Happy with how this photo turned out on my DSLR

Sunny & I wanted to take a break from eating out (which also gives our poor wallets a break too) and decided to make lunch today. Since Sunny is a cook by profession, he decided to teach me how to make pasta from scratch. He also showed me how to make a cheap & quick pasta sauce from cans of Campbell’s Creamed Mushroom soup & the butter/garlic concoction to put onto garlic bread. For the pasta, he told me that we could make any shape that I wanted, so I decided to make the little bow ties. I quickly regretted that decision since it took forever to fold little bows by hand (& most of them unfolded when we boiled them anyway ). Even though the fresh pasta took us two hours to make (would’ve been faster if I decided on normal noodles~), it was worth it because it tastes much better than the boxed stuff

Anyway, Sunny just came back from California on Saturday night and brought me back tons of gifts, but this one was the cutest so I had to take a picture right away:

Sequined Minnie Mouse ears~

At first, he told me that it was sold out every so I wasn’t too bummed out since we might (big ‘might’) go to Disney World over winter break, so I would be able to get it then. However, he decided to surprise me and ordered it at one of the gift shops to have it be delivered to his house. Weee~ They’re so cute & I hope we still get to go to Disney World so I can wear them there without feeling too out of place because they’re pretty big & sit slightly awkwardly on my head

Also~ I start school again tomorrow. I gotta remember to focus cause I already technically failed too classes last semester. (I didn’t get an F, but it wasn’t high enough to qualify as passing for the Information Technology major). I start a new major tomorrow too! I decided to change it to Communications over the summer since my parents kept nagging me to, and I was basically bull-sh*tting my way through my IT classes anyways (except for my Java class which still kicked my butt anyways). They want me to go into journalism since my dad works for a news broadcasting company & want me to become a news broadcaster but I’d much rather try to go into public relations. (They also expect me to be able to graduate by 2012 even though changing my major puts me many, many credits behind ) Lets hope I didn’t make the wrong choice of changing my major since I’m not allowed to change it anymore x;

I gotta wake up early too, even though my first class isn’t until 1:30PM because I have to get an x-ray of my jaw since I most likely have TMJ (temporomandibular joint disorder). It sucks like a b*tch cause it’s hard to open my mouth, hard to chew, etc. (I can’t even open mouth wide enough to eat a banana )Maybe if I get jaw surgery I’ll be excused from all the public speaking I’ll have to do in my comm classes though ;D

That’s normally what I carry around but I definitely minimize if I’m going out for the night. The agenda & camera make my bag so heavy, so I try to not ever have to carry anything else +_+~

Sorry for the lack of blogging. I haven’t been up to much except for slumming around D: I helped my sister move in on Wednesday and from her twitter, it seems like she’s loving it there. I start school on Monday and I’m totally not taking advantage of all the little free time I have left because I’m trying to conserve money. My introverted friends make it seem like its hard to be anti-social. Nope~ I’ve been laying on my bed watching pregnant people on TLC & Discovery Health (because USA rarely shows Law & Order anymore) and having meals which only consist of cereal. (Although I cooked today, and that didn’t go so well).

Anyway, it was a cute little restaurant but there was a small wait for our table even though we made reservation. I saw a little sign at the door that read, “If you are more than 15 minutes late for your reservation, we will give your table away. // If there is a reservation after you waiting for your table, we will let you know 15 minutes in advanced.” So this must mean that the place is good for it to get that busy.

For those who don’t know what “Restaurant Week” is, it’s normally when a city “showcases” their restaurants by having a set menu for lunch that’s $20.10 & a set menu for dinner for $35.10 so that people who wouldn’t normally be able to afford to eat there, can try “finer dining” and increase the clientele for the restaurant. However, according to Sunny he told me that it’s not really “showcasing” because due to the increase of customers, most of the restaurant makes a special watered down menu & lowers the quality of the food ): ~ Either way, it’s still fun to try out new places to eat.

