our mid-semester colorado trip

hi guys! so last weekend, we went and visited my friends in denver. unfortunately i am sick now, either from them or from people on the airplane. booo. anyway, we mostly went shopping and hung out, and we spent one day in estes park / rocky mountain national park area. it was fun stuff, and here's some pictures and a mini haul. ~Lin-chan ^.~

first, i'll start off with rocky mountain national park pics, then haul stuff will be below.

we don't have nordstrom, so i wanted to take a peek in nordstrom rack...and i got these two for ~$13! i just threw out my liquid liner in smog--which i guess is being discontinued? for $10, and nail polish in zodiac for $3. nail swatches to come later.

i've never been to a dedicated spice store before, but this one was freaking awesome. they have testers for most products and you can try before you buy! so these are what we picked out.

we also went to h&m, mostly because the one here is annoying to get to...but anyway, my friend got these tops for me as my late xmas and bday present. 

second anniversary vacation adventures, pt.2

hi all! so here we finally have part 2 of our vacation. [link to part 1] ~Lin-chan ^.~

6/1 after we got off the ship, we drove back up to orlando and stayed at the wyndham bonnet creek resort. we stopped at ming court for some dim sum before heading to the resort and pretty much relaxed and did laundry the rest of the day.

complaints about the wyndham bonnet creek resort:

• the buildings are all clustered around pool type areas so if you have a room on the inner side of the complex, you will hear people and children at all hours of the night splashing around and screaming. for some reason, they have no pool hours.
• the walls between units are very thin. i think the neighbors were watching tv every night around 11-12 and were always laughing super loud. whenever they talked, it was inaudible, but his laughter was as if i was sitting next to him.
• the resort is closest to epcot and when we checked in, they said that we'd be able to go into this one suite to watch the fireworks. it kinda worked, except for the fact that there's a treeline blocking the way. so stupid.

6/2 epcot. overall the day was pretty nice; it was fairly overcast and the crowds weren't too bad. we went to les chefs de france restaurant for lunch. we were kinda disappointed by the host though. we got there about 5 minutes before our reservation, checked in, and sat for 20+ minutes while he seated several people who checked in after us. like wtf. otherwise, the food was pretty good. we got an order of escargot, paul got some sort of crepe thing, and i got a croque monsieur. turtle talk with crush was sooo freaking cute. basically there's a little section to the front where kids can sit and interact with crush. who is somewhere behind the scenes with a camera looking at all of us in the audience and our host walks around with a mic so that the dude can hear the kids' questions.

6/3 animal kingdom. somehow the park opened at 8 instead of 9 and it wasn't the extra magic hour day either. so we were kinda confused but it worked out for the most part because not as many people were there yet and we were able to get some of the busy rides done early. one ride, they asked us if we wanted to just stay on and ride it again! lol. but we didn't, we decided to go off elsewhere to rides that we didn't have fast passes for. then by about 10, we did everything we wanted to do, outside of our fast passes..which weren't for a while afterward. for lunch, we went to the bbq place in dinoland and it was really good. >w<

6/4 downtown disney. we took a break day from the parks to go check out downtown disney. we wound up going to both starbucks, there was one on each side of the area. and they were both kinda disappointing. what we ordered at one wasn't quite right, and at both locations there were soooo many workers to the point where they were inefficient and standing around doing nothing, looking around confused. it was pretty sad.

6/5 hollywood studios. our plan thing that paul made had us going to the rock n roller coaster first thing in the morning, but it was broken even after half an hour. so we went on to do other things. we eventually got back onto it doing single-rider and we wound up riding on the same set of cars, so that worked out. that evening, we went to mama melrose's for dinner. it was kinda sad because i started to get a migraine and couldn't eat. sadface. we got an order of calamari, i forgot what teh paul got, and i ordered the seafood pasta. i ate some of the calamari, but when my entree came out, it was like nope. nope. can't do it. it was kinda sad. we left the park shortly afterward.

