Hello hello hellooooooooooooo!

So I noticed there's a new feature on Xanga. It allows me to post a link directly to Facebook. Hmm... Do I want to do this? I'll try it and see what happens. My Xanga has always been pretty private with the exception of the 70+ hits I receive per entry. Okay, maybe not so private. Who's reading this out there? Send a girl a hollar or something. Geez. LOL.

This entry is going to be a little shorter than the rest because tomorrow marks my 1 year in NYC and I'm sooo excited. Yeeee Hawww! Why am I excited? I haven't a clue, but it sounds cool. I'm definitely going to have to update again tomorrow. I've managed to write 42 entries since I've been in NYC. I'd say that isn't too shabby considering how lazy I used to be with the blogging. This has got to be the most I've blogged since signing up on Xanga in 2002.

I'm a bit behind on updates so bear with me, folks. First off, of course... the weather! It's getting warmer finally and I'm ecstatic. Nothing pleases me more than to see the temps in the high 50s. Some might say I'm crazy, "50s isn't warm!" they'd say, but I say, "Ha! I don't care! It's better than 20s!"

An important event just passed, March 9th was my best friend, Jenny's birthday. For her birthday, she came to New York to spend her birthday with me. She literally came in on the 8th and left on the 10th. Her boyfriend Bryan came with her so the four of us spent some QT together.

This is Jen's 3rd time back in NY and it isn't her last.  I always tell her that she looks so rediculously Japanese. I don't mean that in a bad way, I just mean it.

We  each other... and have for 15 years now.

For Jen's birthday, I made dinner reservations at The Highline. It's the same place I had my birthday dinner last year. Continue reading →

Entry 41

Are you kidding me right now, New York? I woke up this morning, looked out my window and there was a mass of snow swirling outside my window! It's the first day of Spring for goodness' sakes!

Brother Nam's 26th Birthday was on Tuesday! Will blog more about that after I've caught up.

Before I move on, I have to make a shout out to someone because I told him I would. A "Hi Hello, Long Time, No See to Mr. Trung Lai!" I'll explain why he gets a shout out later on in the post.

So like I said before, I've been extremely busy, but I guess you can say it's a good busy. I'm starting out this post with a quiz I took on facebook. Many of you probably saw it already, but I felt like it was so fitting for the theme of my 2008-2009 blogs, living in New York City. Check it out!

Anne Tran took the "Where should you be living?" quiz and the result is: New York City! OH SHNAP! I'm already here, Kiddies!

Anne took Where should you be living? quiz and the result is New York City
You are tired of having to drive an hour just to find a McDonald's. You are so ready to get out there and conquer the concrete jungles and climb a skyscraper. You don't want to be a farmer; you want to go find something exciting, acting maybe, or get into business and NYC is the perfect place for you.

 

Anywho, Cousin Thomas visited recently. He's the 7th cousin to visit and the 9th family member. I'm so glad I'm close to my family. Sigh. Anyway, he was here interviewing for medical school. I'm so very proud of him. He spent some time with us and some with his friends.

 

 

We took him out to eat a couple nights. Continue reading →

Entry 40

I'm sorry friends! I've been extremely busy working during the day and lately I find myself working at home after dinner now too which means no time for blogging. 

Entry 39

OH yes... love is always in the air when it comes to Dan and me. Yes, corny I know, barf.

But love is definitely in the air on Valentine's Day. Too bad Aunt Flow came for a visit on this day and she knocked upon my door with a lot of baggage.

I got my flowers from the hubby while in bed and ate some of Laura's delicious chocolate covered strawberries. Nothing like waking up to flowers and sweets.

We had more planned, but I just couldn't get out of bed. We skipped brunch and just headed for The Metropolitan Museum where we participated in the Naked Scavenger Hunt where we searched for clues and answers hidden in naked paintings, statues, relics, you name it.

[reminder: don't forget the cut tag at the end ]

Here's Dan before we headed in.

And the race begins...

Continue reading →

Entry 38

I am baaaack!

Let's cut to the chase and do some updating...

[I'll be adding cut tags from now on so my home page doesn't take too long to load. In other words, click the "More here" link at the bottom of these posts to see the whole entry.]

Every year in New York City during the Lunar New Year, Chinatown gives us the great pleasure of watching the Lunar New Year Parade. I tried watching the parade up close, but as you can tell from these photos, it didn't work out so well. If I had eyeballs on my palms then raising my arms above the crowd would have helped, but I don't so it doesn't. Hubby had to take these photos for me.

