Sunday, August 17, 2014

Summer updates

Thought I'd write a quick post since it's been a while since I've written anything here. I was home for about a month. My trip was originally going to be a little more than 2 weeks but I ended up extending my stay. It was nice to stay home for an extended amount of time. There were many days where I didn't do that much. I feel like our lives are always so fast paced and we're always trying to fit everything in that it's actually hard to stop. I always feel like I need to be productive and do things during the day. It's actually really nice not to do very much and lounge around.

Anyway, it was nice to be back. I met up with friends and met new friends. The wedding that I went to was really nice. The ceremony was at the Stanford chapel. The chapel was spacious and it was easy to see what was happening on stage. Outdoor setups tend not to be the greatest in terms of viewing the actual ceremony. There was a bunch of shuttles that took the entire party up to a winery for the reception. The winery is really nice! Actually, it was amazing. The view of the Bay was unbeatable against the vineyards. There were indoor rooms and outdoor mingling spaces. The dinner was held in a large gazebo area that was shaded from the direct sunlight overhead but can still be considered an outdoor space. We enjoyed the dinner in the long sunset. I really don't know if the couple and the wedding party was able to enjoy the wedding as much as the guests. They seemed busy, which is a shame. It would be nice if these wedding venues could have a package deal where you get to enjoy the place after the wedding for half a day or something.

On my flight back, I had a layover in Taipei. My long flight between SF and Taipei was not that full and I had all 3 seats to myself! Usually these trans-Pacific flights are really full so this was a nice surprise. I think what happened was that these summer flights are in high demand. All the other airlines were fully booked. And EVA airlines decided to run an extra flight. So there were 2 flights that night from SF to Taipei, leaving 20 minutes apart. I was on the earlier flight, which (I think) is the extra one. Anyway, after eating dinner and watching the latest Detective Conan movie (!), I laid down on the seats and slept. The seats weren't completely flat so it wasn't that comfortable but it was still better. I read an article about this rich guy, who instead of booking First Class, would book all three seats in Economy and had this inflatable thing that fits in the legroom space. This would actually give him more space to sleep on than a First Class seat.

I've been back in HK for more than a week now. One of my friends came to visit last week. He had originally told me that his flight was leaving Friday late evening and had asked if he should arrive Wednesday or Thursday. I told him that there's a lot to see and do so he should probably come in on Wednesday. It's a good thing that he did because it turns out that his flight was Thursday evening! We still made it out to a dim sum dinner on Wed night and then a bunch of places on Thursday before he had to leave to catch his flight. There's too much to see and it's hard to be walking around in the heat. HK is a much better place in the winter. At least there wasn't any tropical rainstorm or typhoon during his 24 hour stay.

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