the Strong Silent Type

ok Won Bin, you got me. i have officially hopped on the Won Bin train.

i took my sweet time getting around to watching Ahjussi 아저씨 aka The Man from Nowhere.  i'd heard it was a good movie, top grossing in Korea and blahbitty blah etc. however, when i heard that my guy cousins were falling all over themselves in love with it, i got slightly turned off about seeing the movie. in the same way that guys are in love with Old Boy 올드보이, their extreme passion about it makes my latent rebellious side refuse to watch it out of some perverse refusal to follow the trend. plus, it's slightly weird how devoted the male species is to that movie. also, since i wasn't a rabid Won Bin fan, i wasn't particularly enthusiastic about watching Ahjussi.

but now that i've watched the film, i've got to admit: it's good. REALLY good. the action scenes were great to watch in that they're the kind that i like. not crazy machine guns and car explosions but more close, hand-to-hand combat in small spaces. one of my favorite fight scenes that i always watch when it's on tv is from The Bourne Identity: when Matt Damon, while suffering from amnesia, all of a sudden discovers he's skilled with hand-to-hand combat by taking out 2 German police officers that stop him in the park. so cool. and that's similar to what the action sequences are like in Ahjussi. Won Bin's character is calm and collected and extremely focused in his single-minded mission throughout the movie. and after he cut his hair in the second half of the movie and flashed some shirtless scenes, i had purchased my ticket aboard the Won Bin express. CHOO-CHOO!

speaking of all things korean, i recently found out from MrsOppa and Kiddo that Pandora's added k-pop to their playlists. say what?! when did k-pop become so mainstream? although, since i'm chinese and avidly listen to k-pop, i guess i really shouldn't say anything...

Kiddo discovered Big Bang's Hands Up through Pandora. of all of Big Bang's songs, Hands Up isn't my favorite but that might just be because the group has SO MANY hit songs to choose from. so, in honor of Kiddo's discovery, i'll share some of my Big Bang recs.

since i don't want to seem like too much  of a teenybopper fan, i'll limit it to these 2: a new album song, Cafe, and a classic, Lies. Enjoy!

Not Exactly Breakfast at Tiffany's

ugh. i am suffering from the worst crick in my neck ever. that's what i get for falling asleep while propped on 2 pillows, watching tv. so much pain right now.

i apologize for my lack of updates but for some reason, i haven't been too keen to write about what i've been up to. not because of a lack of events, but more like it could be embarassing to share them. when i stop grimacing every time i think back on them, THEN i'll write about them. until then though, i hope you'll continue to stick around.

last weekend i finally met up with Spoon for some snacks and drinks. this has been a long time coming since we've been making "intentions" to meet up but just never follow through. clearly we should be in touch more often as i found out during drinks that Spoon was in Playa del Carmen the same weekend i was! i can't believe the coincidence. if only i had been more diligent about keeping up with communications...

Spoon graduated 1 year before me from Pace Law School and has been feeling the employment effects in this current struggling economy. while she's had a few employers since she graduated, it seems like most of them were very small firms or solo practitioners that weren't able to keep her for an extended period of time (and they were definitely getting her at an already bargain rate). Spoon's in another transition period and has decided to solo practice while waiting to land at her next firm.

solo praction-ing takes some serious courage. especially since we're so young (relatively) and don't have anything close to a decent book of business (if we have any at all). Spoon's in the midst of getting a website running and has received a few cases based on referrals from friends and former co-workers.  it's a minimal-commitment operation since Spoon doesn't intend to spend the capital to invest in a full-blown solo practice but i have to give her props for not just sitting around waiting for someone to respond to her resume.

this conversation all took place at Tiffany's, a local bar in my hometown that opened up some time when i was in high school. somehow, i've been able to resist its allure (insert sarcasm here). so why did i find myself here on friday night?

Spoon happened to read in the NJ Law Journal that Tiffany's is being sued in a civil suit. the facts are pretty interesting: the defendant was convicted of a DUI and is being sued in civil court for damages by someone hurt in the accident that occurred while the defendant drove under the influence. the defendant has successfully third-partied Tiffany's, the bar that served him before he got into the accident, under the Dram Shop statute (which, in relevant part, states bars can't serve visibly intoxicated people). i hadn't read the case but had glanced at a blurb that the partner in my firm sent me. in commemoration of the article, Spoon suggested Tiffany's as our drinking spot.

yes, Tiffany's screams local, and it's parking lot was deceivingly packed in comparison to the customers inside the place. the snack foods were "meh" (stop double frying fries!) and the drinks were surprisingly pricey (at least my Dewar's on the rocks was. $8? who do you think you are Tiffany's?) but, the draw of local bars isn't the food or drinks. it's the drama. there's something so shamefully fun about witnessing the drama that always unfolds at local bars. someone always gets a little too drunk, there's always a fight or at least shouting and bouncers in action.

