Entries Tagged 'Travel' ↓

It’s been a while since I translated a chapter of my dad’s story of how we immigrated to America and started a new life.  This is a bonus  story he wrote at the end of Chapter 3 that doesn’t have much to do with his new college life.  Anyway, it is an episode in our lives that is worth mentioning.  For more of my dad’s narrative see the category marked Fifteen Years in America. Enjoy!
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In the winter of 1992, I received an acceptance letter from Kap’iolani Community College.  Since I was an international student, I did not qualify for the inexpensive in state tuition.  The rate for international students was more than $1000 per semester.  Registration was due on 1/13 and classes started on 1/18.  When I was about to start school, two events happened.  One was a good thing, and the other was not.

First let me explain the joyous event.  When Helen was in college during the late 1970s she was a translator for a group of American educators that visited China.  Because of this she met an elementary teacher from Pensacola, Florida named Betty.  Betty’s husband was a retired military man of the United States Air Force.  At that time Betty was more than 60 years old but she was extremely interested in China.  After she met Helen she was quite interested in Helen’s education and life.  They became penpals for many years.  Even after we were married they kept on writing each other.  After Xin was born Betty was quite interested in Xin’s growth and education.  Everytime Xin had a birthday she would send some books and gifts.  When Helen arrived in Hawaii, the person that came to pick her up from the airport was Betty’s good friend.

After Xin and I came to America, Betty wrote us a letter saying that she is preparing a surprise for Xin.  Right before Christmas we received a letter from Los Angeles from a woman named Lynn.  In the envelope there were three roundtrip tickets from Hawaii to LA and three tickets to Disneyland worth 56 dollars each.  The letter said that we were invited as guests of the Presbyterian Church to a Christmas in Los Angeles.  Later we found out that this was the surprise Betty was talking about.

This was our first Christmas in America.  Lynn had a Ford, and she drove us from the Los Angeles Airport to her home.  Lynn is also a elementary school teacher, and her husband is a professor at UCLA.  They have two children, one boy and one girl.  The boy is the older child and his name is John.  He just graduated from college and his major was English.  However, he joined a fishing company and worked on the oceans as a fisherman.  I heard from Lynn that being a fisherman is hard and dangerous work and the pay was not spectacular, but John was  young and wanted to broaden his experience.  His parents thought that it was a good idea and did not protest.  At that time, I honestly didn’t understand the mindset of American parents.  I always thought that when children graduate from college they should go to graduate school and join academia, and I would never allow my child to do such hard and dangerous work.  However, after being in America for a while I understood more of the American educational system.  I think perhaps this type of hard labor is a lesson   American parents hope that their children could learn.  Perhaps in those dangerous waves, John could receive the inspiration Hemingway had when he wrote “The Old Man and the Sea”.

That week, Lynn’s church had a volunteer to drive us somewhere every single day.  We went to Disneyland and Xin was extremely excited and had a wonderful time.  Additionally,  we toured Hollywood and went to many different museums.  Nevertheless, that Christmas we were extremely happy.  I wanted to thank Lynn and her family for being such gracious hosts so I bought a chicken from the supermarket and made a Chinese style roast chicken.  I put many different ingredients and also sticky rice inside the stomach of the chicken and baked it for three hours until the skin was crispy and brown.  Lynn’s family tasted my chicken and praised it quite a bit, and said that I should visit them more often.

We could never forget that event and Betty’s love for our family.  A little over five years ago I and Helen visited Betty in Florida.  At that time, she was more than 80.  I cooked several Chinese dishes for her and when she heard that we both had great jobs and Xin was studying at UC Berkeley she felt very relieved.  Today, even though Betty already left us, her smiles and voice is still often remembered in our family.

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Addendum from Xin:  I still remember that Christmas really clearly even thought it has been more than fifteen  years because it was beautiful.  The funniest moment I remember was that Lynn’s family sat down to pray over the food, and my dad didn’t quite understand it.  So when they said something like, “Thank you for this food”, my dad blurted out something like “no problem!” because he cooked the chicken.  My mom was embarrassed and then explained it to him later.  It’s still pretty funny when I think of it.

