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July 29, 2007

2nd Anniversary

Thanks to you all!! My staff, my dearest friends and family! Good old friends that I haven't seen for couple years that surprised me and showed up at the party! Joe Kaline's band, all my great, loyal and awesome supportive customers! My generous wine suppliers for their sponsorship and Craig Roby as our guest chef! Last but not least Jane, who was forced to change her ticket by us to stay for the party. How dare she came back from the east coast to visit family but not stay for Furenzu's anniversary party!?

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Click on the follow pictures to check out some of the actions of the day! ;)
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For more pictures, please visit: Furenzu's 2nd Anniversary at Flickr.

July 4th, 2007

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Juppa loved to swim. How could she not? She's a yellow lab. My 1st baby but sadly passed right before the restaurant opened. We used to go to this beach in Point Reyes a lot. We would go to Tomales Bay Oyster Company, bought oysters and picnic on the beach while watching Juppa swam.

July 4th this year, as usual; I closed the restaurant and decided to take a ride out there and see if I could get Monte to swim!? Yes I went to get oyster first, but it didn't feel the same as before. The place is now very popular, which of course I'm very glad they're doing well. Unfortunately it lost that personal touch and a little too commercial feel for me. Couldn't wait to get my oysters and be on my way. That little farm must have closed to 200 people there!

We drove to the beach which is only about 1/2 mile from the farm. Parking lot was filled with cars also. Bummer I thought, while I was really seeking some quiet and peaceful time on a day off. We walked down to the beach. Nice! Not at all crowded like the parking lot, but like how it's always been to me, no matter how gusty the wind or busy on the highway; as soon as you walked down to the beach, nice and quiet. All you hear is just light wave getting on the shore and gentle breeze blowing on your face. Surprisingly the water was warm! I had been to this beach many times on many hot summer days, water had never felt this warm to me. For a second, I had this scary thought: does it mean global warming is really getting that serious that even the bay water warmed up so much that it felt like in the Pacific these days?

It took Monte a bit before he would get his paws wet. I then took off my flip flop, got myself into the water and wishing I had a bathing suit that I could actually swim! Monte followed with a little hesitations. He swam! He finally did it! We had a great time and yes he really looked like a rat when he's wet!

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My dear Jean decided to stop by and spend the night at my house that evening, so that she could have an early start and help me out the next day at the anniversary party. Josephine also came. It was just nice to sit around and chit chat and eat of course. It's my first July 4th at the loft where we were able to watch fireworks from the balcony. It was really nice until... we could still hear all the illegal firework after past midnight!? That was a bit too much especially we really need our sleep for our big day the next day!

Sake tasting back in June

After all the requests for another sake tasting, we organized it again in June. We've got a good crowd signed up and paid for the tasting. However when the night came, we got a bunch of calls apologizing they couldn't make it at the last minute. I felt really bad for those who couldn't show up but paid already. So if you still have your receipts, I would like to make an exception and honor it for your next event! Thank you for your supports after all!

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July 10, 2007

It's a good year...

...for my dive for abalone after haven't been able to get out for more than 2 years.

Even though I would love to get out more or even to stay up in Mendocino for a day or two, this has been a good year to start after I have been stuck at the restaurant for two years. I think I must have been dived for 3-4 times this year so far. And only one last time left in Nov if we really want to go again that a low tide with favorable time.

For the last time out, we haven't found many abalone or a good size that we would like to get, but we found plenty of sea urchins and it was like a wall of sea urchins that we saw under water. So that was still good!

Then of course when we're back at the restaurant, we had another big feast!

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BTW, after the dive we went and checked out a house for sale. Isn't that will be great to wake up to this view every morning?
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