c0redump

season finale... the concluding chapter of summer traveling...special double length paragraph episode

////////////////////////
// summary of trips

Date	Destination	Purpose	Duration
051104	Los Angeles	E3	5.3 days
070204	Bay Area*	BBQ	3.4 days
071604	Toronto	hair cut	1.6 days
073004	Baltimore + DC	Otakon	1.7 days
082704	St. Louis	wedding	1.6 days
090304	NYC	US Open	2.0 days

Total: 6 locations, 9 cities, 15.6 days
*i was mostly in Cupertino, Santa Clara, and Berkeley at bay area

now the details on the last two trips that's not yet documented.

St. Louis...

even tho i bought an item on their gift registry, i wanted to give more interesting stuff than frying pans and bedsheets (actually i bought a desktop globe from the registry, by far the most useless item on the list =)... so jess(who claims she likes to shop non-clothing items for ppl she barely know) and i went to ross park on thursday (flew to st. louis on friday =), and walked around the mall and got a pair of wine glasses at things remembered, complete with engravings and professionally done gift wrap (at papyrus) all in 2 hrs(got everything done 5 minute before mall closes... even got to eat dinner while we waited for the engraving =) )

arthur's wedding is the first wedding that i'm personally invited to(previously was always as a tag-along with parents). Maybe i was too young to perceive such atmosphere (last wedding i went to prior to a's was 8 yrs ago...), or maybe it was because i didn't know the ppl getting married that well, but we really felt happiness(hsin-fu ���� , in lack of a better word) in the air at a's st. louis wedding...we arrived 15 min late cuz we went to eat lunch at a bubble tea place near washington univerisity (WashU).the ceremony at the church was pleasantly short, and after many many photoshoot arrangements (oh the bride tossed the bouquet and was caught by a guy o_O) and a slightly cramped dinner at the local Chinese restaurant,we went to s's sister's house, where they spent their wedding nite (o_O) in true arthur style(i think it must runs in the family =), they made a documentary out of their wedding in taiwan, complete with interviews, entire wedding preparation+ceremony+dinner, background music,... even had a nice printed cover for the DVD =) don't think there's enough footage to make one out of their US wedding tho. After watchin' the documentary and professional wedding albums and some social home-KTV'ing, we settled in the living room and interrogated the newly weds (since we couldn't nau-dong-fung, this had to do) with questions about ____, _____, and _______ =)so in the end we didn't really get to explore the gateway to the west (we did walk around the arch for about an hour),but it'll make a good excuse to visit them next time (they claim that kensas city where they lived is even better, but... ^^;; )

NYC...

chaos and confusions surrounded the nyc trip planning...very originally (about 2 weeks prior), we planned an elaborate trip scheme to minimize everyone's driving time: i would drive to DC on friday and stayed at w's, then head over to philly in w's car on Saturday morning to meet up with Joanna, who will then drive the 3 of us into NYC... surprise element #1:sylvia - h's friend (who i met once freshmen yr) wants to tag along, but that's ok and the plan is unaltered... surprise element #2:amy - became w's gf sometime while i was in st. louis, and she'll be in philly the same weekend; naturally w will stay in philly for as long as possible(ie the entire saturday, since our us open ticket was for sunday), but this is still OK as j, s, and i can go on from philly without him...surprise element #3: joanna - decided to go on ahead to nyc on Friday instead, and therefore stranding me at philly to take the train to NYC with willy. Now that's bad, since i don't wanna be in philly the whole day, and nor does s. so we thought we can drive straight to philly on saturday and then take the train to philly since i refuse to take my car anywhere near NYC... surprise element #4: sylvia - said she's sick and wanna go to white water rafting in pitt instead (o_O)... that's thursday night...so while i was at work last friday, i finally decided to just buy a damn plane ticket for $200 and fly to la guardia on saturday afternoon =p.

whew... so on to the main topic... so i met up with phoebe (my 'childhood friend', as she puts it) as soon as i arrive at manhattan so i can put down the pillow and sleeping bags (i looked really bummy carryin' two sleepin' bags and a pillow in a laundry bag ^^;; ) somewhere clean. we catch up for the remaining of the night, at restaurant and in front of her apt (since 1. she refused to let me in cuz it's messy. 2. no where else to go since i can't do anythin' until w arrived to take me to e's apt, who i didn't know) for about 5 hrs =) finally w around around 12:30am (he didn't document his side of the traveling ordeal, but that's ok), and i went to sleep around 2:30am and woke up at 8am... just like work days =p, only to realize when we got there that it doesn't matter when we arrive since we can only sit and the topmost section in the main stadiums (where the important matches take place), which was half empty anyway. no surprises that day, as we watched serena and roddick creamed their opponents in their 4th and 3rd round, respectively. As with all my trips and activities, the most important part is the company,not the event. so while it was a good experience being in the audience seat for US Open, it was much more fun going clubbing with jenjen, w, e, and s...we 'bought a bottle of absolute' to gain entrance to the completely packed club. we were led to the lounge and given table and 'VIP' treatment =p music was mediocore, but we chatted and drank and danced til 4am anyway =) sunday i met up with tian and mei for dimsum =) first thing tian said "why is your hair so long??", and first thing i said in reply, "why is your hair so short??" hehe...(end up gettin' a haircut later that day... was supposed to be just thinning and shortenin' the back, but end up being trimmed on th side too... hair stylist: "can't help it.. you have too much hair" o_O) first thing after i got back to pitt monday night - drive to d&b for krispy's bday ^^;;... but by then i was too tired to really do much except watch them jump around the diagonal DDR machine =p

- - - -

school started 2 weeks ago, weather starts to cool down, and no more traveling for a while ^^;;

posted by wooden @ 8:00 AM