03.03.12
Posted in Playing the Tourist, Uncategorized, family stuff, food and restaurants, hobbies, knitting and crocheting at 10:05 am by Administrator
Yesterday we celebrated Aaron’s 18th birthday. Oh my, my youngest son is now a legal adult? Actually, his birthday is on the 1st of March, but our combined schedules worked better to celebrate his birthday on the 2nd instead. Here’s the gang at the Himalayan Cafe for Aaron.
Aaron’s in the back next to me with the pink tank top.
While I’m at it, I might as well put in a plug for the Himalayan Cafe. Love their food! And they are reasonably priced as well. They’re in Pasadena on Fair Oaks just north of Green St. We have been dining there for a while now, but recently they got a nice review on the LA Times, so yesterday they were quite busy! Good for them!
My sister and brother-in-law gave Aaron a few tickets to see “The Secret World of Arrietty.” They knew my boys like Studio Ghibli productions. It was playing at the El Capitan in Hollywood not far from where we live, so it was easy to get to. Parking across the street in the mall with the Kodak Theater accepted validation from El Capitan, so parking was only $2. The boys enjoyed the movie. Here’s Andrew and Aaron with the El Capitan behind them.
And here’s Aaron inside by the movie ad.
Downstairs they had a small showcase of other Studio Ghibli productions with production story board drawings. Here’s a shot of part of the showcase.
II think they had a section for the popular productions that came out in the West. IIRC, we’ve seen all but one of the. I forget the name, tho.
Here’s the case for last night’s show.
I liked the story board drawings. Here’s a picture of one from “The Secret World of Arrietty.”
And that’s about it! In a short while I’m headed out to my knit group with Aaron. He’s gonna show them his takli from Christmas, then we’ll head out to the Lantern Festival in Downtown that his Mandarin friends informed him about. We’ll see what’s up down there.
So toodles for now!
Marlakins
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02.24.12
Posted in Anything goes, Playing the Tourist, family stuff, food and restaurants at 9:46 am by Administrator
Before I check the morning news, I wanted to put in a couple plugs for Cirque Du Soleil and Z Garden. My sister and brother-in-law invited me to go with them to see Cirque Du Soleil’s Ovo in Santa Monica last night. They planned to pick me up early so that we could have dinner before the 8PM show, but because of horrendous LA traffic, we were running late. Out of desperation we decided to just eat at a fast food restaurant Mark saw on the way. It was called Z Garden. What a treat that turned out to be! The food was tasty, plentiful, and reasonably priced, yes! Here are a couple of the dishes that we ordered.
This was Z Garden’s chicken shwarma served with hummus and a salad. Judging from the size of the plates, my sister and I decided to order two different items and split them so that we would be able to taste more. So we split this chicken shwarma and a kefta sandwich.
Their kefta sandwich was made with ground beef according to the menu and served in a pita wrap that was toasted so that part of it was actually crispy. That really made it nice.
My brother-in-law ordered the falafal plate, which looked like this.
I case anyone doesn’t know what a falafal is, it’s a vegetarian ball made with roughly ground chickpeas and/or fava beans and fried. They’re very well seasoned and taste great. Oh! While we were ordering, we saw their desserts on the counter, which we were told were all homemade, oye. So we got a sample of all three.
We had already started munching on the desserts before I remembered to take a picture. Actually, Mark’s knife was still cutting when I took the picture, heh. Honestly, I don’t remember the names of the two desserts in the front, but the one in the back is baklava. They were all yummy, but my favorite was the one with the crispy noodly things on top of the white pudding like thing on the left (ha, like that description?). Oh, yes. . .
So two thumbs up for Z Garden in Santa Monica. Definitely not bad for a fast food restaurant!
My next plug is for Cirque Du Soleil! Oh my! What can I say. Their acrobats were stunning! I think my mouth was open during most of the 2 hour performance. I particularly liked the gals with the the kiwi, the tightrope walker which actually performed on a rope that wasn’t tight, ha!, and the trampoline guys. They were amazing! To get an idea of the performances, check out this teaser. I have to say it again, they were amazing!
