Chinese New Year, Cupcakes, and Pets

This past Saturday, my Uncle Charley invited us over to his house in Beaverton (a suburb of Portland) for Chinese New Year. Talk about a celebration! I think he had over 25 people there. I got to see Uncle John and Auntie Eileen as well (who live in Camas, WA...which is only ~15 min. outside of Portland). It was great to be able to spend this holiday with family, even if they aren't technically blood relatives. My Uncle Charley and Auntie Eileen are my Uncle Bill's brother and sister. This celebration really taught me the true meaning of family because they were just so welcoming of us. And the food was amazing! Uncle Charley smokes his own meat and salmon and makes his own jerky - it was phenomenal! Below is a picture of Matt, Kristina, and me prior to digging in!


On Sundays, my new cupcake spot in town (Cupcake Jones) has the best specialty cupcake I have ever had! It's a chocolate chip cookie cupcake - chocolate chip cupcake, a little cookie on top, some vanilla bean buttercream, and a cookie dough center. They change their flavors everyday, so there's a lot of variety. But Sundays are definitely my day! It's a good replacement for the Ron Bennington cupcake (chocolate cupcake with peanut butter ganache and and peanut butter filling) at my favorite cupcake joint in Chicago, Molly's Cupcakes.

And these last 2 pics...Brad wanted me to put them on here. I have come to the conclusion that pets like to sleep on me. The one below is Zoe (Matt and Kristina's dog) getting comfortable and posing for the camera and the next picture is of our cat Jasmine enjoying her "chair".

Theatre performances and screenings

These last few days have been busy! We just got home from a free movie screening and panel discussion of "Pig Roast & Tank of Fish." The panel discussion consisted of the director of the movie as well as several professors and some city planners. The movie is a documentary about Portland's Chinatown and how Chinatown was essential in developing Portland into the city it is today. Today, the Portland Chinatown is severely dilapidated and depressed. All of the traditional small businesses and longtime residents have been driven out of the area. Poor urban planning by the city placed several homeless shelters in close proximity, leading to a microcosm of poverty that effectively quenched any hopes of attracting new residents and/or businesses. The movie discusses how these factors contributed to the collapse of Chinatown and the current and future plans to revitalize the area. It was a really moving documentary and really makes you appreciate the history and culture behind Chinatown. Here is the trailer for the movie:


"Pig Roast & Tank of Fish" trailer from Ivy Lin on Vimeo.

Yesterday, we went to Keller Auditorium (only 1 block away from our apartment!) to see Divine Performing Arts. It was a colorful blend of Chinese classical dance, music, and singing. The dances were beautiful, the costumes were amazing, and the singing was phenomenal. It was a great way to begin celebrating Chinese New Year (which is on Monday, January 26).

On Monday, we went to see Movin' Out at Keller Auditorium (we're absolutely loving that this theatre has some great performances and is close to home!). Movin' Out is a musical based purely on Billy Joel songs. It was definitely a little different than what you usually expect with musicals like Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera. This musical is separated into two groups: the musicians and the actors. There's a band and 2 singers who perform all the Billy Joel songs and then there's a group of about 30 actors who perform out the scenes. Personally, I like traditional musicals better because I appreciate the talent involved in being able to sing and act at the same time. But it was definitely worth seeing once.

Not too much new here. More snowboarding. However, last time we went up, Em managed to sprain her ankle. Unfortunately we don't have a cool story behind it, like doing jumps or rails, instead she was simply walking in an icy parking lot and took a nasty spill. It has been progressing through the spectrum of purples and blues. She is gradually getting better, but still tender. I guess her timing wasn't bad because we have had 50-60 degree weather this week, which means the snow is kinda wet and slushy anyways. So in the mean time, we have been getting caught up on some movies on Netflix. We also got season tickets to a local theatre and have a few shows we will be attending in the near future. We went to see a show tonight with a friend from Northwestern. It was nice because the theatre is only one block away from our apartment. Gotta love living downtown in the heart of it all!! We are going to see a show Tuesday night for the Chinese New Year. It involves traditional dance and drumming, similar to that of the Olympic opening ceremony. On Wednesday, we will be attending a screening for a documentary about the downturn of the Portland Chinatown.

