Grand Opening of DelicaTea.com

I am so excited to announce that after almost a year's preparation, we finally launched www.delicatea.com. We worked on this website on and off since last November. During this period, my business partner was still back at school and I was busy preparing for CFA level II. Working on the website was almost like a third job. But we survived.

Many thanks to Dave, our lead artist, who took all the beautiful pictures. Without him, we would never have been able to create such a beautiful site.

徐妈妈和徐爸爸到了

Mr. and Mrs. Xu arrived late on Thursday night and will be staying with us through the wedding until the middle of September. They seem to be dealing with the jet lag pretty well so far (as I write this, it's almost midnight, and they've been up since 8:00 am!).


It will be interesting seeing how well 4 people and 2 cats can live in an 800 square foot loft. We put up curtains in an effort convert the upper floor of the loft into something resembling a real bedroom (thanks in part to Mom's efforts on the sewing machine when we were back in IN last weekend).

Simon and Susie are each adjusting to the new guests in their own way. Susie immediately made friends with them like she does with everyone else. Simon was shy at first, but seems to be warming up.

Revere Beach Kite Festival

Jessica had to study all last weekend again (test is this Saturday, so wish her luck!), so I went down to the beach by myself to take pictures of the kite flying festival that was going on.

In this set, there's also a picture of Jessica studying in her pajamas, and of course the usual gratuitous kitty pictures. Simon likes to get underneath one of the doormats and pretend that it's a tent (I guess that's what it is anyway... he hasn't really explained this one of his many quirks to me).

Memorial Day

We didn't do much this past Memorial Day, but I guess that's really what holidays are for sometimes. We took a bike ride along the Charles River on Monday and saw a surprising amount of wildlife (turtles and baby geese/ducks) for the middle of the city.

The water in the ocean is now warm enough to wade in, but still cold enough that it's very clear. Low tide was around 5 in the afternoon so I went out and took pictures of the hermit crabs and other sea creatures and plants a couple of times.

On a completely unrelated topic, I just found some movies that Jessica took while we were in (and on our way to and from) Culebra.

Happy Summer '09!

We're still alive

Wow, it's been about 2 months since either of us have posted here. Nothing really new. Jessica is studying for level 2 of the chartered financial analyst exam. I'm still employed. We actually own a TV now. Simon and Susie aren't really kittens anymore. Here is a series of pictures of Susie giving Simon a bath:

Puerto Rico 2009

Here are the pictures from our trip.  I couldn't decide which ones I liked best, so I'm just posting links to all of them.

Using what we'd learned from the "survey" trip that we took last winter, we decided to spend most of our time in 4 places: We spent our first afternoon in San Juan, the next 2 days in Ponce, a day on the offshore island of Culebra (picture above),  and then finished up with an evening kayaking trip in the "bioluminescent" bay called Laguna Grande in the extreme northeast corner of the main island.

We flew in to San Juan late Friday night/Saturday morning, so we decided to spend the late morning and afternoon exploring old San Juan.   The old part of San Juan reminds me a lot of downtown Boston or San Francisco:  It's undeniably charming and old (even older than Boston... don't forget, this is the part of the world where Columbus landed on his first voyage), but also a bit too obviously tourist oriented in places.  Click here for the San Juan pictures (or here for a full slideshow).

Our second stop was the south coast city of Ponce.   When we were there last year, we kept hearing that they had one of the biggest carnaval celebrations in the Caribbean during the week leading up to Ash Wednesday.  This was the main reason that we chose the week that we did to make this trip.   We weren't disappointed.  The magnitude of the festival is almost a little bit overwhelming.   Most of the pictures I took are of the parade that happens on Sunday afternoon, which started at 1:00pm and didn't end until 10:30 or so!  From the hot, dry, breezy weather and mountainous surroundings, to the Catalonian architecture, to interesting things like Carnaval, I like Ponce a lot... I'm not quite sure why so few people outside of Puerto Rico know anything about it, but I guess maybe it's better that way.  Unlike Old San Juan, Ponce is tourist friendly, but not sickeningly touristy.  Click here for the Ponce pictures (or here for full slideshow).

