Tuesday, January 18, 2011

San Francisco!

So on Sunday, three other friends, Jessica #2's(number additive due to there being a total of three Jessica's in the group)parents and I went on a road trip to San Francisco. But before I get to the actual trip, let me tell how scary foggy it was in the morning. Like seriously, I could not see over a 20 yard radius. I thought I was going get run over by a truck before I even make it to my friend's house.



We first stopped by Mountain View--where the said parents owned a pizza place. We stayed there for two hours, where we stopped by CVS pharmacy. The first thing we did was try to find Tangled Valentine's Day cards. No, we did not find any. ;_; Then then we bought chocolate. By the way, Wonka's Scrumdiliumptious(hope I spelled it right!) bar is not that scrumdiliuptious. Then we bought a bag of vegetable-fry-chip-thing at Trader Joe's and acted like obnoxious teenagers in the middle of the street. Afterwards, we went to Party City, where we had no choice BUT to find the Tangled party supplies.


I didn't buy anything, since there wasn't much worth buying. But it was still pretty cool that there was a whole shelf completely dedicated to Tangled party supplies, so yeah, picture. :)

We went back to the pizza place to eat free pizza. I only ate two small cheese slices, because I'm such a slow eater, and everybody else had at least three normal-sized slices. T_T

AND NOW BACK TO THE ROAD TRIP WE GO, where Caitlin screwed up my hearing by blasting 'So Happy I Could Die' by Lady Gaga in my ear. Last time I'm accepting earphones from her. I fell asleep in the car, well, kind of asleep because I kept zoning in and out of conversations held by my three other friends. And then finally came the big city! (I suppose the words 'big city' doesn't hold much meaning on my part, since I already live in the big city)



Tall skyscrapers~



Fountains.



Gorgeous archictecture. We kept seeing this type of structure throughout the city.

Traffic....




Angry owl on the wall.


THIS IS A VIETNAMESE PHO PLACE. I SAW IT AND I GOT OVER-EXCITED BECAUSE I LIKE PHO. Well, almost as excited as when I spotted the Disney store from a distance.

We eventually found parking near a billboard advertising whiskey. /shrug

We went to a huge Urban Outfitters first, where we skimmed about for less then ten minutes. So we walked across the street to the three-story, church-looking Forever 21. I felt compelled to spend my Forever 21 gift card I got from the Secret Santa Gift Exchange while in San Francisco. After going up to the top floor, and eventually coming back down, I decided to buy a plain, pink cardigan for only 13 dollars:

I'm happy with the purchase. It has pockets! xD

And then we stopped by at Ross to meet up with the parents to let them know we haven't been shanked yet we were safe, and sprinted over to the Disney store!



DISNEY STORE, YES. WHAT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR. YES. Of course we had to go over to the Tangled merchandise!



No Tangled Graphic novel though, even when my friend, Jessica #3 called in a week ahead of time to see if it was in stock. ;_; But she did find a 'reusable' Tangled sticker book. We're actually not sure if the stickers are reusable, since they just look like normal stickers...She's not willing to find out. And then we found Beast, the mentally challenged fairytale character.



I'm sorry, but are my friends and I the only people that laugh at this Beast-doll costume?

Then we went upstairs where Caitlin found a Mr. Pricklepants and Eeyore plushie to buy for only fifteen dollars total. And there on that floor, we found a huge honking screen with a Disney playlist for visitors to customize. Of course we had to put the Tangled trailer next on the playlist:




Jessica #3 doing the typical tourist thing in front of Flynn's smolder. Mmmm. Then we went back downstairs to get in line for the cash register when all of a sudden, the faces of Disney villians projected onto the walls! The lights darkened, and thunder played....And then a random employee ran up to hug me in an attempt to act scared. She told us rub our hands together to call forth Tinkerbell, who came projected on the walls and SAVED US YAY. Then we all cried tears of happiness and agreed that working at the Disney store is a dream job.

And then we went back outside to take a group picture:


I JUST DON'T WANT BLIND YOU PEOPLE WITH OUR ACNE.

Then we went to the Apple store to check a Tangle fansite and finally went back to the car, where I took a picture of all the Disney merchandise we bought:



A Tangled tote bag for me, a Tangled sticker book for Jessica #3, and a Mr. Pricklepants and a Eeyoore plushie for Caitlin. JESSICA #2 DIDN'T BUY ANYTHING, HOW COULD SHE?

...Wow, you'd think a bunch of three year olds bought that stuff.

And then we drove up to Chinatown, a.k.a the Asian hills of doom. I didn't take any pictures of Chinatown itself, since the I was too tired from walking up and down steep hills and stopping every five minutes at some cramped store. Jessica #3 bought a 'I heart SF' shirt at one store to match her 'I heart NY' shirt........We eventually stopped at a small restaraunt thing-a-majig where we shared a plate of the parents' selection of food:



A variety of wonton thingies--I don't even know. They were good though! And then Jessica #2 and #3 ate a Chinese sticky bun, followed by my eating a sesame seed round thing with a red bean paste....I should really learn the names. I eat this stuff almost everyday. v_v

And then onto the final part of the day: Yesstyle! It was quite a long trip deeper into SF. I remember at some point, the elevation was so high that our ears popped. I did recognize the Stonestown Galleria almost immediately though. When we got into the mall, we jogged up the escalator, ran to the wrong side of the mall, and finally sprinted to Yesstyle...Where we saw the dad at the entrance. Okay, lovely, even with our sprinting, the parents whom we got a five minute headstart over still beat us.