and tonight was no exception. right before Spoon and i decided to head home, we saw the biggest meathead, equipped with "guns" blazing in his too-tight t-shirt with sleeves cut off, start screaming at the bartender about his $250 tab. $250? at a local bar? what the hell was this guy drinking? and, more likely, how many drunken rounds did you buy?

the screaming started with him claiming he only ordered 6 drinks. it later became 2 rounds. and then it was actually 2 rounds of shots. at some point he demanded to see "John" (the manager he knows by first-name of course), and the matter was shushed into the side office. Spoon and i were DYING to get a peek at that bar tab to see exactly what this guy had ordered, but alas... it will have to remain one of the great unsolved mysteries.

but props to Tiffany's for not disappointing me.

Life Plans

i sometimes forget my age.

not because i'm senile or wish i was younger (ok, maybe the latter part). i know i'm getting older, but i tend to forget the actual number that quantifies my age because, honestly, not much has changed for me since i was 26ish. hmm, i don't know if that's good or bad. since i'm in a good mood, i'll go with the former vs. the latter.

aside from the fact that it takes me a full day to recover from hangovers and my growing aversion to clubs and the Meatpacking District, nothing's really changed for me. or at least, it doesn't feel like anything's changed.

but no matter how much i want to ignore or deny it, when one of my best friends from childhood gets married, i have to face the music that i'm getting old.

and i'm still single. *cue 60 minutes stopwatch ticking sound getting louder in the background*

*brushing aside fears and moving on* i've known IJB since we were in nursery school, although i don't remember her from then. i remember actually becoming friends when i began attending public school in fourth grade. or was it third grade? yikes. maybe i am becoming senile.

regardless, if you map the trajectory of IJB's life, it's been pretty storybook. it's the kind of life parents tell their kids to pursue. she attended Wellesley College and then med school at GW, graduating this past May.  Now she's at Brown University for her residency. phew, actually writing all that made me even prouder of her for all her accomplishments.

but academics and career achievements aside, IJB's also been blessed in love. before graduating in May, she got married to her also-a-doctor-extremely-tall-handsome husband. IJB's the first of my close, same-aged friends to get married which made it even more touching and surreal at the same time.

IJB had the wedding and reception at the Madison Hotel in Morristown which is a gorgeous and classic looking hotel and apparently a popular choice for NJ weddings (someone else i know had their wedding there about 8 mths prior).

IJB and Papa IJB father-daughter dance



the ceremony and reception was elegant and had a lot of IJB's personal touches. their theme was the movie Up, and instead of the traditional guest sign-in book, IJB had hand-drawn the house from the movie with various colored ink-pads for people to stamp their thumbprint and initial to represent the balloons that lift the house up. how creative is that?!

Yep, the bride DREW this.

another adorable touch was the centerpieces on each table: IJB had gathered quotes and wedding pictures from various couples and each table displayed a different couple and their quote as centerpieces.  

aside from celebrating and sharing in the joyous occassion that is the bride and groom's nuptials, the best part of weddings is the food and drinks. open bars have become a standard for weddings, and IJB's was no exception. as for hors d'oeuvres, there was a nice selection, although Mrs.VW was cracking me up the way she was chasing down all the waiters. i don't think a single hors d'oeuvre escaped her that night. the food at the Madison Hotel is good in its own right, and i loved that IJB's menu had a little Italian mixed into it with all the pastas and antipasto, although i'm not sure it was intentional but i like to believe it was.

Yum cake!

Holy Bananas Foster. I could've eaten 5 of these, if propriety allowed.

when it's the right crowd, it can be quite the party. IJB's wedding was the perfect balance of initimate and endearing while at the same time fun and rambunctious. i could wax on nostalgic about all the great things about IJB's wedding but pictures speak for themselves so i'll just share those instead.



I thought they were going to drop them!



Bridesmaids on the loose!





