Wednesday, April 30, 2008

I haven't been updating for ages. Been so caught up with work and school projects that I didn't even have the time and mood to transfer my contacts from my old nokia phone to the new one:( Still, trying to stay healthy by going to the gym and swimming like once a week and making it a point go hiking over the weekend.

Last weekend, went to Mount Tamapais with Zhi Kuang and Ravel for hiking and for a 1 night camp. Pictures would be up soon but it was one hell of an experience. It was so cold there that our strawberries tasted as though it has been frozen and pitching the tent was horrible as it kept flying off. However, the view when we drove up the mountain was really nice, and we could see the entire bay area up there. We went to this spot hoping to catch the sunset but it was a really bad idea due to the strong wind. In the end, we gave up on our sunset plan and went back for dinner. It is only in times like this where instant noodles and hot dogs taste extremely yummy. The three of us basically just crowded around this propane stove that we brought and ate straight from the pan. It was kinda hilarious and fun as once the noodles left the pan, it turned cold immediately even before we could eat it. The night was a terrible one as I shivered in my pathethic sleeping bag I brought from Singapore. In the end, Zhi Kuang had to exchange sleeping bag with me before I could fall asleep:(

We headed to San francisco the next morning as it was on the way home. Traffic and parking was horrendous and it didn't help that i was driving the car for this trip. Went to Fisherman wharf where me and Ravel shared yummy fish and chips and clam chowder soup. It was really delicious especially since we had such a pathethic dinner the night before. We spent the afternoon going to the Chinatown in San fran where we actually did grocery shopping there as it was really cheap compared to the supermarkets near our house. I went into this chinese bakery and discovered yummy pastries that were really cheap and ended up gorging on red bean buns.

As for this weekend, nothing interesting happened besides the unofficial company gathering we had at our house. We invited Gina (this collegaue of ours at NanoGram) as well as the rest of the interns including Jonathan, Hengfai, Hongting and Elaine and Jackson over for dinner and a game of Taboo. Dinner was great with me, Andy, Zhi Kuang and Hoey lit cooking some of our specialty dishes and Taboo was hilarious with all the weird words that seem to be thrown around.

The weekend was quite a quiet one with me going to Wunderlich for a 5 mile hike. Basically, the place really resembled Bukit Timah Nature reserve (replace the trees with redwoods) and the best part of the hike was seeing horses and feeding them at the end of it. The entire Sunday was spent at Stanford trying to do up our case as well as a project meeting for like 8 hours? I was practically eating bread the entire day as lunch was sandwich and dinner was a burger. Kinda reminds me of the days in NUS where we spent mugging during exams time.

Work has been getting hectic nowadays as I seem to have much more responsibilities. As for Stanford clasees, the GEM project I am working on is really a challenge, trying to liase with another country to start up an Energy crossroads chapter (google it!). Today was the deadline for our case submission and Zhi Kuang and I stayed up till 4am last night trying to fine tune the case. Today was one big frenzy with trying to finish the presentation at work, eating a pathetic bagel for lunch, attempting to complete my tasks at work, attending a dinner at Stanford and returning back to work at 8 to finish up my work. Talk about being overloaded with stuff in one entire day! All ends well though, everything is finally done up now.

Mission Peak Pictures!



loads of cows around:)

Before the hike



The amazing view of the mountains

Pretty wildflowers

The weekend was spent hiking up Mission Peak, which is basically this elevated hill of 2000 feet near Milpitas which is where I live. It was a 5 miles round trip hike which sounded pretty simple but turned out to be really tiring. However, the view up at the peak made the entire climb worthwhile as we could see the entire bay area. Managed to catch a beautiful sunset as well and see the city light up towards the night. It was really exhausting though considering my poor physical fitness. Haha, the only preparation we did was basically a 2.4km run with 40 laps of swimming 3 days ago after work. Towards the end, I could feel my knee and ankle about to give way and our car seemed to be so far away:(. However, I'm glad to say that I've accomplished this hike in 4 hrs and we ended up gorging ourselves on ramen and bubble tea as we were too famished.

Bought a pair of Oasics track shoes on sale as the pair I brought is totally useless especially after my hike. Perhaps I should really invest in a pair of Timberland hiking boots as there is this 20% sale going along due to Earth day!

the pretty wild flowers outside the car


Yummy cafe where we had our breakfast

Abelskivers!


Nice infrastructure



the big clock:)

Windmill!



The view at the harbour

Dolphins!

A whale's tail



Santa Cruz island



Sea Lions





Santa Barbara has Indochine too!

Went to Channel Island and Santa Barbara over the weekend. Pretty tired now but it was quite a fun trip!

Set off for Ventura harbour at 5am on Sat morning after eating a deluxe breakfast from Mac Donalds. Imagine a combination of hot cakes meal and big breakfast and that equates to the deluxe breakfast at 4USD. Totally yummy! It was a 5.5 hrs drive all the way there and we then boarded the boat out to Santa Cruz Island which was one of the biggest island of Channel Island. Spent around 4 hrs on the island hiking, chilling out and eating our subway lunch. The wildflowers there were quite pretty and the beach was nice:) Nothing much though cos it was just a short stay there.

Dinner was spent downtown at Santa Barbara which was a pretty happening place. Clubs all over the place and the decoration there was really pretty especially near the harbour. The best part was meeting up with kinwee and some of his frens. Haha, I haven seen him for the past few months and nothing beats meeting up with an old friend in a foreign country. Basically spent dinner talking crap at this yummy burger joint:) Meeting him was really one of the main highlights of this trip. Too bad I din have enough time to visit his house and school.

The next day, we set off to Solvang, this quaint danish town. Breakfast was expensive but totally yummy. Danish hotdog, Belgium Waffles with maple syrup and cream, scrambled egg as well as this pastry called Abel skivers, which is essentially some pastry dipped in rapsberry sauce which was totally yummy. Walked around Solvang, went to the Hans christian anderson museum, the mission, pastry and chocolate shops, windmills and other interesting shops like toy shops. It was really a different town with a unique decor.

We then drove back to Ventura again to set off for our whale watching trip. Basically, it was a 3 hr boat ride to search for whales and dolphins. It was really cool as we spotted 3 big whales and thousands of dolphins in the sea close up. The whale was pretty far away though but it was a worthwhile trip. The dolphins were really friendly creatures as they kept swimming towards the boat. Dinner was pizza at some place at Paseo Robles which was quite special and nice.

The journey home was pretty long, another 5.5 hrs drive away. However, the trip was quite fun as we got to go out to the sea and see the pretty coastline of Santa Barbara:)

Red rock canyon

Joshua tree:)

Grand Canyon

The watch tower

With our KIA rented car that looks like a Mercs

Daniel new oakley shades!