Meeku!

Meeku is finally here! We got her last Friday, so I guess she's been with us for 1 week now. She is definitely making herself comfortable in the house, and likes to sleep on our down comforter on our bed So nowadays, we have to keep the door shut when we are not around. She is pretty smart though, when we are around, she will not take her nap on the bed, but on the floor on Matt's old comforter that we keep on the floor.

She was close to 16 lbs when we got her last week. The vet says she should lose about 4 lbs. I wonder if she had lose any weight since her arrival as she is definitely running around more, playing with Rafiki, and following us whever we go. Anything is better than that little confined space she had in the shelter.

Purr... purr...... Meeku definitely has the loudest purr of all cats! And it doesn't stop... if you can't find her in the house, just try to listen for her purr and track her down. She is very sweet and affectionate, and likes to rub her head against your hands, face, legs etc...

Welcome Ghim Hong

Talking to Ghim Hong, turns out he has a blog too... I put it as a link on the right. Say hi to him, he is settling down in Australia.

lots of writing to do

I set my defense date for 11/30/07 - which gives me approx 2 months to write my thesis... Well, i am hoping that by setting the date, I will have to write and not be too much of a procrastinator.

Videos..

updates on rafiki

It's been almost 2 weeks since we adopted Rafiki. He is a sweet cat that likes to be around people. We are really enjoying his company very much, it is really nice to have Rafiki come to the door and greet us when we get back from work. He gets very hyper after dinner, and likes to play with his toys. Here is a video of him playing with his toy mouse.

He also likes to sleep a lot-on the couch, on the floor, in the papasan chair. He also took a nap on Choonping when they came over to visit the first day of Rafiki's arrival.

For those who are wondering, we should be able to pick up Meeku on Friday. :) Can't wait!

 

Rafiki and Meeku

We went to the Nine Lives Foundation shelter yesterday, and saw many many cute kittens and cats. At first, we were planning on either getting 2 kittens (since they have to be adopted in pairs) or getting just one young cat. There were 3 cats that we particularly felt a connection to. One of them is a grey domestic long hair cat, she's about 1 year old, and is very friendly and pretty. Then there were two other ones that were the sweetest and most affectionate cats. One of them is a tuxedo and likes to rub himself against our legs and will follow us around, but the sad thing is, one of his hind leg is somewhat paralyzed so he is a semi cripple. The other one is very friendly and likes to get close to your face to kiss you. That cat is really really big tabby which reminds me a lot of Toro. (She's actually even bigger than Toro!) All the kittens that we saw were little fur balls and really adorable. We were unable to decide what to do yesterday, so we left the shelter and came home.

At night, I started thinking about all the cats at the shelter. I was actually feeling very sad for all these homeless cats that do not have a home to go to. I think most of the kittens will get adopted since they are so playful and cute, but I am not so sure about the cats. We think the gray cat will be adopted since she very beautiful and has a friendly personality. We were not as sure for the crippled leg cat since he's not the cutest looking cat, and we feel very sad for his leg. This cat and the other big tabby also seems to be friends to one another, they were grooming one another when we were at the shelter, so we felt like we should adopt them both if we were to adopt either one since we don't want them to get lonely. The only thing that is preventing us from adopting 2 cats is that we have to pay pet rent for each animal that we have in the apartment. So anyway, after spending some time discussing what we should do, we finally made our decision. We will adopt both cats!

We went back to the shelter today and picked out both our cats. We feel very good about our decision. The volunteers at the shelter seemed very surprise when we decided to pick both of them since they like each other so much, and one of the girls told me that the tuxedo have been in the shelter for over a year now. We decided to name the tuxedo cat Rafiki and the tabby Meeku. Too bad Meeku has a rash on her back, so she is currently under treatment at the shelter. Hopefully we can pick her up next weekend. So in the mean time, we have Rafiki at our place. He is a very curious cat and can move very well despite his slight misfortune. He is now enoying his spot on the top of the cat tree that we splurge on, and is cleaning himself! Very cute!

Here are some pictures of Rafiki, we will post pictures of Meeku once we get her. Oh yeah, Meeku is currently overweight at 15 lbs, and we need to put her on a diet to get her down to around 10lbs.

We are looking forward to all the great times that we can share with our cats, and all the joy and company they will provide us.

Ragged Point

We took a trip to this place called Ragged Point back in July. It is in the middle of nowhere between San Simeon and Big Sur. It was great and relaxing trip. We have been working so hard, it was such a good break.

Drove down Hwy 1. The scenary is amazing. Who doesn't love California? In fact, I have not really driven down Hwy 1 slowly, so this is the first time. I highly recommend it! You get to appreciate so much more when you don't rush.

Pristine beach south of Carmel, north of Big Sur.

McWay Waterfall in Julia Pfeiffer State Park, a bit south of Big Sur. One of my typical stops along Hwy 1.

