printing K!

I have to print all the K! That's the reason I'm taking a letterpress printing class at Art Center right now. It's a summer night class. Meet once every week from May to August. 80% female students. My professor is like a Santa Claus to me - a nice old guy with white beard and big tummy.


When I told people I was going to take class for printing. They were like - huh? What for? Sounded like I was wasting money to learn do a cheap dirty job. I always had to explain - "see those nice cards in one or two colors with cool impression of the printed image on the paper? You can feel the texture. Right, printed by some kind of old traditional machines...real cool"! Still, my parents wouldn't understand how amazing it was. I have to really print and bring it with me next time I go to Hong Kong and show them the products.


It was wedding that brought me to letterpress printing. Right, wedding again. Always about "Wedding". Sorry, this is what this blog for. I realized many wedding invitation cards were letterpress printed when we were looking for one. Actually many greeting cards and stationery are now printed by letterpress. It just becomes more and more popular. May be people are tired of flat digital printing. I just love its uniqueness and the personal touch cause it's a manual process. So I decided to find out how to do it and do it myself this summer.


Tonight, I printed my first K on the letterpress machine. How exciting! My mom might think it wasn't a big deal at all. But I'm sure she would appreciate more if she knew it was actually quite complicated and required lots of practice and experience to achieve the perfect print. It's quite expensive too as I had to pay for the film, plate and paper. But I would rather spend my money to do this cause I'm creating the cards to my loved ones. I hope they'll like the handmade gift with exceptional beauty and authenticity.


The BIG K is the front. I have to print the back next class. I'm thinking to continue taking the class next season cause I have many ideas that I want to print on paper. Most importantly, I have LOTS more Ks I want to print!

Fresh Sour

When I blogged on February, I posted a picture of the tree in the front yard of our house in Foster City. There were only branches with some buds.

Time steals on. Buds burst into flowers and were blooming in the past few months. We are not sure what kind of tree it is. Looks like cherry blossoms in white. They were beautiful. But I missed lots of the pretty scenes cause I wasn't there often to see the growing process.


As summer was approaching, flowers turned into fruits. These little home grown produces look like cherries but taste like plums, just a lot more sour cause they aren't ripe yet. They are still green. Only a few had turned red but they were usually eaten by animals before we picked them. I hope they were birds or squirrels but not mice. Hadi was especially excited. He couldn't wait for the sweetness. He just ate the green ones but then complained the sour afterward.


I just thought we were very fortunate to have such a productive tree to enjoy throughout the seasons. These pictures were taken on a very nice day before sunset. The shots were quite beautiful I think. The green leaves and yellow light were soft and warm (didn't look like from the last hour of daylight though. More like morning time to me), yet together they were full of live and energy.


Next time I go home in Foster City, I have to be fast before any little creatures get my first red fruit...

P.S. 618 - Today is our "Dating" Anniversary. Celebrating 11 years and 5 months being koogether!

The Never Melt Chocolate Cake

After our wedding rehearsal last year, everyone in our wedding party who came to practice the ceremony received a Godiva wedding cake chocolate as a little gift from us. Hadi and I got one of each favor too - the white and dark chocolate.


The thing is we didn't open the boxes until our wedding anniversary last week. Surprisingly they were both in perfect condition after a year. I think they wouldn't melt if we leave them for another year or even longer cause they were made with solid chocolate. It was very hard when we tried to cut it in half.


My comment about these chocolates, (I think you already got it right), they look better than they taste. They do look nice. That's why I took lots of pictures of them. The taste wasn't bad. Only that if you're thinking of buying it one day, expect that it is the appearance and packaging most of your money goes to.

1st Wedding Anniversary

To celebrate our first wedding anniversary, we went hiking! Would anyone guess it right? We didn't even know we would do such a healthy activity!

"Fairy house" behind Old Mill Park

We didn't plan anything particular. Just wanted to relax and enjoy the day. The hiking idea came up when we were going to El Paseo for dinner and drove by a place in Mill Valley called Old Mill Park. Yet it was kind of late by the time we discovered it. We just quickly drove through the neighborhood and were amused it was actually a natural beauty. Houses were like in fairy tales. A little river ran by the houses which were built in a forest among all sorts of vegetation. Gee, people living there were really lucky. So nice we decided to come back again the next day even we knew we had to give another 6 bucks to pass through the Golden Gate bridge.

