Two Birthdays, One Day

Playing: Everything Will Be Alright-The Killers
Reading: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (Again!)

Left to Right: Maggie, Vivian, and Tina

On July 27th right before the Olympics, I went to celebrate both Maggie's and Tiffany's birthdays at Gen, an all you can eat Korean BBQ restaurant, along with Vivian and Tina. No Asian meetup is complete without tons of photos, right? Sorry whenever I hang out with a lot of Asian friends, I tend to make Asian jokes with them.

Such as when we all pulled out our cameras and cellphones to take photos of our food! How stereotypically Asian of us, huh? I found this tumblr called Pictures of Asians Taking Pictures of Food through Coffee Creek, so you should go check that out. It's really pretty funny. Gen had a wide selection of different meats to choose from and tons of side dishes, but I didn't like how most of the meat wasn't marinated like the meat at other Korean BBQ places. You kind of had to flavor the meat yourself using the various sauces they left for you. I did like how they offered a plate of vegetables to grill, since it helped break up the serious meat consumption.

Tina and I, despite us acting like the babies of the group, took charge and cooked for everybody. Since we were busy cooking for everyone else, a lot of the time, we got last choice and ended up eating not as much. What self sacrificing beings we are, cooking for everyone else. Hire the two of us for your next dinner party! The five of us still ended up eating twenty-three plates of food with only two plates of those being grilled veggies.

Left to Right: Maggie and Tiffany

After eating, the two of them opened up their presents and here are the two birthday girls. Maggie is posing here with her gift from Tiffany with Tiffany. Isn't it funny how the two of them are color coordinated too? Peach, camel, and white for both of them!

Tiffany got Maggie a Polaroid camera, which makes my Polaroid camera from the 1970's look excessively bulky. All of us went a bit crazy with the camera and took photos of everything. Luckily, Maggie was nice and let each one of us keep one of the group photographs to take home. If you zoom up on this picture, you can probably see me standing on my tippy toes. No way will I be the shortest one. I'll leave that duty for Tina.

While they were shopping around in Charlotte Rousse, I came across this pair of earrings. How interesting the way algebra works in retail stores. The more you buy, the more expensive each pair of earrings gets. That will definitely prompt me to buy more, while I'm there. (Sarcasm intended.)

I ended up leaving earlier than the rest because I needed to rush home to watch the opening ceremony for the London Olympics. By the way, how amazing was it? I liked how London mixed in their pop culture into the show with James Bond, Voldemort, Mary Poppins, The Beatles, The Arctic Monkeys, and of course, Rowan Atkinson. Rowan's bit was my favorite because it was something anyone in the world could laugh at, regardless of language and age. Anyways, back to the point. I have some seriously sick family members. My mum thought it would be funny to hang my Sentimental Circus bunny, Shappo, on a door. What is wrong with my family?

What was your favorite scene from the opening ceremony? (And I know I'm late, so you can do closing ceremony too.)

OC Fair+All American Rejects Concert

Playing: A White Demon Love Song-The Killers
Reading: Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis

A few weeks ago, Rebecca and I had to rush to the OC Fair, since our SAT prep classes ended at 6:00PM and our All American Rejects concert started at 7:30PM. The traffic was awful, so by the time we got into the fair, it was already 7:12PM and we both wanted to use the restroom and buy dinner before the concert, so it was a bit like a mad dash. We ended up just grabbing a corn dog and a cheese on the stick for dinner and ate it on our way to the Pacific Amphitheatre, where the concert was.

Actually, there was no need to rush. Unlike other concerts I've been too, this one didn't start on time. In fact, it started about twenty minutes late. The opening band, Eve6, was pretty good, but no one was clapping for them, singing along with their songs, dancing, or anything, so Rebecca and I felt bad for them. We even tried Googling their songs on her phone that way we could try to sing along with them. When they were done, Rebecca and I tried to cheer loudly that way they wouldn't feel too bummed out...

But then, when the All American Rejects got on stage, we all went crazy. I screamed a lot, danced badly, and sang all of their songs. Rebecca and I were shocked by how much the lead singer, Tyson Ritter sweats. He's like a waterfall. Even though people have told me, they act like perverts on stage, I really didn't think they were that bad. Tyson made a few comments about how California girls are the best looking ever and that was about it.

