Loot: Mother of Pearl iPhone Case

OMG. Escher at my fingertips!!!! 

I saw this and fell in love. You're mine.

If there's one overused tool in this modern age then I vote for the iPhone -- I spend so (too?) much time on it emailing, Whats Apping, Draw Something'ing, Tiny Towering, Google Mapping, and yes, calling. Once in awhile. ;)

Because of its constant presence, the iPhone has become a little part of ourselves, and perhaps another expression of our identity. There are a lot of interesting iPhone cases out there, and I daresay you can probably deduce what kind of person someone is by this alone. There are sleek and simple cases, functional cases, hipster cases, cases that only your middle-aged parent would use, blingbling jeweled cases, cartoon animal cases, no cases... 

As for me, I guess I would say that I like patterns, handicrafts, natural materials, all bundled by a sedated portion of glamour. 300RMB on Taobao for a cellphone case is quite expensive, but I need a little everyday fancy, and having this piece of art in my hands is worth the price. :)

Spring in Your Step

Beautiful osmanthus flowers blooming under the auspice of a Shanghai spring.

One day, I will have a backyard full of these trees...

Pleasant weather does wonders for your soul. Shanghai has been blessed by a chain of beautiful CLEAR days where the temperature hovers around 50-60 degrees. I have rarely seen blue skies in China. We've had nearly three in a row this week. It makes me want to skip around throwing confetti into the air. :)

A few days ago while I was brushing my teeth getting ready for work, I discovered a daddy-long-legs crouched on my bathroom ceiling totally spying on me. Pervert! There aren't many animals that I am truly disgusted by... I can handle snakes, lizards, amphibians, worms, rodents... you know, most things that get counted as pestilence. But I CANNOT handle arachnids or insects. I HATE SPIDERS AND BUGS SOOOOO MUCH, they creep the living shit out of me. At the same time, I have an equal (if not greater) repulsion against killing. I really don't like you being in my apartment, Mr. Legs, and you are so gross and disgusting and disproportional, but I cannot squash you. So I took a big Tupperware box and coaxed him into it (oh it was such a precarious process!), and then released him in my apartment's garden on the way out that morning. It's not Mr. Legs' fault that I find him so creepy crawly, so now he can be all creepy crawly amongst the grass and trees and eat bugs all day. Yay!

It started pouring that afternoon, and by the time I got back home the garden was practically flooded. Suddenly I felt really terrible -- had I accidentally sentenced Mr. Legs to waterboarding? Did my good intentions go awry? Was Mr. Legs dead when all I wanted to do was save him? Sure my apartment was warm and cozy, but there's no way that Mr. Legs could feed himself in my (generally?) bug-free environment. But at least he wouldn't be sopping wet. 

I thought about how it must have felt for Mr. Legs to be chilling upside down, probably spacing out or something, and then get suddenly encased by plastic from all sides. And then after a few harrowing minutes of getting bounced around, get unceremoniously shaken out and dumped on some greens. Were you city-folk, Mr. Legs? By no means did Mr. Legs have any control over his fate -- but should I have been less empathetic, he could have easily become Spider Pancake. Spider Pancake <<< Wet Spider, right?

How many times in our lives have we encountered earth-shattering developments that are totally beyond our control?

It rained all night, but the weather has been beautiful since. :)

Now when I come home my eyes will always wander to the spot where I last left Mr. Legs. I like coming home everyday thinking that I have a friend hidden in that garden. As truly grotesque as he is.

Step One

Create a platform for yourself.

And put a brave face forward.

... and get a manicure while you're at it. :p

ARGGGGGHHH!!!!

Hell hath no fury like a cranky pirate captain down with a nasty cold. >:O

A Girl's Best Friends

I wear same 2 rings and same 2 bracelets everyday. I never take them off, not before a shower or bed, and rarely for other pieces of jewelry even if they hopelessly clash. I'm a lazy and sentimental gal. :) 

- A pinky ring that my mom gave me before I left New York, a simple white gold band with two small clear stones representing Mommy and Me.

- A vintage looking amethyst ring that I wear on my right ring finger, bought last summer at Bali's "silver village" as a representation of self.

- Red glass beaded bracelet, bought at Taipei Main Station's underground market for 50NT.

- Simple string pull bracelet with several small tiger eye stones from Ko Phi Phi, matching another one that I gave Vicki.

When I do wear earrings they're usually hoops the size of a small orange -- I guess they're part of an urban identity that I've held onto since high school... ha! :p Other than these go-to pieces, most of my jewelry have sat entangled in a mangled mosh pit from New York, to HK, to Taiwan, to Nanjing, and now Shanghai. I've culled many an item during each transition, so everything that's made the cut is currently indispensable, fitting a certain mood, situation, outfit, quirk. 

Oldest piece: Gold star earring I wore during most of childhood that lost its mate. Sad... :( 

Other life milestone pieces: Heart-shaped amethyst ring (lapse of judgment) from Zales (lapse of judgment) that I got for my Sweet Sixteen (lapse of judgment). Black dangle earrings from Senior prom. 

