Wonderful wonderful weekend!

I had an awesome birthday weekend, so much fun.

On Saturday, we woke up early to go to the Mazda driving event, Zoom Zoom Live. There, we got to test drive the Mazda 3, Miata MX 5, Mazda 8, etc. There were 4 courses, The School or Zoom, Perfomance Challenge, Match Time and Jinba-something something (horse man as one). The School of Zoom was great, we got to drive the Mazda 8 with an instructor who kept telling me to "step on it!" I guess I am just not an aggressive (or sucky) driver. :)

The performance challenge was a pure speed challenge. We were supposed to drive the Miata as fast as we can around a curvy course. Of course I sucked, the target time was 30 seconds and I got 44! The Miata is a damn powerful baby car! The brakes were so extremely sensitive that everytime I stepped on them the car jerked...yeah, I just suck. But! I still did better than Usa who got 83 seconds!! Poor girl, the people in the stands were cheering and applauding her for setting the record breaking slowest time. Makes for a funny story though. The other two courses were less fun, for Match Time, you basically had to match the target time of 29 seconds. Then the the horse-man thing, the target time was 20 seconds, but the catch was that there were these golf balls sitting in a bowl on the hood of the Miata, and you had to make sure they don't fall out as you drive. So it was a test of precision driving. Besides needing to wait forever in the lines, the driving was fun, and it was cool to hang out with Ray and Usa.

After Zoom Zooming, we drove home and hung out for a few hours. Ray, Usa, David and I played a couple of hands of Texas Hold 'em, and David, who "claimed" to not know how to play, ended up as the big winner! Sure he didn't know how to play.....

It was then time for dinner, we went to a restaurant called Orsay up on 75th and Lexington. A little far from home but not too hard to get to. Unexpectedly, we were able to take advantage of the restaurnat's prix fixe menu, three courses for only $25! Nice! Of course, people still just ordred the food they preferred not just the prix fix menu. The salmon with risotto I ordered was yummy, especially the risotto. Ricky was nice enough to order escargots as appetizer and let me eat it instead! I'm such a lucky girl. But the highlight of dinner was the desser. Black and white chocolate souffle, fresh fruit sorbet...drool....

After dinner, we went home for a Cranium party! Nine of us stayed to pay Cranium. The game is so fun, with a few glasses of red wine it was even more fun! The hardest question I got was to act out "sugar buzz"...just couldn't do it. Usa, Jay and I won the game! YAY! By the time we finished with the game, it was 1AM. I was tired, drunk...but happy. Slept very well!

On Sunday, Ricky had to work on his deck again. Usa and Ray called and we decided to go hiking down near the Delaware Water Gap. It was beautiful! We hike the trails for two and a half hours, all the time worrying that we would get lost. Well, it wasn't that bad, but we were worried that it would get dark and rainy. In the end, we didn't get lost and it didn't even rain! We had an awesome hike, very refreshing to go breathe the mountain air, free of smog.

After hiking, we were all really tired. Went home respectively to rest for a while. Then we met up again, with Ricky this time, for korean food for dinner. Tofu soup! Yummy!