halfway around the world in 48 hours.

my last three days in taiwan were spent in taipei, where we stayed at the yuanshan grand hotel. the days were spent mostly with my ahgong and ahma (dad's parents) and john's cindy's mom. on the last day mum, dad and i went to the taipei fine arts museum where there was a special exhibition on japanese plastic models and figurines. there was everything from sailormoon, dragonball (and every other japanese anime you can imagine), to alice in wonderland, star wars, and even some pornographic stuff in a separate red room. very cool. a few hours before my flight back to los angeles, i began feeling sick / nauseated, threw up, and started developing a fever. needless to say, the flight home was rather long and unpleasant, but i survived. i arrived at LAX friday night to find southern california cold drenched in pouring rain. finally got back to the house around 10.30p (after landing at 7p), painfully exhausted.

saturday morning i woke up pretty early and relatively refreshed. after doing laundry, errands and some packing, i drove to tannis's place in marina del rey to have lunch with her and cricket, who was in town for new year's. we grabbed le pain q to go in santa monica then spent a relaxing afternoon at burke williams (they got facials and mudbaths, i got a much needed massage). afterwards, i headed over to danG's to hang out and catch up. he gave me a mad2 td t-shirt as a christmas present - loves it! we had dinner at this little sushi place, and i even got him to try uni, ama ebi (including the heads) and soft shell crab for the first time. his roommate ben joined us for dessert at susina bakery&cafe and then we went and watched sweeney todd (it was really good, but i literally couldn't watch most of the 2nd half for the explicit blood and gore)over at the arclight in hollywood (my first time). didn't get home until almost 2am, but it was a great day all in all.

caught a noon-ish flight to chicago on sunday. it definitely feels good to be back here. theodore and i did a little grocery shopping and rented the kingdom, but i was so exhausted i fell asleep halfway through it. now i have about a week to get all my shit together so that i can apply to jobs. weeeee...!!!