They were actually much better than I thought they would be too, but I wish some of the other members other than just Tyson walked too, especially since Nick Wheeler is my favorite member (and my first celebrity crush) and Mike Kennerty seems pretty funny in interviews. It was really incredible for me to get to watch my first favorite band perform, especially since this is the band that got me interested in rock music. It felt amazing to see them after I was made fun of for a long time in elementary school for being the only kid that listened to rock and to see that I still loved them, even after kids gave me crap for it.

Anyways, back to the concert and to stop focusing on my taste of music and how much I hated elementary school. Here's their playlist from the night and some commentary from Tyson and me:

• Dirty Little Secret
• Beekeeper's Daughter
• My Paper Heart
• Fallin' Apart
• Fast and Slow
• I Wanna (Before Tyson started this song, he just said, "I wanna, I wanna touch you." Since those are the lyrics, I screamed back, "I wanna touch you too." And I got stares from the people around me...)
• Walk Over Me ("Here's to all you girls, who are so amazing that I let you guys walk all over me.")
• Stab My Back
• Swing Swing (MY FAVORITE SONG BY THEM. "I used to write songs in my grandma's house. It was weird. I sat on a swing, when I wrote it. That's so fucking literal. You mean you sat on a swing? No fucking way!")
• I For You ("This is one of our sweetest songs about love and all that shit. I had my heart broken so that's why I call it shit.")
• Mona Lisa
• Someday's Gone
• It Ends Tonight
• Gonzo
• Move Along
• Kids on the Street
• Heartbeat Slowing Down ("This is probably our saddest, most tragic song.")
• Gives You Hell (When the part in the middle in which everyone chants the song came started, Tyson stopped singing and the whole crowd sang it to him. It was amazing!)

After the concert, Rebecca and stood by a door for along time, hoping to meet them. All the people with the VIP passes were there, so we figured we could sneak on in. Needless to say, it didn't work. One day though, I hope to meet them. Maybe I can write for Rolling Stones or Billboard? Then I can meet all my favorite musicians and get paid to fan girl over them! Anyways, here's the closest thing we'll get to a photo with the band. Tada, fabulous!

Oh and this was my first time dressing up for a concert with more than just a band t-shirt. I got dressed up as Tyson from their music video for "Beekeeper's Daughter." The outfit isn't perfect, I know. My jeans aren't red enough, I wore Converse instead of boots, and I wore a t-shirt instead of a tank, but it's pretty darn close. I was so exited to find the denim vest for only $15 in Target's kids section, since Forever 21's cheapest one was $17 and I was only planning on wearing the vest for dress up purposes. (I'm wearing an Ann Taylor LOFT t-shirt, Cherokee vest, Mango jeans, Marc Jacobs necklace, Converse sneakers, and a Coach purse.)

Spain: Day 7 Part 1

Playing: Carla-Life in Film
Reading: Mayflower by Nathanial Philbrick

For breakfast, my family and I had given up on trying to find a place to eat, so we went to a chain restaurant (Oh my goodness, a chain! How mainstream!) called Café&Té, where I ordered the Spanish Brunch #3. It came with orange juice, hot tea, garlic mushrooms, pantumaca, scrambled eggs with ham, and toast. For the price of €7:50, you got a lot of food, even a bit too much for any one person to devour. In the photo, it showed the scrambled eggs with ham and mushrooms separated, so I was surprised to find it all mixed together. It tasted like any other American breakfast except for the pantumaca, which I've only had in Spain.

After breakfast, we went to El Real Jardin Botanico, which is the royal botanical garden. Very pretty and we went before it got hot that way we could enjoy it without complaining to each other about the heat. It's a nice place to walk around and by the end of our time in Madrid, we had started to run out of things to do, so we started to just visit gardens, plazas, and markets. After the park, we went to Museo Thyssen for two hours, which was way too long in my opinion. By then, that was our sixth art museum, so all of us except for my dad were getting tired of art museums. Therefore, I can't give you a good review of how it was.