(I took my Nikon D3000 along to practice taking pictures, but a lot of them are still screwy with being too exposed or too dark so I apologize in advanced D:~)

Sunny waiting for teh table~

View from the window

The ONLY picture he got of me because I feel uncomfortable in front of a camera & wouldn’t stop moving l:

Sunny took this picture & is much better photographer than me D:

First course included tasting of three small boxes

“CHIKUZEN-NI, grilled salmon, omelette”

“fine cuts of SASHIMI”

“shrimp & veggies TEMPURA”

Second course included
“tuna, salmon, shrimp, eel, yellowtail, flounder
roll choice: salmon & avocado or spicy tuna”

My spicy tuna, was oober yummy o;

Sunny’s box with salmon & avacado~

Miso soup :3

Green tea & mango ice cream for dessert

Overall the lunch was pretty good, but looking at the menu again made me think that the dinner menu would’ve been much more worth it. But we had to go for lunch because I had to drop Sunny off at the airport afterward because he was going to California for 1.5 weeks with his family o;

Appetizer -
Maryland Crab Cake served with Sauteed Local White Corn, Baby Clams and Heirloom Tomatoes with a Caper Aioli

Entree –
Cappelacci filled with Lobster and Roasted Corn with a Sweet Pepper Beurre Blanc and Baby Cilantro

Dessert –
Peach Skillet Cake with a Bitter Caramel Sauce and Honey Gelato (the gelato fell off ;x)

The lobster was soooo good. It was like ravioli-like thing filled with lobster. The sauce was cheesy but there was something about it that made it a little tart/sour so the cheese wasn’t overwhelming :3 We ere lucky, because it was supposed to be a different lobster dish on the actually RW menu, but since they ran out, they had to substitute with this lobster dish from their main menu :{D

Overall, food there was pretty good & super filling, but the service could’ve been better. Our waitress just seemed to have an attitude problem with us the whole time and disregarded our questions. Our friend asked, “Which dish has been most popular?” And she responded, “All of them have been equally popular.” Which is the most BS response ever. I mean it COULD’VE been possible, but the way she answered made it seem like it was just an automatic response and she didn’t think about it. When our friend asked which one she would recommend between three choices, she said that all of them were good. COME ON, that’s not even close to an honest answer. She’s basically answering like she has no idea l; Even the waiters/waitresses at Cheesecake Factory could give a more opinionated response (& I hate Cheesecake Factory ;x)

I asked her if she could “toast” our bread, because I don’t like eating cold bread (and it’s not like I’m being THAT difficult of a customer). She gave me this appalled face & said, “I’m sorry but we don’t toast the bread here.” So I responded by giving her a stern “=_=” look, to which she reluctantly responded, “But I could put it in the oven.” Iunno, for a high end restaurant, I didn’t think they’d be so difficult over doing small trivial things.

So the first thing we did on Friday was head up to DC and visit Bourbon Coffee to use his “groupon.” Afterwards, we walked to Georgetown to try to get Georgetown Cupcakes since Trang has never had them before. Unfortunately, due to the increase of popularity because of their new show on TLC Network, “DC Cupcakes,” there was a HUGE line so we went to Baked & Wired instead (: (Har har, maybe I should get a job at G Cupcakes so that I can get some air time, jk jk) Luckily there’s another Georgetown Cupcake location in Bethesda, which is near Cali’s place, so we’ll get it another time. (Iunno how interesting a show about cupcakes can be anyways, I mean I understand a show about cakes like Ace of Cakes, but cupcakes?) I just watched the episode clips on TLC’s website and it’s interesting to watch, but extremely scripted =_=;;

Cali’s dark mocha

My not-so-yummy “Amaretto Dream“

The signature pink bike outside of B&W

Our box of cupcakes & free stickers ❤

We never took a picture of the cupcakes because we didn’t have time to eat it D:~ I got carrot cake & Trang got red velvet. Both equally delicious, but I’m more bias towards the carrot cake. Cali decided to stick one of those stickers on my arm for the rest of the day and I got weird stares because “Get Baked” is slang for “Lets do weed~” I’m assuming.

Next we headed to Ikea because we were starving & my dad nagged me to get my new bed frame. We got stuck in some pretty heavy traffic for two hours, and when we finally got there, we found out that my bed frame was sold out l:~ Well at least we got to eat there, but were all disappointed that they didn’t have alfredo.

