My Sweet Tooth Needed Attention So...

I dream of the remnants of last week as its lasting effects still linger. It was truly one of the best spring breaks I've had, mainly because I wasn't at home being idle, and it also allowed me to form some revelations. Last year, I was stuck with jury duty for six days during my spring break. I got to see most of my friends, unfortunately not all of my friends. For that, I am sorry. Because there was never an idle moment, I didn't have period of a couple of hours to blog, however I wanted to because it would be one huge post if I were to post about my week all in one post. And that's what I'm gonna do.

I call this spring break my Delicious Journey, a name that was inspired from a JustKiddingFilms video. I had the need to satisfy my sweet tooth, just because I didn't have my sugar fix for weeks (I've had natural sources of sugar from fruit and juice, not that I'm complaining). I was surprised that I didn't end up with diabetes by the end of the week. Just kidding, I hope that will never happen /knock on wood. I also got to catch up with my J-doramas "Love Shuffle" and "Mei-chan no Shitsuji," both of which I highly recommend to watch. I even got to peek at some manga, alas they weren't finished with scanlating the manga.

Weekends are negligent because they are my usual dessert days.

Monday: Guppy House with the "Guppy Special" with two friends. Before dessert, they had 50 Din Tai Fung dumplings. Can you say piggies?


We ended up finishing everything, except the bottle of condensed milk. :)

An actual guppy! :O


Tuesday: A small sleepover at my house; we went to Ralph's to get some ice cream to go with our brownies and movie. We ended up watching "The House Bunny." Went to bed by 4AM. Regretably, no photos

Wednesday: Lunch with a friend in Pasadena at Sushiya. We obviously had some sushi and went for the all-you-can-eat deal. We arrived too late, so we ordered from the menu. Luckily we did because the bill ended up being cheaper than one person's price for the all-you-can-eat deal. We had Taiwanese shaved ice for dessert at Bin Bin Konjac.

I probably watched dorama that night.


Thursday: The official "Dessert Run" day with my two buddies. We drove to Santa Monica for Sprinkles Cupcakes, but before dessert we had lunch at Panini Cafe. They made delicious non-greasy looking paninis that tasted really fresh. Afterwards, we went next door to Sprinkles and purchased a dozen cupcakes (split, of course). Let me describe the cupcake, it is absolutely phenomenal! The cake itself isn't very sweet, but rich in flavor. That means you have to eat the cake with its icing in order to balance out the sweetness. Being so moist and rich-tasting, it is definitely filling. You might find yourself eating four of these a day if you're not careful!

We drove up to Topanga Canyon for scenic stops. For being a resident of LA my whole life, I had no idea such scenery existed. The most foliage I've ever seen in one area in LA is either in a large recreational park, or a nursery. Until that day, the only scenic routes that I've seen were the ones in northern California's I-5, Oregon, Washington, so forth. I had a brief high when we were going up the mountain (large hill?). After we left the hill, we stopped by the beach for 10 minutes for pictures. I wish we could have stayed longer, but it was too cold for the beach.

After we got back home, a friend was dropped off, and my remaining friend accompanied me to go return something I ordered from the Body Shop online. After I returned the items, I realized that they overlooked the fact that I used a 10% off from my membership card, so I earned about $5. With that, I treated my friend to some yogurt from Yogurtland.

I probably spent the night watching dorama. Ahh bliss.

He had Hello Kitty Band-Aids in his glove compartment!








Mmm, red velvet with cream cheese frosting.

Topanga Canyon




My first bite!



Friday: I had a hot date with Miss Kylie (visit her at kiitzyy.blogspot.com!), who is a real friend of mine. We had lunch at Bamboodles, caught up, and of course chatted about makeup! She surprised me with a gift bag full of goodies. (RAWR! I'll getchu back just you wait!) I showed her a little place in my city where the local makeup junkies purchase discount MAC items. She totally fell head over heels for the little shop. Teehee I'm glad she enjoyed it! Too bad our date was short; she had to go to work. I can't wait for our next outing!

Later that evening, I had to go to Irvine for a potluck-ish kind of hang out at a friend's apartment. I brought my mom's southeast Asian chicken curry. Mmm.. that night we had really yummy food. I wish I took pictures, but I was too lazy to. Dorothy was taking photos all night so I'll mooch off of that. Got home at 2AM, and I just knocked out.

Isn't she lovely?! :) She looks so tiny compared to the bowl!! <33 href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/SU5dw5gfpNYJ1BsBEka7LA?authkey=Gv1sRgCPTpy8y245zkggE&feat=embedwebsite">
Spicy Beef Stew with Spinach noodles.

Spicy Wontons

Me and the noodle maker LOL. He was bouncing on the noodle dough on that bamboo stick. It was a sight to see!



Saturday: I woke up early in the morning and ran errands with my mother. Saturday morning/early afternoons are usually my busy hours because I have to buy groceries for my apartment (Asian supermarkets, for the win!), go to the bank, hang out with my mom, etc. I rolled about 100 eggrolls in a period of 2 hours /bow. Of course, I brought some with me to my apartment.

Later that evening, I met up with my friend for a long overdue play date. We ate at Sin Bala for Taiwanese food because I didn't want to eat something that was heavy in oil and grease. After that, we went to his friend's house to play Apples to Apples. He hangs out with the dorkiest people, but they were really cool. What's also funny, is that the friend happens to live about 3 blocks away from my home, and I've never seen him in my life.


Sunday: Finally, the day I've dreaded the whole week. The end of my "journey."

While packing, I looked through my dusty old Sterlite storage boxes and came across a residue of my tendency for leaving short-term projects: making jewelery out of Swarovski crystals. I have so many bracelets, earrings, findings, and the crystal beads themselves left over that I don't know what to do with them.