For lunch, we ate at Cafe del Circulo de Bellas Arte, who had a price fixed menu to choose from. For my appaetizer, I ordered the Saute Artichokes with Cured Ham, which was very good. The artichoke was tender and filling, while the cured ham gave it a nice smoky flavor. they also had a too sweet balsamic vinegar reduction to dip your artichokes in. It was large enough to be an entree by itself.

 

For the entree, I got the Pampano Fisherman's style, which wasn't very good at all. The fish taste was overwhelming and every other bite was filled with bones. Plus, the shrimp were hard to eat and the fish was overcooked. I definitely would recommend ordering a different dish there. You also got a dessert with this, but I didn't understand the waitress' English very well, so all I heard was "chocolate" out of her long list of desserts available, so I just said chocolate and ended up getting a chocolate pudding. No picture necessary.

We then walked on to the Parque de El Retiro, which was gorgeous, but terribly hot. I ended up hiding a lot in the shade there, but they had this glass house by a pond there, which housed a whole art installation by the modern artist Nacho Creodo. The art installation was interesting, but I hid in there mostly because it was air conditioned and there were quite a few groups of cute guys there.

See, I told you, cute guys. Well, this is going to make me look creepy, but I took quite a few stalker photos of well dressed and/or cute guys that way I could try to convince my guy friends to let me redo their wardrobe. I like how guys in Europe wear colored jeans and collared tops all the time. I also like how the guy in green jeans kind of looks like a Persian Brendon Urie. Too perfect. Well hopefully, you don't find me too creepy by now. I should go.

Tomatoes on Tomatoes and Used CD's

Playing: Common People-Pulp

Reading: American Idol by Alexis Petridis

Over the summer, my brother and I really struggle to come up with things to do, so most of the time, our days revolve around food. I know that sounds lame, but eating is one of our favorite activities. The Fried Green Tomatoes at Eat Chow were very interesting. The green tomatoes were dipped in cornmeal batter, fried, and topped with an aioli of sorts plus salsa. It definitely has a Mexican flair even though it's a southern classic. 

For my entree, I ordered the Pan Seared Salmon Sandwich a la carte. It usually comes with a mixed greens salad or Caesar salad, but seeing as I don't eat most vegetables, it would've been a waste on me. I was surprised at how large the salmon steak was, but I found the bitterness from the asparagus to be overwhelming, so I took it out and then the sandwich was much better.

Just down the street is Second Spin, a used CD/DVD store. I love this place because of their large selection of every genre of music other than Gregorian monk music of course. (Please excuse my lame attempt at making you smile.) Second Spin also offers discounts and deals almost everyday, such as buy three used CD's or DVD's and get the third free.

I ended up purchasing three Killers CD's that I had not had the chance to buy yet. I've been listening to these CD's pretty much everyday since then. Since I bought two used CD's, the guy at the counter told me I would save money if I did their aforementioned deal, so I went for it. Haha, I fell for their plan, but whatever. As you can see, I grabbed another Joseph Gordon Levitt movie, 50/50, which was supposed to be funny, but it the story line was more depressing. Then my brother also chose The Dark Knight because we love the Batman series and the pencil trick in this film. Plus, how gorgeous is Christian Bale?

Afterwards, we drove down to Casey's Cupcakes to bring home a snack for the family. We got Scrumptious Cinnamon Sugar, Smokin S'Mores, Luscious Lemon, Grandma's German Chocolate, Peanut Butter Pizazz, and Caribbean Coconut. All of them were pretty tasty except Grandma's German Chocolate, but then again, chocolate cupcakes are usually pretty bad. My favorite are the lemon flavors at any given store.

Oh and since it's summer time, I feel like I have to show you as many photos of the beach as possible to prove I'm a Californian or something. The drive there takes you through many different beaches and you get a good idea of how wealthy the people of Newport Beach area are. Newport Beach houses some of the wealthiest people on the planet and most of the homes there will coast you over a million dollars including the rundown shacks. Oh, how great it is to have rich people in a town so close that way I can enjoy all of their fancy shopping centers and trendy restaurants.

Have you ever heard of Newport Beach before?