Brayj’s before night time activity-Piano playing

Hubby has been doing a great job getting brayj comfortable with piano. Well, you never can imagine what you can get from each playing session:

– Firs time, he was kind of scared of the sound that coming out of piano, mostly because it was loud I think. (Brayj doesn’t like anything that is loud including someone talking loud to him…)

– Another time, I asked brayj 3 times where the middle C key is and he put his hand on the MIDDLE C three times!! That led me to think whether he actually learned it from all the training his daddy did with him…

– Well, this time guess what brayj figured out…..

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/61694003″>Playing piano with butt</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user7913695″>remanda xiang</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

A perfect night!

At this point, I am even a bit tired of mentioning anything about we celebrating our 5th anniversary. But I still have to say tonight was a perfect night to end our 3 days anniversary celebration trip in Brasada ranch resort.

Per my usual standard, I dressed up myself with a colorful dress with intent of lighting our the high dessert with some colors. I even dressed brian with his new Hugo boss polo shirt I forced him buy it. So we both look formal and appropriately dressed for our dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The time we arrived at the fancy restaurant of the ranch resort: Range Restaurant & Bar (more info about this restaurant and chef, click this

link: http://www.brasada.com/dining/range-restaurant ) was a perfect timing. The sun is just getting ready to sunset. We had eaten there the night before so we already know the chef there is extremely good. We ordered the “spicy lentil soup” again off their special menu, fried nochi salad as starter, brian ordered steak for main course and I ordered rockfish with rice and shrimp. Somebody even ordered a margarita , it will just be too wrong not to order any wine or cocktail in such a beautiful evening…… The sky was a bit mix of orange and pink, red, sun was reflected in the little pond near outside of the restaurant. The cloud together with all the smoke from forest fire added very interesting layer and color to the sky, which made today’s sunset best sunset both brian and I have ever experienced up till this minute of our life.

After dinner, we sat on one of those very comfortable low chair to enjoy the cool breeze but still right temp for being outside. Brian and I started to recall our memories of our past anniversary celebrations:  

1st year anniversary (Planned by Brian): A 2 days trip to Las Vegas that brian surprised me by inviting his best friend Chris and his wife tami join us for the celebration

2nd year anniversary(Planned by Brian): A wknd trip to Crater lake by camping. I also tried marsh mallow for the first time in fire during this trip. This was also when I slept on one of the air mattress we took us for the camping that air was leaked out during the night. I woke out in the middle of the night thinking we were getting flooded or something : ). We also decided from this year on, we both will rotate to plan our anniversary celebration.

3rd year anniversary(Planned by me): French dinner at LA pigeon and then surprised brian by taking him to Avalon hotel to stay over night (I packed all his stuff secretly). We ended up getting our room upgraded to a gigantic suite room with huge living room, outdoor deck, kitchen and big big bedroom suite. I almost decided to call up some friends to join the celebration and stay over night.

4th anniversary(Planned by Brian): a wknd trip to Oregon dune, which was a place with exotic view of ocean in one side and the other side endless sand dune. Was a bit scary trying one of those race car up and down the dunes but still was a lot of fun.

Brasada ranch resort(Powell butte, Oregon) – Highly recommended!

Brian and I have this tradition in our marriage that we will rotate to plan our anniversary celebration each year. This year I was supposed to plan sth but I successfully persuaded brian he should be in charge because this is a special 5 year milestone!

Our celebration of 5 year kind of got 2 rounds of celebration: 1st round with friends and brian’s families (they happened to visit us) at the Ninth Hotel’s Urban farmer restaurant last wknd; 2nd round just brian and I at Brasada Ranch Resort in Powell butte, oregon, which is where we are right now. : )

From the time we arrived which was about 1pm today till now 10:46pm. We have only been here for 10hrs or so, but we have crazily felt in love with this place! Allow me tell you why.

Resort itself is situated on 1,800 acres just northeast of Bend, Oregon. It provides unmatched panoramic views of the Central Oregon high desert and Cascade peaks beyond. The resort contains guest rooms inside of ranch house, also ~100 different cabinets. Facilities in this place includes: 1 adult pool, 1 kids pool with slide, 2 tennis court, 1 19 holes golf course, 1 sand volleyball court, half basket ball court, kids playground. Recreation center includes gym room, yoga room, kids play room, rotating climbing wall, table tennis, snowboard simulation game, wii-game, movie room ….etc. 1 spa center, 2 restaurants both with amazing views and fire place seating areas. Food at the main restaurant are amazing. We just had dinner there tonight , everything was delicious, service was very good too!!

