House of Cards

6/27 – 7/3

Tuesday Kang Xuan and her family was here so I had dinner with them at a nice Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. It was so nice to talk to some people from home and catch up on stuff.

Wednesday I went to Cafasia for Alice birthday. The food was pretty cheap and just okay but it made me so full, I think I ate like 20% of it. We then went to Spot dessert again because I recommended it and ended up at BonChon chicken, which I think is one of my favourite places in St. Marks so far because of the nice yummy drinks like watermelon soju and MAKOLI (I must remember that name…had it with Bruno and was gonna get it there too but forgot zzz)

Thursday I had Num Pang AGAIN but they ran out of pork belly AGAIN ughhh, when am I ever going to try what they’re famous for?! Maybe this is how they make money haha.

I know I haven’t been talking about it much, but every Friday we have a lecturer from the department talking about their research. Today was Wendy Suzuki and her current research is exercise and memory. To make it interesting, we first did an hour of Inten Sati, which is a combination of kickboxing, yoga, and cardio. While you do these moves with the music, you yell out positive words. It was really fun but so tiring! She then talked about the positive correlation between exercise and neurogenesis. So this made me wonder…is there a difference between a big city life (where you walk everywhere) and small town (drive everywhere). Would people in the city have greater hippocampus function or is just walking everyday not significant enough? Is this why they are able to work all these hours compared to small cities where they barely work? Anyway, I tried the Setagaya Ramen at night with Stephen (after 2 years ago with Jane and Sining). It was good, but not as good as I imagined.  Now I really want to try Ippudo.

Saturday I had Ess-A Bagel for brunch because it was just a few blocks away. Compared to Murray and H&H, it was definitely better. However, maybe I’m just not a bagel person (though I always thought I was). None of those three famous places really stood out to me, like WOW I have to take people here. They just tasted like bagel…it wasn’t THAT chewy or THAT tasty, but it was a lot better than what I’ve had, that’s for sure. Next time I’m going to try Dunkin Donut bagel (with my declining) to compare. At night, I went to celebrate Victor’s birthday in Flushing. We had Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao which was AMAZING and then went to karaoke (for 4 hours…lol). I was going to head to Jay’s afterwards for his party, but I think I’m getting old. I got tired around 2am and went back home instead.

Sunday I went to TJ Max, Marshalls, and Macys…like 6 hours of shopping. Yeah, that is all I did.