Oh dear, it’s been quite a while since I blogged, but a lot has also hap­pened since then as well!

Tues­day, May 4th, 2010
– Had the final class of draw­ing and comp, and dealt with the last paper works of the apart­ment (messed up).
– After a frus­trat­ing class on Tues­day, I went home and helped Theresa move in.
– Car­o­line got home around 6PM and we went to Italy’s Lit­tle Kitchen to eat.
– We went home and started mov­ing stuff into our apart­ment until about 1AM
– I cleaned the apart­ment, for vacat­ing, until 3AM

Wednes­day, May 5th, 2010
– Woke up at 5AM to leave for San Fran­cisco (we were all very, very tired)

– Arrived at our des­ti­na­tion, San Fran­cisco around 3/4PM and we checked into the motel.
– Walked around the touristy areas — Lom­bard street, Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghi­rardelli Square; bought my par­ents a pack of nice Ghi­rardelli. choco­lates.


– We got prank attacked by a man sit­ting with fake bushes beside a garbage can. He’s also known to be the famous BUSHMAN :)
– Had “din­ner” at  a lit­tle street store — clam chow­der! It was alright.

– Froze to death — bought THE BEST hot cocoa at Ghirardelli

Thurs­day, May 6th, 2010
– Woke up around 7/8AM to check-out of the motel and leave for Beaver­ton, Ore­gon

– Before leav­ing for Ore­gon, we made a pit stop at the Golden Gate Bridge — it was breath tak­ing!
– We arrived in Ore­gon around 10PM, after a 12 hour drive.
– Had a light snack and went to bed.

Fri­day, May 7th, 2010
– Woke up in the morn­ing and had a nice Dan­ish break­fast, at Caroline’s amaz­ing house.
– We left for Down­town Port­land and spent a nice after­noon there.

– Had lunch at Caro’s favorite: Pita Pit — deli­cious!
–We went to Ross and bought PJ dresses — they’re hilar­i­ous.
— Walked on the Hawthorne bridge and along the water­front of Willamette River
– Drove home and arrived around 3:30PM, and relaxed in the warm weather / sat on the porch
– Alex (Caro’s brother), drove home from Eugene and so we sat on the porch and had some funny con­ver­sa­tions with him and his friends
– Played bas­ket­ball with Filip (Caro’s younger brother), and every­one else
– Went long board­ing with Caro and had a nice din­ner with every­one (Alex’s friends, and the rest of the fam­ily).
– Spent some qual­ity time at the din­ner table, chat­ting about any­thing and every­thing.

– Did beer tast­ings of Alex&Friends home brews.
– Filip made us play Sar­dines with him, which I bailed out on later — it was WAY too scary in the dark!

Sat­ur­day, May 8th, 2010
– Took a nice walk through the for­est of the Mur­ray Hill and arrived a park where we played bas­ket­ball for a bit
– Got a call from Alex sug­gest­ing that we go shoot­ing with him and his friends
– Stopped by Dick’s to get ammo and that jazz.
– We arrived at Mount Hood, where the shoot­ing area is.

– Later on, we went and got Theresa’s ears pierced — she was a vir­gin with pierc­ings!
– Went to Holly’s house for her cousin’s engage­ment party at their house

Sun­day, May 9th, 2010
– Filip had a cou­ple bas­ket ball games, so we went to cheer him on
– Got Star­bucks dur­ing the inter­mis­sion
- Went for Mother’s day lunch at a Mex­i­can restau­rant, because all of the Japan­ese restau­rants were closed on Sun­day.
– Helped Alex draw up a bonus project layout/plan
– Had a won­der­ful Mother’s day din­ner with filet mignon, cham­pagne, and deli­cious appe­tiz­ers.
– Another night of chill­ing at the din­ner table, with Alex’s friends and the rest of the family.

Mon­day, May 10th, 2010
– Woke up around 8AM to shower and get ready for the drive to Seat­tle

– Said good­byes to the Fuller­ton house­hold and left for Seat­tle
– Arrived in Seat­tle at Pike’s Place / the pub­lic mar­ket to have lunch

— Bought fish & chips at a lit­tle mar­ket stand there.. not that good at all!
– Arrived in Van­cou­ver at around 7PM
– Had din­ner and then went for a walk around Colling­wood, and showed roomies Metrotown

Tues­day, May 11th, 2010
– Sky­trained and bussed down to Granville island

– Toured the island and rested for lunch at the Fish and Chips place.
– On our way home, we stopped by Pacific Cen­tre where roomies got their loads of Purdy’s <3
– Brought my roomies to meet mama and por­por
– Theresa had never stayed out late before, so I asked the Pret­ty­fuls to bring us out for bbt :D
– Estea bbt is offi­cially the worst the place for bbt. NO TIPS.

