I has apartment. And there's pictures this time!

So last weekend I visited my apartment (that I'm paying for without living in yet...) for the second time. My mattress was SUPPOSED to be delivered but there were problems with finding the correct model, and long story short, I'll be getting a more expensive version for the same price instead.

And this time I brought my 18-55 lens! Less sharpness but hey, at least I was able to fit whole walls into frame. And it's not like I was trying for actual photography here anyway.

So without further adieu, here are some photos of my empty apartment. Try to contain your excitement.

Main room/bedroom/livingroom/hallwayishthing:

Kitchen:

Bathroom:

Coat Closet Mylinh's new house (modeled by my lovely mother):

I love it, probably because it's MINE. But the one thing I wish I could change about it is the doors. They're this strange orangey color...But I guess every apartment has SOMETHING.

As we were leaving I was walking down the steps with my arms full of bags and boxes, my mom tired and not feeling well, but my artistic side kicked in and I decided I had to try taking a long exposure night photo.

It's outside in the courtyard, which is taken care of and managed better than any other apartment I've lived in.

Now I just need to find furniture...

盆踊り2011

It seems like I was just at last year's bonodori festival, which my friends convinced me to go to for the first time in years. We ate, we laughed, they danced. Oh and of course there were the beautiful lanterns we put in the water only to have the wind blow them back towards us.

But this year's festival rolled around quicker than I expected, and of course I had to go because Davic and I decided to make it a tradition. This time we brought his little brother Alex, and I came equipped with camera in hand. :)

But before the festival, we decided to take a little walk around the Capitol.


Don't let this fool you, it took a few tries to get him to actually hug me...




According to Alex, these are for climbing.








The brothers used this place to run around and jump from ledge to ledge


While I stayed on the ground and squinted so beautifully.


Again with the beauty! How do I do it?







Davic took this shot, and I'm pretty sure he just randomly snapped it, but I love how it turned out.

I don't even know.


Superhero?




Our beautiful city. Oh wait ignore the gross water...


I had no idea these little tomatoes were growing up there on top of the hill.



And by then the festival had already started. Although there still wasn't much happening quite yet, so what did we do? Got food of course! I wanted yakitori, but they were somehow out already...even though the festival was just starting. So instead I settled for:


It was underwhelming...if only our humble little bondori had more than one food booth.




So after watching some taiko and martial arts, Alex was getting bored. Like he always does. He wanted something more "actiony" so he told us he was going to go run around in the parking lot. Like literally, he went and ran in circles.


THIS is what will happen if you create a video game addict from a young age.

I was EXTREMELY disappointed that there was no lantern ceremony this year! I mean, isn't that the whole main point of bonodori?? The lanterns to guide the spirits?? And I was so looking forward to taking some awesome night pictures of the lanterns in the water.

But as a replacement, they had a tree set up where for a dollar (which was to be donated to earthquake relief in Japan) you got a strip of paper on which you could write a wish or prayer. I wasn't that excited over it at the time, but I ended up getting some of my favorite photos EVER out of the deal. :) Take a look...







And towards the end, what could possibly be considered the highlight of the festival happened. The dancing.



Last year most of my friends danced while I and another friend laughed and took pictures. Fun enough for my low standards. And this year I had full intentions to take video footage of Davic Making a fool of himself. But instead something else happened. Something unusual.

I donno if it was the hostess' speech about how everyone is stupid either way, "so you might as well dance", or Davic's strange ability to get me to do things I normally wouldn't. Or maybe it was my resolution to care less about what people think, but whatever it was, I danced. And I liked it.

After dancing the night away and letting a 6-year-old use my $700 camera that I'm WAY overprotective of, bonodori 11 was over.


Bye until next year obon festival. <3
If you like my photos and want to see the entire set, make sure to check out my flickr

Baby Update + An Apartment Of My Own

Also, I officially have an apartment now. I brought my camera expecting to take magnificent realestate-quality photos to show off my new place. But then I realized my 50mm lens is cropped waaay too closely for that and the most I could get was portions of walls at a time...so instead, here's a picture of my new mug from Daiso. :) 

California Dreams Tour

Oh my, what an exciting adventure we had yesterday. After checking out a potential apartment for me, MyLinh, my mother an I had tickets to see the lovely Katy Perry. I have to say she put on an overall amazing show. 

My only gripe was that a soccer game was going on the same night, so traffic was absolutely nutso crazypants. I had no idea there were so many devoted soccer fans in Seattle. And plus wherever the people in the red shirts were from. 

When we arrived at our seats we saw some pink clouds, one of which was hanging high above the audience. We started making predictions about what that would be for.

There's the cloud. I was hoping she'd actually go up this high so she could be closer to us.

I was inspired by two whorishly dressed teen girls. If they can take sexy pictures so can we.

The opening act was Janelle Monae, who who was very loud, creative, and energetic. I personally liked her stage presence, but my mom wasn't two thrilled with her screams. When she was done she literally rode out on some guys back.... After her was DJ skeet skeet. He was good and provided a club-like atmosphere. (or what I assume a club would be like?) But I couldn't help but be distracted by his name a little...

The concert itself was amazing. Rather than a concert it was more like a theatrical production or something. I mean how many concerts have storylines? (Actually, I wouldn’t know...) I loved how it started with a little story about Katy and the butcher and the baker’s boy. Man was she adorable in that video. At the end when she climbs through the kitty door, you could feel the anticipation building in the room since everyone knew exactly what it meant, Katy herself was going to pop up any second!

And she was very creative in finding a way to incorporate her less sugary songs. :P This particular scene also taught me to never trust mimes...especially mimes bearing gifts. 

The outfits, the dancer, her spunkiness, it all made for an awesome show. And on top of that there were the extra things like lasers during ET, confetti and “whipped cream” sprayed at the audience for California gurls, and during Last Friday Night, photos were shown on the video screens including MINE. Maybe it was only 2 seconds, and maybe I was mostly covered up by an animated cat, but Mason and I were ON THAT SCREEN!!!  :D

E.T.  (Click any of these to see full size)

   

See? She did go on that cloud! But not as high up as I thought.

Yes. It is a hideous picture of me. But you know what? It was on a screen at a katy perry concert and that's all that matters.

When we left for the night we were all exhausted. My calves were for some reason sore, mom had a headache which caused a detour on the way home, and Mylinh? well. For some reason her milk was coming in during the concert, and had leaked through her shirt....oh the life of a young mother. 

Goodnight Seattle <3

I can hear your music through the wall.

I’ve had to live with some horrible neighbors. Like really horrible. We’re talking criminals and creepers. And maybe the newest set of college boys aren’t the worst people who have lived here, but they sure are annoying! Didn’t their mothers teach them to be considerate of other people?

I mean we’re living in a place where we share walls. THIN walls. I don’t understand how people can be so care free and do whatever they please. Oh your roommates are gone? Guess that means you can play your music as LOUD as you want! Oh you like playing your drum? Why don’t you sit outside shirtless and play repetitive beats for half an hour. Oh there’s no physical divider in between our “yards”? Well then come right on over, our space is your space neighbor!

I guess I should just be thankful they don’t usually make noise at night like past neighbors have. But still I gotta complain a little!

Speaking of neighbors, I sure hope when I move into my own apartment I have good quiet ones. Oh because did I mention? I’ve been looking into that lately. It’s both exciting and terrifying. In fact I’ll be looking at a place on Wednesday. :O

Fathers Day Continued...

As I mentioned in my last post, Mylinh and I started to get pretty dang tired when baking/assembling those hamburger cupcakes. But what I forget to mention is how loopy and delirious we became. "Things" started happening as a result...

At one point, I had the last batch of cupcakes in the oven. These ones were supposed to be our "perfect" batch because we figured out how much batter to use in order to get the perfect bun size. To save time I wanted to put the last batch of "fries" in the oven at the same time, and so in they went.

But later, when I went to check on them, I ended up peeking into the oven, slamming it shut, and laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. Why? In my delirious state of mind, I set the pan of fry cookies ON TOP of the cupcakes. Needless to say they turned out less than perfect...

The funniness was amplified by our tiredness. We were both crying from laughing so hard. And it wasn't my normal watery eyes, it was full on crying. But it's one of those moments that we'll never forget. :)

DON'T BAKE WHEN TIRED.

Father's Day...and MORE cupcakes??

Yeah I know, it's a little much. But we had been planning this for MONTHS so we couldn't not do it.

We decided to surprise John for his first Father's day as an actual father. First of all, we bought him a chococat bento! Originally we wanted to get a specific panda one, but had to make due with what was in stock. Hey, it's cute anyway though right?

And what did we put in this adorable bento? Not a lunch, but adorable little "burgers" and "fries"! Mylinh and I saw this idea on bakerella months ago, and planned on making it for fathers day before their baby was even born.



The process was crazy. It might not have been so bad normally, but we had to hurry and try to get these done in about 3 hours. While we were making them our backs and feet started aching and we started complaining "UGH John better appreciate this!" About halfway through we pledged not to make any more cupcakes for a while...


On Father's day itself I delivered the burgers and fries to John in a Jack in the Box bag. (his favorite) and told him that I brought him lunch. I think it's safe to say he was surprised by what was really inside. Mission:ACCOMPLISHED.

I'd say we're a pretty awesome baby mama and....uh...whatever I am, for doing this! <3