Bringing Mom Home

Mother's Day (and similarly, Father's Day)are always difficult holidays for me. Honestly, any event involving honoring or displaying "thankfulness" are hard for me. What exactly do you give someone to really show them that you love and appreciate them? Can any thing actually do that?

parents are particularly hard. they are the people you owe the most to and who do the most for you. i don't care what you say, it's true. yes, sometimes (or often times)they annoy you, frustrate you, and irritate you, but, it's always out of love. and while you may forget that sometimes, their birthday and nationally recognized holidays are the few days that you absolutely can't forget. in fact, you're forced to recognize it.

i pondered real hard for what to get my mother this Mothers' Day. she's had a pretty rough 2010-2011 having dealt with her illness and treatment, recent diagnosis of diabetes, a tax return crisis involving Prudential, and taking care of all the kids (my cousins + my overly rebellious sister + even me, sometimes). somehow, jsut giving her stuff didn't seem appropriate, particularly since Mom never really needs anything (except for perhaps a live-in maid or weekly maid service-ooo, perhaps birthday present?). after much thought, i decided to make my mom breakfast/brunch.

i'm not talking about your run-of-the-mill omelettes and toast here. my mom's from Taipei and most of her family still lives there, including her sister, brother, and her parents. her dislike of flying (the 15-17 hour flight time doesn't help) and her work, has made it so that she rarely goes back to visit her family or the Taipei she grew up in. since i can't exactly bring my maternal family over from Taipei for the weekend (perhaps one day, when i'm a Rockefeller), i decided to make her a Taiwanese breakfast complete with traditional Taiwanese foods.

a lot of Taiwanese breakfast foods center around flour and dough. i have no idea why. it's completely delicious, but pretty time-consuming, particularly when working with yeast. and to make Hakka-style Bacon requires pretty much a whole day of marinating before you cook it. it pretty hard to do all that in secret in order to properly surprise Mom so, aside from the marinating, i had to do most of it the  morning of. while waking up on a weekend morning at 7 a.m. is never easy, Mom's satisfaction and stamp of approval on all the foods (which i prepared from scratch) made it all worth it.




Hakka-Style Bacon aka





Shen Jian Bao; although the dough was a little thick, this was well-received, particularly by my carnivorous cousin WongWong.

Breakfast Rice Rolls aka ; these are supposed to be made prettier, but whatevs, they still tasted the way they were supposed to. every Taiwanese child has received these at some point when going on a school field trip.



i also made a Pan-Fried Oyster Omelette aka  but it came out the complete anti-thesis of how it should look. luckily, the taste was passable, but i refused to photograph it based on principle. you can see it, the Sesame Chicken Soup, and Fried Cruellers in the picture below. 

i'm with stupid.

so i just came off like a total idiot for about 15 minutes to a judge's law clerk.

i'd only been in the office for about 10 mins, sitting down to my half-bagel, cream cheese and lox with coffee, when i get a phone call from a judge's law clerk asking me about a summary judgment motion we filed 2 weeks ago.

huh? who? whatsit? where? my brain literally drew a blank as to what she was talking about. granted we're a third-party defendant so we're not the primary name on the caption when people usually quote the case. but i literally couldn't remember what we'd done or what our argument was. in the foggy recesses of my brain i vaguely recalled something... i had to put the poor law clerk on hold while i went through our office calendar to see what was on for the upcoming motion day. and as luck would have it, we have 5 cases up for hearing on April 29th. i scrambled to grab the file for the one i presumed it was (same plaintiff's name) only to have it be wrong. all the while leaving the law clerk on hold on the phone. SOOOO not a good idea.

finally got things sorted but it was more of an interactive process between me and her as i re-read what i had submitted and our attached exhibits and did a stream-of-consciousness-think-out-loud process of deduction to answer her question.

i guess i should count my blessings it was only Special Civil Part so the papers weren't too voluminous.

Heartwarming

HungryHungryHippo and i differ in a lot of respects.  from our outer shape, size, and looks [i am a marshmallowish mid-height "pleasantly plump" asian; she is under 5 ft, super skinny, and looks like a 12 year old] to our personal tastes in music, clothes, and style. there are 2 things we do share though: an appetite for food and a desire to get out of the thumb of our domineering and overbearing Chinese mother.

i've learned a better coping mechanism than TripleH, but that's something that's learned with time (aka patience and understanding). TripleH is only 18 years old, so she's still got a big learning curve to hurdle.

what's interesting is that although TripleH wants to get away as fast as she can from our home in NJ, she's never been too keen on getting into NYC. when i was in high school and college, i thought the entire world revolved around Manhattan. i would try to go into the City every chance i got-which wasn't very often, protective Chinese mother and all. she always thought i would be kidnapped and sold on the black market. i wondered if TripleH's lack of interest in the City was a result of lack of exposure.

so for TripleH's 18th birthday i decided to take her into the City. granted, we're too far apart in age for me to be "ok" with sneaking her into her first bar or taking her to buy cigs or a baggie which i guess would've made me significantly "cooler," but i'm fine with not being "cool." it's such a relative term anyway. instead i took TripleH to Cocoron for some "heartwarming" Japanese food.  Cocoron means "heartwarming" in japanese, and the small, intimate restaurant setting and the simple but delicious food all convey that sentiment.

we chose the Kyona Salad ($5) and the Pork and Okara Croquette ($3.50) as appetizers. since we sat at bar seating, we got to watch the chef make all our food. while not the prettiest kitchen set-up, the ends truly justifies the means in their kitchen. the salad was super light and topped with raw quail egg and what tasted like ponzu. the croquettes were piping hot when served, freshly fried and delightful, crispy little balls of whipped potatoes with ground pork. the okra was not too prevalent in the taste but i'll take their word that they were in there.