It’s been a very long cou­ple of weeks. I think I am ready to rest and sleep for the next two weeks when my sum­mer really begins!

Soo my day began with Des pick­ing me up, with Eye & Mar. There.. we went to drop Mar off at the air­porttt, since she had a flight to Arizona.

There, we went to “Golden Star” to have Dim Sum with the pretty peo­ple — we were won­der­fully 1 hour late HAHA. The food at Golden Start was mea­gre.. espe­cially for $4 per plate dim­sum­i­con . BUT Lola’s mommy worked there.. so she gave us a dis­count :) Yay. The guys ended up pay­ing for the bill because us girls didn’t eat much.

After eat­ing Des, Eye, Jess and I went to 711 to sat­isfy our slurpee  crav­ings, and there we saw Ms Tre­loar — awk­ward eheh. Then.. we went to Value Vil­lage, because Gail said we could find polaroid cam­eras. GAIL YOU LIED! I didn’t see any except for a  polaroidanime­icon Minolta film SLR — I should have asked how much it costed x_x.. I would have bought it if it were cheap :D.

Then we went to Super­store to get let­tuce for Eye’s mumma and we.. spent prob­a­bly 20 min­utes in the deodor­ant isle try­ing to fig­ure out which deodor­ant was the best HAHA. Eye ended up get­ting the Lady Speed Stick Clin­i­cal Proof, and  Jess ended up get­ting the Degree Clin­i­cal Pro­tec­tion.

We didn’t know what to do after, so we hap­haz­ardly went to Bur­nay Heights, to look at the view.. LOL. It was really pretty! and dri­ving down Hast­ings reminded me a lot of mem­o­ries that I had spent with my Grandpa, gro­cery shop­ping. I was quite sad­dened that the Mc Don­alds was closed at the cor­ner, a few years back, and now it’s still sit­ting there, lit­er­ally aban­doned. :( I used to go with Grandpa, often to have lunch.

When we got to Burn­aby Heights, I sug­gested we go to Cypress Bowl to watch the Fire­works, LOL.. so off we went.. :P. Before going, we did refill our tum­mys with mojos + chicken wedges corn­dogi­con squirtbottleicon .

The fire­works was .. dis­ap­point­ing, after we waited 4.5 hours for it.. but I guess the expe­ri­ence of being up there, and wit­ness­ing the view of Van­cou­ver, was ful­fill­ing enough.

Thank-You Desy for dri­ving us every­where. pink­hearti­con

I had.. the longest 2 day trip ever –_-”..

After school on Fri­day, I left for Seat­tle around 4:30PM. We got into the states around5:30 (pretty quick). My par­ents weren’t too famil­iar with the area so I think they were drift­ing around a bit.. I wasn’t sure because I decided not to engage into their bick­er­ing, and lis­tened to music and slept.

By the time we were actu­ally in Seat­tle, it was 7/8PM and we ended up at Super Cen­tre / West­fields. We didn’t go in.. because we didn’t have din­ner yet, which explains why my par­ents were so damn grumpy.. so I told them to stop and get Wendy’s. sheesh. –_-” so sad.. :( the food in the states tastes like sh*t.

By the time we got to the hotel, it was 9PM and I was exhausted ><”. The room was cold and my dad claimed that there’s no heater (my mom found it 4AM in the morn­ing). I basi­cally did not sleep the whole night.. and when I did, it was for 2 hours. Rea­son = dad snor­ing + cold + hor­ri­ble bed + air­port noises + COLD?!?!

I woke up at 4:30AM to get ready to leave. I wanted to take a shower but decided that it was wayy too cold to shower.. The break­fast at the hotel would not be open until 7AM, which is piss­ing because they should know that some peo­ple do have morn­ing flights <.< AKA ME!!! gah. Any­way, there was a Mc don­alds down the street, so I went to eat there. Very expen­sive I must say.. Egg mcmuf­fin + cof­fee = $4USD = $5CAD.

