WARNING: Reflections in this post may be distorted by socially constructed ideas of a happy life

So anyone who has ever read this blog knows that it's pretty normal for me to use quotes, or plays on quotes. This one is particularly awesome, me thinks, but let me just set the expectation now; this will just be a run of the mill reflection on the previous year. (So long to all of you who tuned out and clicked elsewhere!)

And what a year it was!

January - March:

For my birthday I got Lion King tickets. Lion King was my favorite animated Disney movie for ages (until they collaborated with Pixar) and I have been dying to see this show for as long as I could remember.

There are a handful of movies where I know every single line and this is one of them. (If you are curious about the others, they include, but aren't limited to: Jerry Maguire, Clueless, Friday, and Almost Famous. Talk about random, right?)

The show definitely did not disappoint. If you have never seen it, this is a ::MUST SEE:: in my humble opinion. The opening song is worth the ticket!

As I mentioned in previous blog posts, I was lucky enough to travel to Hong Kong, Manila and Bali in February and March.

Even now, as I look through the pictures, I crave that meal after the bike ride that should have resulted in my first time getting stitches. (Didn't get any, but I neosporin-ed the HECK out of the gash on my hand. Healed decently, woo hoo!)

As it's raining and a wee bit chilly in SoCal, I would love to be reading under an umbrella on a beach chair in Bali. (That's right, RAIN in So Cal!) I also wouldn't mind having a piping hot bowl of noodles on Victoria's Peak in Hong Kong.

I am blessed to have found such great friends and traveling partners from grad school. Knowing us, there will be several more!

April to June:

I also got to see The Book of Mormon this year. If you've seen it, then you should really enjoy this rendition of its opening song "The Book of Mormon Comes to South Park":

I went to Boston for work, which is always a huge treat since so many good friends are still in the area. There is never enough time to see people, but I sure tried! :)

It was a good time to go since it was finally warming up. My colleagues and I were supposed to go in March, during a bad storm, while there was plenty of snow. I can't say that I'm not glad that our trip got postponed!

Another good set of friends from BU got married in San Francisco so we had another mini reunion that included a road trip and some wine tasting.

Since I was on the way, my friends picked me up, but the best part was that I was able to introduce another person to American Ale; home of the best burger EVER!

July to September:

My summer started off with a cousin reunion. It has been over 4 years since we have been in the same city. We had planned on going to Disneyland, but they were in Cali during the hottest days of the year. Ummm... no thank you! 

Instead, we roasted in my aunt's house in the IE (AC was on the fritz) and finally escaped the heat by gorging on Korean BBQ and going to a movie. It definitely doesn't compare to the Happiest Place on Earth, but with that heat, having a leisurely meal and catching up really just hit the spot. 

I also had a few visitors that actually came through Santa Barbara itself. This isn't the first time, as I had plenty of visitors that came to see me specifically in 2013 (love you guys!), but usually if they aren't there to see me specifically, LA is the closest they will get.  Not surprisingly, I also took both sets of friends to American Ale. (I wasn't dutchess on yelp for nothing! And believe it or not, it didn't take long to dethrone me... sigh... I can't wait to get back there!)

October to December:

Halloween is my favorite holiday. It's the time of year when people's inner creativity (and for some ladies, a inner something else, ahem) comes out. 

I've always been a huge fan of dressing up, but I can't always say I've executed well. Part of that is that I don't start thinking about it until late, but another is that I'm often reluctant to spend a lot of money on it.

There have been some really amazing costumes from my co-workers ranging from Brangelina to a group costume of Clue.

This year a group of us got together for a brainstorming session.

The ideas were flowing: Hunger Games, Star Trek, Phone Apps... we finally decided to be the US Women's curling team (coach and all!). We got brushes, created our own curling stone with a kettle, attaching it to wheels with duct tape and aluminum foil; we got brushes and even an American flag. 

It was so fun! We even won the costume contest!

Thanksgiving week was pretty exciting. My brother and I went to the Justin Timberlake concert, I went to my boss's retirement party and went to another good friend's wedding.  That was a darn good week! 

I ended the year in my favorite place... San Diego!

Adventures in Kreativitee

Throughout the year, I have been working on being more creative. Towards the end of 2014, I started doodling on a white board, mainly recreating superhero minions. 

My creative writing has slowed down a bit, but I got really good at drawing on dry erase boards! I even started getting specific requests. I captured most of them here. 

But recently one of my good friends at work and I have started writing haikus. My project for this year is to continue hump day haikus. One of many.

Books:

Of course I had to continue my annual list of books! While the number is quite low, the number of pages was a feat! (3000+) The authors have mostly been reoccurrences over the years, but at least I know what I like!

1. David and Goliath - Malcolm Gladwell
2. What I Talk About when I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami
3. Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin
4. Sword of Storms - George R.R. Martin
5. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? - Mindy Kaling
6. Dexter's Final Cut - Jeffrey Lindsay

“Not all those who wander are lost.” - J. R. R. Tolkien (Part 1)

Sometimes, those who wander were just too busy with work and life to help plan a vacation.

