sun's out and it will get hot hot hot!

rain stopped and this morning i went for a short run after talking to you guys.  it was cool, not cold.  not at first.  but once i started running, there was a bit of wind-chill effect and it felt cold.  after a while the body warmed up and i even perspired.  but the hands were cold and tingling even when i got back to the room.  a hot shower felt good after that.  grabbed a quick breakfast of oatmeal and a smoothie and then off to class.  i agree with ping-soon that the carrot juice here is just incredible.

lunch was a little disappointing.  it was dry - a sandwich being one of the main courses.  there was also pasta and grilled chicken.  oh and a slightly salty pea soup.

then we had a little interesting talk by a professor jennifer aaker on the power of social networking. she told a story about how a real-life story inspired her, and overcame her reservations about the usefulness of social networking media like facebook, youtube etc.  this was a case about two indians living in california diagnosed with leukemia.  they needed to find bone marrow matches (i.e. someone with bone marrow similar to theirs) quickly.  the problem was that ethnicity is an important factor and not many indians were registered as donors.  the odds of a match were 1 in 20,000.  

so their friends came up with a campaign designed to get as many people registered as quickly as possible - because the longer it takes to do the transplant, the lower the chances of success.  they decided that their campaign needed to be simple and clear - instead of just saying please help, they made it clear that their goal was to hit 20,000 registrations so people had a target and also feel they were helping just by registering.  otherwise the danger of just appealing for help was that there was a possibility that it would elicit a reaction in many people that well, if the odds of a match are so low, my bone marrow is unlikely to be the one.  their focus was to also tell a story about the two indians so that people would feel an emotional connection, and they sent it to the most influential people so that the chances of it taking off were better.  and they also let people adapt the message to other mediums.  for instance, some decided to educate people so that they would not feel any apprehension about what was involved in registering, or even donating.  would it be painful?  was it harmful to you?  and so on.

well, the campaign was successful and the two chaps received transplants but unfortunately, they both had relapses and passed away a few months later.

on a happier note, we did an exercise in which we were asked to design a social media campaign to sell more coke to teenagers. one group had a really inspiring idea for youtube in which a teenager would film himself saying, "i thirst to end world hunger (as an example)" and hands a bottle of coke offscreen.  then the next person would seem to receive this bottle from offscreen and say "i thirst to end racial discrimination (or something inspiring)" and so on.  isn't that brilliant?  but i think you would like this other one better.  this other group borrowed the idea from angry birds.  instead of launching angry birds, they would launch coke cans at targets.

then the professor told us that coke actually did run a campaign and the one they went with in the end was the happiness machine.  remember we watched it at home?  the one where the machine hands out lots of coke, flowers, pizza and even a super long submarine sandwich.  that was so much fun.

anyway, dinner tonight was outdoors at an art center.

there were many interesting pieces of sculpture by rodin inside.  rodin was the chap who did "the thinker" sculpture.  i read a little write up inside and he first gained fame with this piece called "the age of bronze".  it was so good that he was accused of forming the sculpture by using a real live person and encasing him in bronze.   this is the replica (as are all the rest of the pieces) or just a study.  studies are smaller scale sculpture pieces that artists use as practice and for planning before doing the real piece.

another famous piece is "the kiss".

there are many other interesting pieces, as you can see from here

then in another part, there were paintings of the family of the founder of stanford.  stanford got rich when he helped to build the railway that crosses america.  he had a son who died of illness while traveling in europe when he was quite young, and stanford then decided to build the university in his memory.  the following is a painting of his son, stanford's wife and other pieces.

then it was time for dinner.  some vegetarian lasagna, halibut (a type of fish) and some other stuff i can't quite recall.

by the time we ended dinner, it was about 8.15 and we took a slow walk back to the schwab center.  no discussion tonight!  yeah!  

rain in june!

today it rained.  now normally this isn't news, especially in singapore with all the floods.  but apparently this was the first time in 20 years!  maybe a slight exaggeration, but i gather that it has been a long time since anyone could remember when it last rained in the month of june.

and the other news was that it snowed in tahoe!  or yosemite.  well one of them at least.  the weather here can be unpredictable.  they have micro-climates, in which you get wildly varying weather conditions at different locations that are not far away from each other.  some guys played golf at monterrey bay on saturday and it was 12 degrees!  something to do with it being near the coast and the geography of the place.

no more blue skies today.  what a difference huh?

i woke up late this morning.  for some reason i did not hear the alarm at all and i suddenly woke at 7 and then remembered we had to assemble at the dining room to get to the place where we were taking a class photo.  thankfully it wasn't raining yet.  so i rushed to the dining room and had this very light breakfast of a scone and egg and some carrot juice.

