Cathy was the only one that week that didn’t have spring break. She ditched class since she already took the midterm the week before and went on an Ikea adventure with Michael, Carolyn, Joe, and I. We ate lunch and explored Ikea. Then we ate again….

Ikea’s awesome meatballs with cranberry sauce and gravy

Princess Cake

Joe dragged Carolyn from one end of the room to the other side with the rolling chair… let’s just say the Ikea worker mugged at us for awhile..

We left them here and they managed to take an hour nap.

.

We watched Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets in one of the rooms in the meantime..

50 cent hot dogs, c’mon… that’s too cheap

Cinnamon Rolls and Hazlenut Chocolate Bar

Kathy and Katherine came home for Spring Break and Pam came home just because. Tee was out sick so she didn’t get to go with us. Then there was Daph, she was stuck in SoCal. The girls wanted to go shopping, so after I ran all of my errands I took them to Valley Fair and Santana Row. We managed not to buy anything but ice cream from McDonalds. Other than that, we just camera whored all afternoon like a bunch of boppers and caught up. What’s new.

I’m spending my Friday night posting about last friday night. Ha, how interesting. Lauren had the night off for once from work so she wanted to go out. The weather has been really inconsistent for the past couple weeks. Earlier that day, it was cloudy but later on to the night it started pouring. We didn’t want to go clubbing so we went bowling instead. 

We bowled buzzed, ha and let’s just keep it as that. Oh, and I won. 

Side note: some of these shots were shot by Cathy (not bad..)

Gutter…

We were constantly rolling around the floor.. well, more like Lauren was on the floor a lot

We waited for about an hour and half for the show to start. The doors opened at 9 and we got in by 9:30 ish. We were probably the youngest ones in the entire room. Everyone got a free drink because they were old enough. I saw so many girls with their hair dyed or they shaved half of their head. Some girls look like they were straight out of loobook. (Yes, I guess people on the internet do exist in real life)

I ran into my friend Ashley there. I shot her during the fall. Her boyfriend was one of the models for the show.

A Switzerland blogger came up to Cathy and I for a picture. After that, Cathy and I were just talking and the girl tried to take a picture of us again but with her iPhone. I mean.. I know we’re good looking.. (hahaha jk)

Breakfast in Vietnam, just like in any other oversea country, always has a westernized influence: waffles, pancakes, eggs, and of course.. bacon. Even though they are the same dishes the bacon is slightly different. Normally, hotel breakfasts get repetitive but they had Vietnamese dishes. I don’t think I’ll ever eat porridge for breakfast as much as I ever will in my life unless it’s in Vietnam. I really can’t complain though.

Clockwise: Watermelon, Dragonfruit, and Vietnamese Passion Fruit

After breakfast, we headed to the Temple of Literature. Students would visit the temple to get good luck before the exams.

Some people take their wedding pictures there too.

Pumpkin soup

Bicycle Taxi

Then we visited the museum/temple next to the Sword Lake. In my recap post of day one, I mention about the legend of a huge turtle who swallowed the emperor’s sword. There is a huge turtle that still lives in the lake and the one pictured below is a preserved one from the lake.

My uncle Dan and my mother

Then we went to a tourist trap (which was incredibly boring), but my mom said that the performance and the songs sung were genuine Vietnamese folklore.

Finished the day with some of The Office Season 3.

My family and I took a trip to the homeland during my winter break on the last weeks of December. I literally took my finals, packed, and then took a plane across the world from San Francisco to Taipei then from Taipei to Hanoi. This was by far the longest time I spent on an airplane, but I’ve gotten used to flying since my family and I travel a lot. My dad was the only one in the family that has visited Vietnam since he escaped during the Vietnam War. My siblings and I have only heard of stories of what is was like living in Vietnam. I knew this was going to be an enriching experience not only because of the opportunity to see foreign things but to wrap myself in my roots and my culture.

I think I’m getting better with these food porn. Yes? Yeah? Does this picture of ramen at the Taipei Airport turn you on? No? then I failed.

It was warm when we stepped out of the terminal of Hanoi. Stepping out of the terminal of Taipei was freezing.

