FLIP + CHING

Cocos Asian Bistro and Bar

Posted on February 7, 2016 by Ching under Food and Drink, Reviews, Travel.

Brian and I had dinner with our friend Glynda on the eve of the Zumba cruise. We invited her cruise roommate Kate also, but she was too tired from all the shopping they did at the mall. Only Glynda was able to join us.

I remember craving Thai food that evening but Brian wasn’t in the mood for it and Glynda had never tried it before so we decided to play it safe and picked Gilbert’s. We got our Uber driver to pick us up at the hotel and drop us off at Gilbert’s only to find out that they’re closed on Sundays. We looked around the shopping plaza and there weren’t many restaurant options. There was a very loud bar across the parking lot which seemed like fun but it did not appeal to Brian. As luck would have it, Cocos was just a few doors down from Gilbert’s and they were open. The three of us agreed to eat there instead so I got my wish of eating Thai food after all.

We got to the restaurant early enough that we beat the crowds. The restaurant was considerably busier when we left.

Glynda was having problems with the Uber app so Brian helped her install and set it up. And then he explained how to use it and gave her a code for her first ride free.

Here are some of pictures of our meal…

We splurged a little bit and had a few samplers. The calamari was a little spicy for me but otherwise fantastic. I wish that Brian like calamari because he would have enjoyed the sweet, spicy flavor of this dish.

The chicken satay was delicious.

The fried dumplings was another great starter.

Glynda had some miso which she said she enjoyed.

She also wanted a salad but I’m not sure that the soft shell crab papaya salad was quite what she expected. I think she found it a little odd.

We already had several starters so Brian decided to have lettuce wraps for his meal.

I always try the yellow curry everywhere that I can get so I ordered the chicken massaman. At $30 it was a bit more expensive than I’m used to paying. I usually get curry around town for about $10 or maybe $15 if it’s a nice restaurant. That said, this was the best massaman curry I’d ever had. It had just a hint of spice and ample sweetness. I felt it was worth the higher price.

Overall our Cocos experience was pretty good. The menu prices were a tad high but it’s a pretty minor complaint considering the quality of the dishes I tried that evening. If I had some time to spend in Fort Lauderdale, I wouldn’t mind eating here again.

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We’re Back!

Posted on February 6, 2016 by Ching under Travel, Zumba.

Hello, everyone! We’re back! Actually, we’ve been back for a week. We’ve just been super duper busy so I haven’t had a chance to post anything on the blog. Of course, if you’re on Facebook then you’ve already seen lots of pictures and videos because it’s easy and convenient to send those there from our phones.

Here’s the trip in a nutshell.

Brian and I are not really fond of cruising and I didn’t really care for the ports of call on this trip. I went for one thing and one thing alone: Zumba.

These are all the classes I’d registered for:

We did way more dancing than this, though. We crashed a few other classes during the week and attended some late night parties. We were on our feet and dancing the whole week for sure!

Let’s start from the very beginning: flying out of ICT really early. Our ride to the airport picked us up at 4 AM on Sunday, January 24. We wanted to arrive in FLL the day before we board so we wouldn’t have any issues with missing the ship in case of flight delays or cancellations. This was a very real concern because of the way the weather has been. Several people from the East Coast actually missed the cruise for this very reason.

Glynda got to Fort Lauderdale before we did so she was already shopping at the mall when we landed. We stayed at the same hotel so the three of us (Glynda, Brian, and I) went to dinner together that night. Missy and Todd had arrived in Florida on Saturday night but they went to Beto’s class in Miami and were busy cruising around town so we didn’t get to meet up with them before boarding.

The three of us ended up having dinner at Cocos Asian Bistro and Bar. I will post separately about this because it deserves a story all its own.

Here’s our boarding day selfie. Whee!

Brian is up now and we’re supposed to deep clean the house so rather than writing one, really long blog post I’ve decided to break this blog up into the separate days. Keep checking back for the continuation of our trip recap.

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Cram Post Cont’d

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Ching under Babies, Life.

I finally got Nickira’s Christmas present to her after hanging on to it for a couple of months. Ironically, it was the first Christmas present we purchased and it was the last one we had left at home. Nickira asked for the Barbie shopping mall back in October. I agreed to get it for her and asked her mom to make sure no one else got it for her for Christmas. I think she pretty much forgot that she asked for it. LOL.

The package arrived back in November and we just hid it in the office. I wanted to give it to Nickira before Christmas but she ended up going to Texas and didn’t return until after the holidays. Instead we just hung on to it until she got back and I gave it to her on our first meeting of the year.

Nickira set it up in her room the same night she got it and texted me a picture of the completed mall really late. I think it was well after midnight. I didn’t see it until the morning. She said it’s right next to her dollhouse.