The store was rather small--not suffocating--but small. But they had a REALLY nice selection of clothes. My friends and I were tearing apart the store, looking to buy as much as we can! Sadly there was only one dressing room, so the wait time just to try on clothes was rather long.

At the end, I bought the same dress as Jessica #2(xD), Caitlin bought a hoodie, and the mom bought a questionable dress for Jessica #2...very questionable indeed. The prices were awesome though! The dresses were only $25 and the hoodie about $30.(I think, correct me if I'm wrong Caitlin)



And then we went back to Jessica #2's house where we did an -ahem- art project. An art project I imagine would offend a lot of people so I'll just keep the picture of the art project in my Facebook. ^_^; And then Jessica #3 showed us that the whole Yesstyle site was having an up to 80% off sale! We all agreed to do a group order before the sale ends. We're trying to hit $150, so we could get free shipping, even though shipping is only $10. US FOBS. I still have the whole Yesstyle site to look through before January 24th!


Saturday, January 8, 2011

What's for dinner tonight + Gifts and Art!

My dinner is fiesty when it's trapped inside a paper bag. Hopefully a bowl of water cooled it off:



Alive and kicking, kind of. Well it was when it was set down on the ground while it was still inside the paper bag. It skittered all over the carpet. I screamed a lot and threatened to kill it right there....I'm not a creepy-crawly lover. When it was put into the bowl of water, it barely twitched, so I guess spending one hour + in a bag either exhausted it, or suffocated it to near death.


In the pot
Steaming hot
Comes orange-red
It's gone and dead

And here are some pictures of the gifts I recieved from the Secret Santa + White Elephant gift exchanges held on December 27th:


My Secret Santa gift! And my favorite gift from either exchanges, a notebook of handwritten short stories, mad libs, poems, AND TANGLED FANFICTION BECAUSE CAITLIN KNOWS ME TOO WELL from my super-talented-of-a-writer friend. She also gave me a Forever 21 $25 gift card, since my Elfster wishlist was filled with dresses from Forever 21. ^^; /has yet to use the gift card

And to troll Caitlin furthur, a picture of the letter she wrote in the notebook:

I love how she puts the last sentence in bold. xD

Afterwards, I gave my Secret Santa Gift to Amy. The cruddiely wrapped gift contained an overpriced Kuromi plushie from Sanrio, two boxes of Pocky and a bag of milk candy.

After the Secret Santa Exchange, we had a White Elephant Exchage. (A White Elephant Exchange is basically an event in which everybody buys a gift[preferabley a gift everybody wants] sets it in a pile, and picks a number out of a stack of cards, from a hat, ect. Whoever gets number 1 picks a gift first, unwraps it, and then number 2 picks a gift. If number 2 does not like the gift she picks, she is allowed to steal a previous gift that has already been picked. After a gift has been stolen a certain amount of times, it cannot be stolen anymore. You also cannot steal back a gift.)

The White Elephant Gift Exchange was hilarious and too confusing to put into words, but I'll try the best I can. (there are three Jessica's in our ~*CIRCLE OF FRIENDS~* so for less confusion, they'll be called Jessica #1, #2, and #3). I'm mostly writing this down so I could look back at this three years from now and laugh at the good ol' days. :)

-Jessica #1 gets Van's bodywash...and uses it immediately.

-Van gets Jessica #2's Tangled books(plus gum and erasers), which immediately results in Jessica #3 and me raging and screaming at her due to our deep obsession with the movie.

-Amy gets Jessica #1's gift, which was box within a box within a box within a box...and eventually led to a note that led a to scavenger hunt for a bunny plushie and a box of chocolates. It was fun!

-Caitlin gets my gift, which was a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling and a bag of Danish Butter Cookies.

-Jessica #2 gets 10 bars of Hi-Chews(a Japanese fruit candy), and steals Jessica #1's bodywash. Now Jessica #1 has the Hi-Chews.

-I get Jessica's #3's gift, which was a K-Pop album, and steal the Tangled books. Now Van has the K-Pop album.

-Van steals the copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, leaving Caitlin with the K-Pop album.

-Jessica #3 gets Caitlin's gift of a set of obscure, heavy books. She steals the 20 bars of Hi-Chews from Jessica #1, leaving Jessica #1 with the obscure books.

-Caitlin steals the Hi-Chews, then Jessica #1 steals The Tales of Beedle the Bard. They trade the gifts they have just stolen. Now Caitlin has The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Jessica #1 has the Hi-Chews, Van has the K-Pop album, and Jessica #3 has the obscure books.

I hope got all of that right.

But the real important thing is, I GOT BEAUTIFUL TANGLED MERCHANDISE:

From left to right is the Tangled Read-Aloud Storybook(with seriously gorgeous art!), a Tangled poster which came with the storybook, and a Tangled coloring book (which I haven't dared even marked yet). There were also stickers that came with the storybook and the coloring book, all of which I'm never going to peel and stick on some unworthy surface.

There were also a bunch of gum and cute animal erasers that came with the books. I ended up giving the animal erasers to Van, and then she gave the bunny eraser to Jessica #3, which she ripped up. I thought she was threatening me(being a little mad she didn't get the Tangled books), since my username everywhere is Rabbit-Full. o_o

Before both of the exchages, Jessica #3 gave me BEAUTIFUL fanart of Flynn and Rapunzel--much better than what I could ever draw. It's all fluffy and sweet, the total opposite of the homolu--nevermind.



The paper suffered much physical abuse from the artist herself. WHY AREN'T YOU PROUD OF IT?

And a here's a real downer in comparison to that piece of art: