dim sum is my jam. i have never ever never ever ever said no to eating dim sum.

so when BB's family offered to take us out to dim sum for lunch, i was delighted! at their suggestion, we went to The Grand at the New World Mall. i never even knew there was a restaurant located there, aside from the extensive food court in the basement!

luckily BB's cousin goes to The Grand frequently and gets the VIP treatment, so we didn't have to wait to be seated. the line looked moderate when we arrived around 12:30 p.m., but it blew up when we left about 45 mins-1 hour later.

overall, the food was good at The Grand, and everything was served fresh and hot. however, the ladies pushing the carts seem to hate doing their job and never want to stop at your table. when you do get their attention, they want to drop their item and leave ASAP. we had to stop more than 1 cart lady from leaving before we could ask for additional items from her cart.

now that i think about, it seems that none of their employees seem to want to do their jobs. BB's parents wanted to order a crispy noodle dish, so we flagged one of the waiters near us to order. she asked if we wanted to settle our check and i advised her that we wanted to order a dish instead. to which she responded that she couldn't do that.

ok, i can accept that. it's a very large banquet hall with a large and quick turnover for dim sum. perhaps her sole purpose is to quickly settle up checks for tables so new customers can be seated. so imagine my surprise when she made the biggest stinkface and exasperated sigh when we asked her to settle our check and gave her our credit card.

lastly, i was surprised with the lack of options being carted around. i'm not sure if it's because the hall is too big, but there were some main/usual dim sum characters that never made it to our table e.g. shrimp balls, shrimp crepes, turnip cake.

however, the service issues aside, the food wasn't bad, and there were some interesting options. not sure if i'll make it back, especially with that food court located right below it.

Dim Sum for the Suspect

i love dim sum. there will never be a moment when i reject someone's suggestion to eat dim sum for a meal (well, except in the instance where i just ate-and only because i am most likely too full to fit any food in my tummy, let alone dim sum).

Sully flies  his korean pride flag high, in that he favors korean cuisine over any other option. he rarely has an opportunity to eat dim sum, and the last outing didn't exactly impress him, so i'd been looking for another opportunity to go out for dim sum again. and that was how we found ourselves at Red Egg on a rainy Sunday morning. 

we were actually there due to a bloomspot voucher i had purchased which was about  to expire.  the deal allowed me to purchase $55 worth of food for a discounted amount. there had actually been a more reasonable offer but since Sully's daily intake of food exceeds most ordinary people's, i figured going for the larger option was best.

we arrived at the restaurant a little after 11 am, which is a decent time for dim sum if you want the freshest options without too much of a wait at the usual dim sum joints in Chinatown. however, when we arrived there were only 3 tables seated (all of them white). Unlike cart dim sum places, Red Egg offers a check-list for dim sum items and a regular menu for larger items. we ordered the following:

1. Pork and Shrimp Siu Mai ($2.75): this was one of Sully's favorite dishes.  the wrapper is thin and the pork and shrimp were juicy and plump.  not bad, although i wasn't as excited about it as Sully.

2. Veal Chops with Black Pepper Sauce ($3.75): a good alternative if you decide not to order the traditional spare ribs option. i offered Sully the option of either and he ended up choosing this one. very flavorful and juicy, with large easy-to-eat pieces although if you don't like the tendony portion attached to the bone, you may want to skip this. i have no qualms with using my fingers to get every bite.

3. Sticky Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaf ($4.50): i primarily ordered this in order to provide Sully with a more "filling" option, in case he ended up not liking the other dishes. this is a dim sum staple dish as well, although Red Egg's version is a little too soft for my liking.  the flavor's "meh" although the meaty pieces were plenty (abundant minced pork/chicken and sausage).

4. Shrimp Steamed Rice Roll ($4.50): this was really the only dish i knew for sure Sully would absolutely love. and he did. i, on the other hand, found it just merely satisfactory. the shrimp pieces were nicely sized, but the rice roll wasn't as tender as i usually like it and the sauce wasn't as flavorful. 

