Beginners Fitness Hike at James Dilley Greenbelt Preserve

This morning, a friend and I joined the 'Beginners Fitness Hike' program at James Dilley Greenbelt Preserve in Laguna Coast Wilderness Park, organized by Orange County Parks. It was a nice foggy day for hike, not hot at all. We drove out there and found the location easily. It was our first time visiting this park. There is a $3 parking fee for each vehicle.

We started walking on 'The Lake Trail' towards Barbara's Lake. The trail is easy and very mild, with not too much elevation. The leader was friendly and able to answer almost all of our questions. We learned some new plant names and saw some wild animals (ducks, birds). Once we reached the end of the lake on the trail, we stopped and rested a while before returning back to the parking lot on the same trail.




Back at the parking lot, looking at time, it was 10:30am, the exact time the program stated that it would end. Another experience hiker asked if my friend and I would like to adventure the other trail in this park. We decided we were up for it.

So we hike for another hour or so. This hike was more advance than the first hike. We went up a steep trail to Blackjack. Here is the view from the top of the hill.



Coming back down was a bit challenging. Our new friend, Patricia, told us to move down side way down in zig-zag, crossing the path from one side to the other instead of going down straight. It helped. We also learned a few new things:

• The fruit on the cactus plant has tiny torn and you do not want to touch it with bare hands when handling it.
• There is this plant called the cowboy cologne plant which in the old days, the cowboys would rub the plant to release its oil for its fragrant and apply it.
• Mistletoe plant grows on the branches of the host tree which provide the plant with water and nutrients.

I highly recommend this program (minus the adventure hike we did after) to anyone that is a beginner. You can check out the programs they offer at this link here:

Laguna Canyon Foundation.

Malaysian Fried Flat Rice Noodle - "Char Kway Teow"

When I was at 99 Ranch Market this morning and I saw the bag of bean sprouts was on sale for 99 cents. Then I thought, may be I will make "Char Kway Teow" for dinner tonight. Also grabbed a bag of the flat rice noodles from the shelf and I went to pay for my items.

Here is a video of me cooking this dish. It is easy and fast to cook. Although it is fast to cook, but may take some time to prepare the ingredients. The flat rice noodle need to be separated individually so it is not sticking to each other. This way to make sure that each noodle will absorb the secret sauce and expose to the heat on the wok.


At the time of preparing the ingredients, I didn't think to record it down. Only after I fried the first plate of noodles, then I thought, why not just record it. Took out my tripod and DSLR, set it up and shot it myself as I was cooking the dish. And yes, for this dish, it is best to fried each serving by itself. So I made three separate servings for our dinner tonight.


I don't have the exact amount of ingredients to share but I can tell you what goes into it. In the order of appearance in the video, we have:

• Vegetable oil (1 tablespoon)
• Preserved turnip (1/2 to 1 teaspoon)
• Minced garlic (1 to 2 teaspoons)
• Shrimps
• Chinese wax sausage (sliced)
• Flat rice noodle
• Secret sauce (oyster sauce, soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, white pepper, sugar)
• Egg
• Sambal Oelek (if using, to your taste)
• Bean sprouts
• Chives
• Soy sauce to taste

Here is the link to the Char Kuey Teow Recipe at Rasa Malaysia.

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 2 – Food

As many of you frequent cruisers out there, you know the one reason we choose to cruise is because of the food right?!? Oh yeah! You can eat non-stop 24 hours a day, who doesn't like it?

Of course, if you are worried about putting weight, just walk up and down the stairs instead of using the elevators. I did that and our cabin was on Deck 5 on the forward (front of the ship) with the buffet dining room up on Deck 12 on the aft (back of the ship). That's a 7 flights of stairs to go up and another 7 coming back down. I am proud to say, I lost 2 pounds after the cruise. Amazing right? I am telling you, I did a whole lot more walking than I was at home.

Most of the time we had our meals in the fancy dining rooms. Now you must be thinking, do you have to dress up for every meal since it is a fine dining cuisine? Some cruise lines require the passengers to dress up on a formal Night. But what is so great about Norwegian Freestyle cruising is that you can choose if you want to dress up or not for using their fine dining rooms. But you must dress appropriately; no shorts, slippers and tank tops during dinner hours. I wore mostly jeans and tee-shirt when I dined in the Norwegian Star's Versailles and Aqua dining rooms.

