Friday, January 30, 2015

Christmas at home

I'm supposed to be studying for a project management exam so this is where I procrastinate and blog instead. This post is long, long overdue. For some reason, I always think that when I go home, I should have a lot of time to blog and catch up on other things. But it never happens. So here's a post about spending my first Christmas at home in a long time.

I was home for about 2 weeks. I managed to redeem some miles from Singapore airlines for a one way flight home. 

Snowball hogging all the slippers:

So many presents! I basically brought home a suitcase full of presents for everyone. Both of my cousins are also back for Christmas so we had a feast at our house and a really great time opening presents. Just like the old days when we were all still living at home and going to school.

Victor sleeping with a huge bear:

Snowball sleeping in his "tent". We got a dog toy for Snowball since the dog dogs are all much bigger than cat toys. He didn't seem as enthusiastic about the toy as we thought. Maybe cats are just not that into big toys...

The weekend after Christmas, we went on a snow trip to a ski resort in Lake Tahoe. We joined a tour group that basically took a bus full of us from the Bay Area up to Reno on Saturday. On the way, we stopped by Lake Tahoe. It's really beautiful. My mom, brother, and I went with my aunt, two cousins, grandma, and my brother's friend's family. There were 12 of us in total. The next day, we got up really early to go to the ski resort to go skiing. We got beginner ski package tickets that included rentals and lessons. The resort became packed with people really quickly and the lessons took forever. At some point, my brother, his friend, and I got bored of the lessons and we were itching to go up the ski lift. It's the boys' first time going so I warned them about getting on and off the lift. We managed to go up and down the slopes twice without any incident. The third time, my brother's friend fell and got soaked near some melted snow. He managed to walk down and we got him back inside. Then my brother and I took our cousin up the lift for one last run. We lost her on the last part down the slopes and waited for a while before she showed up. She said she literally rolled down the last hill. Anyway, incidents aside, I think we all had fun.


New Year's Eve dinner from Sushi House! I think American sushi places are really creative with the sushi, especially the rolls. You don't really find rolls with all the different toppings and such in Asia. I find that my American friends are always after "authentic" and "recommended" places to eat. I'm always skeptical when someone says something is "authentic". What makes something authentic? Does good food have to be authentic? Or is good food just a category by itself?


I got this snowman cake making kit from Muji and made it with my brother. It took us forever! The pieces were tiny and it was so hard to keep the chocolate melted so that we can decorate the snowmen. There's a toothpick on the bottom of the first photo for scale. Anyway, not sure if this all got eaten. We made it the day before I left.


1 comment:

yalu said...

I don't think good food has to be authentic!

Haha those snowmen look funny.