As you can see, standing there hoping to get the parade from Mott Street didn't work out too well for me. Luckily,   Continue reading →

Entry 37

Oh baby oh yes. New York City is getting warmer. It was 41 degrees this past Saturday and I was ecstatic!

And the next day it was 58 degrees! Even better.

After church on the very beautiful 58 degree Sunday, Hubby decided to take me out to brunch    Continue reading →

If you're a non-reader, skip to the bottom to view the video.

About a year ago, 8 of us left for Rio de Janeiro for Carnival 2008 where we partied until the wee hours of the night where for one week, the world came together in appreciation of music and culture.

We continued on to the Amazon where we roughed it out in the rainforest and our activities were replete with piranha fishing, forest trekking, river swimming, caimen hunting, and became dinner to a population of mosquitoes.

2 said good-bye and 6 of us went onward to Iguazu Falls where we explored the beautiful waterfalls on the borders of Brazil and Argentina and our journey included an exhilerating raft ride right under a waterfall.

1 said his farewell as 5 of us kept on going towards Cusco, a city which boasts such amazing culture, but gave us pounding headaches due to altitude.

We, 5, trekked up to the hidden empire of Machu Picchu, watched the sunrise and explored the ancient and sacred ruins.

When another said good-bye, 4 of us continued on to Easter Island to stare out into the sea with the ancient Moai stautes.

In Quito, we journeyed through the city of a great volcano and rich culture.

The Galapagos Islands truly gave us a chance to walk among the animals and inside volcano rims.

Tikal boasted the opportunity to go ziplining through a forest, gave us a good look at an ancient temp hidden within a jungle and we slumbered with the howler monkeys interrupting our sleep.

Cancun offered beautiful and amazing beaches and parties and Chichen Itza is home to a great and ancient ruins of the Mayan civilization.

Catch a glimpse of our adventure in this video below created by Dan with footage courtesy of Duy. Enjoy!

The New York Chronicles:  Life of an OC Girl in NY
Entry 36

I really need to catch up on blogging. I might have to do a double blog this week or something.

It's a lot warmer today! It was warm yesterday too. Oh it felt so great to feel some weather in the high 30s and low 40s. Oh how I miss thee!

Okay, okay, I know I've been complaining about the cold, but it really has been cold and I'm not making it up. If Alaska is calling it cold then I believe it's unusually friggen cold. I couldn't even imagine going 60 below 0. Aaahhh! I also read another article on wikitravel last week. Below:

15 Jan 2009

Arctic temperatures dove into the central & eastern US Thursday as a massive arctic high brought temps as low as -30ºF(-35ºC) and wind chills below -50ºF(-45ºC). Most Midwestern & northern Plains cities are also expecting subzero (ºF,-18ºC) highs. The cold, expected to last through the weekend, brought such temps/windchills (ºC in parentheses) as:

• Minneapolis -21/-45 (-29/-43),
• Chicago -10/-26 (-24/-32),
• Bismarck -38/-48 (-39/-44),
• Des Moines -18/-40 (-28/-40). (more...)

I mean... That's some crazy ish right? Kinda makes you wonder about that Global Warming business. Do not make comments about global warming. I will not go into discussion. Haha. It's weird how California isn't cold at all though.

Here's a photo of Soho when Hubby and I went some time last week.

Sometimes the snow makes the city look so beautiful to me and in the pictures I show, people think it looks pretty amazing, but    Continue reading →

The New York Chronicles:  Life of an OC Girl in NY
Entry 35

I've been busier than I have before and so I'm quite behind on blogging. I'll try to catch up! First off, I wanted to say... OH MAN, is it cold in New York City! And don't say that I'm whining too much. It's the coldest winter NYC has had in about 5 years they are saying. Great, I come here at a bad time in the economy and a bad time in weather as well. Even after this... I'm lovin' it, lovin' it, lovin' IT.

I've always got the new year to look forward to. With that said... Happy Chinese New Year!! Momma told me that the person who enters your home first brings his luck with him for the whole year. And as a group, the Roomies decided we'd have Dan do it. This is the first time I'm trying this out, but I'm posting a video of this special event. And it wasn't planned but, like the Lame-O that I am, I also ended up randomly walking through the apartment so you'll get a good luck at it as well.

So we've had two important events I need to blog about.    Continue reading →