Rain rain go away, I would like to run and ride my bike today. Actually just running, if I don't run every other day I feel like a fat ass. And with all these new Japanese restaurants I've been eating like a heffer. So weather please clear up so I can go for my every-other-day run. I don't know how I will ever stand Seattle weather, if I move up there. And I hate going to the gym, I'm more of a get outdoors kind of workout person. I feel like it takes too much effort to go to the gym. Ok so it actually stopped raining, and I plopped my lazy ass down in the papa san chair and I've been just watching glee videos on youtube for the past hour. At least I'm not watching General Hospital. I go through sporadic periods where I get into GH, last time this happened I think it was 2 years ago when Robin and Patrick were having a baby. Then I try to catch myself up to speed with the story lines, then I get sucked back by all the hot guys because let's face it of all the soap operas GH has the hottest cast (hello Dr. Patrick Drake).

Well back to my Cali trip recap... I hope to be back soon. I'm having some serious withdraws. The whole reason for this glorious trip was for Kristin's wedding. The first girl from our Krazy 8 to get hitched, and I couldn't be more happy for her. The wedding was at MOLAA Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, outdoors, cold, but beautiful. The reception was held in the museum (super cool and gave me ideas for my future non-existenet wedding... hmmm dinosaurs at the Bishop Museum or the Contemporary Museum gardens?!?). As guests walked in there was a mini-photo booth, which we camera whores (me, glo, and kay) took full advantage of later. And we danced and drank (well just me) the night away. It was great to be back all together. Congratulations to Kristin and Gabe, here's to a happy, loving, blissful life together!!!

I don't know what is about weddings but it always makes you think of how you want your wedding to be, you dream about who you will marry (hopefully a cross between sweet Finn Hudson, funny Jim Halpert, and hot Patrick Drake). How you're ceremony will be, who you will have to cut from the guest list, the dance playlist, colors, bridesmaid dresses (Fighting Eel)... oh weddings.  All I can say is 5 years from now I'm still planning on having a Glee wedding.

Ahhh good ol California, probably one of my favorite state to visit. Last week roomie Anna headed to the so called sunshine state (really it was overcast and COLD most of the time) for our dear friend Kristin's wedding, which I'll blog about later. We stayed at the Renaissance in Long Beach with some of our old high school crew, Kay and Gloria. The four of us together was just like old times. We're still silly, happy-go-lucky, dorky, it's good to have friends that just get you.
I haven't explored Long Beach much before, I've heard mixed reviews ghetto in certain areas, not much to do, home to Snoop Dogg and Warren G. So when I was researching what fun things we could do together, we stuck to the touristy stuff. Our first night was spent dining on the historic RMS Queen Mary. It wasn't hoppin as I expected, the ship was pretty eerie in fact, not many people walking around, the restaurants wasn't bustling. Anna said she heard that the ship was haunted, I wouldn't be surprised, it's old, and they do offer ghost tours. The food was pretty good, but unfortunately Anna and I had an In-n-Out burger right when we got off the plane, so I was pretty full. We wanted to go back and explore the ship in the daytime, but we didn't have enough time.
The next day Gloria, Anna, and I decided to explore the Aquarium of the Pacific! When I was reading reviews, the thing that I was most excited about was they had an area where you could touch sharks. I'm not sure if you know this but I LOVE sharks, ever since I was kid. Favorite animal: sharks. The aquarium was really good, definitely a great place to take the kids. I still think Maui Ocean Center or the Vancouver Aquarium are my favorites tho.

I was blessed with another WHOLE weekend off. Sometimes I think it's work it to be scheduled 12 days straight to get 2 days in a row off.... sometimes. And it was another weekend spent in a bikini. I enjoyed another Triple B Saturday with the bong crew (Triple B=Beach x Basketball x Beer Pong). After a full day of sun at Sandys, Courtney and I tracked down the Melt truck for another taste. We both had the Magical Mushroom Melt, messy but oh so awesome. Basketball was great, we tried to play at Kanewai Park (my old stomping grounds in college) but they took out the lights and the people didn't want to play with us. So we headed back to Makiki Park for some full-court ball. After two quick games and a shower, we ended the night with beer pong and king's cup at Tony and Christina's. The SOD's (Supervisors on Duty me and Chaz) defeated Stock-Peter and Tony AND Sales-Matt and Christina, what can say that's how we roll!
Sunday was spent at Lanikai with Malia and Kat. I haven't been to Lanikai since the break up, it was our favorite beach and we loved going into Kailua to eat. Slowly I've been returning to the places and things that we both called our favorite, and reclaiming them as just my favorite. Making new memories, sharing my favorite eating places, shops, etc. with other people I love. It was good to be back. Before we hit Lanikai we stopped in at Kalapawai Market, I had my usual Feta-Veggie on Foccacia with an Italian soda, oh how I've missed Kalapawai. Hands down the best sandwiches on the island.
It was a great weekend, sad to see it go so fast... no onto 10 days of straight work, then I'm off to Cali. It's a good thing I got some sun while I could I probably won't be back at the beach till April sometime!