6/6 magic kingdom. it was ridiculously busy this day. there were like 4 groups of shirts people / tour group-y people with a flag! it was crazy. again, our plan had us going straight to a ride, this time it was the new 7 dwarfs ride and guess what, it was broken down too. it was barely 2 weeks old and it was broken down before the park even opened. so after about twenty minutes or so, we left and went about the day. the laugh floor was awesome. it was similar to turtle talk, except they pick on you. like as everyone walks to their seats, if you're playing on your phone or other things, they'll feature you on the screen. they also have a system to receive jokes you text to them to use in the show while you're waiting in line. they also pick someone to be that guy and they kinda pick on that person for the whole of the show. the that guy for our show was like asleep or bored looking every time they flashed the screen to him. soo funny.

for dinner/lunch-ish, we had a reservation for 4 to the be our guest restaurant. basically, you can eat in the ballroom, west wing, or library of the castle (not in the central castle) and take pictures with beast. dinner was pretty good, but over priced and over rated. we didn't do appetizers or drink anything but water, and the bill was $70! crazy. i got shrimp and scallops, the paul got lamb, and we got cupcakes for dessert.

6/7 another break day. pretty much lazed around the hotel complex the whole day.

6/8 magic kingdom. we went in to catch all the last few things we missed out on from the previous day. again, we went straight to the 7 dwarfs ride and waited about 20 minutes before they had it up and running. i was pretty upset that we were so close yet so far to the end of the line on the previous day. but whatever. the ride was actually pretty lame. the animatronics looked greatly improved relative to the older rides, but the coaster itself was dull. if you ever go, it is not worth waiting more than 30 minutes or so for.

6/9 an uneventful drive back home.

second anniversary vacation adventures (pic heavy)

hi guys! so we just got back from vacation and it's time to go back to work. booooooo. anyway, we just got back from our trip! and it was awesome! bear with me on this post, as it is incredibly long and only describes the FIRST HALF of our trip. for the week of 5/25, we were on royal caribbean's allure of the seas. my grandparents decided to take everyone for their 50th anniversary. but maybe you guys didn't really notice because i had a few scheduled posts while we were gone plus the fact that the internet on the ship was $30/hour (they did have other internet packages, but we didn't want to pay for them). thankfully our travel agency gave us a credit to use! ~Lin-chan ^.~


on friday 5/23 we drove over to orlando to stay at my aunt and uncle's. my aunt requested a nola carepackage of crawfish and swiss bakery's buttercream almond cake (leftover and frozen from grandpa's birthday the week prior). so we had the yums of crawfish, my aunt boiled corn and potatoes, and she also made us oyster artichoke soup. mmmmmmmm. so good. the following saturday was pretty relaxed, we went to the florida mall to poke around and go to buca di beppo. >w< teh paul had never been before and we got ourselves the kitchen table. ughhh we had sooo much food, and i forgot to take pictures of it all because we were hungry..so all i've got was a picture of antipasto salad. lol. they also gave us some meatballs to try and we ordered some sort of stuffed pasta sampler, chicken and veal parmesian. needless to say, we needed to-go boxes, because it was a lot of food for 4 people.


i'll try to go chronological at this point, but there's a lot of amenities on the cruise ship to describe too......

sunday 5/25, we drove down to fort lauderdale, because that's where the ship sailed from. we spent the first hour or two on the ship's promenade area, which has a bunch of the shops, a bar, cupcake shop, pizza, cafe, and a starbucks. like whaaat?! yeah. this boat was insane...because they wouldn't let us into our rooms right away. it was packed down there. once everyone eventually settled in and stuff, it was nicer, more manageable, and less people with carry-on baggage all over. so we started exploring the ridiculous stuff that's on here. this ship is currently the largest passenger ship in the world, beating another royal carribean ship by 2 inches. it can carry 6k passengers and 3k crew. there are several "neighborhoods" on the ship: central park, boardwalk, spa, youth zone, promenade, pool & sports zone, and entertainment place (the casino). all of the areas are really appropriately themed, it's kinda ridiculous.

