{"id":1514,"date":"2012-12-26T19:24:10","date_gmt":"2012-12-27T00:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/?p=1514"},"modified":"2012-12-26T19:24:10","modified_gmt":"2012-12-27T00:24:10","slug":"1514","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2012\/12\/26\/1514\/","title":{"rendered":"A Rainy Sacramento Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/2012.12.26.a.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1546\" alt=\"2012.12.26.a\" src=\"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/2012.12.26.a-100x100.jpg\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dishonored.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1547\" alt=\"2012.12.26.b\" src=\"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/2012.12.26.b.gif\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a>After a series of events that seemed arranged for me to miss my flight, I finally arrived in Sacramento for a very rainy Christmas. Once I landed, Melody hustled me into <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ryujinramen.com\/\">Ramen House Ryu Jin<\/a> for black tonkatsu ramen before showing me her new home. We spent the next morning hanging her H-bomb diplomas in her office at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ucdavis.edu\">UC Davis<\/a>, then rewarded our hard work with banh cuon, banh xeo, and bun rieu at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yelp.com\/biz\/banh-cuon-tay-ho-sacramento\">Ban Cuon Tay Ho<\/a> in Little Saigon. After some grocery shopping and other errands showing Melody&#8217;s usual routine, we had a quick afternoon nap before an elegant dinner at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.enotria.com\">Enotria<\/a>, where the tasting menu failed to impress, save for a chicken &#8220;faux gras&#8221; dish so named in response to Cali&#8217;s recent ban on the sale of fatty fowl liver. We also installed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dishonored.com\">Dishonored<\/a> on Melody&#8217;s non-gaming computer, which had us stealthily zooming our way through the steampunk world in old-school low resolution. On Sunday, we spooned up more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yelp.com\/biz\/pho-bolsa-sacramento\">bun rieu<\/a> for lunch before going to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehobbit.com\">The Hobbit<\/a>, the first of the trilogy based on Tolkien&#8217;s slim novel. From the theater, we trudged through the persistent drizzle to visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.petco.com\">Petco<\/a> for rat toys and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bestbuy.com\">Best Buy<\/a> for potential new toys. Afterwards, we feasted at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yelp.com\/biz\/new-hong-kong-wok-sacramento\">New Hong Kong Wok<\/a> with a lavish dinner that reminded me of what I&#8217;ve been missing in Durham. On Christmas Eve, we awoke to a leisurely start, got <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yelp.com\/biz\/viet-ha-vietnamese-and-chinese-restaurant-sacramento\">pho<\/a> for lunch, picked up <a href=\"http:\/\/www.99ranch.com\">groceries<\/a> and oversized dim sum, then cooked up wintermelon soup and Asian veggie dishes for dinner with the in-law&#8217;s. To maximize time with my wife, I managed to change my flight with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.united.com\">United<\/a> to the day after Christmas, which despite costing an extra $180, gave us all of Christmas Day to have yet another bowl of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yelp.com\/biz\/saigon-restaurant-sacramento\">pho<\/a> and complete the game with a &#8220;low chaos&#8221; happy ending. My connecting flight home through DC was delayed by more than 2 hours, but was redeemed by an upgrade to first-class. It was easier to say good-bye to Melody this time around, knowing that we&#8217;ll be seeing each other again in a month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a series of events that seemed arranged for me to miss my flight, I finally arrived in Sacramento for a very rainy Christmas. Once I landed, Melody hustled me into Ramen House Ryu Jin for black tonkatsu ramen before &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2012\/12\/26\/1514\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}