The bad news is time flies…The good news is you’re the pilot.
Forgive me for I have sinned.
This blog was supposed to be a way for me to document all my adventures and yet I have ruthlessly abandoned it for the last five months. *cue Sarah McLachlan ASPCA music…*
As mentioned above, time sure does whiz by! But please trust me when I say that I’ve been piloting the sh*t out of my plane. Steerin’ right, steerin’ left, backpedalin’… ALL KINDS OF ACTIVITY goin’ down between the months of April and August.
Of course, photo recap will follow, but here’s the tl;dr version (+ the state of my body weight in the course of these adventures cuz I know you totally want to know):
- In April, I went to Taiwan (+10 pounds of pure fat).
- In May, I went to India. (+5 pounds of pure ghee)
- Also in May, I went wine tasting in Napa in a Limo. (+0.5 pounds)
- Also, ALSO in May, I went to Tomales Bay for some Oyster Shuckin’. (+2 pounds)
- In June, I went to Disneyland (a.k.a. home). (+8 pounds of happiness, sparkles and magic)
- In July, I ran the San Francisco Half Marathon. (-3 pounds YESSSSS)
- Later in July, I met my future baby daddy, Harrison Barnes. (+0 pounds, sadly)
- In August, I went to Tahoe for the weekend (+4 pounds since stupid California drought meant we couldn’t swim/exercise in the lake)
- Also in August, I ate at three Michelin star restaurant in SF, Benu. (+46 pounds jk but it was a lot of food)
- At the end of August, I channeled my inner Katniss Everdeen (-0.1 pounds, but sore arms indeed.)
Clearly, since many months have passed, and I don’t remember the exact details of my mendiventures… ergo I shall express myself in SONG AND DANCE (jk pictures.)
Taiwan a.k.a. TW a.k.a. T-Dubs
Flying to meet my dad in Taipei (he splits his time between working in China and Taiwan)
Since my dad was still technically “working” in Taiwan, I accompanied him on one of his business escapades, where he met up with a former Taiwanese Minister of Environmental Affairs……. AT THE TAIPEI SEWAGE WATER TREATMENT FACILITIES (mmm yummy smells galore)
Papa Sui on the left discussing some important business (a.k.a. how to turn poo water into not-poo water)
On top of the sewage treatment facilities was a state-of-the-art park for the general public. HAHA not sure if this was a lost-in-translation scenario… but LET’S GO ON THE PU TRAIL, GUYZ.
MORE IMPORTANT BUSINESS GOIN’ DOWN WHILE I PAPARAZZI
What a wonderful segue from poo water…. to TAIWANESE FOOD. For those of you have never been to Taiwan, please heed my advice… Go to Taiwan.
The food there is absolutely incredible; there’s nothing like going to an outdoor nightmarket only to gorge on 4 pounds of pan- or deep-fried goodies (only to poop it all out like 20 minutes later. ALL OF IT.)
(I’m so sorry, I don’t understand my intense fascination with everything “poopoo” right now.)
But yeah, I was totally joking when I said I gained 10 pounds in Taiwan… because even though you eat A TON of food, you really end up still losing weight over there! I think it’s mostly a result of how much you walk there (driving is a nightmare).
So here starts my Taiwanese food-capades!
First up: STINKY TOFU. My absolute favorite. I’m almost certain 99.999% of Taiwanese people love Stinky Tofu, while 99.999% of non-Taiwanese people absolutely hate Stinky Tofu. You can say it’s a polarizing delicacy. An herbal fermentation process makes the tofu stink like a gajillion gym socks… no joke. It smells SO BAD when it comes to your table, but tastes SO GOOD when you eat it. My favorite part of the stinky tofu is the pickled cabbage you eat it with 🙂 Yummo!
Oyster Pancake
“Ba Wan” (Taiwanese name) – translates to Meat Dumpling
“Si Sheng Tang” (translates to Four Deities Soup) – has a bunch of chinese herbs, pig extremities like small intestine , and… barley? This is my dad’s favorite soup of all time.
“You Fan” (translates to Oil Rice) – sticky rice with pork, shiitake mushrooms, and lots and lots of pig fat, which makes it, yes… “oily”.
Taiwanese noodle soup for breakfast – My family loves to walk into the market in the morning to a street vendor for some “Mi Fen Tang” with lots and lots of fried shallots.
NOW ONTO SOME WEIRD ASIAN DESSERT THAT I’M OBSESSED WITH: Guys, lookie here. It is A LOAF OF BREAD. WITH LITTLE SLICES IN IT. TO MAKE ROOM FOR MELTED BUTTER. AND SUGAR. WITH ICE CREAM. AND RASPBERRY SAUCE DRIZZLED ALL OVER WITH A MACARON TO TOP IT OFF.
