Florida

Florida

This is the long overdue Florida spring break trip of Susana, Josh, Alex, Miles, and Moxi. Keep in mind this is almost two months after the trip, so it's not going to capture how I felt during the trip but rather how I feel right now - it was fun. I'm going to try to keep it as short as possible because I'm lazy and it's reading period.

Friday:
Our plane left sometime during the day. This was actually the beginning of a fun adventure because Susana didn't check in the night before. Due to this, she got what they call 'boarding zone 99'. This essentially means that they oversold the plane and she does not have a seat unless someone gives it up for her. They offered TWO round trip tickets for the seat. I was honestly tempted to do so, but we would have made Miles' parents pick us up twice. Anyway, once we go to Florida I realized how much of the warm weather I was missing in Rochester. Fortunately it wasn't too humid, the weather was great. I was so excited to start my vacation off right. Miles' dad picked us up from the airport. It was really hard to miss him because he was so tall. We got to his house, which was crazy. It was basically two houses (one main, one guest) with a long swimming pool in the middle. It kind of reminded me of those houses you see on TV that always hosts pool parties. Everyone was really excited so we made PBJs, drank beer, and got into the pool. Good life right? We then decided to check out downtown of St. Petersburg before Miles arrived. We walked around their beautiful neighborhood, took some wrong turns, get attacked by birds (just Susana), and finally got downtown. This town is actually full of old people, but it was very relaxing. We went into a spice shop. They had like everything here (even green chile powder), and the spices were CHEAP. We then went to a chocolate store where Susana and Alex bought chocolate covered bacon and something else. Then, the hungry us decided to eat at a cute cafe downtown. We walked around the bay area, lounged around, waited for Miles to arrive, and then have dinner with his family. The dinner was really yummy, his family is crazy funny and loves drinking, I can see the resemblance now.

Saturday:
We started our drive to Miami in the morning. The car ride was nice, we ate some cheese and crackers like classy people. After about 4 hours, we arrived at the everglades. We went on a gator tour which Miles' parents kindly bought us tickets for. It was really fun because the airboat went so fast. However, we only saw 2 alligators, booo :(. Afterwards, we arrived at Miami. This place was exactly how I imagined. It was full of tall white buildings, cruise ships, Cubans, and other stereotypes that are true. After we settled into our sketchy hotel at North Shore, we decided to venture out for some food. After much walking, we found a sushi place and settled on that. It was really good and fresh! I was full, but the others weren't, so they decided to get a pizza haha. We then went to the liquor store to get some alcohol, drank, went to the beach, and finally a diner to satisfy those late night cravings. I can say that this was a very relaxing day, especially because I love going to the beach at night or early mornings.

Sunday: Our parking situation kind of sucked because after 8am (or was it 7am? or 9am?), we had to pay for parking. Since I was such a light sleeper, I knew I wouldn't have slept much anyway, so I volunteered myself to get up and pay the parking fee. It was actually really nice getting up early in the morning. Despite the windy and semi-cold weather, I walked around the beach, had some free hotel breakfast, sat outside, and just watched the sunrise. It was really quiet, so everything was peaceful and serene. After everyone woke up, we ate some empanadas and then headed to South Beach, where all the fun was. South Beach has this place called Lincoln Road, which is essentially a street of shopping, food, and cute markets. I really wanted to go shopping but I was with a bunch of guys and Susana, so that didn't work out too well. We ate at this really yummy restaurant called Van Dyke, where I think I got a massive burger. Oh, and there was a random flash rain, so we sat in and drank mojitos during happy hour. We then lounged on the beach to soak in all the sun. The weather wasn't too great, so we started heading back to prepare to go clubbing at night. Miles introduced us to one of his friends and some of his other friends, we drank together and then Susana me and Miles headed to a club. However, once we got there the place was soooo packed, we decided to do hookah. This was my second time doing hookah, and I still don't think I enjoy it that much. It just doesn't affect me so the smoke and all isn't really worth it.

