Dinner with the Hickeys

Rachel & Charlene
















Sue, Maria, Gabe, Ariel





















Michelle
















Uncle Edmund, Aunt Julie
















Jonathan, Uncle David





















Charlene
















Charlene, Ariel





















versus - Jonathan, Rachel
















Rachel, Jonathan, Ariel, Gabe
















Charlene, Becky, Rachel

Day of Boring Blog Title

Body Works 2. This show is cool from a distance but really morbid in close and in reality.
















(L-R) Uncle Al, Gabe, Sue, Al's brother Paul, Dad, Mom, Unrelated Uncle ?
















Rachel & James (no relation), Grandma, Aunt Jane, Becky, Lester, Maria, Ariel.
















Enter "self proclaimed cake cutting pro"
















Jonathan, Grandma, Charlene
















Jonathan, Grandma, Charlene, Sue, Gabe
















Ariel. Sleeping.

Dinner 2 + Shanghai Refugee

This day started off with an aborted attempt at the Body Works 2 exhibit at Toronto's Science Center. As consolation, we went to pacific mall for Tian/ Tong (lit. sweet soup) desserts. Not a bad consolation!
















Lester & Becky eating "Turtle Shell Jelly"
















Walnut Paste = yUUUUm

And for dinner...
Northern Chinese Cuisine





































2 fish dishes visible.





















Chinese Fried Banana + Green Bean Sweet Soup
















Lester , Me, Jocelyn ("escaped" back to Michigan)
















Warped and twisted me & Jocelyn. The picture is also blurry.

Dinner 1 + Family Pot

Dinner
















A new card/RPG called Mafia King. It's like Survivor and that one game The Mole. Rock Paper Scissor Tiebreaker. Insane variant. 3 consecutive wins needed.
















Me, Sue, Gabe
















Jonathan, Becky





















Poker victor again! The pot was $35CAN to me, $5 to second place (the buy-in). I must say, I had very good hands all night so it wasn't the best showing ever but I still managed to come out on top.

How did you spend your Christmas?

Christmas Eve was a hot pot dinner. I guess that's just what my family sort has been doing lately. I think we had some sort of nice dinner last Christmas but hot pot is the easy and lazy thing to do. =P no surprise. So how was your Christmas dear readers? I hope it was better than mine. I guess you could say except for lunch, it was a blah day. Maria and I had to sit through a Chinese Christmas Mass. Now I don't terribly mind going to Christmas mass all that much but any Chinese mass is a tad painful. It's mostly because I don't know what anyone is saying and I get approached by strangers who talk very LOUDLY saying all sorts of whatda?'s and whoseitnots. Overall, awkward and uncomfortable. Afterwards, they convene in the church basement for lunch but eating the basement of a church isn't the fondest of ideas of lunch so Maria and I snuck out and went to the local Chicago Chinatown in the blistering cold air. We wandered the shops a bit. Maria wanted to show me some ugly jade pigs. Eventually we ended up at the boba shop for lunch. We ordered Lemongrass Chicken wings, Spicy Pea Sprouts, and Chicken with Salty Fish Dish. Maria had a Mango Boba, I had the Papaya Coconut Green Tapicoca variety. It was entirely too much food.





















Afterwards, we made our way back to the church. Thankfully we were able to stowaway in a side room as the church-goers were doing various "acts." Not like the acts of the apostles. But like painful church acts of music and skits and stuff. Even my dad found it unbearable at times. Maria spent some time grading some papers (not what she had in mind for Christmas) and I doodled game ideas. I guess it was all much worse for my sister. Grading papers in the basement of a church whilst dodging out of a medley of church "things." Oh yeah, and cold weather.

Woof.

Jet plane Shimmy

Pictures taken on my flight from SFO to ORD.
















San Francisco Bay
















Treasure Island - can't see my house? Use your imagination!!!
















Oakland, Alameda
















Passing into the Oakland Hills





















Umm... mountains... I can't remember if these were the Sierra Nevada's or the Rockies.





















Midwestern Plains
















Snowy Crevice
















I think this is the Mississippi River.

Christmas in San Fran