network

The network connection at my desk does not work, so I have to go to the lab to check work email.

Munich

I watched the movie Munich yesterday with Teresa and it is a really good movie. Before the movie, we went to Tapioca Express, I was craving barley milk tea. After the traffic school exam which was so easy that I passed it. So after the movie, we went to Baba Neo for Singaporean food. I had to wait in line today at the Palo Alto court house to show my traffic school certificate. I waited for like 40 minutes in line. I had lunch at Sports Cafe in Stanford University close to my cousin's work.

final exam

I am stuying now for my traffic school final exam which is in a few hours at Mission College. I need to get 80% of the questions right to pass the exam. If I don't pass it, I have to pay again to retake the traffic online course.

Shoreline Billiards

I went to Sue's India Cuisine for lunch buffet with Teresa, the buffet was missing the palak panner or saag panner (spinach with cheese). After lunch, we went to Shoreline Billiards to play pool for a few hours, the place was packed. Later on, I have to review my quizzes for my final exam tomorrow for traffic school.

traffic school

I need to study for my online traffic school because I don't want to sit 8 hours in class during the weekend. So far, it is taking me about an hour to go through each unit with a quiz at the end, and the online school has 12 units, after I take the online course, I have to go through a final exam to complete my traffic school.

new world

Last night I watched the New World and the movie dragged on, I kept checking the time on my cell phone. I do not recommend this movie, good thing my friend Maria had free movie tickets. It is similar to the storyline of Pocahontas. Before the movie, we ate at El Calderon, a Salvadorean restaurant, some of the dishes are similar to Mexican food.

training class

I have another training class in the afternoon to attend for work. I will have to eat lunch at my desk since class starts at 1pm.

La Baguette

I liked the movie Underworld Evolution, but a lot of the critics gave it bad reviews. Yesterday afternoon, I went to a training class for work to learn the document process for paperwork approval. I'm going to lunch soon to La Baguette in Stanford mall with my cousins.

underworld

I plan to watch Underworld Revolution tonight with my cousin Lindsay. I liked the 1st Underworld movie. Yesterday, I watched DVDs of Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) season 5 and the French film After You, and cleaned my room. I finished reading Middlesex book which was really good. I also finished reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I wanted to read the book because in the movie King Kong, the young sailor was reading the book. On Saturday, I took the caltrain to the city, so nice not to worry about parking and avoiding the no left turn roads. We ate at A-1 Restaurant in Chinatown for dim sum, we had to order the dim sum from the menu since the restaurant size was small, and no carts going around, then we walked around chinatown for the Flower Festival, the city closed off parts of Grant Road for the festival. I saw orchids selling for $10. Then, Teresa and I went to Moonstar Buffet, I wanted to go there since Christine had her birthday there last time. The buffet was good of the lobster and Asian food, they even had dim sum dumplings.

Chinatown Flower Festival

Chinatown

I plan to take the caltrain to a museum in San Francisco and then walk around Chinatown with Teresa.

te of piglet

I read the Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff, Te is pronounced Deh. Thebook talks about Taoism by using the characters in the Winnie the Pooh cartoon. I read the book sequence out of order. I am suppose to read Tao of Pooh first but that book was checked out at the library so I am on the hold list. I started to read Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Lindsay recommended the books.

dream

I had a horrible dream of a skeleton body just staring at me and rodent biting my left hand at the same time. I had an awful night trying to sleep because when I semi woke up in the middle of the night, I kind of felt paralyzed that I could not move. I went to Tofu House for lunch today with my co-worker Diana.

New Horizons

I'm going to Hunan Garden in Mountain View for lunch to meet up with Hazel and Kandice. Later on, I will meet up with Christine and Shally for dinner at Tao Tao in Sunnyvale. I watched online the New Horizons launch from Florida at 11am. The mission will be 10 years on Pluto.

new badge

I got a new work badge but I still have the same picture on it when I first started. I went to Tapioca Express for lunch, then I met up with my cousin Lynn to go shopping at GAP. I bought jeans for $9.99, that's so cheap.

lunch w/Maria

I had lunch with Maria at Yo Yo Sushi. It seems like I go there every week to meet her.

dim sum

I had dim sum today for lunch with my cousin Lynn at Golden Wok in downtown Mountain View. Dim sum is so my favorite. Today is Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. I have to work today because my company gives us about a week off during the Christmas holidays, I don't get holidays off till Memorial Day.

