on my way to china!

I finally made it! I usually deal with long flights well, but I'm sick (an intense cold, perhaps?) and I couldn't wait to get off! The reason why my flight was extra long was 'cause my dad didn't book my flight early enough and I had to make a 5 hour stop in Japan (which I would usually really really love).

The stop there wasn't completely horrible though! I am now pretty familiar with the Narita airport haha I've walked to like every corner of the international flights portion of the airport. One day, I'll explore the domestic side!

The best part of wandering around was coming across the Narita Origami Museum! It was amazing!! I loved it so much I kept taking pictures of it like a freak. I have tons of pictures, but I'll put up a few here and the rest will be on Facebook! All in all, I need to go to a bigger origami museum.

Also, it was kind of crazy figuring out how to get to my dorm 'cause I had to talk to the taxi cab driver :( He was the first person I have ever spoken to with a real Beijing accent and if I couldn't understand him/he couldn't understand me, we'd pretty much hit a roadblock (haha unintentional pun) :( Fortunately, he was a nice guy and we had some interesting small talk :) Except he's a freakin beast and drove hella fast and pretty much like wove through traffic like a psycho, I thought I was going to die!

Here I am, alive the next morning and I can feel it, it's gonna be sooo hot today (or well everyday!)

"don't you love it when..." #1 & twitter

A new segment! Not really all that original since it's just the opposite of my "don't you hate it when..."s :P I didn't really think I'd make it since it just seemed more fun to write about random things I hated, but I felt the need to make it today!



Don't you love it when you go to a hair salon and the people wash your hair? (Even that little girl is doing it.) IT FEELS SO GOOD. Mmm if only I could wash my hair like that all the time.

As you can probably guess, I just went to go get my hair cut and now my head feels like several pounds lighter! It's a nice feeling!

Totally unrelated, but I got myself a Twitter! What a momentuous day. I never thought I would get one, but now I have one and I'm not entirely sure how to work it. Technology is so complicated :( Follow me and teach me how to work this thing! [http://twitter.com/ohhellomai]

finished my first year of college!

It feels like it went by all too quickly :( Now I feel like I have to do everything I possibly can within my remaining 3 years!! I guess you could say that's both a good and bad way to look at things haha

It's nice to be home, but I feel like I'm in a rush since soon after coming home on Tuesday (5/11), I drove back down to SoCal (LA & SD) for my Grandma's 10th year anniversary as a nun (that's not an often celebrated occasion)!

Now I only have 3 days until I'm off to Japan (for 5 hours) then to Beijing, China! Feeling excited, busy and tired right now though! There's too much preparation and packing to be done :(

catch up post!

Wow, it's already March!! I'm a little sad I haven't written anything in February, but I guess I'll just write a little summary/bullet points of what happened since my last post until now! (It'll probably end up being a super long post)

1/17 - Sambo came from UCSD to visit me (and other people, but who cares about them. Just kidding!) She had this crazy adventure coming into and leaving from USC! It'd take forever to write it out, but those who should know already know what happened :) Through her crazy travels, she discovered cucumber soda which is surprisingly good and it really does taste like cucumber!



We went to Little Tokyo and found some pretty interesting things. It was super fun, but it was raining cats and dogs D:



After helping Sambo get her taxi for only like 5 minutes in the crazy rain, we were super soaked!


1/20 - I talked to the guy who played "Dewey" from that old TV show "Malcolm in the Middle." It wasn't really a star-struck experience or anything and it was actually the most mundane/insignificant conversation ever, but I talked to him nonetheless! I hope he doesn't see this post since he's a student at USC too haha

1/29 - I went back to Little Tokyo again, but with Steffo this time! As usual, we did random stuff and found lots of weird things.

Steffo likes little boys.



We found a book called Haikus for Jews. It's pretty inspiring. Here's a random Haiku I picked out. To be honest, I don't really get how this Haiku has anything to do with Jews, but I found it relatively amusing.



2/5 - This time I went to K-town with Steffo! As expected, we found some more weird stuff.



2/6 - I'm not sure if this is the right date, but I believe this is when my dorm flooded D: I live on the 3rd floor and somebody down the hall pulled (?) on the sprinkler and well, flooded the dorms! Lucky for me, my suite wasn't affected, but Stanley's was and he got locked out of his room. Coincidentally enough, Steffo was gone for some Christian convention, so I let him stay for the night.

MMMM snug like a bug in Steffo's bed.



2/17 - I went to my first press conference ever! It was for Kollaboration 10. I really didn't do much of anything, but camwhore with Andrew. Way to do something productive, Mai.

2/19 & 20 - USC was holding a Japanese Film Festival of sorts and It was really good! I watched Hana to Alice & Kuuki Ningyo. Both were really interesting to watch, so I highly recommend others to see it too!

2/27 - I had my first dance show at USC ever with TCDance, "Dance to a New Year." It went really well (as a whole. I don't really think I can say the same for myself though). I was having thoughts that maybe TCD wasn't for me, but after the show, I realized I really liked it :) From what I know, I think I'll be staying at least a while longer!

