Chilling with the family ~ Dashi Panda

Today was yet another day at Chinatown! We left for temple and stopped at a gas station to refill the tank, but afterwards the car wouldn't start until l after half an hour. Whew, my parents were really riled up against one another with my mom telling my dad to just call a freaking toll company and my dad adamantly saying that the car just needed another ten minutes or so. I just opened up my book and started reading.

When the car started up again, we went back home to switch cars and then went to the temple. There was meditation time after the chanting, which was new. My mom told me that I wasn't supposed to think about anything, so try to think of one thing, like my nose or something. So for thirty minutes, I just kept thinking, "my nose... My nose..." Really fun stuff, haha!

Afterwards, my parents went for sutra studies, while I just curled up on a couch and read. I'm reading The Maze Runner, which turned out to be a totally good book! Very pleased!

Then three hours later or so, my parents returned and we went grocery shopping. I haven't been in such a long time and it was nice seeing all he familiar sights of produce, hearing the chattering of customers, and smelling the oil from the potsticker samples the market had to offer today. I planned to make soondubu and kimchi pajeon for my parents, but I couldn't find the pardon mix, so I guess I'll just find a recipe for that online somewhere!

And what trip to Chinatown complete without a drink? I was deciding between Twinkle and Teahouse, but since I have been wanting to try this one flavor at Twinkle, we headed towards the shop. I stood in front of the menu trying to decide what I wanted to get for so long, that my dad asked my mom what I was doing, haha!

I always thought the workers here dressed super Asian-y :P

I feel like a stalker, mwahahaha~

The final decision? Taro cheesecake slushie. How crazy awesome does that sound?! Yeah, well I also put in grass jelly and pudding inside too, yummy! Later I found out that I'm still a purist and prefer not adding anything inside my drinks. But the slushie definitely was cheesecake-y! The first sip and BAM, cheesecake flavor! A few greedy gulps later, I realized that there was a slight grittiness from the cheesecake bits they put in. There were actually chunks of cheesecake crust inside too! Wow amazed. Twinkle is the only place that I've seen taro cheesecake offered, and I'm glad that I finally tried it!

With the sun already creeping downwards, we headed towards Givral B10 Cafe to buy dinner to take home. We ended up buying salmon with brown rice for my sister, because she's now super healthy and pretty much only eats like a champion. Hehe~ on our way home, we stopped by my sister's place to drop off the food, and I wrote her a note. Our hand writings are pretty much identical (well, my *pretty* handwriting and her usual handwriting is the same), so scary! But I think her handwriting is really nice, so that kind of makes me smile :D

B10 Vietnamese Cafe

So many choices! Thank goodness for picture menus!

And this is where I get my menu anxiety from-- Parents XD

A less visual, wordy menu

They sell sweets like sago too!

We walked on over to Six Ping bakery, my *favorite* bakery in the United States (I only know bakeries in Houston, haha!)! The people at Six Ping are super innovative, and I always see new types of breads on the shelves. Actually, I'm online and sometimes on top of the world wide bread scene. So it was really interesting when I was reading about this new type of bread online once, and then two weeks later, Six Ping started selling their experiments with the same type of bread! I guess that type of innovation and passion for bread really brings in customers. Our family has been going here since the bakery opened, even before it was a bakery. It originally was a noodle restaurant that sold homemade bread on the side, but everyone loved their bread so much that they became a full-fledged bakery ^_^b

Half of the sign is out of lights, but it says "Six Ping Bakery"

So many cute cakes, very similar to the ones you see everywhere in Taiwan :3

Bread, bread, om nom nom~

Even the owner is in the holly, jolly Christmas mood :D (She's wearing antlers!)

When we came home, it was feasting time! My dad and I both got pork rice plates with a fried egg, which is a must when it's offered, hehe! I really liked the Vietnamese shredded pork, but they didn't give too much of it this time around. But the portions were still enormous! I think I just engulfed the whole pound or so of rice underneath all the grilled pork and stuff. I love the sauce that comes with the dish, although I still don't know what it is.

My mom's Rock and Roll beef had tender cubes of marinated steak with red and green bell peppers. It came with tomato rice, which my parents didn't like to much, but I thought it was pretty special and would taste awesome in omurice!

This was for my sister! It looks SO GOOD.

Grilled pork rice plate with shredded pork and a fried egg

Rock 'n Roll Beef rice plate with tomato rice

Yummy spring roll wrap thingie-ma-bob. It had baby shrimp and Asian sausage inside o_0

Wow, super nice staying at home! Got to see my parents and doggies, read a book, ate great food, and grocery shopping with my dad! I know that may not sound terribly exciting, but both my dad and I love grocery shopping. I especially like looking for new products and reading their labels. Ahh, what a fun place, haha.

~*~

Now that you've seen my parents this holiday, where's my sister? Ahh no worries, we hang out too! Hopefully, she won't be too busy with work to hang out with me some more this break ^^

First thing she did when she came home was barge into the restroom after I just showered and jab a present into my hands. Thank gawd I was wearing something or I'd scream and throw the present back at her XD

What's this?~~~ Find out soon enough!

I had made Seafood and Kimchi Korean tofu stew for dinner, and my parents also cooked up some broccoli. After we ate, I picked up my stuff and said good bye to our parents. I was going to sleepover at my sister's place, but first-- a movie!