I'm becoming quite the east-side adventurer, if I say so myself. Ok well maybe not so adventurous because I keep revisiting the same beaches, the same hikes. But I pretty much go every weekend. I had so much fun going sunrise hiking with my coworker Matt, I made Wayne come with me on a hike the week after. I thought it would be a great photog adventure, and that we'd get some great photos of the sunrise and hopefully some whales. Unfortunately everytime I busted out the camera, the whales decided to go back into the ocean. Bastards.  But at least I got some good photos of our hike and of Wayne.
After we headed to Cafe Kaila for some breakfast, but had some awful service... well not service as a whole, awful seating service, read my Yelp review.

Errrrr working out has paid off I can move bookcases. Actually it's a moveable bookcase, we just had to take a photo with it!

This past Friday my roomie Priya planned a Girl's Night Out! And it turned out to be quite a success! I haven't been out, out since last August for Malia's birthday, so it was nice to get dressed up and have night of crazy fun with the girls.
Our first stop was the Edition, where we were planning to get into Crazy Box. The Edition is a new hotel next to the Ilikai. It's SOOO swanky, very Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami. We started in the lobby bar, where Priya saw Christina Aguilera walk through. I got there 5 min too late, I was SO jealous. I've been listening to her song "You Lost Me" non-stop (that and Colbie Caillat's "I Never Told You," that line about his blue eyes... dammit). Xtina, I love you! Well the Lobby Bar was as far as we got, apparently the party was invite only and we didn't have the patience to schmooze our way in. We're definitely planning to check out CrazyBox and the rest of the Waikiki Edition real soon though. I hear Vanessa Hudgens was there also (V I'm totally stealing your bf Zac).
So we settled on Pearl. Pearl is just so reliable, the guest list is open all night, the drinks are reasonable and good, and the dj plays the music we ask for (Enrique's "I Like It" please!). Ahhhh it turned out to be such a good night, I forgot how much I love dancing with my friends. It's the music, I love the music and hearing a really good song just get's you moving! After we headed to Ginza, but I don't remember much other than Priya wanting get up on the light box.
All in all, it was a great night with great friends, let's do this again soon!

Went to Gavvy's art show last friday at Ong King! Yay for Gavvy, he had three pieces in the show. The first photo is courtesy of Photo Ops Hawaii who was photographing the event. His cat painting was my favorite! Me and Priya want Gav to paint something on her bedroom/living room wall, maybe we can hire him before he gets super famous. I remember when we went to one of his art shows at UH, Ala, Malia and I made "I love Gavin" t-shirts. Since this art show was in a downtown art space, we didn't think it was appropriate to bust them out again. 


Congrats to Gavin! Hope to see more of your art all over town!

This past Wednesday I had a Touristy Field Trip day with Ala and Chaz! We were all off from work so we visited the USS Arizona Memorial, USS Bowfin, and the Pacific Aviation Museum. It was hot and crowded, but worth it. I haven't visited the USS Arizona since... well the movie "Pearl Harbor" came out. Back then I was BIG Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett fan, so of COURSE I had to visit. The USS Arizona was free but we dished out $17 to go to the Bowfin and Pacific Aviation Museum.

The Bowfin was cool, you could go in the submarine and look through the binocculars, we even took a picture outside, and the people insert the photo into an old looking WWII newspaper (I still can't believe Chaz and Ala paid for a copy of that, it was just plain paper, not even glossy or anything at least at Disneyland it's glossy and you get a cute frame). The Pacific Aviation Museum was so-so, they only had 5 planes, and the flight simulator didn't look that great. Definitely not worth the money, but I hear they are looking to expand the museum, so I hope they add more planes. I saw in the gift shop that they were selling History Channel's WWII in HD on dvd which I LOVED, if I didn't forget my credit card I would've SO bought it. This most exciting part was seeing the jet up close outside of the museum. AND... it was sitting next to a building they used in the "Pearl Harbor" movie!

Oh oh I can't forget that when you take the shuttle to get to the museum, you pass by the airfield that Amelia Earhart tried but failed to take off from. That was pretty cool.

Later that day we planned to hike Diamond Head but they were closed. We settled on dinner at Onos Hawaiian Food and watching "Pearl Harbor" at Ala's. It was a U.S. History kind of day.

When I get a real job, this is what I will miss the most. Random days off in the middle of the week well spent with great company. While we were on our field trip, we thought of even more cool field trips we wanted to go on. I hope we can do it all before I get a new job!