I got to the air­port a lit­tle ear­lier, just in case we got lost on the road to the air­port, which we kinda did (long.. long story). My plane loaded at 6:50, and departed at 7:10AM. It was a tiny lit­tle plane.. and to get onto it, I had to fol­low the path­way out the air­port, onto the run­way, and up the stairs haha. First time doing that, but it was inter­est­ing, besides the part where I was shiv­er­ing like a mad­man. I sat beside a lady who was very nice.. but I didn’t really talk much to her haha.. it’s awk­ward. My seat was in the emer­gency exit.. so I had a lotttt of leg room ^_^.  Halfway through the 2.5 hour ride I became superrr tired, but couldn’t really sleep because I had my con­tacts in :(.. wah..

The plane arrived at 9:20AMish, a lit­tle bit ear­lier than expected, and I went out to find some way of get­ting to my school. My choice was between.. either shut­tle bus, or cab­bing… and in the end, I took a cab. The man did not know eng­lish.. FRUSTRATINGGGG!!! and in the end I think I paid him $5 extra (F U C King.. !!) it was then $23USD for a 5 minute ride. <_________< .

The weather was very nice and hot.. and obvi­ously, I was over­dressed for the con­di­tions = tshirt/cardigan/jeans/runners/short sleeve pea­coat. yes. hot. haha. how­ever, the nice thing was that there was a lit­tle bit of wind. The stu­dent recep­tion at the school started at 1PM and I was already in the area at 10:00AM so I was.. VERY early.. soo I went to eat at Bris­tol Farm.. a gro­cery store, where they have a cafe.. and wifi! haha. I ate for 2 hours. 2 hours. 2 damn hours. What did I eat? Cab­bage soup and a gar­den salad. I used my slow eat­ing skills quite tactically.

After eatng, I went to walk around (again), and noticed an art sup­ply shop! sawweet. Went in… and looked in every sin­gle isle to burn as much time as pos­si­ble HAHA. I ended up buy­ing a pack on prisma colour pens for $5.40! they were half price :) .. happy happy me. I con­tin­ued to mean­der through the isles..

Then I went to another gro­cery shop — Ralphs. Bor­ing. Noth­ing inter­est­ing, and I was way too full to buy any snacks to eat, and it’s point­less to buy a drink when the secu­rity at the air­port won’t let you through with liq­uids. How­ever, I did notice that gro­cery there is very very expen­sive.. like chips here is 2/$5. There, it’s 2/$7! Crazzzzyy. It was 12:45PM by then.

I walked to Otis and saw that there were actu­ally peo­ple there already, so I pro­ceeded in. The stu­dent hosts were very nice and infor­ma­tive :) I walked around the cam­pus.. it’s pretty small. And then the infor­ma­tion work­shops began at 1:0oPM. I attended the com­mu­ni­ca­tion art, stu­dent affairs, and pres­i­dent Q&A ses­sion. After was a recep­tion with food, so I ate a  bit. I was sit­ting alone eat­ing, so one of the stu­dent rep­re­sen­ta­tives came up to me and started talk­ing to me.. and she was super duper nice :).  Then at 4:30PM I went for the hous­ing tour. The dorms are actu­ally quite nice.. 5 swim­ming pools yah?? haha and they have a work­out room, and 1 park­ing spot for each resident.

I called a cab at 5PM to bring me to the air­port, and was checked in by 5:30PM. HAH no wor­ries, no over­pay­ing this time –_-”.. but yeah.. I was at the air­port wait­ing, for 2.5/3 hours. The flight back was a lit­tle bit rocky for me, as I began feel­ing a lit­tle nau­seous.. :\ and the ride was freak­ing cold!!!! The lady beside me was very nice :). not much awk­ward­ness haha.

I arrived at 11:00PM at SEA dead, exhausted, and relieved to see my parents.

Finally the end of the week again! Haha my favorite time <3.

Except I won’t be sleep­ing in much :( wah.. I miss sleep­ing.. even though I nap just about every­day. I’m just so tired no mat­ter how much I sleep :\ prob­a­bly not a good sign.

On Sat­ur­day I’ll be fly­ing from Seat­tle to LAX.. then from there I’ll go to Otis :) Hope­fully every­thing will work out fine.. I’m quite uneasy about every­thing, espe­cially trav­el­ing alone. Gah…

*sleep!*

Oui, I am home. I love home. I love my bed. I finall got some sleep haha. I fell asleep as soon as I laid down :).

