tetleytee

Two things which I remember and love from Elaine’s wedding:

“It’s coming all over the place!!”
- Elaine, referring to her veil not staying in place and the fact that it was windy outside.

“I’m so happy my daughter has finally found the white man”
- Elaine’s dad, whose Chinese accent had us all cracking up at the head table as he described Nathan to be the right man for his daughter.

All in all it was a great wedding. It was probably one of the few times I actually got to see her new husband three days in a row (usually I’d see him… never), and it’s been years since I’ve seen Ivano. I also got to see the newlywed couple the next day and boy were they hungover. And it’s really amusing to see a bunch of peppy old Chinese people, and a bunch of young hungover adults trying to eat lunch together at a busy dim sum restaurant. Congratulations to the new Mr. & Mrs.!

Ed visited Vancouver over the weekend where we spent a fair deal of time (but not enough, imo) eating and doing touristy stuff. The schedule went as follows:

• Ed arrived at 9:00am
• After much indecisiveness, I decided to go to Nu for brunch
• We get there at 10, only to find that it doesn’t open until 10:30. fail.
• We bum around until 10:30, get inside and sit on the pretty patio. I am freezing. Ed takes a total of two work phone calls while eating.
• We finish eating and Ambrose heads off to do manly things while Ed and I decide to rent a bicycle and ride around Stanley. We head down Robson Street.
• Find some random bike rental store on Denman and rent a tandem after perusing some of the sweet-looking ones outside. What they give us cannot even be called a lemon, it was so busted. Ed takes another work phone call.
• Try to bike around the block on it and it’s a bazillion times harder than it looked. Most likely because our bike was old and the seats were all off and disproportionate to the handle bars. We were a danger on the road, and I thought we would die on several occasions.
• Took the bike back to the shop and decided to get two single bikes. I requested a cruiser. They’re so much fun!
• Made our way to Stanley and biked around, stopping at many random tourist areas and debated running through the water park. Ed got freaked out with all the rock sculptures. Ed takes three work phone calls.
• The bike took us 2 hours, and then we walked down Denman to Mondo’s for 6 scoops of gelato.
• Back home for a short bit, and then off to visit the Vancouver branch of his company.
• We ate dinner at Samurai on Davie. He apparently loves wasabi to the point where its disgusting.
• Hung out at night with some of his work people at Doolin’s.
• Woke up bright and early the next morning to hike the grouse grind. I still suck at it. A lot.
• Didn’t have time for ramen lunch, so we said our goodbyes and he went off to the airport all sweaty from the hike

I had a great time with him in town. Pictures can be found on the tab at the top of the page. Thanks for visiting!!!

You see relatives. And they say “wow, you look… so much… bigger. When is your wedding?”

You see your parents. And they say “why are your arms so huge? Have you picked a wedding date yet?”

You see your brother. And he says “gimme twenty bucks.”
You see your friends. And they’re awesome.

All in all, my trip back to Hong Kong was really fun, if not really tiring. I regret not convincing A enough to come back with me, since I had to bear the hounding of wedding-related issues by myself. If only he came and met all those relatives, then he’d realize how many people there are on my side of the family! HK Carmie would understand!

My highlights include Hong Kong Disneyland with Clo, the awesome wedding of my cousin Carrie to Leonard at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Serena’s one-night stay at the Langham which I got to mooch, Carmie’s appearance at our family dinner (she’s now the part of the family), and dinner with Rendy. It was so great to see family and friends again and be on vacation mode, it was like summer break. I completely forgot what that felt like, to wake up when I wanted, to go out and do stuff when I wanted, to not have to sit in an office waiting for the hours to tick away, to stay out til late, to hug my parents every day. I should take vacations more often.

On a side note, people in Hong Kong (even when working for a reputable global employer), work stupid hours til 7pm (on a good day), and Saturdays as well. When I told Petula that we get off work at 3pm on a Friday if we have nothing to do her jaw dropped to the floor. It was weird.

I got back on Saturday. Today is Wednesday. I’m still jetlagged. And thus this post has no substance what-so-ever. But now that every family member on the face of the planet has nagged me about my wedding and when it is and where it is and whether they’re coming with their children and their children’s children, I have vowed to bust my ass and get started with planning. Let the games begin!

Thanks for your visit!

I will be on vacation from March 20th to April 6th inclusive to visit family and friends in Hong Kong with limited access to web browsing and e-mail.
For issues regarding wedding-related posts, please visit glamourthis, fabulously broke, or ten thousand only.

For issues regarding random links, please visit del.icio.us or xkcd. Issues on interesting topics can be directed to TED or surfthechannel.
And for all other issues, facebook will be able to answer your questions.

Thank you! I’ll reply to comments upon my return.
tetleytee

End of the trip, and this calls for a recap:
Paris hostels have nothing but cold and dirty showers.
Elton and Min witnessed a man taking a crap in the metro in Paris.
We went to see Les Mis in London
Elton nearly got smashed by a bus today by running into the road.
So did I.
I heart Gaudi.
Elton heart Titian.
Wayne heart Michaelangelo’s Pieta.
Elton and A both heart Bernini.
I ran into Stephie, Simon and Cammie in Paris!
But most importantly:
I come home tomorrow

I heart you Toronto!