-------

I am currently trying to pack for my Colorado/Vancouver trip. This whole cold weather thing is really throwing me off because I hear it's not that bad, but I get cold verrry easily. So it's like do I take the Uggs or pack shorts. argh. Not too mention... my Tory Burch flats that I wanted to take (my $110 on sale Tory Burch flats) one of the metal decoration thingys on my heel is coming off! WTH! Luckily Nordstrom will repair it, unluckily it takes a week, so I'll need to find different flats to pack.

Packing my suitcase playlist:

-I Want it That Way-BSB

-Tonight-NKOTB

-It's All Coming Back to Me Now-Celine Dion

-The entire 50 First Dates Soundtrack

-That Faith Hill song from Pearl Harbor

-Random Disney songs.

On Monday night we had a last minute bbq at Ala's new house. It was great fun times with the old school bong crew, Ala, Priya, Gav, Cory, and Rissa (we go way back 5 years at least). And Anna came too! Cory and I were in charge of the grilling (burgers and dogs) and Priya was our bartender, she found a GREAT recipe for lychee martinis and li hing margaritas. Ala has been living at her new place for over a month or so, but me and Priya bought her these nice daisies as a little housewarming, don't kill them Bala! We need to have more of these mini-bbq house parties, next time tacos and even more margaritas!

On a more somber note, The Honolulu Advertiser has just been bought by the owners of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. It will be an interesting next 6-8 weeks and hopefully everyone will be able to keep working, we really have no idea what is next. Hoping for the best. Maybe it's finally time to really consider going back to school.

On Sunday I took a mini field trip to the North Shore with Gav, Ala, and Priya. We heard the waves would be up, so we wanted to go watch (we're suckers for big waves). We stopped by Storto's for some sandwiches, that papaya seed dressing and soft sweet bread make for an awesome sandwich. After we headed to Ehukai beach park to watch the waves at Pipe. Priya and Ala wanted to see how far we could walk in 30 min, so we walked down the beach hoping to reach Sunset, but didn't quite make it. haha we got so tired that we decided to get some li hing margaritas at Cholo's, we didn't have time to eat but after that I was craving some Mexican food. Must go back when Mike comes to visit.

Right now WWII in HD is on the History Channel, I am such a sucker for History Channel documentaries.

End of a freakin decade!

This morning I thought, "Where did the year go?" and then tonight while watching SportsCenter, I noticed they were showing clips of not just 2009. Some of the highlights included MJ retiring AGAIN, Lance Armstrong, Derek Jeter's little shuffle pass to out Jason Giambi at home, Curt Schilling and his bloody ankles in Game 6 of the '04 ALCS, Steroid confessions, Serena yelling at line officials, and my favorite Terrell Owens crying at a press conference stating "...that's my quarterback." Then it hit me, it's not just a year that is over, another decade has passed.

In ten years, I have gone from a dorky high schooler to a college student to a still dorky twenty-something trying survive the real world full of lay offs, pay cuts, in amidst of a crappy recession. I've experienced shitty classes, dating assholes, hangovers, losing people I love, all of which has made me a stronger and smarter person. I've made and kept the best friends and reconnected with family. Best of all I've found Mike!

If you know me, I always say "The year I turned 21 was the best year EVER!" Now when I look back, the 2000s was pretty much the best decade ever. I can't wait to see what's in store for me in the years to come!

Happy New Year everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!

100th

Apparently this is my 100th post. I feel like I should write about something really exceptional, you know like when t.v. shows do their 100th episode. Case in point, Friends "The One Hundredth," was when Pheebs gave birth to triplets.

But right now I have nothing really interesting to say, so I'll just talk about Halloween. I'm dressing up as Supergirl this year. I'm SUPER excited (no pun intended). I had a Superman cape and a red skirt already. And I originally was just going to use a blue wife beater and draw the Superman logo, but I found a costume tee at Hot Topic. But, because Halloween means less is more, I cut it up to make it a racer back tank. Yesterday I bought red Vans Authentics, because I vow never to wear heels again walking for long periods in Waikiki. So now all I need is red knee socks (which btw American Apparel did NOT have, wtf) to complete my outfit. I really wanted everyone to have a superhero theme, preferably Justice League. But apparently none of my girl friends know who is the Justice League is. Gosh only the best of the best of DC Superheroes. Whatev, I'm sure Halloween will still be a blast.

Eh, slow down brah!

So far this summer has been about reconnecting with my friends. Although I miss Mike-izzle dearly, I've been reminded this summer that I'm only young once and need to live a little. Being in a relationship doesn't mean to retire those dancing shoes, it's all about finding the right balance. I guess its true when they say you can have the best of both worlds. ( Wtf did I just make a freaking hannah montana reference).
So summer please slow down...
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Crazy bdays week

5 birthdays in one week, didn't think I could survive but I did!!! Here is anna and I at Tsunami's for ala's birthday. More pics to come!
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile