airlines are getting stingier, which i think is fair. i'd much rather have to pay for food than pay more for tickets, but i was kinda surprised when my 5 hour flight from san fran to atl didn't offer to feed me. i was more surprised on my way from montreal to san fran when air canada tried to sell me a blanket and pillow for $2 (they assured me it was mine to keep--great, thanks guys).
as expected, once home, my mom spent the first 2 days pampering me and the last 2 days guilt tripping me about when my next visit would be. i told her i wouldn't come home next year b/c i wanted to spend all my vacation time in europe. we'll see how that goes. my dad showed his love by fiddling with my computer. the battery on my lenovo went kabonk so he bought me a new laptop for my birthday. it's a gateway something or other, and everything is bigger/better/faster AND it can play high def movies...but i miss my eraserhead mouse. i guess i'll get used to the touchpad eventually, but that eraserhead and i have a lot of good memories together (how am i supposed to play minesweeper with a touchpad?!).
as part of jon's grand tour of georgia, we visited:
- stone mtn: jacque caught me up on all the old high school gossip at miss katie's--the place where tiff used to waitress. they throw the "hand tossed rolls" at you; they used to throw the fried pickles too, but now they just come on a plate along with a bunch of other free fried foods (mmm...sweet potato fries and onion peels).
- coke museum: it's a lot fluffier than what i remember, but maybe that's age talking. the coolest part was seeing all the failed coke products (eg coke black--coke with coffee added). AND we got to meet the polar bear!
my mom, pretending to be a coke bottle.
jon amongst the natives
in the tasting room
a tornado went thru atl a couple weeks before we did, and it actually broke a lot of windows in the skyscrapers! how scary would that be?!
the plaza outside of the coke museum supplies loiterers with bouncy balls. here is me, refusing to run after the ball when jon is plainly kicking it in the wrong direction. playing with these balls set my knee back at least 3 days recovery time. - six flags: we rode THE best rollercoaster ever. bar none. like, totally, THE BEST. it's called goliath. it takes you 200 feet up in the air (as high as acrophobia, the ride where you go up and drop straight down...every park has one of em)--that's 32 seconds of upwards going before you start downwards going. and then you downwards go FAST. it's the metal version of the great american scream machine. a modern classic. no loops, no frivolousness. just drops and speed. marvelous. there's also a superman where the seats go horizontal after you get on, so essentially, you're riding with your belly facing the ground...which would make me feel like superman, except your knees are bent (imagine a seated position), so instead, i feel more like a cow...MOOOO. anyways, i definitely think six flags GA beats six flags NE. there's nothing in new england that can even begin to compare with classics like the monsters' plantation and the log flume. speaking of classics, i cannot believe how rickety wooden coasters now feel. i thought my skeleton would get rattled to pieces. and, they've gotten rid of the viper. RIP.
funnel cake!and then we tried to go whitewater rafting in tennessee (ocoee, where the 96 olympics canoeing happened), but it was closed, and we didn't find out till we got there, so the day went towards visiting rock city (a very posh private garden turned public), eating bbq, swimming in a swimming hole (i needed to get wet somehow), and outlet shopping.
on tues/wed/thurs, they don't open the dam upstream of this place...so instead of rapids, you get pools.
i finally bought some work clothes. shopping in the US just feels better than shopping in HK. i know what stores i like, i know what size i am, and the salespeople are much more helpful (usually). i even felt comfortable enough to buy two dresses--the first dresses i've bought, incidentally, since middle school (i got tired of borrowing arati's clothes whenever i had to go to a function). speaking of shopping, we finally got that second guitar for rockband. now we can have a full fledged four member band! yay!
the weather held up beautifully for jazzfest (thanks meriweather--apparently, no one except me and dordor knows that meriweather is the blue fairy from sleeping beauty...jin even thought that sleeping beauty was the fairytale where she eats an apple and falls asleep...um, close but no cigar). everyone still looks exactly the same, except kathy looks cooler. phne had an awesome tournament, but i forgot to tell her to her face. smite now calls dor "dodo", which totally threw me off. and shuangy was still sick (altho worse this time than usual). and yelena is still beautiful (altho dordor is the only beautiful one who did the wave for me).
personally, i had a meh tournament. i am now solidly a reset handler...i'm too lazy to cut. i threw two completed backhand hucks to kdob, but turned two awful backhand hucks to stacy (one was a decision error, one was an execution error). i also had a perfect pass from jin bounce off my chest in the endzone (which hasn't happened to me in years). ah well. we lost to storm by a chunk in the semi's (after losing to fusion by 1 in pool play--everyone thought we would win until we lost. boo). at least we got to do the beaver cheer thrice and the log roll twice (once for james and once (sorta) for stacy). i love the log roll.
it was very good to see everyone again. liver gave me three boxes of girl scout cookies, and i'm still working my way thru the thin mints (after sneaking them thru both US and HK customs). today, i'm jetlagged and depressed to be back in dreary hk, where it's supposed to rain for the next 6 days.
3 cool cats.
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