This was the view from when I stepped out from my room and walked to the elevator.

l-r: Uncle Dan, Michael, Merys, my pops

Emperor Ly Thai To

Turtle Tower and bridge on Hoan Kiem Lake

My dad and uncles told us the legend of the Turtle Tower and how there was turtle that took the sword of the emperor and swallowed it. (something like that) Today, there is still a turtle that lives in the lake and whenever it comes out of the water there are live broadcasts about it.

There was so much traffic and noise in Hanoi. It was overwhelming to see so many motorcycles driving through the many streets and narrow alleys. Smog pulled your lungs and the horns from the mopeds deafened your ears. I always wondered why the elder Vietnamese in my hometown, San Jose, always jay walked and then I found it that it was a daily habit in Vietnam. That’s how you cross the street in Vietnam. There is practically no other way. You may be frightened to cross at first but then it becomes kind of fun as if you’re playing human frogger.

Cho Dem Dong Xuan (Night Market)

This is a local market mainly for the locals. It was one long street selling clothing and gifts. It’s like their mall but out on the street and only at night are the streets blocked so that pedestrians can walk.

They had our DVDs before we the DVDs were even released.

the bridge at Hoan Kiem Lake at night (hand held)

I was in search of a tripod that night but I had no luck.

Lauren, Michael, Cathy, and I wanted to bike from San Jose to Saratoga. All of us except Cathy have to drive to Saratoga everyday for school but Michael and I never biked there before. It was a 15 mile bike just to the Mitsuwa Marketplace in Saratoga. Cathy doesn’t ride regularly so it was a demanding ride for her. We got to Mitsuwa and ate ramen. Afterward, we went to the Kinokuiya bookstore. I showed Michael the workwear / denim japanese books and we spazzed together on all the awesome outfits the Japanese men wear. I also got to look through some sneaker magazines with vintage Nike pictures. Michael had work at 2 so he and Lauren rode back to SJ while Cathy and I took our time. It turns out there was a shorter way back which only took 11 miles. It was the same route Lauren and I usually take if we were going from San Jose (Eastridge) to Valley Fair/ Santana Row. We split from them at Santana Row while Cathy and I went to Valley Fair. Then we rode to downtown San Jose and visited the Kalied Art Gallery. Her head got stuck in a house made by Lacey Bryant, my favorite bay area artist. Lacey Bryant also made an even bigger cardboard house. Inside the houses are decorations, figures, and lights - as if it were a real house. We rode home and got some ice cream at McDonalds (way to gain our calories back from biking) then I got my haircut. Tis all.

p.s. All of this was shot/edited from an itouch or iphone

I woke up around 7:45 to get ready to hike Mission Peak. The night before, Lauren, Cathy, Minh, Andrew, my brother, and I planned to hike it. In the end, only Andrew and Minh came to hiking the trail. Cathy and I met up with them afterward to have lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant. It was my first time eating with my bare hands and using bread to grab the meat. I’ve heard bad reviews but this restaurant had 4.5 stars on Yelp. I wasn’t so incredibly fond of their bread but their lamb and chicken was tasty.

Mudai Ethiopian Restuarant

503 W San Carlos Street

San Jose, CA

BTW half of the pics were shot by me or Minh.

Then the guys went home to shower while Cathy and I went to Valley Fair. Cathy and I were saying how it felt like we were waiting on our dates, so her date was Andrew while mine was Minh. We met up with them afterward to get drinks at Fantasia. Andrew and Cathy were hungry again so we ate at Chipotle across the street from Santana Row.

Minh was playing with my camera and my remote. He would shoot aimlessly not looking through the viewfinder. And sometimes he got a good shot like this:

Andrew and Cathy

Melles and Minh ( I guess I wasn’t a great date..)

Cathy and I split from the guys. They went to the Chili’s bar while Cathy and I went to Lauren’s house to chill. The day was completely spontaneous, but whatever. With chill company, everything is dandy.

P.S. Vietnam pics.. I SWEAR will be coming up.

p.s.s. It’s been awhile since I’ve done a recap huh.