5. Pork Shrimp and Cilantro Dumpling ($3.75): i was actually a bigger fan of this dumpling than Sully was, who preferred the Siu Mai instead.  i liked it for the thin egg-based wrapper they used as opposed to the white dumpling wrappers which can sometimes be too doughy.  

6. Octopus in Sweet Bean Sauce ($5.50): this is a cold dish that i had been hesitant to order but Sully had pushed for.  it was surprisingly good and a nice contrast to the rest of the dishes.  the little octopi were had a crunchy texture without being too chewy and the dipping sauce added a nice touch of salty-sweet.

7. Stir Fried Radish Cake with Duck Meat ($6.50): although a little salty, the accompanying hoisin dipping sauce made this dish an interesting treat. the radish cakes are fried and then stir-fried with shredded duck and other accompaniments e.g. julienned carrots, celery, and fried egg. afterwards, Sully commented that he didn't really like this dish except for the "potato" to which i clarified that wasn't potato but radish cake which surprised him and subsequently changed his opinion on the dish entirely.

all this food comes out in spurts and you can imagine our little 2-person table was filling up quickly. in order to hit our voucher quota, Sully had also ordered a dish off the regular menu: Jumbo Shrimp with Honey Walnuts ($19). he had recently tried this dish at Kiddo's bday dinner and had fallen in love (no surprise as this is every chinese kid's favorite dish when having banquet dinners with family. who can argue with candied walnuts and fried shrimp covered in a sweet mayo sauce?) we ended up getting this dish to-go because we were too stuffed at this point to contemplate eating any more food.

by the time we asked for our check, the restaurant had started to fill up.the clientele was still primarily white, although the elderly couple that sat next to us were cantonese. while i prefer the bustling push-cart atmosphere of traditional dim sum, this place isn't a bad way to introduce noobs/timid eaters to the wonderful world o dim sum.

Hodge Podge

i was perusing  NY Serious Eats on-line wherein they rated the "25 Best Pork Sandwiches [They] Love in NYC."  i stumbled upon the Prosciutto Sandwich at Ground Support. intrigued, i looked up the cafe and realized: i've been here before. which then triggered the question: why was i there?

i don't often find myself in Soho, so why was i there that day? and then i remembered what a hodge-podge of a Sunday that was. JimmyDean, MrsButterworth, and i found ourselves on our way to Jing Fong for NannyDiary's bday brunch. we got there uber late thanks to JD, who didn't warn us that the uptown 6 train we transferred to at the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall stop was going express to Union Square, although he knew it when we got on the train. so we ended up having to take another local 6 train from Union Square down to Canal Street.

aside from my recent experience at Sunshine 27, this excursion to Jing Fong was one of my less pleasant dim sum dinings for the following reasons:

1. ND had invited so many people that we were separated into 2 tables. totally deprives the whole purpose of dim sum dining. you're supposed to be chatting over tea and exclaiming over the diverse variety of food together. kind of hard to do when you're sitting at separate tables.

2. every separate group of friends had their own dining check. wha?!?! i didn't even know Jing Fong would let you do that, let alone WHY you would do that. yes, it would make splitting the check a lot easier. except chinese food is all about family-style. which always ends up being less-per-person cost-wise anyways. and chinese restaurants aren't that savvy when it comes to splitting checks. e.g. JD, MB, and i got charged everyone's teas which was just weird.

3. because we arrived late, everyone had already eaten a decent amount. so we were pretty limited in what we could/should get to eat since there were only 3 of us eating whatever we ordered.

4. BUT of course that didn't stop us. or more correctly, JD, who hadn't been out to dim sum in quite a while. so he went a little buckwild when it came time to order and grab food. and this is an observation coming from one of the worst offenders of this type of conduct. since i'm used to eating dim sum with my family since i was a little babe, there are certain staples that i insist on eating at dim sum, or else i feel incomplete. but this type of behavior, coupled with JD's ended up with us having too much food, and not finishing most of it. although, it was a little absurd for JD to order 3 orders of Steamed Pork Buns and Sauteed Snails (which of course everyone had a bite of and then abandoned as weird).

