Me and my insomnia....

Staying up till almost 2 in the morning is not a good sign...I think my insomnia is creeping back to me since this is not the 1st time recently. Maybe it's the decision I made regarding staying 17.....but then I don't think my insomnia happened any time before I turned at least 22? It's annoying nowadays since when I can't sleep I just don't know who I can talk to. Most of my friends who stay up late are no longer in the states. The person who I used to call, since there is time difference between TW and here, is now dead....I guess it's hard to find someone who does not need to work and can stay up all night nowadays.

A friend of mine just told me in an e-mail that he is gonna try and work in HK for at least 6 months to one year so if I stop by I should let him know. I guess it's quite amazing that at this age he is still up to a big change in life....something I totally did not see in him...I guess people do change but at the end life still goes on.....We all live our own lives and at the end we become parallel lines with each other since our lives don't cross much.

I guess sitting here thinking how all the friends I had are now no longer a big part of my life kinda makes me suffocate. Of course Christian talks about how Jesus should be our best friend, but then he does not live here on planet earth with us...at least not yet....I used to wonder why some people treasure their times with friends so much when there is always family to talk to. Now as a grow older I guess I understand that a bit more.....sometimes you just need to find the right people to talk about stuff with....

Seeing old friends and hearing from old friends make one sink into memories and think just a tap too much I guess....I think if I want to stay 17 I better sleep soon...

BD 2009...and yeah I am gonna stay 17 cuz I don't like being an adult....

Life has not been exactly the way I want it to be recently. There are things which I expected or not expected to happen which annoys me. For some reason January has not been the best month so far....even my facebook account got disabled because they said I did not use a real name on my account....I don't even understand why they need a real name since there are plenty of fake information on facebook and a lot of spams. I am just very frustrated with all the info I am gonna lose if they don't restore my account. I wonder if I will be able to get all my friends back...especially the ones who I had the luck of reoconnecting after so many years...

Anyway....hopefully since Jan is so far a bad month, things will only go better afterwards. It is just a little annoying that Jan is my BD month and I am not having a good time with it much. Since there was no plans for our BDs really, I decided to just go to Disney and meet up with my friend. I sure miss the time when I got to celebrate with diff. groups of friends for the whole week...oh well...life...

So here is the deal. Disney lets people with birthday get in for free. That saved us around 140 and I have to say I really appreciate how Joelle and Royal spent the money and energy to go and celebrate with us. We didn't really stay there long but sure took a lot of photos. Here are our tickets and pins + parking ticket.....

I actually hate it when people call me Tzu or Sue...but not like they can really pronounce my name anyway....

1st picture we took was the worst one since we didn't meet up with friends yet. Had to take this one ourselve....

Here is Joelle!!!! Last time I saw her was Chinese New Year last year at Taichung. Time surely flies...oh and we went to my favorite ride "Indiana Jones" :)

Took a photo of the castle...starting from here we had photos taken mostly by Joelle. It sure is nice to have friends around who can take photos for you. I don't think I have ever taken so many photos at Disney ever....:p

We went to toontown to take most of the photos...I guess we didn't really need to try all the rides since we all have been to Disney too many times....well...at least too many times for me...:p





Next few photos are all taken from Mickey's house...

Seems like Mickey is quite musical...

BD cake for us :) and do you see Mickey in the mirror with us?

Best part of going through Mickey's house was that you get to take a photo with Mickey :) This is also the only group photo we had for the day as well.....Thanks for going to Disney and celebrate our BDs together, Joelle and Royal :)

Wishing well outside of Minnie's house...We weren't really sure why Mickey and Minnie lived in 2 separated houses.....but then I guess they never got married anyway....

Minnie's 貴妃椅...too bad I don't get to use the one dad and mom got for my apartment in TW..:p

We had tea time at Minnie's kitchen...and there were a lot of people. Joelle somehow got a clean picture without anyone for us...nice job...

Toontown schuttle was not moving at all for some reason....

I guess the "castle district" kinda looked European. :)

Trying to pull out the sort...didn't work....so I guess we weren't mean to be the King...

Last few photos we took before we stepped out of Disneyland.


Before we got on the shuttle we checked the Disney store in Downtown Disney one last time...and didn't find what we wanted....

Here are the weird hats..Personally I think we looked good on the pirate of Caribbean hates :)


So the last party of today is the Steamer's Cafe which I haven't been to for a LONG time. The group for the night was only ok, but I guess live Jazz music is always good no matter what. Taramisu at the place always brings memory back as well....I was also surprised the place was about 3/4 full on a Wed night. Anyway...BD is over...and I do wish everything that is not going right in Jan will get better soon....

I wonder when this China drama all about women is gonna end...sighs....

I have been watching this China drama at noon for a while....and realized why Chinese people are still fake nowadays is all because it has been accumulated for 5000+ years....The way people interacted in the ancient times was so pretentious already, and for some reason people nowadays still keep some of that in our culture. All the gift exchanging, striving for social status, marriages with no happiness, polite conversations....man....what a tiring life....

Ok....I guess I am just not into all the faking but that is how it is....too bad....not much I can do about how this world is anyway......

Sweet 17?

We went to Raymond in Pasadena on Sun. It's at this interesting location close to where we live. It's kinda hard to figure out what goes on in that little place. We pass by it all the time and always wondered how it is. I saw this place on both Michelin and Zagat 2008 and they highly recommand it...so Billy made a reservation and we tried for our BD 2009.

That small ball in the back is not butter for the break. It's siced salmon with sliced apple. I skipped it because of the salmon. The bread was not bad...but very HARD...

The place is very "wooden"....They had 3 small dining rooms plus one small bar. Each dining room has around 4 booths in it. I think at the most the place would sit around 50-60. It's no wonder they need reservations....It's also one of the places we have been to that is full of old people....hahahaha

Here are the appetizers we ordered. The scallops were nice with mushrooms on the top. Billy thinks the pork skin thingy, which I had no idea what the name was, tasted a lot like 東坡肉....lol...and I totally agreed. I think they spent a lot of energy placing the appetizer and I liked how the taste was quite detailed with everything...

Here are the 1st 2 photos our waiter took for us. I guess we were lucky we sat at a table with maximum light you can get. I tell you the whole place was kinda dim....and some old folks actually asked if they can turn off some lights...I guess old folks don't want people to see their wrinckles....

Closer look...

Closer look of that pork thingy....and camera still couldn't focus on the right thing. I liked how this picture was constructed though...

So here is our entree. It's New Zealand lamb chops....and I have NO idea what that ox tail on the other side was doing.....but I liked how the cuscus under that ox tail tasted with a tint of apple...

Our waiter was totally paying attention to us cuz every time he saw new food coming he would get to us and take 2 photos for us :)

Closer look at those tiny lamb chops we had....They were REALY TINY....

Here are photos of our BD cake...which was more like a very small pudding in size. It was a lemon pie with lemon tasting sugar tart piece on the side and whole bunch of bubbles that tasted lemon-ish....The waiter kept on saying happy BD to me it's funny cuz he obviously didn't know Billy has the same BD too....lol


Here are the last 2 photos our waiter took for us....which concludes the dinner :)

Well....I am refusing to accept the fact I am ALMOST 31. I think I want to stay 15......I used to think I was 14 cuz that is the age I came to the states....now I have stayed in the states longer than I have stayed in TW. I am gonna say I am 17 now....I think that is a good age....right before one turns adult....lol...