Instead those said people rely on good friends to plan out parts of the holiday so that said people know awesome things await without having to know all the details...

I've had the pleasure to travel abroad (Guatemala and India) with my fellow companions in the not so recent past, so I knew I was in good hands.

My travel companions

We packed in three destinations in a short, less than 2 week trip, spending 3-4 days in each locale. It was an AWESOME vacation. So good that the other day, I fell asleep right after I got off work, woke up in pitch darkness and wondered, "Where am I? What country am I in?" So yeah I'm a bit jet lagged, but it was worth it!

Just a little background:

I basically tagged along on this trip. Two of my grad school classmates were getting married and two of my other classmates were determined to go to the wedding. They set up the general itinerary and then convinced a handful of us to go. (Yeah, you can see the scars on my arm from having them twist it... um, not so much...) I had not been to any of the destinations and a chance to hang out with this crew, count me in!

First stop: Hong Kong

Hong Kong Island Skyline

 I have a friend that lives here as an ex-pat. She was super helpful and gave me advice on how to get to the hotel from the airport. My friends arrived together from New York about 4 hours earlier, while I got in from LA around 11pm. With my friend's advice, I took a local bus to the hotel.

MTR subway

My friends thought I was quite brave to navigate the city alone around midnight, but I had faith in my ex-pat pal. She surely wouldn't have allowed me to roam around the streets in the middle of the night if she thought it was a bad neighborhood! :)

I felt a little like I was on my own mini version of Amazing Race. I had no idea what I was doing but figured things out. (Thank goodness that a lot of the signs are in English as well!)

We stayed at Eaton Hotel in Kowloon. Great location, close to a few MTR (subway) stops and lots of great places to eat! For help on that, I looked up Anthony Bourdain's excursions and a few other food blogs.

The MTR is an awesome subway system. It's very clean, the trains are seemingly endless and when you are in the station, they have well labelled exits to help you figure out where you need to go.

When we were looking at places in Tsim Sha Tsui (TST to the locals), I remembered this from Russell Peters:

That guy cracks me up! Ok, I digress...

We took a series of walking tours and different neighborhoods. While we were in Central, we stopped off at Kau Kee for some beef brisket noodles.

We had a core group of 5, but were lucky enough to have others join us at varying points of each leg to even us out to 6. Our Taiwanese friend joined us on our first tour of HK.

Kau Kee

As a party of 6, there were not enough seats for all of us, so we initially sat apart with other diners. This is quite typical in these smaller places, but when the table opened up, we got the guys to come over.

Even though the bowls looked small (especially compared to American standards), it was a hearty meal and delicious! The noodles started off a bit al dente, but the warm and savory broth softened them to a perfect texture. I'm craving a bowl right now!

Lunar New Year Lantern Display

Chinese New Year (aka Tet for my peeps) was at the end of January this year and lucky for us, we caught the tail end of the light display at the Cultural Center in TST. We took the Star Ferry over and got great views of the Hong Kong skyline (see above) and got to see the Symphony of Lights. Frankly, the skyline itself was more impressive, especially if you've seen things like the fountain show at Bellagio in Las Vegas. Just sayin!

The lanterns had a Love theme, showcasing various wedding related things, which seemed appropriate, since our next adventure would take us to our friend's wedding in Manila.

Tian Tan Buddha

But before that, we took a ride on a glass bottom gondola to see the Big Buddha. My recommendation would be to go up on a regular gondola and go down on a glass bottom cable car. We ended up waiting in a long line and if we reversed it, we would have been golden! You can also take a hike up to the top, but after seeing the path from above, I wouldn't recommend it unless you had a good half a day to get up.

It's totally worth it to traverse those extra 250+ steps to get to the top. The views are beautiful and it's not as bad as you might think! (Unless you have joint problems that is!)

Hong Kong is such an interesting place with a rich history. It's very humbling to walk around with the hundreds of skyscrapers looming over us. It seemed like temples were around random corners and much of the historic sites seemed to have been replaced by newer buildings.

In the Hong Kong Monetary Authority Center there is a library and free museum on the 55th floor that displays  a picture of HK in 1895 where the tallest building was about 3 stories high. What a difference several decades make!

Victoria's Peak

One of the best views of the city is at Victoria's Peak. Even with the fog that rolled in, we were still able to capture beautiful views. There are several trails around the peak as well as a mall where my friends were able to pick up some souvenirs. If we had enough time, it would have been an amazing to see the view at night.

We had the company of another friend who has been working there for several years and introduced us to another side of Hong Kong: Lan Kwai Fong (aka LKF).

LKF

We had done most of our sight seeing during the day and had yet to explore the night life. Filled with foreigners (like us), loud music and drinking on the streets, we were determined to live it up on our last night in HK. Such the party animals, we made it past midnight! =)