Our next to last stop was the offshore island of Culebra, which is politically part of Puerto Rico, but geographically more par of the Virgin Islands (St. Thomas is only about 10 miles to the east).   In terms of overall activity, Culebra was almost a 180 degree difference from Ponce, as it's purportedly one of the least developed places in the Caribbean.  On the whole island, there are about 2000 full time residents, and probably less than 100 tourists at any given time.   There are only about 4 restaurants on the whole island, and everything closes at 10:30 (but if you want to stay up later and walk around, that's fine too... crime is virtually non-existent here).   The only places to stay are small bed-and-breakfast type places and beachside bungalow type apartments that can be rented for the whole week.  They're all very affordable (I now see absolutely no reason to ever rent a place on Martha's Vineyard or the Cape for a week... even with airfare, it would be cheaper and much nicer to go here).  The beaches are unbelievably beautiful (I didn't enhance these pictures at all... the water really looks that way!), and on a weekday, even the most popular one probably had no more than 30 people on it.   I suspect it's only a matter of time before people begin to discover this place and someone has the idea to start building tacky resort hotels that will bring in tourists by the thousands.   We hope to return a few times before this happens!   For the Culebra pictures, click here (or here for slideshow).

The trip's finale was probably the most unique experience.   We took a kayaking trip into the Laguna Grande, which is one of the last bodies of water in the world where bioluminescent plankton live year round.   It's really amazing to dip your hand or paddle into the water and see a cloud of blueish light follow (they only light up when physically agitated).   You also get a fireworks display any time a fish jumps or darts away from the kayak.  Unfortunately it's really impossible to photograph this well (and it's a fairly bad idea to take an unsealed camera on a kayak ride).   If you look at the map here,  you can see where we went.   We started in the oceanside bay that you see in the lower right-hand corner of the map.   The guide then lead us through a completely dark mangrove swamp into the lagoon.  It really felt like we were in the jungle as we were paddling through the swamp (Jessica was scared that a snake was going to drop down from the trees!), but in the end, I think we agreed that it was well worth it!   

Back to reality...

Hot weather in February is good. Parades, piña coladas, and nice beaches are fun. Bioluminescent dinoflagellates are cool. Unfortunately, we're back in cold rainy MA now. Pictures and details later.

Escaping the cold...

The extreme cold here seems to be over for the most part. We're seeing more rain than snow lately, but make no mistake, it's still winter, so we're of to Puerto Rico on Friday night for a short 5 day vacation. We're going to try to make this one a little bit more relaxed than last year's jaunt, but still have lots of stuff planned, including:

- Exploring old San Juan (in the daylight this time!).

- The Carnival parade in Ponce

- A stay overnight on the island of Culebra in the Spanish Virgin Islands

- A nighttime kayaking trip in the bioluminescent bay near Fajardo

It's supposed to be 88 degrees and sunny in Ponce on Sunday... I'm sure that will be a bit of a shock at first, but I'm definitely looking forward to it! More after we return.

And now it's 2009

Haven't posted anything here for a while, so I thought I should update everyone on some things going on around here:

We've been planning the wedding which will be in late August. We're still trying to keep it small and simple. We're very grateful that Mom has been helping coordinate things quite a bit.

After a month of saying "I know I'm going to fail", Jessica found out two days ago that she did pass level 1 of the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) exam. She's now planning to take level 2 in June.

I watched the inauguration ceremony for the first time in my life... at work. The company I'm at right now will undoubtedly benefit from the Obama administration's support for "smart grid" technology, so it was almost a company sanctioned event.

J. is working on starting an online tea business. We've been taking lots of pictures of tea.


It's been really cold here. The average high for Boston in January is 36 degrees... that's not warm, but probably not quite as cold as a lot of people think. This year, however, there have been only 4 days when the temp surpassed 32. The beach in front of our house looked a lot like the coast of Antarctica. It was beautiful in a strange way, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly for me. To escape all of this, we're trying to squeeze in a short trip to the Caribbean for 4 or 5 days sometime in the next month if my work schedule allows.


We took Simon and Susie to the vet last Wednesday where Simon lost his manhood, and Susie her fecundity. It's always sad to have to do this, but it needed to be done. Susie had a reaction to the pain medicine that they gave her. The vet told us to stop giving it to her, and since then she's been fine. Simon doesn't seem to be even slightly phased by any of this.

Highlights of 2008

It will be 2009 (Year of Ox) in almost a week. Some highlights of 2008 we'd like to share with our families and friends.

