What kind of Asian are you?

I don't think I've laughed so hard for a long time. For the record, I'm not usually offended where people ask where I'm from, but the other questions/comments from this guy are waaaaaay too familiar.

2 Years

Today marks the 2 year anniversary of moving to Seattle. Two years ago, Justin and I arrived with our kids and two other long suffering people, Mike and Risa. While it hasn't been the easiest two years (Seattle winters are brutal), I will say this: moving out of Utah is the best anti-depressant ever.

This Spring I declared war on our backyard. I'd largely ignore a lot of it, letting the weeds take over the beds, allowing trees to grow unfettered, and dandelions to go unchecked on the lawn. But this year, I was tired of tripping over a bumpy lawn and unseen roots and looking at the patchiest, thinnest, most pathetic grass ever. I forcefully conscripted Justin into my cause, and so far we've aerated, thatched, raked, top dressed, and now finally over-seeded the lawn. The aerating, thatching, and seeding we hired a company to do, but the raking and top dressing took us weeks. But now it's been over-seeded and the real challenge begins: keeping the kids off of it for at least four weeks. Here's hoping for a nice thick lawn!

Murgatroyd appears to maybe making some headway. After the initial lump started to drain, for four MONTHS, the granuloma has gotten very small. So either it's going away on it's own, or the methotraxate is working enough to keep it in check. However, the second granuloma is still going strong and staying about the same size. Ugh.

Sorry about the lack of posts. I've been feeling less than perky and creative lately. But we're alive and still going strong. And fighting the good fight (against weeds.)

3D glasses are racist

Last night we went to Star Trek Into Darkness. Justin's company rents out a theater sometimes the night before big releases. This time however, Paramount decided to move the date up a day, so we were instead seeing it on opening night. So, I guess to make up for the lack of sneak preview, they decided to have the showing in 3D.

I will admit that it had been about 10 years since I'd seen anything in 3D and the glasses were still those red and blue paper specs. But every time I'd seen anything in 3D, I'd have a headache afterwards and not be able to see out of my left eye. I'm extremely right eye dominate (my contact prescription is almost twice as strong for my left eye) and so any time my eyes are under any strain, I feel my right eye start to over-compensate.

But eye strain aside, those @$%$#%@!# glasses are racist. I, like most Asians, do not have a bridge to my nose. I can lay a finger across the top of my nose and touch both of my eyeballs. Finding sunglasses is a pain. In order to be able to focus on the screen, I practically have to shove the lens into my corneas and hold the damn glasses there the entire time. I left the theater with a headache, sore eyeballs, and 3D glasses with two retinal prints on them.

But the good news, the movie was pretty good and I'm still in totally in love with Benedict Cumberbatch... along with the rest of the world, including Justin.

I think she'd be good with some rice

Alana had some bad dandruff. Per her pediatrician, I rub olive oil into her scalp and then shampoo it out. I do however feel like I'm prepping her for a marinade before every bath time.

I'm not alone!

I belong to a facebook group for Korean American Adoptees. I'm not very active, but they've been getting some weird discussion threads going that have made me feel validated:

Lack of arm hair and stubby eyelashes
No birthday/assigned birthdays/having 2 birthday (I'm not the only one!!!!)
Non-necessity of deodorant
Discussing your adoption with your own biological children
Being the only Asian in very white communities
Lack of connecting with other Koreans
Perceptions that all Asians are meek/mild and going to put up with your shit

It's been very therapeutic to know I'm not the only one with these problems.

Swimming

Mike's coworkers had a plan to go to a waterfall north of Danang. Risa had to run to an atm, so Mike and I grabbed breakfast on the corner outside their house. A lady would set up with a huge pot of soup and sell pho to morning customers. Apparently pho is traditionally a breakfast food. It was really good, which was surprising because I really didn't like pho here in the US. I think that the Asian equivalent of cilantro/Chinese parsley is less strong so I didn't get that soapy taste.

We then met up with Mike and Risa's friends and started off on what ended up being a two hour ride through the mountains. There were six of us on five bikes and I commented that felt like I was in the world's least threatening motorcycle gang. 

