China trip postponed

It's been nearly three weeks since my last post. Mainly because we haven't been up to a whole lot. We were meant to go on our 6-week China trip on June 8th but ended up having to postpone it because Mike managed to get himself a kind of serious ulcer-inducing colon infection/inflammation type of thing (he's pretty much had a stomach bug on and off since the second week of May)... Good news is he's just about 100% again so our China trip is back on! We are leaving this Friday for Shanghai and I shall be much more active with the blogging while we're on the mainland! 

In the meantime here are some photos of the past little while of us about town: 

That's right, Mike grew a beard to protest having to lay low and not eat and not have much fun over the past month. His beard turned out rather gingery. I called it "Ginger Beard". He has since shaved it off.

We went to check out this cute cafe tucked away in an alley near the Teacher's College. They rescue stray cats and give them a home. They even have a shrine for the cats who have gone to kitty heaven, complete with ashes and canned tuna.

These are pictures of the W Hotel in Taipei which is about 10 minutes from here in the heart of Xinyi district. My sister's friend works there and gave us an awesome tour of the hotel which only opened a year ago. We're gonna try and go back for a dip in that rooftop pool sometime, looks lush, doesn't it?!

Quite a few "creative parks" have popped up all over Taipei city in recent years. They are usually converted distilleries, tobacco plants, cane sugar factories, etc. This one is about a half hour away from my sister's place and houses beautiful boutiques, restaurants, cafes/patios, and the Taiwan Design Museum.

This doesn't include all of the cousins from my dad's side but over half of us. Everyone gathers at my 100-year old grandma's house for lunch every Sunday for some family time.

This is at my aunt & uncle's art studio. Uncle Tony is my dad's youngest brother and the Chief of Research at the National Museum of History in Taipei. He is an expert in the work of Chang Dai-Chien who is arguably the best Chinese artist in the 20th century (last year a painting of his sold for $25 million). My Aunt Shao-Hwei just put on a large exhibition at the Sichuan Museum.

Hydrangea farms in Yangmingshan

Today we went up into the mountains surrounding Taipei (the island basically has mountain ranges running all through its spine if you check out the satellite view of it on Google Map and the 23,000 some inhabitants mostly live on the bit of land between the coast and the mountains) to pick some pretty flowers.

Yangmingshan is famous for beautiful fields of white calla lilies which are a dime a dozen here (well, not exactly, but at $3 they might as well be a dime) and recently they've started to open their hydrangea farms to the public as well.

It was a bit misty and drizzly this afternoon, but it was still good to be outside, breathing in the mountain air. And I miss being around flowers all the time... they really do make me happy.

The per stem price for the hydrangeas has doubled since two weeks ago when they aired on the news which means I paid a very steep $9 for my bouquet of 15 hydrangeas. Good thing too or I probably would've brought home a truckload (these would've cost $100+ easy in Canada).

A little bit down the hill there lies an estate called "Grass Mountain Chateau" which used to be President Chiang Kai-Shek's home. There was a fire five years ago but they have now restored it to its original state and it now functions as a cafe/restaurant/art gallery.
The house was built during Japanese occupation era so the style reflects that (beautiful dark wood floors, lots of light through the windows, interior courtyard gardens, etc.). We sat out on the balcony for a little while overlooking the valley, it was quite lovely.

We have come to the realization that we are leaving for our six-week trip in China NEXT Friday and we haven't done ANY planning... Yeah, a little bit scary and pretty unusual for me. I was going to "just wing it" but then we thought, maybe not.

So we started a couple of days ago with the help of my dad who has done his fair share of touring around in China. We're there from June 8th until July 19th, and we want to see probably far too many places. This is the rough list:
- Shanghai, Souzhou, Xihu, and surroundings
- Zhangjiajie (Avatar valley!)
- Guilin, Longshen rice terraces, Li River, Yangshuo
- Yichang, Yantze River Cruise
- Chengdu & the panda reserve, Leshan, Emeishan
- Jiuzhaigou
- Luoyang, Xian (terracotta army)
- Beijing and The Great Wall
- and if we can somehow work it out, Tibet!

We are going to spend most of this weekend booking hotels/flights/tours/etc. So if you have any tips/ideas or know some locals who might be able to give us a good deal, hook us up! :)

Five Weeks in Taiwan

Oh wow, five weeks already, really? Giant FAIL on my part on updating the blog in that I basically haven't posted anything at all in the past five weeks... Oops. I'll try to keep up from now on... Everything has been going well on the whole, apart from the two of us taking turns getting sick on and off for the past three weeks. First Mike had a stomach bug (I guess "acute gastritis" is a bit more serious than a bug) that kept coming back and then we both started getting sore throats & sniffly noses. Right now we are just about back to 100% again but being sick has been kind of sucky and inconducive to going out and having fun stuffing our faces with delicious food and such.