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This story comes from my friend The Retirement Hobo.  He has really finished working and is now traveling around Asia like a retirement hobo should.  He is sending his friends emails and I really liked this story so I asked him if I could post this story on my blog.  He said YAHHH!!! So here it is!
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Just wanted to share one day with you all.

A few days ago, a friend introduced me to his private mountain.  That’s right, a mountain.  He bought it years ago as an investment property but the license fell through and now he turned it into a farm where he and his family can camp out and eat fresh organic vegetables and tropical fruits he grows and barbecue fresh farmed trout from their pond.

We entered the gate that marked the mountain he owned…that’s right, a mountain…and it was so nice.  The weather was semi-tropical, a slight mist in the air, with the sunset beaming the day’s last rays through the myriad of trees, scattering light onto the stone path.  We drove a few hundred meters and reached his man-made cottage and barn.  There was some ducks and geese chilling by the lake and a bunch of vegetables and fruits growing in an orchard.

One of the fruits, when literally translated from Chinese (neither of us knew the English name) is called the “Fire Dragon Fruit” and was named because of its fire-reddish color that mixed in shades of orange and yellow (kinda like a mango) and it’s skin made it seem like it had scales (kinda like an artichoke).  It grew on a huge cactus that vined around and its flower was a huge tropical-looking red blossom (kinda like that plant that kills you in the movie, Jumanji).

His cottage had electricity and running water somehow (I’m guessing magic), and he put on a hot pot of water to boil some organic fresh tea he picked straight up from the garden.  We took a little hike and he pointed out the pond of fish, a waterfall and a creek, and various small reptiles and lizards.

We settle down on his porch and he tells me to get ready for some show that his magical mountain…that’s right, a magical mountain…was about to start.  He turns off all the lights and we wait.  A steady stream of water, frogs ribits, and other loud insects keeps the silence away while we wait.  Then a flicker of light flashes in the trees…too quick and sudden to be the sun, which has already completely set.  Then slowly, a chorus of small flashing lights, like lighters at a P-Diddy concert remembering B.I.G. while he raps “I’ll be missing you”, lights up the mountain.  Turns out, it was mating season for fireflies and his private mountain….that’s right, fireflies….was one of the few places left that had the right amount of water, humidity, firefly food for us to view them in the density that we saw.

Thousands of lights twinkle on and off lighting the forest.  We were able to catch them in our hands and make them flash lights to the music of Kanye West’s “Stronger” bumping from my iphone.  Well….not really, but we were able to catch them and that was kinda cool.

Anyways, that was one of my better days.  I hope the excruciatingly painful details I provided was a good alternative to my usual banter of falling off fences, psychobabble about father and son, and dudes that looks like ladies.  I’ll write some direct replies to your emails now too since I have all day on the internet today.

Until next time, kids.

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The more I drive on these crazy Northern California highways the more thankful I am to God that I am alive. Everything related to our cars was going quite well this month.  For example, the hubby and I have both been driving slower on the highways and we saved quite a bit of gas.  I haven’t had to refuel for a month now.  The hubby’s point for an accident three years ago also came off his record a few weeks ago so we got his car insurance lowered.  Just when I thought that we were on a roll…

Today I got on the 101 north  as usual and started driving fairly normally between 55 to 65 miles per hour on the right lane.  As I neared the Holly exit in San Carlos I saw a paint can  and some other metal strut fly off the rear of a car in the lane left of me.  It was about 4 or 5 cars away and so I slowed down a bit, however, the can and some other debris kept on tumbling in my lane and I swerved a bit to the right.  I guess I didn’t swerve enough because I heard a loud bang, and I felt my car sink to the ground on the left.

I felt that my wheels were on the asphalt so I slowed down more and pulled over to the shoulder.  It turns out that the debris slashed both of my tires on the driver’s side.  Then I saw at least 20 cars behind me swerving into the shoulder to avoid the debris.  I guess my car was really the only one that got damaged because the debris stopped moving after I hit it. At first I thought that I didn’t have my cellphone, but I found it in my purse and called my hubby first to tell him what happened and asked him to send an email to my manager.  Then I called my insurance company to report the incident.  They sent a towtruck for me, and luckily the carshop I usually go to was only 2 miles away.  So I called my carshop (A+ Japanese Auto in San Carlos)  to say that I was sending over my car.