Valley Fair

I met up with Shilpa today for brunch, we wanted to eat at IHOP but the wait line was too long, so we went to Denny's instead. After eating, we went to Valley Fair to shop around, I so like Ann Taylor and Limited, I saw a lot of good deals on winter clothes, I actually enjoyed shopping. Now adays I like to shop online because I can get airline mileage.

Mandalay Restaurant

Mandalay

I am going to Mandalay restaurant in San Francisco for Burmese food with Teresa. I have not tried Burmese food yet. I tried looking for a Burmese restaurant close to my house but I could not find one, all of them are in San Francisco or Oakland. Yesterday, I had a fun time with Dayna and Keisuke. We ate yummy kowbe (Korean ribs) and beef at the Korean BBQ Palace, then we went to Qcup, and to Santa Clara Billiards. I would like to play more pool in the future.

Santa Clara Billiards

Day and I at Qcup

Day and I at Korean BBQ Palace

running errands

I have been running errands with my mom today, we went to post office to get new stamps since now the price increased to 39 cents for a letter. Afterwards, we went to Walgreens, Sprint store, Sears to fix my mom's watch, Albertson's and library. I can't wait to see Dayna for dinner tonight because she will be leaving for Germany on Sunday.

Korean BBQ Palace

I am going to see Dayna for dinner at Korean BBQ Palace. Dayna is only visiting till Sunday. Good thing she has time for us to catch up. Last night, I watched Match Point, the Woody Allen movie, I liked it.

Asian Fusion Cafe

I just asked Christine for lunch and she can make it to the Asian Fusion Cafe, some of the dishes are Filipino food in downtown Mountain View. The restaurant replaced Manila Grill.

in&out

I had In&Out hamburgers and the french fries well done (crispy style) last night for dinner. I have to drop off my mom and pick up my mom every Tuesday evening for this quarter for her child care classes at Foothill College. My mom doesn't like to drive during the night time. I also had to drop my mom and pick my mom for her rosary prayer at her friend's house. I plan to have lunch today with Maria at the usual place Yo Yo Sushi.

Goldilocks

I am going to Goldilocks with my co-worker for lunch today. I have not been there for a while. I plan to get the lumpia.

East Palo Alto

I was reading the newspaper yesterday and an East Palo Alto police officer was killed on University Ave. and Weeks St. which is about 3 blocks from my house. It is so sad. This is the 2nd killing of a police officer in East Palo Alto.

king kong

I watched the movie King Kong this afternoon. I liked it. After the movie I went to my cousin Lynn's house to eat take out Chinese food from Hunan Homes. Yesterday, while I was waiting for the food during dinner time sitting next to the window at Cafe Yulong with Teresa, I saw Christine walking by, she joined us later to eat with us. What a coincidence? Afterwards, we went to the book buyers bookstore. It seemed so compact, I bumped into people with my bag since the isles were so narrow.

Family Stone

I will watch Family Stone movie with Christine at Mercado 20. Later on, I plan to meet up with Teresa for dinner.

Kim's birthday dinner

Kimmie's birthday

Today is Kimmie's birthday so I will be going to Gordon Biersch for dinner to celebrate her birthday. I am going to Kapp's Pizza for lunch to meet Indhu and my engineering friends. I have to take caltrain to go to the lunch. I forgot to bring my camera, oh well next time. I don't have a car since my dad had to use my car today because his two cars have problems.

Pride&Prejudice

My cousin Lindsay and I didn't watch Family Stone instead we watched Pride & Prejudice at the Cine Arts theatre on Page Mill Road and El Camino Real which is so close to my work. I liked this movie version than the Bride & Prejudice Bollywood/Indian version. I didn't meet up with Indhu for dinner last night instead I will meet up with her during lunch on Friday. Yesterday, I went home for lunch because I was craving eggs.

waking up

I have a hard time waking up early for work the past couple of days. I guess I am still in the holiday mode time. I might see Indhu for dinner since Indhu will be leaving for Maryland this Friday. I will see the movie Family Stone with my cousin Lindsay tonight.

ecopass

During lunch time, I went to the Sunnyvale campus at my work to get an ecopass which is a sticker for free unlimited public transport rides on the Santa Clara County buses and light rail. Even though I will probably not use the ecopass since I live in the San Mateo County. If I were to take public transportation to work, I would estimate more than hour of travelling time one-way. I would have to take a bus from my house to the Palo Alto Caltrain station which is 30 minutes, and then wait for the caltrain from Palo Alto station to California Ave station, and then wait more minutes for a bus to go from the California Ave. station to my work area which will probably be another 15 minutes. When I drive from home to work, it takes about 15 minutes depending on the red lights on Page Mill Road that sometimes takes up to 4 minutes to change.

