My husband and I were invited to my second cousin's wedding in Seattle, Washington, so we decided to attend and make a trip out of it. Did I mention I also love going to weddings? It's usually a happy occasion; and having planned my own wedding, I'm always curious to learn more about the bride and groom by their preferences and choices. I am also 22 weeks pregnant (surprise!), so we're counting down the days until travel via flying will be contraindicated. Until then, we'll just make the most of the time we have! I won't write much about the foods we ate, since a lot of it was geared to ..read more

I've accumulated quite a bit of hoisin sauce and soy sauce packages over the years from various takeout orders. Now that I'm trying to cook more, I'm also trying to find creative ways to make use of and try different sauce creations. It's like the time I tried to make barbecue sauce from ketchup. The best part about using old sauces is that I get to "try before I buy" a larger size of the sauce. I mean, the last thing I'd want is to be stuck with a big bottle of sauce I hate the taste of! With a quick Google search, I found a recipe by Rasa Malaysia that was simple and called for the ingre ..read more

My husband and I recently moved within the San Jose area and are now renting from a relative. Renting from a relative comes with certain perks, such as paying a lower rental rate (we're definitely not paying the market rate courtesy of relatives) and being able to do a few customizations here and there. Our rental place was used as a rental home for the past 15 years, so there is definitely some updating to do. As I am awaiting starting my new job, I figured why not try to DIY some things. After all, I did DIY quite a few things for our wedding -- flowers, wedding favors, etc.&n ..read more

While many of our friends have been visiting Europe, we, being the offbeat/off season travelers we are, decided to visit Asia. This time, our travels took us to Malaysia, our first time in Southeast Asia. Since my father was born and raised in Indonesia and I have taken a Malay/Indonesian class as an undergraduate at U.C. Berkeley, I thought it would be cool to explore and see southeast Asia for once. After all, both Malaysia and Indonesia do speak the same language (hence the course name Malay/Indonesian). In Malaysia, the people also speak English and Mandarin, thus, my husband and I also t ..read more

If you've been following along with my blog and travels, you may have noticed that my hair has become quite...yellow. I didn't realize how yellow my hair became until my trip to Puerto Vallarta. Since a friend's wedding was coming up soon and I wanted to save some money, I decided to give a DIY at-home box dye session a try.  So I'm sure you're wondering how my hair got this way in the first place. Well, I've always had the usual dark, black colored Asian hair and have always stuck with the simple, subtle caramel/chocolate/cocoa/brown colors when I get my hair balayage-d (is that even ..read more

We say "oui" to Paris! Our trip to Paris, France was our very first time to both the country and the continent (of Europe). We definitely have many other places in mind for future trips, but Paris seemed to work out with our schedules and COVID rules. At the time we went, we needed to have a copy of our vaccine cards in order to enter the country and to dine in inside restaurants. Some places may even ask for the EU QR code for vaccination proof, so we visited a local pharmacy upon arrival to have our vaccine card inputted into the EU QR code system. The conversion to the EU QR code did requi ..read more

Our trip to Istanbul, Turkey was more heavily planned by my husband, as it has been waiting on his list of countries to visit due to the good food and rich history. For me, I didn't know much about Turkey, except that there is a country named Turkey. Well, that and the turkey bird, so our trip to Turkey was a big history learning experience for me! It was also our first time going to a country where neither of us spoke the language, so we relied heavily on Google Translate and Google Lens to make our way around.  Where We Stayed We decided to maximize our ..read more

Working now in a setting that requires me to learn to speak more Spanish was a great precursor to this trip. I was able to get around, order food, and fit in (sort of) by speaking the lingo. Since our trip to Cabo, my husband and I have been curious about visiting other parts of Mexico to see what's different (or the same) and to explore more historical sites.  ----- Our Itinerary Our trip was about 3.5 days, if you take into account the fact that we had a full day on our first day because of a red eye flight and left about midday on our last day (and spent the remainder of our day on ..read more

Louisiana, particularly New Orleans, has been on my bucket list of places to visit. With the pandemic contributing to limited international travel, my husband and I set our sights on a location more domestic, and somewhere neither of us has been before. Thus, our trip to New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA, for short) was born. ----- Our Itinerary Our trip was a short 3.5-day long adventure. Although some people may find this timeframe to be a bit short, maybe rushed, the time we spent on the trip was actually "just right" -- enough for the change of scene, appreciation of the arch ..read more

If you ever find yourself traveling from norcal (Northern California) to socal (Southern California) or vice versa, and find yourself wanting to make a pit stop or a mini stop, Pismo Beach is the perfect location to visit! ----- My husband and I found ourselves traveling from socal to norcal and decided to schedule in a short overnight mini trip to Pismo Beach. Truth be told, I had been curious about visiting this little town because one of my previous apartment mates in nursing school is from the area. Unfortunately, no meeting up took place because of COVID, but I suppose that's what t ..read more