okay, i've been busy, busy... okay more like super lazy with a large dose of blog apathy.
there are pictures but i'm too lazy to rework them and post them here on rectal. maybe when i have nothing better to do (read: have motivation).
filling in the gaps here... the weekend of the 4th and of my birthday (the 6th), a bunch of us went up north for sandhya's wedding. here's what happened (for a more detailed account, read
this):
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thursday night (7/3), we had dinner at some chinese restaurant in the eastside. due to horrible communication skills by carlin, we didn't have dinner until a little past 9pm. after going back to my place to get directions to our hotel and filling up the car, mark, deidra and i didn't leave for newark until 11pm. as usually, deidra was soon fast asleep (way past her bedtime) and mark and i were left to listen to some papas fritas, pink floyd, the who, cheap trick and some other band that i've forgotten (updated:
mark said it was deep purple). along the way (interstate 5N), we drove by a massive accident on the southbound I5. mark claimed to have seen several body bags, but i was paying more attention to the white car that was missing most of its rear end and the long trail of headlights that seemed to have stretched for miles.
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friday morning (7/4), 4:20am. we finally arrived at the
hotel (after driving around for a bit. we got lost). apparently, we were the first group to arrive. unfortunately, we heard that carlin's car was broken into at the restaurant parking lot and that group (carlin, shawn, jenny and cecil) was held up for several hours filing a police report. we checked in, deidra and i in one room, and the rest of the people in three other rooms. i couldn't really sleep, so i stayed up til 7am watching
sportscenter and ESPN news (CABLE tv!). tony's group (tony, chris, kevin and taeko), was the second to arrive and decided they would stay in one room as to not bother mark, even though he left a light on for them. i think about 40 minutes later, carlin's group arrived.
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friday morning, 11ish am. got a call from carlin saying they were heading out to the
IHOP located in a strip mall across the street. after waiting for mark to finish showering, we drove down to the IHOP and had brunch. our high school buddy, gordon, was there, having trekked out from s.f. to join us. the plan for today was to go to the
monterey bay aquarium, however given that it was late, and it was hot, and we were all pretty tired (except for deidra, who probably slept the most at that point) the plan was expunged. instead, we went to the safeway located at the strip mall, and purchased necessary refreshments (read: alcohol) for a day of relaxing by the pool. in addition, deidra and i went to some game store next to the supermarket to buy a game for our
XBOX. funny thing, if you want to look at it that way, they gave us the
PS2 instead of the XBOX version of mortal kombat. luckily it was a corporation with several stores in the l.a. area, so an exchange was made later on.
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friday evening, 5:30ish pm. after many cannonballs and throwing people into the pool, and having shawn push me headfirst into the water, where i banged and bruised my right wrist on the railing, i went back to the room to retire for the evening with deidra. the rest of the gang went to have indian food somewhere in town. because i was tired, and deidra's stomach being unable to handle spicy foods, we ordered room service. surprisingly, deidra has never ordered room service before in her life, so i was kinda glad to be the first person to share this experience with her. anyhow, we were in luck (given that it was july 4th) for the hotel restaurant was open for service. we ordered a hamburger for me, some grilled pork chops for deidra, and a cesaer salad to share. we stayed in the room and watched tv for a bit. then we decided to go for a leisurely stroll near the hotel. i forgot to bring my camera out, which was really unfortunate, because people were setting off fireworks at the parking lot of the strip mall from earlier this morning. so we walked around for a bit, talking, watching other people's fireworks, and lamenting at the fact that we weren't smart enough to buy some of our own (though deidra suggested it to me when we walked past a firework selling booth this morning, and i vetoed it -- i am that lame).
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friday evening, 9:30ish pm. we walked to another supermarket and grabbed some drinks and snacks for tomorrow morning; we'd be waking up extra early for our
muir woods/alcatraz tour. we'd decided not to have any maid services during our stay over the long weekend, and needless to say, our room was quite messy for several days. the other guys came back from dinner; the last of our group, pat and susan, finally arrived in the afternoon, and the whole lot of them were playing
pictionary in one of the rooms. at around 10pm, they got a called from the hotel receptionist telling them to keep the noise down, they had two complains already. mark was incredulous that someone would complain about the noise on a friday night at 10pm. it's like living next to sipolwicz again (that's another story for another time).