Nevertheless we have kept ourselves busy spending time catching up with family & friends, participating in medical tourism (all manners of health check ups are so cheap and efficient here and Mike even had his [dental] implants done for a tenth of what it would have cost us in Canada), hitting up some touristy spots with our friends Celine & Matthieu who are on the tail-end of their 5-month trip around the world (and whose daily blog updates put me to shame), visiting old hang-out spots and finding new places to eat and drink and play. It's been nice. Here are some photos from the past five weeks, enjoy!
 

Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, Malibu & Santa Barbara

We rented a Mustang convertible for a day to drive up the coast a little bit. Riding in a convertible wasn't on the top of my to do list, but when the roof came down and I felt the sun & wind on my face as we cruised along the Pacific Ocean, I had to admit: it was really kind of awesome.

We stopped at a couple of lookouts along the way, walked on the beach in Malibu, and had dinner at Neptune's Net, a seafood hut type thing looking onto the ocean.

Santa Barbara was definitely a highlight on this trip: a quaint Spanish town tucked away in the foothills by the ocean. We lucked out too as it was market day on the main street so we got to see lots of locals out walking around with their dogs and picking up flowers and organic produce for the week. There were cute little boutiques and a hippy band complete with harmonica and accordion singing covers of the 60s. Really lovely and I think I could probably handle living there full-time, if I had to endure that kind of lifestyle. ;)

But that's it for L.A. for now! We're packing back up for our 14 hour flight to Taiwan this afternoon (there's a 12-hour time difference so we get in sometime after 11pm local time or 11am Friday EST). So I'll be picking this back up on the other side of the ocean!

(p.s. Not sure how to control the order and layout of the photos, they seem to scramble when they get posted, the app has limited functions so you'll just have to bear with me)

Downtown Los Angeles

Yesterday we went out to do touristy stuff, got a picture of the "Hollywood" sign and looked at the stars on the Walk of Fame and the hand prints in the courtyard at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Not a whole lot going on downtown actually which was weird. I suppose it was the middle of the day on a Wednesday but still. The city blocks and metro stations were all kind of deserted apart from homeless people (there seems to be a lot of them here, I guess they all came for the good weather, just like us).

We walked a few city blocks and checked out the City Hall (didn't bother with going through the security, don't think it's visitor-friendly), the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels (apparently the third largest in the world, very unconventional-looking), and the Walt Disney Concert Hall (home to the L.A. Philharmonic, a beautiful sculpted steel building designed by Canadian Frank Gehry who also did the AGO).

On the way back to the hotel we stopped to have lunch on a patio on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and peered into the windows of big designer brands like Louis Vuitton, Versace, Dior, and so on. In true tourist spirit we also got a picture of a fancy Bugatti (probably belongs to a Saudi prince or oil tycoon or something).

The Getty Centre

Our hotel is a short drive up to The Getty Centre, a expansive and gorgeous estate designed by Richard Meier made up of large grids of unpolished travertine marble, metal and glass. It sits on a hilltop with panoramic views of the mansions of Brentwood and the city of Los Angeles on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other.

Though The Getty houses a lovely collection of artwork including Van Gogh's "Irises" and a beautiful exhibit of celebrity photographer Herb Ritts, for me it's always been about the architecture, how the light comes through the interior space, and the way the artwork is presented. The Getty Centre is now one of my top three favrouites and you can see why:

University of California Los Angeles

We flew in late last night and crashed at an airport hotel, got a good night's sleep and made our way to Brentwood, just west of L.A., where we're staying the next seven nights at "Hotel Angeleno" (4 stars + free WiFi + free "wine hour" + free shuttle within a 3-mile radius = pretty awesome).

The hotel's a 5-minute drive to Westwood where UCLA is headquartered. The campus is this massive sprawl of lush green lawns & ancient trees, stoned terraces & beautiful red brick buildings, all happily drenched in sunshine 300 days a year. There was something so very American about the campus and though I didn't quite know what it is, I liked it.

As we walked around the campus we finally began to realize: this is where we're going to live for the next couple of years -- in Cali-freaking-fornia. Pretty cool, huh? :)

We are moving to California!

