Meichih is a COMEDIAN

Meichih came to my work today to have lunch with me. When she came, I took her to my company store so she could by some Lancome eye cream for her invisible wrinkles. After our purchase, we went to McDonald's (Meichih's choice, by the way) and sat down to eat. We were talking for a while when out of nowhere:

Meichih: I saw that they also have eye cream for dark circles and puffiness.
Me: Uh huh, Lancome makes lots of eye creams.
Meichih: (silence)
Me: Oh. Are you saying I need it???
Meichih: (Nods with a sad, grimacing face) Yeah, you do.

When did Meichih turn into a comedian?

Books on Google!

Google announced yesterday that they were going to make books available to download whose copywrites have expired. From their blog:

Download the classics
8/30/2006 09:38:00 AM
Posted by Adam Mathes, Associate Product Manager, Google Book Search

Starting today, you can go to Google Book Search and download full copies of out-of-copyright books to read at your own pace. You're free to choose from a diverse collection of public domain titles -- from well-known classics to obscure gems.

Before the rise of the public library -– a story chronicled in this 1897 edition of The Free Library – access to large collections of books was the privilege of a wealthy minority. Now, with the help of our wonderful library partners, we're able to offer you the ability to download and read PDF versions of out-of-copyright books from some of the world’s greatest collections.

Using Google Book Search, you can find The Free Library and many other extraordinary old books, such as:
* Ferriar's The Bibliomania
* A futurist from 1881's 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century
* Aesop's Fables
* Shakespeare's Hamlet
* Abbott's Flatland
* Hugo's Marion De Lorme
* Dunant's Eine Erinnerung an Solferino
* Bolívar's Proclamas
* Dante's Inferno

To find out-of-copyright books that you can download, simply select the "Full view" radio button when you search on books.google.com. (Please note that we do not enable downloading of any book currently under copyright. Unless we have the publisher’s permission to show more, we display only small snippets of text –- at most, two or three sentences surrounding your search term -– to help you determine if you’ve found what you’re looking for.)

Of course, this is just the beginning. As we digitize more of the world's books -- whether rare, common, popular or obscure -- people everywhere will be able to discover them on Google Book Search.

I downloaded Great Expectations and Pride and Prejudice to read secretly at work.

Feeling Old

I walked to work today in new shoes. I thought that I had already broken them in, so I decided not to wear flip flops and change at work -- I thought that I could make it all the way to work in them. Halfway there, the back of my right foot started hurting. Since it was raining and I had a big bag on my shoulder, I decided to wait until I got to work to put a bandaid on. When I got to work, I saw that my foot was bleeding! I've gotten plenty of blisters, but I've never made my foot actually bleed from shoes before.

I bandaided myself up and limped around work all day. Then my back started to hurt so I started doing (old lady) streches in my lame shared, currently cubicle-less office.

On my way home, my bag was super heavy from all the free makeup and magazines that I swiped at work. PLUS my back was sore and stiff, so I was leaning as I was walking. PLUS I had my gimp foot from the bloody blister. What's wrong with me? I'm getting old.

New Likes and Dislikes

Hello, long time no blog. I wanted to share some of my new likes and dislikes.

I've been liking the show "Dog Whisperer" on the National Geographic Channel for sometime now. It is SO good! Tony and I can't stop watching it, even though we don't have a dog.

I also like bittorrent.com. I've been downloading albums at a time. I was able to download a bunch of songs by artists playing at SXSW - 127 songs! Woohoo! This works so much better than limewire, where I was downloading each song at a time, along with viruses (viri?) and spyware. I haven't tried downloading movies or TV shows yet, but I hear it's pretty easy.

Now to the dislikes. So far, it's been work. I don't like it. As a matter of fact, I kind of dislike it. I've been having to commute to New Jersey for the past two weeks to train with someone leaving on maternity leave. While in New Jersey, I haven't been able to sit down and go through thing with HR, I haven't seen my cubicle, I don't have a computer, and I don't have a phone. On top of all this, the commute is sometimes up to two hours each way. I finally get to start in New York on Monday, so I hope things get better.

One of the worst things about the job is that now that the person training me has officialy left on maternity leave, I've stepped in and started doing my job. I get complimented on the most asinine things. I've been told that I write good emails and I'm good at handling things. What kind of retarded people did they have working there before? If I'm stepping in and knocking their socks off after minimal training... what is there left to conquer?

Oh, and I also dislike that it's supposed be summer still but it's started to cool down. Blah blah east coast seasons.

