Prelude: South Lake Tahoe (3/1/08 - 3/2/08)

One status meeting, two evals, and two days of brain hurting mini MBA later, I kicked off this one and a half month vacation with some of the best Chinese food I've had, well, since moving to Atlanta. And my guests for the evening? Jason and Tina. We all joined up at my place in the hills before jettisoning off to The Kitchen in Millbrae. Grubbing heavy on my favorite eggplant dish and some freakin' delicious fish soup, I quickly realized this was to be the end of my 14-lb weight loss since New Year's Eve.

After Bay Area traffic dissipated, we picked up Emily at her posh pad in the middle of the City before blasting off north to Tahoe, stopping by In-N-Out on the way (an obligation of the same magnitude as Jason needing to take a crap after lunch). Despite a late night arrival, we still managed to hit the slopes the next day at Heavenly, where we took care of little Emily as she courageously learned how to ski all over again. The day blew by quickly, and before we knew it, we were making comfy in the heated waters of the rooftop hot tub. A gin & tonic in hand, I quickly melted into the recesses of the Land of I Don't Have to Work Right Now.

It was all beautiful. We met this married couple who joined us in the hot tub and kept telling us how great of a vibe we all had. Clearly. As if the two girls kissing didn't give them the clue. In any case, it was a perfect end to the day, which had all the recipes of success: waking up late, skiing, drinking, chili-eating, hot-tubbing, drinking, schmoozing, debauchery, and ending up at my favorite restaurant in South Lake Tahoe: Cafe Fiore. And, since I'm only eco-friendly when working at Triage, I decided to eat Chilean Sea Bass. Don't sigh at me SocRes. Let me eat in peace.

On our last day, we hit the beach, which held within its temptingly luscious powder ... nothing but four temptingly luscious Asians. Phil, stop laughing. In any case, we threw snow boulders around, supermanned on the swings (Chris, stop imagining things), and found out how to just forget about everything else going on in the real world. Around 5pm, we made the long haul back home, but again, made the obligatory stop at In-N-Out. We gorged. And, when we got back to the City, we hurtled our way toward one of my favorite sushi restaurants, Koo in the Sunset.

Jason and I immediately guzzled down a bottle of fine sake, after which our quad-band of miscreants stumbled over to one of my favorite local bars (I still don't even know what it's called to this day). We played darts, befriended the hairy locals, and eventually headed over to Emily's pad for our farewell nightcap. We recapped the weekend, watched me do that puff thing I do when I pass out, caught 300 on TV, admired the nicest apartment we've ever seen in San Francisco, and said our farewells before going our separate ways. Today, Monday, I started preparations for my upcoming trip, including setting up this potentially overly-revealing blog. In the coming weeks, I'll be flying to Seoul, staying at the hottest spot in town, taking it easy in Pusan, catching up with an old high school friend (Nicole), partying with the biggest alcoholic I know (Joe), and going on an ambitious search for Hyori. On the 16th, I then fly to Tokyo, Japan, to meet up with my brother at the Park Hotel. There, I will eat the best sushi, drink the best sake (Kyoto), climb Mt. Fuji, find another HS friend (Melissa), and finally become a ninja.

On the 23rd, Hong Kong calls to me and has me meet up with la familia, Patrick (roommate from my days at Stanford), and Jason and Janice. There, we'll get rowdy with the Australian rugby freaks, hit up the Intercontinental for the best view of Hong Kong island, and, as with the running theme for this trip, feast on the finest Cantonese food I will ever have in my entire...sabbatical.


Asia, you are not ready for me.