We found out at the beginning of February that Mike had been accepted into the 2-year MBA program at the Anderson School of Business at UCLA, then two months went by in the blink of an eye and it's not really sunken in until now: We are moving to California!!

More specifically, we are moving to L.A., baby! The UCLA campus is just west of Los Angeles, closer to Beverly Hills and about 6 miles to Santa Monica beach. The temperature averages between 15-25°C with roughly 330 days of sunshine a year (what?!).

Classes start in September and over the course of the next two years, Mike will be taking up a concentration in Real Estate and be one of the 260 or so students in Anderson's MBA Class of 2014. 

Technically it's been in the works for a few years now. The idea of getting an MBA was always on Mike's mind, even while we were living in England. He started seriously thinking about applying when we'd come back to Canada and then began studying for the GMAT last summer. Most of September and October was spent writing and re-writing applications followed by months and months of waiting to hear back. When we finally did, it didn't feel real for a while and then there was all this paperwork, getting our finances in order, etc. But now everything's pretty much finalized and we are feeling super psyched!!

And what is Sunny going to do in L.A., you ask? Well, as it turns out I won't be allowed to work on my spouse visa. So I guess I'll be sitting around in the sun, sleeping and eating and doing nothing all day, every day! Hahaha, only [kind of] kidding. I haven't thought about it much but I'm very good at finding things to do so I'm not too worried. I'm hoping to maybe audit some courses, get to know the city, make some friends, look into becoming a certified translator, do some volunteering, get in shape, do everything I always put off until "later", have some fun, and maybe learn how to cook?? Hahaha, we'll see about that one.

We actually don't know a whole lot about California really. We have a pile of guidebooks from the library that we're working through and from what we can see, it looks pretty amazing! And the glorious weather!

Now I know you're going to hate us, but on top of moving to California, we're also going to take a 4-month vacation... To be fair, it's not exactly a full-out "vacation" per se, more like a nice, long, overdue family visit. I've not seen my dad, sister, or brother since we got married in 2007 and the rest of my aunts/uncles/cousins a couple of years before that.

We've been saving for the past couple of years and we figured once Mike starts school, we are going to be quite busy and also very, very poor so this is kind of our chance to go back to Taiwan for a while to see my family. And while we're over on that side of the world, we figured we might as well go see China for the first time too! 

Yes, I know, we suck. But here's our agenda in case you decide to join us for any part of the fun:
April 18th-26th: Los Angeles for orientation, scope out the area, etc.
April 27th-June 10th: Taiwan for 7 weeks to hang out with all the fam
June 10th-July 26th: China for 6 weeks to see all the sights
August: Cottage time in Canada with family/friends
End of August: Move to L.A.!

So yep, that's the latest news. I'm done work now and Mike's finishing up with BMO by Easter. We are scrambling to get everything organized for our trip and for the move (can't believe we're leaving in three weeks' time!). You'll be hearing from me as I work through my Inbox and plan moving sales and going-away dinners and BBQs and such, but in the meantime, don't be shy, get in touch and say hello!

The Year 2012...

I've been crap lately at keeping up with people and things... particularly so with the blogging. Apologies to those who check in on us every now and then -- I shall strive to be better.

2011 ended quietly somewhere between holiday parties, family gatherings. Mike bought us a fancy "compact system camera" -- the Panasonic Lumix GF2 to upgrade us from the world of Sony Cybershit (as Willy refers to it) and I got suckered into Apple with my very own iPod Touch, a Christmas gift courtesy of Yvonne, my too-generous boss. Our nephew Alex turned one and started walking on his own (you really start to feel how quickly time flies when there's a baby around) and Kyle & Masa moved away to Slovenia.

And now, before I've had a chance to reconcile another year's passing, we're already more than a month into the new year. I've decided not to set any resolutions this year and just let it bring whatever it may. Let's see how this goes.

Six weeks until Christmas

Apparently it's only six weeks until Christmas. Honestly don't know where the time goes. Finally it looks like things are winding down so we're looking forward to having nothing on the agenda for the next little while. I've spent today responding to emails that have been sitting in my Inbox for the last few months and going through our receipts and all that fun stuff, hope I can stay on top of things a little better this time around. In the meantime, here's a photo of us back about a month ago downtown Vancouver before we started our bike tour along the sea wall in Stanley Park.

Adventures in Wagarville

Last weekend we went home to Kingston and took a day trip to Wagarville, Ontario which is about an hour's drive north. Mike's Grandpa Wagar grew up on a farm here and we saw the old house they used to live in. I've been wanting to go for years and Gramma's always tried to dampen my expectations: "If you blink you'll miss it!" and though that's quite true--seeing as the sign was hand-written on a piece of 2x4--I'm really glad we all went out there on this bright sunny day.

