birthday week about to end

my birthday week was pretty awesome... :)

Just coming back from the birthday weekend in Catalina Island, I must say I had probably one of the best birthday ever this year.  The birthday night started by opening this sparkling wine my boyfriend bought for me!  As you may know, I'm not a big beach person but I couldn't help myself getting from really excited about going to Catalina... :)

In addition to having an awesome boyfriend, I have pretty amazing friends too.  In addition to the fruit tart my friend made for my birthday, my other friends celebrated my birthday a few weeks ago.

I never grow up in the sense that I always get super excited opening the gifts.  They are so pretty and it will go perfectly as the decor in my decor-lacking living room... :)  And then on the birthday night, when my boyfriend brought this amazing tea sets my friend in NY sent to him directly (at 9pm in LA time, 12pm in NY time sharp), I was ecstatic!!!  They were so sneaky, I had no idea :P

My friend knows exactly what I like!!!  Tea sets from Anthro, we can say no to that???

I will upload pics from Catalina later... Man I'm so glad I got 1 year older yesterday... The best birthday ever :)

hooked

I love this thing...

 

I've been hooked with this soy protein-based butter alternative, earth balance.  It tastes sooo good, especially with this raisin bread my boyfriend baked...  Morning is always hectic, trying to multi-task from doing laundry, mopping the floor to prepping for the lunch...  so this short, 5 min breakfast time is becoming my oasis...

birthday cake

my birthday week officially started... :)

 

Recently, I've realized that I've surrounded myself with friends who are all amazing at cooking and baking, and eating definitely has become a big part of my life in LA.  (Thus gained a few pounds since...)  I didn't had a chance to get the pics of food my friend cooked when we went to the Laguna yesterday, but after enjoying all that, my other friend, who is amaaaazing with baking, gave me this beautifully crafted fruit tart today for my birthday.  How pretty is this???  Even the wrapping looked professional...  Fruits are all fresh from the Santa Monica farmers market with handmade cream and crust.  When I took this pic, I honestly thought about trying it out (before going to the gym), but I sort of wanted to show this (and brag about it) to my boyfriend first, I decided to wait till then.

I'm sooo excited to eat this tonight!!!

a typical LA weekend

needless to say...  I had one of the most amazing weekend yet :)

@ Venice Beach

@ Laguna beach

Who would've thought of going to 2 different beaches on one day?  After a full, pampering beauty day on Saturday (hair salon, massages, waxing...), Sunday was even a better day.  The morning started super early with my boyfriend's swim meet @ the Venice beach.  We typically have cloudy morning, but it usually clears up in the afternoon, which you can see it clearly in the pic of Laguna beach.  I still like Santa Monica beach just because I live close by now, but Laguna is a totally different level.  It was sooo beautiful, even a beach-hater like me had to admit it.  (FYI- on the fourth pic, a guy you all the way in the water is my boyfriend.  Very typical of him, always swimming away)  Everything was peeerrrrfect that it didn't even bother me that my feet were all sandy when we left.  But then, when I flooded the bathroom floor with sand that was either stuck in bags/clothes/swimsuits, it reminded me why I didn't like beach in the first place.  I need more training on this department.

With that being said, I'm going to the beach again this weekend.  Catalina Island, here I come!!!

hayashi rice

dinner from a few nights ago...

I cooked this dish a few nights ago.  Even though it doesn't look like a typical Japanese dish, it's called hayashi rice, typically made with beef, onions, and mushrooms in demi-glace sauce with wine and tomato sauce.  It looks awfully similar to Japanese-styled curry, but it definitely tastes different.  I quite like it!  I also prepared a little nappa salad made with Japanese mayonnaise and bonito flakes, using leftover nappas from when I made kimchi soup.

So... it's a Friday evening I'm going nowhere but just chilling at the apartment today.  Sounds so lame, but I made this crazy pact with my shopaholic friend that we won't be spending any money on clothes/bags/shoes for next 6 months... so we can buy balenciaga bag, which we've been talking about for ever.  I'm still very suspicious if I can keep up with it, but we just shall see...

Nisei Parade

@ Little Tokyo on Sunday night...

Last time I checked, NYC still had the biggest Japanese population in the country.  Have I felt that when I lived there?  Not really.  However, I definitely sense the strong Japanese pride living in LA that I've never really experienced in NY.  That may be because LA has dominantly more population of Japanese American than any other cities, and I think that plays a significant role.  It may sound weird, but Japanese American or Japanese raised/lived in US for a really long time (like myself) tend to have a greater appreciation towards the Japanese traditional culture, value the Japanese conservative manner, and have a great pride being a Japanese than... let's say Japanese growing up in Japan.  Obviously there's always an exception, but from my own experience, I definitely see some major differences between those who grew up in here and Japan.

Anways, I thought this parade was one of the great examples to show the great presence of Japanese American in LA.  The parade itself is called "Nisei Parade" which literally means "the second generation parade" in Japanese.  So unlike some other "Japanese parade" you see elsewhere, this parade is named after Japanese American.  As you can see, I had way too much fun drinking beer and eating yakisoba... and watching my friend perform in the parade :)  Apparently, it's his 20th time participating in this parade...  I hope the tradition continues like that, for next generation :)

Kimchi night

loove Korean food...