• We got engaged. This probably the biggest thing that occurred this year. Dave and I went to China and we had a very informal engagement party with my family on my dad's side. We spent a day having our engagement pictures taken. It took a whole day. But the pictures turned out to be really good.
• We bought a place together and become homeowners. Our home at Revere Beach is small but cozy.
• We have our first two "kids", Susie and Simon. They are two cute kittens. When they first came, they were only 2 pounds. Simon is now 5 pounds and Susie is 4. They are so much fun. We enjoy being parents of the two kitties.
• We did not take a lot of trips this year. We went to Puerto Rico for five days and China for two weeks (Dave was there for only a week). But we took a couple of short domestic trips, a weekend in midwest and a weekend in Seattle.
• Career wise, I have no change this year, same company and same job. But I hope my home business will take off next year. Dave switched jobs during the year and end up at Ambient.

2008 feels short but is definitely a happy year for us.

Happy holidays to our families and friends.

More gratuitous pictures of the kitties:

Susie

Simon

I Am a Free Bird!

As some of you may have been aware that I was preparing for the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) in the last few months, on and off. I was not as dedicated at the beginning as I was towards the end. In addition, I almost took the whole month off studying back in September when Dave and I went to China to visit my family. This task was finally over yesterday. Now I am as free as a bird. The test itself was not that difficult. There was just too much stuff to remember. I did much better than expected in the morning session but not so well in the afternoon one. Over the last few months, my mind was full of NPV, IRR, p-value, etc. I am just so happy that I can now move on to other things I want to do. I won't touch CFA again at least a year and a half later. What a relief!

It was my birthday last Thursday. Dave took me out to Daily Catch, an Italian seafood restaurant near the water-front area. We had cake afterwards. This is my 34th birthday, not as big as the 20th or the 30th. But this was my last single birthday. In that sense, it is almost as big as the 20th, 30th, etc. I also received birthday cards from Sharon and Terry, and Aunt Jeanie and Uncle Roger. Thank you so much for remembering my birthday.

"Delicious human food," said Simon and Susie

Mom and Dad's visit and Thanksgiving

Mom and Dad came for a short visit last weekend (they would have come for Thanksgiving, but flights then cost about twice as much). Sadly, I hardly took any pictures. I took my camera with me every time we went out, but it was extremely cold last weekend, so any time we got out of the car, I was thinking more about getting back into the warm car than about taking pictures. Luckily Mom took a few and send them along to me.


Jessica and I had Thanksgiving dinner on our own this year. We strayed from tradition and replaced the turkey in our Thanksgiving meal with lobster. I'm not sure that's actually straying from tradition that much... I'm pretty sure that there would have been lobster eaten at the first Thanksgiving on Plymouth Bay. Other than the lobster, the meal was pretty traditional... I made stuffing and mashed potatoes. Jessica made pumpkin pie, green beans, and cranberry sauce.



Simon and Susie thought that the box that the stuffing croutons came in made a great little place to play. Susie (in the box) ended up going over the edge of the table a few minutes after this picture was taken (she made it through that ordeal unscathed... these guys do this sort of thing many times each day).

Updates on Simon and Susie

In spite of what the animal shelter told us, it's become obivous that our gray kitten is female. So "Alvin" is now "Susie". The tiger kitten is still Simon, our sweetest boy. He is very gentle and likes to be held. Susie, on the other hand, is a very strong-minded girl. I am always amazed at the fact that they have such different personality at that young age. They like to cuddle with us at night when we go to bed. Though they've only been here for less than two weeks, I feel they've become an inseparable part of our life.

Our Engagement Pictures

Welcome home, Alvin and Simon

Dave and I just adopted two 8-week-old boy kittens, Alvin (the grey kitten) and Simon (the tiger kitten). They are so cute. I love them to death! I attached a few pics below.

Boston Symphony Night

Dave and I went to a concert last night at the Boston Symphony Hall. After living here for about 4 years, this was actually my first time to attend a Boson Symphony Orchestra concert. The performance of the artists was amazing, especially the Greek violinist. The concert was divided into two sections. The first section was music written by Brahms and the second by Richard Strauss. To my surprise, I did not enjoy the concert as much as I thought I would. This was because I could not understand the music, and the second section, Symphonia Domestica, by Strauss in particular. It sounded like pretty sad piece of music but it was supposed to be happy. After the concert, I read some background about Symphonia Domestica. It was composed in 1903, before the two world wars. The program said that the music is about how "lively, gay, and dreamy" a family was. After the concert, I asked my friend, a musician, how she liked about the concert. She told me she could not understand the second section, either. This made me feel much better.

