Year of the Snake

Playing: Nothing Left-One Night Only
Reading: Kappa by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Left to Right: Michael, me, Jessy, and Tina

Last Thursday, South Coast Plaza hosted a private party for Chinese New Years, so my fashionable group of friends and I took my parents' place at the party. Michael, Jessy, Tina, and I were trying to coordinate our outfits, but we kind of gave up on it. Somehow without talking to each other, we all showed up in jewel tones though! The party was held in Jewel Court right outside of Macy's. It was surprisingly large and they had some stereotypical Chinese New Years entertainment like lions and musical performances.

Appetizers and dim sum were catered by Capital Seafood, I think. Even though there were servers passing out shumai and sushi, it was easier just to wait in the long lines for food. Most of the food was actually pretty good and from my surprisingly long history of pretending to be more in touch with my Chinese ancestry than I am, I thought it tasted pretty legit. The cha sio bao was a bit sweeter than normal and the dan ta (not pictured) had a cookie shell instead of a pastry shell, but it still tasted good.

After the party, they even handed out red envelopes with dollar bills and valet parking vouchers. Amazingly enough, this is the most generous offering I've gotten so far for Chinese New Years. Even though I'm primarily Chinese, I really have never collected huge amounts of cash for Chinese New Years unlike my friends. One of them got a new laptop and another one got over a thousand dollars. How did they do that?

Once we were completely done with exploring the mall, we walked around the parking structure, taking photos and joking around. I really like how these parking lot photos turned out, even though this photo is so obviously posed. It was such a joy to be able to hang out with the three of them again, since we hadn't seen each other since Michael's birthday. Hopefully, we'll see each other soon for another party.

One more thing, here's my outfit from the day. I wore an Ann Taylor LOFT sweater, Zara shorts, Gap tights, Marc by Marc Jacobs earrings, a Bally purse, and a pair of Barney's Co-Op heels. How was your Chinese New Years? How did you celebrate?