Today we went for a hike right after we checked in even I was so enjoying the beauty and amazing design of the room we stay in (THe name of room is “Broken top”, which we believed it is named after the mountain we can see from our room. It is room No.4, which we were told it is the best room in the ranch house). The hike took us to the “Spiritual Rock”, where we can see all 4 mountains in one view: Mount Hood, Mount 3 sisters. We did a 15 mins meditation by sitting on a bench on spiritual rock. That was a very peaceful and mindful of 15mins! Coming back from hiking, we went straight to swimming pool. Pool was very well designed with lots of seating space and interesting rocks in the middle of the pool to create more privacy and area for people. And we even went played the water slides. Gosh, can’t remember when was last year I played water slide! You would think after 4hrs driving to here plus the hike and swimming, we should be pretty much done for the day right? Hee, hee we went to play table tennis for 2 games and followed by volleyball playing and over head serving practice. I have to thank Brian for teaching me how to serve overhead call. Even though I played volleyball in college, I never learned how to do overhead serve! Finally after all of these, my energy went down so we came back to the room to enjoy the sunset view from our deck. Beautiful sunset with beautiful people, another great moment of life to be memorized!!!

Tomorrow, we are going to enjoy our spa at the resort, play some golf and tennis, more swimming for sure…… another exciting day to further explore this amazing resort!!!!

Here are some pictures to share:

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Continued: First time Trip to Taipei (2 of X)

This is a continued blog from previous blog: First time trip to Taipei (1 of X).

The two places(Bopiliao old street & Longshan Temple) we visited in downtown Taipei were really top on the lists of things to see but more of just getting those things off the list. Later we took subway to a small town that is not far from Taipei named “Dan shui”. Let’s start with a bit introduction of this Danshui old town: Zhongzheng street is one of the most famous and crowded old street in Taipei/Danshui. The street is consist of local cuisine and snacks, and old street architects from Late Qing dynasty or late 90’s. And when I say it is crowded, I wasn’t just saying, it was very crowded even people like me who very much used to crowd in Shanghai/China still felt it right away. There were so many different little food stands/shops that sells all kinds of interesting snacks or drinks that are considered specials of this town that I have never heard of. Without waiting, I rolled my sleeve and started to “dig” myself into this food paradise!!  First, let us see a pic of this Zhongzheng street: in the pic, it is Wayne Chen, the tango friend I mentioned in my previous post. I really liked this painting art wall in the street that contains all kinds of interesting paintings with different techniques. I spent some time there looking through those paintings in each square. Undoubtedly, this also makes it a very awesome picture taking background as you can see from below pic.

Hmm, now time to mention what I tried there in terms of food.(How can we writing blogs about Taipei but not mentioning food, right? : ) ) I think I tried fresh milk mochi(highly recommended, here is address of that store: 台北縣淡水鎮中正路133號. 麻吉奶奶鮮奶麻糬), some cakes(糕点）from a cake store that is letting people try all of their cakes (I bought a bag of some rice cakes mixed with plum in it home). I think I also tried some flavored plums, olive..etc, which I ended up buying a big package of flavored cheery for my parents. Can’t remember what else we had, you know after seeing all those local cuisine and snacks, it is really hard to remember what you had on a specific day. All you need know is make sure go through a diet program before you go to Taipei to have some room for weight growing. ; ). The third pic below is one type of mochi from that store that I mentioned. (It is not the fresh mile one though). 

After ate and shopped at the Zhongzheng road, we headed towards the river. It is to be said that Sunset at this danshui coast is extremely beautiful. Well, we didn’t specifically stopped for sunsetting but we were pretty much walking around near there around sunset time.  First, let me show you a pic of the coast: (I guess it is not really a coast pic but more of a port pic and it is not even that interesting. But at least I was the one who took the pic. We were actually sitting on the back deck of a coffee shop ordering cold coffee , and this is the view we had from where we sit. You can still see the water bottle in front of me)

The walk continued and it then took us to an old British embassy office which is a bit up on the hill and has beautiful view of the coast line. I guess it was very important strategic spot to have embassy there to know what is going on along the coast line at the time. Here is a pic of this embassy building:

After seeing the embassy buliding(which was free admission when we were there, they said they would start charge soon!). Later the walk took us to an University there, which has very british style of building. The campus is well design has big wall of fountains, pound for turtles and fishes, lawn for students to lie down and read or relax, small overpasses, with a lot of trees and flowers. We certainly enjoyed our walk inside this campus.

