Spain the honeymoon – Rioja

Got back from Spain two Fridays ago. We were there for two weeks and it was technically a “doublemoon,” where we went with our friends that got married in September. Overall of Spain? I really enjoyed it! We visited La Rioja (staying in Logrono), Bilbao, San Sebastian, Mallorca, and Barcelona. Let’s start with La Rioja!

We drove from Barcelona to La Rioja. We stayed in Logrono since it was our first day in Spain, I had a feeling we would feel some jet lag and needed to be in an area that was close to lots of restaurants. If we stayed in any of the winery area, then it would’ve been tiring to find a restaurant after our long flight and drive. Logrono has a couple of streets that are famous for tapas. Here is what one of the streets (Calle Laurel) looks like in the day time. I forgot to snap a photo at night because I was so excited to start eating!

Each place has a specialty so it’s easy to know what to get. Alternatively, some places display all the tapas that they have available or you can have something not displayed made to order. It was awesome because we got to go on our first tapas crawl together. So much good food for reasonable prices! It is helpful to know some Spanish, like understanding what they are asking you and knowing how to order. Here is one of my favorite tapas on our first night. It’s so simple and yummy. Mushrooms grilled with lots of olive oil, garlic, and salt. A shrimp is placed on the toothpick and then three mushrooms are placed beneath the shrimp. Then, the stack is placed on top of a piece of bread to soak up all the juices. So easy!

The next day we drove through the wine area. It’s so BIG compared to Napa! I’ve been to most of the major wine regions of CA but nothing prepares you for how big La Rioja is. Maybe it’s because in CA, there are lots of hills so you can’t see how far the vineyards stretch? I want to go back when the vineyards have grapes on them! Prior to our trip, we did our due diligence with wines from this area. Luckily we live super close to a few great wine shops. We learned about Crianza, Reserva, and Gran Reserva. All labeling intended to tell the reader how long the wine has been in the barrel and bottle before selling. Crianza being the youngest and so forth. It was cool seeing that our local wine shop really did carry the famous wines…we even tried two wineries that we had from our wine shop! Speaking of wineries, in Spain wineries are called bodegas. Here is a photo of the vineyard at Bodega Baigorri.

Hopefully I remember to post about the other parts of Spain!

Tags: La Rioja, Spain

Our venue

I “liked” our wedding venue and they recently posted a photo of how the place looked in the 1920s. Originally it was a  luxury beach facility

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The room we had was the one in the building facing your right, top left corner, overlooking the beach!

This is cheesy but I hope we can celebrate our anniversary every year here…I hope the bakery shop that we had our wedding cake made will also still be around, so we can buy a slice of cake from them, sit here where we got married..and just watch the sunset like we did on our wedding day!

Tags: Casa del Mar, Vanilla Bake Shop, W, Wedding

I’m a Mrs!

Yes so it happened this past Sunday, on the 7th official year of dating we got married. I wish there was a freeze button, where I could just watch everyone in action but not lose that moment in time. I wish I could just freeze everyone and talk to one person at a time, for a sufficient amount of time. Now I know what people mean when they say it just feels like a blur.

I was mostly a calm bride throughout the wedding process. What frustrated me the most was when people were unresponsive.  As for the actual day…two bridesmaids stayed with me in the hotel suite, I’m so glad they did because the room was big…and it would be terrible not share the room with anyone! We woke up at 5am to get ready. We got to see the sun rise, it was going to be a gorgeous day! I got ready at about 8:30am (should’ve gotten ready earlier but oh well). The moment I got out of the makeup chair, it felt like someone clicked “fast forward” on my remote control! Dress, jewelry, veil, flowers, shoes, and BOOM, the cameras/videos were on, flashing, non stop. It was exciting, I couldn’t stop smiling. Every time I saw a familiar face, it made me even happier. They were here for US.

I wish I got to eat more of the appetizers, I missed out on the lamb chops and the shrimp! And I didn’t get to have any wedding cake  (we have it in the freezer though). The bridesmaids’ dresses looked better than I thought, haha. The groomsmen looked so spiffy. Our parents looked happy. I heard that my MIL was tearing up during the ceremony, I was too happy to even notice…I just wanted to see and capture everyone’s faces, I just wanted to remember, everything!

I know I was very against doing this “big” wedding. But looking back, I’m glad <3 made the call on doing this. Even if the photos and videos come out crappy, at least the feeling I felt inside and around me was just sheer love and happiness. I’m also happy that we get to celebrate our old anniversary date as our new wedding anniversary date!

Pre-moon

Hello 2012! A lot of exciting things are happening (not that the other years weren’t exciting!)…this year we are getting married! I have a few friends having babies and I’m so excited for them. We also have four friends getting married, I am the bridesmaid for one of them too! We’re definitely at that age where people are more settled and making big life changes!

We rang in 2012 in Bali, Indonesia with a few friends. It was essentially a “last minute” trip…well, I consider it “last minute” bc we usually purchase tickets to go overseas at least 6 months in advance, anything within 3 months is last minute! One of <3′s best friends was like, hey, are you guys interested in sharing a villa in Bali for NYE? we were like, hmmm we are getting married soon, don’t know if that’s a good idea. then we got to thinking, well, why NOT? it’s not like we had any pressing wedding errands to do during those two weeks and we didn’t have any plans during the holidays. so we decided let’s do it, how often and how difficult is it to get a group of friends to travel overseas, right?? We also added on a side trip to Taipei, since EVA airlines flies through there first.

