we wear things

for those interested, me and roz decided to start up our own fashion blog.. instead of filling up our personal blog spaces with blatant self portraits in various outfits...

wewearthings.blogspot.com

but don't worry the continued mundane and random posts about food, friends, travel and issa daily will still be sporadically updated.

kdinner revisited.

last night i cooked a pretty filling korean dinner for the family (me, T, T's mom).. and i actually remembered to take photos! the setup was zucchini pajon, beef bulgogi, and daeji bulgogi (spicy pork)... i considered making some soup too, but the table was getting full.. and i had already pickled some cucumbers along with some prebought kimchi.. so that we could have bibimbap (with a fried egg of course). i think everyone enjoyed the meal and i'm quite looking forward to lunch today.. so i can enjoy the leftovers..

playing catch up.

TGFO says i need to blog more. but i said i have nothing interesting to say. so here's some random snippets.

father's day.
we had the family over for a father's day bbq. we made chicken, beef, and chicken liver shish kabobs with lots of veggies mixed in as well as ribs with my homemade bbq sauce and cherry cheesecake cupcakes for dessert. it was an enjoyable family gathering albeit a bit hot. oh and i've been on a forgetting to take photos streak lately.. :(

WANTED.
wednesday was work shirt day, and the promotional event was our company cosponsoring the sneak preview for the movie Wanted. we left work early and headed out to Edward's I-10, and spent the next hour and a half passing out our defensive driving dvd, shirts, and mugs. everyone loves free stuff. the movie is full of unrealistic action and is pretty entertaining and while i thought the movie was ok, the guys thought it was super awesome.

texas martini.
chuy's recently opened a new location up north by us and of course we had to try it out, despite T's nonlovin' of mexican food. but this is when i found out that they had a comparable drink to trudy's mexican martini from back in my Austin days. perfection.
so on thursday we had our first semi-planned company happy hour at chuy's. while 8 people initially said yes, only 4 people ended up going. despite the sad little turnout, it was enjoyable, and definitely something we plan on trying to do maybe once a month.

pizza & champagne.
friday night. i enjoyed a fabulous night of catching up with bff roz (who just began her own blog btw) while dining on pizza & champagne a la the hills (yes, i totally went there). the evening began with the pivotal moment of opening the champagne which neither of us had done before... where roz thought aloud "isn't this a boys job?" it ended up being quite anticlimactic with no cork shooting out nor champagne spilling out.. thank goodness. a few hours, half a pizza, and an empty bottle of champagne later.. we were on the couch watching the marc jacobs & louis vuitton documentary.. a perfect way to round out our girls evening.. it was unfortunate that we didn't get to complete one of our main intentions of this visit. we'll just have to do that another time. :)

tshirt haxx.

the dilemma. forced work shirt attire for company promotional outing.
first of all, normal tshirts make me look like i'm 13. and second, why do these sort of tshirts almost always come in size large and above? though i was able to score a coveted size "small", i decided to go ahead and attempt my first full tshirt modification on a large (which we had an abundance of at work). after finding some inspiration, i spent about 2 hours friday night hacking away and stitching it back together again. i ended up reversing the front and the back.. and turning it into a vneck, racerback type tank, and was pretty proud of the results...





of course rocking a work shirt is still hard.. even with the haxx. so i went a route so unlike me.. and sorta london punk.



and since i tend to go in spurts with my "creativity" i haxxed my planet zero tshirt, to a racerback tank.. and added the hood and kangaroo pocket.

euroshopping.

ok so i did do a little bit of shopping while on vacation.. but i'd say minimal. :) while i did do a bit of excessive vintage store shopping.. i only came out with 2 items.. the boots and the skirt (shown below).. and while i don't really think i'm a shoe person.. i ended up buying 3 pairs. some fabulous gladiator flats from h&m in london.. and a pair of black canvas sneakers that i just so happened to come upon.. while strolling le marais, i wandered into the bensimon shop.. which after googling back in the states.. happens to be a very coveted french shoe brand that all the local gals wear and it looks like even a few us boutiques are trying to carry them. and here i just thought they were a bit different.

threw some outfits together to show the new purchases:
gladiators from h&m, black leather boots (vintage for 10 euros), pleated skirt(vintage for 5euro), scarf from paris street vendors(i got 3 for me.. excessive, maybe.), bensimon shoes

le fin.

so that is it. on day 16 we headed back to the states and to the extreme heat.

all the trip photos in a nice 2008 travels collection.

here's some leftover snippets.

alcohol before noon. as we waited in the heathrow terminal around 8am, i was enjoying my morning tea, when two older british gentlemen asked if they could share the table with me. i thought it'd be rude if i said no, so i said sure.. but not before looking around and seeing numerous empty tables. but the weirdest part was each guy had a beer in hand. how odd i thought, it's so early.. on a sunday morning.. and these blokes are drinking beer.. but they weren't the only ones.. at least they were drinking 'light' looking beers.. i saw numerous others with guinness. T returned with an astonished look on his face... but shrugged it off. the guys soon left thereafter, and we wandered the terminal until it was time to board.

perpetually delayed. another thing about our trip, was that every plane we took this trip departed/boarded late. like we'd board when we were to depart, than we'd sit on the runway for another hour. the most bizarre is the captain would always say, no worries, we'll make up the time in the air. but really, if they could get us that much faster before, why not do that in the first place. ultimately with the smaller flights between the european countries we'd arrive pretty much on time, despite the late departures. not quite true for the europe/us flight.