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saturday morning (7/5), 5:30am. got a wake up call, fucking bitches. got up, showered, got dressed (in a t-shirt and shorts) and headed out to the
hyatt regency embacadero in s.f. we (carlin, tony, pat, susan, kevin, jenny, cecil, taeko, deidra and i), drove two cars into the city and found and parked in an adequate parking lot near the hyatt. several of us, including myself, went inside the hotel to ask where the bus for the tour would be, and it reminded me of hotels in hk, with the cylindrical-shaped lifts and the glamour-ness of it all. anyway, we located and climbed on the bus, and after several stops at other hotel stops and the tour office to get things in order, we were headed north to muir woods. along the way we stopped to take pictures of the golden gate bridge (fog and all) and after many twists and turns along narrow hillside roads, we finally arrived at muir woods. i have to tell ya, i wasn't too impressed. i'm not a big fan of nature, don't really care for it. maybe a waterfall or two, or some awesome cliffs, but trees don't do it for me. it did have a babbling brook without much babbling going on, but it was nice. so we did some hiking and after an hour or so, we took off back south to
sausalito.
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saturday afternoon, 12:20pm. i slept most of the way down, probably about 30 minutes or so and i was beginning to feel a bit sick from all the damn turns. after walking up and down the main thoroughfare in sausalito, most of us decided to go to this hamburger joint that defied the notion of small. there were maybe 3 tables at the back for people to eat at and the restaurant (and it's a bit of a stretch calling it that to begin with) was really narrow so there was only enough room for a single file line (ordering) and people leaving with their food. after getting our burgers, we had like 10 minutes to devour it before the bus had to leave for the next destination. having noted that the bus driver said that the burger joint was well-known for it's burgers, i didn't think it was all that great, but it did hit the spot, and probably gave me the problem i had later that day.
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saturday afternoon, 2ish pm. took the bus back into s.f. and got off at the
pier where our transportation out to alcatraz island was waiting patiently for us. we walked around the pier for about 40 minutes, during which i purchased a set of amber earrings for deidra, and soon headed out on a boat to alcatraz. all i have to say is at this point, i was tired, cold, and had a very bad feeling brewing deep within my bowels. alcatraz island was windy as hell and the sun was quickly going into its decent. i was a bit disheartened by the fact that alcatraz wasn't as exciting or interesting as i thought it would be. but alas, i did enjoy it somewhat. the other people decided to leave early because they had dinner reservations at some spanish restaurant and wanted to catch the bus back to the hyatt in embacadero. deidra and i stayed to finish up looking at pictures of famous prisoners, buying an alcatraz t-shirt and beanie for deidra and watching an educational film about the place. i was freezing my ass off throughout all of this. oh, and one of the guides looked eerily similar to stephen king, albeit, dorkier.
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saturday evening, 6ish pm. upon hopping onto the boat back to civilization, shawn rang me up on my nearly battery-depleted mobile to ask us where we were. i told him we were on a boat, and soon met up with him at the pier. interesting note (for myself at least), i went into
la salsa to go pee twice; once before and once after the boat ride to and from alcatraz, and nope, i didn't buy anything. it was around this time, that the uneasy feeling inside my stomach began to turn into a definite feeling of dread. (i don't like to employ public facilities for number two's or three's if i don't have to) so after waiting with shawn for tony to pick him up to go to gordon's apt in the city, deidra and i headed off to the
BART station in embacadero. this was the worse part of the entire trip for me. i had to endure high winds, a crowded trolley, and a long freaking subway ride from embacadero to union city (around 10 stops along the way) before i could relieve myself at the union city station restroom. there were so many times on the BART ride that i want to jump off the train and let the floodgates open, but since it was the weekend, and the trains weren't too abundant during this time, i had to fight the urge to go in my shorts. luckily, nothing embarrassing happened.
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saturday night, a relieved 8ish pm. called the hotel, got picked up, and decided to go grab some dinner. since it was late, and places tend to close early in newark, the only places we could find that was appetizing were a
wendy's and a korean restaurant called, mr. tofu. deidra got a junior burger and a mandarin chicken salad, while i had the unpleasant fortune of getting a glass noodle dish, ladened with MSG, from mr. tofu (took me about a week to get that damn taste out of my mouth). i ended up splitting the burger and salad with deidra and left the tremendous horror that was mr. tofu half-eaten, and cursed sitting on the coffee table. since i was feeling tired and still a little bit sick, deidra and i went to bed early. oh, the other guys went out clubbing and bar hopping after dinner, i believe. only carlin, jenny and cecil were too tired to do much of that and came back to the hotel earlier than the rest of the group.
