Mark and I met in spring 2000 in Silicon Valley. I just graduated from Indiana University and moved here to join the dot com fun. My college buddy was in town for a few days and asked if I wanted to meet his high school friend from Costa Rica. I said sure. The three of us had dinner at Miyake in Palo Alto. I don't know why, but I was so nervous that I hit an empty glass as I was reaching for something on the dinner table; to this day Mark still claims I spilled water on him. Whatever! It was empty!

Anyway, Mark and I started talking a lot but we didn't start hanging out until after I moved to Mountain View, California. We were both working in the same city so we started doing lunch frequently. We were friends for a few months and before we realized it, we fell madly in love. We have very different personalities - him anti-social and me super-outgoing; yet we share so many similarities - grew up in multiple countries, believes in Chinese values yet very Americanized, same birthday, passion for photography, technology, gaming, etc. The next few months went by really fast because it was full of happiness, but in 2002 we faced our ultimate challenge - long distance relationship.

With the Internet bubble burst, the company I worked for went under and got bought by a major telco company in Atlanta so I had to relocate. Over the next few years Mark and I remained strong although we had many more challenges - getting sick, layoff, going back to school, back and forth traveling and etc. All these events just made us appreciate each other more.

On 7/7/7, while I was in SF for a business trip, Mark surprised me with a Tiffany ring. After almost 7 years of dating, with 5.5 years (2,135 days to be exact) in long distance, we are getting married!! Yay!!