central park is an outdoor arboretum area, with live--yes living--plants and trees inside of it. crazy, right?! and it's got many of the additional cost restaurants in there, as well as a freaking coach store??? yeah. i know. the boardwalk is pretty freaking cool. they've got a hand-carved carousel, a johnny rocket's, candy and ice cream stores, rita's resturant (mexican?) and the aqua theater. yes. a freaking WATER theater on this boat. like for a water show and stuff. whaaaaaaaaat. the vitality spa wasn't somewhere we were interested in hanging out. they had their own cafe for some reason..which you had to pay extra to eat at... along with all the usual spa services, including teeth whitening and botox??? yeah, again, i know. wtf.

i have no idea what's up in the youth zone area..because it's for the kiddo's. the pool and sports zone was pretty cool. it's literally an entire deck, with hot tubs scattered about, a kiddie section, and regular pools. along with a basketball/soccer court, ping pong, MINI GOLF, a ZIP LINE, and the two "wave rider" pool things --which are like mock surfing dealies. seriously guys, they had EVERYTHING on this ship. the casino was pretty large. it was kinda irritating that it was smack dab in the middle of the ship, our rooms were to the back and the theaters were to the front. so we'd often forget that we'd have to cross through the casino to get to the theaters. we don't gamble, but there's some pretty high-tech stuff going on in there. there was an automated blackjack table with a simulated blackjack dealer (aka a woman wearing a corset who starts talking to you if you set off the motion sensor). but anyway...

there are several dining areas on the ship, a few are 24 hours, but most of them are open during breakfast, lunch, and dinner only. there is one main dining room in this ship that is complementary, the other 6 or so restaurants have additional fees. which kinda sucks, but the main dining room was excellent in itself. the first night, teh paul and i got a fruit medley & shrimp cocktail as starters, atlantic salmon and seafood spaghtetti for our entrees, and for dessert, we got carrot cake and blueberry-peach crumble. it was crazy good. (mojo night, casual)

afterward, we went to see chicago. like the broadway play..on a cruise ship. another whaaaat! but it was really cool, we had never seen chicago before (live or the movie) and those guys were very talented. it was really awesome.

day two on the ship was in nassau, capital of the bahamas. it started out sucky because i woke up with a migraine. but it got better after we had breakfast and i took something for it. we were so excited to be on the ship and all, that we didn't tune into the morning show about nassau. so we got off the ship at 7am, ya know, before all the stores opened. and so we were like awesome, nothing's open, and we're going to be continually accosted by taxi drivers and hair braiders. >.> so we decided to walk around a little bit, over to some lame nearby beach, and we went back to the ship before most people even got off. we were only stopped for like 5 hours anyway. so i slept most of the day afterward.

lunchtime is pretty hazy, i don't remember if we ate or what we ate. but we did go to two shows and dinner! we went to the ice games show. you read correctly: ICE games show. like an ICE SKATING RINK..show on a cruise ship. it was pretty cute, it was an interesting adaptation/mashup of monopoly, places on the ship, and arcade games. then we had dinner (saffron night, formal): lobster bisque & roman vignole salad, beef tenderloin & roast duck, and chocolate souffle & strawberry cheesecake. and afterward, we went to the comedy club with gary delena and kivi rogers. gary was ok, but kivi was freaking hilarious. it was really fun. gary: "did everyone enjoy our 20 minute stop in nassau?" kivi: 'i'm 1 of 6[?] and the only one that was given a different name. it's finnish for 'rock'. but when i introduce myself i can't say 'hey, my name's rock', no, it's [in a child's voice] 'hiiiii my name's kivi, wanna play with me?'" you'd have to have seen kivi's facial expressions for that one, but it was so funny.