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sunday morning (7/6), 9:30am. wedding day! we got all snazzy and dressed up to go to sandhya's wedding ceremony down in livermore, which was about a good 40 minutes or so away. the only other addition to our party, was mark's date, jenn, and since kevin, chris and taeko didn't know sandhya, they were off to do their own thing (which was hanging out with gordon, i believe). so we arrived at the temple a little past 11am, and was a bit confused. apparently, you have to take off your shoes and socks (the latter i'm not sure about) before you enter the temple. so we were walking around barefooted in our suits and dresses, trying to find where sandhya's wedding ceremony was located. eventually, some guy came to us and asked us if we were here for the wedding ceremony and when confirmed, he told us to head to the back of the temple where the wedding ceremony was being held. so with shoes in hand, we trudged to the back of the temple and sat down in the middle of the wedding ceremony. it was fascinating. so many things were happening at once; members of sandhya's and anish's family were surrounding this gazebo-esque looking structure, decorated with hundreds of beautiful flowers, while the bride and groom were sitting inside, looking a bit confused and largely overwhelmed with all that was happening. at the same time incense were burning, flowers were being thrown at the bride and groom, some white substance (probably sugar) was put inside our mouths waiting to be dissolved, and the hindi priest was chanting away in a very high-pitched voice largely giving out instructions.
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sunday afternoon, 12ish pm. the wedding ceremony was over by this time, and lunch was served. shoeless throughout the ceremony, we went back outside to reclaim our shoes and waited in line for an indian brunch, served buffet style. we gave our congratulations to the happy couple when they came by during the middle of our lunch. sandhya had on an incredibly beautiful red sari, along with a counterfeit nose ring and other enhancers, while anish had on this white, indian outfit and both of them were beaming. soon we finished off our lunches, deidra couldn't eat most of it because of the large amount of spices involved, so she ended up having some of the desserts. since we had a little over four hours before the wedding reception, we decided to go back to the hotel poor for one last round of drinking and cannonballs at the hotel pool.
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sunday afternoon, 3ish pm. my friends are the best! when we came back from the wedding ceremony, deidra and i walked to wendy's to get two mandarin chicken salads because she hasn't eaten anything yet, and in all likelihood, won't be eating anything later that night at dinner. so when we came back, i went down to the pool area to join my friends for some good ole merriment. to my surprise, and i was fully surprised, they got me a cake and sang happy birthday to me, both of which i wasn't expecting at all. so, the rest of the afternoon was spent eating a delicious chocolate cake, washing it down with beer and doing extra big cannonballs. soon it was over, and we all went back upstairs to get ready for the wedding reception.
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sunday night, 8ish pm. i was dancing, or trying to dance i guess. [
it's getting late, so i'm going to go quick here... follow as quickly as you can.] we got to the shiner's hall where the reception was being held. whoever decorated it, did a fabulous job, the place looked amazing. our group was divided into two tables next to each other, with several "strangers" sitting at each of the tables. we were grouped with friends of sandhya's younger sister, anju, and two other girls, livia and ying. i've met livia before. in fact, sandhya and i have smoked out on livia's balcony senior year of college. i was hoping that she wouldn't remember me, but as luck would have it, she knew exactly who i was and said, "oh francis, yeah, i remember you. you and sandhya came by my place and smoked out when we were at UCLA." it was pretty embarrassing. but at least she wasn't upset that we totally mooched off of her and pretty much bailed after getting high. the reception was mc'ed by both sandhya's and anish's brothers, and after a number of toasts, dinner was finally served (you've guessed it, buffet style). during dinner, a slideshow was setup and projected onto a screen up in front. amongst them was a picture of sandhya and several of us from two years before, taken during the first dorkz annual holiday dinner. a toast by the two fathers later and the party was in full swing. after a while, we (tony, pat, susan, deidra and i) decide to leave cause it was getting late and we have to check out of the hotel by 12pm.
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sunday night, 11pm. most of us hung out in mark's room after coming back from the wedding reception. we settled in with a quick game of pictionary, sans the noise, and a viewing of the latter part of the movie, "
panic room." let's just say, deidra and i, weren't made out to play pictionary and when the game was mercifully over, we went back to our room and went immediately to bed. overall, it's been a good weekend, but i couldn't wait to got back home and relax for a bit. yet, little did we know how badly the next day would end up for the three of us in mark's purple volkswagon
jetta... (dun, dun, DUN!!!!!)
it's 3am in the morning, so this, as they say, will be continued in another time.