5. we spent $20/person on dim sum for what ended up being an unsatisfactory meal. and that never happens to me at dim sum (until recently). i'm gonna have to remedy this soon.

so after this dim sum fiasco, we parted ways with ND's party and went our own separate ways.

wherein i stumbled upon my current favorite bubble tea place: Kung Fu Tea. we happened upon this shop and noticed it was having a grand opening. when we first went in, there was only 1 customer in the store. i was super happy to see they had Winter Melon Tea on their menu, which i ordered with no boba and 50% sugar. this was the perfect antidote to my bloated dim sum stomach, which wasn't very happy with the prior dim sum meal.

we then perused Soho stores since JD and MB had some errands to run and i could use the walk to walk off all that food.  and that's how, a few hours later, JD and i found ourselves at Ground Support Cafe while MB shopped at the Anthropologie next door.

Turkey Picnic

the cafe is super cute inside, and pretty spacious, with a hipster vibe. and they serve wine which i though was interesting since it seemed more like a coffeehouse from outside. but the best part was that after 5 pm, they have half-price sandwiches. and so although i wrestled with it, i ended up buying two sandwiches to take home: 1 for dinner and 1 for lunch the next day. i got the Turkey Picnic (turkey breast, aged gouda, pickled red onion, potato chips,  bbq sauce, bibb lettuce, and tomato) ($9.50) and the Cuban (turkey breast, berkshire pit ham, gruyere, pickles, peppadew relish, dijoun remoulade) ($10). both sandwiches were good and refreshing, but nothing i'd travel for.

Cuban

holding life in my hands

and who says big corps don't have a conscience? altho i don't think it really counts because voting, while i applaud the efforts, has become such a fad. it's like when P.Diddy did Vote or Die and Paris Hilton was 1 of the promoters and then she blatantly admitted she didn't vote. posers.

the family came into Chinatown for a haircut and dim sum on the weekend so of course i went to meet them. we ended up trying a dim sum place recommended by the stylist close to Bowery and Hester. eh... even tho Jing Fong doesn't cook their dim sum in the healthiest fashion all the other properties definitely win over all the places i've been so far: they have the best and widest selection, the best and fastest service, and the price is equal to all other places. i think it's best to stick to Jing Fong for dim sum.

afterwards i walked around with my parents while they did a little grocery shopping. my mom's under the impression that the groceries in Chinatown are fresher than in jersey. i think it all depends on where you shop. it looks like it's lobster and crab season and the prices on shelled seafood is pretty low so i got 3 stone crabs for $10, which is a great deal. i decided to steam 2 of them and then i got an idea. there's a delicious dish where you steam seasoned crab with rice which infuses the rice with the crab flavor and it's super delicious. i was all ready to do it except...

...the crab was still alive. and it really freaked me out. i mean, it was all lethargic and definitely on it's way out, but still. and every time i got close to it with the knife i kept imagining it would all of a sudden jump up and attack me, as if it was laying in wait for it's revenge just for me to put my face close up to it. it was kind of scary. for some moral guidance and physical courage i asked Egg to come over so i could ask his opinion about it. boy did i ask the wrong person for bravery support. Egg took one look at what i was contemplating about doing and told me how scary it was. and how cruel it was. and once he got started, it was all over for me and i just gave up on the idea and steamed it. we discussed how next time i'm contemplating this dish i should just have them pre-cut the crab for me.

i will not be dissuaded. i will make this dish. just with pre-cut crab.

brownchickenbrowncow

hilarious (and complimentary) convo w/BigPapa:

BigPapa: i didn't realize iwas supposed to do stuff
i thought i just sat around and looked sexy
damnit
Me: hahaha
now you have to do stuff AND look sexy at the same time
phew
that's tough
BigPapa: seriously
sigh
i'm going to put up for a vote at the general meeting
a new position called "sexyness rep"
we can be cochairs
:-D

now how flattering is that? i saw BigPapa later today and he also inadvertently called me a hottie as well. gotta love BigPapa.