All along the coast, some parts were really foggy, some were clear. So we don't know if we would be fogged in. When we arrived at Ragged Point, it was an hour before sunset, the sky were clear. What a relief! We were worried that we had to spend 2 nights in the fog.

The sunset were gorgeous! Can't stop contemplating for a few minutes...

My 3rd trip to Hearst Castle. Pei Sun's 2nd. So we decided to take a different tour, the garden tour.
Visited the wine celler in Hearst Castle. Since the state of California owns Hearst Castle now, but the state cannot own alcohol, so the wine in the celler belongs to the Hearst family.

Harmony, population 18. It has a great winery there! Highly recommended!

People are very friendly in general around Ragged Point. We met this nice couple from Santa Barbara. They invited us over to have some wine in the evening, that's where this picture is taken.

Love this picture....

Admiring the beautiful sunset...

Having breakfast with the ocean view both days! Life is great!


That's how far away we went! Don't really want to come home yet.


For more pictures :
http://picasaweb.google.com/peisunl/RaggedPointJuly2007

sheep or cow?

We went to the San Mateo County Fair last night, it was lots of fun. I always forget how much they increase the price at the fair for the food, but regardless, we enjoyed our greasy fair food and yummy funnel cake. On top of the food, there are of course other attractions. This year, there is a reptile exhibit, and we saw lots of different snakes, alligators, turtles, and geckos (not my favorite). I even petted a snake! I still like the farm animals better. There were many big fat rabbits, sheep, pony, cows, pigs, water fowls etc. I got a chance to pet a 2 weeks old lamb, it feels really nice and woolly. One thing that I didn't know before yesterday was that camels make this 'purr' noise when you pet them, and they are very friendly as well.

We had to resist in playing the games that can win really big stuffed animals as we are cutting down the amount of soft toys that we have. Still, we couldn't resist in just playing one game, and got to welcome a new member into the family. We are pretty confused as to what it is though, is it a sheep or a cow?

Snuggling on our bed

Caught Winston snuggling on our bed this morning while I was working in the study room. He was too cute, so I can't resist and took this picture.

Happy Full Month - Nicole Chia

Dinner at Spring Court Restaurant, Chinatown. The Chia family and in laws. ;)

interesting friday...?

I went to ICA to get my paperwork done on Friday morning. i took mrt there and arrived at around 8:40 in the morning. the line was shockingly LONG!!! as you can see, the line started outside the building (the other side). so i took out my camera to take a picture. the security guard immediately turned towards me, 'no camera pls.' opps! picture taken, all right, done. =P luckily the line was moving pretty fast and i got in the BUILDING by 8:55. took a ticket (#5058) and hrmm.. 40 numbers ahead of me. =/ i was also curious enough to ask a lady (holding #5027) next to me what time she came to ICA. '7am!' wow~ ICA opens at 8am. i was late enough. =P my submission was done at abt 11:10. phew~

as i promised to visit ying2's place around 11:30, i hurried to mrt, took a taxi to their place. argh.. the moment i mentioned my destination, nearby the malaysian consulate etc.. he started complaining his bad times with the guards outside the consulate. yes, no big deal. later, he asked me some questions, talked abt his personal stuff...some advice, a bit of sweet talk too! with his head, ??eyes, ??smiles turning back to me several times. YUCKS! i got in the wrong taxi. BENZ in fact! =( crazy~


what you see in this picture is from the outside of KC and ying2's unit. i had to open this well sealed taped envelop given by their maid to open the door.. hahaha..

Baby fashion show

skyblue polo shirt? lettuce, snail, carrot? looks familiar?


Jie, do you still remember these shirts? they are kinda small for him now.. =P
Karin has taken quite a lot of pix of him.. will try to post 'em online, flickr.

Peach

Haven't posted in months because we have been busy building StriveWell. Hello, any more readers of Toro-family? Well, I do have a story to tell...

Last year was the first year our peach tree bear fruit, not too long after that, we noticed the number of peaches on the tree was diminishing as the fruits grew larger. Before any of them are ripe, they are all gone! Damn squirrels! I always thought they are cute little ones.

So this year, we are determined to taste our peaches! As soon as we noticed the peach being eaten, we started taking precautions. This picture was taken on April 30th.


We bought some chicken wire from Home Depot, and literally wrapped it around the tree. 3 months later! Took these pictures!