Seattle Trip

We just got back from our short jaunt to Seattle this morning. We were only there for 2 days, but made the most of the short time.


We stayed with Shawn and Heather who were terrific hosts as usual. They took us hiking at a couple of different places and to several really good restaurants.



The impetus for the trip was the Notre Dame-Washington game, which Jessica got tickets to through her alumni association.


Head coach Tyrone Willingham appears to be doing about as well at Washington as he did at Notre Dame... there were quite a few UW fans calling for his termination (note that several members of "Team FIRE __R_ME WI_LIN_HAM" appear to have been on a beer and/or pee break when this picture was taken). This game didn't do much to salvage his reputation either. Looks like T-Dub's days at U-Dub are probably numbered.


It wasn't much of a game, but it was still fun, and the views of the mountains and the Puget Sound from the stadium were great. Getting to the game via the city "Park and Ride" buses was absurdly easy. Every time I go west, I'm always amazed at how much easier it is to get around and how much more courteous and friendly people are on the "left coast" than in Boston.




Our redeye flight back on JetBlue was half empty, so we were actually able to get a few hours of sleep. The flight was a little bit late to leave because the plane, which just flies back and forth between Boston and Seattle, arrived in Seattle about 20 minutes late. I can't be sure, but this may be the reason.

Dad's Visit

Dad drove all the way from IN just to visit for the weekend. He was only here for 2 days, so we tried to make the most of it. Friday night, we went and had some seafood (crab to be specific) at the Barking Crab restaurant in Boston's "seaport district". After that, we went and walked around Harvard Square for a few minutes before driving back to Revere and calling it an evening.

Saturday, we went to the Franconia Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The first part of the drive was awful, because there are just way too many people in the Northeast and it was even worse this weekend since Columbus Day is still a bona-fide holiday in New England. It was worth the long ride, though. The trees in the White Mountains were pretty much at peak color.

Sunday, we mostly just relaxed at home. We tried to fly a kite at the beach, but it was unusually wind-free, so we gave up after about 3 tries.

Our Trip to China

We're both back from China now (although Jessica is still dealing with jetlag). I'm going to post some pictures of the trip here.

I've added some descriptions to the pictures since this was first posted.

Here's the summary:
We flew in to Shanghai on Sep. 11th (I'd highly recommend flying on Sep. 11th, as the plane was 2/3 empty)! From there, we took a bus to Jessica's home city of Hangzhou. The next day, we got on a bus headed for J's dad's hometown of Sui Chang in the southern Zhejiang province. There, we had a dinner to announce that we are getting married to this side of the family. The next day, they took us on a tour of the rural area around the small town of Sui Chang. After this, we went back to Hangzhou for a few days before returning to Shanghai on Wednesday evening. This wasn't a particularly picturesque trip, as September is fairly hot and hazy in southern China, but we had a good time nonetheless.

KFC is probably the most popular American fast-food chain in China.  I'd never eaten at one until this trip, but I'd always heard that the chicken at the Chinese KFC tastes different.  After trying it, I guess I'd agree.

Hangzhou is a fairly affluent city.  This area of town has Rolls Royce and Ferrari/Maserati dealerships.

The chinese writing system is complicated, and the etymology is even an order or two of magnitude more complex.  The modern character in the middle at the top means "healthy long life".   The array of 100+ characters below are different versions of that character that have been used throughout the history of the language. 

This is an "ancient villiage" that we stopped in during our trip to the countryside.  Neither of us can remember what it was called.

Jessica and her sister-like cousin QiMing.

Jessica's dad's extended family after our dinner in Sui Chang.

Some of the cousins and 2nd cousins.

Mountains in the countryside (a national park called Nan Jing Yan).

We stayed at Jessica's aunt and uncle's house outside of Sui Chang.  This is their front yard, which has a garden with all sorts of stuff, a small goldfish pond, and a chicken coop.   

The Xu family sorting through chestnuts grown by Mr. Xu's sister (on the right).

They've built a nice walkway along the Hangzhou Grand Canal.  The canal itself is fairly amazing in that it was built over 1000 years ago and goes all the way to Beijing (about 1000 miles away).  It's still very much a working canal.  As we were walking along, we'd see a boat pass by about once every minute.

The Xu family.