Walking around town the other day, we saw a historic home which had to be physically moved to allow the construction of a new condo building. They jacked up the house on wooden blocks and drove it down the street a few blocks. After digging out the foundation for the new condo building, they rolled the house back to its original location. I wish I had pics of the whole process, but I only have this pic from my iPhone after they put the house back. (the new condo is the glass box in the background):


Because the warm weather would not allow snowboarding, I decided to do some mountain biking with Kern. It is nice to be able to say mountain biking and truly mean "mountain" biking. When I was in Chicago, I had to drive about 45 min just to get out of the city and hit some decent trails. Here, it is within riding distance. The day was 45 degrees and sunny so we geared up and rode out to Mt Tabor. It is only 5 miles from the city, however we didn't realize it is literally uphill the whole way there (with a strong headwind, might I add). Mt Tabor is an old volcano cinder cone that rises 630 ft. I know 630 feet doesn't sound like much, but trust me, it is when you are riding a bike up it. Here's a pic of Kern at the base of the mountain (the dirt trail in the distance is the one we took up):

We came to a fork at the top of the mountain. Which way? Oh, good thing they have this statue at the top to tell us the direction (or maybe he's pointing to Portland or something?):
We actually ended up going right. I guess we took the road less traveled....and it made all the difference. :) I've always been a little rebellious. We later found out that the top is a large circle, so it doesn't really matter which way you go. Wow, that's deep. OK, I'll quit with the metaphorical stuff.

There are several reservoirs on the mountain, this one has two levels and a nice fountain in the center.
Here's another view of the same reservoir from a higher vantage point. I love the building....reminded me of White Castle. Maybe that is because I just rode up a mountain on an empty stomach. I could probably murder about 20 sliders right now!
I decided to take a break on one of the steep hill climbs to catch my breath....err...take a pic of the great view of Mt Hood from here. Whew, good thing I have my camera to give me an excuse to stop!
This may be the future training grounds for Emily and I getting ready for the triathlon this summer (more to come on that in future installments). I just gotta load the theme song from "Rocky" into my iPod so we can have a montage...

Happy New Year

We are exploring different areas of the city in order to determine the ideal location to purchase our first condo/townhome/house. We currently live in downtown Portland, but we are also considering moving to the Pearl District or Nob Hill. We went walking around the South Waterfront area of Portland the other day. It is just being developed and is a short distance from our current apartment. There are some great seafood restaurants right on the dock with outdoor patios sure to be frequented by us during Happy Hour in the summer.
Our current apartment lies in about the center of the skyline of this pic (it is just to the right of the tallest building, but obscured from view by the Marriott).


We spent New Years on Mt Hood snowboarding. They had fireworks at midnight and stayed open until 2AM. Funny story about New Years actually...we were by the lodge around 1:30am and decided to do one more run. On the way up on the lift, the power to the entire resort went out! Since it was night ski, this meant that it was pretty much pitch black except for the moonlight reflecting off the snow. And it also meant that we were stuck on the lift! We ended up waiting 15 min. on the lift before they got a generator running to get those of us stuck on the lift off. Once we were off the lift, they advised us to wait until the power came back on to go down the slopes. We decided we didn't want to wait any longer, so we snowboarded down the slopes in the dark. It was an interesting way to start off the New Year! We also went snowboarding a couple more times during the holiday weekends. I know, I have already posted several pics of Mt Hood in previous posts, but I just can resist putting more up!

Here's the view of the top from the lift at Timberline:

Here's Em at SkiBowl:

At sunset we were cruising down a run at SkiBowl when I looked up and saw the mountain changing from white to pink. The color was fascinating, and it actually looked even more pink in real life than shown in this pic. I took this on my iPhone...I really wish I could have captured it in higher resolution on a real camera.

Our new tradition after playing in the snow is to stop by a Chinese restaurant named OM Seafood on the way home. We were introduced to it by Em's uncle Charlie. The food is superb and very affordable. I got a whole crab for only $12. I feel like a king when I eat there. We ordered everything in the pic below (crab, sea bass, scallops, shrimp, etc with soup and tea) and the bill was only $41. Unbelievable....and very good. We always order in copious amounts, then take the rest home and have leftovers for several days. Life is good.