In other news, my boss just celebrated her 60th birthday. Brian and I were fortunate to be there for the surprise party. Carmen and Nick were there too, which is a good thing because besides Ginger’s kids we didn’t know anyone else there.

Speaking of kids, we’re seeing some progress with Molly and Saki. It’s slow but I think they’re starting to get along bit by bit. They still fight at least a couple of times a day but I’m optimistic that the fights will eventually become less frequent.

Saki is growing exponentially quick. She doubled in size in her first month. When we got her she was only 4.5 lbs, about half the size of Molly. When we took her to the vet for her pre-spaying assessment and treatments she was 7.5 lbs. I left for Topeka that Monday and when I returned a couple of days later she was 9.5 lbs. That was about two weeks ago. This morning Brian took her to the vet to get weighed and she’s now 10.5 lbs. She is officially way bigger than Molly who tops out at about 8 lbs on a good day.

We mailed out our “Happy New Year” cards a few weeks ago to make up for not sending out Christmas cards this year.

I love Mixbook because they have really cool templates that you can easily customize. I was able to design the card with just a few clicks. I rushed the text a little bit and later found I omitted a few things. Oh, well. That’s what I get for rushing. Overall I was really pleased with how the cards turned out, though.

That’s it. That pretty much catches us up, which is good because Brian and I are leaving town tomorrow and we will not have access to internet.

Come back next week to hear about our adventures on the first ever Zumba cruise!

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What Your Email Address Says About You

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Ching under Web.

This is old but it still cracks me up. Most of the time I use my Gmail address but depending on who I’m emailing I do use different email addresses. I use my @wichitazumba.net email address when communicating with my Zumba pals, my @brubakers.us email address when communicating with others, my @cox.net for another group, and so on. I have specific email addresses for specific reasons although, despite my best effort, I have gotten lazy over the years and junked a few of these up.

One can only be so organized, you know?

P.S. I have different phone numbers for different purposes too. I’m weird like that.

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Incoming Cram Post

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Ching under Life.

So, I have 30 minutes before I have to get up and about and I need to catch the blog up on everything before I am a couple of months behind.

Missy’s class had the honor of being my very last Zumba class of the year. She was subbing for Sasha downtown on December 31. It was supposed to be a 30 minute class, but we turned it into an hour-long mini-Zumbathon with me, Todd, Holly, Abby teaching a few songs. Above is our “before class” pic. Below is our “sweaty mess” after class pic.

Brian dressed the part but didn’t shake it with us. He was just there for moral support but it worked out well because then we had someone to take our photos.

Later that evening we had dinner with Jenni and her friend Adam.

It was a quiet NYE as the NYE party that we were all supposed to attend got canceled due to weather. It was nice being able hang out at home and not having to drive home after too much “celebrating” although it didn’t matter much for me because I could not drink as I was on antibiotics.

Nothing against Jenni and her friend but that night made us realize that we prefer to someone else’s party on NYE so we can leave right at 11 pm and be home for our annual NYE tradition. This year was the first year that we missed ringing in the New Year in our own special way and it’s because we had people in our house until past midnight. I suppose we could have excused ourselves to follow through on our New Year tradition but that would have been both rude and weird.

Despite missing our traditional NYE thing, 2016 is off to a great start. I taught a Zumba class on January 1 to an awesome and enthusiastic group! Of course, I bribed them gifts and that might have been why some were more enthusiastic than usual. But, you have to incent people every now and then. For instance, my mom hasn’t come to one of my classes in over a year because “it’s so far from Derby” but with a little bit of coaxing and bribing I was eventually able to persuade her to attend.

Chiding aside, I am happiest about being able to teach class on New Year’s Day. I wanted to teach so badly last year but I had pneumonia over the holidays and couldn’t. The New Year’s Day class happened this year and everyone seemed to have a great time.

The high energy of the New Year’s Day class is now the standard for 2016 for me.

P.S. Huge thanks to Charis and Abby for leading some songs and bringing their positive energy. With their help, we were able to create a mini-Zumbathon. I had a blast!

I hope this isn’t the last time this year that mom and Jenni make it to one of my classes!

A couple of local dancing superstars, Gina and Abby, were in class which was a huge treat. Abby taught a song that was super fun to do. Everyone loved it! The only thing that could have made the day better was if Gina could have taught a song too. Maybe we can work on that for next year’s class!

Another huge accomplishment was our organized pantry.

It had gotten really out of control so Brian spent a good amount of time organizing everything. This is him trying to explain to me where everything goes.

Brian got chicken adobo as a reward. Most people think I can’t cook because I rarely ever do. I really can cook. I just prefer not to. LOL. It’s like Molly and barking. She can bark. She just doesn’t. I leave the cooking to the people who enjoy it.