This is reaaaalllyy picture heavy. I guess you can say I started shooting again. I still have a lot to learn, but hopefully I’m improving as time goes on. The picture below is an example. I’ve tried panning a couple times but it never came out as how I wanted it to be. I was stuck in traffic on my way to school and then I realized I had my camera on me. What did I start doing? Shooting. 

Week 1:

There was an used book sale going on at school. If you’re my bud and you want any of the books below let me know. They were only 50 cents each o.o I couldn’t resist! (I don’t really read..)

These are some of my friends that I see everyday at school….

I was asked to shoot at a South Bay First Thursday Event. This event was about issues in the work place for LGBTQIA. (did I get everything? yeah…)

I had a photoshoot with Ashley the next day. It took awhile for us to meet up downtown since it’s a tad complicated and there was traffic on the way there. I ended up having a really awesome shoot with her. I’ve wanted to shoot with her since last Fall because she always reminded me of the Autumn colors and all. But that time I wanted to shoot her and her boyfriend.This year she hit me up and I just had a shoot with her. I’m totally going to shoot with her again, and next time will definitely be better.

Week 2:

I worked on my online portfolio that morning but I haven’t touched it since that morning. I’m aiming to launch it by the end of January along with my business card. I’m horrible at keeping up with my own deadlines, I know. Anyways, I wanted to do some product shots, so I shot some of my brother’s things that morning right before it rained.

Later on that evening, I went to Shawna’s to shoot some portrait shots of her and her date. They were going to a fraternity ball.

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APBang are studying hard for their last finals and in between breaks they check my tumblr for updates. Hence I’m going to recap about last month even though I wasn’t even planning to.

Week 3:

It was Cris’ birthday that week. Initially, Tina planned on giving her a surprise dinner with just us then I said they should go clubbing. We ended up just hanging out at Honeyberry, talking, and taking pictures.

Pam and Tee were home from school for the weekend. I did some Christmas shopping with them for people on their list.

Later on that night, Cthua hit me up to hang out. I was already hanging out with Lauren. We picked up Charis we all ended up watching Twilight at a drive in. It was my first time watching a drive in movie .. and a Twlight movie. That shit was funny.

Week 4:

Sometime during the week Michael, Lauren and I went to Santana Row. It was cold. 

I had Thanksgiving with my Dad’s side. The previous week I spent a lot of time with my Mom’s side since they were visiting from Seattle. 

They were webcamming with our cousin in Texas.

Tran and Junior normally don’t come up to Nor Cal to celebrate Thanksgiving. They normally fly to Texas for their Dad’s side.

Later on that night, I met up with Pam and Kathy to study. YES, I said STUDY. No lie ahah. I stayed there till 3 in the morning. When i finally got into bed around 4 I wasn’t sleepy, so I drove to Santana Row to meetup with my brother who was in line at Urban Outfitters. By the time I got there (which was 4:30), no one was outside in line because they opened the doors. Good timing eh? We both tried on this jacket, but we decided not to cop.

We went home and I napped for 2-3 hours to only wake up and continue shopping. My brother, Carolyn, Esther and I went to Black and Brown to do some thrifting. I dropped them off and then APBang came over. We were missing Katherine the entire time.

Later on that night, I went to Honeyberry with my cousins Tran and Junior since they were going to drive back to LA the next day.

I had an audition to play the piano for this girl and boyfriend’s anniversary at SJSU. I parked my car near Black and Brown and biked to SJSU. I would’ve biked from home to downtown but I had to also drive my friend to the bus stop. I explored around looking for inspiration and I also wanted to know downtown better. At the beginning of the year, I really knew nothing about my downtown. Now I at least know how to get around without the navigation and to get to various parking garages. Anyways, two of my friends asked me to shoot for them the following week so I had to find a spot.

I visited downtown City Hall to check out Occupy San Jose just to see what was going on. I had already been at City Hall unintentionally because it was one of SJ Bike Party’s stops. I saw so many pictures and stories of the rallying in Oakland and Wall Street so I was curious if the rallying was any different in the day time here in SJ. There were just some but nothing at all intense. The majority were just the houseless that normally roam around in the city.

