Okaeri (お帰り)

So a high school friend who has been teaching in Japan just came back yesterday. While I've been keeping in touch with him via IM and met up with him on his various short visits back to the states... it was just nice to see him back home for little longer than a few weeks. So much has changed in the past two years, yet so little. He is almost like a totally different person, having experienced so much while teaching in Japan and obviously grown quite a bit. But we still sort of chat about the same thing, its as if it was only a month or two ago that he was sitting in my room and we were just chilling or playing Halo2. We ended up just catching up for 3 hours in my room that hasn't changed much since his last visit (still just as messy... filled with anime posters from high school....).

I guess two things that especially stuck out from the conversation are the advices about relationships.... The first one he thought was one of the best advice he has ever received... "Relationships don't get easier with time, it actually gets harder." As time goes on what use to be exciting becomes the mundane and you must continue to grow and the relationship must continue to evolve or else it'll become stagnant and fall apart. I guess that's why so many relationships and marriages fail after a couple of years... the couple must continue to grow together find new things of interest... new things to do together. So incredibly true, yet so easy to fall into that trap...

The second piece of advice was apparently something I said to him a few months back: "After you've broken up with someone, you really should not try to get back together. Once the glass shatters, its impossible to put it back together. But if you feel like you must try again and get back together... then do so without any doubts or hesitation. Only look forward and forget about the past mistakes." It is so easy to get stuck in the past and just pass the blame around ("its your fault" or "I wish you did X"). But with all things in life, its easier said then done as he wasn't able to follow it :). Sigh...

Anyways time for more random youtube vids of songs from an artist I've been listening to lately (JJ Lin):

Engagements... weddings?

It seems like more and more people are getting married around me... maybe I'm finally at that "age" where its time to get married. Seems kind of strange... 2 years ago was when some of my friends first got married. Then last year was a quiet year... now this summer I'm going to 2 weddings and 2 more friends are about to get engaged...

Here is the pictures from the first wedding... an old Chinese school/high school friend (who is a year younger). He married his first girlfriend who he was dating for a good number of years. I was actually totally shocked as he messaged me maybe a month before the ceremony asking "hey, are you free in June? I'm getting married"... I was expecting a bit more notice than 1 month but what ever works :).



Then an old family/childhood friend is getting engaged soon (I hope!). I actually introduced her to her current boyfriend last year (met him while interning at Google). It's one of those hard to believe stories as I introduced them via MSN while he lives out in Portland and my friend lives down here in southern California. Somehow they hit it off right away and was pretty sure they were meant for each other after a couple of months of chatting and one in person meeting... Here are some pictures I took of them for their engagement/wedding portraits. They'll probably do the officially wedding portraits later in Taiwan with the full gown and all.



Then this weekend my cousin is getting married too... will post pictures as soon as I get back from Boston. All this marriage talk is actually kind of depressing for me... I guess it is impossible to plan life... To think I wanted to get engaged by 25 ish... married by 26-27... etc. I had a "timeline" :) but of course those NEVER work and fate just plays tricks on you. My brothers wedding last year really made me think about what kind of wedding I'd like and of course, the type of person I'd like to be with... The wedding part I probably won't get much say in... but I guess I can at least decide who to marry :).

Anyways... whats a post without some YouTube link :)
Here is a song by David Tao and Jolin called... "Today you will marry me" (roughly). It's a cute song thats become quite popular at weddings for obvious reasons.

Mapplets!

So another hectic week has gone by. Another launch :). I guess my coworkers were right... it doesn't get better. I always told myself... after the geo crunch, I'm soooo taking a vacation. But things just kept going, more things to fix, more work to do... this time it was for mapplets (you can check out the mapplet here).

Or just go to the my maps page and then click on add content and search for "picasa". now you can browse all the public geotagged photos in picasa web! I've found a number of amazing pictures/albums already and its quite addicting. Its especially fun to take a look at your home town and see what kind of photos people take there. Apparently people like to take pictures of food in Taiwan and south east asia... :)

On a completely different side note... I just spent the past several hours watching YouTube...

"First Time"


"Fairy Tale"


我都忘記我有多喜歡光良的歌了