Jan-chan’s Tidbits

Alright I’m back. Since last entry I’ve been pretty busy with the holiday stuff and this year it’s a bit different due to a few things: 1) Al’s great grandma passed away so we had to call off a couple of parties and just hang out with his family; 2) my grandparents went back to HK so didn’t really do anything with my relatives (usually we have Christmas dinner at my aunt’s); 3) I got sick on the Friday before holiday started.

Anyways, here’s a recap of my holidays activities. Pictures will follow in a later post as I have yet to download them from the camera. Here comes a long post so grab a coffee/tea and prepare to read.

Dec. 23

Went out shopping with the twins since they need to buy presents for their parents. We went to downtown since Ken wanted to look for “specific” items. We hit up Holt Renfrew first to check out some purses and had our eyes on this LV bag but decided to look at other stuff first. Then we went over to Tiffany & Co. because Ken had looked at some of their stuff online and saw a pendant that he wanted. It’s my first time going into a jewelry store (well I’ve went into those Chinese ones with Al’s mom but only briefly and I don’t really look at anything). It was weird because we look like kids who’d walk into a store with their piggy banks to buy presents. @_@ After walking in circles like 5 times, we settled for the star pendant with diamonds by Frank Gehry. It’s really nice and the design is really unique. The twins & their parents also bought a pair of Frank Gehry sterling silver earrings for me as present. It’s like the most expensive piece of jewelary I ever own, I think I’ll tuck it away and like take it out and polish it once in a while…

We decided to get a scarf for the twin’s dad so we headed across the street to LV (seeing a shopping pattern here?) We saw a couple of scarfs that were really nice and comfy (that’s because they are 100% cashmere). I picked the chocolate colour one because it’s easy to match clothes with. Ken was trying on the scarfs and he was rubbing his face on it because it’s so comfy. [haha]

In order to not let their parents know what we got them, we went to Yoko123 (kind of like a Japanese dollar store) to pick up gift boxes and bags. We then transfered everything to the new “shells” and gave it to their parents. They were both really surprised and loved the presents we’ve picked for them. Especially their mom. She was so happy she couldn’t stop smiling for like the rest of the night.

Dec. 24

Al’s childhood friend, Nelson, came up for the holidays from Redmond. Nelson works for Microsoft and he comes up to visit his family occasionally. We went to dim sum after they picked me up at 11:00. As expected we had to wait for 1.5 hours before there was space for us since we didn’t make any reservations (which I’ve told Al to make but he was lazy). Over dim sum we did a lot of catching up and the topic of bread making popped up. Nelson’s neighbours are Italian and they had taught him how to make Italian breads and pizza. So, since I’ve always been curious about bread making, Nelson had agreed to show me how [score!]. After lunch we went to an Italian store, Bosa, and checked out all the cheese & hams & pastas & the $60 balsamic vinegars they have. It was interesting. We’re planning to do the bread baking session this Sunday so stay tune for more later!

After hanging out with Nelson, Al and I dropped by T&T for Mochi and some snacks before heading over to my place for dinner. My family like to do Christmas Eve dinners since most people are busy on Christmas day, which works out better for my brother and I since he can eat at Meg’s place and I at Al’s on the 25th. It’s the first time Meg (my brother’s gf) join us for dinner and since she’s not Asian, my parents are kind of nervous. My dad’s English is very poor and all he did was nod and smile all night. Al brought the Wii over so that helped break the ice in the beginning. We had a lot of fun talking about our childhood memories and of course mom and dad had fun telling Meg and Al about our embarrassing moments like peeing our beds and such.

Dec. 25

Went over to Al’s place in the morning and had dim sum with his parents and pretty much stayed in doors the whole day. We had hot pot for dinner and just hung out with his family and play Wii. It’s a nice change and I was able to rest up for Boxing Day shopping!

Dec. 26

It’s BOXING DAY! Alright I know Americans don’t have boxing days as I found out after talking to people from the States. I told them I have boxing day off and they were like…what’s boxing day? So for those of you who doesn’t have boxing day, check it out here. Anyways, I was really excited about going shopping on Boxing Day since I haven’t done that since I started going out with Al.

I had planned to go out early to avoid the crowd but I woke up late since I stayed up watching Taiwanese drama the night before. When I met up with Al at the train station there were already lots of people waiting for the train to go to downtown. It’s not as crowded as the morning traffic but still pretty packed. We got to Pacific Center at around 12 and bee-lined to BCBG since everything is 50% off. I picked out a few things and had to line up to wait for the changing room. I walked away with a summer dress that I plan on wearing to one of the two weddings for next year.

We headed to H-Mart’s food court, a Korean supermarket, for lunch before going to the Puma store. Everything in the store is 30% off and so I bought a pair of casual shoes as well as two scarfs for Ken & Al. I was planning to go home but Al wanted to visit the Adidas store as well so we got in line. Even thought it’s only 2 doors down from Puma, there was a line up and it’s the only store that I had to line up to get in. It took us 20 mins to get inside. After trying on a few sweaters and vests, I walked out with a pair of boots and Al got a pair of shoes, both at 40% off so it’s not too bad. I actually wore the new boots for work today since it snowed over night.

Dec. 27

Well that’s today and it’s back to work as usual. The funny thing is this morning when I got to work at 8:20 there was no one in the office. So when I walked through the door the alarm thing went off and I started to panic as I’ve never unarmed the alarm before. Good thing I carry the piece of paper with the code in my wallet or I’ll be stuck talking to some security people. The office is unusally quiet, and there were only 3 of us by 10am. Anyways, that’s it for now, I’ll post some pictures later!

Tell me about your Christmas!

Chu: I wanted the girls group picture. I think you took one with your camera.

Snowy: Did you get my Christmas card? >___<

Brian: Where are you? @____@