Waikiki Visitors Bureau

I've been feeling sick for the past few days. Head congestion...you know. Needless to say, I hadn't had the energy to want to do much of anything but I felt I needed to be at this function for Hawaii since I plan events there.

It was AWESOME. Jake Shimabukuro, the grand master of the ukelele performed along with Hapa. But back to Jake. This kid is AWESOME. He brought the noisy room to dead complete silence while he played. check him out... www.jakeshimabukuro.com

Then I had the pleasure of meeting Roy Yamaguchi of the Roy's. He made some lau lau with mango sauce that was delish!!! http://www.roysrestaurant.com/

That was before I met ALAN WONG (Pineapple Room). He's even more awesome!! He made poke over guacamole over crispy fried wonton sprinkled with micro-shiso. His level of spiciness of the poke was PERFECT. Not too hot not too mild. Here's the embarrassing part - i joked with him about giving me a bento box for the poke...and he did!! see picture below. He's awesome. I think i gave him a kiss before i left. Many, many people were yelling at me as I left with my big @$$ container of poke.
http://www.alanwongs.com/pineroom/pine_room.html

goodie bag - i got more food & candy from there PLUS an autographed copy of Jake Shimabukuro's CD. I'll give a listen to it and let you know what I think!!! :) oh yeah...also got a stickpin from Ferragamo's!!

Napa Valley Weekend...

raye, bert, and erin in line for Golden Gate Bakery

Me & Chuck. Charles Shulz' hometown is Santa Rosa!!

I went up to Nor Cal to celebrate my belated birthday. An early wake up call of 3:00am to get to the airport for our 6:00am flight left me a bit loopy.

Bert had wanted to get an early start up North so booked us on a 6:00am (YIKES!!) flight. Needless to say, I was a bit tired. We started off our day with a breakfast at The Omelette Express in Santa Rosa. Great breakfast joint if you're looking for someplace to eat in Sonoma.

My omelette at Omelette Express

We followed that with a visit to Hartford, Davis, Alder Brook (YUCK), and Viader. I swore up and down to Erin, quite self righteously that I wasn't planning on joining a wine club. Yeah. I'm now a member of Viader. Don't ask, kids. It makes no sense to me at all, but for the fact that I tried all of their wines and liked each of them. Very solid wines that I felt comfortable buying.

Some weird art work at Davis Winery

Darn...could my joining the winery club have something to do with the cute dog??

or could it have been the magnificent views??

We finished up our first day at Greystone, the Culinary Institute of America's restaurant in conjunction with Wine Spectator. It was a delightful experience. Very expensive but I really enjoyed the dinner so I thought it was ok. Actually, i enjoyed everything around the actual main course but I think I was so full by the time I got the main course that it was almost wasted on me. (I had the duck, which I deduced to be around $6 per slice). The great stuff was the chef's hors d'oeuvres (yes, miles, that is the way you spell it) and dessert. everything else in between could've been just more hors d'oeuvres and more dessert. :)

erin's french onion soup...

bert's birthday creme brulee

The following day found us with rain and large crowds. We had a late start and I think I got a bit sick from too much coffee. We made it to only 2 wineries because we spent a lot of time at Miner's - another favorite wine of mine. Sadly, I can't remember how many cases of various wines are being shipped to my office. My boss is totally going to think he pays me too much and that I'm a complete wino. *SIGH*...we had a relaxing evening back at the hotel and decided to watch a movie - Letters from Iwo Jima. Pretty good, but I still had to read the subtitles because there were a lot of military words that I didn't understand. Some of the translation wasn't as good as the words they were actually using.

Erin and I decided to go for another movie and watched The Holiday. We both decided that th movie rated, "cute". nothing spectacular or gut wrenching. just mindless cutesy-ness.

We finished our weekend up in San Fran enjoying Chinatown. Yum yum dim sum. We went to a place called Lychee Gardens. Very Crowded...very greasy. but it was yums so I was happy. Bert let us run down to Golden Gate Bakery to pick up some baked goods. again...more pockets of deliciousness.

this is what I love about chinatown...underwear on display everywhere!!

all in all a very good weekend!! can't wait to go back!

flying tips & tricks

I think I'm going to write a book on social etiquette on an airplane...geared mostly for the asian people. I was sitting next to a Korean man who thought farting and sleeping in MY space was ok. seriously...he farted the ENTIRE trip. and it was one of those silent but deadly ones.

