muning

hello, this is my friend's cat named "muning", which means cat in filipino. hey cat.

i hope everyone had a nice holiday. i did what i've done every holiday these past few months... eat chinese food at home -__-. hmmmm. i think afterwards we went to look at christmas lights around the island with my brother and his gf, my sister from another mister. then got drinks at this little place called jungle java. they serve matcha frappes now (for $6. ridiculous! i could buy a whole meal with that money). and it's not as good tapioca express's either. speaking of matcha, i bought some matcha powder today - $6.50 for a tiny bag. there's something about the color that turns me on. LOL. and i love the taste. it's like subtly sweet. i'm gonna do some experimenting with it - donut glaze, drinks, cake mix, etc. excited. what a glutton i am. i've even been dreaming of food these days (cookies, KFC). and i wake up drooling. i think it's these damn braces affecting my subconscious.

stuff


from china. went crazy on the polka dots. but my aunt got those for me. :P




my brother and his gf got me this kid robot donut pillow for my birthday. THEN, for christmas, they got me a mini donut maker! ♥ the glasses frames i got it at some random booth in China for like $3 USD..extremely cheap plastic. but i like the colors A LOT (it's black and fades to green). got it prescriptioned at Lenscrafters there for about $50 USD O_O...

B* got his gifts in the mail today that i sent him. they were small things, but he said he really liked them and it made his day :). that made my day! i miss him.

next post will be about new years resolutions, dreams for 2011 :). this blog layout needs an update. my face needs an update.

my trip to guangzhou in pictures

November 29, 2010, I left Guam for Hong Kong with my dad via Continental Airlines. We stayed at Nikko Hotel for a couple of nights. He was meeting with his old friends from 30 years ago. They were having some sort of reunion I guess. I just followed my dad and his friend for the most part.

HONG KONG








After 2 days in HK, we went on a 2 hour train ride to Shenzhen (China). Got there with maybe one too many luggages -- China's taxi cab trunks are hella small. We ate at home for most of our trip. Did enough walking to last us a whole year. I should have bought more stuff but a lot of their clothes were for winter. The young people are pretty style conscious these days. If only I were returning back to America instead of Guam, I could have used some of those coats and sweaters and boots. OH EM JAY. They have so many shoes. SO SO SO many shoes. I only bought two pairs... of sneakers -__-. Things are really cheap, just the way I like it...but I don't think I can live there without a translator :(

GUANGZHOU



























hello, byebye.

All photos were taken by me, so if there's any back story or question you wanna know about a photo leave a comment and I'll try to explain/answer to the best of my ability :). and also I was lazy to write up captions for each pictures. so ask meee if you're curious.

OH AND MERRY CHRISTMAS! OR HAPPY HOLIDAYS. whatever :P

braces in your twenties. i look 16 now.

This is just a little post talking about my braces experience so far...mostly ranting >_<. You can ignore it if you'd like.. but I just wanted to write here because maybe there's someone out there who might be experiencing this. probably not, but who knows?

People usually get braces when they're like in middle school or high school. I've been done with college for a year already... (time flew by SO fast). It kind of sucks to get braces so late in life...anyway, So on December 17, 2010, I had an appointment to get braces point on. Just a few days before that, I had 3 pre-molar teeth extracted. Getting all these teeth procedures happen at such close proximity is really unpleasant. My advice would be to wait a couple of weeks after teeth extractions to get braces. With the extractions, I've been really paranoid about getting this thing called "dry socket" so I've been super cautious about everything. I've been using my tongue and the back left corner of my mouth to eat basically. Ate mash potatoes and baby food for the first few days :P. With the braces on, it just added on to the struggle I already had with the teeth extractions. It was really sore for the first couple of days with braces. The slightest touch of any metal utensil was sooo painful. The soreness has subsided a little bit, and now only hurts on the front and right side when I bite. I've been brushing like 3-4 times a day, but my mouth/teeth/tongue feel really unclean to be honest. It feels really weird to brush the back of my teeth and to floss. Since my front teeth protrude, I can't close my mouth now with the braces on. I can't bite my lips :(... but it was a bad habit anyway. I can't pucker my lips. and worst of all, it causes me to drool A LOT. It's gross and embarrassing. My tongue has become really dry, I think because I've been using it to break food...and because my mouth stays slightly open. I think there's actually something wrong with it... because the middle of my tongue can't taste anything and it feels kind of cut. Another thing is my mouth is super small, so I feel/look/talk like I have really buckteeth :(. I lost a bit of weight. I really don't want to, I want to eat EVERYTHING, but I can't. My bf thinks the braces are cute -__-, but he's only seen me with them through Skype and I kind of look healthier on webcam. but I look almost sickly in person, especially in daylight, when I'm not smiling. How is my boyfriend going to love this face?...haha. I can't even say his name properly because I can't put my lips together as smoothly. sigh...so much complaints huh? I guess just gotta wait till my mouth can get use to itself again.

I promise, next post will be Guangzhou in pictures.

update from gaungzhou, china

This update is brought to you by a random unsecured one bar internet source, whose speed is equivalent to that of dial-up connection. and Securitales, a service I so desperately paid for to unblock websites that China bans people from viewing (blogger, youtube, flickr, facebook, tumblr, twitter, etc. ---- ONLY THE BEST SITES ON THE INTERNET)

I've been to China like once or twice before but I honestly don't really remember anything from those times. It's been an interesting trip... different way of life. I just wanted to mention a couple of random things about here. All the lights turn off at exactly midnight, very strange. Crossing the street is pretty scary. Don't pay attention to walk signals, nobody really cares about pedestrians soo look with your own eyes for cars. People at clothing markets don't really give a shit about customer service. They're all like robots. Sometimes they'll get mad at you for being too cheap (sooo funny)... speaking of which, the cost of living is super affordable here. food and transportation is ridiculously cheap. clothing prices aren't bad. bargaining is CRUCIAL (only at booths and markets and stuff though). I'm not sure how much people generally make here - but let's say if I took my miniscule salary from my boba shop job in San Diego - I can probably live a comfortable life here.

I checked my health - not bad. I thought I had health problems, but I guess nothing was detected. I'll update more next time with more details and photos or something...maybe when I'm on Guam with fast internet:). until then........ toodloooo.


shannyn sossamon, unknown source