SATC - The movie experience (part 1)

I got a call from Darwin at work that SATC tix at Arclight are all sold out. I checked yahoo movies and I was in a panic mode coz I'd really want to see SATC the first night it comes out. I bought the tix online for 10:15pm show at The Grove, got home at 7ish, had dinner at 8ish, watched the Celtics game then left home at 9ish. I figured we have a lot of time to spare coz it's a 15 minute drive to our destination and we already have purchased the tix. When we reached The Grove, parking for the first 4 floors are full, there's a line outside the theater and people were either walking fast or running, it's crazy! Lots of SATC fans showed up and most of them are dressed up like they're going to a concert or a club. It's like an event!

Since I still need to pickup our tix at the guest service, I told Darwin to go in line so he can reserve our spot. There's 5 girls ahead of me and a gay guy who wants to sell his SATC ticket. I think one of his friends didn't show up. As I look around, there's a lot of fashionistas wearing their signature dress, shoes and purse. I should have taken picture from my iPhone so I can post it here =P

I got our tix, went inside the movie house but unfortunately, all side by side seats were taken. I'm so pissed off coz I now I had to return our tix to get a refund and go in line again.

When we got home, I immediately bought tix online but this time with reserved seating @ Arclight Hollywood. I got the sweet spot!

Memorial Weekend Getaway

I've been planning for this trip since last month coz of the long weekend. Usually we just stay home or have BBQ with friends but once in a while, it's fun to go on a trip and experience life in another city. We decided to go to San Jose, the home of Silicon Valley, to check out what they have in store for us.. On our way to North Cali, we stopped by at Monterey.

Day 1 - Monterey
We left at 8ish and it's raining in LA. I heard from the news while I'm packing that there was a tornado in Riverside. I never heard of a tornado that touches down in the southland. I know we have earthquakes but not tornadoes. I was actually having second thoughts leaving but when I checked the weather in San Jose, it's sunny.. so we're good. We stopped by at Mickey Dee's (aka McDo) to grab something to eat and then we filled up our gas. The trip was smooth until we got into Highway 198 which is an hour drive of zig zag road. I almost puked coz there was really lots of turns and hills but in spite of all that, the scenery was magnificent!

We reached Monterey around 1pm then we went to my favorite spot, the garden with lots of pink flowers. This is one of the tourist spots in North Cali and it's an hour drive from Frisco. We're actually looking for a Bed & Breakfast Inn coz we havn't tried that yet but it cost $200 a night.. so scratch that! Prices really go up during holiday so we might try it in some other day.

We had lunch at Louie Linguini's and we ordered Cioppino which is one of their specialties. It's like kalderata with seafoods on it which is kinda weird. =P





More Monterey pix here.

Lakers was playing that day for Game 2 against Spurs and we dont wanna miss it. It's good that we have TNT in our room for the NBA playoffs but Darwin still recorded it in TiVo so we can watch and play the Kobe "moves" in slow-mo (which he always does). We put our jerseys on while watching the game... sooo crazy! Lakers won 101-71. WooHoo!





After the game we went to Fry's Electronics at Sunnyvale to get our geek on! It's good to have someone who's tech savvy and who can relate to what you're saying. Actually, Darwin is more geeky that I am =P Sunnyvale is the original Fry's store and I noticed that they don't have a "theme". I later found out that the second Fry's that opened in Fremont started the "theme" store =P Here in Burbank, it's sci-fi then Alice in wonderland in Woodland Hills.


Day 2 - Winchester Mystery House
I love going to education trips like musuems, old houses, historical landmarks, etc and the Winchester was on top of my list on places to go to this year. We're actually planning to got to Washington DC this fall and I hope it will materialize =P Need to start doing research now about DC and book flights and hotels so we can get discounts.

Anyways, this beautiful but bizarre 160-room Victorian mansion was built and constantly added on to by rifle heiress Sarah Winchester over a period of four decades. An architectural marvel, this place is so bizarre, you just have to check it out. Windows are built into the floor, staircases lead to nowhere, a chimney rises four floors, and doors open onto blank walls. With 4 stories, 47 fireplaces, 17 chimneys, and 950 doors, the guided tours can be quite head-scratching. It took us 2 hours to tour the whole house.

Official site: http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/





More Winchester pix here

After the tour, we went to downtown San Jose, Cupertino, and Palo Alto and stayed for a couple more hours. Google is supposed to be part of the itinerary coz Mountain View is in Silicon Valley, but we decided to skip it because it's getting dark.

-Fanime @ San Jose Convention Center
-Homouroboros Exhibit
-1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino - Apple HQ
-Stanford University




More San Jose pix here.

We checked-in at our hotel in San Bruno around 9ish and we're sooo tired and all I want to do is sleep =P It's good that there are restaurants around our area. There's Cleo's Brazilian Steak House which I think is famous because it's so busy and there's a long wait outside the restaurant. We waited for a lil while coz the waiter told us it he can get us seated in a few minutes. We waited, then waited... then 10 minutes have passed and we cant wait anymore. So we got out of the restaurant and crossed the street and end up having dinner at Ihaw-Ihaw. We ordered sinigang na belly fish and pork inihaw. Yummy!