Norwegian Star Waffle with Banana Caramel & Cream
Norwegian Star Crusted Mushroom
Norwegian Star Shrimp Ceasar Salad
Norwegian Star Calamari with Cilantro Mayo
Norwegian Star Panna Cotta
Norwegian Star While Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake
Norwegian Star Pot Roast with Green Beans and Mashed Potatoes
Norwegian Star Baked Osyters
Norwegian Star Surf and Turf (Lobster Tail and Steak)
Norwegian Star Banana Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream
Norwegian Star Afternoon Snack
Norwegian Star Egg Roll
Norwegian Star Prime Rib
Norwegian Star Breakfast
Norwegian Star Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
Well, let me present to you some pictures of the food we had during our 7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star. You can click on each picture to enlarge it.

Do continue to follow my blog if you want to read more about my 7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star.

If you want to find out how our interior cabin room looks like check out this post below:

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 1 – Interior Cabin

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 2 – Food

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 3 – The Ship

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 4 – The Buffet

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 5 – The Grand Atrium

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 3 – The Ship

This was my fourth time on a cruise vacation and my first time on Norwegian Cruise Line. My first cruise was a short 3-day cruise on Royal Caribbean to Ensenada. Second cruise was a repositioning cruise on Princess from Vancouver to Los Angeles. The last cruise before this was a 7-day Alaska cruise on Princess Island.


Norwegian Star had its maiden voyage on November 19th, 2001. Its port of registry is Nassau, Bahamas. The ship cost $400 million to build. It was refurbished in 2010. The ship has a passenger capacity of 2,348 (assuming double occupancy) with a team of 1100 crew working around the clock to serve the passengers. There are 1,176 cabins total and 70 percent of them have ocean view.


The Norwegian Star was the first NCL custom built ship for Freestyle Cruising. With the NCL Freestyle Cruising, casual is the key. NCL wants to make sure their passengers feel they are really on a vacation. They can wear whatever they want to dine at the restaurants. They do request that no shorts, swimsuits, tank tops or flip-flops after 5pm at the main dining restaurants. If you feel you want to dress up for dinner, go ahead. If you feel you just want to wear a T-shirt and jeans, you can too. If you are still wearing shorts and tanktops after 5pm, you can choose to dine at the Market Café Buffet.


I saw a broad spectrum of passengers on my cruise, young kids to retirees. The cruise fare was affordable for most. We has a full ship for our 7-day Mexican Riviera 2014 New Year Cruise. We paid $1760 total for two people in an inside room on our 7-day New Year cruise. If you cruise during the non-peak period, the fare is from $449 and up for the same cruise as ours.


For 2014, Norwegian Star will cruise to Mexican Riviera (round-trip Los Angeles), Panama Canal (Los Angeles to Miami or Miami to Los Angeles) for spring and fall. During summer 2014, Norwegian Star will cruise Transatlantic (from Miami), Baltic Capitals (round-trip from Copenhagen), Norway + Iceland + Faroe Islands (round-trip Copenhagen) and Transatlantic (from Copenhagen).

Click here to read more about the other posts on my cruise.

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 1 – Interior Cabin

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 2 – Food

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 3 – The Ship

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 4 – The Buffet

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 5 – The Grand Atrium

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 1 - Interior Cabin

I just came back from a 7 days cruise to Mexican Riviera on Norwegian Star. It was a round trip cruise from the port of Los Angeles. My friend and I booked the least expensive cabin for our New Year's trip. We didn't mind the interior cabin as we probably wouldn't spend so much time inside the room anyways.

Each of use paid approximately $880 for the ticket which include the port taxes. You can always find a much lower rate than this if you go off season. It was this expensive because it was during the New Year holiday. The gratuities were added to our on board account at the end of the cruise. It was $12 per person per day.


Our cabin (#5025) was on Deck 5 forward, near to the stairs and elevators. The entrance to the Stardust Theater was one floor above us. This cabin can accommodate up to 3 passengers. There is a bunk bed that can be pulled down if needed. I am petite, only 5 feet tall, the cabin has enough room for me and my friend to move around comfortably. My bed is the one underneath the framed picture.


There is a mini refrigerator, but we didn't use it. It was filled with beverages. They are not free. You can refer to the list on it for the prices. There is also a flat screen TV. It about 10-15(?) of channels to watch from. I did watch a few movies in my cabin during the Sea Day.

We shared the wardrobe. It has plenty of storing area on the shelves inside. And underneath the mini bar, there are 3 pull out drawers and above it there were more shelves for storage. There is a dressing table with mirror and a hair dryer next to the mini bar.