seating arrangement. me and T always pick the window/aisle combo and hope that nobody picks the middle seat. this almost never works, especially since most of the flights we take are full. so we always end up giving the aisle away. for the trip back by the time we checked in, there were no combos like that for us to pick, so we went ahead and picked the window/middle. of course the seats in front of us had empty middles as did the seats to the side of us. go figure.
so with having the window/middle seats, there lies the dilemma of having to go to the bathroom. i always feel like a bother having to ask the aisle person to let me out. and even moreso if the person is sleeping. so the guy next to me was a youngish late 20s kind of guy.. sleeping with the whole eyemask/earplug combo. T had already waken him up an hour or so prior to go, and now it was my turn. what do you do? it looked like his legs weren't as spread apart as before. i was like i could totally make it. i played with the idea over and over, while T thought it would be hilarious if i fell on him (he was of no help). so i finally stood up, facing him and attempted to get one leg over.. then i got scared and pulled it back. i did this about 3 times, while the people who were awake and sitting behind us began staring. i finally went for it for real, and got one leg over.. full straddling position. the whole time i was thinking of the game operation, and trying not to touch the sides. now the harder part was getting the next leg over.. which i quickly did, but not before accidently brushing against his leg.. but by that time i hurried down the aisle. T would later tell me that the guy jolted a bit, but fell back asleep... i would have to attempt this maneuver again when i returned.. this time i completed it faster.. but with the less of a brush. i was victorious.

home again, home again, jiggity jig. we made it home safely, and returned to iah to a ridiculous customs line. it seemed i had caught a cold on that last day as well.. which would continue to haunt both me and T the rest of our first week back. we hung out with family through dinner and picked up renji who had a holiday of his own, then headed back to our home to unpack and attempt to relax. work has been crazy since then.. but at least i'm over the cold. cheers!

music of the night.

day 15. since the day before was for shopping, today was for sightseeing. first on the list was buckingham palace.. which in all honesty was rather unspectacular. we lasted a mere 5 minutes to snap a few photos, before heading back to the tube for the next stop.

westminster abbey. at first we contemplated going inside after seeing the crowd of people waiting to get inside, but thankfully decided to go ahead. it was nothing less than amazing inside and if you're wondering photography was not allowed inside. of course being the da vinci code geek that i am, i made sure to check out sir isaac newtons tomb.

just outside westminster abbey and all within reach... big ben, parliament house and london eye.


after completing the sights, we headed to the west end to pick up our theatre tickets, and decided to grab another bite to eat at yauatcha, one of the famously fancy dim sum restaurants in london.


shortly after.. we headed to her majesty's theatre to watch phantom of the opera for our last night in london...

wander.

day 14. today's focus was shopping and wandering. we started out at oxford circus so i could check out top shop, before heading to carnaby street for the smaller shops. after an extensive lunch at yauatcha where we also picked out some to die for macaroons, we walked to leicester square and bought some tickets for phantom of the opera for the next night.


after that we made our way to covent gardens, and then picadilly circus where i picked up a manchester united jersey. we ended our shopping day at harrods picking up a few souvenir's along the way.

travel day 2.

day 13. we left paris and headed back to london. after a short flight we arrived at heathrow airport, and took a combination of the tube and train, which took longer than our flight from paris, to get back to putney. we grabbed a late lunch and spent the rest of the evening relaxing in putney and spending time with family.

château de versailles

day 12. the palace of versailles was the absolute one thing that i had to go to while in france. and we went on our last full day in paris. we woke up early and took the 1 hour train ride to versailles. luckily it appeared to not be overly busy when we arrived. it was amazing from the moment you entered the grounds, the feeling of just being there was surreal. and well photos just cannot capture the magnificence of the palace of versailles. i was in awe the entire time we were on the grounds.. from the château, to the gardens, to marie antoinette's domain.

the hall of mirrors. absolutely amazing.


Louis XIV bed chamber.


in the gardens, outside the château



Marie Antoinette's Petit Hameau. it took much walking to find this area in the vast gardens of versailles. T was ready to give up, but i was not leaving until i found her tiny village. and when we did it was absolutely perfect, and my absolute favorite part of versailles.

shopping day.

day 11 was dedicated to shopping. so there's a shortage of photos for this day. i hit about 5 vintage shops, several boutiques, market stands and a few chain stores while T waited outside in the streets most of the time. and after much hunting, there was very little buying. still i did obtain a pair of leather boots and a pleated skirt for 15 euro from a vintage shop. we grabbed some panini's for lunch and by late afternoon we had to head back to the hotel to drop off things and rest our feet for an hour before heading out for dinner.

our hotel was across the street from le centre pompidou, noted as one of the most daring modern art museums in the world.


for dinner we went to eat at one of the many japanese restaurants in the area, and lucky for us it was very good. after dinner we decided to head back out to the eiffel tower.. of course by 9pm it still wasn't very dark outside, but the lights on the tower were lit.


we passed by the Hôtel de Ville on the way back to our hotel.. which looks nice during the day.. but 10x better at night.

and if i still need to remind you.. there's always more on flickr.