How I feel about this “Dazzling Honey Toast”:
One of my mom’s best friends treated us to an amazing Omakase sushi experience in Taipei.
Speaking of food: Here’s a truckload of live pigs in case you needed that extra nudge to go vegetarian.
Oh yeah, my sister and I got to joyride in a Ferrari 458 Spider in the mountain roads of Taipei:
To end this trip in Taiwan… here’s a weirdo phone case I found in the nightmarket that begs the question: “Who created this and thought to themselves – ‘THIS IS PERFECT SO MANY PEOPLE WILL BUY THIS’?!”
This is super random, but here’s a photo of Kristin and me at the Ai Wei Wei exhibit on Alcatraz in SF! We went on the very last weekend it was up!
Bangalore a.k.a. Bengaluru
I had the privilege of going to Bangalore, India for work in May. It was an incredible trip, as I basked in Indian culture, gorged on spicy foods, passenger-seat-road-raged in ridiculous rush hour traffic, and met all of my India work counterparts at the Cisco office.
Let it be known that the Bangalore office is SO MUCH NICER than the San Jose office. The campus is quite literally Google-esque. There is a building that has a different “theme” on each floor, including a movie theater, English tea garden theme, Hip graffiti theme, Forest tribal theme, Intergalactic space theme, Massage chair relaxation room. SO CRAZY.
This floor had a random bus in it. Don’t ask me why.
English tea garden 😀
Space theme with comfy lounge chairs. Clearly “hard at work”…
In the Telepresence room where they do Executive Briefings!
Did a little bit of touring around Bangalore while we were there. I also got a Lehenga (traditional Indian dress for fancy affairs) – but sorry, no picture until I get hitched and get to wear it for real, HEHE.
Iskcon Temple: Our cab driver told us to take off our shoes and leave them on the car because visitors aren’t allowed to wear them into the temple…. Problem was, he dropped us off on the street. So we literally walked…… on the streets of Bangalore… barefoot X_X Needless to say, being the germaphobe that I am, I was very very VEEEERY grossed out.
The men had to wear a cloth to cover up their bare legs:
Some amazing food in Bangalore, including this scrumptious meal at Leela Palace Hotel (legitimately A PALACE). Next time, I’M STAYING AT THE LEELA.
Indian food is SUPER rich, with not a single salad in sight. Definitely missed my greens by the end of that week. Gained a considerable amount of weight just by eating desserts made with pure ghee (clarified butter). Ugh.
Here’s me attempting to swim off some calories (ineffective, in case you were wondering):
Last, but certainly not least, the team that went to India (including the local Bangalore team) went to a happy-hour-turned-crazy-epic-karaoke-night in the middle of the week (yes, we had work the day after. Talk about walk of shame.)
It was INSANE. And incredibly fun. Let me just leave it at that. No reference to the amount of alcohol imbibed.
On a sentimental note: to end my recap of Bangalore, here’s a photo of our wonderful driver, Naveen. He was so caring and accommodating throughout the entire week. When we told him we wanted to take his photo, he got really self conscious and said he hadn’t combed his hair. Awww, he was the best. ❤
Napa a.k.a. Wine Town
In honor of a visit from my dear friend Michelle (who lives in NYC), I decided to rent out a limo to take a bunch of us to Napa! We were very, very ambitious in how many vineyards we wanted to hit. In the end……. we hit one. Oops. Jamie Foxx said it best: Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-lco-hol.
Castello di Amorosa is GORGEOUS. I know there are many critics that say that the wine there isn’t #1 in all of Napa, but I would argue that our experience visiting their amazing grounds and wine tasting to our hearts’ content was incredible. You absolutely cannot deny its splendor the moment you step out of the car:
One of my best friends from Columbia 🙂 Come visit again soon, Michelle!
Just some humpty-dumpties on the wall.
Napa: 1, Everyone else: 0
Tomales Bay Oyster Company a.k.a. Shuck the Shuck Up
Kristin’s brother and cousin came to visit San Francisco… and naturally… I had to crash on their activities (oops).
We went to Tomales Bay, where you buy fresh oysters by the pound, shuck them and SLURP ‘EM DOWN right then and there (or in our case, we grilled them, hehe).
TWO SACKS OF OYSTERS WAHOO!!
