One of my favorite places to grab a snack in Flushing is at T-Swirl Crepe on Union. Sandwiched between a Teaus (now closed apparently :C) and Gongcha, it’s a great option for when you’re juuuust not quite hungry for dinner, but could use more than say a bubble tea. I’m not a huge fan of matcha, but the Matcha Azuki Bean crepe & the Thai Chicken Crepe (seasonal) are

Best. BBQ. Ever. Also the most expensive BBQ ever, but it was such a treat. If the same sounds familiar, it’s because it actually is owned by Kang Ho Dong, host of X-Man, Star King & 1N2D! I love the decor and feel of the place – love the concrete floors and the exposed air vents. It’s such a casual fun place to go with friends. You’re going to leave smelling like meat and that’s okay! (The stools you sit on actually open up so you can tuck your bag and coat inside so at least part of you doesn’t smell like dinner all night – altho why not!!)

Mon, Acire and I split a Pork Combo which included premium pork belly, pork jowl, and our choice of marinated pork color or spicy pork belly. I can’t recall which of the final two we picked, but we were pretty happy with all three options. We also got our choice of soup & we opted for a kimchi stew which was delicious, but also HOT – if you’re up for beef, def go for the beef brisket soup. Mon and I also shared a refreshing bottle of bokbunja-ju (복분자주), a fruit wine made from Korean black raspberries

A+++++ Gotta save my money up for it again!

A friend decided to host a hotpot in lieu of our annual BBQ and I met up with EL before to eat a ton of patbingsoo?? I don’t know. I made a mistake.

Maybe I thought hotpot was going to be 热气 so I wanted to pre-cool?? I love patbingsoo and mango and this was pretty delicious.

And then with a stomach full of ice & sugar, we headed over to Mapo Szechuan.

Nothing like hotpot on a hot summer day. Our party was so big we had to be split up into two tables! All of us opted for the All-You-Can-Eat option which was pretty delicious, but $$$$$$. We made the mistake of ordering too much instead of focusing on MEAT. Spent the rest of the evening playing card games & sipping bubble tea.

I met up with Eilene, Kenny & Jimmy for k-food at BCD Tofu House & desserts at Grace Street. BCD makes the best soondubu around and I’ve been there more times than I can count, but the night’s star was Grace Street’s hoddeuk – a warm “donut” stuffed with melted brown sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts served with vanilla ice cream. MUST TRY. Some more pictures below!

Caught up with my college friends again at Cho Dang Gol for a late night K-food fix. It was my first time here and I wish I got some more photos! It was pretty packed and we were starving so everyone just lunged for the food as soon as it arrived.

A second stop at Grace Street! It’s always quite busy despite Grace Street’s no wifi policy. The atmosphere is so nice that people like hanging out with some drinks & sweets. This time we opted for some teas and pastries. I ordered a mango sorbet – it’s so good! Not artificial tasting at all and they serve it inside a frozen fruit. The beignets were also so delicious & worth a try.

Finishing up with KBBQ at my favorite place, Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong. It’s so expensive, but it’s seriously so delicious. Our party of 5 ordered two combos & 2 lunchboxes and it was incredible. Save up your money and GO.

And that’s a wrap! I’m aware that ending here makes me look like I have no friends LMAO but I did see them a few more times, but it really is difficult to plan events and dinners. Life moves on so quickly, but it truly is worth the effort to keep in touch. I’m not so great at being social (very prone hermit-ing) so I have to keep this in mind for 2016.

PS: I seem to only visit restaurants with yellow lighting – what’s up with this coloring!

January started with a meetup of the marketing class girls, M, H, S and Yaling, to catch up in the only way we knew how – 4 solid hours of karaoke marathon at Duet followed by an abundance of Korean food. I wish I had some cute group photos to share, but I tried a handful of shutter speed, aperture, ISO combos and came up with nothing. :”( I literally have no acceptable photos save for this one shot of yukgaejang. The average human is 65% water, but I am (as you may have gathered from the content of this blog) at least 80% Korean food.