so i was reasonably hungry by the time lunch rolled around, and yay!  plain rice!  today was chinese.  springroll on the left, kung pao chicken, mongolian beef (one south american chap complained it was spicy) and vegetables.  i enjoyed it today.

dessert was this funny half egg-tart and coconut pudding.  i guess the recommended serving is half?:)  but they were both good. (gabe - wipe your chin now!:))

dinner was also interesting.  a huge rib (or rather the bone was huge)  and jumbo shrimp in some peppery sauce.  vegetables and pasta make up the rest.

mango crumble with ice cream is always a winning combination!   after all that food, i am definitely going to have to run again tomorrow.  took a break today after a late night gym session yesterday.   if i am going to run the san francisco marathon, i am going to have to get back into shape.  thankfully the sundown marathon was just a month ago so i still am in reasonably good shape.

andrew grove and antonio belloni

today was quite packed.  we had two guests on video conference and andrew grove on stage being interviewed by our professor.  you are probably not familiar with the names - will explain more later.

today is food special day!  you get pictures of all my meals!!!  see how healthy i am eating?  orange juice, fruit (rock melon and honeydew), scone and bagel with philly cream cheese (the type we eat at home) and strawberry cream cheese, hard boiled egg, yoghurt, and finally, oatmeal with raw sugar and banana!  is that a big breakfast or what?

lunch today was set up outdoors.  not sure why though.  let's see, i had grilled vegetables like carrot, asparagus, and spaghetti, some pink onions, two different types of pizza and the brown thing is felafel - think it is made from chick peas.

dinner was pasta, grilled vegetables again, grilled fish and short ribs.  oh and garlic bread.  but i don't know how long the novelty will last.  that's why dim sum yesterday was a nice change.  the singaporean team is organizing a special dinner just among ourselves - think i told you guys about it.  it will be interesting to see what courses the chef comes up with.  would be great to have char kway teow, or some kind of noodles.  or chicken rice.

anyway...after eating so much, i felt guilty and went to the gym after my discussion meeting ended at 9.30 pm.

this morning we had a live video conference with antonio belloni.  

didn't know who he was until today.  he's part of the LVMH group.  that's Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, three of the biggest brand names in the world.  think you guys won't be interested (except maybe matt since he loves expensive stuff:)), but something he said made me pay attention.  there are apparently more than 50 million chinese tourists each year.  and they are his biggest customer group.  and soon it will be 100 million.  no wonder our casinos are doing so well.  we are apparently going to overtake las vegas soon in gaming revenue.  er, gaming normally means gambling, not wii or xbox:)  macau is the runaway leader in gaming revenue - well, because it is near china and because it has so many casinos.

and then in the afternoon we had andrew grove.  he was a fascinating speaker, even though he was suffering from parkinson's disease - like my mother.  the disease affects only the physical functions but not the mind.  and while he occasionally struggled to get some words out, his wit and intelligence were very much in evidence.

here's something he said - leaders get people to do what they don't like to do, with enthusiasm!

easy like sunday morning

that's a line from an old hit by the commodores, which spawned the solo career of lionel richie.  kids won't know him today.  easy was also remade by faith no more but it was almost an exact copy of the original - as in the arrangements. could have been better.  but i digress.

anyway, the point of the title was that after all the hectic stuff of the week, today was an opportunity to just chill out.  spoke on skype and then made my way down for breakfast. but the hot food still wasn't out yet.  it only comes out at 9.30 on sundays.  so i had oatmeal (the only exception to the rest of the cold stuff on offer - guess you don't really need to cook oatmeal), a croissant, fruit, carrot juice and coffee.  not in that order.  the juices are really good.  it is really so easy to eat healthy here.

vijay and i were thinking of eating in by taking some stuff from the brunch, which was supposed to close at 11 or 11.30 but then ping-soon suggested dim sum and so we went.  he biked there (he rented a bike for the entire program) and we took a cab.

the restaurant is called tai pan.  it's in downtown palo alto along waverley street.

ping soon found a recommendation for the place and it was really good.  there were local chinese eating there - always a good sign.  again i was hungry and forgot to take pictures until it was almost too late.  one of the better dishes, which i unfortunately did not take a picture of, was pumpkin fried with salted egg.  other dishes we had included fried tofu, vegetable dumpling, beef ball, and these two.

the top picture is of carrot cake (or as it has called here, turnip cake) fried in XO sauce, and the lower picture is sesame seed ball.  there is an excellent website with more pictures.  tai pan

after such a heavy meal, i of course had to go and run.  you can read about it in the other blog.

