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).
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:
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 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!
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.
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.
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.
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! ;)
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?
Now, seeing as it's been nearly two months without a blog post, I think I will use the sub-headings technique to avoid rambling on incoherently. This is gonna be a pretty huge post--who knows I'll have time to write another one--so feel free to skip through for anything interesting.
April Showers Bring May Flowers I feel like only people's aunts still use this saying but it's been stuck in my head lately. To be honest, I really haven't minded the rain because it's meant that I get to wear my new Hunters. They are yellow and they make me happy. Since I still had pounds in my UK bank account, I got them online from www.countryattire.com (free international shipping!) and for once the shitty exchange rate worked in my favour as they cost me less than $100! (I know that's still quite a lot, but they would've cost me $170 if I'd bought them here!). So yeah, I've been strutting around all over town in these and loving it. Still, can't wait til the "May Flowers" part.
Blue Jays Opening Game
Baseball is boring. It was pretty fun to be there for the Jays opening game at the Skydome (Rogers Centre, whatever) with a few cool new friends and I did feel rather excited at one point in that great big stadium packed with people. But baseball is so boring. The highlight for me was the awesome little red-headed boy singing "O Canada" at the beginning (5:15 in the video clip here). Apparently he plays Billy in the Billy Elliot musical. He was pretty great and I did enjoy the red & white & mounties scene a little bit too:
Bullet for Adolf
My friend Melanie is the set/costume/props designer for a show Woody Harrelson has written and directed called "Bullet for Adolf". I think it's awesome that Mel does what she absolutely loves to do for a living: make puppets, paint scenes, shop for costumes, etc. and so I offered to help her out with the play to get a peek into her world. It was pretty fun and the show is fantastic. Go see it before it finishes its three-week run!
Pretty Flowers & Woolly Pockets
This was a bouquet I'd made for Mike's Dad when we went back to Kingston one weekend and it had all sorts of gorgeous tulips in it along with some amazing dogwood blossoms. I do love that this is what I get to do at work everyday, make pretty things.
It's been pretty busy lately with all the back-to-back holidays: Passover, Easter, Admin Week (it's when you buy flowers to give to your admin staff to say thanks for doing all the things you can't be bothered to do yourself) and next Sunday is Mother's Day already.
In the meantime to celebrate Earth Month we have installed an awesome living wall in the store with the help of Woolly Pockets. These felt pockets are made out of 100% recycled plastic bottles and plants thrive in them. The company is based out of California and they've got some pretty cool photos in their gallery of how people have set up their own living walls so check them out!
The List that Keeps Carrying Over
Having gotten used to the three-day work week for a little while, it's been surprisingly draining to have something to do every day for the past couple of months. I know I should just stop whingeing and get on with it like everyone else, but I feel like I have so much stuff to do and zero time to do them! I guess I self-assign a lot of tasks but I do have things that have to get done... like our tax returns which I've been dreading because we still have an outstanding tax audit (it's only because we had foreign income so they wanted a lot of paperwork to make sure we were paying our taxes properly...). And I also owe a bunch of people emails and our budget spreadsheet needs a serious updating and so on...
The TTC Sucks
People who live in Toronto can identify with this. I can't take the subway anymore (not physically cannot walk myself to the subway and get on it anymore, but mentally it is slowly making me crazy). I am having a hard time remembering the number of times in the past few months when there wasn't a delay of some sort, whether it's a passenger-activated alarm, smoke at track level, or signalling errors... If you're going to charge people $3 to get from A to B, then do whatever you need to do to get them there. And what the F is the point of the PA system if no one can hear what you're saying? Anyway, I know there's no use in complaining and I'm not usually the type, but I'm just a bit worked up about it right now (like that lady on the subway who decided to say it all out loud, quite loud, during rush hour the other day).
After the Gold Rush
I always liked this song but a couple of weeks ago when I heard it again, I fell in love with it. I can't stop listening to it and it calms me down and makes me feel peaceful. I always thought it was so amazing that we all associate different music with different parts of our lives and the people we met at that time and the people that we ourselves were. This is how I feel now. (On a side note, I also absolutely love "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" which is on the same album.)
Baby Alex is Growing Bigger
Alex is now 4 months old and growing bigger everyday! He's a lot more smiley and babbly now and sleeps a bit longer too. He's also just got to meet his Mexican grandparents for the first time which was great! Here he is outside in the sun with the cutest little toque ever, then in my new favourite "like father, like son" photo with his Dad, and finally having some milk with his Grandpa Wagar:
Rupert the Rabbit
Mike spent this week in Kingston to help out around the house: do some gardening, set up mousetraps, spring cleaning and repairs, that sort of stuff. Today he spotted this guy in the backyard and this is a frame-by-frame depiction of Rupert the Rabbit as he crawled underneath the shed. Mike's Dad has long suspected that he lived under there, and now we have proof. Look at that little puff of a tail! And I just love the head-on shot. Too cute.
Fairy Tale Wedding
I didn't know I was such a suck for the whole "and the prince and his princess lived happily ever after" scene but it's now clear to me that I am. I hadn't planned on watching the wedding live but having unexpectedly got the day off work, I thought I'd get up at 5am and see what all the fuss was about. The fuss, let me tell you, was about a real life fairy tale.