After dropping of Trang & Nam at home, Cali & I headed up to another Ikea in Maryland. We managed to find my bed frame, but it wouldn’t fit in my car ;w;! Although, after much tetris playing & taking it out of the box, it fit. Cali wanted to hit up DC to eat, but since my parents are super naggy about my 10PM curfew, we went to Breeze Bakery Cafe again to get boba. Only they didn’t have bubbles, so it was just a plain smoothie.

The adorable interior

We shared a tiny fruit tart :3

Green tea & strawberry smoothies

Then we went home and got straight to work. “We” as in mainly Cali & Trang because I’m pretty frail and no one has confidence in me carrying anything heavy.

Finished! Thanks guys <3

Chili cheese fries & chili dog (the lady forgot the onions ._.)

Heart attack D:

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Either way, Sunny & I decided to just get the gelato since our friends told us it was really good. Their gelato was homemade and fresh but it was okay. Maybe it was just us, but the texture of the gelato was pretty icy and not as creamy as we would’ve liked. He got the mango flavor and I got green tea, and the taste was okay too. It wasn’t really anything special. It definitely doesn’t compare to Pitango Gelato in Reston.

Our tiny gelatos (:

The second floor; it was pretty empty when we went.

Yesterday for dinner, Sunny decided to take me to the first restaurant he ever worked at. It’s a really adorable, small French restaurant located somewhere in Ellicott City. It’s not like high end, super fine dining French food, but it was more of “country French food.” The place is still pretty high class though. Unfortunately, we had an extremely late lunch so we weren’t able to eat/order as much as we had planned x;

At first, I was pretty intimidated cause I don’t like eating at fancy places much since I just feel out of place. But since Sunny knew everyone who worked there, they were really friendly towards us and I felt more at ease. (I’m pretty sure they’re friendly towards their customers too, but it felt less tense?) Although I still felt awkward taking pictures of the food, so I didn’t take any of the interior D:

Flowers & candles by the window~

Sunny made our reservations for a window seat, and since the whole restaurant is split up into different rooms, we ended up getting a small room all to ourselves (: I thought the flowers at our table were adorable and then noticed all the flowers around the room. Apparently the chef’s mom comes in every Sunday & Thursday to arrange flowers for fun and uses flowers grown on their farm. Wah, if she had a florist shop, I would visit it weekly to buy her arrangements because I have a weakness for flowers.

Don’t worry, it’s non-alcoholic.

Our waiter, Charlie, decided to make us a small sparkly drink, on the house :{D. I don’t remember what was in it, but it was such an adorable fruity drink. At the end of our dinner, a table cleaner accidentally spilled our cups and got extremely flustered over it since I’m guessing that he’s used to fussier clientele. He tried to get us another free drink, but I told him it was alright because it was just ice left anyways. I wasn’t upset over the spilled cups, but it did give me quite a scare hearing the cups fall D:

Beet soup, compliments of the chef.

Our three appetizers (:

Sunny & I wanted to try a lot of things so we got raw oysters (only three cause he doesn’t like them), freshly made mozzarella & golden beets, and this crepe-like thing with goat cheese, pureed olives, and sardines to put on it. I have no idea what anything is called since it’s all in French (obviously). A lot of their dishes incorporated beets since I guess it’s a summer thing, but they also grow it on the chef’s parent’s farm too. The golden beets were sweet, so they were really yummy.

Sunny & I had to share the scallops because we were so stuffed. They actually went ahead and split the order for us, so this is only my plate. (Can you believe we had trouble eating FOUR scallops each?!). In the center is this rice with more beets! I know it looks like PMS blood, but I can assure you that on further in-the-mouth inspection, it’s rice. It was really good, but I couldn’t finish it and our waiter was sad because he was hoping that I would eat more ;w;!

This was actually the first time I have ever had the chance to eat authentic French food and it was an awesome experience. It was even better cause Sunny was cultured enough to explain all the dishes to me, and other French dining customs. Afterward, he introduced me to his sou chef and showed me their tiny kitchen. He told me that when he first decided to be a cook, places like Olive Garden & Cheesecake Factory (ewww~) wouldn’t hire him, and this was the only place that would. I’m glad because Olive Garden & Cheesecake factory suck l:

FIN.