Yeah. It is really sweat!! No wonder the squirrel wants them all. But not this time... :)

commuter

I am now a commuter. I bike to the Belmont Caltrain station from our apartment, and then I leave my bike at the station, and then I get on the Caltrain to go to Stanford. From the Palo Alto Caltrain Station, I take the Marguerite (Stanford's shuttle servie) to my lab. When I get off work, I do the opposite. It takes me about 30-35 mins each way, which is about 10 mins longer than if I were to drive to school. I don't think it's too bad of a commute, just that I have to be more efficient in lab now since I cannot come and go as I please.

wow~

Karin and I went to Tiara to move some furniture out the apt. while cleaning the place, we heard something weird..'crack~ crack~crack~~~' oh~oh~ the mover dropped something? nope, look at the floor! what's going on? earthquake? let's check with the tenant downstairs. argh! the tenant is not in. mover says, contractor's bad work. i've seen something worse than this. tiles blasted and flew up to the ceiling! we were like, oh great.. we're only a meter away~!!!! =S

Life in New York :)

Hey,
Life in new York is good :)

Weather has been great.
We seem to bring Sunshine wherever we go, haha!
In Sunnyvale, DC, Boston, and even when we are back here again in NYC. Somehow rain always avoid us :)


No stress, relaxing life...................
We wake up late, take b'fast, and then take a walk to Central Park, or some Sea side parks. Sometimes, we hop on a bus, or subway to somewhere, Financial District, Battery Park, China Town, Flushing etc.
Just sit down and watch people passing.
Take our lunch, and come back for a nap.
Then we may go for a movie, play, or just walk around Time square like many other tourists do.
In the evening, we cook something and enjoy dinner together with Ah Be when he's back in the late evening.


Among many other goodies, I show here 2 of his favourites,
1. Nasi Lemak by mummy: Look at Ah Bee's smile,and look at my portion of rice!

2. My Hokkian Mee, with Roast pork. Looks delicious ya ;p~
Ah Bee had 2 helpings.

Washington is cool. Museums are all free.

Pace is slow, guess it's typical of government servants, hehe.

By 5:00pm, the fields are full of people, playing games, jogging, or just siting in the parks.

Good place for retirement.





Whale watching in Boston was great. First time for mummy and daddy.
This whale comes so near to pose for me. Look at his nostril.
It's just like our's.




Then he dives down and swims away.
Had a good seafood dinner in the Union Oyster House, reputed to be the oldest US restaurant in continuous service since inception, some some 181 years ago. Mummy enjoyed her Boston Lobster so much......It's really yummy. Had lots of roe.
But perhaps she was mad when we delayed her from eating as I took some time to shoot this photo, sorry dear ;p

New Discovery!

Matt was playing with my fan tonight, and I thought he broke it when something came off from the back. Look what he found!

Ahh... a remote for my fan!! Awesome... Now I don't need to get up from my bed to turn the fan on/off. Choonping says I will still have a problem though - that I need to get up from my bed to find the remote! hehehe...

 

1:20:01

This is my official time for the Bay to Breakers this year. It's nice this year that we get a timing chip that starts counting when you cross the start line, unlike previous years where the time starts counting at 8am, and by the time we get to the start line, it's already like 20-30 minutes after they have started the race. Not to mention there is always a long wait at the finish line where people manually collect part of your bibb to give you the time. I am quite happy with the time for the 12K run, which also included a water and bathroom break. hehe. I ran it with Amy, which was nice, since we are about the same height, so we can run at the same pace. We went with couple of ppl that were over 6ft, and of course they pulled away from us. How much advantage does a tall person when running compared to a short person? Matt clocked 1:05-ish, and if we assume a linear relationship for height to the time, then technically, we both clocked the same time. So, is this a fair comparison?

We didn't see as many ppl in costumes and floats this yr. I saw about a total of say 10-20 naked ppl, which is about the same as what I saw last yr. I think my favorite costume this yr are two ppl that has solar cells attached to their caps, and their t-shirts said "powered by renewable energy".

Oh yea, and usually ppl throw tortilla before the start of the race. For some reason, I have an affinity towards these randomly thrown tortilla. I got slapped on the face, got hit on the head, on the butt etc etc... definitely the person that got hit the most among our group of 8 ppl.

Driving in SG

3 yi, Toto and me went to Tampinese shopping this morning. Ah, big deal huh?! Yeah right, I was the driver. Why? Kian Sing and 3 yi tune were not in. That leaves Toto and me behind, who can drive. She said, “喂, 開車很 Stressful 的. 萬一早產怎麼辦? …”(Hey, driving can be kinda stressful. Do you want me to have preterm delivery?) I was like, ahhaahaha….er… okay, but uh hem… you know that I shouldn’t. I’ll definitely get into trouble if… and I don’t wanna be blacklisted here, do I?
After ~15 mins of argument, they convinced me somehow. they said if I was so “lucky”, I would definitely win the $2.8m TOTO the next day. the blacklist wouldn’t matter anymore cuz I could just pack my bag and say bye to all. Hmmm… don’t know why I gave in to the request of a pregnant lady. = -pMy muscles were basically tensed. Thank God the nerve wrecking journey was only about 15 mins. Heeheheehee…小題大作? =D

Daddy cut his finger

Maybe too much for the blog. But daddy cut his finger while washing a glass. But bleeding has stopped now. And he should be ok.