Most of the rest of January consisted of me getting accustomed to work and learning to accept that the planet was going to be a frozen ice pop for all of eternity. The shining light at the end of January was CNY dinner :9 As always, family got together in Brooklyn for a big feast to celebrate the new lunar year.

I apparently did nothing in February but work and shop which is only 1/2 the dream :'(

I’m trying to work on my wardrobe but clothes cost so much $$$$. It’s always a toss up between getting a bunch of cheap things I can switch around or Investing in something of Quality that I can wear for a million years. It’s so much commitment nooo I’m leaving. Instead, let me spend my $$ on stuff like stationery and accessories lmao. I’m in love with my Piyo Simple Cash Book by LIVEWORK and the FolDouble Medium Pouch by invite.L. I picked up both from DesignedByKorea.com~ Also in the photo is the Nature Republic Hand & Nature Apple Mango handcream (the one EXO endorses – apple mango is Baekhyun’s lmao :c) which was a very sweet gift from Acire

March marked two special occasions for our family ♡ My brother’s 22nd birthday & my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary were just a day apart and we celebrated with dinner at Sentosa.

It was delicious! Sentosa always has some great food. It was my first time trying bak kut teh and I think I’m in love because of that heavy herb taste. I don’t know how to say this without people going “HUH,” but I love when certain foods incorporate the taste of herbal medicine and this bak kut teh had it all. The taste of dang gui 當歸 was so strong; I was smitten. I was also crazy about the volcano spare ribs just because .. WHAT LMAO. The entire time I was just like “WHATS HAPPENING WHATS THIS WHAT WHAT” The staff held the packet up for me to photograph LMAOOOOOOOOOOO. Amazing :9

I spent most of March also just concentrating on work so hangouts were far and in between, but I got a chance to see Elias for his birthday (love you love you love you!!) and then rounded out this month with dinner with my college friends whom I’ve missed dearly. Seeing them always reminds me to have some faith in myself because they believe in me so much.

Dinner was Thai food at Qi in Times Square. Food was great and the restaurant was really atmospheric – I loved the decor although I was concerned with how dark the whole place was. My camera was FURIOUS and didn’t cooperate enough to get more photos :( But hey, the point was to enjoy each other’s company which I think we managed to do ♡

And that’s a wrap! Some goals for Q2 would be to work even harder, be kinder to myself and maybe buy said self a present like a new laptop :OOO or a new lens :OOO or a new handbag :OOOOOOO~~

Our meetup location was very romantically inside of Penn Station since Acire had to travel all the way in from LI :'( We did a quick gift exchange, since it was still the holiday season, and she handed me an ENORMOUS box and told me not to open it till I got home – ooooooh. We took a walk around the city and found our way to Pam Real Thai on the West Side.

We were RAVENOUS by the time we got there so it led to making the bad decision of ordering way more food than we could handle in one sitting, but oh my god – the oxtail soup is the most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted. Acire told me it got rave reviews, but even though I’m a huge soup fan (CANTO LYFE), I was skeptical because “it was juuuust oxtail soup.” WELL I WAS WRONG. It’s the perfect combination of savory, spicy and sour and my mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. I love hot & sour soup so this was just up my alley. I think we could have used a few more pieces of oxtail, but oh MAN it was just so good. In fact, all the food was just so good – the fried rice had so much crabmeat in it and the tom yum nam khon was sooooo creamy and layered in flavors. DELICIOUS.

We really ordered way too much though – so we ended up walking only a few blocks and sought refuge in a library where we could sit, chat and whine about how full we were.

Once we recovered enough, we went and checked out the vendors at the Holiday Shops in Bryant Park.

