Image by Minusion
あけましておめでとう! 今年もよろしくお願いします。
That translates to something like 'Happy New Year! I'm counting on you for this following year". The second part is a bit funny to phrase in English as to my knowledge, there isn't really an equivalent. If anyone has a better translation, throw it at me.
Hit More After the Jump for more New Years 'cards'.
よいお年をお迎えください。m( _ _ )m
Image by Kanna Asuke
Merry Christmas! I'm not planning to put up anything for the rest of today, and I'm thinking of whether I want to put anything up for tomorrow right now.
Image from here
Ya know, I had to do this. It's not always that Christmas Eve falls on the same day that I put the Song of the Week up ya know.
Image by Kagijou
I sure hope I got my Japanese in the title right. FAREWELL MY SUMMER!!
Image by Itou Noiji
The big eight zero! This post mainly covers the last few days.
This post should also be known as Powell Street Festival.
Impressive shot by Billmoy
Meant to do this yesterday, but I forgot. Distracted by Blazblue Portable, and lamenting because I forgot to preorder Continuum Shift.
Image by Mina m
I know that saying 'happy holidays' is usually for Christmas, but saying 'Happy Chinese New Years and Valentines day' is simply too long. Anyways, photo heavy post ahead.
In Vietnamese, we say "chúc mừng năm mới!" to others. It means 'Hapy New Year', quite literally. At our house, we celebrate the lunar new year in a rather unique way. It's a mix of the Chinese and Vietnamese customs, so we might have characteristics of the two traditions. We don't usually say it at home, but 农历新年 is 'Gong Hay Fat Choy'.
Here's a platter of fruits. I've got photos of each fruit.
This is Rambutan (chôm chôm). They're quite sweet, though their seed is a bit woody. The fruit's shell looks kind of funny too. Put three in the photo because two might have a bit of phallic imagery.
Sapodilla, or xa-pô-chê. The seeds of these are killers. They've got a hook-like thing on them that'll catch in your throat if you swallow them. The fruit has an interesting taste though. Tastes kind of like a malt. If you eat one that's not ripe though, it'll not only taste bad, but it'll dry your mouth out. Figured this out through personal experiences.
This interesting looking fruit is a water apple. Kinda looks like a cross between a bell pepper and an apple. As their name suggests, they have a very high water concentration in them. Can't remember how they taste though.
There are lots of names for this one. Sugar Apple, Sweetsop, and mãng cầu ta in Vietnamese. Interesting fruit, and super, super sweet. Eating too many of these might leave you in a sugar coma. It's skin comes off in pieces, revealing a pasty white flesh chock full of seeds.
I only know this by the name of Soursop. It's mãng cầu Xiêm in Vietnamese. Like it's name suggests, this one is pretty sour. Like the sweetsop, it's got tonnes of seeds in it. It's quite soft too.
Now, on to Valentines day, or what I'll refer to as 'Singles Awareness Day'. You can see why:
The photos will look better if you enlarge them. Had to use a different camera because my camera's batteries died twice in the process.
On the other hand, I picked up this today. It tastes quite odd, though not in a bad way. Tastes kind of like a 蛋挞,an egg tart. I chose it randomly actually. I had a few choices, so I did a random choice.
Alrighty, so I went with my cousins and their friends to Future Shop on Bridgeport to play our roles as consumers. Photo-heavy post, includes Christmas dinner.
My cousins thought that the guy there looks a bit like me. I can sorta see the resemblance...
My cousin cooked the dinner this year. Ham and turkey was bought, but everything else was made. Tasty dinner. Very filling.
My plate. Ham, salad, risotto, and mashed potatoes. Had a baked potato after too.
We lined up @ Future Shop @ 8 pm. It wasn't that bad then. Heavy fog, but there were only four people before us. The store opens at 6 am by the way.
It's pretty much empty here in the lot. The fog is slightly clearer here. Killed time by listening to music (on my iPod Shuffle to save batteries on my iTouch for the games), and jamming to DJ Max Fever on my PSP. My fingers eventually and inevitably got too cold to play DJ Max
