Singapore Airlines and Singapore Airport

this was written on 5/7 while I was at the airport:

The food court was bustling with all sorts people and noisy chatter – mainly in Chinese and English so it didn’t feel too foreign to me. Kind of felt like I was in one of those Chinese food courts in LA.

What did feel foreign to me was the feeling of being alone. Being at the airport lugging around my cart full of luggage and buying food to eat by myself made me realize how much I miss JT already. I’ll have to admit, I didn’t have a chance to miss him much while I was enjoying my nice comfy business class airplane ride. I was sleeping like a baby in my little capsule, and ate the best airplane food I’ve ever had.

A lady caught my attention from the Taiwanese food stand in the food court as I passed by. I ordered what JT would have ordered. It’s what he likes to call “five meat rice” hahahaa. It’s not really five meats, but it SOUNDS like that in Chinese when he mispronounces it. So that’s what he thought it was called. His Chinese is so funny sometimes…anyways….

Back to Singapore. I ate my five meat rice, and watched people as they passed by. Only a few more hours and I will be headed to HK!

prelude: btw, I'm on meds...

A week before departing to my first destination, I had to pay a visit to the travel nurse at Kaiser to get all my vaccinations. Basically, she printed out my itinerary (SF -> Singapore -> HK -> India -> Shanghai), and then printed out a bunch of packets on diseases you can get while traveling to each location.

Pretty much every disease ended with something along the lines of "and you could die from it..." I don't know if part of the objective was to freak me out, but it did. So I ended up getting 3 shots: tetanus, polio, hepatitis A, and also had to pick up some prescription malaria pills.

O the malaria pills =/ After going through a whirlwind of physical and emotional chaos this past week, I decided to do some extra research, and found out I was prescribed the worst kind of malaria pill out there: Mefloquine!

Here are some of the side-effects:

Mefloquine may have severe and permanent adverse side-effects. It is known to cause severe depression, anxiety, paranoia, nightmares, insomnia, seizures, peripheral motor-sensory neuropathy,[2] vestibular (balance) damage and central nervous system problems. For a complete list of adverse physical and psychological effects — including suicidal ideation — see the most recent product information. Central nervous system events occur in up to 25% of people taking Lariam, such as dizziness, headache, insomnia, and vivid dreams

and they failed to mention that there are other medicines with less risk of severe side-effects and which are equally effective for malaria prevention are available like Malarone and doxycycline... the daily ones that my colleague is taking.

Damn you kaiser!

She definitely didn't mention the suicidal part, so I actually didn't read about that until this morning -- and I have to admit that the thought weirdly crossed my mind yesterday when i was breaking out in my hot and cold sweats... in a very non-melodramatic way like oh... I guess I wouldn't be too upset if I died today.

Anyway, sorry if this entry is getting a little too creepy in any way, I promise you I am feeling more than fine right now and I don't want people to get the impression that I'm going crazy, cuz I'm not. I am definitely still having a VERY positive experience here. Work is going REALLY well, and really the only time I feel it is generally when I'm alone at night.

It's a weekly pill, and I'm supposed to take my next one today. Should I? Do I take my chances with malaria and death... or do I continue on in feeling all messed up inside? it's a toughie...

So the blogging begins...

As most of you know, I am traveling in Asia this month.

I've been trying to keep up with emails here and there to update ppl on my whereabouts and experiences, but finally decided I should really share what's going on in my blog. I really should document all this... so here we go. =)

Hong Kong

The Peak Tram
Originally uploaded by Sandswirl26

uploaded some pics to my flickr.

citibank ad

citibank ad
Originally uploaded by Sandswirl26

JT n Me on a Citi Bank Ad

Birthday Cake!

cake
Originally uploaded by Sandswirl26

Happy bday to me! pretending to be 22 again ehehehehe.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

My 26th Bday bbq

Be who you are and say what you want because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

- quote stolen from sherry's facebook =)



I had a blast on my bday. Good friends came out, we cooked up some good food, drank a lot of pineapple infused vodka, munched burnt almond cake, and ran around like psychos (well at least some of us did). =) Others -- like my dear JT, danced around with arms flailing like a monkey (the usual)! haha



Can you believe this is my last bday celebration as a 'single' unmarried woman??? Next year (when I turn 27) I'm going to be Mrs. Wifey Tso! I'll probably have to throw a dinner party with cheese, fois gras, and wine or something! hah, well that actually sounds pretty fun too =)

Anyway, I just wanted to give a huge thank you to all my friends who came out to hang with me =) -- to those who really know how a good time *wink*, and to everyone else who loves 'sandswirl' for the crazy barf-day girl she is.









You can check out the rest of the pics here.

My 99 cent Spring Cleaning Sale!

I spent all last night cleaning out my closet so I can make room for new things. I'm going out of the country soon, and I want to be able to shop till I drop with no reservations.

But the issue is, I have too much stuff in my closet as is... and I don't even use 50% of it ! I know a lot of people out there are just like me. It's just tough to let go of things you like -- but if you're not going to use it, then what's the point?!

After hours and hours of sorting, I finally ended up with two big piles of clothing. One designated for Salvation Army pick-up, and the other for you lucky eBayers out there!

I am setting all starting bids at 99 cents, and am forcing myself to 'let go' =)

Happy Bidding!!

american idol top 8 =)

My top two favs!