3/4 - There was a movie screening of "Mother" at USC and I really really enjoyed it! One of the most interesting stories I've seen in a long time :) I also recommend people to watch this movie to! It was really great to see Kim Hyeja & Won Bin to play characters completely different from what most people are used to seeing them do.

For the first time ever, I ate at Chipotle with Donna :0 The burritos are so fat! I dropped so much stuff that I formed a circle of food around me on the floor :( There was a free promotional thing at Coffee Bean, so I got a free Spring Peach Tea Latte too (thanks to Annie)! Mmm what a tasty day.



3/5 - I went to the 3 Romanticists concert which was supposed to feature Kim Bum Soo, Yoo Seung Chan and K.will, but only the last 2 went 'cause Kim Bum Soo didn't get a performing visa :( Regardless, it was super awesome! Even though Yoo Seung Chan is a rookie, he did a great job. I already loved K.will, but to see him live made me love him even more! Yoo Seung Chan gave out free CDs at the concert too :)

3/6 - I went to Kollaboration 10 and it was pretty fun! I've never been before, so I didn't know what to expect. I now know that I like the Shrine haha It's so big and even when I was on the balcony I could still see really well! Congrats to USC's very own Jason Yang for winning an award! (I don't remember what it's called :\)

3/10 - Janis let me try one of these cookies that her friend made and although I only had one, it was so good and I knew I had to try it! They were green tea cookies with red bean paste filling :) I'm not very experienced in cooking/baking, so I figured I'd have to try really hard not to screw it up! Funny enough when I tried to go find all the ingredients with Steffo in K-town, they didn't have anything we needed! I never knew that Korean markets wouldn't have green tea powder of red bean paste :\ In the end, our second batch turned out really well! Or at least my sister likes it a lot :)



I actually have a lot more pictures, but uploading these alone took forever & I got lazy! Check out my facebook for more :)

And now I'm on Spring Break!! :)

so busy and too lazy

The title sums up how I feel right about now! Instead of being productive, I've decided to write a post after so long! Just some random tidbits from the past week!

Over the 3 day weekend, my friend from USCD, Sambo, came to visit! Whooo!

While we were walking to TCF's Girls' Night, somebody driving by super fast through a twizzler at us and screamed, "Merry Christmas!!" It was really weird. Obviously, we weren't able to catch it, so this is the twizzler on the sidewalk.



Even though the weather has been awful, Sambo was only going to be here for a few days, so I wanted to show her some of LA! We went to Little Tokyo and ate at this little restaurant which I unfortunately forgot the name of, but here's an interesting picture of their outdoor menu. I really love that place! (Actually, I would not eat the "popular with the ladies"... I'd rather eat the guy one!!)



When it was time for my friend to go back to UCSD, it was raining cats and dogs. I live by one of the gate entrances and we told the taxi to come pick her up there, but we forgot that the gate was closed on weekends. We kind of just stood in the rain, thinking about what to do. All of a sudden, she started climbing over the gate, which is pretty tall and pointy looking by the way. I was totally scared she was going to slip and impale herself on it or just die. But, she's baller so she made it over just fine. It's too bad I don't have any pictures of this moment though D:

the celebration of my birth in 2009.

BIRTHDAY POST! Even though it's been over a week since my actual birthday...

Anyway, this post isn't really for my birthday. It's... for my birthday cakes!

This is the cake my aunt got for me when I was in Disneyland :D



This is my other cake my uncle made for me when I got home!! :D Err... actually I think it's a pie maybe... I don't know! He made me a celebratory edible sweet thing!!



All in all, I had a great birthday thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with me :D I don't really feel 19 though. I still feel like a little kid. My cousin bought me a necklace with a nice little piece of advice on it.

"Live the life you love."

trying to combine everything!

On Monday (12/21), I ate dimsum with my teacher & girls from my high school Mandarin class :D Usually, someone would post up a picture of dimsum, but here's a picture of a guy wearing a Santa hat sitting on the other side of the restaurant.



From Wednesday to Saturday (12/23-26), I was in Disneyland for my birthday!! I love Disneyland, so it was a lot of fun :D (More pictures on FB) (I'll write more about my bday in a different post)



I feel like I keep eating dimsum this break! I also went to eat dimsum with my friend, Erika on Thursday (12/28). I ate jellyfish for the first time in forever that day too :0 (LOOK AT THAT, JIAJUN.)



A proper day of hanging out with a friend can't go by unless I discover something weird, so here's a page from a weird twisted comic book rendition of classic fairy tales/stories.



Randomly when I was at Valley Fair shopping until I met up with Nattie on Wednesday (12/30), I saw some interesting shoes...



Then, I stopped by Maido in Santana Row and saw some super cute bags/backpacks (I want the frog one :X)



Right after the new year began, I realized I had a cut on my finger, so I got a bandage and while opening it, I gave myself another cut. Fantastic! Great way to start off the year.

Hopefully, everyone else started the year off right! Let's hope for a good one :D