Family stories.
Our fellowship went to the Enatai Beach park for some sun and fun. Strangely, the park is directly under the I-90 bridge for some nice perpetual static noise. After potluck, we had water balloon tossing…
And three-legged race…
And Maddy went into the water for the first time…
For more pictures, visit the Enatai Beach album!
Karen and I went on the ECC tent camping trip this past weekend with Happyfish. The initial plan was to arrive on Friday night, but due to some circumstantial events, our small group ended up arriving on Saturday morning, much to Karen’s delight.
We proceeded to erect the 10-men tent…
Afterwards, we went down to the beach, where some jet skis were available to cruise on free of charge, courtesy of some brother in ECC. Erick and Jun took the initial run, squeezed the accelerator, and almost broke the 1 MPH barrier. Yes, my grandma could have walked faster than that. Evidently there was a foreign object caught in the vehicle, so my engineering instinct was unleashed as I attempted the delicate repair.
Having escaped shorting out the engine a few times, the repair was successful and the jet ski cruised down the runway at over 50 MPH…
When I took the helm, I decided to take it easy by squeezing the accelerator all the way, gliding down the waters through the slow region and nearly getting ticketed. So what’s new?
After that, it was time for a change of pace, and we headed to the stable for some horseback riding. When we arrived, there was no one in sight. Having resisted the urge to hop on the horses for a self-guided tour around the region, we found another way to satiate that urge…
After that we got bored of playing horsey and started playing some caveman bocce…
Finally the cowboys returned and we each mounted a horse to ride into the wilderness, except when I gleefully hopped onto my horse, I ended up on a mule instead. I got gypped.
His dominance must have been the donkey side, as Charlie kept glancing left and right and stopped every 30 seconds to eat the surrounding foliage, holding up the line. When I tried to steer him, he appeared to be on autopilot and ignored my signals. When I left him alone, he ended up walking through the bushes instead.
With everyone’s legs cramped up at this point, Karen assumed a funky posture to the relief the tension…
Then we had some BBQ dinner, sang some songs, and hit the sacks. The next morning, we were revitalized as we attended the Sunday service…
Well, some of us were revitalized anyway… For more pictures, go to the Tent Camping album!
On Wednesday, Karen noticed that Fuzzy’s hind legs seemed to lack the usual strength. We hoped that it was just morning weakness, but by the afternoon Fuzzy kept sleeping and breathing hard. Normally, when we call his name, he would wake up with a mean demeanor, pat down our hand repeatedly with his small paws, which was really comfortable by the way until he switch to the biting maneuver, which was less comfortable. By night time, Fuzzy would not leave his house. We de-roofed the house and fed him water, then picked him up, and he just laid there, void of energy. He had no appetite, not even when his favorite sunflower seed was hand peeled and personally fed to his mouth. Something was definitely wrong.
By Thursday afternoon, Fuzzy didn’t even have energy for water, so Karen drove Fuzzy to the vet, the Bellevue Center of Veterinary Medicine. Unfortunately, that was when we met doctor Death, who squeezed him all over and slapped him down, when he started shaking. Doctor death was not done. He picked him up again and strangled him, which was when Fuzzy perished at his evil hand. Needless to say, the place would not receive our recommendation to anyone other than those interested in paying for Euthanasia, without the mercy part.
So we bid farewell to our beloved little pet, who had been with us for 1 yr 8 mo.
We will miss you, Fuzzy!
Instead of initiating another battle with the persistent weeds in our backyard, Karen and I decided to take the day off from housing duties and stroll around the downtown Seattle.
Afterwards, we were a little tired, so we headed to Myrtle Edwards park noth of the piers to take a breather.
I had Karen go over to miniature peninsula and shot some pictures when suddenly an unexpected gust of wind caused an unexpected splash…
Then we noticed a new addition to the sidewalk resembling the an Oscar trophy making a splash…
Then we played with some artistic photoshoot…
and jumped to the area where the remaining pieces of sculture are…
The rest of the pictures can be found in the Waterfront gallery.
So many of you know that my picture vault is like the great void… only pictures go in, and none ever makes it out. Well, I intend to defy the conventional wisdom by periodically posting some long-post pictures, starting with… last year’s Happyfish Costume Party at Jun’s!
Congratulations to Jeffrey and Grace for their beautiful wedding! Of course, the rest of us have been completely tired out from the endless amount of chores in the background…
Without further ado, let’s see the bridesmaids…
and groomsmen…
here comes the bride…
Here are Mr. and Mrs. Ma!!
and the traditional bouquet toss…
Of course, Karen and I needed a picture with the focus of the event…
For more pictures, go to Jeffrey and Grace’s Wedding section. Once again, congratulations!
The Chinese water torture, as I have heard it, consists of dropping a single drop of water between your eye-brow in a set interval. Even though the drop is tiny, but done at a regular interval and at a sensitive part of the body, the results can be mind-wrecking. Unfortunately I seemed to have discovered a similar torture device in my bedroom, where the incessant nocturnal floor popping sounds are driving me bananas. Every night, when the heating vent turns on, a space under the carpet, or perhaps in between dry walls, begins to pop at a regular interval. During the day the decibels may be overcome by ambient noise, but at night, the pop becomes the beating of the drums, the firing of a smoking gun, or the explosion of TNT. This is especially apparent when my brain activities have shut-down halfway and I’m halfway down the road to dreamland when I get rudely yanked by an invisible string, back into the very bed I was so comfortably lying dormant, only to be given back my complete consciousness.
This evil disturbance must end.