Today, my sister, my mom, & I went to the Louis Vuitton store. Why? Because Trang demanded a Louis Vuitton bag for her graduation present, and my mom feeling sorry for me because she didn’t get me anything for my high school graduation present, dragged me along and allowed me to get a bag too. My sister had been waiting months for this, and researched thoroughly about which bag she wanted and even knew the names of the bags, the colors, and the prices of other bags too. I didn’t do any prior research and thought I would just go and wing it. My sister immediately knew that she wanted the Speedy 30 in the Damier Azure ( which I only know because I just looked it up x; ) and because I wanted to match her, I got the Speedy 30 in the Damier Ebene.

While we were there, there was another mother and daughter doing their shopping, cept they were like about a billion times more baller. The daughter couldn’t decide between the Speedy 30 in the Damier Ebene and the Monogram. In the end, she decided that she wanted both but in order to get it, her mom to her to call daddy. They were not only getting those two bags on impulse, but also a few other bags and wallets. I heard her mom say, “Ask him, but don’t tell him that the total is already at $7,000″ Oh boy~ These high rollers crack me up. Not only that, but that girl glared at me because I was looking at the same two bags she was deciding between. Maybe she wanted to get both to prove a point that she’s wealthier than me by getting both. Whatever, the point is I don’t care because she gave off the essence of snob so I DON’T CARE l; (ALTHOUGH WHY DO THE BAD PEOPLE GET TO BE RIDICULOUSLY WEALTHY & NOT MEEEE~ whineeeeeeee <-- I guess that counts as caring a little bit, huh?)

Well at least I'm lucky in the first place to have such a luxury. This is my first real luxury bag, ever. I’m not like my sister who goes around spending all of her money on Juicy Couture (I should’ve never gotten her started with that Christmas gift .__.), Vera Bradley, Coach, Uggs (Okay, uggs aren’t a bag, but WHATEVER, it’s still expensive! SHE GOT TWO PAIRSSSS~) It’s a good thing she’s going to be a business major, cause she will need a ballin` job to afford her ballin` tastes l:

ANYWAYS~ Onto the pictures (:

I love how the inside is red :3

THANK YOU MOMMY ♥

DAY ONE
The first day was a huge blur because my sister and I were rushing to get “business formal/casual” clothes for the conference. The opening ceremony was supposed to start at 6PM, but because everyone runs on Asian time, it started at 7PM, which was fine because in that case, my sister and I made it on time. At first it was kind of a bummer because as usual, these VSA kids were pretty clicky & didn’t really seem interested in creating a bond with us. After the whole ordeal, my sister and I just wanted to go to McDonald’s for dinner and hit the bed. Fortunately, some of my brother’s friends dragged us out of the miserableness and invited us to go eat dinner at Chili’s with them and their cousins. It ended up being a pretty fun dinner experience (:

Our dinner group <3

DAY TWO
The next day we had a wake up call at 6:30AM to get ready for the congressional tours at 7:30AM ~_~;; Well it was optional, and most people took advantage of that because only thirty people showed up for it. We were given a so-called, “continental breakfast” but it was only a sad nutrigrain bar & caprisun D: Either way, we walked from the hotel to the metro station and then from the metro station to arrive at the Capital around 9AM. Even though my sister & I live here, we’ve actually never been on the tour before, so it was kinda interesting. It was cut short though because we had to go to another building at 10:30AM. So at the other building, we sat through two hours of keynote speakers while trying to battle off our sleepiness and hunger. It was pretty cool though because one of the keynote speakers was a Vietnamese American who was a member of congress and had to leave early to go vote on a bill that only needed five more votes. After that, we walked from there back to the metro station where they gave us an even sadder banh mi, but it taunted us because they gave it to us RIGHT before the metro & we weren’t allowed to eat on the metro D; So we had to eat it walking from the metro back to the hotel & as soon as we made it back to the hotel, they made us go directly into workshops. My sister and I were so exhausted from the lack of downtime that we fell asleep in our first workshop .___.;;

“Continental breakfast”

The Capital

The inside of the dome

One of the three keynote speakers

After the session of workshops, we broke into our “families” for some more ice breakers & then split up for dinner, which we had at Chipotle, before returning to the hotel to watch the culture show (:

I don’t know who this guy next to me is, he kinda just jumped in the picture.