New pieces: Faceted silver knuckle rings (set of 3, primed to dish out ultimate pain muhahaha!). Leopard ring.

THANK YOU TAOBAO, for making it so cheap and convenient to purchase anything and everything, including jewelry display stands!!! I seriously love Taobao like a fat kid loves cake. After getting my package today, I spent a few hours separating my lump of treasure into an ultimate display of blingbling. Do you know the agony of painstakingly unknotting a nest of chains??? I swear, little voice in your head just starts begging you to just rip the damn thing apart already. It takes a lot of self-control, guys... O_O

But the end result was awesome, and I'm really glad I took the time to do organize my stuff. Now I won't have to paw through my baubles hoping that I actually find what I'm looking for.

Take a look -- my collection is well edited, if I may say so myself. ;) 

Will there be a next step?

Bali, November 2010.

I really don't prescribe to the expiry date theory, but I'll be honest here. Seeing my best friends get engaged and married and have babies and buy houses and do all these "next stage adult things" makes me really question whether I'll be blessed enough to reach that stage smoothly. It's so weird, because it's not like I'd be happier if I were married and had a kid right now. I love my current adventurous life, I'm not actively searching, and my philosophy is to not force anything that doesn't belong to you. But I know that there's a process to it all, and at times I wonder if one day I'll find myself frantic. I really hope not, because I want to be happy with myself no matter what the situation is. Always. I will never compromise.

Well, it is what it is.
When things click, it'll be completely effortless.
And everything will make sense.

Knickberry

I'm in a bit of a backlog updating stuff that I did in New York -- girl gets distracted. Anyway, how could I not talk about the Knicks game that Chris took me to?!! Unfortunately, we saw the one against Charlotte that broke Jeremy Lin's seven game winning streak... BOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! Man, and I told Chris that I wanted to watch Charlotte because it'd be an easy win too. I think I jinxed the game. :( Nevertheless, I had a wonderful time learning all that is basketball and Knicks and sports.

Can you believe that I had never gone into Madison Square Garden before?

Or even seen the Knicks play live??

And I call myself a New Yorker... :p 

The girl on the left made a cutout sign of a "bride" with Jeremy as a the groom. The girl on the right was holding a ginormous Jeremy face.

Whatta man, whatta man, whatta mighty fine man.

The crowd was so incredible, I was so glad that I had the opportunity to witness the Linsanity in person! All eyes were on Jeremy, it was like watching Baby's First Steps. If he messed up, people were silent (no booing, maybe a lot of praying though... haha). If he made an assist or point, the whole stadium was in complete uproar. JLin, you are New York City's darling. :D Chris also patiently walked me through the game as I asked "What happened? What does that mean?? WHAT DID I MISS???" a billion times. That's what you get for bringing a sports noobie. 

Pinkberry attack. :)

Thanks Chris for making New York an even awesomer experience. 

Loot: Prada Satin Lucite Heel

Say hello to my new investment piece, courtesy of Bluefly at over 70% off!

I love the clear lucite heel, it's a fresh modern twist to a polished dress shoe. 
I think we're going to have a very fruitful relationship. :)

China Virgin

Recently someone guessed that I was at most 22 years old (I guess I have a bit of a chubby baby face), so I started wondering what I was actually like again at that age. I revisited my Xanga (OMGWTFBBQ so embarrassing did I snack on lead paint chips while typing???!!!!) and lo and behold, an entry on my first ever trip to China and Japan! My very good friend Terry and I went on a tour through China in 2006 right after graduation, and he made a beautiful, well-edited, and highly entertaining photo collage of our adventures. I am so grateful that he spent the time making this, because quite honestly I had forgotten that we did half of this stuff. I remember our China trip being very stressful but also very educational, but never in my wildest dreams did I even think that I'd end up LIVING here. (Never say never.) I got perks for being the only Mandarin speaker in our tour group, mainly because the local vendors thought that I was the tour guide and charged me 2RMB instead of 6RMB for bottled water. Now that I know better, I realize that they gouged me still back then! Oh yes, a farmer actually attempted to sell me a rock that he picked up off the ground. And I almost bought it, ha. 

Terry and I took thousands of photos during this trip, so I know that every single picture below was selected because it successfully captured an important part of the story. I'm sure that none of my readers will pore over every single frame like I did, but I hope that if any of you do come to China now you'll realize that some of these scenes may not even exist anymore. For example, Yu Gardens in Shanghai has become a horrible tourist trap now, kite flying is probably strictly prohibited in that square in Xi'an (it was banned even then but we waited for the police to chase us off, haha), and Tiananmen Square in Beijing has been completely remodeled. 

My second trip to China was in 2008 to see the Beijing Olympics, and my oh my it was amazing to see the city change so much in merely two years... to the point that certain parts were completely unrecognizable from before. You can't help but be stimulated and even inspired by China's very purposeful spirit, but of course it comes with its costs... No need to cue the stream of complaints right now. ;)