kahunaville.net

A short 2 days after getting back into the Bay Area from Asia, Jen and I made a trip out to New York to go to Girish and Angie’s wedding and to play. It was my first trip to New York outside of winter and even though I was still sick from my return trip from asia, I had a great time helping Jen eat our way through New York. The Iroqouis New York made the stay really excellent. It’s a small but very well run hotel just a short walk from Times Square. We hit up Joe’s Pizza (from Spiderman), the Clinton Street Bakery, two different dumpling places on our “dumpling crawl,” Shake Shack and a bunch of other places. Avenue Q was a nice addition too. =) So what do you do with a BA in English?

DSC_0635, originally uploaded by enderMC.

After a brief but very memorable trip to Japan, Alex and I headed to Thailand on July 10th. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I had all that great of a time and think I would have rather stayed in Japan for a few more days. Bangkok was just too much of a contrast to Japan’s clean, courteous and efficient culture. Bangkok was far from that. We did get some pretty awesome suits made though which brought back memories of Marshall at Barney’s back-of-the-pet-store taylor. =)

I did make a last minute trip to Phuket on my own for some diving. Unfortunately the Viking hotel was closed. Yeah, there was a giant viking helmet on the front of the hotel. Haha. My 2 dives at Racha Yai were nice but I’ll have to go back and do the Phi Phi islands sometime.

DSC_0605, originally uploaded by enderMC.

July was a very busy month. There were two weddings (one on each coast of the US), a trip to Asia with Alex, keg kickball and of course a giant move out to Pittsburgh, PA. Not to be confused with Pittsburgh, CA. But I’ll just cover Mt. Fuji for now…

This little adventure started out at the crack of dawn on July 7th where we caught a bus out of Tokyo to make our way to the trailhead on Mt. Fuji. We started hiking around noon and made our way up to the mountain hut in the early afternoon - about a 4 hour hike. Our Japanese guide was leading us at a snails pace but the view was too gorgeous for me to care too much. After a quick dinner, we napped till midnight to continue our climb in the dark. The point was to get to the top and be able to watch the sunrise from the top of Mt. Fuji. Unfortunely, after another 4 hours, we were just surrounded by clouds. A sunrise from the top will have to wait for another trip. =) All in all it was a pretty fun climb and brought back memories of Mt. Whitney, Shasta and Olympus from my Boy Scout days. That would take another trip out to Japan which I think I could manage. Yum. =)

Flashback back to March: It was another crazy weekend to mark year 26 of my life. It started out with 2 dinners on Friday night (Japanese and then In-n-out), separated by bowling at Strike in Cupertino with Hubert and Yi-fang. That was followed by a 5-hour night of sleep in order to wake up at 6am and then drive out to Monterey for the Big Sur Mud Run with Annie and Tanya. It was a chilly Saturday morning but the run, obstacles and uber-dirtiness was totally worth it. =) Brunch at First Awakenings made for the perfect Saturday morning. Yum. Good choice Alex and thanks for taking the photos.

On a normal weekend, running a morning 10k and brunch would have been more than enough to make for a great day. Haha. But these have been anything but normal weekends.

And the flashbacks continue. So how does one celebrate their birthday? Obviously, there’s no secret formula but let me describe how the big 2-6 unraveled. It started with a teaser, 2 months in advance and with a How I Met Your Mother reminiscent countdown to March 22nd. And on the day of, it began as a 3 mile jog on a warm spring day at Crissy Field. That was followed by a haircut and brunch in the Haight. After that, a short nap and it was time for dinner at Osha’s and a night that certainly lived up to the hype at none other than our classic hangout - Dragonbar.  It was very strange and very odd to see so many familiar faces under one roof.  It was… well Legendary.

The Birthday Party

So what happens after a night of shenanigans? Well… seeing as it was Easter Sunday in San Francisco, there was only one thing left to do: Bring Your Own Big Wheel 2008. I first heard about this ridiculous event last year and took my camera with me to document the madness. I promised myself that I would do it the next year and so Alex and I got on our trusty plastic Dora the Explorer tricycles and hit Vermont Street like there was no tomorrow. =) And in our Halloween costumes of course. It was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever done in San Francisco and one of the most fun. I love this place. Thanks for the photos Girish.

Bring Your Own Big Wheel 2008, originally uploaded by patangay.

Yeah it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted anything here so I’ve got a bunch of catching up to do. I’ve been asked by more than a few times the past month about what it feels like to be 26. To be honest, I was slightly afraid of sliding down the other side of the quarter-life hump but so far, this grand year has been nothing short of epic (all-rise baby!). Haha.

The beginning of this adventure started on the set of one of the greatest shows of all time…. How I Met Your Mother. My awesome sister and boyfriend had planned a 30th birthday party for her at Big Bear so I flew down to help ring in my sister’s thrd decade. But before heading up to the mountains, Bobby and I got a tour of the set at Fox Studios where we checked out MacLaren’s Irish Pub and Ted and Marshall’s apartment. To top off the ice cream sunday of awesomeness, my sister baked me a cake for my birthday.  Haha.

Bobby and I at Ted and Marshall’s apartment

Julia and I at Snow Summit

20080218-IMG_0049, originally uploaded by enderMC.

Snowday #9: Apparently, the groundhog was wrong. Diana, Joanna and I made a day trip up to Sierra and were met with 40-50 degree weather. Gorgeous blue skies and warm melting snow. For D’s snowboarding debut, I strapped on a snowboard for the first time in more than two years and tore up some blues. Oh yeah! Topping off the trip was a burrito from Dos which was just icing on the cake of awesomeness that my Monday was made up of. Cheers to old friends.

20080209-DSC_8986, originally uploaded by enderMC.

For some reason, I seem to only see the east coast in the dead of winter. And my seventh trip or so to the east was, like the others, freakishly cold. I started off in Philadelphia to stay with Steve who gave me the grand tour of the town: Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell (no, I did not lick it but the thought did cross my mind), cheese steaks at Pat’s (wit, with whiz), the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Rocky Steps and last, but certainly not least… Morimotos. mmmm… kobe beef carparccio.

After two days in Philly, I headed off to Pittsburgh to visit Dave who showed me around CMU. I was lucky enough to visit on one of the coldest days they’ve seen all winter. It was 6 degrees and it felt like it. Played some volleyball, suited up, ate some good thai food, more cheese steaks, hung out with Jai and bought some chocolate covered bacon. Yeah… it tastes just like it sounds - very odd. If there’s one thing that visiting in the dead of winter taught me was that I’m sure I could survive the cold there. Whether or not I’ll have to the next couple years, well that has yet to be decided.

Fresh tracks, originally uploaded by enderMC.

Day 7: P, Annie and I made our way to Kirkwood on Saturday in a small break in the stormy weather we’ve been having the past week. We found moderate wind and blue skies when we got there which was great but the best thing of all were the fresh tracks we were able to make down some of the Cornice runs. I joyfully ate it 3 times in the deep powder on my first run down. Haha. Well worth it.

On a side note: Acuras in San Francisco are pretty unsafe places to leave valuables. The stock alarm - useless. Last week, I had to bid farewell to my little camera, my Timbuk2 bag, my laptop, my sunglasses, my old Ipod, my ski jacket, my CDs and my groceries. But at least I still have my car… so thanks for that and thanks for leaving my ski poles but I hate you for taking my animal crackers.