Later on that night, I went to Halloween Masquerade. Yeah, it sounded cool but it wasn’t all that great. It’s definitely going to be referred back as those ” Ha, remember that time when we…” moments. 

Saw THE Lacey Bryant (one of my favorite local artists) painting at the Kalied Art Gallery after closing. There’s a Two Buck Tuesday event coming up that she always organizing. 

Shawna dressed up as a baseball player and I dressed up as a hipster zombie that got ran over by a bike… It’s funny how someone else from my class of 2010 also reused their Zombie outfit from our senior homecoming skit. Good shit.

Esther and Michael (he’s dressed up as Diddy Kong)

Appetizers were half off, asian’s taking advantage of the deal. 

10/29/11

Long night. Let’s just leave it as that.

10/30/11

Shawna and I had to carve the pumpkin on behalf of our club, APAU (Asian Pacific American Union) pronounced as A-POW. Both of us have never ever carved a pumpkin before. I took a stab at it and I realized how fun it was. Shawna was disgusted at taking the insides out so I had to do it- AND THAT WAS FUN TOO. Then Shawna realized how fun it was to scrap out the inside. Then she was pumpkin hogger and carved the rest of it (but I drew it out).

Michael was indifferent.. 

Haha, obviously I was hella into it.

Boo, from Mario

Turn out that we won first place! Our club gets 50 bucks and a free pizza party. Yuh.

Later on that night, I went to go trick-or-treating with Carolyn and her little sister along with Christina and her little cousin.

In calculus, my professor gave us a crossword with the words but no clues. There was only one way to do it. I was the second one to finish.. just off by a second. The winner got a bag of Peanut M&Ms. -.-. sigh.

The next day, I ran errands and what not. Later on that night, I went to the SJ Bike Party night ride. The ride started at 9 but I didn’t get to Eastridge until 9:30 ish. I caught up with everyone on the 1st regroup but before that I basically rode 5 miles alone. I did see some peeps from the bike party along the way so I knew I was going the right way. There’s some euphoric riding with them. The streets that you normally drive by on a daily basis, for one night of the month - they’re infested with people of all ages on bikes. It’s awesome to say the least.

1st Regroup:

2nd Regroup:

3rd Regroup:

Occupy San Jose in front of San Jose City Hall

Lauren, Charis, and Alaena had compliments aaaaallll night. I was just the girl that tagged along with them.

10/22/11

Spent the night with these two fools and my buddy Alex. Had an.. interesting night. I saw a bunch of heads I haven’t seen since summer while others I haven’t seen in YEARS.

10/23/11

The fam drove all the way to Fremont to celebrate my grandma’s birthday (dad’s side). This year she had a lot of complications with her body and what not so we made sure her birthday was a big deal.

My mom and my beer belly cousin ahah

I think if I was my friend- I’d be pissed off at me too. I mean shit, why do I take so long to go through pictures and edit them - they look the same ANYWAY. Alright, I’m lazy for one and over time I just give up on ever going through them anyway. However if I do want to go through them.. well, to all of my peer photography buddies out there- you know damn well that the pictures you take need to be edited. There’s this unwritten rule somewhere in an unwritten photography guide handbook that says a picture is not done until you edit it. And hey, I’ll take the compliment when you tell me it doesn’t look edited. 

So my buddies and I had a ski trip December of last year ( Click here for the recaps: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) and since we had so much fun - we had another one over the summer before everyone went back to school and what not. Thanks Tee, as usual for organizing it and of course for all the guys (ASS) for driving and taking your cars. I guess the girls for .. being girls. (APBang + Helen). Sorry for the delay, you might as well get used to it.. well, it’s probably already expected. Okay anyway, Tee booked us a cabin in Twain Harte, CA which was the same area we went over the winter. Instead of snowboarding and frolicking in the snow, we hiked (ahaha… no really though) and swam in the lake! Our first day was packing our things into the cars and unpacking everything when we got to the cabin. The first 2 cars got to the cabin by noon but the last car didn’t get there until several hours later -.-. The sad sad part was that everyone was incredibly hungry but all the food was in the LAST CAR. Face palm indeed.

the morning after…