After dinner, we feel like watching Indian Jones, so I googled for a movie theater and found one in San Mateo. We took the side streets instead of the freeway but when we reached our destination, we decided to call it a night coz I'm a 'lil scared. It's already 12MN and I dont wanna stay out late in a city I'm not familiar with =P

Day 3 - San Francisco
Our hotel serves free breakfast so we had bagel with cream cheese to start the day. We left around 10ish and since we need cash to pay the toll to cross the Golden Gate bridge and water, we decided to go to the grocery to get cash back and bottled water (Hit two birds with one stone, aight!) Yup, here in the States, they let you withdraw cash from your debit/ATM card as you pay your groceries to the cashier. It makes life easy! On our way to Safeway, we accidentally saw Youtube's HQ so we had photo-ops =P

Itinerary:
-Youtube HQ
-Muir Woods National Park
-Pt. Bonita Lighthouse
-Union Square
-Yancy's Saloon






We watched the Lakers game at Yancy's Saloon which Darwin discovered through Yelp.com. The bar is similar to McLaren's in HIMYM and I don't see anything like this back home, coz in LA it's all commercialized like BJ's and Hooters. I only had one Corona and that's it, I dont feel like drinking that night coz I'm still full from the late lunch that we just had at Union Square. Our team lost though, but it's all cool. As we're walking towards our car, I discovered that I dont have my iPhone. So I run and even jaywalked (see pix below) and there it is, my iPhone still on the floor. Thank God it's still there! This is the 2nd time that I ALMOST lost my iPhone, the first one was when I was shopping at Banana Republic and just left it at the shoe section.



More Frisco pix here

Muir Woods National Park

Excerpt from wikipedia:
Muir Woods National Monument is a unit of the National Park Service in Marin County, California, 12 miles (19 km) north of San Francisco. It protects 554 acres (2.24 km²) of forested area populated by Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), one of the last remaining stands in the immediate San Francisco Bay Area.

Such a great place to enjoy mother nature. I don't know that Frisco has hidden treasure like this.. More trivia.... the Sequoia tree is the tallest tree in the world.

height = 115.5 m (379.1 ft)
diameter = 8 m (26 ft)



More Muir Woods pix here

Day 4 - Back to Lalaland
We left the next day and as the song goes... I left my heart in San Francisco (Love this pix) I'd actually want both of us in the picture just like what we did in New York with the LOVE sign, pero dyahe si Darwin eh =P



Flashback 2005

Tin's birthday

The party is supposed to start at 6pm but everyone arrived at 8ish. What do you expect, almost everyone in our gang are Filipinos =P The party started with food feast of course, there's adobo, lechon kawale, lumpiang shanghai, sweet & sour fish, pancit, lumpiang gulay and lots more! While listening to Darwin's Manila sound playlist, we talked about anything from 'Lobo' teleserye and how buff Papa Piolo is right now, our friend's exciting job at Beverly Hills derma that does facial of Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Beyonce, Eric Dane, etc and of course baby stuff since Baby Aldrin is there.. He's soo cute! A Pinoy party wont be complete without videoke. =) We left around 1:30am. It was fun!

(Click pix for larger view)

Self service

I can't help but wonder, do we really need someone to do things for us? (famous Carrie line opener in SATC). When I went to the Philippines for a vacay, we have a helper who cleans the house, a yaya for Daige, and a driver to get us around town. When we go out, there's a gasoline boy, an elevator operator, a bus boy that takes the tray (from fast food restaurant) and I know there's a lot more that I can't think of which is on the top of my head =P

Americans are so independent that they don't need anyone to do things for them. That's why when I went home, I got culture shock even though I grew up in Pinas coz Im not used to have anyone do things for me anymore. I fill up my tank on my own, I do my errands, and I take my food tray out to the trash bin.

Yesterday, we went to Kinko's to get a photocopy of the car's insurance policy. It's so high tech that all you need is a credit card to operate it. I told Darwin that in Pinas, we have a dedicated person that will do that for you. So I told him about the elevator operator, etc and he asks me if it's really necessary? I don't think it's necessary either. It's kinda weird to have someone press the button for you when in fact you can do it by yourself =P

Think about it...




Earlier that day, we went to Hamer Toyota to get Prius an oil change. Since it will take two hours to get it serviced, we decided to go to Northridge mall. I got myself a Kobe #24 Lakers jersey and a top at Banana Republic while Darwin bought an Express jeans, a plaid short at Aeropostale and a Kobe MVP shirt. We're such a Laker fan =P

SATC The movie!

I got this in the mail! I can't wait to see SATC and see my girls work it! I will be the first in line on May 30!!!

Mid-monthly update

Fitness
All I do is work, work and WORK! I don't have time to go to the gym anymore and I havn't been to my kickbox cardio class for almost a month now. I just get sooo lazy everytime I get home.. I cant even cook.. I just sit at the couch and watch TV. I think I gained a lot of weight coz we always order to go.. but they say that I lose some. Strange.. but I feel restless, overworked and stressed out.