You can tell their unique sense of humor runs DEEP within that family. The entire time they were cracking the most hilarious jokes… including a multitude of “shuck” puns… “Gosh dangit this is so shucking delicious” “You’re so shucking stupid”
Brief tangent: You know how I talked about how amazing my Bangalore trip was? Well it was just as amazing meeting up with some of the India folks here in San Jose!!! We went to Downtown San Jose on a random Tuesday night (when absolutely nothing was open). That didn’t stop us from having an amazing time, though. Doesn’t take much to have fun with these girls 🙂
San Francisco Half Marathon a.k.a. #RunIsLife
On a more “wholesome” front, I ran the San Francisco Half at the end of July! The last Half I ran was 1.5 years ago in Orlando (The Disneyworld Half Marathon).
I had trained 2,358,023,755% more than my last half (I did not train for the Disneyworld one), which meant I maybe ran like…. 8 times for this race 🙂 Still not exactly a rigorous training regimen, but it ended up alright. My goal was to beat 2 hours…. I got 1:56, baby!!!
3:30AM Wake-up call. Excitement/Apprehension at the start line!
YAY!!! I can’t believe Melissa and I ran into each other in the sea of peoplez…. O_O
High school Cross Country budz
MEETING HARRISON BARNES a.k.a. My Future Baby Daddy
In celebration of (1) our previous CEO of 25 years stepping down and (2) welcoming our new CEO, and (3) the new Fiscal Year, Cisco threw a HUGE extravaganza at Levi Stadium.
When they announced that Keith Urban was headlining…
Me: “Blah.” (Sorry, not a country fan. Not even a little bit.)
When they announced Christina Aguilera was also headlining…
Me: “Okay, Cisco, I see you… I can dig some Genie in a Bottle and Lady Marmalade…”
When they announced that Harrison Barnes and the NBA Championship trophy were making appearances at the event:
Me: “… YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYYYYYYY!!!!”
For those of you who don’t know, I am a Harrison FANATIC (we’re on a first name basis, DUH). Which makes little sense because Barnes is no Steph Curry in terms of fame and glory… but I don’t know what it is about him, he’s just so dreamy~~~
Here’s a photo of me at a Warriors playoff game 2 years ago:
Suffice to say I went crazy, lining up a full hour before he was set to show up, and then sweating profusely when he entered the room.
Here he is signing my jersey. Such a scandalous photo… 😉 MAMA LIKEY…
TAHOE a.k.a. WHERE DA WATER AT? a.k.a. DROUGHTASTICALLY DEPRESSING
It may look beautiful but BOY WAS THE WATER LEVEL LOW. 400 meters offshore and water still only hits your shins… -_- #nofilter
Conan the Happy Dog seemed to enjoy it, though. (Sick photos by Haidee)
BEACHED WHALE GAME SO STRONG.
Group shot in front of our house
BENU a.k.a. NOM CITY a.k.a. SO MANY FLAVA PARTIES IN MA MOUTH
For my mom’s birthday, Haidee and I decided to take her to a fancy dinner at Benu, a three Michelin star restaurant in San Francisco. It was absolutely incredible, with 11 formal “courses”… except the first “course” was called “small delicacies” and literally 10 THINGS CAME OUT WITH IT. By the time we were done with the “small delicacies”, we were already pretty full -_-… And then came 10 more courses (including a small cake for mother). We also decided to splurge on the wine tasting (just 1 order, and even though we shared, it was still TOO MUCH ALCOHOL).
Highlights included: caviar with gold flakes all up on it, foie gras xiao long bao and truffle steamed bun smeared with truffle cream/butter.
TOTALLY deserving of its three stars, from its food to its impeccable service.
VICKNISS EVERWU & KATDI SUIVERDEEN
Lastly, Vicky and I channeled our inner Katniss Everdeens this past weekend at the archery range. It was so much fun, although it’s a mystery why we got worse with time/practice…
I’m not one to make excuses (yes I am), but I blame it on the following:
- I generally have poor hand-eye coordination, which is why I do no sports but… run.
- Not eating anything and drinking Blue Bottle coffee on an empty stomach. Jitters like crazy.
- It was coffee… with milk. (I’m lactose intolerant.)
LOOK AT THAT IMPECCABLE FORM
… THE END!
Actually, before I end this post, let me take this time and mention… I’m traveling solo again! I leave tomorrow for Seoul, South Korea, and will be there for five days. So just a little itty bitty mini-trip. Looking forward to seeing how I do solo again 🙂 Look forward to more blogs, my wonderful loyal fans – all two of you.
HUGS & KISSES,
Mendi
the wanderlust is real. 