school's offiically started and it's been a whirlwind, seeing ppl i haven't seen in a while and all that. albeit to say, lots of drinks have been had. there was an unofficial party at Floyd's which ended up turning into a mini pub-crawl for the 3Ls. it was great to see all those ppl out at Floyd's (even 4A showed up! that's a momentous occasion since they usually never leave the apartment), but Floyd's, while decently sized, isn't equipped for that voluminous crowd. it was stifingly hot in there and super crowded and getting a drink was a nightmare. everybody decided to move over to Last Exit instead, which was much more mellow and full of only friendly faces (as opposed to 1Ls that i don't recognize or know...yet).

many, many, many drinks were imbibed and ridiculous conversations were had before we went over to Brazen Head as the final stop. i was a trooper all the way (but i still left before DRC, Coleslaw and Cubed: they're beasts!). i was in such bad shape the next day. i mean, it was bad...

i had the complete intention of staying in Friday night to properly recover but there was the BLS pub crawl going on. i thought i was being smart by going to just the tail-end of the event and showed up at Trout around midnight. however, 1 beer turned into 2 and so on and so forth. we were at Trout until they kicked us out and then proceeded to Brazen until they kicked us out of there before heading back to Feil only to try and post-party at DRC's. luckily for me that fizzled out quick and i managed to get into bed just as the sun was rising...

only to have to wake up at 10:30 am! i had made a brunch date for Lockbox to meet KimChi but we had to be there by 11:30 b/c KimChi was going into work at 1:00 pm. i dragged myself out of bed, got ready in time and went down to pick up Lockbox and head over to Chinatown except Lockbox wasn't ready. that bastard. i had to wait for him to pick out clothes and get ready before we could head out. luckily KimChi was running late too.

on the way over to dim sum brunch, Lockbox and i had an interesting conversation about guys. we universally agreed that men are all dogs, but the degree of doggy-ness varies on a sliding scale. using Lockbox as a barometer (he's a self-proclaimed 8) we came to the decision that generally good guys are 6s. basically, all men have to start at at least 5. b/c essentially they're all dogs. for instance, Egg's probably a 5 (a generally nice and sweet guy w/more stringent fooling around standards); Mr.Frenzy's probably a 6 (still a nice and sweet guy but could possibly be tricked into doing something if VERY intoxicated) and so on and so forth. what do you think?

we ended up eating dim sum at Oriental Garden which is right next to Jing Fong. honestly, i think Jing Fong's better. there's more variety and more space. the set-up or introduction (whatever you want to call it) didn't go as well. i give up on Lockbox. he committed 3 cardinal sins at that brunch:

1st: he had an opportunity to sit next to KimChi but instead sat next to me. Snoopy even tried to race him to sit next to me so that Lockbox could sit next to KimChi and they could actually converse.
2nd: Lockbox wasn't as witty and open as he usually is. it was to the point that KimChi forgot his name. when i mentioned Crush, Lockbox's roommate was having a birthday party that night, KimChi turned to me and went, "who's Lockbox?"; it was super funny.
3rd: somehow the conversation about all men being dogs came up but i purposely didn't mention Lockbox being an 8 b/c i didn't want to blow up his spot. it would never have come up b/c KimChi didn't ask what Lockbox was but then Lockbox, like the genius he is, volunteers the info that he's an 8 all on his own. aish...that night, i headed over to 4A which was pregaming for Crush's and LF's and a whole bunch of other ppl's bday party in the city. DRC had just come back from a day at Jones Beach and was the color of a lobster. then something interesting happened: Crush offered DRC some aloe to put on her skin b/c apparently he had some. he leads her to the bathroom and gives her the lotion. then he just stands there. it was super creeper mcgee. so DRC awkwardly applies the lotion while Crush stands at the door and watches. what makes it even more hysterical is that DRC goes to return the lotion to Crush and he points to her chest area and goes, "you're the most red here, you should put some on here". umm, thanks for you concern buddy, but could you not stare at my chest while i'm lotioning? now, we all know Crush is actually one of the most polite and nice guys so i'm gonna chalk this creeper incident up to alcohol and birthday shenanigans.