Anyway, I felt better once I got into the towtruck since the driver was kind of funny.  He said he went to an accident scene on highway 280 last week where a portapotty fell off a truck and splattered 3 to 4 cars.  The car in the front of the pile had crap all over it and he said to the driver, “well this is a crappy situation”.  That made the driver and her dad laugh quite a bit.  At least my car only had its tires slashed and the rest of it looked fine.

The whole impact of how lucky I was started hitting me as I sat in the office of A+ Japanese Auto.  I don’t know why it is but I tend to be extremely calm when crazy things are happening but think about it and panic over it later.  My car could have flipped over from the tire popping (in fact that has happened to one of my dad’s friends), or if the debris landed straight in the lane left to me maybe a car in that lane might have swerved and smashed into my car.  The possibilities of a giant highway  disaster were countless.   The carshop took in my car and they will inspect the undercarriage and fix my tires. So now my car is safely parked in their garage.  They also gave me a ride to work since I was only a few miles away from my office.

At the office my boss said to me, “I am glad you are alive!”  Well, I am, too.  I told my mother in law about it and she said she prays for traveling mercies for me and the hubby and his sister everyday.  I am really thankful that someone was watching over me.

This incident will probably set me back a few hundred dollars since my insurance has a $500 deductible, but that’s really the last thing on my mind now.  I am a little sad that all four tires have to replaced because they are fairly new, but I am sure my carshop will do a good job with my car since I have had my car serviced by them for a while now and their service has been consistently good.

Anyway, that’s the story of my crazy morning, and I am extremely grateful that I am alive to tell it to you.  I hope you were entertained!

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The hubby and I did do some fun stuff on our weekend to Vegas. On Saturday we went to a company sponsored party and then we saw the Cirque du Soleil show Mystere at Treasure Island at night. There are at least five Cirque shows in the various hotels, but my manager and coworker recommended Mystere because I have never seen a live Cirque du Soleil show before. When we were purchasing the tickets online my husband said, “Wait a minute, I know why you chose Mystere! It’s the cheapest show!!! I can read your mind!!!” That wasn’t entirely true, but we managed to get very good seats and had a blast at the show. There was a good amount of hilarious clowning, razor sharp acrobatics, and gorgeous aerial performances. Then there was taiko drumming and the live music was quite amazing. I really think the show had it all and I would definitely go see another Cirque du Soleil show in the future.

It is funny when I see on TV that kids say they want to run away with a circus. I completely understand the romanticism and adventure associated with being part of a circus. You get to dress up in pretty costumes, travel the world, and make people happy! However, I also know that it involves a lot of hard work because my dad has a group of friends from a national level circus from China. In 1989 the troupe was performing with the Big Apple Circus in the United States, and several acrobats and just walked out of the last show and defected along with a translator. They were allowed to stay in the United States and then other acrobats of the same troupe were invited to the United States later as teachers and performers. I met the ringmaster of those acrobats once, and he is a pretty amazing guy. He was already 50 something when he was invited to the United States as a teacher and didn’t know the alphabet or any English. Through determination, he managed to learn English phonetically by writing down each sound in Chinese characters and now he speaks quite fluently. He also handpicked many of the performers in his troupe. One younger acrobat told me that he was sent by his parents to train as a gymnast for the Chinese national team, but he was eliminated when he was 10. Every year the ringmaster goes to the gymnast training center and finds new performers for his group and picked him. Most of them have been training every day for 10 to 12 hours a day since they were five and the circus is their family in every way. They managed to mostly stay together and was hired to teach at an acrobatics and performance arts school in San Francisco called the Circus Center. Now after nearly 20 years, their students have performed in Cirque du Soleil and other shows around the world.