It was lovely! Tons of people were waiting to get into the skating rink, but Acire and I were mostly interested in seeing what doodads people were selling. There were a few times that we almost caved and bought things that were terribly overprices (expensive knit hats wtf expensive astronomy prints wtf) and at one point, we spent a good 20 minutes in one shop just smelling candles. Acire got caught in a surprise phone interview, which I’m happy to say that we got the position! Eventually, we settled with grabbing a table and just chatting some more about our lives ;^;

We had to part ways pretty early because Acire had to catch her train back to LI, but when I got home, I remembered to open the giant box that Acire had me carry all day and then when I saw what it was, I almost died.

Spunky Action, Baby!’s LE GRANDE BLEU PHOTOBOOK!!! ACIRE IS CRAZY. CRAZY GENEROUS. I ended up just laying everything on the floor and rolling around in it because PCY is so cute and SAB’s photo quality is extraordinary. Lots of great special gifts as well ;^; Thank you Aciiiiiire.

*One day when I have my own place, I’ll lay all my kpop photobooks out on the coffee tables like they’re casual reading. Oh, did you expect to flip through an architecture magazine? Oops, jk you’re looking at handsome pop idols.

And then week or so later, Acire stopped in to visit me at work (she’s like the only visitor I’ve ever had lmao U^U) and we stopped by in Ktown for dinner at Kunjip. I think it’s become a running joke how much food we order because again we tried to eat more than it was physically possible for us to consume and basically cried.

The next time Acire and I saw each other, we were determined not to hURt OUrSelVSES and went for small izakaya eats at Sake Bar Hagi. The last time I was at Sake Bar was with Liz, V and Catherine during the summer of 2013 and back then, I already knew I wanted to go back to try more of their delicious food. The menu this time consisted of takowasa (sliced raw octopus), grilled beef tongue, fried chicken gizzards, chicken liver and gizzard yakitori, a seafood okonomiyaki and takoyaki. I so regretful that I didn’t have my dslr with me! I’ve been terrible about carrying it around because it’s pretty heavy with the kit lens, but I might have to because my phone camera is such a joke! Wish I could have gotten a better photo of the beef tongue and fried gizzard because it was AMAZING. Acire and I both let out simultaneous gurgles of joy when we had the beef tongue. Sadly, both of the yakitori were kind of mediocre – the grilling didn’t do enough to get rid of that game-y taste that offal sometimes has. We went for the regular takoyaki as opposed to the fried kind and it was good, but also just kind of fell apart when we tried to pick them up :(

I’ve gotta say that work hasn’t been the easiest experience getting used to and it’s meant the world to me that Acire not only works/goes to class somewhat nearby, but is always around to see me and bring me surprises :( Baby girl surprised me with a whole meal just the other week because I was having a tough day T_T How can you be so sweet????? But really truly from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for being my friend :’] ♡ and let’s see each other even more this year!!!!

– NOV –

+ Way back in November, I caught up with VC over some really delicious jjamppong, jjajangmyun, tangsooyuk from Sam Won Gahk. We went on a makeup shopping blitz where I spent enough money at Nature Republic to get TWO promotional EXO posters. HOW DID IT COME TO BE LIKE THIS. 2013 marked the year I fell into the EXO hole – WILL I EVER ESCAPE?!

+ Our family celebrated my dad’s birthday with dinner at Imperial Palace (東湖), which has become our family’s go-to restaurant of choice for any and all important events. If you’re looking for a great Cantonese restaurant in Flushing, definitely check out Imperial Palace! A really good Cantonese restaurant serves food that has 镬气 (wok hei – wok essence/heat/energy) and Imperial’s got it down 100%. There’s always a line at the shop near Joe’s Shanghai, but it’s well worth the wait. Don’t listen to people who say the second shop, East Lake (It goes by the English version of Imperial’s Chinese name) on Prince is just as good – it’s not! Both the food and service is less impressive.

+ If you’re an art enthusiast and yourself in the Flatiron District, you might be interested in checking out the AIGA National Design Center on 5th Ave. It’s a wonderful little space that AIGA uses to host all kinds of galleries and exhibitions that are free to the public. I passed by one day and managed to catch Divine Details, a popup shop/gallery collaboration between design boutique Little Fury and AIGA. The exhibit featured redesigned common everyday goods, each accompanied by an original written piece inspired by that item. It’s a shame that the website doesn’t offer an archive of the pieces that were on display, but I’m definitely stopping by again to see what new exhibits may be showing.

