Secrets (Last Few Days)

So, today's post title comes from the Shuffle Function on my iTouch.  Secrets by OneRepublic, quite a good song actually, but not the main focus of my post. The parenthetical reflects my actual post.

The last few days, the beginning of summer, have been amazing.  It was a perfect beginning to what I hope to be an amazing summer as well.  During the last few days, I not only went paintballing and celebrated my birthday, but I also played tennis with a friend and traveled by myself to the States. So, without further ado, lets get on with my post.

After the dreadful SAT, I, with my other friends, released our stress, rage and annoyance by going paintballing. To say that this paintballing trip was fun; does not describe the experience fully.  Because we had so many people (24), we had very epic, very intense games.  We played many Tier 3 and Tier 2 matches, due to the fact that there were too many people for Tier 1.  I was actually surprised at how many people and the variety of people that came.  Some that I would never have expected such as, Katherine Lee,   Emily Kao and Emily Huang all thoroughly enjoyed themselves (I actually got shot by Katherine Lee in one of the rounds).  In the end, because some of us had many extra bullets, we played a "Mercy" round, which meant that a person would only be out after they surrendered.  Therefore, those who had high pain tolerance or widespread numbness could easily play for long periods of time without giving up. Sadly, I did not have a high pain tolerance nor numbness.  I instead counted on my fellow teammates to cover me and help me as I run straight into a "killzone".  That was not the case though.  I was shot several times on my right side, and thus retreated to cover.  After berating my teammates for 30 sec, I charged again, this time with my friend Emily Kao.  We both charged under the assumption that others would join us.  This time, we both reached the cover the enemy was hiding behind and attempted to shoot them.  However after 5 sec of constant barrages towards my body, I gave up and retreated into the safe zone.  I was shot in total 22 times while we were there.  This paintball trip was by far the best paintball trip I have ever gone.  Before, I would always hide or sneak around, but I realized that it is actually more fun to run out.  Getting shot is a consequence, but the adrenalin rush makes everything feel better.    After paintball, we went downtown and had an amazing dinner consisting of Momo's.  I just hope that the future paintball trips will be just as amazing.

On the Monday afterwards, I had my annual early birthday celebration.  While I initially planned to go to Leofoo for my party, due to the rain we ended up heading to Tasha's house.  We first met at TAS, where we stood in the rain for 5 minutes before we decided to head to my house (by the way, my brother and parents left for San Francisco earlier that morning, but more on the later paragraphs).  After we spent about 30 min at my house, where we attempted to create a new plan, while also playing with the Nerf guns that I brought out.  Finally, we decided to go to Tasha's house, but first head downtown for food shopping and more Nerf guns.  Thus we piled into Tasha's and went downtown; we drove to 101 where we were the first shoppers at their Jasons.  We bought food supplies (Addy just stood on the cart I was pulling while Darren and Tasha kept getting lost).  Afterwards, we drove to a shopping center that housed a Toys R Us and an Ikea.  Because Toys R Us wasn't open that early, we went to Ikea where we fooled around with different furniture and took pictures of us pretending to be a family.  Once Toys R Us opened, Darren and I went and bought two new Nerf Guns while Addy and Tasha bought us food from Ikea (SWEDISH MEATBALLS).  With the supplies and weapons we stormed Tasha's house surprising her helpers while spraying Nerf bullets everywhere.  We ended up having many crazy Nerf battles in Tasha's basement where we would just run and around and spray each other with the bullets.  After what seemed like minutes, we returned upstairs to eat lunch.  After lunch, we watched a bit of Monty Python's Robin Hood and the Men in Tights (Ok I watched, Tasha and Darren slept together* while Daniel and Addy read children's books). *not literal.  Once I realized no one was watching the movie besides me, I woke everyone up and we went to the top floor to swim.  After playing around in the pool, we returned downstairs where Darren made snacks while I popped popcorn.  The birthday celebration winded down from there and soon after I took a cab home and had a quiet dinner while I watched TV.  This birthday celebration was different from previous years, as I broke the tradition of going to the Waterpark.  Hopefully next year I will have a better idea or a similar birthday celebration.

The next day, after completing some errands and eating lunch with my grandfather, I went to ACC to play tennis with my friend Steph (side note: SHE'S INSANELY GOOD AT TENNIS). Nuff said.

As I alluded earlier, my parents and my brother left on June 4th in the morning.  I left on June 6th in the morning.  I had two extra days to hang out with my friends, as well as travel alone (last year I came back two days earlier than my parents and brother, this year I go two days later).   Unlike previous trips, this year we decided to fly Cathay.  While China Airlines was pretty good, from what I heard, Cathay was better.  It wasn't for me.  So first of all, when I got to the airport, check-in was easy, security was easy, but was I got into the main terminal, I couldn't find food. Like it took me a long time before I actually found a place that was good.  Then after finishing my quick breakfast, I find out that my flight to Hong Kong was canceled, and that I would have to line up to get on a new flight.  After what seemed like plenty of wasted time, I reached the counter where they proceeded to give me a ticket to the next flight, which was a Dragonair flight that would leave in 30 minutes. Initially I was afraid that because of this delay, I would miss my San Francisco flight, but no, they told me that I would be in Hong Kong for at least 30 min before my flight left.  So, the 1.5 hour flight to Hong Kong was uneventful.  Except the part where I was stuck in the tiniest seat in the world with barely any room to move.  Once I got to Hong Kong, my first objective was to find when my next flight would leave.  After learning that I had at least 30 minutes, I proceeded to the second floor where I went to find food.  I purchased a Cantonese style barbecue goose and pork rice set and a Popeyes Chicken Tenders set.  With my new purchases, I went to my gate, only to hear a group of loud Americans complaining about another delay.  With nothing else to do, I sat in a corner and ate my lunch.  It was really good.  When they finally allowed us to board, I hoped that my flight would be pleasant and uneventful.  Sadly, it wasn't.  Immediately after we took off, the overhead areas that housed the airconditioning for the seats in front and behind me began to leak.  It wasn't like small drops, it was like a torrential rain.  Furthermore, when I tried to sleep, the lights in our area would not turn off either.  Plus the movie selection sucked.  I do think however, that the food and the service was great on this flight.

Well there you have it, this massive (delayed) post that talks about my last days in Taiwan and my flight to SF.  Whoever reads this whole thing gets a stick or pack of gum if I feel generous.