the tea tea dance aka HAA-LLO

who's just been really really lazy lately? that'd be me! aish...w/school and all the events going on, even when i've had down-time all i really want to do is veg out and not use my brain at all...but now entries have been piling up and i must get to them or else i'll never get up to date.

i finally went to dim sum w/KimChi which we'd been talking about doing since i met her November of last year but our schedules never worked out until beginning of January. we finally met up and we went to, where else? Jing Fong for dim sum brunch. i invited Snoopy since he likes the skinny korean girls but KimChi is so adorable and fun. i've got to learn that if i hang out w/Snoopy too much i'm gonna turn into a giant fatty. he orders so much food! it wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that he barely eats any of it! argh...that is so frustrating. he just went into a frenzy at Jing Fong and there were us 3 girls and him. aish...however, the conversation was pretty interesting since i haven't seen KimChi since the 1st time i'd met her. KimChi's korean but learned to speak mandarin chinese which is why we hit it off so quickly. we both wanted someone to practice mandarin w/. KimChi's friend turned to me and asked me:

"how do you say 'hello' in chinese?"

this question always makes me smile b/c in all honesty, yes, there's the "ni hao ma?" that everyone knows, but most chinese ppl don't greet each other w/that except for when you're greeted by salespeople upon entering a retail store/restaurant. for the most part ppl who speak chinese greet each other by saying "hello". i told Olives that and she didn't believe me! just like korean has "aneonhaseo" (i'm spelling that phonetically so don't kill me), she wanted to know what was the chinese equivalent. i kept on insisting that "hello" or "hi" was the equivalent but she didn't think so, so i thought really hard and came up w/this answer:

"HAA-LLO".

yep, that really fobby, mispronunciation of "hello" you often hear FOBs say b/c that's 1 of the few english words they know. and it's true, when i travelled in Taipei i would get a lot of "hallos". and the pronunciation's always dragged out for some reason. so i said it Olives and even as i heard myself say it i started to laugh and so did she. i don't know why it was so funny.

afterwards, KimChi was yearning for some good boba milk tea so we went to Tea-riffic (i'm not joking, that was the name or at least that's what it's gonna be called for this month). i think Snoopy mentioned this place is run by the same ppl who run St. Alps on E.9th and you can tell. the menu's pretty identical. of course, even tho we'd just finished eating dim sum and were stuffed, Snoopy ordered toast w/crushed peanuts and condensed milk. now, when you hear an order like that you would think it'd be presented like peanut butter & jelly right? layered 1 on top of the other? nope. it's presented by smearing 1 diagnol portion of the toast w/peanut butter and the other diagnol portion w/condensed milk butter. although KimChi complained about the condensed milk butter smelling like baby powder, we all ate some and it was admittedly good.

i split up w/them after this and went to go catch up w/Debs who's just come back from visiting her dad in Beijing. we ended up meeting at St. Alps...for more tea. aish. so since i'd woken up that day i'd had meals and meetings centered around tea. i'm just figuring that tea's good for you so it can't hurt for me to drink so much, right? i did order another piece of toast, albeit w/coconut butter this time. it was heavenly delicious and all these tea shops use that big fat asian toast that reminds me of spending summers at my grandma's in Taipei. while at St. Alps i went to use the restroom (hello?! 1 bathroom for the whole cafe?!) and had to wait in line. the guy to go next was doing the pee pee dance hard core. i was secretly laughing to myself and waiting until he got into the bathroom before i discussed w/the other ppl about how funny that was, when he ended up mentioning it himself. it was actually quite endearing.