1. Wayne broke his digicam by dropping it on the floor of the Duomo museumnce in Florence
2. Wayne bought a new digicam in Rome and has since been taking an even larger number of photos than usual
3. Elton has gotten bird crapped on in every city in Italy (Rome’s may or may not count as he actually sat in the crap)
4. Wayne sat ion a radiator in a museum in Venice, it made a big cracking noise, and he was then followed by security around the rest of the building
5. Wayne got yelled at by Security in Florence for taking photos in a NO PHOTO zone
6. Wayne got yelled at by the laundromat owner for using too much free detergent
7. A got his wallet lifted with zero dollars in it
8. Tomorrow we hit Barcelona

So I also forgot to mention that while in our money hole that was Venice, there was a train strike. Of course, we can’t read Italian or understand Italian, so us and other silly tourists were unaware of this until it actually happened. And unfortunetly for us, our hostel was on Mestre, the mainland which requires a 10 minute train ride out. So at 9:02pm we’re at the train station after laying down a lot of money in the money sucking city and hoping to go home early for a relaxing evening when we look at the train departure board and none of the times are… soon. And none of the trains are going anywhere. And everything is closed.

So we’re stranded at the train station, two minutes after the 24 hour strike started. TWO. MINUTES. You better believe I was hella pissed. We ended up having to cram onto a really really really packed transit bus with a gazillion other poor non-Italian tourists who didn’t know there’d be a strike just to make it back to our hostel.

Secretly, we think it was a ploy that Venice was just trying to keep tourists on its island to milk more money out of them. Sneaky sneaky.

Heyos! Internet is dirt cheap in Florence (2 euros for an hour!) so I’m here to update you guys. I’m not yet dead, not yet mugged, and I know you’re all a little disappointed because you thought I’d have some super sob stories to report to you. Well tough.

My four days in Venice were pretty ass. Not because planner Elton did a bad job, he did a great job. It’s just the city itself is a money hole. Everything is so retardedly expensive!!! The only cheap thing is gelato, which is 1 euro for a big hefty scoop in a nice sugar cone. And even those you have to really hunt for. We did a lot of hunting while we were there. Plus, the city is crowded as heck. So many people everywhere getting all in my way and all that jazz. Elton and Wayne decided that their next vacation would be someplace where tourists never go. They said Alaskan cruise, and I didn’t want to break their hearts by telling them that those are actually pretty popular so I just let it slide.

For our last two days in Venice we stayed in this ass hostel. There were BUGS in the place. Not big-ass, size of your fist bugs, but bugs none the less. No one else noticed it though, until I pointed out that the number of dead bugs in the hallway grew overnight because we left the hall light on and they just toasted themselves to death. Poor Elton also found out last night that none of us go barefoot in the showers because… you just don’t let your skin touch anything. Now he’s all disgusted with it, and everywhere we go he tries to find a pharmacy to buy sandals. Hahaha!!

I also have more things to bash about Venice, but I wrote them in my postcards out so I’ll have to tell you about them later. The main one is about gondola rides. For those waiting for a postcard, I’m extremely poor so I’m only sending out two postcards per city (and only if I can find me some cheap postcards, I refuse to spend more than .30 euro a card), so in Vienna I sent postcards home and to Bryan, and Venice I sent postcards to Eduardo and Yada. I think Florence I will be sending postcards to Carmie and Kalun.

Florence has also been a bust so far, gelato is 2 euro a scoop We’re trying to tough it out, because man, Eurotrip is not cheap! We’re all trying to curb our spending, but it’s hard because we don’t like living like hobos (or using the new phrase we coined up, homobo).

Many memories are happening on this trip, but that will have to be for another post. I desperately need to get a notebook to take down some proper memories. Hope everything is good with all you kids back home. Almost 10pm here, so bedtime for me (we had an early morning trying to catch our 630am train, so I’m very very tired).

Toodles!

Hey all! I’m in Vienna, alive and well, as is the rest of my friends. We’ve been in Europe for a week now, so I think that’s a pretty big accomplishment. Prague is a great city, I went around and got a good look at all the old buildings in Old Town, Min got harrassed in the bathroom of our hostel by a bunch of drunk girls screaming “duuuuuutch”, and we ran into John Sey and his group while strolling around near Prague Castle. Elton also discussed the usefulness of his washboard abs.

Cesky Krumlov was also a great place to go, we got to see the castle in Cesky which is less grand as Prague but then again the city is … really really small. Like you can walk from one end to the other in 20 minutes. But the castle was really interesting because it had a moat (which was mainly the river) and in case the moat didn’t stop invaders, they had a BEAR PIT. With three bears. It was pretty neat!

Now we’re in Vienna and I’m using paid-internet (boo!). We went to see the Habsburg summer palace today, along with St. Stephen’s church. Oh, I also got lifted. By a frekking kid. No worries though, I have no valuables in my pocket, I’m smarter than that . But I swear, the girl was not even in highschool yet. She and a friend of hers tried to run up against me while boarding the subway and I just stared at her as she stared at me. I felt her hands go in or near my jacket pockets which I had left unzipped and then she ran away, it all happened pretty quickly. But nothing in my pockets except… hand sanitizer and some kleenex. Clo’s backpack is awesomeness, I swear.

We also ate schnitzel today, but it took a lot of effort just to get some. Apparently May 1st is a holiday here in Vienna. For I don’t know what reason. But the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed, there were crazy line ups all around the city, and it was crowded as heck. We ended up at Schnitzelhaus, I think it’s a fast food chain of schnitzel. Min and Wayne got the Reisenschnitzel which is pretty much like a big big big ass hunk of schnitzel. Somewhere along the way, Elton’s abs being so chiseled they could start a fire was also discussed.

Okay, I have a few emails to send out and only 8 minutes left. So I hope you’re all doing well!

Yada I didn’t get ap ostcard for you from Prague, but I promise |you’ll get a vienna one! Bryan, I wrote your prague one, but didn’t get a chance to send it, it’ll be coming from Vienna. Everyone else, I left your addresses at home I’m sorry! Send me an email again with your address please!

Love tee