Any­way, New York was a very new expe­ri­ence.. and some­what, supris­ing one for me. I am usu­ally a very adapt­able per­son, but I could not find a way to adjust myself to the new settings.

I stayed with Emily’s Aunt’s house, in Staten Island.. which is about 1.5 hours away from Man­hat­tan. Every morn­ing, we had to wake up around 7/8AM in order to arrive in the the city around 8/10AM. The trip back and forth would con­sist of bus, ferry, and then subway.

(MTA metro­cards) (Staten Island Ferry ride)

The great­est chal­lenge Emily and I had to face was prob­a­bly fig­ur­ing out the sub­way.. but after the first day, it was fine. It’s actu­ally not as con­fus­ing as it looks like on the map. 2 girls and a huge city.. and we didn’t get lost, so really, it’s not bad. If not for the sub­way sys­tem, we prob­a­bly would not have seen as much as we had. I find it a lit­tle fright­en­ing how peo­ple just.. enter into sub­way carts and start per­form­ing for money.. like.. there was this guy that started doing magic tricks, and then these two guys that began play­ing drums. The sub­way is dirty and yucky. A lit­tle creepy when you’re alone, or when you’re enter­ing an under­pass. The ele­va­tors stink of urine, and the sub­way ride is shaky.

(Sub­way)

We did not take any buses in the city so I don’t know how their bus trans­porta­tion in the city is. How­ever, on Staten Island, I can say that their bus dri­vers suck ass, and that bad road + bad dri­ver + bad bus = a very, very bumpy ride.

Mid­town and Down­town area is alright.. I don’t mind the trash on the side­walk and stuff, but once you head more uptown.. it gets scary x_x. The first day I arrived, the whole city itself scared the shit out of me, but after awhile it was alright. I kept try­ing to carry my bag in front of my body, but.. being the big thing it is, it was dif­fi­cult. I would imag­ine some­one run­ning and grab­bing it off my shoul­ders –_-”.

I was very dis­ap­pointed by the shop­ping. SoHo was a very nice area to shop.. every store you could think of is there, but.. unless you’re a wealthy house wife.. there’s no point in walk­ing into shops like Prada or Miu­Miu (<- it was com­pletely empty). Every­one raves about how awe­some For­ever 21 is.. err is it just me, or.. is it just like Urban Planet? The clothes are SO tacky. Speak­ing of tacky.. the peo­ple that walked down the streets dressed tacky.. like girls that wore tights, but did not cover their ass. Tights DO not equal pants!!! You can­not wear tights as pants! It’s like wear­ing panty­hose with no skirt/dress. Then there are those that wear a dressy top and dress pants with run­ners. Pure fash­ion awkwardness.

(@ Uniqlo)

The food.. was so/so. Restau­rant food was good. The fast food stuff was just.. below aver­age. First cou­ple of days we went out to eat with Ger­ald @ restau­rants, and the last few days we just ate what­ever we could find on the street (Wendy’s, MCD, etc). I still like Vancouver’s food much more. We didn’t really have that much food any­way though so I guess I can’t be too quick to judge.

(Pho32 Shabu)

(Staten Island mall food) (MCD)

Cus­tomer ser­vice can be summed up in one word: shitty. If Bloomingdale’s is sup­pose to be a top notch store there, then they need to reeval­u­ate them­selves. The McDon­alds in Van­cou­ver has bet­ter cus­tomer ser­vice than they do. It’s not just Bloom­ing­dales, it’s the McDon­alds over there as well, and the atti­tude in gen­eral retail stores. Are the stores even want­ing to make some form of busi­ness?? Emily bought a $300 Toy Watch from Bloomingdale’s to only realise that there was a miss­ing crys­tal, which mean that on our last day of the trip, we had to waste a few hours trav­el­ling back to Man­hat­tan — with our lug­gage, on the sub­way and the ferry, to go exchange it.

Lastly, and the rea­son why I went on the trip was for a school tour. I do not think that I will be attend­ing SVA any­more. I don’t love the school, I don’t hate the school. It looks like a nice place to attend, but if I can­not enjoy the atmos­phere of the area, in which I’d have to live for 4 years.. then I highly doubt I will be suc­cess­ful there.

I’m not sure if I can get myself to wear my I <3 NY shirt again.

(@ MoMA)

Cal­i­for­nia?