Since they didn’t allow cameras inside during the performance, the only shots I got were outside the arena and the tents. This was my sister and me inside the tent during the 30 minute intermission.
Flashes on cameras sure have an interesting way of making people look washed out at times. Not sure what happened there, but I know my sister looked really nice and refreshed, but this picture looks like were both tired, ha!
And here’s a pic of me outside of the tents just before we boarded the return shuttle back to the parking lot.
It was a really nice evening. Oh, and I should put in one more plug for the organization by the City of Santa Monica. The parking and shuttle service to the pier is so orderly and easy that other city planners should take note. Definitely contributed to the pleasant experience.
Marlakins
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02.14.12
Posted in Uncategorized, family stuff, humor at 9:57 am by Administrator
When I was younger, my family liked to watch Candid Camera. Now, years later, I don’t think Candid Camera is around anymore, but Gags is. Here’s one we watched recently that I thought was funny.
Alien Accident
Hope you enjoy that!
Marlakins
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01.20.12
Posted in Anything goes, cooking, family stuff, felt projects, hobbies, knitting and crocheting at 1:33 am by Administrator
This post is going to be a mixed bag of things. The first item is actually a mixed bag of yarn. Around Christmas time I was doing a search online for sock yarn and came across a link to the Supersock Store. They were advertising a 50% off sale on Cherry Tree Hill yarns. However, there were “rules” to follow to participate in the sale. First of all, the sale would start on New Year’s Eve at 11:30PM eastern standard time. The first 200 customers to place their orders would get a free “goodie bag.” Within one of those 200 goodie bags would be a card that had a saying that would have the initials DBNY. If you got that card then your whole order would be free! Well, just the 50% off sale was an incentive for me. The goodie bag was yet another lure that was reeling me in. And finally the thought that my whole order “might” be free was the clincher. On New Year’s Eve I planted my butt in front of the computer shopping for sock yarn like a looney looking at sock porn. Ha ha! I then chose the skeins I wanted to sample, placed my credit card at the ready, and waited for 11:30PM. . . errr, that is 8:30PM Pacific Standard time (the east coast is three hours ahead of us). Okay, so I didn’t just sit there really, I joined the family feasting on our New Year’s meal. It wasn’t long when 8:30PM arrived, and I ran upstairs to start dumping my order in the “cart”. One of the rules was that you couldn’t add anything to the cart until 11:30PM when the carts would open. In ten minutes I had my order placed and confirmed. Was I one of the first 200 customers? I wondered. . . The next morning I got a confirmation letter from the Supersock Store with the added info that they ran out of goodie bags just before the ball dropped in Times Square. Ah! I must have been one of the 200! Yes! A week later my order arrived. . .
Aren’t they lovely? Ummmmm.
And what’s this? My “goodie bag?”
I got seven balls of novelty yarns, a needle gauge, some sample corn yarn, a few buttons, and several knitting patterns. Ah, I love it! Nothing like a goodie bag!
So what I found out was that the Supersock Store has these sales twice a year. So I decided I’m gonna test out these yarns to see if my boys like the quality. I’ve started to knit up some of the yarn to see if I’ll be participating in the next 50% off sale with goodie bag. This is the first pair of socks in the works.
Not sure how the boys are going to like the colors, but there she be. I’m curious to see how well they hold up.
Now while I’m at it, here’s something else I worked on for Christmas gifts for my crafting buddies.
Here they are completed with the scissors paired up.
I actually didn’t know what I was doing when I was making them and just winged it as I went along. Overall, I’m satisfied with how they came out. Most of all, my crafting buddies seemed to enjoy them. Here’s another view of the completed scissor cases.
Then my sister asked if I would help her out by making cookies for her staff. She wanted me to make some ornaments to tie onto each bag of cookies. Here’s what I came up with.
By this time my camera was starting to die on me. I had to try a million shots to get something that wasn’t over-exposed looking. This was the best I could get. The tie cords I made were done on my spinning wheel.
Here’s what the cookies looked like all bagged up.
There were 20 bags all together of oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies.