There was an old chinese guy (with the full on 2 foot grey foo man chu beard on the chin) sitting in the aisle just next to me who kept hocking up the biggest loogies. I mean, the whole cabin turned around and looked at the old man with horrified expressions on their faces.

Lastly, there was a young asian american dude who was snoring so loud that even my iPod couldn't manage to block. It was maddening. I kept thinking about hitting him with something but i didn't want to get arrested!

Needless to say, I did my best to separate myself from those people. They were all nuts!

Anyhow, some tips/tricks for flying in today's wonderful, hospitable climate:
1.) If you've missed your connection or there are problems with your ticketing, don't immediately start to yell at the ticketing agent. (S)He's doing the best they can for you. They don't want you stuck anymore than you want to BE stuck. REMAIN CALM.

2.) If you've missed your connection and it was the LAST flight out for the evening, figure out what it is you want to do. Unfortunately, the ticketing agent will be unable to pull a flight out of their butts, so just deal with it. Again, don't get snippy with agent because they don't want to help people who treat them like CRAP. Calmly and politely tell the agent what you want to have in replacement for your troubles. And say it with a SMILE.

3.) Keep things light because chances are, you'll be stuck with a lot of people who are in your situation. The big difference is that the ticketing agent will want to help the person who (1) knows what they want and that they are reasonably able to provide, (2) they want to feel like they've been able to help at least one person with what they need, (3) they just want to help someone who is actually being nice to them. BUILD RAPPORT THROUGH JOKES AND LAUGHTER, because face it, people want to help people they actually like and you'll probably be the only one who does.

I'm not saying these things will 100% give you what you want/need but I have to say, while I didn't get upgraded on my flights, they did change my routing to more favorable times/dates. They also gave me some special seats in coach - they were business class seat, complete with foot rests. Everyone was pretty jealous. I think it was an American Airlines 767-300 plane. Row 17... i'll add a photo of the seat later. my blogger is having troubles uploading at work.

Anyhow, although I was the last person up to the stand, I was the first person to be helped because I knew what I wanted; I was polite, calm, and smiling; and I was trying to keep things in perspective with the group - "hey, at least you weren't trying to fly back home to australia like those two over there..." So, because i was the first person to be helped, i also got the last remaining hotel room at a Westin in Milbrae (yes, i had to pay a discounted $75 but it was worth feeling refreshed and ready to go the next morning - they don't pay for Air Traffic Control (ATC) problems...or weather...or any other acts of God...I'm sure they don't pay for "mechanical problems" either. I'm not sure what they're actually responsible for anymore!!).

Anyhow, i'll post more about the trip to NYC later...

London & Budapest

I got some slack for checking emails from vacation. What can I say? At least I will be semi caught up when I get back to work on Monday.

I think E and I were up for almost 24 hours traveling back home on Friday. Ugh. Connecting flights from London is absolutely horrible. Don't ever do it. It's just not worth the hassle. Also, if you've GOT to fly out of London, don't fly out of Gatwick. That airport is HORRIBLE - small, crazy crowds, noisy, and it was under construction while we were trying to navigate through - the lines were the worst! All in all, Heathrow is bad...but Gatwick is worse. :(

Some photos from the trip:

Back of Buckingham Palace

Erin across the Thames from Big Ben/Parliament

Trafalgar Square

Protest photos from Budapest. Very calm as you can see...

Sunset view from my hotel balcony of the Danube and Palace

Parliament (in Pest)

Fisherman's Bastion (in Buda)

budapesht

wine: tokaji - 13% alcohol. phew. feeling a bit on the tipsy side.

food: paprika everything...but it's yummy so i'm not complaining.

thai massage: $50 - what a bargain...i should gone for two.

turkish Bath - $15

Everything is so cheap here, I'm feeling great about our decision to visit!