day three on the ship was a sailing day. we slept in and skipped breakfast, and i think we went to lunch at the main dining room and sat with two other couples.. i didn't take pictures of lunch, so i don't remember what teh paul ordered, but i had tomato risotto with shrimp and scallops and a caramelized banana mille-feuille. afterward, i finished up my book (cinder by marissa meyer) and fell asleep. for dinner, we had a big table with most of the family. (pimiento night, casual) teh paul got chilled strawberry soup (it tasted like a smoothie, in a bowl), roast pork tenderloin wrapped in proscuito, and TWO desserts: the dessert sampler (elderberry mousse with strawberry jelly, cheesecake, no-flour chocolate cake) and tirimisu. i got the normal stuff: minestrone, grilled shrimp salad, and sticky bread & butter pudding. afterward, we went to the ocean aria show with the family..at the water theater i was talking about earlier. it was pretty amazing that they could have this show on a ship. it was pretty close to something you'd see at sea world--minus the marine animals--and in an 18ft deep pool. and high divers, like 40+ feet high. crazy stuff. but really awesome.

day four, was the stop in charlotte amalie, st. thomas (capital of the US virgin islands). but we got tickets to go on an excursion to the island of st. john, which has a national park, or is one..i don't remember. something like that. anyway, both 40-minute trips to and from st. john boat ride were extremely queasy, plus the fact that we stayed on the boat for an additional half hour, after dropping off the people who weren't taking the boat tour. ~.~ once we finally got to land again, we stopped in the national park visitor's center and got some maps. then we decided to go eat. hahaha. we stopped at a really neat shopping area called mongoose junction at the ocean grill. teh paul got a mahi sandwich and i got a mahi salad. shortly afterward, we went up one of the nearby hiking trails called lind point trail. we took it over to solomon beach and back. and went to mongoose junction again. haha, for some ice cream at st. john scoops. teh paul got some sort of rum ice cream, and i got a slush puppy. i think i've officially decided that anything other than snowballs and icee's are no good. i don't like the chunky ice. lol. then it was time to get back on the boat back to the port. we stopped into the del sol store to buy me a new dolphin keychain. lol! the one i got in cozumel 14 years ago kinda doesn't change colors anymore. ^^; and in the duty-free shop i got a pretty against teh paul's wishes. =P the loreal infallible shadow quads don't look like this here, ya know?! this one is called eau de rose, it seems that it's from [the] les ombres collection? idk. it was pretteh and calling my name all day (i first saw it in the morning). $12.50 wasn't terribly bad.

swatched dry

dinner was pretty yum. (shiitake night, casual) i got seafood ceviche, shared an order of shrimp gyoza---which we sadly had to eat with a fork---rack of lamb, and strawberry kiwi pavlova. teh paul got shrimp cocktail, fillet of sole (fish), and warm chocolate cake. afterward, we went to the headliner show with earl turner. he's a famous vegas singer/performer. he was hilarious. he's an older dude, but still can move, walked across the chairs' arm rests, went all in the crowd to get everyone involved and everything! he even had paul sing part of one of the songs and he liked it so much, he pulled him out of his seat and gave him the mic, while he sat down next to me. lol, it was so fun! my grandparents enjoyed the show so much, they went his other two performances.

day five, we stopped in philipsburg, st. maarten (dutch side). the island of st. maarten is divided into two territories, french and dutch. we went to the main dining room and got crabcakes benedict for breakfast, and met with everyone else outside on the dock for our adventure. we weren't totally sure what we wanted to do so we decided to do whatever my grandparents decided. so we hired one of the taxis to take us around the island. it was pretty cool, we made a few stops and got some pictures and we also stopped in areas where the rest of the family took off to! it was kinda funny. the most memorable stop we made was the lunch-ish stop. we were on the french side and went to a bakery. we got a roast beef sandwich, cheesecake, and a raspberry macaron. it was funny because paul still had €10 in his wallet from when we went to europe last summer. so we paid them in euros! haha. then i decided i wanted a second macaron but i only had the 30 euro cents they just gave us and $10. lol, so we didn't quite get the right amount of change back since they don't always deal in dollars. but it was teh yums anyway. when we got back near the dock, we went into the duty-free shop and teh paul got himself a st. maarten polo.