The bathroom is small but clean. The shower has a temperature control in Celsius degree. The cabin provide hair and body shampoo but no hair conditioner. If you do use hair conditioner, remember to bring your own. The toilet has a flush button behind it and to access to the button, you have to close the lid first.


Although this cabin is by itself, no sharing walls with other cabins (refer to the 2nd picture from the top) I would not recommend this cabin. Why? Well, during our stay, we had some bad experience with noises coming from nearby including people running up and down the stairs, carts rolling, but mostly footsteps from all around us.

After this trip, I do not think I will pay for expensive upgrade to an outside or balcony cabin. An interior cabin is sufficient enough for my need. I prefer the interior cabin more because I can sleep longer without the morning sunlight hitting into the cabin.


Please follow my blog if you want to read more about our 7 days New Year cruise on Norwegian Star. This is just the first part of my story.

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 1 – Interior Cabin

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 2 – Food

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 3 – The Ship

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 4 – The Buffet

7-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Norwegian Star: Part 5 – The Grand Atrium

Driving With John Chow

As my son and I were driving back from Costco this morning, I saw John and Sally in his Mercedes Benz as we were turning into West Yale Loop. They were waiting to turn left into Alton. Irvine is not that huge. We do bump into each other occasionally. At that moment, I was guessing that John was taking Sally out for lunch, may be to BCD Tofu because it is one of John's favorite restaurants.

What I didn't know was that John was actually filming a video for an episode of his Driving with John Chow. I realized it when I was on my Facebook and watched the episode on his website. I know precisely the moment that my car would appear in the video and as you can see from this picture below, the driver of the car behind John is actually me. I had my head turned to his car with my finger pointing to them and at the same time telling my son, "Look, there's John and Sally."

Picture taken using screen shot from the video.  

How to Boil Asian Yali Pear Soup

I learned to make this soup from my Mother-in-law. She's from Macau and she knows how to many a lot of different types of soup. Yali Pear is only available during the winter time. I haven't seen them available at the Asian grocery market during the summer time. You can also called this soup the Asian Pear Soup. Yali Pear Soup is good for winter time especially in our Los Angeles dry and cold weather. This is a sweet/savoury type of soup. If someone in your family has a cough, make this soup for them. The 'chuin bui' (Bulbus fritillariae cirrhosae) (川贝母) in the soup will help to reduce cough, reduce phlegm and nourish the lungs. Now let's look at the ingredients:

• 2.5-3 quarts of water
• 1 pound of pork loin and pork ribs, blanched and rinsed
• 3-4 yali pears, cored and sliced
• 1-2 carrots, peeled and sliced
• 2-3 honey dates
• 1 sliced of fake abalone strip
• 1-2 dried scallops
• 1-2 tablespoons 'chuin bui'
• 1-2 tablespoons of South Almond
• Salt to taste

It is easy to make. You don't have to follow the exact amount of ingredients in the recipe above. The recipe acts like a guide what you need to have. If you don't like it to be too sweet, reduce the carrots and honey dates. Soup boiling instructions:

1. Use a 6-quart pot to boil the 2.5-3 quarts of water.
2. In another pot, blanch the pork loin and rib in boiling water for a few minutes. Rinse through cold water. Set aside.
3. Sliced the Yali pears and carrots. Set aside.
4. When water is boiling, put in all the ingredients except salt.
5. Let it boil high for 15 minutes then turn to simmer for 2.5-3 hours.
6. Add salt to taste before serving. Serve hot.

Lee's Tofu in Gardena

Lee's Tofu is our favorite stop for Soon Tofu. This restaurant is not in Irvine. It is about 40 minutes drive north on 405. Located in the city of Gardena, it is tucked in the Tozai plaza with the famous Boiling Point restaurant. As you know, Boiling Point is always very crowded. Luckily, we didn't come here for Boiling Point but instead to the Korean Tofu, Lee's Tofu.


Sandwiched between Furaibo and a Ramen place, Lee's Tofu is very easy to find. They do not have an extensive long menu. Their main dishes are mostly Soon Tofu, with only a few special dishes. But we are here for the Soon Tofu. The hot boiling Soon Tofu is very delicious. We usually order the non-spicy Seafood Combination (I share the order with my son) and the spicy Bean Paste Soon Tofu.

All orders come with salad with their house dressing. Also included in the order are all the side dishes - pickled chili cucumbers, pickled seaweed/kelp, cooked and seasoned bean sprout, kimchi and dry roasted seaweed. Our rice comes in a hot stone bowl.