My camera was acting up again, so this picture has a weird coloring. But at least it captures the gist of what the completed cookie bags turned out like. Oh! While I’m sharing goodies, my friends from the Isle of Man sent me a really nice gift basket of fruit cake, pudding, and chocolates. I thought these boxes of chocolates were so cute shaped into their IoM emblem–the three legs, which I was told meant that no matter which way they are thrown, they will stand.
Now those were yummy! This picture is all that’s left of them. . .
Toodles for now!
Marlakins
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01.18.12
Posted in Anything goes, Playing the Tourist, family stuff, gardening at 1:09 am by Administrator
Apparently, my previous post of the rice terraces was a bit confusing as to how rice grows. To clear the confusion, I thought I’d post a few more rice pictures. Here’s a picture of rice at the terraces before harvesting.
Here’s a closer picture with Brian reaching out to touch the rice.
This woman was harvesting the rice and tying them into bundles for drying.
After bundling, the rice is laid out all over the place–along side the roads, the walls, etc. This is what the bundles looked like while they are laid out to dry.
These bundles were all over the place. Here’s another example.
I believe each family did their own harvesting, so these piles would be all over. They don’t sell this rice commercially. It’s only grown for the community and sold in small quantities to visitors. We were able to taste some of this rice in the local restaurants and also by purchasing a small amount that we were able to take back to Manila with us and cook at the condo. This is the type of bundle Brian was holding in the picture in my previous post on the rice terraces.
While I’m sharing this pictures, I thought I’d throw in a couple more that I liked. Here’s pic of some cute little girls passing through the terraces. These kids are used to walking up and down the terraces to go to school. They must be in great shape because boy, I was pooped walking only a short distance of steep steps.
Brian just loved this closeup.
Isn’t she cute?
Hope this clears up the rice thing!
Marlakins 
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01.12.12
Posted in Historical Trivia, Playing the Tourist, family stuff, food and restaurants, gardening at 4:23 pm by Administrator
Last week I got an email from my sister asking if I would forward her a copy of some family pictures with some Ifugao and/or pictures of the rice terraces. Being the compliant sister that I am, I dutifully forwarded her a few pictures no questions asked (after all we took a ton of them during our visit last August). She gave me no explanation why she wanted them, just a “thank you” when she received it. So I asked her what that was all about. It turns out some good friends of hers had given her an old book that was published in the 50’s. It was a Hardy Boy type of book called The Skull. Apparently, it was a sort of joke as they weren’t familiar with the Rice Terraces or the Ifugao. The story is of some guys who leave from Manila to the Philippine Rice Terraces in search of treasure. My sister’s friends thought it was all made up, but my sister informed them that there are real Ifugao and real Philippine rice terraces. She had forwarded my family pictures to back up her claim, heheh.
My sister’s request got me rummaging through my pictures, so I figured while I was at it, I might as well share some of those pictures on my blog. I know we’ve already started the new year, but there’s still a lot of things left over from last year. Here’s one of the pictures we took last August with my family and mom at the rice terraces with some Ifugao.
Okay so we’re blocking the view of the rice terraces, so here’s a better picture of one of the spectacular views there.
Looks like a postcard, huh? There were so many scenic shots like this. It reminded me of pictures we took while in the Yucatan Peninsula years ago where many of our photographs looked like postcards.
These terraces are in the Banaue area. When we visited, we stayed at the Banaue Hotel, which was actually commissioned by Imelda Marcos from what we were told. When we arrived, we found that they had a welcome sign with all the guests’ names arriving that day.
I guess they listed the guests in alphabetical order, so our name was on top. Gosh we saw so many things there and took so many pictures, it’s hard to know which ones to share as there is only a small space on the blog. I’ll just share a few more that I liked like this one of Brian walking through the rice terrace. He really wanted to walk right in there and touch the rice. . .
The man behind him was our tour guide. He was very nice and accommodating. Luckily for us, there was still a lot of rice to harvest. Other times during the time we visited, the rice would have been harvested already and we would have only seen brown terraces. But fortunately, it was still quite green.
We visited a few museums, and also a small village called Taam Village, IIRC. It’s customary for them to keep the bones of their ancestors in their home, so here’s a pic of a young gal showing us the bones of her grandfather.
The structure we were in was actually one of the homes, which is basically a hut. I don’t think they all had wood floors like this one.
As we were winding up our tour of the village, my boys got ambushed by a bunch of Filipino gals taking a tour there, too. It’s interesting how they can spot outsiders easily and asked if they could take some pictures with my boys. Since they were all taking pictures, I joined in and grabbed a snap. Ah, to be young again. . .
And finally, before we left Banaue, we had lunch at the People’s Inn, which had another nice view of the terraces. There’s actually many, many views as the terraces are very extensive in size. While we felt surrounded by terraces, we actually only saw a small portion of it’s entirety.
You wouldn’t know if from looking at the above picture, but not more than two minutes passed after this shot that it got cloudy and started to rain. The sudden change of climate reminded me of Kauai. It would rain for a short while and clear up quickly as well.
Well, that’s it for now. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for my first post of the year, but I’m already behind, ha! I’ll likely post a few more stuffs from last year before I get on with this year.
Marlakins
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12.31.11
Posted in family stuff at 5:45 pm by Administrator
It’s the last day of 2011. We’re here at mom’s. I’m expecting a quiet night as we don’t really have anything planned aside from eating, heheheh. Now that all the craziness of the holidays has passed, there’s more time for me to reflect on this past year. Sure seems like lots has happened. I think it feels doubly busy because I’ve been trying to keep mom company as much as I can, so my time is often split between my family and mom time. As I spend more time with mom, I’m also getting to know her friends better, and I feel like they are now becoming my friends as well! That is, I’m celebrating special events with them like their Christmas parties and Thanksgiving parties, monthly gatherings, and now even funerals. Just this last week, I took mom to two funerals.
It’s really only after Dad passed, that I understand funerals more. I was usually one of the youngest in our gang, so often times I was excluded from going to funerals and even only learned of family friends and relatives passing after the funerals. So I learned a lot from Dad’s funeral, and now I can appreciate other people’s funerals much better. It’s interesting how different people send off their loved ones in different ways according to their religions. But regardless of religion, I can see the grief and sorrow is still the same. I especially liked to hear the stories friends and families of the deceased shared regarding how their lives were affected by the deceased. I am touched with how much kindness there is out there. I feel like knowing their stories helps to make me a better person. If not in deed, then at least in understanding. Also regardless of religions, it’s common for many to believe they will eventually be reunited. So I think really it’s just the temporary separation that makes it so sad, not being able to see them or hear their voices.
Another thing I’ve been able to enjoy this year hanging out with mom is learning more about her and her generation. As I hang out with her friends, I hear their stories and get to see some of their pictures in their younger days. So many of them were so cute, and full of life. I realize, though, from talking to them that they grew up in a very different time. They grew up in a time when the U.S. was the symbol of freedom and opportunity. They formed their opinions of the U.S. at a time before the Korean War, the Vietnam war, the first and second Gulf Wars, etc. It was a different time when no one knew about top secret programs that worked to undermine the stability of other countries or experiments performed on unsuspecting U.S. and foreign citizens. It was a time when everyone believed that the U.S. would do no wrong. And so these senior citizens continue to live with such beliefs. They worked hard all their lives to live the American dream. My dad did that, and to the day he died, he was still very patriotic. He was actually on a vacation to see Mount Rushmore, a symbol of the America he so loved. Dad always bought American cars, never Japanese cars to the day he died. It took a long time before he would eat at Japanese restaurants, and eventually buy Japanese electronics. After all, so many electronics are from Japan, it’s become the American thing to do to buy Japanese electronics and eat sushi! As this year comes to a close, I think of these senior citizens, and how one by one they are passing. Soon their generation will be gone leaving us with only photographs and written letters. For some more fortunate, there will be audio recordings, and possibly video footage preserving a very brief moment in time.