Karen had been wishing for some snow in Seattle for quite some time now, and tonight it all came true… too true. By the time I wanted to leave work, the anxiously departing cars were bumper to bumper all the way to P2 of the garage. The Seattle Traffic site provided good information about travel times:
Travel time to Seattle 66 minutes
Travel time to Bothell 48 minutes
Travel time to Everett 93 minutes
There was only one minor detail missing:
Travel time to freeway: 100 minutes
I went back to my office, only to see a shuttle make its way across the driveway (span of 30 yards) in about one hour. By then, I decided the best way to get home was… the number 11 bus. My trusty feet.
Just to give you an idea of the situation:
No, none of those cars were moving. On the way I encountered some miniature snowmen…
In the end, it took 45 minutes to walk home, but all I can say is… home sweet home!
Living in Rome has definitely required some adjustments, as Karen and I had to re-learn various mundane routines. For example, I stroded down to the restroom for a #1, and it took me a while to identify the trigger which activated the system.
Anyway, after that we headed out Rome and decided to take the train. We noticed this one girl who must have skimped on her ticket, as her seat location was a little peculiar…
This is certainly most inconvenient when some passengers need to pass, but beyond that, it is most awkward to have to face a passenger for the entire duration of the trip. Yours truly happened to be that passenger.
It was one thing to be in the same compartment with 4 other passengers, but being observed like Jim Carrey in the Truman Show while we ate, read, and napped was most unpleasant.
After a few hours, we arrived at the destination, Palazzo Bruchi, where the doors were characteristically small…
And the keys were super high-tech…
Not to mention super-large size penthouses…
And included fancy breakfast served in your room! Okay okay, so it was some self-serve packaged food, definitely a downgrade from the Convent.
After being spoiled by the St. Peter’s Basilica, we decided to check out the Duomo in Siena, and the facade was…
a facade in the truest sense. What timing… Anyway, at least not all sides were wrapped up.
Inside, the entire interior was lined with 172 Pope’s heads, giving a very eerie feeling, as if it were straight from some Hunted House movie….
After that we ventured to Il Campo, the best square in Italy. No idea why it’s the best square because it’s just a flat piece of land…
We had dined on the square, and the food was actually quite good. We had some deliciously prepared Salmon… cooked to medium.
After this we joined the evening walk along Via Banchi di Sopra, basically the one road that runs through town. I think the whole town was shopping on this street, and it wasn’t long before we reached the end, where all the young people from the town hung out.
I wonder if some of these kids will just grow up in this town and be sheltered from the rest of the world… Just when we thought we reached the end, we noticed there were people coming up from the underground with a Italian guard posted at the entrance. Hmm, what was it? A secret passageway? Nuclear testing? Matlab? Karen and I took out our courage, walked pass the guard, and descended the escalator, only to end up at…
A grocery store. Okay, maybe we got too carried away with our imagination.
For more pictures, check out the Siena gallery.
Siena was certainly a relaxing town, but we were about to hit the most recognizable monument of all. Where was this place? Why did the police start throwing people out? Find out next time on my blog!
After our departure from St. Peter’s Basilica it was already 4:30pm, so we ran to the Vatican Museum. Can you spot Karen in this picture?
One of the famous sculptures in this museum was the Torso. I thought it was some unfinished piece of… I later found out that this wasn’t the entire work, but what’s left of it.
Check out the impressive depth on the wall…
This being a Catholic museum, I didn’t expect to find pagan goddesses here. Apparently they carried Antemis, goddess of fertility. There’s a debate on whether those are breasts or bulls’ balls.
Anyway, after this, we went to the highlight of this museum, the Sistine Chapel. When we entered the room, it was dim, the room was packed body to body with standing tourists who couldn’t squeeze into a seat, and signs were posted at the entrances saying “No Noise. No Pictures”. Of course, it didn’t prevent people from attempting to take pictures or talk. Periodically, a loud “shhhh” would originate from a guard as the crowd quiets down, and the audio level would gradually build up in this again in this perpetual cycle.
Can you find the famous Adam and God portait?
After this we went to Campo ‘de Fiori (Field of Flowers), where we had dinner. We got here around 6pm, but unfortunately the Italians typically have their dinner around 8pm, so most of the restaurants haven’t opened yet, except for the touristy ones.
As we had dinner, we were treated to the Italian music with accordion et al.
Again, the Italians really try to preserve old artifacts, such as Theater of Pompey where Julius Caesar was assassinated, so these apartments were built right into the outer wall. Either that or they were trying to save material costs…
After dinner, we went on the “Night Walk Across Rome” tour from Rick Steve. Along the way, we noticed this poor dog chained up, with no owner in sight.
After this we went to Piazza Navona, the most interesting night scene with street music, artists, ice cream, fountains made by Bernini, etc. We tried the “Tartufo” ice cream, “Death by Chocolate”. Fortunately it didn’t taste like it sounds.
About half way through our enjoyment of the chocolate ice cream, some police cars, followed by some antique cars, started driving into the piazza, circling around, honking. After examining the Rick Steve’s guide more closely, we realized this piazza used to be a race track back in the Roman days, and they kept the original shape of the tracks. I wish we had more than a couple centuries of history in the States…
After this, we walked to the Trevi fountain. The place was multitudinous even at 10pm. The magic of the place was that if you threw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain, it’ll grant a wish and ensure your return to Rome.
At first we were planning to visit the Spanish Steps after this, but unfortunately it was approaching 10:30pm and we dreaded being locked out of our rooms by the punctual nuns, so we decided to skip our last destination. Maybe the coin at the bottom of the fountain will ensure our return, but for now we could only enjoy the sight of the Spanish Steps in postcards. For more pictures of this day, check out the Vatican City gallery.
What will James and Karen’s experience be as they arrive in the urban Siena? What was the most awkward train ride that James has ever had? And what about the church that deceived James and Karen? Find out next time on my blog! 🙂