This was when we left campus and found this little path heading towards a church, seems a very scenic spot for picture taking as you probably can tell from below pic:

First time trip to Taiwan (1 of X)

Taiwan in my mind is a very mysterious and controversial place. Though it is not that big of island, it has many treasures and resources of its own. Thank you to Brian, I finally made my way to Taiwan.

My story about Taiwan starts with the Visa process. Technically I can apply Taiwan visa myself one month ahead of time, and the visa fee is about $30. Well, apparently I think $30 is too cheap to be true, so I waited until 1.5 wk before travel day and realized I still haven’t filed Visa application. Hence, I called an office in Taiwan that takes care of Visa application but is not called embassy, they told me I could still get my Visa if I apply through a travel agent. So did I and I got my expedited visa by paying 10times more than Visa fee.($300), which later becomes a joke that my Friday Bei Li was teasing me I might have become the last Chinese in the earth that paid $300 Visa fee for going to Taipei. (She told me Chinese now can travel Taiwan without applying for Visa, luckily later I was able to verify only Chinese who lives in Beijing, Shanghai & Xiamen can travel to Taiwan without getting visa but not all Chinese, and my residence is Wenzhou, so I won’t be qualified for free entry. : ) )

We took Delta airline flying to Tokyo , and then transited to Taiwan. It took about same amount of time traveling to Taiwan vs to Shanghai (about 13hrs fly time). The whole fly process was painful because of my hip issue which in itself is whole another story. After a good night of rest in a very nice 5 star hotel (Sherwood, benefit of business trip ; ) ), we were excited to start a new day next day to explore Taiwan.(Though brian has been there many times, he never had time to explore this city)

Wayne Chen, who is a tango friend of mine  used to live in Portland but now moved back to Taipei to be with his parents. He came to hotel and took us out. He took us to take subway, which thanks to him, otherwise I would never got to experience the famous Taipei subway system. One very interesting thing about Taipei subway:  they do not allow drink or food.  It certainly keeps the subway very clean.  On the other hand local residents complaint. You know, when people need to eat, they need to eat. (I was later told by Wayne, there has been a lot of debate against that policy in Taipei already.)

If I remember correctly, the first place we visited is called “剝皮寮“ old street.  Here is a pic of it. Something very interesting to call out here, this street used to have a lot of prostitution services. All these buildings here are all connected for the purpose of when police comes, they can travel between buildings to avoid getting attested , very smart, isn’t it? You can see it even clearer from the 2nd pic down below.

After a quick visit to this old street, both wayne and I were hungry so we decided to get something to eat before our next destination. (I have to insert this inside of my family’s joke that brian never gets hungry when he is on tour. He always surprised how often my families have to eat even though all we doing is eat 3 meals a day at regular time.). Wayne just looked around and picked a noodle place, which was a very tiny and busy store. It didn’t look that appealing to me at first but I trusted wayne’s judgement. I didn’t even bother to look at the menu and wayne took care of the ordering. He ordered a traditional lurou rice and and dry noodle, duck cold dish and a noodle soup.  This meal was one of my best meals in Taibei!!! I wolfed down the lvrou rice and had a lot of noodle from both dry and soup noodle, and even had many pieces of duck which I usually don’t like that much…

After taking care of our stomach, we headed to a temple named “Longhua temple”. The temple is kind of “Jing An” temple in Shanghai, which is also located in downtown, small size but with a lot of business (preyers). I did also follow the custom and bought some snacks for buddhas to enjoy. : ) (Wayne said I supposed to take it back with me to eat them for good luck ,but I forgot. It is ok, I think buddha will enjoy it as much as I do). We quickly walk around the temple and preyed to important buddhas(important in the sense of to us) and we left.

(It was a long day, looks like I am too sleepy to finish the first day tour, guess to be continued tomorrow)

Nephew Aiden Xiang drinking soy milk– so cute and manly! ; )

Nephew Aiden drinking soy milk from remanda xiang on Vimeo.