Na zdravje ("Australia") Slovenija!

We've just come back to Toronto after spending an amazing week in beautiful Slovenia. We stayed in a small village in the low mountains near the capital city of Ljubljana where Kyle & Masa got married.

We were completely blown away by the varied landscapes of this tiny ex-Yugoslavian country which is sandwiched between Italy & Crotaia: cobbled streets and riverside patios, stalagmites in the karst caves of Postojna, a castle built into the side of a cliff, glacial lakes and pretty villages... One day we would be swimming in the salty waters of the Adriatic Sea and the next we were high up in the Julian Alps.

And what do you know, the cheap beers and yummy foods really weren't so hard to adjust to either! ;)

Catching up with life...

Time is such a bizarre concept. Days, weeks, months, years... they all seem to go by so quickly. Whenever I think about time, John Lennon's lyrics always echo in my head: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Despite having a reputation as a Type-A Listmaker and getting a bit OCD with making plans in my day-to-day life, I never put too much thought past the next year or two because who knows what's going to happen. Lately so much seems so trivial and I've kind of let go of all the little things because I just couldn't be bothered. But the carrying over of lists from week to week is getting to me and now I feel the need to catch up just so I feel more OK about things. So here we go.

End of May Europe Trip
It was such a treat to travel again, and especially going back to all these great cities we've been to before brings back so much nostalgia. I'd nearly forgotten what it's like to be somewhere else in the world and how good it is to associate certain memories with certain places. On our 10-day trip, we caught up with many good friends, cuddled a super cute baby named Ollie, stumbled onto the set of Ryan Reynolds's new movie, and spent some time in the beautiful countryside in Alsace for the lovely wedding of my dear friends Celine & Matthieu. Here's a slideshow of photos from our trip to London, Oxford, Paris, Colmar, and Strasbourg (some of which I snuck in from my archives because we didn't take as many pictures of the sights this time around):



Feel-Good Movies
Nothing quite like submersing one's self in brainless movies when you're feeling down. Especially the kind of feel-good rom-coms that your husband can't stand and that you've already seen before several times (e.g., "Stranger than Fiction", "Bridget Jones's Diary", "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", etc... yes I know, don't judge me), it's just nice to just switch off for a couple of hours and be in movieland where everything's just peachy and predictable.

Pretty Flowers
This is such a great time of year for flowers. Everything's coming from the local farms and it all looks so fresh, cheery and gorgeous. I loved the softness of the peonies that came earlier in the summer but I also can't get over the vibrant dahlias that are in season now. I must say it is kind of awesome to get to be around pretty flowers all day.

New Music
When it comes to music I normally stick to what I know and love but lately I find myself to be a lot more open to listening to new music. In fact, some of the stuff the girls have playing at the store from their iPods has really grown on me. Right now I'm listening to a mixture of Tallest Man on Earth, Mumford & Sons, First Aid Kit, Paolo Nutini, Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Iron & Wine, Xavier Rudd, and Nick Drake. Of course I still have my staples but I'd forgotten how cool it is to hear a piece of music for the first time and love it.

Cutest Picture Ever
Maybe I'm biased here, but is this not the cutest picture you've ever seen? This is Baby Alex having a bath in the kitchen sink and the kind of thing that makes me forget how gross changing poopy diapers is and makes me wish he will stay little forever:

Weddings Galore
I don't know why I always think summer stays around for a while... this is Canada and I ought to know better by now, but is it really the second week of August already? We're going to three weddings over the next three weeks which is pretty great as I do love weddings. For the grand finale of the summer, we get to travel to somewhere neither of us have ever been before! Slovenia -- the land of mountains, lakes, caves, cobbled streets and castles. The pictures look ridiculous and we are super psyched for our trip which is just a short three weeks away! :o)

Espresso Cups
Is it weird that I don't drink coffee but collect espresso sets? I don't go out of my way to find them but when I see one I like, I buy it. Then I make Mike rotate through the collection so they all get used equally (I decided a while back that I wasn't going to be one of those people who collect things just to gather dust) when he's quite happy to use the same cup over and over again. This one is one of my favourites. I picked it up from a sale rack for $3 because it had hippos on it and looked cute. I wouldn't have realized if Mike hadn't pointed out to me that there's a hippo on the inside of the cup that looks like he's bathing in mud when the cup is full. I very much HEART it. I'm pretty simple, huh?