Redwood forest in Mill Valley

So we did come back on the 8th. We walked throught the park this time. It was actually small and surrounded by lots of tall redwood trees that drop huge shadows over the place. Kids playing and swinging at the little children playground. Some people were doing yoga while others walking dogs. A guy was playing a unique woodwind instrument in the woods. The whole picture was beautiful and peaceful. There was a trail started from this Old Mill park that led all the way to the top of the hill. Before we hit the slope, I needed to find a restroom and that made me find out another nice place which was the Mill Valley public library. It was built so nicely with the nature that you didn't realize it unless you paid more attention.

So we began the long steep stairs of the trail called "Dipsea". It was then I realized I forgot my camera. I was so angry to myself. How could I not have it on such an important day? I tried to calm myself down by thinking it might be God's will whom wanted us to totally enjoy ourselves but not to bother about pictures. Put them all in mind not computer....I ended up using my cell phone to take pictures.

So we walked for 3 hours in total. From about 10:30am to 1:30pm and we enjoyed it cause we love woods and nature. We went hiking before and liked doing it once in awhile. We didn't talk much this time during hiking cause we saw two signs that made me very nervous. One warned about mountain lions. Another said trail closed due to mudslide and was illegal to pass through. But Hadi was excited. He was obviously a LOT more adventurous than I was. He didn't care about the mudslide at all and would be very happy to "meet" the mountain lion. I totally ignored his enthusiasm but just kept walking and refused to talk until we returned to the ground.


Dipsea trail is very long. We just covered little part of it. The entire distance is 7 miles from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach. A lady told us an annual trail race was coming up this month. It was one of the two oldest trail race in the country. Number of runners is limited and all these racers are carefully selected. We did see people practicing for the race. It was really a challenge with all those stairs and slopes.

Mill Valley is a little old town. We discovered something new everytime we went there. I feel there's still a lot waiting for us to explore. I'm glad that we both love this place and were so fortunate to have our wedding there. Of course I want to revisit this place every anniversary. But I believe I can't wait another year before I pay the 6 bucks again.

Anniversary Eve

We celebrated our anniversary eve evening at a restaurant called El Paseo which is just right across the street of our wedding reception site Outdoor Art Club in Mill Valley.


This restaurant was very mysterious to us when we first discovered it. Hidden in a small alley, this historic brick restaurant was always closed when we walked by during the day. We later found out it just opened for dinner. It looked very elegant, private yet mystical. It made us feel we had to go there one day and find out what it is all about. Was it exclusively for vampires?



Tonight we finally experienced this decent French restaurant. Found out it's actually run by a Japanese restaurant group. Chefs and servers were mainly Japanese. You know how Japanese comics always create stories based on French background but portrayed in Japanese. We felt like we were dining in a real comics world...



El Paseo is a "lots of stars" restaurant on Michelin list. We don't always necessarily agree with the Michelin guide. We're conservative before going to El Paseo. But after tasting it, we gave thumbs up. They really offered quality french cuisine with Japanese culinary inspiration. All dishes were beautifully presented and delicious. Everything was carefully prepared and served to their customers.

I love this heart shaped butter!

I don't want to give too much details here. I'll say, worth to go and experience yourself.

BTW, El Paseo means a leisurely walk. I think we got more than that...

Cake Again

We, the two cake lovers, asked Kay (our wedding cake baker from Beaux Gateaux) to bake for us again for our anniversary.


Same cake again - three cake layers of chocolate chiffon cake, whipped cream filling with hazelnut daquoise and peach mousse with fresh raspberries. Sounds yummy to you?


It's just a plain white square cake. No decoration and no toppings but same fillings. The shape is just right to be cut into four small cubes. Split it and enjoy it in four days. In four mornings, I wake up and know that there's a little piece of sweet waiting for us to make the day full of life!


Delighted to be able to taste it again. Still love it. Wish we can have the same indulgence every anniversary.

Preface to June

A year goes by in a flash. It's June! We've been married for almost a year now. Just a few days away from our first wedding anniversary.


Hadi and I will be taking the 8th and half day of 9th off. I don't think I can concentrate if I have to stay in LA alone and go to work on those days anyway. To celebrate this special day, we'll revisit our church and reception site during the long weekend vacation. We've reordered the same wedding cake but in mini size this time of course. We didn't really taste it on the wedding day. I just remember it tasted good and lots of guests told me so. So having it again will allow us to really enjoy the favor of it.

Just writing a short note here like a preface to welcome June that we've missed and loved so much.