A good weekend

Therese was chatting with her mom on Skype and i overheard her talking about this blog. She said something like, "Yeah, we checked it out. And it really IS dim... there's barely anything about you in it."

Well, fortunately, this weekend was pretty much all about Ace. Her 30th birthday was on Saturday, which is a pretty big birthday anyway, but even more so when you're getting settled into a new city. We kicked off the extravaganza with a Friday night surprise party at Kro's and the best pizza in Beijing. Fifteen or so showed up for the fun. (Many thanks to Joe for reserving the table and Chris for getting there early.)

No dinner party is complete without a good antagonizing/beating/torturing of Tao. And this party was ripe with it. Notice the red capped bottle of baijiu Tao is hiding in the first picture. He deserves all the beatings he gets.

Joe actually ran and leapt over the table, landing in Tao's lap. I'm not sure what the purpose was (a rare dual purpose beat/torture?) but it was pretty spectacular and skillfully executed.

Saturday was both lazy and productive. After a rare morning of sleeping in, i made french toast with a fruit salad and fresh coffee, a worthy birthday breakfast.

Then we got our memberships at the Gym downstairs... we're both pretty excited to start getting in there. On our way to get her birthday present, we decided to buy her a bike as well. Which is great, because Beijing by bike beats buses, barely. And then her actual birthday present, which was something she wanted for a while, a haircut plus the professional straightening. Four hours worth of it.

I hereby present: the new Ace, freshly coming off of completing her 3rd decade of revolving around the sun on this glorious planet and psyched up for hitting the fourth decade with silky, manageable hair boasting increased aerodynamics...

She looks really good.

~Kev

Jeju

As previously mentioned, Ace and i took a quick trip last weekend to the resort island of Jeju, South Korea. This was for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament called Gnarly Nines. Ultimate is played with seven players on the field per team, and normally a team brig 15-20 players to a tournament. For this tournament, each team is only allowed nine players total, meaning you have very few subs, which is called "playing savage". I've played a few "savage" tournaments in the past and they have been some of my favorite tournaments. This one was no exception. These were also, by far, the best fields i have ever played on: Six flawlessly maintained, professionally lined, regulation size, grass fields. They were awe-inspiring. These are the practice fields when South Korea hosted the 2002 World Cup. They were so well maintained, we were not allowed to have food or beer on them. Which was fine with us; bleachers surrounded the entire stadium and they had tents set up everywhere.

Historically, the annual Jeju Gnarly Nines tournament has horrendous weather every other year. Last year, the tournament was held under 25 mph gusts and a sunless sky. This year, we were blessed with a perfect weekend of Ultimate: Occasional breeze, partly cloudy, no chance of rain, and 68 degrees.

The Saturday night Rubik's Cube party was fantastic. Everyone came wearing all six colors on the cube. The goal was to "solve" your outfit by trading with others until you are one color. A bonus goal was to solve all the colors by the end of the night, meaning you had to wear 6 completely different outfits throughout the night to win. I made it through Green, Orange, and Yellow. Joe finished all six colors, and won the party award. The trick was to just trade your whole outfit with someone else who also has a completed outfit.

At the tournament, Big Brother finished with a record of 5-2 and out of 22 teams, ended tied in 3rd place with Japan. We lost to both Shanghai and Korea who played each other in the finals (congrats to Korea for winning and hosting a great tournament!). But we played hard and struck fear into all our opponents. We employed a trap zone defense that shut down all our opponents. We had a physically short team, but we were arguably the fastest in the tournament, with the best overall handlers. We definitely held our own.

As my fellow photographers scramble to upload their pics to facebook, i'll start with mine and add more later. I didn't bring my camera to the party, and i didn't take any action shots, but here's what i got.

The view from the bus as we arrived at the secondary fields, located on a small peninsula surrounded by volcanic rock outcroppings. Stunning!

The view from the main fields.

Big Brother sporting our fear-inspiring Black and Pink Five Ultimate uniforms. We looked good.

Some touristy thing. Took this while hanging out of the bus.

Out of sequence... but this is the airport as we arrived in Jeju Friday night.

Can i get a part-time gig as a photographer for Korean Airlines?

~Kev

P.S. Happy Birthday to Therese (!!!) and happy 100th post to me!

The New Pad

The search is over. We found a place, affordable, big, nice layout, in a great neighborhood, close to subway, close to friends, good furniture, gym in the building, nice SE view from the sun room, comfy bed, easy commute for Ace, not a nightmare for me... we're happy.

Most of what we saw in our search was about 90 sqm with 2 bedrooms, but you end up with a small living space and an extra room that you rarely use. After looking at roughly 20 places with 6 different agents, we knew almost immediately this was the one. It's about the same size, but only 1 bedroom. It suits us much better, and a big step up from our current place. We just couldn't deal with the location anymore.

The rental process was smooth and akin to purchasing a home. The agent shows you a bunch of listings, you visit a few, and choose one. They write up the contract and set up a meeting between you and the landlord so you can meet and sign it. Then you pay entirely in cash. Apparently, this is the normal way to pay for large purchases. I remember Larry told me about his experience buying a house in Beijing. They came to the closing with briefcases full of cash. They have a few professional money counters on hand to count everything. Crazy.

Anyway... here are some pictures!

The bedroom, looking out to the sun room.

Our 17th floor breakfast nook.

The southern view on a cloudy day.

The view from the front door, bedroom straight and to the right, small but functional kitchen off to the left. That wall with the TV is curved.

Looking back from the bedroom at living room and circular dining room. Lot's of round edges in this place. The amoeba couches are really comfy.

The bathroom and kitchen are both small, but clean and well laid out. Good times ahead.

~Kev