:: happy vday, everyone! *mwah* :: 

kevin: “i know you hate pink, so i brought you this bouquet of flowers” (half were pink)  

p.s. i’ll update my taiwan pics. i think i’m gonna give up on photobucket and just get premium.

was gonna update, but yeah… :bummed

photobucket.. u are NOT on my happy list right now!!!!!

today: temple, visit great uncle austin, damshui for some new years fun n games, finished the day off with veggie noodles.. best ever! no pics, thanks to photophucket…

    

i can’t believe it’s already the year of the rooster! that means i’ll be *gulp* 24 (!!!) this year!!  o my… so this is how i spent my chinese new year eve- day…

chang kai shek memorial, down thru photo district,

 

cabbed it to some extremely busy street market to do last minute new years shopping (since most businesses will be closed for the week) hopefully u can see how far back the heads go.. i wasn’t quite tall enuf to get a good picture

                     

last minute candy? festive dangly thingees?

cute lion puppets, lanterns, crab bento box….

   

how bout a huge sack of peanuts (i think the guy is tired) or……

                          

some mushrooms perhaps??

stay tuned for more from a few days ago.. and the rest of today. photobucket is being extremely impossible. it’s 4am. *yawn* and the firecrackers are still crackin’

hm.. actually i’ll end with this, a simple but silly picture (with half the family missing.. i’ll explain later…)

~ping ahn~

 

gettin a lil homesick… but i gotta stay focused on the positive- all the neat opportunities being out here has given me…

last month- thailand

earlier today….

tomorrow… taiwan!

i guess i’ll pick up where i left off, sunday. me n theresa (the coolest canadian ever!) headed out to narita with some japanese friends to watch phantom of the opera, had us some thai food at killer (literally) japanese prices beforehand. after the movie, the japanese guys got themselves sucked into the UFO arcade.UFO is wut the japanese call those game machines where u try ur hand at catchin a stuffed animal with this funky-lookin claw mechanism. the ones in japan look way cooler than the ones we see at home, and the prizes are a million times better too!! i mean, just look at this pooh bear with RED eyes layin in a casket…  and look at the msg on the cover… weird stuff huh?

 

so anyways, tatsuya & nori (the japanese dudes) both were stuck at this one machine tryin to catch this fish. i really don’t see wut was so cool about it, but they were at it for nearly 30 minutes @ 200Y ($2usd) per try. the thing opens up laterally so u can see the bones on the inside.. but yeah i dunno.. wut do u think?

last but not least, the fake tiger rug. the both of them were at the machine for like an hr. in the end, they were both victorious, each taking home a tiger rug. eh… was it really worth it?   while i was getting restless waiting for nori to win his white tiger rug….. what do u think? is it me? (i love being a dork)

: : kittie’s wkend update : :

~ friday ~ NABE NITE

nabe (japanese style hotpot) nite @ our place. it was delicious, sorry no pictures of our delicious food, we were too preoccupied with eating to do anything else. we finished off the nite with a marvelous strawberry cake topped with custard & wrapped up in crepes. *drool*

~ Saturday ~ RENYBEAN’S BIRTHDAY 

as if the food from the nite before wasn’t enough, we took it a step up and celebrated irene’s bday at a nearby okonomiyaki (japanese pancake thingee with random but yummy stuff mixed into it) restaurant. the restaurant’s menu included directions on how to prepare the stuff. (gomen ne, not the best pic)

essentially, u order the ingedients u want, and it’s brought to u unmixed. 

ur job is to stir it up and pour it onto the hot plate in front of u and shape it into a pancake. the hardest part is flipping the thing.. i’d say we were 70% successful with the flipping thing.

 

lastly, u top it off with some sauce, asian mayo, aonori (seaweed), and bonito (cuttlefish shavings)… *itadakimasu*

i miss the bay….

 

i guess some people at home are looking for me….?

*edited a million times* (please look again, it’s prolly changed from the last time u looked!)

thailand.. was it all a dream?

did the guys really get facials?  

(to be fair.. we girls made the appointments )

 

did we really watch oceans 12 in comfie lazyboys, snuggled in a blanket, pillow and free socks ?

was that elephant really playin a harmonica? (ok so u can’t really tell in this one but he was! he could dance too!)

did we really pay 80 baht to take pictures with these ladies who use to be men?

 

who are these gorgeous people?

shopping on water? speeding away from annoying vendors? water traffic?

 

 

where does this fit in?

i remember a strange man telling me that a snake has two pennisss so he can have twice the fun….

emerald buddha? buddha head in a tree?

 

buddha here, buddha there, buddha everywhere!

 

did cherie really have to wear an oven mit to keep from scratchin her bites? what did the mosquito do to my ear!!?

 

we ate these?

cherie & teresa had to wear these in order to get a sensual massage? (doesn’t look very sexy… too meee!!!!)

 

the mystical chestnut…

   

why were we makin so many fish faces? it just doesn’t make any sense…

  

all that’s left is this book, which is heavily guarded by a thai elephant & norbie the turdle… (i hear it’s the best book ever written, EVER!!!)

ah the wonders of thailand…

to be continued…

my beloved friends,

your outpour of emails & concerns have really touched me and i sincerely appreciate your concerns. -and i’m sorry if i’ve worried any of you by not responding soon enough to your emails. for those whom i have not contacted, hopefully u’ll see this post. my friends (teresa, parin, cherie & kevin) & myself are all ok. we were in pattaya at the time of the earthquake and tsunamis, so we were safe from harm. however, i wish i could say the same for the rest of the tourists & locals 

the current death toll in asia is about 77,000 people…

i guess u can say it was fate that our tour down south didn’t fall on the date when the tsunami hit cuz we were actually planning to go down on the 30th, but now we’re just going to stay around bangkok mostly for the remainder of our stay. it doesn’t feel right being on vacation when there is a crisis like this affecting so many countries. 

please pray for the safety of  the survivors, and all those brave rescuers out there…