Monday: I woke up early again because I wanted to do sunrise yoga. However, I couldn't find them (they happened to be 20min late), so I decided to take pictures instead. Luckily, it was a great day for a sunrise because there were a lot of clouds and just  small stream of sunlight with lots of birds and cruise ships in the background. I sat on the lifeguard post for about 2 hours taking pictures and enjoying the view before everyone woke up. The one thing I have always enjoyed is sitting alone at the beach with no one around, not sure why but I have always done this. Afterwards, we checked out of our hotel and headed to Little Havana to eat at a place called Camarones (or something like that). I looked it up online previously and it had great ratings about their seafood. It turns out that this little place was on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on Food Network. The food was amazing, but too bad Josh couldn't eat any of it. Afterwards came our journey to Orlando. Alex and I were really excited for HP world. When we got there, first thing I thought was that the hotel was such a big improvement from the one in Miami. It was a lot cheaper, cleaner, and had a pool and bar. We went somewhere to eat because Josh hadn't eaten all day. Afterwards, I took a nap by the pool while everyone else did their own thing. For dinner, we went to Publix, bought a lot of random stuff, and had dinner in the hotel.

Tuesday:
UNIVERSAL STUDIOS! Harry Potter land was amazing, butterbeer was so tasty, the rides were long line but fun. I love this place. We headed back to St. Petersburg in the afternoon.

Wednesday:
We went fishing with Miles' grandpa. It was so much fun and such a different experience than in NM. First of all, there were a lot of fish so it was more fishing than waiting. Second, these fishes were hugeee. Third, we caught like 20+ fish. Fourth, Susana caught a grouper larger than 22 inches so we go to keep it. Later, we found out this was illegal, but thankfully we didn't get caught. After bringing the fish home and much trouble with our bikes, we biked to a restaurant where they cleaned the fish and fried it for us into sandwiches. It was soooo tasty. At night, we got driven to Miles' grandma's beach house in Clearwater. This place was soo nice! I could definitely live here. It was right by the beach, like the backyard was the beach. It also had a jacuzzi and swimming pool, which we played in for a while.

Thursday:
We biked to a buffet (with lots of trouble on bike with Alex and Josh lol), chilled at the beach for a whole day (nice and relaxing), then went to the Conch to enjoy some drinks and food. The food here was great, we had alligator, banana foster, and lots of main dishes. I also took the time to take pictures of the sunset at the beach. This restaurant was my favorite out of everywhere we went to.

Friday:
We biked 10 miles to a brunch place with amazing eggs benedict then the 10 miles back. It made me really miss biking. Oh, and Alex fell off his bike and scraped his hand, owww. We then got ice cream to wait for them and headed back to pack for our flight. And to end this adventure, we decided to have dinner outside our terminal cause we're dumbasses and missed our flight because security had a long line. We ended up spending the night at the airport where I read 2 Hunger Game books in preparation for the movie. We had wheel chair races and free food. We were so sleep deprived, but it was like a fun slumber party (just at the airport).

And that concludes our trip to Florida! It was such a nice break from Rochester, the studying, the weather, etc. I definitely want to head back there again someday.

Another Christmas; Another New Year

Life is going by at 100mph and I want a cop to stop me and tell me to slow down.

Senior year has been one of my best semesters. I got to hang out with friends, not stress too much about school work, bond more with Sigmas, dance more with Rice Crew, and lastly, work much closer with CSA. Everyone is beginning to feel like family and I can't even begin to think about life after they're gone.

Putting the sentimental stuff aside, I'll give a quick recap of my semester. Geez, where should I even start?

After taking the GREs, school shortly began. My day-before-school-start flight was actually cancelled for the first time in my life. They provided me a free hotel with dinner + breakfast, so it was actually really relaxing. I got to school the next day bright and early, thanks to Anthony who volunteered to pick me up. (Yay friends with cars!)

Suite Life of Moxi, Yichen, Alice, and Soyoun:
I love living with these three girls. Although sometimes we probably annoy each other with cleaning up, trash, not sleeping, eating, etc., but at the end of the day they are a really fun bunch to live with. At the beginning of the year we would do stupid stuff together and work out in the suite. Yichen also bought us beach themed decoration so our suite was very warm. Also, our across the hall neighbors (CSA suite + Josh) are all very fun to hang out with. We go there whenever (as in a lot), and chill/watch TV/play video games. I feel like I finally have brothers! Lol...in a way.

