Work has been pretty crazy lately! I've been traveling down to Santa Monica every Thursday to meet with the Yahoo Music team. It's fun, but flying every week is a bit tiring. Hopefully I will be able to do video conferencing from here on out.
Speaking of flying, I just got back from a family reunion/step-father birthday party in New York last weekend. It was really fun and I had a chance to hang out with my 5 nieces and nephews (my brother has 5 kids). They don't speak english, even though they live just outside of New York City. It gives me a chance to practice my Japanese! They are super cute kids.

The weather in San Francisco has been amazing! It was 78 the other day and sunny everyday.  I've been spending a lot of time outside, running about 24 miles a week and taking lots of pictures (which I will post up here soon!).

Well here are a couple pictures from last month's San Francisco Asian American Film Fest. It was at the West32nd after party. Great to see Pat and Dan again and meet some new people from the Bay Area. Hopefully I'll get over to HK soon to see the crew again. It's been a few years since I saw Mark or Etchy jeez! Hope everyone is doing well though and enjoying the Spring!


Me, Lisa, and Pat


Pat took a break from his drink for this one... ;)

Things have been pretty crazzzzyyy here in S.F. lately. So since my last entry let's see:
I left Rottentomatoes and moved to Yahoo...as you know by all the media lately, Yahoo is going through some rocky times. My group was dissolved after only 4 months. Doh! To round out that week (and make it simply perfect), my girlfriend of just over 2 years decided she wanted to break up for various reasons, even though things seemed very good. *shrug* Life is never dull certainly. :) Anyway I'm becoming more active in my life lately, I ran 8 miles through the hills and golden gate park yesterday and another 4 miles today. I'm considering training for the S.F. half marathon which is coming up this summer. I think I could probably pull off the full marathon, but I really don't want to injure my body in any permanent way. 13 miles shouldn't be too hard by that time.

Work wise, Yahoo contacted me immediately after our department fell apart, and said they want me to stay with the company. I'm still waiting for the final paperwork, but it should be here tomorrow hopefully. It's basically the same position, but under the Marketing department. 3 other people and myself will be 'creating' the SEO department for Yahoo from the ground up. Should be super fun and challenging. I'll post once I know more on that front!

Other than that, I'm going to see Paul Van Dyk at 1015 this Saturday. Can't wait because he's amazing live. I'm also going to Japan in March/April to visit my dad in Kyoto and to see the sakura (cherry blossoms). I'm really looking forward to that as I plan on seeing some college friends from there who I haven't seen in over 10 years (getting oooollddd).

I also hate my iphone, It's dying on me haha :)

That's about it for now. I will try to update more often!!!!

Quote for the day:
Life is too short to be filled with anything but happiness for long. - me

I've let all of my blogs slip into the void, but I've decided I'll try my best to keep my AnD blog rolling. I need to keep track of all you crazy guys in HK anyway. So many things have been going on in my life right now, I will have to formulate my thoughts and write a full entry later! (i'm eating breakfast!)

I hope everyone is well and let me know if you are ever in S.F. I've got a comfy couch!

Gabriel and Dresden are doing a FREE show at Slide this coming Sunday night. They'll be playing some tracks from their upcoming mix album! I'll be there so if you're in the mood for some dancing go!

Make sure to sign up on the Guestlist HERE at so you can get in free!

What an amazing trip! I’m just barely now recovering from my jet lag. We flew into Beijing around 9:45 at night on the 15^th. After a 45 minute cab, we made it to our hotel, The Beijing New World Apartments.

Our room at the Beijing New World Apartments

Basicaly a 2 room condo with a kitchen for $60 USD a night. It’s very close to the Chongwenmen train station and shares the building with a really large mall, New World Mall.

The New World Mall front entrance

The manager was super nice and actually did laundry for us since the laundry in the building was being repaired. The only downside to this room was NO INTERNET. We had to go across the street to a pretty seedy internet “café” for 5rmb/hr.

We spent the whole week here. With trips to The Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, and The Summer Palace on my birthday! Some buddies from ShaChaHai Sports school took us out one night to Kai and Vics, a huge dance club. We had a great time and didn’t want to leave…

Outside the Tiananmen building

Originally we planned to take a train from Beijing to Yangshuo in order to explore the Li River. Once we heard that the Beijing Wushu team took 30 hours on a train to go to their tournament in Wenzhou (just south of Shanghai), we decided it would be better to fly. Smart move! It would have been around 50 hours and not comfortable compared to the 4 hour flight!

Yangzhou was pretty much a tourist trap and full of people trying to sell you stuff. It was a little annoying at times, but we still had fun. We rented bikes one morning and headed down on our own, to find the Moon Water Cave. After at least an hour riding in around 100 degree Fahrenheit weather, we found it.

The entrance to the Moon River Cave

I’m a bit claustrophobic, so halfway through the cave I started feeling a little dizzy and almost took the mid-way exit. I thought about it a little and finally decided I’d go for it! We made it through the rest of the cave, tasting fresh water and having a swarm of bats fly around our heads….awesome. J

Inside the Moon River Cave heading deeper…

The next few days we spent living at a local house right on the Li River. With no electricity the first night, it was pretty fun. The family there is great and you can see their contact info and learn more about the Li River part of our trip at theChinapedia.com

A water buffalo behind our house

 

The Li River at dusk

Our room from outside

The Li River was awesome though and I highly recommend checking it out especially for those of you in Hong Kong as it’s not far to fly to Guilin from there.

After 3 days down around the Li River, we headed over to Shanghai. I’d never been here and was completely surprised by the number of foreigners here. Ever third person was European or American! It was a little strange, but we ignored them mostly. My step brother, who lives in Shanghai, told us a few places to visit so we checked out the city and then met him for dinner. The Bund, Yu Gardens, and the French Quarter were all pretty cool spots. We even found a guy making Dragon Beard Candy on the street. I’d been searching for several days and had just about given up, when we came around a corner and there he was!

Welcome to flavor country! It’s Dragon Beard Candy!

  

Daniel was everywhere in Shanghai and Beijing!

Overall Shanghai was pretty nice but I definitely prefer Beijing. Shanghai felt so much like a European city, I wasn’t sure if I was still in China!

Pearl Tower in Pudong, Shanghai

Anyway it’s great to be back to the US. It was a long two weeks in China and although we had such a blast every single day, it’s really nice to lay on my couch and reach into my own fridge for an ice cold one.