We stopped at the summit where there were a few ruins. The scariest bit was the bullet holes in the buildings. Vietnam war fighting took place here and the US troops even made it a little bit further north before they pulled out.

The roads were very windy.

Bullet holes. Yikes.

We continued on our way. I didn't put enough sunscreen on and got burned. I made it until the last day of vacation before I got a sunburn, argh! After much confusion, we found the turn off and hiked up the hill until we saw this:

It's a waterfall in the sense that the water is running downhill, but the locals have dammed it up in various spots to form these deep swimming pools. The water is so clear, it only looks like it's a few feet deep, but most of the pools are actually deep enough to submerge in. The main one we swam in was probably well over 10 ft deep. They'd also built platforms next to the river and would lay down carpets for a few dong.

After swimming and relaxing, we packed up and headed back off on the scooters. We started to stop at a restaurant in Lang Co, but realized stopping meant trying to go over through the pass in the dark. They had some awesome birds just hanging out though and I got some pictures before we left.

On the way back, we saw this cloud that seemed to be pouring over the mountain. It was beautiful. Mike and I joked that it looked like the Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke after its head was cut off. We later drove through the cloud which was for lack of a better word, delicious. It was cooling and felt like being dipped in a sparkling drink.

We all headed to a cafe called the Bread of Life. It's a restaurant run by Westerners who employ deaf Vietnamese for the baking and cooking to give them job skills. The menu is very American, but it was pretty good for Asia.

We all looked very tired after the drive.

I ordered a burger. The bun was the best part, light and crispy.

We headed back to the house and then grabbed a taxi (for my poor spine which at this point was considering filing for divorce after the abuse I'd put it through for the past two days) to the local shopping center, "Big C". Like most shopping centers in Asia, it was crazy crowded. Risa grabbed an aloe vera leaf which was huge and ended up being 10 cents. I bought some marble pendants and we headed back to the house to rub aloe vera on our sunburns.

Hoi An Part II

We boarded one of the boats in the river. I'm not sure how far down the river it was, but my guess was maybe about three miles or four miles.

There were these circle of reeds in all the rivers and some of the rice paddies. I couldn't figure out exactly what they were. Maybe some sort of fishing net?

We exited off the boat and saw the red bridge the resort was named after. A waiter came out with more mango smoothies and our guide led us around the herb garden.

These were peanuts.

She pulled one of them out of the ground so we could see the peanuts.

Afterwards, we bid goodbye to our guide and were directed to the back of the resort where the cooking class took place. Our teacher was this funnily sarcastic chef who sounded exactly like a Vietnamese Howard Cosell. He showed us how to make a salad in a pineapple, rice paper, spring rolls, bánh xèo, and an eggplant stew in a clay pot.

Salad

The rice paper is made by pouring the batter on a muslin stretched over boiling water. You then take a bamboo stick and flip it off.

The rice paper was made into spring rolls

Bánh xèo, the egg pancake that I had the first night in Danang

He showed us how to make some garnishes too.

Pretty, right?

Annnnnnnd here's mine.

Eggplant in a clay pot.

Afterwards we sat at a table in the restaurant cooled off by the river, enjoying our cooking attempts and mango smoothies. It was very peaceful and I was very glad that we took the class. I actually learned to like Vietnamese food! We were herded back to the boat and Hoi An when it started to get dark. Hoi An is famous for lanterns apparently and so the city had started to light up by the time we got back. I wasn't there at the full moon, but apparently the regular lights are turned off and there are twice as many lanterns and they float candle lanterns on there river as well.

The bridge from before lit up.

Here's a Junebug that flew out of nowhere and hit Risa on the head.

There were these musicians just hanging out on the street playing for fun. I don't even think they were busking because I didn't see anywhere to give them money.

Mike and Risa were very patient while I shopped like crazy to find gifts and souvenirs, even dragging them back to the same shop three times. We then divided up my goodies on the two bikes due to my lack of foresight that we were going to have to get all this back on scooters and headed back to Danang. Hoi An was probably my favourite day of all in Vietnam.