Lolli Lolli Oh Lollipop

Last Monday was all about sushi. The art of sushi. The enjoyment of sushi. Sushi, sushi. And boy, it was quite a feast for my stomach and eyes.

Eric, his two friends, itsuka, amandier, hakuku, and I ate at Fuji for dinner, a sushi restaurant that offers all you can eat. It was delicious, they didn’t skimp out on the fish vs. rice ratio, and I think we might’ve killed their stock of salmon. Look at our 1st giant plate of sushi to the right. |D;

Afterwards, we went to watch Jiro Dreams of Sushi at the Laemmle in Pasadena. It’s a documentary of the story of Jiro Ono, an 85 year old who is considered by many to be the world’s greatest sushi chef. His restaurant only serves sushi and accommodates up to 10 people only who must be willing to shell out $300 for a 20-piece sushi meal. Reservations are to be made a month in advance. The menu changes daily depending on the day's catch. Jiro himself is hard working, a perfectionist, and shows dedication I have not seen among many (or at least in America). He works from sunrise to well after sunset. He's perpetually striving to outdo himself. He doesn't think he's learned it all despite what many others things. His routine has not changed much according to his sons. His eldest son is expected to take over the restaurant, but he is already 50 and his father shows no sign of retiring any time soon. Apparently, to be apprenticed by Jiro, it will take you a decade to learn everything and this is free of pay. Amazing.

The entire documentary was somewhat insightful in that it made me feel disappointed in myself -- I’m such a lazy ass. I need to step up my game! I learned interesting things about sushi -- like I had no idea there’s three different types of toro. I’ve just known whatever you normally get and then o-toro. I’ve also always thought the California roll was a product of American culture, not it actually came from Japan. I’m guessing it was possibly was invented for the gaijin, haha.

And...I finally know how to pronounce Laemmle! always thought it was “la-MEL,” lol. /ignoranthaha

Decided to change my LJ layout and profile. So woo~

Anyway, that backlog. San Francisco! I went last year during Labor Day weekend and then again for Dicken's Fair, thus I'm just going to clump both trips into one post cuz I’m lazy efficient like that.




Labor Day Weekend
- Didn't do much cuz herp derp good idea, let's go on a holiday weekend. I should've known it'd be busy as hell, ah well.
- Traffic everywhere. Itinerary didn't stand a chance.
- Thank you ziggybecket for housing and chauffeuring us girls!
- Lisa's Treasures for high tea was delicious. The best scones I've ever tasted. Someone also needs to tell them to not use fanciful script font for their logotype. No one can read it from afar.
- Went to the Winchester House for the first time ever. It was a lot more bizarre than creepy. They didn't allow us to take photos indoors, boo. I kept on almost tripping on those easy steps.
- Watched movies. I I think we watched Tangled, the crazy, trippy live action Alice and something else? I know Doctor Who was in there somewhere.
- Clam chowder in a bread bowl at Boudin's! I think we also went to some random pizza place near the Winchester House that was pretty darn good.
- Daiso. I want everything.
- Went to my first loli store. I felt totally out of place, but they do have some cute things. I still don't think I'll ever wear that stuff though.
- Sad we didn't get to try all the cool places Oscar wanted to take us to eat. :C
- HOLY MOTHER FUCKING GOD, LOMBARD STREET. Fuck that shit. Going up the incline to get to the top of the famous street was so freakin’ scary and I wasn't even the one driving.
- Got a cute heart patterned scarf!
- Visited Golden Gate Park’s Japanese garden. My god, it was gorgeous!
- Got to climb up one of those really high arch Japanese bridges. It was kinda scary. I kinda scrambled up it like a retard. XD
- GIANT HAWK within like 20 ft of me. o__o
- Ghiradelli’s salted caramel hot chocolate was heavenly. Omg, I want another one just thinking about it.

The rest of the photos are here.




