what have we been up to?

we haven't been writing! that's what we've been up to...

we bought some really tasty matcha from a tea place in a mall! if you've never had matcha or made matcha at home, it's a completely different experience. i am still practicing...

as usual, we had to get out of the city (out of the cold and fog), so we headed north beyond the golden gate bridge and found an ecological reserve (very close to san quentin prison).

after walking around the reserve, we went to china camp and played around climbing the rocks. eugene even skipped some rocks for fun!

last weekend, we headed out to mt. diablo to hike. the original goal was to hike to the summit...until we saw that it was over 7 miles to hike to the summit. after walking for about 1.5 miles, we were completely burned out by the sun so we turned right back and headed home. we'll try again one day when it's way way cooler...

as a final farewell to summer (eugene started school again this week), we headed down to san jose to the winchester mystery house. we did a complete tour, with a tour of the mansion itself and a behind-the-scenes tour. if only we had such a big house...imagine all the possibilities and closets!

when i'm bored...i cook

i tried waking up early today in preparation for my rotation at the us coast guard (need to be there by 6:30am everyday!), but alas...i slept in until 8am. it was gloomy outside (as always in sf during the summer) so i didn't feel like going outside. with absolutely nothing to do (okay, not absolutely nothing...), i cooked! made some eggs with chives and...one of my friends talked about scallion cake yesterday, so i looked up a beautiful recipe and made chives cake instead (no scallions in the house). everyone should check out this blog: http://gattinamia.blogspot.com/. my chive cake didn't come out quite as pretty as gattina's, and i used a little bit too much salt, but it was still good to eat. if i don't make it as a pharmacist, maybe i can go into the chive cake business. :)

home sweet home

with just a few more weeks before eugene starts school again (and a few more days before i start my next block of rotations), we found some things to do around the house to pass the time and to have fun. since my friend's birthday was coming up, i decided to make her a tiramisu cake. once eugene found out, i had to make one for him too. and what better thing to do than to play jenga while we eat tiramisu!

*i couldn't figure out how to make the tiramisu look as nice as it did in the recipe book*

*eugene's quite the expert at jenga*

*look at how the whole thing is leaning towards me!*

*unfortunately, the game had to end...as it came crashing down*

a whole year already?

a year ago today, eugene and helen were united as one and started their life together as the wongs. it seems like just yesterday eugene and i were saying our vows to each other in front of our family and friends. it's impossible that a whole year has gone by already. we declare that we are still newlyweds, and we will stay newlyweds until 10 years from now. yes. we declare!

for our anniversary weekend, we took a shuttle tour to napa (four different wineries and a ride back to the city on a ferry), ate at golden lotus (finally) in oakland, walked along the berkeley pier (finally), spent some silly time at home, and ate at firefly to finish it off. all in all, it was a great weekend and monday to celebrate our special one year together.

enjoying some wine in napa valley


we got to walk in the vineyard at the andretti vineyard, and we got to try some grapes too!



i got some psi bands for motion sickness. i wore them on the ferry back to the city and boy did they ever help! i highly recommend them to anyone with motion sickness.



walking along the berkeley pier. the pier actually stretches 3.5 miles, but only 3000 feet of it remains for people to walk on. the middle picture shows the remaining pier that we can no longer access. we finished off our anniversary weekend on monday with dinner at firefly. yum-my!