i got hungry early, so we went to dinner by ourselves again. (basil dinner, casual) this time, we got two appetizers each! fruit medley, chilled honeydew melon soup, cream of mushroom soup, and a crab cake. entrees of braised beef duo and cod loin, and for dessert: rum baba (rum cake) and cherries jubilee (kirschwasser cherries & ice cream).

day six, at sea. we didn't really do too much. my grandparents made us all shirts and we took a family shirts picture. then dad took us to the sushi restuarant for lunch. afterward, we watched the lego movie in 3D since i hadn't seen it, and they had it on the ship. it was formal night, with the jasmine dinner aka lobster night-menu...but my grandparents had a restaurant booked for dinner. we went to 150 central park. the dinner was crazy ridiculous. it was 6 courses! they had a little thingy of 6 different special salts to go with our bread and unsalted butter. then after the 5 courses, they brought out a different dessert for me, since i couldn't have the chocolate. a little while later, they're like, "oh it's your anniversary coming up too? here, have more dessert!" it was ridiculous. after dinner, we went to the blue planet show. which was a cirque de soleil-esque and singing mashup performance. overall it was a good show, the problems with it were that there were no transitions between scenes and some of the choreography didn't make any sense with what they were singing about. but whatev.

day seven, at sea. pretty much slept all day and read our books, watched some tv. that's pretty much it. dinner was pretty good. (pomodoro night, casual) teh paul got chilled pineapple lychee soup & eggplant and kalamata olive tartare, lamb shank, and pear chocolate crisp. i got lentil rosemary soup & scallops and chorizo; seafood, fish, and mash; and apple strudel for dessert. afterward, we poked around in the onboard shops and packed up our suitcases.

day eight-ish, back in fort lauderdale. LAAAAANNNDDD! drove back up to orlando to our resort. to be continued.... [link to part 2]

first anniversary & trip

hi guys! this post is late after getting put onto the back burner while i was working on my photo migration. i'm not 100% finished with it, but anyway here ya go. please read this as if i posted this on our actual anniversary date, 6/9/13.

hey guys! the past two weeks on the movie set have been super crazy and chaotic! here's what i did...
5/27: 730A - 530P work; drive back home
5/28: 710A - 9P movie set
5/29: 1115A - 230A movie set
5/30: called in sick with a major migraine
5/31: 5P - 5A movie set
6/1: slept a lot, hung out with friends
6/2: slept in, went to see star trek
6/3: 530A - 730P movie set
6/4: 515A - 830P movie set
6/5: 615A - 830P movie set
6/6: 430P - 630A movie set

6/7: after coming home from set, i took a shower and somehow got a second wind and was able to stay up a bit longer, and i drove us back to our apartment. from there, paul drove us to houston. got settled in at the hotel and then went to chipolte for dinner. i got a barbacoa bowl and i think that if i ever go to chipolte again, this is the way to go. $6.50 for something that is two servings for me. heck yes. paul finished his burrito before i was even 1/4 done with the bowl. then he helped me eat about half of it. then we went to see now you see me--i updated my prior post as for where i saw myself. and around 11 or so, i finally crashed. somehow i managed to stay awake for about 36 hours without caffeine, as i cannot consume it.