Over the weekend, all of a sudden I had this uncontrollable desire to have Kimchi soup.  I always loved Korean food and I used to eat it so frequently back in NY (back when I never cooked), but then I realized I haven't eaten it for a while.  Not having enough time to cook on the weekends, I finally got to cook it on Monday night, and it came out amazing!!!  It's definitely a difficult dish to screw it up because it's so easy to make, but having my pork marinated with ginger and garlic pastes, sesami, sake, and miso in advance made the huge difference!  Other ingredients are pretty normal: nappa, tofu, scallions, shitake and regular mushrooms with Korean red chili paste, soy sauce, sake, and of course, Kimchi!!!

So delicious, I brought it for my lunch today too... :)  Lunch I pack for my boyfriend always suck on Mondays, because I'm always super unprepared from having too much fun on the weekends, so I hope this one made it up for it from yesterday's...

natural tan

swim meet @ Mission Viejo, CA...

Although we used to live in Pasadena a few months ago, living in Santa Monica area definitely made me forget how hot it can get in LA.  Don't get me wrong.  Born and raised in this city called Nagoya, which offers one of the hottest and most humid summer (and very cold winter) in Japan, and growing up most of my life in NY, I know this heat is nothing.  No humidity = as long as you get in the shade, you're alright.  Nonetheless, there weren't many shades available at the pool, so everyone was literally fighting for the shade space (as you can see in the third pic).  At least they all went in the water at some point to compete so I'm sure that must have felt nice  I was definitely boiling/melting away...  Learning from the mistake in the past, I kept applying more sun screens but looking at my arms I think I definitely still got some tan. GROSS.

Time to lose weight/ get rid of fat on my stomach, in the preparation to go to Laguna beach this weekend...

getting ready!!!

going to the beach in a week...

If you know me well, I'm not the beach person.  I hate getting my feet dirty from those sand and water, and I absolutely hate the sun screen, especially those waterproof ones, because it just smells bad and feels awful on the skin, yet I don't really like to get tanned either.  So I just don't get the beach, but considering how close I live by the beach now, I guess it's a waste of not trying at all.  Next weekend, my friend and I decided to head out to Laguna beach.  At least I get to spend time with my friends and that part is fun, but since I haven't been to the beach for years, I realized I don't have any beach accessories!  Slowly but surely, I've been shopping to get stuff here and there, and I finally found this cute beach bag at Rimo on Sawtelle Ave.  I don't know if I gonna wear these bracelets to the beach, but couldn't resist considering it was less than $20. 

ignore the bounty & charmin' toilet paper on the side... lol

Diesel - t-shirt

Uniqlo - tank

Blank Denim - cargo pants

Dolce & Gabbana - leopard sandals

Cole Haan - bag

Michael Kors - watch

Tiffanys - necklace

Rebecca Minkoff - bracelet

Happy Friday!!!  I had so many errands to run now, so I took these pics really quickly, not realizing I had lovely new Bounty paper towels and Charmin' toilet papers on the side... lol.  I found this Diesel t-shirt when I was cleaning my closet the other day.  Don't get me wrong, our apartment is pretty small, and my closet is nowhere near being huge.  But somehow, there was a box of clothes that I just completely forgot about, and when I found these I almost felt like I went for shopping.  Yaaay!!!

Although I just found tons of clothes, I still need to find the best beach bag in the preparation for beach weekend that's coming soon... Off to shopping!

fresh from farmers market

lots of veggies...

 

Japanese eggplants with Korean chili paste

Japanese mayo-flavored pork and egg on rice bowl

Spinach and canned tuna in ginger sauce (on tomatoes)

Homemade mojito

Since I absolutely hate going to the farmers market in Santa Monica on weekends, I've been trying to go there on Wednesdays instead.  Much more vendors and less crowded than on weekends!  It's like a win-win situation, except for the fact that I have the craziest morning before work.  

I was hoping to get some daikon this week, but since the Japanese vendor I normally go to didn't have it that day, I got other veggies instead like eggplants and spinach.  I love Japanese eggplants so I always get these, but I think my parents will be very surprised (and very proud lol) to hear I bought spinach... definitely not my favorite but it looked so fresh... had to try it.  Since I'm not a big fan of its natural flavor after it's boiled, I almost mask it with ginger (lol), but it turned out great!!!  That ginger sauce is super simple; ginger paste, soy sauce, little bit of sugar and tons of sesami and tada! Done!  However, no matter how hard I try, my dishes can never beat the homemade mojito my boyfriend makes... (using our home grown mints!) YUM!

white and white

going back to the lazy style...

Foever 21 - white top

No brand from Japan - white skirt

BCBG Maxzaria - belt

Steve Madden - cowboy boots

Michael Kors - gold watch

Vintage - necklace

I still have a few more pics from SF that I want to upload, but decided to take another break and upload this instead.  Considering what I used to wear at work back in NY, this is quite shocking.  It's all WHITE!!!  Black was such an easy color to make it formal, so it was definitely my staple color, but black is almost too dark in LA...  I prefer white and neutral colors, and if not more bright colors.  What a change!  But I'm not gonna lie.  I still love black, and I'm sure it will come back once I go visit NY :)