Golden Wok

I went to Golden Wok for lunch today to have dim sum with Manang Inday and Teresa. I am so full now. It has been raining a lot today. Some of the roads have so much water puddle that it scares me to drive around. I'm going to watch my DVD's CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) and the movie Hostage with Bruce Willis.

Sydney Trip Day 4 (12/29/05)

We walked to the Art Gallery of North South Whales in the Domain park which is South of the Royal Botanic Gardens. The art gallery is free, I was interested in viewing the Yiribana Gallery of the Aboriginal art. Too bad, I could not take photos in that gallery. After that, we went to St. Mary's Cathedral, but it was closed, I walked around the Cathedral but all the doors were locked, I tried going to St. Mary's crypt to see the mosaic floor tiles but it was closed. Our next stop was the Australian Museum, I liked seeing the skeleton of the animals, as you can see in my yahoo album I took a lot of the pictures of that, the whale sperm skeleton was so huge hanging from the ceiling as you enter the museum. After that, we walked through Hyde Park to go to Chinese Garden to relax a bit. Then we went to Paddy's Market (a flea market), only open Thursday to Sunday. The fruits at the market were so cheap and delicious.

Sydney Trip Day 3 (12/28/05)

My mom and I took the city rail train to Blue Mountain which took about 2 hours on the train, if we drove it would only take 1 hour but the train was so slow, seemed like we were only going 35 miles per hour. Caltrain here is so much faster. The view points at Blue Mountains are so amazing, check out my pictures on my yahoo album to see it. It is called Blue Mountains because of the blue eerie blue haze brought about by the strong oil vapour emitted by the eucalyptus leaves, you can really see it after it rains. The three sisters is one of the top tourist spots, the legend was the three sisters were turned into stone by their father to protect his daughters from monsters and evil. Lots of the flies were bothering me especially since I was carrying food around. Even when I left the airport, I kept waving my hands around to get rid of the flies. After the 3 Sisters, we took the Sky Walk which holds 80 people with a bottom glass view of the trees, it is a 10 minute ride that transfers people from one cliff look out point to the other, so amazing. You can see the Sky Walk if you look at my yahoo album. When we got back to the city, we went to Chinatown to check out hinatown on Dixon St. and ate yum cha (aka dim sum).

Sydney Trip Day 2 (12/27/05)

My mom and I were so tired from the previous day, we only went to the Taronga Zoo from 11am to 4pm. Plus walking in the heat during the middle of the day was so tiring. I saw so many animals that I have not seen before like the koala, binturang, platypus, echidna (looks like a porcupine), big tortoise, snow leopard, and Malayan tapir. I went to the bird show but it was not worth going to the 30 minute show, not exciting at all, only the view of the city centre was nice.

Sydney Trip Day 1 (12/26/05)

Monday Dec. 26th was Boxing Day holiday celebrating the yacht race from Sydney Harbour. My mom and I took the KST airport shuttle from the airport to the hotel. We dropped our luggage, and headed right away to see the Sydney Opera House, we went on a guided tour of the opera house for an hour which was about 200 steps, so amazing, the views and architecture. After the opera house, we walked along the Royal Botanic Gardens to go to the Mrs. Macquaries Point to see the view of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge together, the tour guide mentioned that a lot of the Sydney postcards are taken from Mrs. Macquaries Point. Mrs. Macquarie was the 5th governon's wife from England, and she would sit at her chair to watch the ship pass by from England.

Our next tourist spot was Sydney Harbour Bridge, we had to walk through The Rocks area. From the Bridge, an amazing view of the Sydney Opera House and Circular Quay. We went back to the hotel to rest a bit, and then headed off to the Sydney Acquarium. I liked walking through the water tunnels when you looked above you can see the sharks and fishes swimming by. Afterwards, we took the monorail to the Sydney Tower. It is the tallest building in Sydney, we were there just in time to see the sunset, and to see the 360 degree view of Sydney. After the view, we went on the Oztrek ride of Australia, the ride is similar to the ride of Star Wars in Disneyland and the Top Gun ride in Great America. My mom was laughing and screaming her head off. I was so tired of walking since 10am, we got home at 9pm.

Sydney, Australia photos

Check out my Sydney photos at http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/riza_bravo/my_photos
then select the Sydney, Australia album