David Archuletta - I am such a fan of this cutie patootie!



Jason Castro - he has such an amazing voice..

Back to life...

I am back from my awesome weekend up in Tahoe (pics to come), finally getting better from my flu, and patiently awaiting my favorite tv shows to come back!! =)

If you are a tv-junkie like me... I'm sure you've been wondering.. when are my favorite shows coming back on!?!?

April will be a good month!

Desperate Housewives
6 new episodes (including a two-hour finale) to air beginning April 13.

Gossip Girl
Expected to shoot 5 new episodes to begin airing on April 21.

Grey's Anatomy
Expected to shoot 5 new episodes to air beginning April 24.

Heroes
No new episodes expected until fall.

The Hills
March 24th

Lost
Four pre-strike episodes remain. Expected to shoot 5 additional episodes to air beginning April 24.

Scrubs
Five pre-strike episodes remain and will begin airing on April 10. Up to four additional episodes may be shot; unclear whether they'll air on NBC or go straight to DVD.

A New Name?!

President's Day Weekend

What an action packed weekend!!

Fri night was kooza..

On Saturday -- bridesmaid dress fittings with Sherry n Margaret, dinner with my family for my cousin Russel's bday and belated Chinese New Years... and then we celebrated Roel's bday at Poleng Lounge.

Sunday -- I was able to catch up on some z's... and we got dinner with linda, kelvin, wendy, dom for linpin's bday.

On Monday, I shot a fun and artsy shoot of LinPin in downtown San Jose.!

Check out some pix!

Family Dinner

the whole fam, plus one of my best friends margaret


Ryan, me, and bday boy Russ

Roel's Bday at Poleng Lounge


Happy bday roel!!


The girls


me n my jt


me, sherry, n kat



My big brother!

Photoshoot...


We got Linda's crazy hair n crazy makeup done at the mall hehehehe.. more pix to come.

vday post part #2

GERVAIS in Saratoga was awesome.. My fav was def my entree... It was something I've never had before... a filet mignon with mushroom and spinach around it IN a puff pastry... and sauce around it. Seriously the best combo eVER. It came with potato gratin on the side and some veggies. DELISH.



Last night, we went to KOOZA - which means 'box' in sanskrit. I loved how creative they were with the circus in a box theme...

My Top Five Favorite American Idols!

Yay! It's American Idol season -- I think this season has some of the BEST talent. =) Very exciting. Here are my top 5 favs. I hope they all make it to the top 10!

Ramiele Malubay



David Archuleta


Syesha Mercado



Kady Malloy



Brook White


Who are your favorites???

Happy Valentine's Day!

JT and I had a delicious dinner last night at a French restaurant called Gervais in Saratoga. I will post pix of it later.

~~

JT and I did a TFP (Trade for Prints) engagement/portfolio shoot with Tiny Water Photography a couple months ago... Here are some of my fav shots:


coffee and JT. two of my fav things in the world in one pic! awesome!


That's me enjoying my coffee buzz and love buzz. ahahhaa (corny eh?)


hehehe I love how the little girl is running past. There were a couple of kids running through for fun while we were shooting. Caroline is pretty awesome to have caught the moment so well.


lovely shot!


hahahah JT is such a silly head. I love it!

Unclaimed Money!

So I got a letter from Pettinato & Associates informing me about about some unclaimed cash. I was skeptical about the letter, and decided to look it up online where I found this other blog entry about it... and it turns out, I really do have unclaimed salary/wages from my internship at Grey Global way back in 2004... woohoo. Over a thousand bucks that I didn't know I had.

So I found out you can look up any unclaimed cash or unclaimed property you are entitled to at the California State Treasurer’s website. You can download forms from their site and simply follow their instructions to claim your cash.

Here is the link:
http://www.sco.ca.gov/col/ucp/aboutucp.shtml

Search here: http://scoweb.sco.ca.gov/UCP/

You should definitely check it out! I randomly checked up some of my friends and found out that quite a few people I know also have unclaimed money!

Check it out.

Happy Bday Han Hong!

Happy bday to the one and only Han Hong who beats everyone at ugly dancing. Love ya!


What a dorko!












work it baby, work it!


Han's soulja boy dance. hahaha

More pics can be found on my flickr site.

here comes my second wind...

After sitting around with my unfinished website for nearly two years now -- I finally decided that it's time to get back into the groove of things and really start cranking it out. I had said this many years before -- having a website somehow keeps me grounded, reminds me who I am, where I came from, and where I want to be. It helps me to be much more inclined to hold myself accountable for the things I promise to accomplish.

I guess I stopped updating my site since so much was going on... with my millions of jobs, then traveling, then buying the house and moving, and fixing up the house.... Things are finally starting to get a bit more comfortable...

...but comfortable is not what I'm striving for.. comfort is just what allows me to go and reach out for newer and richer experiences. I just hope that every year can be even more exciting and eventful than the last.

Las Tunas ramen place

Last time JT and I went down to LA, we found a little ramen house on Las Tunas that was sooo yummy.

They had the BEST enoki wrapped in beef..


Here's the view from my side of the table... jt looks 'fierce' ahhaha... I like making him pose for me.


Then I made him switch spots with me so I could get a shot of him looking 'dreamy'


Here's me:


and the yummy red bean mochi dessert we shared