I think I appreciated the Cirque show even more because I know the amount of training the performers put into their art. It is a real career path that takes a lot of hard work and passion, but having sold out shows must be quite rewarding. So if you
ever run away with a circus, make sure you are ready for some grueling work!

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Well, I just got back from Sin City, and it was certainly an interesting experience. I have never seen such a decadent place where people indulge in spending money, and I was rather bewildered. Overall, we had a great time because our trip was paid for by the hubby’s company, but we did experience somewhat of a Baglady incident on the first night there. My hubby told me that I should blog about it, and so here it is.

As I said in my roundup post, the hubby made reservations for us at a very nice restaurant at the Bellagio called Picasso. It is a restaurant featuring Spanish-French cuisine and almost a dozen real Picasso artworks valued at over $100 million dollars. I was pretty excited about it because good food is really one of my weak spots. The hubby read the description of the restaurant on Bellagio’s site and it said that the dress code is business casual. The meaning of business casual in Silicon Valley is really “extremely casual”. We regularly go to work in jeans, T-shirts, and flip flops and no one really cares. So the hubby and I showed up in our normal clothes. I was wearing a long sleeved shirt with slacks and the hubby wore jeans and a polo. When we got to the door of the restaurant it hasn’t opened yet, but as more patrons showed up we realized we were sort of underdressed. We figured that it didn’t matter very much because we have been to many top restaurants in Northern California wearing what we usually wear and never had any problems. So we walked in when the doors opened and the hubby gave his name for the reservation. The blonde hostess smiled and then said, “Sir, we do have a dress code here. We don’t allow jeans and t-shirts. Would you like to change into something nicer and come back?” The thing is, we didn’t really bring anything fancy because we are used to being casual. The hubby was not pleased, and he said, “well, we are staying at a different hotel, and we didn’t really bring anything nicer.” Then the blonde woman looked at another waiter and said, “Patio?” The waiter nodded and seated us on the patio.

The hubby fumed about it for a little and said, “Man, that’s pretentious! It really pisses me off that they felt that they needed to herd us to somewhere unseen when all we want to do is to pay them a bunch of money for their food!” I definitely agree with him, and I think restaurants should spell out their dress codes better than just “business casual”. I found the whole thing kind of hilarious because men were showing up in heavy wool jackets when the arid desert temperature of Las Vegas was nearly 80 degrees. A woman showed up with a dress emblazoned with so many sequins that she looked like a mermaid, and yet another woman wore a tiny purple cocktail dress that barely covered her butt crack. Somehow, we were the inappropriately dressed weirdos in the whole charade. We did see another couple that got herded to the table next to us. The man was wearing nearly the same thing as the hubby. Since they came after us we don’t know if the woman at the door asked him to change, but I am betting that they got seated next to us because the man’s clothing matched ours.

I have to say that the rest of the meal turned out to be quite amazing because the patio gave us a front row seat to the Bellagio’s water fountain show. The service by the waiters was excellent and the food was quite good.  I still prefer some of the restaurants in Napa better, but the hubby said that Picasso’s food beats Napa for him, but then again he hasn’t visited French Laundry yet. I have to say that Picasso really can’t compare to French Laundry at all.  Actually I think the food is slightly worse than Auberge du Soleil, but Picasso did have a nice view of the Bellagio fountains.     In the end, we were given a box of treats in a cute little box and the hubby said that the restaurant has pretty much redeemed itself for asking us to change. However, he did say, “I got to taste something new there, class discrimination.”

So this is not really a total Baglady incident because Picasso did serve us, but it was still unnecessary for them to offend us before the meal. We know that they probably seated us because they didn’t want to lose our money, but it’s funny to me that I probably would not have been asked to change if I dressed more like a hooker rather than an engineer going to work. It does make sense because prostitution is legal in Las Vegas and business casual for a working girl is something that barely covers the naughty bits. I guess the hubby and I just don’t understand the class system in Las Vegas, and we had somewhat of a culture clash there. In the end, our money is real, and the food is real, and that’s what mattered to me.

How about you? Have you ever encountered a “Baglady incident” where you were refused or almost refused service because of what you wore? Feel free to rant here.

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