Classes:
I took Developmental Psychology, Capoeria, Voice Lessons, BCS 152, and Statistics. (Which, btw I got a 3.81 GPA from this semester and I am sooo happy) The one class I took for fun I got a B+ in, never again...

Social: 
Yeah, this is about all I did this semester which is why I enjoyed it so much.

As school got rolling around so did rush week, Mid-Autumn festival, CSA first GIM, and RICE practice. This year there were 140 international Chinese freshman, so our CSA became very fobby all of the sudden, not that it is a bad thing. Our first GIM and barbecue turned out really fun. We had a Sigma party at the suite (beach themed), which ended up getting broken up by the cops because one of my syands was yelling at them drunkenly haha. Despite all that, it was fun because I was bartending.

Mid-Autumn was the first weekend of October. Because I didn't really help much in it (since everyone who stayed during the summer did stuff), I just organized a bit and then danced with RICE crew. It was so much fun! I got a CSA little shortly after that, Jo-Jo!

I'm also making a lot of food this semester, whether it's baking or cooking. Surprisingly, everyone I'm around loves to cook so we always have time to make stuff with each other. For example, Alex and I have made bread about 4-5 times (which the first 3 times failed). Andrea and Kathy also used to come over to bake cupcakes, which were delicious! Susana too actually, but she never cleaned haha.

We went apple picking, hot poting, camping (10 people in this huge tent!), Russell Peters, lots of CSA events, domestic violence awareness week (with banquet too!), NERR at Rochester, Vice&Virtue (top bidder $180!), Halloween mixer + others, ice skating, me driving SA van (mwahaha), pre-Thanksgiving dinner, Thanksgiving in NYC with Emma/Jing/Sining.

As you can tell, it was very eventful that I'd probably end up writing a book. The only thing I gotta elaborate on is 12/3. This was one of the best days of my life! I got into Take-Five AND Rice Crew won 2nd place in DU competition. I couldn't have asked for a better day. Well...I could have because I had to study after instead of to to Crab Shack. But anyway, I feel like sometimes all the hard work does pay off despite what normally happens.

Best Summer EVER

Monday some SURPies and I went to The Sunburnt Cow, all you can eat and drink (yes, alcohol included) for $20 only! The problem with going there that day was that I had not eaten anything until here (7pm), so my stomach was really empty and after 2 cocktails, I was feeling it. This never happens! Now I know what it feels like to drink on an empty stomach haha. Definitely worth a trip here though, I heard the brunch was really good too. After that I went to a Belgium place to celebrate Sining’s 21^st, the waffle was amazing (even though I just took a bit cause I could handle no more food).

Tuesday, I had finally had Ippudo with Stephen, after hearing about it foreverrrr. It was delicious and highly recommended! At night, I met up with Nicole and Joewin to go to a place Alice suggested for pork over rice, Wah Fung, again….AMAZING!! Only $3 too geez, what a deal. We then walked to Brooklyn bridge over the Manhattan bridge trying to find a place to take pictures. However, it randomly started to pour, so we just chilled in a Starbucks until it got better and headed home. Brooklyn Bridge take 2 the next day.

Wednesday, I had my last lab meeting, which I dunno is good or bad lol. Later, I had dinner with Susana and Sarah at a nice sushi place. We then met up with Marjorie, Nicole, and Joewin at Brooklyn bridge for take 2. There was a couple there in a wedding dress playing in the river while getting their photo taken, it was so cute! Though, I can’t help but wonder how much her dress cost that she is ruining by standing in the river. After some nice pictures, we went to karaoke in K-town. Ahhh I miss singing!! I hate being in a dorm because don’t like random neighbours/roommates hearing my singing lol.