Well, it seems like the gang is getting hungry, so I’m gonna leave it here for now. I was hoping to write of more “happy” reflections, but I guess I’ll start the new year with those instead. Oh, yeah, I also took some pictures of some of the Christmas things I worked on that I would like to share on my blog, heheh. It was hectic, but it was fun, so I’m already thinking of getting ideas for next Christmas! :D I’ll try to get a head start so that the close of the year won’t be as crazy. So goodbye 2011!!!! Hello 2012!!!!
Happy New Year to everyone!
Marlakins
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12.03.11
Posted in family stuff at 10:57 pm by Administrator
Boy, I leave my blog for a short while and come back to find it full of spam! Grrrr. I’ve recently run into a little bump in the road because my house got burglarized last Monday. . . among other things, they took my laptop. Yeah, the one I use to keep all my uploaded pictures. . . Yeah, I know. I should back them up, but I didn’t. I know I should have learned my lesson already when my previous computer crashed and I lost everything. But I’m hopelessly stubborn, spurred on by a touch of laziness, sigh. The good thing is I found that my middle son, Matty, has been backing up some of my pictures. That was a pleasant surprise. So when I get a chance, I’ll pop in on his computer to find out what pictures he’s saved for me. I hope most of them because I really had a lot. Thousands, literally. The ones with my dad are irreplaceable, so that really hurt. BUT hopefully Matty still has those. What I don’t think he’ll be able to replace are all the patterns I’ve saved up on my computer, wah. Now that’s a real bummer for me.
So with the holiday season upon us and the added urgency to get a new front door with all the fixin’s, heheh, I’ll likely put off getting another computer until everything is all settled down. In the meantime, I feel like a vagabond in terms of using a computer. So, not sure how often I’ll be able to blog until then. Maybe when it’s done I’ll share some pictures. I mean our front door looks pretty crazy right now all patched up with planks of wood to hold the middle panel in place. The crazy burglars just kicked the door in. Can you believe it? They kicked our front door in! It’s evident they tried to pry the lock, but were unsuccessful, so they just kicked the whole door. The lock held (luckily we have a good lock), as did the door stile, but the center of the door didn’t. And what a Merry Christmas they had. . . well, not really as we really don’t have much valuable stuff to take that’s small enough to tuck in to a pillowcase. Well, my yarn, fabrics, and craft supplies are valuable to me, but not too exciting for burglars, ha, ha! They just primarily made off some some cash and the wrong jewelry box (the one with my old costume jewelry that I never wear anymore, hee, hee, hee, hee). Oh well, I’ve been thinking we needed a new front door anyway. We’ll just get it sooner. And my laptop was going on three years, so probably getting ready to be replaced, too.
So, just in case I don’t get a chance to update my blog much, it’s not because I’ve given up on it, it’s just that I’m a tad busy and laptop-less. And while I have the chance right now, here’s to a Happy Holidays to everyone! Merry Christmas!
Marlakins
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11.16.11
Posted in Playing the Tourist, Uncategorized, family stuff, food and restaurants at 3:45 pm by Administrator
Yes, that’s right, 25 “years” of marriage! Yikes! And Brian and I still get along! Enough so that we celebrated our 25th anniversary with a weekend in Mexico City. While both of us have been to Mexico, neither one of us had been to Mexico City. What a treat it turned out to be! It all started last Friday night. This was the view from our airplane window.
We were booked with American Airlines, but it turns out that AA is managed by Alaska Airlines? Uh, I don’t get it. And I also didn’t get who is this guy on the tail of all the Alaska planes?
It took me a while to see it, but maybe that black ring around his head is part of his Eskimo suit? Or should I say Inuit suit? Well, if anyone knows more about that, would be interesting to me to know.
So we arrived in Mexico City and stayed at the Emporio Hotel on the Avenue Reforma. It was a really quick trip, but we managed to get in a few sites like The Anthropological Museum, The Guadalupe Shrine, and the ruins of Teotihuacan. I’ll share some of those pics once I get them uploaded and I can sort through them (yeah, that’s what I thought about my Philippine pictures that are still not up! Ha! One of these days I’ll try to post pics of our trip to the rice terraces). Until I get those pics up, here’s one that Brian took of me at the breakfast buffet at the Emporio Hotel.