Debs and i caught up on all the love gossip in her life (since she's never w/o it-girl's got game). she'd gone to LA for her company's christmas party (yes they flew them out to LA) and had met a man there. they had their fling and she fleetingly mentioned he should come out to NYC and visit her sometime and man went and booked a ticket the next week! see, i told you she's got game. she's pretty excited about this guy but lamenting the long distance relationship thing. i used to be a strong advocate against it but as we've gotten older, i admit that as long as the 2 of you are working (not in school) there really shouldn't be a problem. o yea, and there is 1 more requirement: you've got to be living in LA, NYC, Boston or D.C. otherwise it's a no-go. i pick those cities b/c there are always flight deals between LA and NYC and Boston and D.C. are a stone's throw away from NYC. any other city is just preposterous. i told Debs this theory and she couldn't stop laughing. "what about Chicago?" she asked. puh-lease. Chi-town, Dallas, Denver?whatever.

i was exhausted after all these outings and was planning a night in when KimChi and Snoopy called about going to Kenka for more food and drinks. i always have a soft spot for Kenka so i agreed and since i was out i decided to go to Chase Honeycup's bday party at 205 Club as well. Kenka was fun (and very filling). we decided to head over to LES towards Chase's bday party and while walking i fell. i mean, i took a massive digger. no no, it wasn't b/c i was wasted. instead me feet got tripped up on my jeans. i swear! so that was embarassing...

we only stopped by Chase's for a minute altho i was impressed w/how Snoopy finessed the line. there was a line to get into 205 Club (why? i have no idea. it wasn't even that packed). i told the doorman we were there for Chase's bday but that didn't work. just as me, KimChi and Olives were heading towards the back of the line, Snoopy talks to the doorman again saying how we're 3 girls etc. and the guy let's us in! smooth Snoopy. i can tell you've done this before.

we only stayed for a minute before heading over to Crime Scene for Snoopy's friends bday party. the place was pretty empty when we got there but they were playing good music to dance to so we all just let loose and danced. the place started to fill up more but then it felt like jackals circling their prey when KimChi, Olives and i danced together. yuck. tho i did meet some really cute asian twins. that's the 2nd set this year! i never thought they existed and now they're just popping out of the woodwork! albeit they were a little short. it turned out it was their birthday.

o, i forgot to mention. after i'd split up w/KimChi, Olives and Snoopy in Chinatown, they'd gone into Aji Ichiban to look at snacks and candy. when they walked in the salesperson greeted them w/a, you guessed it, "haa-llo"

karaoke weekend: "the best weekend of my life"

anyone who's been talking to me lately has probably heard the phrase "twins" thrown around a lot (let's thank Oni and Chipmunk for that). regardless, there was this one crazy weekend that started the whole phenomenon off.

on Friday night Oni asked me to go out w/VP and his friends b/c VP had somebody he wanted Oni to meet as a dating prospect. so we all went to ktown and had dinner at Seoul Garden which i'd never been before and was skeptical of, but i have to admit their soonjubu and nangmyon is really good. i think i got a pretty good handle on what kind of food Seoul Garden offers b/c VP's friend, who is visiting and invited his 3 friends all from Japan, decided to order just about everything you would usually order from the menu and we ate family style. we ordered haemul jun (the seafood pancake) and japchae for starters. everybody split bibim nangmyon, nangmyon, soonjubu, seafood soonjubu and bbq ribs. the only thing missing was chigae and the usual korean bbq choices (we opted against bbq, which was a good choice b/c Oni and i went out later and it would've sucked to smell all bbq-ey). i had ordered a budae jigae but they forgot and at that point i didn't want to spend any more money on food, plus nobody was finishing anything at that point.