then time for dinner.  i keep getting caught off balance but i think i see a pattern now.  whenever the professor is present and due to address us, dinner is served to us.  otherwise it is a buffet.  or maybe not.  i think there was one day where i was a little late but dinner was on the lazy susan.  ok, maybe i still have not figured it out yet.  so as i walked into the dining room, i see empty chairs but with a bowl of soup there with a piece of bread sticking out of it.  i assume the seat's taken and move on.  and then one of the waiters ushers me to a seat with the soup and bread also there and i realise that we are being served and that was the first course which they brought out early.  it turns out to be a cold soup - tomato.  which was good seeing as i had just finished a run and was still perspiring.  main course was tuna, quite a big portion which i didn't finish - usually i can't eat much after running.  but the dessert was good and i then remembered to take a picture:)

i didn't bring my glasses so not sure what it is exactly but it is some kind of custard.   it tastes as good as it looks.  and finally after doing laundry this morning (i am still learning about it) this is what my room looks like.

i have of course cleared up most of it since the picture was taken.  but i learnt that i should have dried my clothes in the dryer for a longer time as most of the thicker clothes were still slightly wet.  i ended up ironing some of them, and then hanging them up as can be seen here.

napa valley

this was the car we rented for the day.  ping-soon, vijay and i set off at around 9.20 am.  it's a toyota.  our first stop was bouchon in yountville just north of napa (the town).  we had a reservation for 11.45 am.  along the way, we got caught in a jam just outside napa and we got a bit worried that it would be like this the rest of the way to napa.  it turns out that the jam was caused by lots of cars going to a theme park.  i think it was a six flags park.  anyway the jam was for about 15 minutes and after we passed the exit in question, it was smooth driving again.

we made it!

this is ping-soon and vijay.

appetizers of asparagus soup for vijay (top of picture), and ping-soon and i shared the glazed pork belly with egg (above picture) and a dozen mussels (below).

the main course that we shared as well together with the fries, was this trout.  it had almonds and long beans on top.  everything was pretty good.

vijay is vegetarian so he had the gnocchi.   i tried some and it was quite good.

the queue outside bouchon bakery!

washington street, yountville where bouchon is.  it is a very nice street with flowers like this and lots of nice little buildings that give it a great deal of charm.  and tourists love it of course.  it looks very different in summer doesn't it?

saw the napa valley wine train going past. it's a 3-hour ride i think with food and wine on board.  don't think it stops anywhere:)  don't think anyone wants to get off.  if they drank too much, they might not make it back on board.

this is the robert mondavi vineyard.  apparently it is the wine they serve here but i don't drink a lot and don't pay attention to the bottle.  mondavi is also the name of the place uncle jerry brought us to last year wasn't it?  anyway, mondavi died a few years ago at the age of 93.  so a good reason to drink wine no?

our guide for the tour was rebecca.  she's from boston which is on the east coast.  she's doing this for 6 months.  i think it's part of the requirements for a course in wine she is doing.  takes about 5 years!   pictures of the grapes on the vine.  these are just for the tour because they were placed alongside other grape varieties which they normally do not do.  i think california produces like more than 90% of the wine in america.  but napa only accounts for 4% of it.  but it is the most famous i guess so people think it is the main producer.

this is the cellar where they keep the wine.  in all, they keep it for 18 months before bottling it.  but i don't think all wines are kept so long.

this is the bottling part of the vineyard.  it's saturday so it's shut down.  below, the best part of the tour of course.

they also stage concerts here at the vineyard.  apparently dinner is included.  sounds good ya?  colbie caillat is playing!  and kd lang but i think you guys are not familiar with her.

next we headed off to robert louis stevenson park.  there are a few different trails i think and the one we took is the memorial trail.  it's very short, only 1 mile up.  there is another trail which is 5 miles long but we did not have time for that.  it would take us at least 2 hours one way.  think it goes up to mount st helena.

the first part of the trail is quite an easy walk.  quite gentle, nice wide paths though there is a lot of erosion so you have to be careful.  saw someone coming down slip on the loose gravel.

this is the marker for the memorial trail we took.  the book is actually carved out of the rock.  it's a little worn and hard to read.  if you want to read more about this trail, check this out stevenson park

we decided to go up a little more and see where that took us.  the trail was now a bit more difficult as you can see here.

from the description, it seemed like there would be a view just a bit after the memorial.  and lo and behold, after another 10 minutes, we found this great view.

so all in all, a nice short little hike with a great view at the end.  well worth the effort.  time for dinner!  this helped to work up an appetite because we had lunch early.

remember this place that we walked around in december?  it is the culinary institute of america.  we were going for dinner there.

i think these are seats where you want to see what goes on in the kitchen.  they are not very popular so if you don't have a reservation and would like to wait, i suppose this might be available.

this is what i had, a seafood stew.  it was good.  i also had a starter of sardines but i was so hungry i forgot to take pictures!  after the drive back we walked around in downtown palo alto for a while and i saw this cinema that screened mostly old movies (many in black and white) and they had this classic ticketing booth that i have only seen in the movies.