6/8: went and got dim sum at ocean palace. yum! for those who don't know, dim sum is a chinese small-plate style brunch/lunch. when you go, it's usually around lunchtime on the weekends. ladies (and sometimes men) push carts to your table and show you what dishes they have, and they put a stamp on your bill to tell check-off how many plates of what cost you had. we got short ribs, duck, shrimp shumai, shrimp rice noodles, and sesame balls with red bean paste inside. it was aproximately $30. afterward, we went to the hong kong market and bought goodies: philippines brand dried mangoes, strawberry pocky, garden strawberry wafers, biscotto strawberry wafer sticks (these have surpassed my beloved love letters! *gasp!*), haw flakes, a japanese-style grater, and my favorite brown rice by nishiki.

 

afterward, we drove over to ikea. can i say, oh my god whoever thought of this was a genious! houston ikea is basically the closest one to us---at 6 hours away---but we were so confused and surprised when we drove up. i mean, why is the parking lot a mini version of disney?! there's lamp posts with section markers on them! whaaaaaat!? oh and not to mention, there were a crapton of people in there. i was totally expecting like a one on one type experience, like a mom and pop furniture store. no. A CRAPTON of people were inside as well. so we're super confused and we just followed the traffic inside and up the escalator. we grabbed a map--yes a freaking map!, pencil, and disposable measuring tape--so cool! and you go through the display area, and it's all set up fancy, some areas are like minis of rooms inside your house, or the section we paid particular attention to was set up like any other place that sells desks. then you keep making your way around, hardware like knobs etc, and kitchen stuff like dishes etc, wall decor, lighting, everything! and a food area! whaaaaa?? then you get around to the end and it's self service. so you grab a palette-cart and go find the items you wanted to buy (the displays are marked with what aisle they're on and what number on the aisle, you just have to write them down before leaving the showroom). then you check out and try as you might to pull your car within reasonable distance to the loading area. i swear, this place was almost like a theme park..for furniture! we were in there a good 2-3 hours, spending about half of that time in utter confusion, trying to wrap our heads around what we were seeing. as far as product selection, this place is like bed bath and beyond, but with furniture and less really random stuff. [we purchased 2/3 of my new desk, will update when i get the other 1/3 (a 59" table top)... my car isn't long enough...........]

then we went to the container store because we don't have one of those either and it, too, is the closest one... and i got 2 acrylic lipstick holders (24x) and a small acrylic drawer box. so again, omg at this place too. the organization-freak in me wanted to BUY ALL THE THINGS. it was crazy. but i had to keep saying: we need a house first. lol. i loved it in there, but teh paul was being very watchful about what i was picking up. >.>

and for dinner, we went to pappadeaux's. which is funny because we're in texas eating louisiana food. *mind blown* anyway, i got paul to try frog legs for the first time. and they were pretty good. i think they mixed some tony's into the batter because they were a bit spicy for my taste. for our entree, we shared the halibut duo, which was two halibut fillets, a small lobster tail, and some grilled shrimp. it was derricious. >w< and the drink i got was pretty good too: the strawberry lime sparkler. we've got to replicate it at home. yummm. so get this..this place gets sooo busy, they have their own freaking parking garage. really?! ..well, i thought it was crazy.

 

afterward, we wondered around the galleria mall and got a few shirts at wet seal (5 for $20!), and some dessert: a starbucks strawberries and cream frapp.

6/9: got up early to go to the bao store! yess. so we drove out to king bakery in chinatown to get lotsa bbq baos. my mom wanted some and so did we, and we also got a cream bun which was basically a buttery cream (not buttercream icing!) with their bao bread. if you ever go, remember that they're cash only! afterward, we went on a hunt for animal crossing (it was released on this day) since it was too early to go to the nearest game stop and another didn't have any that weren't reserved...we finally found one at target. yay~! we went to lunch at schlotzskys--since we don't have any of those anymore...and drove back home. before the night was over, teh paul already ate two baos out of our dozen. ~.~ [i forgot to take pictuers of the baos to show you guys....] and we opened up and finished our champagne from our wedding reception.

 

anyway. that was our trip. hope you guys enjoyed. ~Lin-chan ^.~