Thursday I went to Six Flags Great Adventure with Susana, Stephen, John, and Victor. This place was so different than the one in LA. Although it is the original, it is definitely much smaller (only about 8 roller coasters versus 18 ish), the park was smaller as well. My favorite ride there has got to be Kingda Ka, it’s kind of like Superman at Magic Mountain but shoot you up at 120mph and then drops you down on a different side haha, very fun. It was such a long day because I woke up at 6am after sleeping at 4am, headed out at 7am to pick up breakfast/meet people, got picked up at 8am, got there at 10:30am, it started to rain in between so we bummed in the car for 2 hours, got out of the park by 8pm, dropped by Sonic because some of them NYers have never had it, got back at midnight lol.

Friday was such a bittersweet day because we’re all moving out Saturday, and possibly never seeing each other again. We ate at Otto with our mentors, and that place is amazing. I swear this program is awesome because we got huge gourmet tray of appetizers, various personal pizzas, coffee break, and many many flavours of gelato including sour cream and olive oil! This place tastes very authentic. We then went to the park to get our certificates and Chaia and Josh made paper plate awards for us, as well as Chiye, who is the best person ever and I’m so glad she is the director of the program.  At night, some SURPies and I went to Pommes Frites again to have our last dinner together! It was so bittersweet saying goodbye to everyone because we may or may not see each other again L After that I met up with Sining, Jay, and some friends (well…ended up being lots of people) to karaoke at K-one, I really like the atmosphere of that place and not too expensive!

Saturday, my last day, I moved out in the morning, and then went to an Indian Buffet. After that, we shopped for a bit, and ate Mediterranean food. Both places were amazinggg and as I am writing this one day later, I still haven’t hungry after stuffing myself with lots of naan/pita + meat.

I'm glad that I got to do most of the things I stated in my first week post of NY. Makes me feel very accomplished!

1.       Watch Broadway Watched THREE Broadways and spent less than $60 in all.

2.       Watch a fashion show (I doubt this is likely…) Well...I went to Alexander McQueen exhibit if that counts :)

3.       Sew a tote bag I'm sewing a camera bag instead haha

4  Take nice pictures (especially at night: Brooklyn Bridge, Time S nitely took much more than I thought and grew as  photographer.

5.       Some museums like MoMA Check, check, and check, went to 4 museums I think

6.       Six Flags New Jersey So much fun!

7.       Skydive at Long Island I did go to Long Island though!

8.       Shop Of course

9.       Eat: Try most of the famous cart foods and cool/interesting restaurants. I definitely accomplished this more than anything else.

10.   Bake macarons Even though it failed.

I’m sad to say my summer in NY is over. It has been one of the best summers ever. Goodbye New York.

Before I end this post, I compiled a list of all my favorite places to eat for future reference and suggestions, so here they are (note, this is about 30% of the places I went to so they are good, trust me):

Mostly cheap cause I’m cheap

$ under 10, $$ 11-20, $$$ 21-30

Ukrainian: 

            Streechas $

Carts:

Korean/Mexican: Korilla $

Indian: Kati roll $

Belgium waffles: Waffles & Dingles $

Japanese:

Ramen: Ippudo $$

Oyako don + skewers : Tori Shin $$$

Soba noodles: Soba koh $$

Chinese:

Milk Tea: TKettle $, CoCo $, Kung Fu Tea $

Seafood and homecooked dishes: Zhou zhi jia $$

Soup Dumplings: nan xiang xiao long bao $

Sesame pancake + duck/boiled pork dumplings: Prosperity Dumpling $

Roast pork over rice: Wah Fung

Bagel: 

           Ess-A Bagel $

Cambodian: 

          Num Pang $

Deli: 

          Katz Deli $$

Mexican: 

         Tulcingo Del Valle $

Italian

Pizza: Lombardis $$

Pizza and everything else: Otto $$

Chicken wings + interesting Korean drinks: BonChon $$

Brunch: Sunburnt Cow (all you can eat + drink (alcohol included)) $$

Empanada mama $$

High Class

Monday there was a New York undergraduate biomedical research conference on the 50^th floor of a building near the World Trade Center. This place was so high class haha, I felt very rich. There were about 200 undergraduates doing research in the city, we all gathered together, and had a panel of 5 people give us advice for the future. The advice was definitely needed, but mostly geared towards MD/PhD and biology labs than what I want to do: clinical neuropsychology. It definitely made me feel a lot better about the GREs, even though it’s still very important because I want to get passed the first cut of people.

