I spent an extended weekend in the beautiful Joshua Tree National Park in California, where spring has sprung and the desert is anything but deserted. I lugged along my swanky new DSLR camera and here are the results (uploading photos to Vox in Vista is a biyatch, so I finally got a Flickr account).
The windows in my new place face east, and on a really clear day you can see the snow-capped Cascades in the distance. On a cloudy day, you can get the most amazing sunrises. I've started to sleep with my head at the foot of the bed so I can wake up to sights like today's:
A couple of Sundays ago marked two years since I moved to Seattle, and I wanted to do something to celebrate this little corner of the world, so the B-team and I went to Pioneer Square (the oldest part of Seattle) to do the Underground Tour. Here's the concept in a nutshell: the city of Seattle you see today isn't actually the original city. The first buildings in this area were in fact built at a lower elevation, closer to the level of Elliott Bay, on top of what was then just a bunch of mud flats. The tour takes you down below the current city level to the old city underground, while you hear about the city's history at the same time.
So as you can imagine for a city that got built on a swamp, it just kept falling down, and getting rebuilt, and falling down, and getting rebuilt again. As the Underground Tour guide lady pointed out, not much has changed in Seattle since then - they still build stupid things and then regret it later and want to get rid of it: Alaskan viaduct/520 carpool lane much? Pretty amusing. Anyway, they did somehow finally get some semblance of a city going for a few years, but then the entire thing burned to a crisp in a glue factory fire. This is where I got really excited, because the entire thing sounds exactly like Swamp Castle in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and this gives me a chance to do a quote.
When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England.
Viva Seatac!
Boy 2008 is going by quickly - it's already getting to the middle of February. Today of course is Chinese New Year, and one of my Chinese colleagues brought a treat to the office for the occasion - Water Chestnut Cake. It was amazing. I need to get the recipe from her, but here is one I found online. All this time I've been putting water chestnut into curries and stir fries when I could have been putting it into cakes :)
I have to admit I am a sucker for Asian desserts - almond jelly, custard balls, egg tarts, chiffon cake... - just to name a few. Oh and there is a great Chinese bakery, Regent, down the road from Microsoft which does a mean mango mousse cake and fruit tarts. What I love about Asian desserts versus Western-style ones is that they are not as sweet and not as heavy. Ok I shouldn't be thinking about dessert this early in the day.
In other news, I moved into my new place in Capitol Hill a couple of weeks ago. It's closer to my friends, much quieter and greener than living smack bang in the middle of downtown, and I have my own place again. It's been great so far. I can see the sun rise over the mountains in the mornings (admittedly it's rare that the sun actually gets a look-in in winter, but summer's going to be fab). And the kitchen is huge and wonderful and I've been cooking up a storm. Ach there I go, inevitably back to the topic of food again. Let me end this before I start eating my keyboard.
This event may just be enough to bring me out of a two month blogging wilderness:
My officemate, Hui, is discussing something with a colleague, Joe - I'm not really listening because I'm working with my headphones on. I happen to turn around and see Joe fiddling with the Rubik's cube on Hui's desk as he's talking. Well ok, he's not fiddling, he's solving it. By the end of the 5 minute conversation, the Rubik's cube is solved. Last time I turned around, that thing was mighty messed up.
Me (amazed): Er... Joe. Did you just solve that Rubix cube.
Joe (deadpan): Yes.
Working at Microsoft can be pretty humbling.