As our order arrived, the server helped us to crack the eggs into the hot tofu pot. The egg cooked in the hot soup easily. But make sure you gently stir in the egg into the hot soup and wait about a minute before you eat. Usually the tofu is so hot that you can't eat it immediately when the order arrives.

This is also a place where we bring our guests to whenever they are visiting from out of town. Most of my family who visited me had tried this place. They all love it!

Here is a video to share with you on my experience at Lee's Tofu.


Lee's Tofu 1743 W Redondo Beach Blvd. Gardena, CA 90247. (310) 323-0006

Picnic at Laguna Beach

On Tuesday Oct 8th, our family and Sarah's family went to Laguna Beach for a picnic in the late morning. I know, it was a weekday, but our school was off for parent conference. We thought it was a good day for the kids to enjoy the beach in our Southern California not-so-Fall weather yet. It was a fine sunny day with a temperature approximately in the mid 80s. There was a cool breeze and a seagull welcoming us. We found a good spot for our picnic. It was just right next to the cliff with beautiful ocean view.



After our lunch, we walked along the trail at Heisler Park. We even walked down the steps to the beach and it was amazing to see a group of adults having an oil painting class on the beach. Some of my friends called this beach the seaweed/kelp beach because there are a lot of seaweed/kelp laying around. We couldn't really play on this beach so after our walk, we moved down south to a friendlier beach where our kids played for 30 minutes on the sand.



How nice it would be if we can do this everyday ... relaxing by the beach .... and worry-free.

How to Change the Plastic Housing for the Water Filter System

Walking back after I dropped off my son at school this morning, I heard a hissing sound when I reached the front of my house. I went on to investigate the peculiar sound. As I was walking towards the side of my house, I noticed the lawn area was wet and then I saw water spraying out from the water filter. On a closer look, there was a tiny crack on the water filter plastic case.

So many things going through my mind at the moment.

"Oh, what should I do?" "Should I call the plumber?" "How long I have to wait for one to come over?" "Should I call my husband? But he is out of town. He can't help" "What should I do??"

I slowly calmed down and thought about it. I called up the place where I ordered the water filter system. Fortunately, their office is located in Santa Ana, not too far away. I spoke to Tai from Isopure Water. He was very helpful. He told me I can drive over to pick up the water filter housing. He gave me the address. I turned off the main water valve and then disassembled the water filter.

Took me about 30 minutes to get to Tai's office. He showed me the different casings he has and because my water filter was specially put together by my water filter professional with some phosphate beads to reduce the hardness of the water, Tai suggested another setup for that water filter.

I was in his office for 20 minutes and then I was on my way home. And in another 15 minutes I replaced the water filter housing. Turned on the main water valve. No more water leaking! We can continue to use the water in the house. I couldn't believe that I did it without help from anyone else.


Isopure Water 515 N. Fairview St., Santa Ana, CA 92703 714-541-6600

Poaching for Wild Ginseng

I just read an article in the Los Angeles Times this past Sunday titled, 'Wild Ginseng Walking Out Of The Park'. Surely enough, the title sounded very interesting to me. How can ginseng walk? Well, it can't actually walk of course, but instead some poachers have been stealing them out of the National Parks. They were found by the Park Rangers and were arrested.

Firstly, I didn't know there are wild ginseng can be found in the National Parks in United States and secondly, the poachers are Americans (I would think they are illegal Asians hired to do the job).

Wild ginseng has been a precious commodity in Asia as it is believed to be a folk medicine that give energy, improve health and prolong your life. The prices of wild ginseng can fetch up to over $1000 a pound. Asians prefer this wild ginseng compared to the cultivated alternative. I've heard that the cultivate ginseng are mostly farmed in Wisconsin.

Here are the few states in the Eastern of US that you may find wild ginseng growing in the shaded hilly area: North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky and West Virginia. Many years ago, mountain people around Smoky Mountain was believe to harvest and grow ginseng in their home gardens and use it for tea and tonic. Today, some still can legally harvest the wild ginseng but with a permit. The permit allows the person to harvest up to 3 wet pounds of ginseng during the first two weeks in September.

The wild ginseng plants are depleting from the National Parks due to poaching. According to the article, many years ago, 25 roots would make a pound. But now, you will have to find 100 roots to make a pound. Only smaller and younger ginseng plants are left.

Poachers who were arrested are fined $10 a root restitution fee and jailed (14-120 days). After they were released from the jail, most of the hard core poachers will return to the parks again to look for more wild ginseng. The money is just too good.