, and their son Boming came over for Sunday lunch. I was out in the yard cutting forsythia canes for the centerpiece when everyone arrived. We all had a good time getting acquainted and re-acquainted. Afterwards, we finished by walking through the grove of little citrus trees, eating kishu mandarins off the tree, and touring the pond and bridges.
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Dad’s Birthday and Trip
For Dad’s birthday, we went out for dinner on the actual date. Then, we planned an extended vacation, revisiting some of the familiar places that we had toured when we were much younger. It was a big combined celebration, of birthday, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve.
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Jun Jun’s Farewell
Jun Jun, also known by Jack, has been in Loma Linda for the past several months. He came from the Second Hospital of Tangshan and mainly shadowed Dr. Mudge and me. For his farewell, we got together to make pizza, one of his favorite American food.
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Thanksgiving Weekend
One of the highlights was just having a simple picnic lunch right by the pond, on the deck over the vault. Also, I had the chance to visit the aquarium, Huntington Library and the new Chinese Garden, the Getty Villa, and El Matador beach near Malibu.
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Hope Channel Opening Ceremony
Kandus and Brad Thorp invited a lot of people to the opening ceremony of the Hope Channel’s production center in Loma Linda. Brad gave a nice devotional about the satellite dish and performed symbolic footwashing as well.
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Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital Delegation
Dr. He Chao and Li Hong came with a delegation from Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital to visit Loma Linda. We had everyone over to our place for dinner. Dr. Hadley and Donna came as well. It was good to see so many friends from Hangzhou.