London, Bratislava & Budapest

London was cool but expensive. *SIGH*. i also wasn't able to put into action my new resolve in trying to be more social. Then again, e & i did so much walking that we were just WIPED out at the end of each day.

We saw Buckingham Palace but was shut out TWICE due to weather for the changing of the guard. As you can see, I was really concerned about matching my shoes with my outfit. After donning a TRASH bag to try to stay dry, i figured anything would really go.

We also saw Avenue Q. If you have a chance to see it in Vegas or New York, I highly recommend it. It was pretty darn funny. Hopefully we'll be able to see another show on our way home.

There's been a lot of walking up and down stairs through the train stations. I regret bringing the 25" suitcase. Next time I go to Europe, I'm definitely bringing the 22" and paring down the amount of clothes. Recycle, Reuse. :(

E had wanted to visit Bratislava since 2004 when we were last in Vienna. I was intrigued so we went. WORST DECISION EVER. The people were so mean and rude there. I've never been to a country where I felt like the scum of the earth. They *HATE* americans...or anyone who speaks ENGLISH. When the immigration officer harshly asked me why we wanted to go to Bratislava, i whined, "i have no idea." We had to walk through an area that looked like the worst projects in Los Angeles. Luckily, a young american by the name of Joey came up to us to ask us if we knew where we were going.

He was traveling on his own for a week visiting with various friends in Europe before he headed off to Korea to teach english. He was a little lost himself but he spoke German so was able to get us to where we needed to go. PHEW. If it wasn't for that kid, I'm sure we'd be dead by now. Seriously, folks...it looks like it was under soviet control. EEEEW. NEVER need to go back there again.

On the flip side, I thought that the political uprising in Budapest would make it really difficult to have a safe and fun time here. So, me being me, i had to check out the scene.

It turns out that what is televised on the news is far worse than what I've experienced. I saw children as young as four and adults as old as eighty. I had no fear for my well-being. Considering the band that they had playing (think Iron Maiden concert...) I would have thought there would have been a lot of anger, pushing, and shoving at this protest. Nope. it was easy to walk around...lots of open space despite the attendance of over 20000 people. Oddly enough, I got a lot of stares. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I was only one of two asian persons there.

I've already met a woman from Brentwood whose husband is a cardiac surgeon at Cedars Sinai...she asked me what I did...where I worked. Wouldn't you just know it. Turns out she knows the Resnicks. Then she unleashed her fury upon me as to why we didn't accept FTD coupons. Next time someone asks me where I work...i'm just going to lie like a rug.

Anyhow, all in all, it's been a good 3 hours that I've spent in the city so far...

human trafficking...

I won't be able to post until next week, but I was reminded of my friends who have been working in Thailand to try to stop human trafficking by providing safe homes for children to go. I know that i post a lot of causes on here but this one is so heart wrenching! That could be your kid out on the streets.

http://www.zoechildrenshomes.org/

Child prostitution is now a worldwide crisis.

Worldwide, it is estimated that up to 1,200,000 children per year are brought into the child prostitution and human slavery industries.1

In the United States alone, it is estimated that 17,500 women and children per year are imported for this heinous work. 2

Human trafficking is an industry so lucrative, that the U.S. intelligence community estimates it will surpass the business generated by the illicit trade in guns and narcotics within the decade.3 Child trafficking is an epidemic that is growing exponentially. Unfortunately, response to this pandemic and awareness of this issue has not kept pace.

It has been said that “Evil prevails when good men do nothing.” Will you help fight for those who cannot fight for themselves?

ZOE Children’s Homes is a division of ZOE, an international Christian organization. The Children’s Homes were launched to proactively rescue children who are at risk of being sold into human slavery and/or child prostitution. Our first goal is to provide a loving and safe atmosphere. We then educate, motivate and model servant leader principles. With your help, a new generation of leaders can be raised up to help stop these crimes against humanity.

1 UNICEF www.unicef.org/protection/index_exploitation.html

2 US Department of State www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2005

3 Pathbreaking Strategies in the Global Fight Against Sex Trafficking, February 23-26, 2003, Washington DC, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/rpt/20834.htm