Days 11-13 of Honeymoon

Here's what we did for the last bit of our honeymoon:

Wednesday, 08/02

Glamour pictures! Tony and I went to Chuech Studio in Shanghai to take pictures. I had been to the Chuech in Taiwan six years ago, so I was really happy to use them in Shanghai. Tony wanted to wear a 'fro for our gypsy set but we didn't realize that we were supposed to be serious in the poses. I couldn't keep a straight face! We'll get our album in a month or so, but here's a sneak peak:

After seven hours of mostly waiting to get our pictures taken, we finally finished and went to check out XinTianDi, a really modern ex-paty shopping/drinking/eating place. They have a new Din Tai Fung there, so we had delicious shiaolongbaos for dinner - yum! We had black sesame buns for dessert.

Elyse Sewell, from the first season of America's Next Top Model (who was robbed of first place), has her face plastered everywhere for this jewelry/diamond company.

Thursday, 08/03

This was pretty much our last day because we had to wake up super early the next day to catch our flight home.

We went to check out the Shanghai Development Museum. They have a huge model of the whole city and displays about their plan for growth.

After that, we went exploring and did some last minute shopping.

Friday, 08/04

Goodbye, China!

Day 9 and 10 of Honeymoon

So on Monday and Tuesday, Cyrus was with us and we had plenty of time to slow down and do whatever we wanted in Shanghai. We checked into the Crowne Plaza and were lucky enough to get bumped up twice and get access to the club floor (woohoo! open bar and free food!). Our hotel was in a pretty good area - old British/French Concession and near Hwa hai, Shanghai's Fifth Ave.

On Monday we went to visit the Shanghai Museum, one of China's finest. It's fascinating to see their exhibits because their artifacts are all so old, yet advanced. In California, I've seen stuff that was maybe 1000 years old, but looked primitive. At the Shanghai Museum we saw stuff that was super advanced for its time. Here's a wine vessel that's over 2000 years old - the tag says early 6th century - 476 B.C.

After the museum we walked across the street to Capitaland, a huge mall. It was like, 9 stories and completely filled with shoppers.

Guess what store this is:

For dinner we met up with Cyrus' friend at a nice restaurant in the French Concession. It was one of our pricer meals at about US$50 for the four of us.

On Tuesday we went to visit the Shanghai Aquarium, with the world's longest underwater tunnel. To be honest, I really wasn't looking forward to going, but I'm so glad we went. We got to see a lot of stuff that I've never seen in the US.

This is a weird albino turtle:

And here is a very frank story that they had on a huge display:

Afterwards we decided to be adventurous and wandered over to a place called "Insect Kingdom" which turned out to be a really sad wannabe zoo that sold the animals it had on display.

Cooling off in McDonald's with a taro pie! Yum!

Me and my bro in Pudong, with the Huangpu and Puxi behind us.

Day 8 of Honeymoon

The tour is over and Tony and I finally have time to sleep and explore on our own. We are in Shanghai, on the last leg of our trip, waiting for Cyrus to fly in to spend a couple of days with us.

Tony and I woke up early in the morning, had breakfast at the hotel, and went exploring. We found a big market, similar to Walmart. Here is a picture of their sloped walkway. People can push their grocery carts, strollers, anything with wheels onto the walkway. It's kind of dangerous because there aren't brakes on the grocery carts, but maybe I am just an overly concerned American. Outside of America, I haven't seen that much public concern with every little detail of safey.
Here I am inside the store in front of a huge display of Crest toothpaste. I thought it was so bright and colorful! It was cool to see where the locals shop. It's so much cheaper than the States and they have all the same brands.

Here's the McDonald's where Tony and I had a snack. The Big Mac, cheeseburgers, and chicken nuggets taste the same! Good job, McDonald's! The combo meals are about US$2-3. Cheap! The service was really slow, though. They took their time with everything.

We met up with Cyrus and went to Nanjing Lu, a famous shopping area that is across the street from the Bund.

For dinner, we went to a Mongolian hot pot place. It was really good. We had lamb, pork, even quail eggs. For the three of us, the meal cost less than US$15. Amazing!

I look sad because I have to eat lamb tail. And I am a lamb.

After dinner Cyrus took us to a beautiful lounge called Face Bar, located in the French Concession. It was the former residence of a British businessman and then was used as political offices. I was kind of surprised by the prices - US$6 for a mixed drink, but mostly expats with American/British salaries frequent the place.

Day 5 of Tour LAST DAY - (Day 7 of Honeymoon)

On our last day, we explored Hangzhou and spent the evening in Shanghai.

Here is our hotel during the day.

Hangzhou was my favorite city when I visited China two years ago. I still think it is really beautiful because it's so green.
We are at a memorial site for a famous Chinese hero (I don't remember his name).

I like this statue because his eyebrows look like Tony's.

Here we are on yet another cruise. This time on the famous Xihu Lake.

After the cruise we went to a tea plantation to taste the world famous Dragon Well Green Tea. The only sell the freshest green tea in China. The rest of the world gets last year's crop. I was surprised to learn that Tony didn't know what antioxidants are. Emmy - you need to quiz Jeff. We got suckered into buying super fresh, premium green tea for 900RMB/pound - about US$ 113. No regrets, though. It's good stuff and we've been drinking it everyday since we got home.