The breakfast was very good. The green drink in front of me was a combination of cactus, celery, grapefruit, and a little bit of orange. Interesting, huh? First time I’d had that, and it was pretty good! The little quesadillas on the side had cheese and cactus in them. We had heard about the cactus to eat, so we wanted to try it. The taste of them reminds me of cooked green bell peppers. It turned out to be a very satisfying breakfast and really held me over during our tour trek. Lots of walking and climbing! All worth it, tho. . . And everyone was so kind!
Marlakins
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11.06.11
Posted in cross stitching, family stuff, hobbies at 10:24 pm by Administrator
Today I went to the Weaving Festival in Torrance. I was able to pick up a new Kromski rigid heddle lap loom, woo hoo! I’ve got it mostly assembled now, but still need to figure out how to put on the warp. So I’ll hold off on pictures of that just yet. In the meantime, I thought I’d share some of the finished stuffs I’ve been working on. First is some three ply yarn. Here’s how it looked in singles on the bobbin. The roving behind is what was left–just over 4 oz.
Here’s the completed 3 plys. I had a little extra teal from the 3 plys, so I plied the rest with brown.
I haven’t knit these up into anything yet, but instead I finished up the cross stitch pillows I wanted to give around Thanksgiving to my family and a few friends who knew Dad for a long time. For a little background, Dad was known for changing in to his PJs as soon as he got home from work. We joked that no one can change in to his PJs faster than Dad. His sister, my aunt, used to be a professional seamstress, and so she used to make him custom PJs. Basically, Dad had lots of PJs. Before Dad passed, mom was clearing out Dad’s old stuff to make way for the new. She gave me a bag of old clothes that she said I could do whatever with. Part of the package had some of Dad’s old PJs. After Dad passed, I decided that I would use one of his PJs as part of a Christmas decoration. Dad’s favorite holiday was Christmas and he loved to decorate. So I thought making Christmas ornaments with one of Dad’s PJs would be a nice memento of Dad each year. Here’s what the ornaments looked like in progress.
I forgot to mention that last year I got a new sewing machine! At the time I wasn’t feeling too good, so I wasn’t able to test it out. Instead I carried the manual around all over to read and look at the diagrams. Well, a year later. . . I finally got around to pulling out the machine only to realize that I didn’t know how to thread it, and I couldn’t figure out what I did with the manual! Ack! Luckily, Brian found a website that showed how to thread it. Now that I know how to do it, it’s crazy that I was stumped, heheheh. It’s a bottom of the line Bernina, but good enough for my tinkering. Course, my sewing skills need a lot of refresher and work. . . Here’s what the Christmas ornament pillows look like completed.
Oh! Another thing I learned how to do is braiding. Well, not the 3-strand braiding , but 8 strands. While looking through craft books I saw one on Japanese and Peruvian braids. I checked the book out at the library and made a cardboard template. Here’s what it looks like.
The braid comes out through the middle. Here’s a pic of the back of the template which has a better view of what the completed braid looks like.
Depending upon how you configure the colors gives the braids a different look. At first I didn’t know what to do with these braids. Then I decided I could I use these braided cords for the pillows. Here’s a closer look at the pillows. I just stitched the cords onto the sides and they serve to hang the pillows.
The cord that’s light green is actually only 4 strands of knitting yarn, but all the rest of the cords are 8 strands of DMC floss. I forgot to take a close up shot of the little heart tags I sewed below the ribbons. It says, “Handmade with Love.” I thought those tags were so cute. Eh, I know I didn’t do such a hot job with lining up the stripes. . . Obviously I need a lot more practice! But at least it’s a lot faster to use a machine that hand stitching the backing. I’m really looking forward to more projects. And now I’ve got my lap loom. . . Oh, and before I forget, the cross stitch patterns were from The Prairie Schooler called Starry Night.
Okay, that’s all for now. Hope I can get that lap loom going soon!
Marlakins
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