We spent 3 nights in Taipei. I really enjoyed Taipei. It’s like Tokyo/Seoul/HK but cheaper, and not as clean as Tokyo (but Tokyo is pristine, everywhere else looks dirty!). I would definitely want to go back to Taipei with a group of friends just to go shopping, eating and drinking. It’s reasonably priced and pretty easy to navigate due to their MRT. My favorite part was walking through the crowds of people at the night market! Next time I want to go to more night markets! The food wasn’t phenomenal but it’s a great way to see the different types of local cuisine available at cheap prices.

We spent 7 nights in Bali. Bali was OK. Indonesia is now the 23rd country I’ve visited in 9.5 years. I would have to say Bali ranked pretty down there. I think media definitely hyped up Bali by only showing the pretty parts, like the book and now movie Eat Pray Love. First off, I hated the book because I’m not one of those folks that need to “find myself” by going to some exotic location. Maybe to folks that have never seen poverty, aka always lived in a vanilla suburban area, this would be quite exciting and they would “find themselves” there? It’s quite evident Bali has a lot of poverty, it’s sad seeing tourists act condescending towards the locals, and it’s also annoying that the locals try to rip you off (which I get because every bit of USD is far more valuable to them than to us). It IS a pretty place, in certain parts. However, it IS a developing country. The infrastructure is terrible, obviously. If you have a villa, it’s not like you can step outside of your villa and walk to different things. I’m believe I’m more of a city girl, I like easy access to lots of local businesses. So cities that I’ve visited…like SF, NYC, Chicago, Taipei, HK, Seoul, Tokyo, Paris, London, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City appeal to me a lot because there’s sooo much to do and very convenient to get to. If you’re looking for a place to escape from the city bustle, then staying in a Villa is a great way to relax. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel super stressed on a regular basis (yet), we live very close to some decent beaches, and southern California has AMAZING weather in general, makes me think that living in so cal gives us easy access to “get away and relax” from the comforts of our own city! While traveling, I can only relax for one day to get over the jet lag and then I want to do-do-do! Granted you can hire a driver to take you to places, but I don’t mind doing the hard work of driving/walking/taking public transportation to get to wherever I need to! It was indeed fun to go explore and party with friends. Though you can have fun ANYWHERE if it’s with the right people! I will try to post some pics later!

We haven’t even booked our honeymoon yet! We’re leaning towards Spain. I’ve visited Spain in 2003 and am OK with going again, I just want to see more than just Barcelona. First thing’s first, gotta get married! Things to remember, don’t slouch, smile, and say “i do!”

Update – I’m just going to add one photo from Bali the trip…we had a drink at the Pan Pacific resort while watching the sunset down at famous water temple, Tanah Lot. The resort had a nice lobby area, including this infinity pool:

Tags: Taiwan

Update, whoops

My bad!

We are inching closer to the big day! How do I feel? Surprisingly, not as stressed as I thought I would be. Having been a bridesmaid 4 times so far, I’ve seen my fair share of how brides can be on the day of! I was scared I would be a bridezilla…maybe that will come out the month before the wedding day? I think what’s kept me calm is having an awesome fiancé! I always joked that I’m the COO and he’s the CEO and after planning a big event like this, I really do believe it. I’m really good at finding stuff but <3 is the best when it comes to making the “executive decision.” Because you know, before we got knee deep into wedding planning, I was all sorts of anti-wedding. I still am, I hate weddings.  I don’t think anyone should plan a wedding if they’re not financially ready. And the biggest thing a bride should admit is that…if you’re not an event planner, most likely you have not planned a big soiree like this before, so be willing to take feedback from people who got married! Let a professional help you, that’s what they do best! After all of this wedding planning, I would NEVER want to be part of the wedding business. I can’t imagine dealing with the bridezillas out there!

Anyway, I hope everyone gets to enjoy some time off before the new year. Cheers to 2012, I know I’m excited!

Wedding update – August

Finally signed the contracts for our florist and DJ/MC!

It’ll be a slow month in September…in October we’re planning the engagement shoot, cake tasting, and scheduling the menu tasting for early November. My wedding dress is supposedly ready at the end of October! How exciting that things have been relatively smooth…

Vendor gripes

When it comes to finding a vendor, the biggest dealbreaker is responsiveness. Maybe it’s because I’ve worked in client-oriented businesses in the past where I’ve had to handle 6 to 8 figure accounts, but I’m accustomed to providing my client/supervisor/colleague with a response to an inquiry/action item within 48 hours. If I know I cannot provide a response, I will let them know I need to do research and will get back to them as soon as possible (with an estimated date of completion).

So why should a wedding vendor not provide the same treatment with a new customer? I understand that during peak wedding season time that I may not hear from a vendor within 24 hours, maybe not even 48 hours. If they know they will not respond within 72 hours, why don’t vendors just generate a default message to indicate this? I’ve had vendors take over a WEEK to respond back to me. I’ve also had vendors suggest an appointment date, I email them back to confirm the date, and then a few days later they tell me that the date THEY suggested doesn’t work anymore!

The worst to me is when you’ve had a good line of communication and agree to set an appointment date, then the vendor suddenly goes MIA! Some of the vendors just disappear off the face of the planet (err email) OR they respond back over a month later. One time I even tried calling the vendor and the number did not even have a voicemail option!

I’m not even a bridezilla (trust me, I’ve met one and I’m definitely not!). I’m pretty reasonable. Maybe certain brides do not expect a response within a week? I think those brides must not work in a client-oriented business or they are not tech-savvy (I just feel like tech-savvy people tend to be more responsive to email). So how is it that wedding vendors that typically earn 4-5 digits from one customer just blow you off? It just seems very unprofessional to me. If I’m not a priority to you, then why should I prioritize you?

This is my wedding rant.