Stamina Soba, with pork, scallion, and chicken meatballs

for entrees, TripleH opted for the Pork Kimchee Soba ($9 when we went; now the website says $9.80) and i went for the classic Stamina Soba ($8 when we went; now $8.80). both of got them tsukemen style which means the soba is served cold on a woven plate next to a small nabe pot on a burner filled soup to dip the soba noodles in.  you swirl the noodles in the hot soup for 4-6 seconds and then munch away. i was a bigger fan of TripleH's Pork Kimchee Soba than of the Stamina Soba, but that might just be because i'm a big fan of kimchee. btws, look how ginormous the spoon they give you is!

when you're done with the soba, the server comes around with a teapot of hot water to dilute the soup. if you attempt to drink the soup before you dilute it, get ready for a giant salt-fest. patience, grasshopper.

as a dessert, TripleH ordered the mochi ice cream ($5.50). i can't remember exactly what flavor it was: green tea? peanut? but she liked it.

in addition to her mochi dessert, i also took her over to Doughnut Plant for some non-traditional donuts. the Creme Brulee donut was to die for. it had the perfect crusty, hard glaze exactly like real creme brulee.

False Advertising

this is going to make me sound like a racist.

i just had to get that caveat out of the way. if you continue to read this, don't get mad at me because you've already been forewarned.

that being said, i'm going to briefly discuss Lisa See. the acclaimed writer of various books, all centering around the Asian-American/Chinese experience and primarily female. although i'd heard about her before, i wasn't interested in reading her novels (that was a period where i wasn't doing any recreational reading aside from my law school books).  fast forward to a month ago, when asian entertainment news is going nuts over the movie version of her novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.  so i decide to check her out via Google and the one review that stands out/pushed me over the edge to actually try and read one of her books stated that she was "the Amy Tan of this generation." o really? because i really liked Amy Tan's books (for a while-then they got a little repetitive). and Joy Luck Club was just recently aired on tv again and i bawled like a baby. convinced of the merits of Ms. See, i went to the local library and checked out 3 of her books: Peony in Love, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and Shanghai Girls.

i haven't been able to make it past page 30 of Peony in Love. to the author's credit, it's well-written and interesting, i've just been particularly busy and it's hard to break bad habits of watching tv or going on-line.  there's also another aspect to it tho: Lisa See looks alarmingly non-Asian.

um, what?! how can she be the "next Amy Tan" when she's clearly not Chinese? granted, her novels tend to have a historical context to it and that's what historical fiction is: a lot of research and interviews to try and write fictional works based on historical facts and experiences. and, actually, she is Chinese-or at least part of her is, although my Google searching has failed to turn up exactly how much of her is Chinese and the answers provided on her website and Wiki are all sort of vague.

after i saw her picture on the back cover of Peony in Love, i couldn't get myself motivated to read it for the next 2 weeks. it felt...weird. after psychoanalyzing myself about it, i think my problem is this: the comparison of Lisa See to Amy Tan made me have a certain expectation of her as a Chinese-American dealing with the trials and tribulations and culture of growing up in a Chinese family while balancing against American culture. however, seeing her picture promptly dispelled any of these thoughts and made me immediately judge that she couldn't have had the same experiences as me because she didn't "look" Chinese.

while i'm sure she dealt with other types of issues (i've seen True Life), she's clearly not me. it took me a while but i've dispelled those expectations of her and will attempt to finish reading her book.

although i did just pick up Waiter Rant from the library...

Lady Gaga was right

meaning you should "just dance" as she tells you to.

HungryHungryHippo got me an amazing birthday present: Just Dance 2!

such a fun game! at first, felt a little self-conscious dancing on my own while TripleH and the cousins watched, but that feeling quickly passed. the moves are easy to follow but super fun and the Dance Battle mode was great to play against TripleH (i dominated the Dance Battle).

i highly recommend this game. i played it on and off with TripleH for the better part of an hour+ and by the end i had worked up a sweat and panting while laying on the floor in exhaustion. word of advice: don't dance to  "Jump Jump" by KrissKross unless you want to be in the same condition.



such a hilarious game to play with friends.and probably a great workout too. just to point out how out-of-shape/old i am, my arms and legs were sore the day after playing this game.