+ Also in Nov, I met up with Yaling of Pretty Stories for a coffee & dinner date. We started off with drinks from Cafe de Cupping where I also caught sight of Yaling’s hair for the first time and WOW HOW AMAZING IS THAT COLOR

The drinks were DELICIOUS – a Bloody Velvet Latte for Yaling & a Pistachio Frappe for moi. It was my first time at Cafe de Cupping and I can see why people love it so much. The drinks are great and the atmosphere is warm and inviting. Sadly, there isn’t anything savory on the menu so Yaling and I had to head somewhere else for dinner. At one point, we just gave up and went into the nearest restaurant, Golden Piggy, for a quick meal.

And then somehow we found ourselves at the second cafe of the day HAHA. We’d driven past M2S earlier on our way to dinner and decided to swing by to check it out. I’m so glad we did – LOOK HOW CUTE IT IS!

AHHHH. I love the aesthetics – love the large open space and the choice of wood / concrete as interior decor motifs. I’m not actually much of a coffee person, but Yaling mentioned that M2S serves Illy coffee which is supposed to be great stuff so I had to try a cup. Yaling had a mango tea (?) which was delicious. If I hadn’t already stuffed myself with food from dinner, I would have had a honey toast :((((( Next time T_____T

– DEC –

+ December rolled along annnnd the big change I mentioned in my last post was regarding a new job! I’m working as an assistant/office manager at a small boutique law firm in the city and although it’s not related to anything I studied, it’s still a learning opportunity and I’m sure it’ll be an interesting experience. ~This week marks my 3 month work anniversary~ To be honest, the first few weeks were pretty terrible (read: I was pretty terrible), but I like to think I’ve improved. It’s a new challenge and I must power through it!

In the mean time, I’ll try to dig up some motivation to work on my portfolio. IT’S HARD – It’s so easy to just roll around on the weekends :( I diiiid recently do some logos for EXO fansites, Caught in a Moment and FADEDPRESENCE (see ’em here!), which was a lot of fun. Although both sites moved onto new logos (I also threw another logo together for FADEDPRESENCE’s launch) it was neat to see something I made on fandom photos! My very lovely friend at FP sent me some prints where the logos were used so I’ll be throwing up some photos in the portfolio soon as well. I also did a freelance ecommerce site for a family friend and once I get some paperwork sorted out, I hope I’ll get to share it as well.

+ I finally got to meet the wonderful Acire in person! It’s always exciting when you get to meet internet friends & since Acire’s going to be in NYC for the spring semester, we’ll hopefully get to see each other lots! I’m going to save some words for later since she’s going to get a special post of her own soon ㅋㅋ

+ Earlier in the month, I attended an alumni event at Macaulay and I had the chance to reconnect with some of my college classmates and friends that I hadn’t seen since the BBQ back in July. It was nice getting updates on how they’ve been doing and seeing what they were up to. It was actually my first time at one of these alumni events – I honestly never wanted to go because I’d been nervous about what I would say/do when asked what I was doing :T This event was just days after I started work so I got to share the news in person with my friends who were all very supportive & understanding. Later on in the month, I met up with E and J for dinner at Mandoo Bar and it brought back some memories of how close knit we were in college. It was just really nice to see them and I hope I do so again soon ;^; Can’t say the same for the food though – wow would not recommend.

+ SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW snOW SNOW sNOw NSOWO

+ Rounded out December by 24. HAAAHAAAA. Dinner with fam at San Soo Kap San with a little cheesecake present from my mom. I also received LOVELY WONDERFUL presents from V & L ♡♡♡ REAL FRIENDS SEND YOU JARS OF BUTTER ♡♡♡ In addition, I also did some shopping damage of my own :'( ow

THIS POST TOOK ME MONTHS but I promise there’s more to come, BYE!!!!