Category: San Francisco Life (2002-2005)

Today, I gave my formal resignation to my company. After almost three years, I have ended this chapter in my life. Obviously there will be several colleagues that I will miss, but moving to Australia will be a great new adventure for me–as well as helping me build my educational foundation for a new career. Just 10 more days of having to go to work! Yippee!!

Today, I got great news from the Australian Embassy that all my paperwork and medical examinations have passed inspection and my 2 year student visa has been approved! This means, I will be legal in Australia until March 2007!
This is a huge stress relief, because I was very concerned about the follow-through of the doctors after dealing with them in person for my xrays and medical exam. But, in the end, it all worked out and it’s smooth sailing from here on out!

I’m on a movie kick! It’s been so long since I’ve been to the Metreon that I figured I should get back into things. So, I went to see A Lot Like Love, and yes, it does seem like it would be a predictable, Hollywood, lame film, and yes, it was predictable, but the underlying message and feeling that I got from it was really good. The idea about crossing paths with people and taking chances is really energizing to me, and I can’t wait to see how my life continues to unfold with all my crossings — Just like my buddy Alan said yesterday–you never know where we’ll meet again, especially with globetrotters like ourselves.

Tonight I went to go see the Interpreter with Rebecca, and it was so good! I really liked Nicole Kidman in this and the idea of the story was really cool. It makes you wonder about really what goes on politically with all our countries and how corrupt with personal agendas and such it can be. Definitely a suspenseful, intriguing movie for everyone–even those who don’t speak a foreign language like Koo :)

As you can see, many months of reorganizing and recreating my webspace has finally been completed. I’ve now put all of my journals into Moveable Types Publishing Platform, so all entries are searchable, as well as Categoriacally organized by country. Also, you’ll notice the Affiliate Sites–I found with my previous versions, that having my Design Portfolio, Photos, Journals, and Resume all in one place, that it became very crowded. So, I developed each group separately — Design – for my Graphic Design/Freelance Portfolio — Journals – for all my travels and stories — Images – for my photography — Resume – for my CV.

As always, comments and suggestions are always welcome :) Thanks for stopping by!

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So this was a surprise out of the blue. I was at home Thursday evening when I received an instant message from Anisha–a girl I went to high school with. All of a sudden she asked for my phone number because some people were in town. I gave it, and just 3 minutes later, I got a phone call from my good old friend Neal saying he was in San Francisco. He, Roma and some others were over in Little Italy, so I hopped in a cab, and went over to see them. The last day I saw them is in May of 1998 when I graduated! It’s so strange to reconnect with people, because contrary to logic, we completely slipped back into visiting like we hadn’t missed but a week. So strange how time flies. Roma–I’m coming to India with you sometime soon!

This weekend, I got a nice little surprise — Joe and I went down the coast on 1, and arrived a few hours later in Pebble Beach for horseback riding! It was a lot of fun and I hadn’t been on a horse in so long, I had forgotten how much I enjoy it. Mine was Ringo, his was Katie, and it was hilarious! We walked a trail from the Equestrian Center down through beautiful land overlooking the ocean, down to the beach for a short walk and then back up. The entire ride was about an hour and a half and it was so much fun! It was so nice to get away from the city and see some different scenery and breathe the ocean air. We then stopped in Monterrey for a nice dinner–to which quickly turned bad when I bit into a metal net that was used to catch the calamari I was eating. Their consolation prize for almost chipping a tooth and causing internal bleeding? Free dessert–to which I didn’t even bother taking I was so angry at the lack of service. Where is all the customer service going anyway?

So Friday, Good Friday, was my 26th birthday. This year has been great so far, and with my upcoming travels and journeys, it will continue to get better I’m sure. My understanding was that Rebecca, Joe and I would have a dinner at Benihana together. But, secretly, Rebecca and Joe had been planning a larger group–8 of us, to have dinner. The real celebration is this week when we all go to Las Vegas together! It will be great, and there will definitely be some pictures of that trip. For now, here’s a picture of the celebration.

Sunday, we woke up to a gorgeous snow that had fallen all from the last night. It was quite heavy–about 6-8″ of fresh white snow piled on cars, benches, and the rooftops. It was so nice, so we decided to head back into the valley to make s’mores :) We got all our supplies, and then went to a general store to get some charcoal for our fire. There, I noticed a Japanese man trying to communicate with a Taxi driver and store owner–the owner was being very rude. We got our supplies, and headed out.

As we were getting into the car, I felt bad for not offering my ‘gift of language’ to not help the guy, so I went over and asked him in Japanese, is everything ok? Turns out that he had just arrived from the Fresno airport, and wanted to see Yosemite for a day or two before he had a meeting back in San Francisco Monday evening. He had taken a cab all the way from the airport, through the mountains to this store, and now was being told that the taxi couldn’t come into the park any further without chains. So, the fiasco was, does he buy chains to get to his hotel? Give up? and if he does buy chains, what to do with the Taxi driver? Turns out the taxi driver said, if we go to the hotel, we need to find out if there’s an extra bed, and I’ll stay with him and drive him to san Francisco. A taxi from Yosemite to San Francisco?? I couldn’t tell if this driver was trying to take advantage or be helpful, so Joe and I offered to the Japanese man to take him into the valley, where he could find transportation from his hotel to an amtrak station the next day. Plus, I got to use my Japanese during our drive which made me happy.

Turns out that the Japanese man was a chief of a group at Geography Information Systems, Japan’s leading Mapping software company. He had just one day to see some sights and was just about to give up before we arrived. He was so thankful that we picked him up to bring him into the valley to see some of the scenery.

After we arrived at the Yosemite lodge, we got him set up with transportation to his hotel and a tour the next morning. He bid us farewell and we headed into the lodge for S’mores. When Joe came back from the car with the hershey’s, graham crackers, and marshmellows, he said, you’ll never believe what I did. What? :)

Locked the keys in the car!

Joe got on the cell phone and tried calling the towing company and as he was telling them where we were, the phone started beeping–low battery! He tried telling them, but it was too late. So we made a few s’mores and then he went to a payphone to try to get it settled. While I was making s’mores, the Japanese man wandered by, and we started to chat again–telling him the mishap! He said, in Japanese there’s a saying– If it happens twice, it’ll surely happen again–

Thankfully, the service was quick, and Takashi had to head for his bus to his hotel. We bid farewell again, and we continued on with our s’mores.

The snow started falling harder with BIG flakes, so we decided to walk the grounds some before dinner. It got dark quickly, but walking in the snow was so nice–the silent whisper of the flakes hitting the ground always brings such calmness. We then headed to dinner and had a nice NY Steak. After dinner, we headed for another walk and then started our journey back home.