Dickens Fair
- Miso butter corn ramen at Himawari's in San Mateo! It sounded disgusting and delicious at the same time. I'm glad it was the latter.
- I drove in SF for the first time! They're as bad as So Cal drivers...
- Whee bridges~
- Wtf @ people standing at least a couple feet on the street, off the curb when it's not their turn to cross the street.
- Stayed at Hotel Majestic. Wow, it's an old hotel. I think it's the oldest running hotel in the city. It was gorgeous inside and out.
- Had a really weird, slightly creepy dream regarding our room's bathroom. O_o;
- Dickens Fair was cool. I like it a lot better than Ren Faire. I think it's cuz all the volunteer actors are so much more nicer than the Ren Faire ones, which - to me - tend to be rude (unless that’s how they were back in that time period) and then I don't know how to interact with them. Maybe also cuz Dickens is Christmas themed, hence the all-around cheerfulness?
- I went as a newsboy or something like it. Yup.
- There was some guy who was in the character of a drunkard, so he was passed out along the side of a building, haha. What an easy job! sakurae and I were tre amused.
- Bought myself a purdy necklace.
- Oogled what Annie called an old lady hat, but it was cute on me.
- Finally had spiked apple cider! It was okay, haha. Not sure what I was expecting.
- Didn't get to try a pasty among other British foods cuz lines were way too long.
- Failed attempt at getting German food. :C
- Tried carpaccio pizza. I should've known it wouldn't be warm cuz carpaccio = raw beef. And hot pizza >>>>> room temperature pizza. Good job, me.
- Okonomiyaki!! *^*
- Delightful tea time at Tan Tan.
- I wish our Kinokuniya was as large as the one in Japantown. But then maybe it's a good thing or else I'd never find my way out ever.

The rest of the photos are here.

This week is dragging so badly. u___u; I should be sewing, but haha this glass of wine I had made me so sleepy…so! Hi. Lol.

I had a pretty darn good Valentine's Day this year. I spent it with faithful_muse after fighting tooth and nail through rush hour traffic from Chinatown to Torrance. My stupid GPS took me the lamest way through Downtown LA and I would've totally thrown it on the ground if it weren't also my phone. u___u;

But! Okonomiyaki and beer with a parfait to top it off at Gaja was worth it! Afterwards, we sang out hearts out at karaoke. We did a poor tribute to Whitney by seeing the most obvious song she has that wasn't even her song: "I Will Always Love You." Courtney found out I can rap, which amused her, haha.



I finally tried Umami Burger two days later. It was pretty good for those gourmet "hip" burgers. I had their signature burger and enjoyed the thin crispy thing of cheese on it. I do wish it was a bit thicker, but still delicious overall.

And ALA report:
I had a pretty good time this year. I debuted Lynette Guycott for amandier’s Scott Pilgrim group. Got a few nice pics in that outfit courtesy of sakurae. Thank you! I photobombed konishii, lol. Hm...oh! I attended fattastik and her friend’s duel birthday masquerade party at the insistence of...I forget who. I just remember hakuku and I wanting to be lazy bums and lounge in bed watching TV all night until that someone pushed us to just get ready and head over. Made a few new friends. :] I think we might’ve scared everyone when we suddenly mobbed the hotel lobby at like midnight with our drunken asses.

A group of us ate dinner at the fancy smancy steakhouse in the hotel. I was disappointed at the medallions I ordered, but everyone else’s food that I tried was delicious. Also, I can’t believe the price mark-up they had for a bottle of Coppola’s Claret. It was $15 for a glass or $44 for a bottle, when I can get the bottle for the price of a glass. Wtf!? Ah well. I just drank too much that day -- beer during lunch, wine at dinner, more booze at party, haha.

The last day was shota day for Kristen and I. We wore our art book school boy uniforms from 07-Ghost. The best part was the pink creeper Frau balloon. Hahaha. Thank you, okitasan for taking photos!


Lalala, shoop de woop wall crack, ahaha.


I love the reflection on the glasses here. :D




Aren't we so moe? Haha.

( Very few crappy ass pics from my phone. ^^; )

"...It ain't Watermelon County. It sure as heck ain't Banana County. It's Orange County!" - River Cuomo

Catching up #2:

WEEZERRRR 8D

AT THE OC FAIRRRR

So yup. itsuka, yoursenq, super_no_1 and I went to the OC Fair in the beginning of August to see a Weezer show. Shh, I know I just saw them at the Memories Tour end of last year. I wanted to see them again. Yes. That soon. Shush. Anyway, they were fucking awesome as usual! 8D!

I took off early from work and went to pick up Setsu on my way down to the OC. We met up with Jennifer and Nergene there and had nomming time. I had a philly cheesesteak, a churro and a lemonade (oh god so good on that hot day). I don't know how I still remember that...Anyway after stuffing our faces, we headed to the Pacific Amphitheatre. Jennifer and I got ourselves some beer and there was also cotton candy and kettle corn and we all settled down in our seats for the show to come.

The band came out to the 21st Century Fox fanfare much to my amusement and went immediately into song. No introduction, but yeah I don't think they need such frivolities anymore. Rivers...I'll never get over how good he looks for his age cuz seriously -- minus his thinning hair -- he basically still looks the same. He did sport this huge tribal sleeve tattoo though. He never addressed it and I thought it looked odd, yet...fitting for him. He always seemed to be the quirky type. He was crazy as usual with his antics: He grabbed some guy's hat and wore it. He ran around in the audience way more than enough (of course, sadly, he never got close to us ;A; ). At one point, someone threw him some giant briefs with =W= on it. He held it up to the audience with a look of, "Wtf?"...and proceeds to put it on over his pants and wears it for the rest of the concert. XD It also dawned on me that he'd make a freakin' awesome Quailman for Halloween, hahaha. They ended the night crowding around the drums to while singing Buddy Holly. Woo!

The Set List:
"Troublemaker"
"Surf Wax America"
"Perfect Situation"
"No One Else"
"Undone (The Sweater Song)"
"Pumped Up Kicks" (Foster the People cover) - OH FUCK YEAH
"My Name is Jonas"
"Dope Nose"
"Island in the Sun"
"Pork and Beans"
"Pink Triangle"
"Photograph"
"Keep Fishin'"
"Hashpipe"
"Paranoid Android" (Radiohead cover)
"Beverly Hills"
"Say It Ain't So"

Encore:
"If You're Wondering If I Want You To (I Want You To)"
"Buddy Holly"

After a very awesome, fun and fulfilling show, we all ate some more! We got that funnel cake that comes with ice cream. Mmmmm. I was amused by the pizza on a stick. Oh and we also visited the ice sculpture exhibit. It was VERY cold, lol.

A good night overall. A very good night indeed. :D

Pics are here.

Gahhh, didn't get as much done as I had wanted over the weekend, but uh at least it was progress? I also haven't watched that many movies over a weekend…like ever, haha.

eeveil came over and we had ourselves a sewing party. We half-worked and half-watched:

• X-Men: First Class - 8)
  
• Robo Geisha - Lol, omg. It was so wtf, it was effin' AWESOME. I kinda want to be her for Halloween one year.
  
• King of Fighters - Uhh...
  
• all of Furuba - B'awwww.
  
• The Fifth Element - ♥
  

I was originally planning to sew on Friday, but uh me finishing Bounen no Xamdou got in the way. While I'm glad to have finally watched it all, the series was as yoshikochan said it, "Well-animated crap." The plot could've been soooo good if only there were more eps to finish it, but instead -- and rumor says it was originally slated for such, but oh look lack of budget -- it ended up being some rushed, crazy mess. There ended up being so many plot holes and arcs that weren't really given closure. :C

Anyway, progress pics. This shirt took for-freakin'-ever. It wasn't even hard, just time consuming. Ugh.

Pinned and ready to be sewn on.


Freakin' symmetry!


It's just missing the solitary white button in the center which apparently I'm fresh out of, so that'll have to wait a bit. I also didn't bother finishing the sleeve holes for now since it'll be covered anyway.

Good food was also to be had this past weekend. We tried this sushi place near my apt with Ben and Sara called Shiki. It was quite delicious and huge portions for about the price of a roll anywhere else. Then today, we had brunch at LAMILL back in Silverlake. Oh, such a delicious place. I don't care if it's crowded with hipsters. Good coffee is good. I'm also a freakin' retarded. I wanted to make mabo tofu and I bought the ground beef, but completely forgot the tofu. GAH. So uh, we had mabo beef instead tonight, LOL.

Ok, I'm going to start on that checkered wristband of his...

Steph and I went to Sanrio's Small Gift LA on one of the last days it was here. It was held at the Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Airport (I had no idea the city had its own airport, but apparently it's one for smaller planes). The whole thing was pretty much like a carnival with games, face painting, caricature, a small ferris wheel and a few photo op places where you can stick you face into holes cut out into whatever they had. There were GINORMOUS blow-up heads of some of the Sanrio characters hanging from ceiling and everything was Sanrio-ified. Overall, v. cute. But also pricey...1 ticket was like $2....needless to say, we were being a tad cheap and thus didn't play any games (it seemed like the prizes sucked anyway...). I was tempted to make my own t-shirt (more like choose from x amnt of graphics to be silkscreened however you want...too bad you didn't get to do it yourself) and figure out if the magical shrinking tags were shrinky dinks. XD

We did however, enjoy a Beard Papa's cream puff. After walking around some more then decided to wait in line for 2 hours to get into their pop-up shop. I was a bit disappointed at the merchandise they had, but I'm thinking the cooler, better stuff were long gone and these were just the leftovers. After perusing and not really liking anything, I thought, "OMG I need to buy something, dammit! I stood in line for way too long to not come out with something in hand! >_<"

Afterwards, we headed over to Counter Burger. I think I got a beef patty with sauteed mushrooms, Gruyere and some...roasted garlic aioli sauce -- it was pretty good. :9 I'm curious to try other combos now! XD

( Pics be here. )

Saturday was konishii's Digimon shoot. I was Koushiro/Izzy Izumi for it! We had a picnic-themed shoot of sorts at some park named Dinosaur Park in Laguna Hills/Niguel/somewhere I don't quite remember as I only drove to itsuka and amandier's house, lol. We had loads of food and snacks. Fatty times were definitely had. :9 Photo times were had as well -- a big thanks to all those who took pics! I can't wait to see what you guys got~

I was able to play around in the playground of the somewhat dinosaur-themed park, as the name aptly implies. My god, I was sore the next day. I'm sure swimming in the evening did not help that at all. I don't know how I climbed around like a monkey when I was young. Maybe cuz I was also way lighter back then, less strain on your limbs, lol. I even shot out of a rather steep slide onto my ass in front of a family sitting there. Smooth move. BD;;

Tsunomon's design should've been though over...there were SO MANY innuendos and bad jokes regarding his horn. *cough*

Delicious burgers were nommed on at Red Robin as a late dinner. :V And then we chatted into the night.

I tamed Cookie the evil Pomeranian! She's adorable and SO FLUFFY!!!

Thank you to Kristen for attempting to organize such a large but epic group. And a thank you as well to Jennifer and Julie for letting me stay over (I love your bed, Jennifer! >.<; ) and feeding me. ♥ It was great to see those who I saw and nice to meet you new people. Welcome!

( More here. )

OMG YAY, TOMORROW'S FRIDAY! *does a dance*

Btw, does anyone want to come with me to Santa Monica Place on Saturday at 2pm for Bird Pick's grand opening? Kinda don't wanna drive myself and I wasn't planning on staying long, I want to go look around the mall and go to the beach if possible just to at least dip my feet in.

Lol, my mom's funny.

I come out to the kitchen and I see this. She says, "It's saying, 'Good morning, Cindy!'" XDD

Though to me, it looks like it'd say it in a more sinister tone...or maybe it's just chinky...

I think I had a dream where I had abs and kept on staring or touching them or something. LOOOOL.

I also know how to tie a bow tie now! :D

Anyway, I went to Balboa Park yesterday. It was really nice to see everyone! Really chill too -- in more ways than one. My thin trench coat did not help. :|

Then it was off for fatty times at Cocary for ravendarkwings's birthday dinner. I got stuck in horrendous traffic on the way over, but it was well worth it. Oh god, I ate too much and STILL had room for a honey green tea boba and custard taiyaki afterwards at Diamond Plaza. I didn't realize I was that hungry...

Apparently some dude from Super Junior (one of the two Chinese members) was at the restaurant, too. It was hilarious when eeveil freaked out and everyone else around the table was looking around all confused and like, "Who? What? Where?" XD; The least Asian of us all recognized the Asian pop star. Haha.

Also, Cesar is ADORABLE. The only chihuahua (ok well he's part) that I've ever liked.

Oh and what I wore (SURPRISE! if you can even tell who I am...):

From Sakura Gathering 2010

( More here. )

I'm still on the fence of going next week. Though it might be nice to take some pics in Tokidoki with the sakura? I don't know.

I also need a hair cutttt.

Weekend was full of face-stuffage. I was a fatty. XD;

Friday was fancy smancy dinner night. It was the first time I've ever been to a restaurant where the food was significantly smaller in portion than the plate itself. ziggybecket and I went to The Dining Room at The Langham in South Pasadena. He wanted to go because a chef on this season's Top Chef is the restaurant's Chef de Cuisine and I'm always up for trying new things, so I agreed. Anyway, it was delicious -- everything, it was delicious! Lol.

This is what I wore to it since we had to dress up.

( Somewhat fancy? Idk. )

We chose the four course meal. Guess who took the nicer/better pics of the food? *hint: not me lol*

( Let the meal start... )