It's so crazy when you think about it: that there are still Kings & Queens and Princes & Princesses... and not in some faraway land either, but right across the ocean, in the land where they also have Sainsbury's and football and cream tea and pub quizzes and the best curry ever.
I was absolutely gushing over the bride & groom. Kate looked so gorgeous in that dress and the way they smiled at each other was soooo sweet. And those two little kisses simply made my day (okay, I might have YouTubed them several more times throughout the day, but what's the internet for if not make your heart fill with instant flutter as you pause and replay that balcony moment?). *SIGH*. Love. How wonderful. Next time I get married--Mike's not so fond of throwing another wedding for some reason--I'm gonna have lilies of the valley everywhere (though I also rather like the idea of a garden roses tea party).
Europe-Bound in Three Weeks!
Watching the BBC coverage of the royal wedding seriously made me miss England. Good thing we're going back to Oxford in three weeks' time! Absolutely cannot wait! We've booked most of our 10-day trip already but I've yet to book my flight over. Gonna do that this weekend though and write up an itinerary, then I'll fill you in on all the details! So psyched! :) :) :)
In closing, I leave you with this picture of the biggest strawberry I've ever seen and eaten. That is an almond beside it. It was from H-Mart (we live in Koreatown) and it was delicious.
Right, so it's been a month since my very brief post the week before Valentine's Day. February was a bit of a blur really: the week leading up to the big day we were working like little elves, swimming in a sea of flowers with zero time to stop and smell the roses, and still got completely slammed beyond our expectations on the day of. It then took us a good week to recover from the sleep deprivation and we're glad that it's all over now but I gotta say, the store did look pretty amazing and everything went very well:
Sadly, just before Valentine's Day we'd heard news from Mike's parents that Max hadn't been well and had to go see the vet. Max was a 10-year old Jack Russell that Mike had had since he was a puppy. Poor Max had gone blind by the time he was a year old and also had to deal with things like nerve problems and arthritis on top of that. Max was always such a good sport though, he loved to play and go to the cottage and go for walks and was a big part of the family.
When he'd started to have a hard time standing up, we'd hoped that it was just another thing that the poor puppy would have to sort out and that he'd feel better soon. But one day, Max got really sick and kept whimpering, so Mike's dad had to take him in to put him down which I can only imagine was the hardest thing he's ever had to do because Max really had become his best friend. We went back to Kingston for the long weekend and Max wasn't wagging his tail at the door to say hello when we arrived. No one said anything because we knew we would all just break down.
Max, we miss you very very much and will always remember you.
As though to cheer us all up, baby Alex decided to start smiling a few weeks ago. It's hard to say whether the smiling actually corresponds to feelings of happiness, or whether it's some sort of reflex that comes with farting (which, I suppose, can contribute to feelings of happiness), but either way it is so super cute. Also, how cute and comfy are onesies? I want one for myself so badly. Sue did mention that they had "adult onesies" at Primark for less than a tenner but neither the cow nor the leopard prints sounded all that appealing to me so I'm gonna hold off until they do chocolate brown stripey ultra soft fleecy ones like the one Alex has here:
On Wednesday I sat down and reviewed our budget for 2011/2012 (did I mention that Mike made up a spiffy new Excel spreadsheet for me, with fancy formulas and pivot tables and all? I love it.) and found myself wishing that money grew on trees (or fell from the sky, whatever, I'm not picky). According to my calculations in cell C27, we could theoretically save just enough money to do all the things that we want to do... we just have to be very good with sticking to the budget and not spending money on things like these adorable owl linen bookends that were on sale for half price at Indigo... (to be fair, I'd bought them in February, before I had a proper look at the spreadsheet, you see.)
Anyway, we're going to be good from now on and not go out for dinners/drinks, not buy new clothes and things we don't need, and just focus on studying, doing stuff around the house, exercising and eating well. After all, what is March for if not to re-start New Year's resolutions? ;o)
T minus seven days to V-Day, the single busiest day for flower shops all over the world which also means I'm going to be MIA for the next week or so and working all hours of the day/night in preparation for the big day. It's gonna be lots of fun though, I love the energy and excitement and the little bit of stress that come with Valentine's Day! :o)
Oh, and Happy Chinese New Year of the Rabbit! Thursday was the first day of lunar January technically but Chinese New Year celebrations go on for a couple of weeks so I'm not too late!
I am sitting in the living room looking out the window at the fluffy snow blowing all over the place and it is something like -20 degrees outside which reminds me of last Sunday when we went skating for the first time in years at Mel Lastman Square, ten minutes down the street from us.
It's a funny thing, ice skating... Let's wait til the pond in the backyard freezes over, strap some blades onto the bottom of our shoes, go skate around in circles for a couple of hours then go home and have some hot chocolate. How very Canadian.
What I loved most was all these little foreign kids on the ice. Indian kids, Chinese kids, Persian kids in full skating gear with their parents, who, having grown up in much milder climates never skated before themselves, laced up their skates and watched from the edges of the rink. Little wee hockey skates on a little wee Chinese boy with rosy pink cheeks. Makes me feel just a little bit better about this whole -20 business.