Tuesday night I went to “The View” restaurant with Alice, Susana, Tina, and Victor, which is probably one of the most expensive places I’ve ever been. Talk about high class! The place was at the Marriot and it was located on the 50^th floor right by Times Square. Each 3 course meal costs $35 because it’s restaurant week, I also got a pina colada (and they didn’t even ID me). Honestly though, the view was great, the food probably wasn’t worth THAT much money but it was really delicious. The restaurant was two stories and it rotated around, so you can see the view of entire Manhattan and some of Queens/Brooklyn. I ended up spending $65 on my meal, waaa, but so worth it.

It’s so frustrating working in my lab sometime because Denis honestly just doesn’t care. Plus, no one is ever there, except for the grad student, Sarah. I dunno what I’d do without her, I’d probably go crazy because I can complain to her about him haha. My presentation is this Friday and he hasn’t even seen it yet. Most of the mentors have gone through it 5-6 times with the other students. He didn’t show up to the practice one, made me summarize in words during lab meeting (of course I can summarize it, that’s not what I’m worried about), and I don’t think he’ll even see it on Friday. I’m totally fine with him not seeing my powerpoint because I honestly just don’t care at this point. I did the program for the experience, money, and a recommendation letter and I’m leaving with 2.5 so I’d say that’s an A- in my book haha. The people in the department all know him and before I even say anything about what has happened they can guess which lab I’m in, which is really sad that his reputation goes that far. If anything happens on Friday, questions I can’t answer/mess up on talk etc., I think ultimately it’ll make him look bad and not me.  

At night, the program went to “How to succeed in business without really trying” broadway show. They bought the tickets for us and our mentors (how nice)! The show starred Daniel Radcliffe so I was excited just for that reason. Compared to Wicked and Bengal Tiger at Baghdad Zoo, this was my second favorite. The only problem with this was that the songs were that great or memorable, the actors were not great singers. However, the dances were the best I’ve seen, they threw around boxes, jumped around, tap danced, did weird things, and it was crazy. Also, the plot was very very clever. I wanted to wait for Daniel Radcliffe at the end, but everyone in my program left already. So…I went to Jane’s place to go cut her hair like I promised. It turned out better than I thought, I’m pretty proud of myself hahaha. Then I told her to cut my bangs, just a straight cut and she ended up cutting too much so now it’s short L Oh well, it’ll grow out. She gave me some clothes though so it all made up for it hahaha.

Thursday I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Yichen for the Alexander McQueen exhibit. I’ve heard about the first day I came to NYC and just kept hearing from random people about how good it is. Finally, I decided to check it out. His clothing…is art, I can’t describe it. He’s so creative, but dark. I would describe his pieces as frightening masterpieces (look up Alexander McQueen on youtube or something for his stuff, it’s AMAZING, words cannot describe this).

Friday was the symposium for the program, so everyone in the department + outside people were invited. Of course, my mentor didn’t show up so no one I knew was there, which made it a lot easier for me. I’m so proud of everyone in the program for going through this 9 weeks so far! I still can’t believe that I was 12 out of 500 people selected for this. Preparing for this presentation truly taught me a lot (even though my mentor never saw the finished product).

Friday night, Anthony, Alex, and Willie came to town so me and Nita had dinner with them at a Pho & Shabu place in St. Marks. I had a Vietnamese sandwich and it was ok. I think once you go Num Pang you just can’t go back. I then dragged Nita and Alex along to a roof to take pictures of the NY skyline, but it kinda failed cause my tripod wasn’t high enough, was fun though.

Saturday I went to Flushing with some Rochester people and finally had Picnic Garden! For $20, all you can eat Korean BBQ. It was definitely good, but not as good as China (expected). However, I loved the marinated ones, just not the sauce as much. Overall, it was definitely worth the long hot walk there. Did I mention NYC is currently in a heatwave? 100 degrees with lots of humidity = I don’t wanna go outside

Sunday I had brunch with Alex at a cool place that was really good, but totally maxed out on amount of eggs I can eat per day. I totally food coma’d after. But…had to make room for dinner with Jay and Yi at Soba Koh, which is the best soba noodles I’ve ever had, definitely recommended! I haven’t seen them for a while, so it was nice catching up (and practicing my Chinese).