Here's "Dr. Tea" and an annoying (mouth breathing) girl that was on the tour with us.

These are tea plants, y'all.

We left Hangzhou in the afternoon and drove three hours to Shanghai. We were lucky enough not to hit traffic and made it before the sunset.

Here we are at the infamous Bund during the day. The background looks fake, right? This is Pudong, the new area.

Our restaurant on a boat.

Our final cruise! This time along the HuangPu River, where we could enjoy Puxi - old Shanghai with European buildings from various international settlements, and Pudong - new Shanghai that has been built within the past 15 years.

This is Pudong, the new area, at night.
This is Puxi, the old area, at night. You can see the difference in architecture. Most of these buildings were built in the late 1800s-early 1900s, during the international settlements.

Day 4 of Tour (Day 6 of Honeymoon)

We woke up early (of course!) and drove from Wuxi to Suzhou. Suzhou is the "Venice of China." It is famous for its waterways, beautiful ladies, and silk production.

This is the day that I decided to wear a dress that I bought in Beijing (not bad at 45RMB = US$ 5.6). It was a little revealing, but I didn't think it was that bad, especially since it was so hot and humid outside. I never got so many stares and dirty looks in China! I was already used to somewhat blending in because of my fob haircut. I had noticed that natives would automatically talk to me in Chinese instead of broken English (I got "hello, lady!" a lot before the cut) and that we weren't given foreigner prices. Chinese people stare in general, for no apparent reason, so this dress really turned it up.

Here we are in a famous garden in Suzhou that most recently belonged to I.M. Pei before he donated to the government to open as a local attraction.

My dress isn't too bad, right? But here is a guy at a temple secretly staring:


After the garden we went to the silk factory to see how silk and silk products are made. While we were in a little room with our tour guide and group (15, including us) listening to a lecture about silk worms, the old, deaf grandpa in our group let one rip. It was LOUD and LONG. Tony tried so hard not to laugh, but couldn't contain it. He laughed so hard he was crying. Our tour guide was like, what? what's going on? He was so unfazed by the fart. It must be a Chinese thing.

Anyways, here is Tony at the silk factory helping make a silk blanket.

This is the silk fashion show.

After lunch at the silk factory, we went for a cruise in the Suzhou waterway. People live in homes along the waterway. It's a weird juxtaposition of lifestyles. There are new clubs and bars opening along the water among all these old homes where really, really poor people live.

At night we checked in to our beautiful hotel in Hangzhou, which was once the residence of Lin Biao, a memeber of the Gang of Four who incited the Cultural Revolution.

Day 3 of Tour (Day 5 of Honeymoon)

On the third day of our tour we woke up super early and caught a two-hour flight from Beijing to Shanghai. Our tour guide took us to Jade Temple and out for lunch in Shanghai, before we drove out to Wuxi.

Here is the Jade Temple and our tour guide, Joe. He spoke English really well - better than a lot of first gen Chinese people - but has never been able to travel outside China.

For lunch, we went to a tourist-y type restaurant. I was happy to see that there were actually a lot of locals (not the squat and spit-type) eating there also. They had food runners wearing roller skates that would bring the food out to our servers, who stayed near our table. All of a sudden, they started blasting music over the speakers. The roller skaters all got together and did this really cool, yet horrifying dance in the middle of the floor. I was really scared that they were going to drop each other.

After lunch, we got on the tour bus and drove about an hour down to Wuxi which has grown tremendously in the past few years. A lot of foreign companies, especially Japanese, have invested a lot in the city, opening offices and factories. Wuxi is called "Little Shanghai" because of their technology boom and modern city. It really is like a relatively small (pop. 5 million), clean, compact Shanghai. Also, feng shui is supposed to be really good in Wuxi because you can stay at a resort that faces Taihu Lake and backs up against a mountain. Apparently, it's really popular with Japanese tourists and China's politicians, who book over a year in advance.

This is Fei, our local tour guide. She's showing us a map of Taihu Lake, one of China's biggest freshw water lakes. They make the local beer, grow fresh water pearls, and cultivate White Fish to eat, all in the lake.

Tony and I on cruise around Taihu Lake. It was really beautiful - we even saw a bride and groom taking pictures.

Before dinner we were taken to a pearl factory where they tried to sell us high-priced pearls. Mikimoto worked with the locals to develop their pearl growing technique. They open the oyster and cut slits into the muscle and then close it back up and put it back in the water. Later, when the oysters are harvested, each slit will contain a pearl. Because Taihu Lake is only about 2m deep, the oysters are able to grow different colored pearls. Don't worry, we didn't get suckered. We bought pearls somewhere else for a lot cheaper.