We went and watched Rise of the Guardians, which turned out to be hillll-arious! :D At first we were the only 2 people in the theater room, so I lifted the arm rests from a couple of seats and laid down on my side ("Happy Buddha" style ;P). A few people trickled in, so I sat back up in proper movie-watching position. When the movie began, there was a whoppin' total of 6 people in the room. :P

There was a preview for Despicable Me 2 with four minions attempting to perform a singing performance. One of the would randomly yell out "Pohhhh-tayyy-tooohhh!" And then Connie and I would crack up. I bet the other 4 people in the room where like, What in the world?? ^O^ HAR HAR HAR SO FUNNY.

The movie was surprisingly really good :) I had no expectations going in, although I did think Jack Frost's voice was too low for how ever old he looked like. And yes, the way they got rid of the bad guy was very cheesy, but hey, you're going into a cheesy movie anyways!

Afterwards, we went back to Connie's place, where I met this little tyke:

Meet Crush.

SHE WILL CRUSH YOUUUU

He-Hey now, look over here~

She's soo kyuuuuute and tiny! *fumble, run, trip, whee*

Aww, gyu gyu, whatacutieomg~

That's her full grown size!

She even has a mustache!

"Hi Mommy Connie~"

Super cute! Except she likes to attack my legs AHH!

We said good night, and I fell asleep on the couch. It was weird, because she has the same couch as Josh, Book, and Sean have in their living room. Pretty goofy~ The plan was to wake up at 8:30am and then go for a morning run.

So at 8:30am, we woke up! And then we did not go for a morning run... just yet! :P Crush had chewed up Connie's earbuds, so we went to Target to buy a new pair. Then we headed towards Hermann Park. A loop around the place is ~3 miles, so we did a loop, and I almost died. The end!

Hehe, well, we got back and I took a shower. Then Connie realized that she had a session with her personal trainer, so she showed me her stock of apples and cereal to keep me happy and left. Three hours, two apples, and half a bowl of cereal later, I was snoozing on her bed waiting for her to come home, since I was starving having not eaten breakfast nor lunch! (I don't count the apples and bit of cereal as anything, hehe)

She came back home, and she decided she was craving some KOREAN BBQ!! :D Except it was funny, because we didn't end up ordering any BBQ, but that's besides the point. She picked up one of her friends, Nina, and the three of us happily made our way to Chinatown in my sister's Corolla.

Oh gawd, so hungry! I wuv Korean food, and whenever I'm starving, Korean food is like an addicting drug. @_@ Especially kimchi pajeon; get that thing away from my mouth please :P We plopped ourselves at a table at Tofu Village and ordered kimchi pajeon to share, and my sister ordered the kimchi stew, Nina ordered grilled mackerel and tofu soup, and I ordered the intestine and tripe tofu stew. Yes... INTESTINE!! AHHH GROSS. But no, it was actually pretty tasty, although I prefer tripe over intestine by a mile. XD I'd like to try the grilled mackerel in the future with plain, delicious kimchi stew too!

Om nom nom! Delish 4pm lunch!~

And this is my sister making attractive faces, ha!

Can you see the steam rising from the pajeon? It was So. Darn. Delish. Musthaveitagainsoon!

Oh also, the mackerel came with purple "nutrition" rice. Pretty tasty too!

I ate until it hurt to breathe... yep, I have absolutely no self-control when I'm starving, so please don't let me get too hungry, or else you'll find that I ate up your car or something. ^^v And I finished my pot of rice, the stew, most of the pajeon and almost all of the bancham / side dishes. Whew!

But when it was decided that we go to for some Yogurtland for some froyo, my tummy managed to slim itself down a minuscule amount to allow some leeway. YES! To froyo we go, yo! Har har har~ Ooh, having too much fun~ :P

I've heard of Yogurt Mountain, but not of Yogurtland, so I was pretty excited going in. It was nice-- they had a schedule of seasonal rotating flavors like Cinnamon bun and eggnog, but when we went, there was tiramisu and gingerbread. I liked the tiramisu, although the coffee flavor was way too much for me, and the gingerbread tasted artificial. They had Taro too, although it tasted like the taro powder you would use to make slushies at drink shops *unsatisfied lip smacking*. But when I mixed it with Vanilla bean and Tart, the off-taste was hidden away~

Also, their Vanilla bean had BLACK SPECKS! O_O That is... the Holy Grail of Vanilla Bean! The true sign of maturity, of purity, of top-notch excellence and awesomeness-- how one can truly call this little swirl of white... vanilla bean flavor. I'm glad the vanilla bean had some of the bean specks inside, makes it taste all that much bettah! Although I'm pretty sure if someone just threw in some random black specks that did *not* come from the bean, I would go all crazy and say it tastes heavenly anyways ;)

My usual amount of toppings-- 3 chunks of cookie dough!

Nina and Connie enjoying their topping-loaded froyo creations

AHH SO GUD, RAIGHT?!

Needless to say, I have a big sweet tooth, so I finished all of my yogurt before the other two. Nina and Connie had lots of toppings left, but didn't want to finish because their yogurt melted into a mess already. See? That's another reason why I slack off on the toppings! Unless you like drinking your toppings, it's difficult to finish the frozen yogurt before it melts when there's a dam of sweet chunks and crunchy nomnoms in the way :)

Yogurtland had other flavors like cheesecake, peppermint hot cocoa, and cran-raspberry tart, and I'm glad they offered their tart. They didn't, however, offer one of those Buy 9, Get 1 Free cards, which sucks if you live nearby and love their froyo. Well, good thing for me, I don't! :P But I'll definitely be venturing out to Clear Lake area froyo shops, especially since of my tonsillectomy (a post dedicated to that later)! :D

Yogurtland

5901 Westheimer Rd
Ste V
Houston, TX 77057