Manhattanhenge, End of an Era, and Poker

Tuesday was Manhattanhenge, something that occurs only 2x a year. I was lucky enough to be around and take pictures of this awesome day! Let me just tell you, this is THE CRAZIEST photo taking experience I have ever been through, hands down. It made it totally worth it to ride that subway from 14^th - 42^nd street ($4.5 subway fare zzz). 

Anyway I’ll start from the beginning, I looked up good places to take pictures of this day and everywhere pointed to Tudor City (42^nd and  1^st) bridge. So I was thinking of going 45 minutes early to grab a spot, not too early because I didn’t wanna be a loser and wait by myself. When I got there around 7:30pm (sunset is at 8:20pm), the bridge was PACKED. I have never seen so many people, tripods, expensive lenses + bodies (I’m talking $10,000+), all in one place. I can’t even describe how packed it was!! (Search tudor city manhattanhenge on Flickr). So that was obviously out of the question. I decided to go to 42^nd and 2^nd to take some pictures. Of course, people were already shooting away. The funny and most fun part was, you had to wait for a red light, step to the middle of the street (along with 30+ photographers), snap snap snap at different exposures/bracketing, get honked at by cars for blocking their way, clear the road because it’s a green light, do it all over again. This was the case for the first half hour, and it was just beginning to get fun. When the sun actually started to set (~8:15pm), there were too many of us at one intersection that every person kept stepping up a bit. For example, if someone is blocking me, I would go around them and take a spot ahead of them. If I’m blocking someone, they would walk ahead of me. Basically, we didn’t care about blocking cars at that point. Every single photographer (100+) were in the VERY middle of the street to take that perfect/symmetrical shot. We basically formed a single file line that probably goes across Manhattan. If this is JUST 42^nd street, think about all the other ones as well.

Honestly though, photographer-fest and it was crazy awesome experience. I’m waiting for photos to be uploaded so I can find myself in some of them haha. I managed to take 300 photos in 30minutes, high score.

Wednesday I had dinner with Jane and Sining at Saigon Shack. Their sandwiches were ok, I liked Num Pang better. But this place was very cheap (my huge sandwich only $5, I ate half and was full lol)

Thursday I went to the Streb Human Fountain free performance at the World Finance Center after work today. However, we totally missed it and caught the ending Q&A…lol fail #1. It was very interesting to see where the World Trade Center used to be though. The event never effected me personally since I was so far away and knew no one close, but seeing this up close definitely brought back memories.  Anyway, we decided to head to Wah Fung in China Town for their $2.50 (I think now it’s $3.00) cha shao rou over rice lol so Hong Kong. We got there around 8:30pm and it closed…fail #2. Jane wanted to go to a bubble tea place close by but…it was closed again fail #3. We then went to a tea place called Yum Yum, not really bubble tea, but their drinks were delicious. The place next door was still open for food, and we went there to eat. It was just ok. On the way back, I got off the wrong stop…fail #4 lol. Anyway, that’s the last of the fails.

At around 10pm, some SURPies and I started lining up for Harry Potter THE LAST ONE. I didn’t know how to feel because I don’t want it to end. After the movie finished, I was totally in shock. The ending was great, but the fact that I didn’t want it to end made it…very very sad. This is definitely the closing of a chapter in my life. Maybe after this I will finally feel grown up.

Saturday I went to Atlantic City with Manuel. We both love to poker, so thought…hey, why not? I woke up at 9am that day for the 10am bus, we both tiredly headed to the terminal and got on our 2.5 hour ride. We got off at Caesars which gave us a $25 voucher to play at a slot. However, you have to play everything. Basically, I won $55 from the slot, so $35 profit. I thought of this as getting my round trip bus ticket back. We then wandered around the boardwalk/beach, very upset that we didn’t realize AC actually had a beach and we weren’t dressed appropriate. We had a Nathan’s hotdog, which was delicious. Then…it was poker time. I was so excited, yet nervous because I was such a noob. We went to I think it was Tropicana and played 2/4/6 limit poker. We were both split up into different tables because there weren’t enough seats. I was so intimidated at first because everyone at my table was 50+ years old. The terms like ‘option’, etc, I have never heard in my life. But anyway, I got the hang of it after a while.

I always thought that playing poker wasn’t against the house, so I felt better with the losses. However, I quickly realized that the casino takes 10% of the pot PLUS you have to tip the dealer every time you win (about $1 for our table, which is about 5-10% of what we win). This is so dumb because when we cash out we could’ve been 15-20% richer, but I guess that’s how they gain money…why have I not thought about that. I played there from 2-5pm, bought in with $100, was as low as $35, and ended up cashing out with $95, with almost a heart attack. So basically, that was no profit, which was cool because I had fun.

I then went to the outlets before it closed, bought a $5 sub, window shopped until 8pm, $5 gelato and met up with Manuel again. We then played some random slots to get free drinks lol, after many slots played at 3 different casinos (win and loss sums up to 0 profit again), quick loss of $10 at blackjack, we were on our way to check out the night life. There was a beach party that costed $10 to get into, we were like…whatever, we’re here. So we went, danced to a couple of beachy songs, and left to play more poker.

This time was at Taj because the bus left from there at 4am. We started at around midnight. This time was more friendly/young people, but they definitely played different. It was 2/4 limit and I bought in with $80. At about 3am, I was going up and down staying around $30-$40, which was killing me since I planned to get out of AC without losing money. This was when I realized the value of money. I was willing to throw away $50 for food, but yet when I lose just $50 in poker, it felt like $300. Anyway, in the end, I got a 4 of a kind and managed to cash out with $125. We got back at 7am that day, almost 24 hours of gambling.

So in summary…I wrote a lot of money stuff here because I wanted to figure out how much I ACTUALLY earned in AC (just for fun of course). And I think with all the food/transportation/random slots/tips/blackjack, my profits comes to 0. Which basically means…a free vacation!

Sunday was the world cup final: Japan vs. USA. I woke up at 3pm just in time to watch it. USA was definitely the better team, more aggressive, better team work. Japan was more strategic and defensive, not to mention their team’s average height is a mere 5’4’’. In the end, Japan always managed to come back from defeat and it ended up at PKs. USA missed the first there shots and Japan took home the title of the championship. It was a good game, but I guess I still prefer the men’s world cup a lot more based on the aggressiveness. I guess athleticism just can’t compare? Kind of sad. For dinner I went to Zhou Jia Zhuang and it was delicious, very authentic Chinese food!

Poreoticsssss....or not.

7/4-7/10

Monday, July 4^th, I went with some friends and lots of friend’s friends to an Italian place called Maria Pia. This was the first time I’ve had Italian food after going to Italy. I must say…it just isn’t the same. Afterwards, we headed to the roof again and watched the fireworks. Even though it was a bit short (30 minute display), the fireworks was amazing. It was across the Hudson river with a two mile distance, so it was basically a panel of synchronized fireworks.  

Wednesday I went bar hopping with some SURP people, we also hit up Pommes Frites, a Belgian fries place. The sauces were amazing, but the fries were just okay! I don’t see why it has 3000 reviews on Yelp honestly lol.

Thursday I went to Lombardi’s Pizza with Jane and Stephen. It is NY’s first pizza place and it was sooo good. This is definitely gourmet pizza, and very expensive too! They don’t sell it by the slice and it’s actually real mozzarella on there. I love it!

Friday I went to Circle club at Korea Town. It was very interesting because it’s an Asian club! They played mostly pop songs, but also some Korean songs. The original intent was to go to watch Poreotix. However, I think we got the date wrong or something because they never came. So…we just ended up dancing. I had lots of fun except after 2 hours, my feet REALLY started hurting. I think it was so moist that day so it kept rubbing in my shoes, but honestly it’s never hurt so much in my life. It was soooo bad, but I got a good jelly foot wash afterwards hahaha. 

On a side note, I'm freaking out about the GREs. I have so many presentations, program events, plans with friends that I feel like it's going to ruin all my studying time. Ugh, I wish I would put GREs first sometimes.

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.