Big red sign. The line up didn't start growing until around 12 am. My cousins and their friends were after a killer deal on a nice TV. $600 for Sharp Aquos 40" 1080p LCD HDTV. Limited quantity. xD But we were at the front of the line, so as long as you could get there first you could pull over a bunch for everybody.
Bad photo, but the dog wouldn't keep still. He's my cousin's friend's dog. Friendly little guy.
A guy at the front of the line brought this out later in the night when the temperature outside dropped to it's lowest. It hovered around -2 or 0 from around 11 until the store opened at 5:45. We roasted mini-marshmallows and kept kinda warm by the fire while people behind us looked on with envious eyes.
Spoils of war. A new laptop and a red bull. Quite scary once everyone's let in. The laptops were locked up in a cage, so getting your hands on one required the assistance of an employee, which were in high demand, though not enough in supply. A majority of the check out stalls didn't accept cash, so I had to follow the guy helping me through the store. Got it in the end. Still gotta go to Best Buy and exchange my 360 copy of Assassin's Creed II for a PS3 copy. My mom got it for the wrong system. ^^; Probably have to pick up a copy of Microsoft office too.
Image by Piromizu
Ho ho ho. That's right. I've got a whole sleigh-load of stuff to put out here, so keep reading.
Party
So, I was at a Christmas party yesterday @ my family's new restaurant. Quite a bit of food. Two noodle dishes, a shrimp thing at the front left, deep fried chicken wings, deep fried sea food (squid, shrimp, octopus), a Vietnamese salad, sushi, and I feel like I'm forgetting something. Anywho, loaded up on greasy food, washed it down with cream soda. Yum.
Figma Photo shoot
Randoms
So I forgot my camera at Jason's place. Edmond decided to leave me a Christmas present and load it up with photos. Note that I'm not in those photos, nor am I even in that house.
I believe my cousin once asked, "what's with guys and crotch shots?"
I took this myself going back from Jason's place. I guess you can't really tell, but right after where that white car is, there's a rather steep hill. Gave me hell climbing that everyday to get to school for a year or two, especially in the snow.
Again, I took this shot. Yeah, I don't know. It's just the phone and electricity lines. Also a gray sky. It's blue now though.
CHRISTMAS EVE! HEEYYY!
So yeah. I started on the Miku photoshoot with my newly created photo area. I actually finished all the photos. I looked over them again, and my lighting got screwed up, so I have to redo them all so you can actually see Miku.
Song by Noboru↑-P. Illustrations by H/Y & Saki Ukai.
Christmas song. A nice one. Maybe. Another song of the week tomorrow. Christmas related for that one. The Vocaloid on Saturday won't.
Party today and tomorrow I think. I'll blog about those. @_@
ONLY TWO MORE DAYS! Vocaloid holiday special next, so stay tuned.
Title: Jingle Bells
Artist: James Lord Pierpont (original composer), Kenny G
Genre: Contemporary Jazz
Single: N/A
Album: The Greatest Holiday Classics
Vintage: 2005, (16/11/1857 original date of composition)
Aights, so I finally got around to uploading all the images and stuff. It's quite a long post, so there's more after the jump.


San Antonio, at some outlet center.


The Hong Kong food market I often mentioned in the episodes.

Crawfish. Also known as very small shelless Cenetaurs , from Monster Hunter

Oh shi-


The house I stayed in
The Houston Zoo

The sushi one of my uncles made.
The NASA trip.
For the rest of the album,click here.
The Galleria, a mall in Houston.
A funny shot my brother took.
A funny shot my brother took.
San Antonio, at some outlet center.
The real cause of global warming.
The Hong Kong food market I often mentioned in the episodes.
Crawfish. Also known as very small shelless Cenetaurs , from Monster Hunter
Oh shi-
Oasis found!
The house I stayed in
The Houston Zoo
The sushi one of my uncles made.
The NASA trip.
For the rest of the album,click here.