Solution: Wii Fit.. Yup! We just pre-ordered it and we'll pick it up on May 21. Actually, at first I dont wanna get it coz it's just a game and it's so expensive. But when I found out that Best Buy and Walmart just run out stock, and it's selling in eBay for twice its price, I was kinda challenged to look for one. Darwin read from a tech forum that Blockbuster is still pre-selling it, so we went and bought two. We'll sell the other one on eBay =P



Dining out
We missed our weekly-scheduled date night last Friday because Lakers was playing against Utah Jazz for the playoffs. Both of us are Lakers fan, we already have a flag attached to our car window and we don't miss any games. If we're out of town, we Tivo it and watch it via Slingbox. Anyways, the series is tied at 2-2 and we're praying that we'll win this Wednesday.

Solution: Date night will be changed to Thursday temporarily. I'm thinking of going to The Americana in Glendale which just opened a couple of weeks ago.



Recent Date nights:
April 25 - Pho Cafe (Vietnamese) - a lot of beautiful peeps, the look like actors trying to make it in Hollywood.. we're the only Asians there =P

May 2 - Indo Cafe (Indonesian) - I used to take National Blvd when I come home from school and didnt notice this resto. They are Zagat rated and Indo food tastes like Thai food.

Beef Rendang

Ayam Panggang


Parties
April 19 - Janetti celebrated her 23rd birthday last night and we had a blast!! We had dinner at Tokyo Delves then went to Minx to go clubbing.




The night before Janet's birthday, I worked from home for a project release that lasted for 4 hours (6-10pm). There's a lot of issues when we started integrating the first system and all project leads for each department are there. The release needs to be resumed the next day because the servers went down for maintenance. It's just so stressful that I thought I wont be able to make it to the party. I woke up at 7am, finalized all system testing and we're able to complete the release at 12nn. Whoo!

May 3 - We celebrated Cinco de Mayo a couple of days earlier. We had videoke, food, Rock Band, food, GTA 4, and more food!

May 10 - Homecoming for Chris! My cousin is finally back from Iraq. We missed him a lot!


with Chris
with AJ
with Char-Char and Haley


Tin's birthday is coming... something to look forward to this week.

Movies
Cloverfield, Dan in Real Life and The Great Debaters movie marathon. I was really touched by the last movie.. such a great movie. It's a must see!

I also saw Iron Man on May 5 at Arclight after Darwin's Toastmaster.. it's better than Transformers and Spider-man! You must wait for the after credits but I'm not gonna say anything about it coz I love y'all! (keepin it a mystery but I think most peeps know about this =P

We got the sweet seat (ie: best spot)

Tech News
iPhone 3G rumors are circulating all over podcasts, forums, etc. I had my iPhone for almost a year now and I love it! Web 2.0 apps is the best thing that ever happened to iPhone because of the free apps! I've got twitter, multiply, facebook, digg, wikipedia, etc that's customized for the iPhone browser. With the new iPhone SDK, more apps will be available.

More here:
http://darwin23.blogspot.com/2008/05/iphone-sold-out-3g-next.html

My answer: We'll see!

Daige turns one year old!

You're so big now! Love yah! Happy Birthday!

Tokidoki x Hello Kitty - Cuteness!

I like!

San Francisco Weekend getaway

April 26-27, 2008 - It was Darwin's mom's birthday so it's more of a family weekend thingie. We left LA at 6ish am and arrived at around 1pm.. just in time for lunch. Since everyone is craving for Pinoy food, we ate at Ongpin restaurant in Daly City. We then went to Twin Peaks to kick-off the tour. Feeling turista kme! The view at the Twin Peaks is just perfect! It's hard to find this tourist spot and houses are built at the hillside so we thought we already got lost. We cant rely on our GPS since it isn't updated, so we have to use the iPhone to get the address then enter it to GPS to get the route =P Next stop.. Golden Gate bridge... this is only my 2nd time crossing it. I just love taking pictures of the bridge..We then drove towards Lombard Street to check out the crookedest street in the world! It's my first time! We then headed to Fisherman's wharf since everybody is hungry. Parking fee is expensive in the city so we have to look for a restaurant that validates parking. We end up at Cafe 8 and I had Frisco's famous clam chowder soup! Bought souvenir then went home. It was a looooong day!

Wake up call is at 8am. Arrgh! that's too early for me.. but I was able to get up just on time =P Took a shower then went to Wamu to get some moolah! We then went to Alamo square to check out the Victorian houses. I'm so fascinated by Victorian house.. I dunno, it's my dream house maybe =P Took more pictures. We're supposed to go to Union Square to check out the mall and do some shopping but the oldies were already hungry (since we missed breakfast) so we just decided to have brunch at Goldilocks. We accidentally passed thru Chinatown and what do you expect?!... traffic!

Back to Lalaland at 8pm. Good thing I was off from work the next day!

More pictures @ multiply