afterwards, it still being kind of early (9-ish) we went next door to Toto for karaoke. it was all of ours 1st time at Toto and we'd just randomly picked it b/c it was next to Seoul Garden. the room's actually very big which was nice since we were 8 ppl but it's the system they have set up that's the most impressive. the tv screen is ginormous, there's 2 tambourines on the table when you sit down, and the place is BYOB. it's the remote that's the most fun: aside from having a button to create applause, you can also use it to make disco and techno versions of every song you sing. it was a lot of fun to use it on VP's japanese friends b/c they all sang really well so we had to just mess w/them a little. right in the middle of their song Oni would just randomly press the techno button and the song would speed up and VP's friends' eyes would widen but they'd go along w/it anyway. 1 of my favorite moments was after singing Don't Stop Believing i texted Pal and Douglife who were my Hoboken karaoke buddies w/the lyric: "strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard/their shadows searching in the night" and got the reply text from them stating: "streetlight people, living just to find emotion/hiding, somewhere in the night". *giggle*
while there i got a call from the Twins (Chipmunk to be exact) who were on the LIRR into the city. since they were arriving at Penn Station i told them to just meet us in ktown and we would all figure out plans for later. the Twins and their friends went to Off the Wagon and Oni and i met up w/them later. i'd warned Oni of the scene there but since she thought the Twins were cute and it was her 1st time meeting them she was game to at least give it a try. for anyone who's never been to this bar, let me just pre-warn: this is the ultimate college frat party. what's sadder is, i'd been there before. so when Chipmunk was calling me to tell me where they were going and he couldn't give me an address, as soon as he said Off the Wagon i knew where it was. in my defense, Pal and i used to go to Village Ma w/ppl from work for a giant karaoke night and it happened to be right next to Off the Wagon and that's how this bar 1st came into my life. the other escapades were few and far between.

afterwards be bounced to another bar on Yuka's recommendation but since it was around 4 am at that point, everything was closing so the Twins, Oni and i cabbed it back to Brooklyn and the Twins stayed over at my place. tho, once again, i'm obviously getting old, b/c Chipmunk slept on the sofa and Casper in my bed while i slept w/Wifey. and why didn't i just sleep in my own bed? i don't know. it's just kind of hard to articulate in writing. was it cause i'd only met the Twins the week before? or that i'd only known them for a total of 2 days? or am i turning prude? or just too old to sleep w/ppl i don't know? or b/c Casper was grumpy b/c he was annoyed at Chipmunk? sigh...

the next day Twins, Oni and i went out for dim sum at Jing Fong. Casper told me that it was his 1st time there w/o his parents. aaw... o yea, in case my tone hasn't told you already: the Twins are 23. and i always thought that Debs was gonna be the youngest person i would go out w/ (that's not blood-related). anyways, if i make a lot of "aaws" in this posting, it's not my fault. it's instinctual and reflex. since the weather was so gorgeous we walked over to South Street Seaport and just sat around. it was actually a pretty chill time.

eventually the Twins went home to change and get ready for another night out in the city and Oni went to have dinner w/a friend and i got to go home and take a nap (which was much needed although it made me late to meet up w/Stitch at Max Brenner's). Stitch and i headed to Sing Sing and waited for the rest of the crew to get there and start...another karaoke night. yep, you didn't read incorrectly. Um and Stitch and i had planned a week before that we would go out karaoking so that was the scheduled activity. plus, they're hilarious anyway so i just knew that karaoke was gonna bring out something even better. and it did! Um sang bedding songs (all R&B, all about how much he's gonna love you down) which just floored me and Stitch danced to Jordan Knight's Give it to You. CLASSIC. after an hour of Sing Sing i suggested we move to Toto b/c the space is better and it was cheaper w/the amount of ppl we had. so on saturday night, around midnight, i found myself in exactly the same spot in ktown i'd been the night before. who knew? later we got some more korean food and called it a night.

still had a great time tho there was a mini dramatic moment w/Oni and my voice was hoarse for the following week. and that quote used in the title of this posting? it's not mine.

there is one caveat tho. after this weekend, i am completely camera-ed out. the Twins each had a camera, Oni and i had one, and Yuka had one as well. taking the same picture 5 times gets trying after awhile. i noticed on the following weekend there was a lot less of it going around.