My dad dropped me off at 3PM.

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Honestly, I've never missed home like this before. Until recently, I thought about how nice it was to live away from home, to be away from everything. With this mentality, I thought I could be independent. I can read this blog's first post and see how my perspective has transitioned to the way I am now. In ways, I can be that independent girl I aim to be; however there are times when I feel so vulnerable, that I get a tendency to attach myself to something that is strongly reinforced and permanent, for example, my parents' unconditional love and support. In times when I feel like a lost child, my parents, no matter how much they nag you, no matter how much they scold you, no matter how much they call you just to check up on you; in the end, their love for their children is the only thing in this world that is solid and certain.

Although last quarter was not an enjoyable one, I'm glad that experience did not ruin my spring break. I can sort of transcend from that. I'm glad I have somewhat recuperated from a period of despair and overwhelming stress. I'm glad that I have such colorful, wonderful things in my life that (will) keep me from falling hard into the dirt, such as my family, friends, and two cute little dogs. For that reason, I feel guilty for occassionally uttering (it's a daily phrase nowadays) "fuck my life," generally because I don't really mean it. I love my life, but I really hate the situation that's going on in my life. (FYI, I started to say FML after I watched Superbad last year before it got viral). One should say, "fuck my situation" instead.

What I'm trying to get across to you, my reader, is please consider what you're saying when you say "fuck my life," especially if you really don't mean it. Nowadays, it's being used in vain (thanks to a certain viral site). Think about it this way: I said "fuck my life" in front of my cousin one day, and he snapped at me and said "Hey! Don't say that, I'm in your life!" Oh I love my cousins.

Maybe after being deep in this comprehensive thought, I've come to a conclusion that I've developed a slight separation anxiety from home, or to blatantly state it, homesickness. I figured it's a normal occurence, but normal to me? Heck, I'm the type of person who won't call home after being a month away from home! What's happening to me?

To finally conclude this long post, I shall post pictures of my cute little dogs as a relief from my emo-ness.



I hope everyone enjoyed their spring break, or maybe you haven't started yours yet. Look forward to doing productive things!

Catching up

I am truly lucky to have such great parents.

I've got a dad who spends his time after work to drive an hour to my apartment to pick me up, along with a hodgepodge of my belongings, and drive an hour back home. He also drives me back to my apartment at the end of the weekend. Mind you, that is at least four hours spent on the freeway altogether (not counting bad traffic on the 60 either). This is one of the reasons why I try to avoid going home so often, as he is one of my only methods of getting home. My parents would hate if it I took the train to go home.

My mom is just as amazing, if not more. She calls me every day (yes, every day), and brings me to a guilt trip when I fail to make that one call for the day (though it can get very annoying, but that's okay). She makes sure my fridge at my apartment is full of food, and that I won't starve while she's not around. And what's in my fridge? Let me tell you what's in my freezer; homemade eggrolls and potstickers, meats and seafood, and frozen pizza from Costco (I swear, that's the only processed food in my food supply). In my fridge, there is fresh romaine lettuce, fresh tofu, bread, milk, eggs, along with the dinners/lunches my mom prepares on the day that I leave. Let me specify her Sundays on the weekends that I'm home. She gets up earlier than me in the morning, goes grocery shopping with my dad, then comes home at around noon. She prepares a couple of dishes for me to bring, so that I can easily heat these up and eat them with rice. That's a meal! She also prepares soup for me. This weekend, she prepared some curry chicken and potatoes, lemongrass pork, and ginger chicken soup (for me to be warm during these cold days). That's her whole Sunday afternoon right there, preparing food for me. How can I not be thankful for such a great cook for a mother? I feel like a modern day princess when I'm at home.

Just because there was a small demand for more pictures of food, I'll go post some. These foods were concocted in the previous weeks, but I was too lazy to post. I suppose I'll give a brief description of each picture/food.

This pasta was created with some alfredo sauce I bought from Trader Joe's for $2.99. I think it's pretty tasty sauce. I threw in some boiled and drained pasta, alfredo sauce, spinach, garlic, and shrimp in there. But I had some pasta left over. What did I do with it?

I came up with an oriental-tasting pasta, which was inspired from how I usually cooked my fried rice. It was delicious, but unfortunately I didn't have any pictures of the finished meal.

Speaking of fried rice, I make bombass fried rice. I make this when I have left over spam and rice. I keep a bag of frozen mixed carrots and peas in my freezer for stuff like this. What sauce do I use? Vegetarian oyster sauce, and no, it's not as bad as you think once you taste this fried rice. I even caught my roommate sneaking some into bowl, and she thought she was sneaky! LOL.

My mom's prepared frozen eggrolls look like this after I have fried them. It's hard to believe that it was frozen! These babies are the ONLY eggrolls I would eat huge amounts of (aside from the ones my aunt makes, but I digress). The filling includes mainly taro, shrimp (this is what makes it tasty), onions, carrots, vermicelli, and salt&pepper I think. They are the tastiest eggrolls, EVAR. Even ask my friend Shelly; I invite her over to my parties because I know she loves these. So, can I entice you readers (whom I assume are my friends) to come over and visit me? I re-created a Vietnamese dish with some vermicelli noodles, vegetables, and the fish sauce my mom made. I have a glass of the sauce kept in my fridge. The resulting dish is something like a fresh-tasting garden salad.

Finally, the potstickers my mom made at home. The filling was made using her own recipe, and wrapped by her, with love. <3. They can be found frozen in my freezer, but whenever I want to eat them, I take them out and cook them. They smell sooo good after they're ready. Don't they also look good?

Oh and another note, most of these meals only took <30 minutes to prepare. As my jack-of-all-trades uncle would always say, " I am proud of myself!"