A dream that I would never want to revisit

Brian left for Taipei for a biz trip yesterday. I sent him to airport late in the afternoon, quickly kissed good-bye and I drove home, thinking life continues…………

Last night, I went to bed around 11:30pm, locked all the doors behind me and turned on alarm.

First, I woke up at 4am, which I almost shocked myself. I haven’t woke up in the middle of a night for a while.  I kept thinking why I woke up and then I finally realized it must have something to do with Brian being away……..

I tossed and turned for a while and I finally forced myself to sleep…….And it was when this terrible dream started:

For some reason, brian and all of my families are taking a boat ride to somewhere really far. Brian and my dad were sitting on the deck talking, in a sudden my dad pointed out to brian saying: “hmm, our boat is supposed to go the other direction, why the boat is turning towards Thailand and it is getting really close to the shore!! In a sudden , all the crew who worked on this boat came out to the deck with baseball stick on their hand. They started yelling at people, asking people to leave the boat by jumping into the water to walk up to the beach……. And whoever acted slow or not following order, they  use the baseball stick hit people to force them leave.  Sister and I were together holding hand at that moment, we stepped back when those crew member approaching us, and right before they raised their baseline stick trying to hit us, we both jumped into the water… I wanted to stop to wait for brian or other family members to find out where they are, whether they have jumped, but those crew members were so horrible , they threatened to beat us if we look back…..

So I walked, walked and some how we reached a building and we walked all the way downstairs till the bottom floor, where we stopped and desperately waiting for the rest of our families to show up. First I saw my mom, then I saw my brother walked down with a cousin of mine who is holding my sister’s baby daughter on his hand , lastly I saw my dad walked down slowly with some wound on him………The whole time while sister and I was waiting for families, i was crying hard, and when I saw father walked down alone without brian, my tears not only coming out of my eyes but also from everywhere in my body, I almost fainted, and I was crying really loud and hard………..

At this time, some officers from US embassy showed up, and they got a name list of everyone who were supposed to be on the boat, and I walked out to them yelling, there is still one more american named Brian XXX is still not off boat yet, please help him , please go get him!!!!!!!!!……..

And I woke up…….. with a broken heart…..

My chinese doctor has been giving me these herb medicines to help me quiet my mind when I go to sleep, which certainly didn’t help last night! But on the other hand, i was also kind of happy that I had that dream, because it helped me realize again how much I actually love my husband!!!It is strange that when you mentally think you will not miss someone, but in your subconscious or in your body, that person has become part of you without you realizing,  and you DO miss them indeed, you just don’t know it……

In china, there is a saying: you dream of what you are thinking of during the day….

Green onion y Ginger flavored fried Crab

Ingredience:

• A live crab
• 4 green onions
• 8 ginger slices
• cornstarch
• Chinese cooking wine

Steps:

1. Chop live crab to 6 pieces minimum (depending on size of the crab, if really big then chop to 8 pieces), let it sit so get dry
2. Pour a big spoon of oil (any oil) to a deep pan and heat up
3. Throw 1cm length green onion (white part only) and ginger slices to the pan, let it cook for a bit
4. Add crabs to the pan, ideally let the body sit up instead of lying down (but not absolutely needed), let it fry for 5minsish,
5. Add salt (to your own taste) and cooking wine to the pan, let it cook for a little bit without covering it
6. Add a little bit water to the pan and then cover the pan, cook till boiling with medium flame
7. When it is about done, mix one small spoon cornstarch with water and pour the mix to the cooking pan to create sticky texture.
8. Add 1.5cmish long green onion(green part) to the pan and dish is all done.
9. When you present the crab in the plate, make sure have more green onion on the top

Some pictures:

Chopped live crab pieces:

Step 2 pic:

Fry crab in the pan:

Final dish:

BsAs Trip blog No.12 – More videos from the trip

Paso Han & Rui Saito performing tango at milonga 10

chacarera in villa malcom

BsAs Trip blog No.11 – Tango videos from the trip

One of the performance I saw at Milonga 10, this is the video of first song. Btw, I loved the woman’s dresss:

Second song of their performance:

First song performance at one of night of Lucas’s Wed night milonga( Codigo De Barra):

Same couple, but performing milonga: