home is where the heart is

here i am back in san francisco after a crazy month of packing, traveling, unpacking and now finally getting settled in. i tried to pack my last month in new york full of activities...going to the met, watching wicked, going to a jazz club, central park walks, etc. needless to say, there were still a list of things that i wish i had had time to do. the hardest part was saying good by to my friends there the last night-even harder leaving to go to the airport.

i flew straight from new york to london to visit tony and caroline and unknowingly watched friends with benefits as my first movie on the plane. from saying goodbye to my roommates and my friends, i was already full of emotion and parched from crying. for those of you who havent seen the movie, the first part of friends with benefits is mila kunis showing justin timberlake around nyc so there are shots of all the scenic awesome places in new york.....yeah another tear fest!

my blog about my trip to paris and london will have to wait until tomorrow!

turning a new leaf

it's been three years since i moved to this crazy city and after all the whining and griping about wanting to be back in san francisco, i am finally making the move back. it's funny that when the opportunity was given to me, i actually went back and forth and was mentally tormented for days. i made lists of pros and cons and i talked to everyone and anyone about it. the bottom line was that i was literally handed the thing i wanted most on a silver platter and i needed to take it.

i have a lot of mixed feelings about leaving this city. i think my first year and a half i was hating it and really wanted to go home. then i started to meet more people and hang out with certain people consistently and felt more comfortable with the city and my job. although i don't yet feel that i'm ready to leave, a part of me does wonder when i would exactly have been ready (if ever). i have yet to figure out what more i wanted out of the city in order to make me "ready" and i will not be able to find out....and i think i am content with that.

regnar socal

a few weeks ago i did this crazy race called the regnar relay. picture this: 12 people, 2 vans, 200 miles...TWO DAYS. and i basically got 2 hours of sleep the whole time.

whats crazier is i cant wait until next years race!

nola

so it doesnt look like i have anymore room to take pics everyday and post them! how unfortunate....buuuut that doesnt mean i cant still write!

so in my previous post i mentioned that i had just gotten back from new orleans. it was my first time there and i had the time of my life! it was never a place i desired to go but boy am i glad i did.

i traveled with my good friend hana to go to jon kong's wedding. i had met hana through jon and jon i met through monica. the two of them were child hood friends back in toronto. monica, jon and a few of his friends and i met in vegas in 2005 (or was it 2006?) and then again when we went to austin, tx and when he would visit sf.

first off, new orleans (aka nola) was HOT and humid. i did a lot of sweating and smelling but stupidly only brought one casual outfit and three dresses. packing fail on my part....

day 1-we checked into the hotel and headed out to EAT. jon had told us about a restaurant called stanley's that had the best soft shell crab po' boys. we ordered one of those and soft shell crab eggs benedict. both were super yum but semi heavy. the best part about the meal was the hot sauce! (crystal's-official hot sauce of the new orleans saints btw). for a linner snack we headed to a place called mother's. it reminded me of katz deli but with soul food. i tasted my first bowl of grits and debris (nola dictionary: debris is the meat and fat drippings off of a roast beef) among other things. that place was awesome-especially for their homemade rasberry jam and biscuits! for dinner we headed to the rehearsal dinner for an authentic crawfish boil! hana and i got there a little late and it was already dark. by that time there was no more carbs left-just a ton of crawfish poured out onto a table. we just ate and ate and ate and there were still a ton of crawfish left! i got to meet hana and jon's uw friends at the boil and we headed out to bourbon street with the promise that jon would come meet us later that night.

wow bourbon street was so crazy awesome it deserves its own paragraph. it totally reminded me of dublin with people all over the place. it was even crazier because there was music blasting from the bars and people on the balconies above throwing beads. (dont worry, no boobs were shown by me and anyone around me) oh and did i mention that alcohol was CHEAP? there were shops that sold hurricanes (=red death) and grenades (=neon green death) and others that looked like a slurpee store but all the slurpees had different types of alcohol in them. so so fun and so so crazy! we ended up at an irish bar with an outdoor area for the night which was a little less crazy.

day 2-nursing my hangover. just kidding! hana and i headed back to mother's to try more of their awesome food. this time we tried the crawfish etouffee even though you would THINK we were sick of crawfish from the night before.

after lunch mon and i decided to go for a run to help us train for our relay race. lemme just tell you that 2 miles in humidity feels like 10 miles. my priss ass is so used to running in the gym that i simply couldnt run the 2 miles! i ended up going to the gym at the hotel to run more and then immediately jumped into the pool (one of the best feelings in the world!)

around 530 we headed to the W for the wedding. it was gorgeous and so was the bride! and true to new orleans fashion we paraded with a jazz band down to the reception dinner restaurant (paul k's which is the number one caterer in nola) i cant rave enough about this meal. it was the best meal ive had in a while. hana ordered the fried green tomatoes and crawfish etouffee. i had the crab cake and the blackened drum. holy crap just thinking about the food makes me salivate. and not to mention the BEST bread pudding for dessert. oh...and it was open bar top top shelf. talk about an awesome wedding.

then it was back to bourbon street and surprisingly back to the same irish bar as before. it was just that fun!!

overall nola = awesome (and way better than vegas) i want to go back. like NOW.

at least one resolution followed through

ive been so blessed this year - its only april and ive been able to travel to cabo, dublin and new orleans! not only that, i can check off my new years resolution of "travel to two new places". how exciting!!!

ji kang ga nai

sometimes i wish there were more hours in the day for me to do stuff besides work. it seems like the few hours after work are so freakin precious and time passes by way to quickly when i dont want it to. meanwhile, i can spend minutes at work just staring at the time or typing away and it seems like FOREVER but its not!! argh.

btw, how the heck is it already april!?

a life without smart phones

today i was in line with my friend grace at whole foods and she asked me if i would be able to go back from a regular phone to a smart phone. i told her that i think i might be thankful for it. i seriously think we are addicted to our phones. im constantly checking it and using it as a "im bored" fix. are our attention spans just getting shorter?

it also REALLY annoys me when im at dinner with people and they are always on their phones. ugh it would be so nice to just have a meal with friends and not worry about who is calling or that email or blah blah. i remember when people used to talk about blackberries and joke they were crackberries. umm...ALL SMART PHONES ARE LIKE CRACK.

cant someone write a column on social etiquette about cell phone use and cant it become taboo to use your cell at dinner? pleeeease?!!?!?