Waiting for the show to start

GMU Modern Fashion Show

“Shadow” dance

The shadow dance was pretty cool. Basically, they tell a short story by casting shadows on the fabric. In this case, the story was that this girl fell in love with this poor musician and they wanted to be together. Her mom caught them embracing, dragged her away and scolded her. Then her mom wanted her to marry a rich guy, but she refused. Her mom then slapped her and the guy took her away. The musician then couldn’t play his guitar anymore because it made him too sad since it reminded him of her.

Overall, my sister and I didn’t regret waking up early that day because that’s when we met two of our closest friends for the rest of the conference (: ~~ A lot of people are annoyed or get offended by the things my sister and I say because they take everything we say way too seriously, however not only did these two cool cats take the heat, they were also able to dish it back.

DAY THREE
Day three was supposed to consist of more ice breakers and workshops, I however, chose to sleep through all of it since most of us spent the night hotel room hopping ;D

I did, however, wake up in time for the CPP which is the Cultural Philanthropy Project. This was a four hour meeting where the conference were presented with three different organizations. These three organizations were narrowed down from 16 by the CPP board. After they present their organization, the student body then debates & votes on which one we would like to spend the next year fund raising for.

It was pretty entertaining for me to watch the three groups present their cause because now that I’m a communications major (ho ho ho!) I paid a lot more attention to the organization of their speeches and how it was presented than what I would’ve normally done. Although as much as I want to, I’m not going to bore you with a break down of their speeches ;w;~ The organization that uNAVSA, as a whole, decided to fund raise for is Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. They’re THE ONLY organization in Vietnam that has been trying to help the problem of children trafficking and they also do a lot of other things to help the community.

One of the other organizations that presented really pissed me off though. They tried to get sympathy at first by crying in their speech before proposing their “business” plan. It was so irritating listening to them because all they talked about was how they wanted to set up this “e-commerce” business. Their plan was to go to factories and find “artisans” who were already skilled in the making of “ao dai” to work for them. Their e-commerce would allow clients to customize their own ao dai, and the artisans making it would get paid $35USD for each one that they made. To be honest, for a customizable, fashionable, and more modernized ao dai, no doubt they’d charge $200+ for it (and I could most definitely be under estimating). All they needed was a $50,000 “investment” from us, and even if we couldn’t pay all of it, they had another organization that would pay for the rest of it. Their plan was that if we give these artisans business, then the money would slowly trickle down into the community. They admitted they had nothing to do with human trafficking or building community spaces either. Ohmigawd, I was so angry listening to them talk. They BASICALLY want a sweat shop. They even tried to persuade us by having a mini fashion show at the end of their presentation with girls modeling off their ao dai. Even during the Q&A they avoided answering any questions by prolonging their answer of senselessness so much that they purposely ran out of time. Rant rant rant.

WELL~ Either way, I’m glad they didn’t get it.

After that, we had a little time to get ready for the gala, and that we did (: It was a nice gala with really good singing performances. The food was pretty mediocre though. The dressing for the salad was wayyyy too sour. The chicken was mad dry & the palenta was rubbery. The tiramisu for dessert was SOO over spiked. To be honest, I never knew there was alcohol in tiramisu until I tried the one the hotel gave us. There was so much alcohol, not only could I taste it, but my insides were burning (just call me weak sauce) D:

Salad (dressing not added yet)

Friends we met from Georgia

My “date” from Rhode Island (:

SIBLINGS FTW <3

Table setting

Our sad, sad entree ):

Tiramisu of death! (My “date” bought me a rose & its in the background :{D)

Okay, he’s not really my date because he’s not into girls, but whatever man! I love him cause he’s so feisty (:

DAY FOUR
We didn’t really do anything on this day because it was only for closing ceremony & elections. Unfortunately everything ran late since the after party the night before was CRAZY. LETS JUST SAY, a few of us had a little too much to drink. . . Oh yeah, there was this stupid btch following me around the club taking pictures/recording me with his DSLR. You know why I call him a btch? Because I know he has read my blog (and maybe still does) and called me an ignorant little tramp with the worst intentions ever without ever getting to actually KNOW me or explains why he believes so. Either way, he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with me (doesn’t bother me) but WHY WOULD YOU RECORD ME WITH YO CAMERA, HUH?! I think he was trying to expose that I’m a skank or something because I had multiple dance partners that night. Dancing is DANCING. I didn’t make out with anyone that night, I didn’t feel anyone up, and they definitely didn’t feel me up. I’m sorry that you’re still an old-fashioned, conservative little prick who thinks that if I have guy friends and hang out with each of them one on one (WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING) makes me a slut. Bitch, leave me alone & get cho self something better to do. (AS IF YOUR GIGANTIC FLASH WASN’T OBVIOUS, /facepalm)

Mid-Atlantic region debating over the candidates~

Overall it was a great experience and I can’t wait until the next one, next year. I recommend everyone to go if they get a chance, especially if you’re still in college. I’m not really active in the VSA at my school, and I don’t think that you have to be either. Nor do you have to be Vietnamese.

Oh yeah, people from the south are REALLY hospitable. They’re mad friendly, offer you their seats, share food/alcohol, etc.

A few old things we did was eat a Big Wong’s in Chinatown, shop in SoHo, visit Time’s Square, eat takoyaki and Go Go Curry, and get Halal rice. A few new things we got to do was visit the Sanrio store (which I stupidly forgot to take pictures of), Nintendo World, the giant Lego store on fifth avenue, and the new giant Forever 21 in Time’s Square O: ~~

Got to take a picture with Mario :{D

Pikachu~

On the walk of 50+ blocks, we stopped by this adorable (hipsterish) ice cream shop. I don’t remember the name, but I can look a business card later if anyone is interested in this random shop. Son got honey dew, I got green tea, and the two munchkins got strawberry cheesecake.

Weee, so oober yummy (:

ONTO THE SHOPPING~

From the Sanrio store <3~

The inside.

The back.

I needed a new make up bag and the HK pillow reminds me of the Mister Angry Face pillow I already had (: HAHA. The make up bag is shamelessly $30 & the pillow $22.50. (Geezus, HK rapes my wallet.) I actually had to follow these two old women around waiting for one of them to drop it because it was the last one and they literally grabbed it RIGHT before I was about to D:~ Needless to say, they regretted dropping it and glared at me on their way out of the store, BUT WHATEVER, it is now my victoryyy ;3

FOREVER 21

High-waisted skirt – $12.80

Bag – $29.80
Shoes – $12/each

I forgot the prices ;w;

Nail polish swatch~

Heart cardigan – $22.80
Gray cardigan – $12

Silk dress – $29.80

I know the silk dress looks really plain but the color was really vibrant that I got drawn to it like a fly to a light. It looks pretty plain/shapeless when worn but looks super cute when I add a belt.

UNIQLO

Donald duck tee – $10.50
Collab tee – $15.50

Wired headbands

First three are from HK for $21HKD ($3USD)
Black one is from VN for 75,000VND ($3.50USD)
The black on is a lot better in terms of quality than the ones from HK O:

Teal flats from HK for $70HKD ($10USD)
Brown bow shoes from HK for $180HKD ($25USD)

Polka dot sandals from HK for $130HKD ($19USD)
Flip flops from VN for $60,000VND ($3USD)

Pink bag from VN for $210,000VND ($11USD)
Brown bag from HK for $60HKD ($9USD)

Pink mirror from HK for $12HKD ($1.50USD)
Whitening deodorant from VN for $18,000VND ($1USD)
Maybelline Angelfit Compact from HK for $150HKD ($21USD)
Hello Kitty oil blotting sheets from VN for $74,000 ($3.50USD)
Pink oil blotting sheets from HK for $12HKD ($1.50USD)
Hello Kitty face wash from JPN for 600yen ($7.50USD)
Fash wash from HK $21HKD ($3USD)

Of course none of this includes the few souvenirs I was able to buy for friends (: