Trend-Spotting: Combat Boots

So, I am no fashion expert, but I want to start "trend-spotting" on my blog because they always do that in magazines and I thought it would be fun.  After all, you don't have to be a revolutionary fashionista to have an opinion about what's going on in terms of personal adornment.

I don't know if its prominent in the fast-paced world of high fashion, but I've definitely been noticing a combat boot/doc marten trend in the small world around me.  It's the 80s reminiscent, grunge look and I love it.  It also looks nice with shorts and dresses, juxtaposing the workman/army-look with something feminine.  I love wearing them with socks that peek out over the edge.

not mine....

When my dad saw me wearing some, guess what he said. "Nice hobo boots!" ....Fathers don't understand fashion statements.

summer nail polish

NAILPOLISH:

Unfortunately, summer's almost over...but I just wanted to share my summer obsession- NAILS. (inspired by my cousin who loves nail polish :)

Summer is the season for fun nails.  I love painting my nails crazy bright colors, especially since I don't have to worry right now about my dance teachers seeing them...Ballet teachers usually don't like you to wear weird nail polish because they think its a distraction.  (But I LOVE looking at my bright orange or blue nails in ballet class! )

I found some really cheap, pretty nailpolishes and little sparkly rhinestone things when I was in LA chinatown (I just love chinatown) the other day.  I only buy cheap nail polish. I just can't bring myself to spend 8 dollars on a teeny tiny bottle of nail polish, even though I know it usually doesn't chip as much as the cheap brands.  Wet N'Wild has really fun colors, but it chips SO easily.  My favorite brand right now is "Sinful Colors" because has really good quality for only $1.99 at Target...

The best summer colors, in my opinion, are coral orange, turquoise, and hot pink.  I hate yellow nail polish on my skin because it looks like I have a disease. I think I'm going to keep wearing summer clothes and summer colors even when fall comes.  I don't want summer to end!!

summer movie scores

I'm no movie expert, but here's what I'd give these summer blockbusters:

X-Men First Class: A 

Ok, so I'm a little biased because I'm a complete nerd and fan of the other X-Men movies...but I thought this movie was so fun.  Sure, it was cheesy...and a couple of the characters bugged me...but I loved the action! For fans of superhero movies...

Planet of the Apes: C+

 Interesting, kinda freaky, but this was one of those movies where you already know what happens in the end, so it makes it less exciting, plus the ending sucks because apes are supposed to take over the world....but worth watching. 

Captain America: B-

This gets a B because, in spite of its corniness, it started out strong.  You know, it wasn't typical wimpy-kid-gets-turned-buff-then-saves-world, it was more like wimpy-kid-gets-turned-buff-then some other interesting World War 1-era related stuff happens and THEN he saves the world.  And Chris Evans is gorgeous.  No, I didn't just go see it because of him...........

Cowboys and Aliens:B-

This reminded me of the last Indiana Jones (with Shia LeBoeuf) where aliens come and you are just SO confused...I enjoyed it and I thought Daniel Craig was a convincing cowboy.  It was definitely exciting, just a little weird......

Transformers 3 Dark of the Moon: C-

I was disappointed with this one.  I guess I shouldn't have expected so much after the second movie, but it was just a little too predictable.  In Transformers 1 decepticons try to take over the world! which is shocking, then in Transformers 2 they try to do it again! which is less shocking, and AGAIN really ? It was too similar to the last one.  That being said, I enjoyed the special effects and I think Shia LeBoeuf is hilarious.  There were some good moments, but overall, it wasn't spectacular.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: A!!! 

Maybe I shouldn't have made this post because it is revealing how much of a nerd I am.... this Harry Potter made me cry! I thought it was the perfect ending. It was like the end of my childhood of reading Harry Potter all summer and waiting anxiously for movies to come out.  Yes of course it was different than the book.  And they added some dumb scenes...but if you haven't seen it yet GO SEE IT And if you havent seen Harry Potter before, watch ALL of the other ones, and THEN go see it.  (Where have you been for the last 10 years?)

im back home!

So this is very delayed...but the program ended a couple weeks ago and I am currently home enjoying the SoCal sunshine and frantically trying to wrap up the summer homework that I seemed to forget about while I was in San Fran. I miss the ballet program and all of the new friends that I made, but I definitely don't miss the fog...

I absolutely fell in love with the San Francisco ballet school.  I feel that the intensive was the most enlightening and edifying dance experience of my life.  I really can see an improvement in both my dancing and the way I work in class.  The teachers were phenomenal- they were challenging and encouraging at the same time. I would recommend the program to anyone, just bring lots of pointe shoes and lots of sweaters!

That's the thing about San Francisco- it is SO COLD. My only complaints about the summer are the cold and commuting in the cold.  The dorms were pretty far outside the city, so the commute was a bit of a hassle. I didn't believe people that I would actually need to wear winter clothes in the middle of the summer, but every morning I donned my raincoat, jeans, and scarf to walk to the train station.  I am a complete wimp; Orange County doesn't have seasons, so 60 degrees and below is FREEZING.  But even my friends from the east coast complained about the cold! So if you're going to San Francisco, you should wear not only flowers in your hair, but a good jacket. :)

So, if anyone's been actually reading my blog this summer, thank you for your support! If you have any questions about the details of the ballet program, feel free to ask! I know I didn't really go into detail about the  classes.

Oh, and I will still be posting in my blog.  (Ya, we'll see how long that lasts after I go back to school).  Just the same kind of stuff.  I'm still working on the whole blogging thing, and I'm always open for suggestions.

ta ta for now
<3 serendipity

tired feet from pointe shoes!

At the SFB school they do EVERYTHING en pointe.  The schedule isn't overly intense, but I feel like the technique classes en pointe make it really hard!

Some girls here only use paper towels in their pointe shoes to protect their toes, or nothing at all.  They are so hard core! I always have to wear toe pads and my feel still hurt! I swear by lambs wool toepads- I think they are amazing because they are comfortable but thin enough you can still feel your feet working through the floor.  And I also dedicated to masking tape.  I am convinced masking tape is better at protecting toes from blisters than any other medical tape or fancy cushions.

Its funny to see what people do at the end of a long day to relax.  I like to stick my toes on an ice pack some nights because I feel like they get so swollen! Some of my friends fill their empty trash cans up with ice from the cafeteria and soak their feet in ice water.  Epsom salt is really popular too...

One of my favorite things to do after ballet class is to roll out my calves with a pinkie ball or a tennis ball.  They get so tight from wearing pointe shoes all day!

In spite of my constant complaining throughout the day about how much my feet hurt, the long hours of pointe is my favorite part about the SFB intensive.  I think that pointe is more enjoyable than wearing flat shoes, and I hope that it will make my feet stronger!

Me and street vendors and Union Square

So I've been keeping busy this weekend.  I've been walking SO MUCH.  We only have one class on Saturday, so we get to go out into the city afterwards...

Between dance class and seeing/crying about the end of HARRY POTTER (huge Harry Potter nerd here), I kept ending up at Union Square this weekend.  It's very easy to end up and very dangerous because that's where a girl can spend all her money if she's not careful....

Union Square is like the Times Square of San Francisco.  Meaning everything's supersized.  There's a huge Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters (my favorites) and a gorgeous mall with the biggest Nordstrom I have ever seen.  And then there's the designer stores like Prada where you walk in and they give you dirty looks because they know you aren't going to buy anything...

biggest nordstroms ever...

There's also a few street vendors which are always fun.  It's really strange to me though, because there's all these little Asian ladies who sell these handmade earrings but all of the different vendors carry  almost the EXACT SAME earrings.  Do they buy the beads at the same place or something? And if they're selling the same thing, then why do they set up their carts right next to eachother and offer them for the same price?  It puzzles me. Anyways, I'm not exactly the best bargainer.  I tried to get a pair of little coy fish earrings for 3 dollars because I thought they were 5, and the lady laughed at me and told me they were 7 dollars.  So I made a face and offered 5, but because they had a "pretty crystal" she gave me 6.  So all that work and I only got 1 dollar off...

learning Japanese

she said she goesto an all girls school and she has to wear a uniform- just like the animes !!

So right now I'm listening to "Wouldn't it be nice" by the Beach Boys, sitting in my dorm room by myself because my roommate went to visit her Japanese friends on the other floor.  I already mentioned this before- but my roommate is this adorable girl from Japan who doesn't speak  too much English...but if i speak clearly she understands a lot.   She definitely knows more English then I will ever learn of Japanese...and shes SO good at picking up new words.  However, whenever I ask her how to say something in Japanese, I almost immediately forget it or mess if up so much she can't understand me when I try to say it later.

Sometimes we have a hard time understanding eachother.  For example, I'll say "do you want to go to breakfast or just wait here for a little bit?" and she'll say "yeaaah!" (not an option).

But I admire her so much for coming to a foreign country to train and for being so diligent about learning the language. She has this little electronic dictionary that she studies sometimes...

Here's three things I learned to say in Japanese

sen cha : green tea
tsukareta: i'm tired
onaka suita: i'm hungry

So now I can complain in Japanese at the end of the day when I'm tired from dancing! I'm still loving the program.  Theres only 2 weeks left!!

Balanchine style

the middle girl is sofiane sylve who taught us last week, and the right girl is sarah van patten, who took class with us yesterday!

The thing I love about the San Francisco ballet program is how they are so focused on diversity.  Even though they train classically, they also mix in the more expressive, extreme Balanchine style.  I'm not an expert on the many different ballet curriculums, but I know that I have been trained mostly in the ABT (American Ballet Theater) style.  Many of my teachers encouraged training in only the one style, because they thought it was important to maintain consistency and also because ABT training is supposed to be anatomically correct...  But instead of adhering to the rules of one school of thought, the San Francisco ballet seems to promote an acceptance of all styles.  There are instructors who prefer the classical and others who lean towards Balanchine.  I think it's great to be open to the other techniques.  I understand why many teachers want to maintain focus on one style, but for this summer I am happy to get a taste of Balanchine( even though Balanchine classes are so hard for me!) I think that all the styles of ballet are beautiful, and so far this intensive has made me appreciate all equally.

Fisherman's wharf/pier 39/Ghirardelli Square

The ballet program is so intense for me because I'm not used to so much pointe work! Its fantastic and I feel like I've already gotten a lot out of the program.

But I've been too tired/lazy to post anything so I'm behind on my posting- here's some cool, touristy stuff I did last weekend that I thought was worth sharing.

We took a "bay cruise" tour that took us around all the famous landmarks- the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, Angel Island...It was a rare sunny day so it was really beautiful.  I never understood why the GOLDEN Gate Bridge was red...but seeing Alcatraz made me want to go back and check it out! I know it's kind of creepy that some torture chamber prison is now a huge tourist attraction, but its so cool!

Afterwards we wandered around the Pier 39/ Fisherman's Wharf area. Even thought it's really crowded, the area is actually really charming.  And there's a Boudin bakery that smells AMAZING...I think sourdough is a San Francisco thing??? I actually got lunch at this cute little shack called "Tish's Dishes" - huge sourdough bread bowl and clam chowder that I devoured...yummy.

oh yeah artsy shot from my cameraphone

And to finish off the busy Sunday, we walked to Ghirardelli Square.  It's only a couple blocks away from the Fisherman's Wharf area.  Definitely worth visiting! Firstly because the whole place smells like chocolate.  Theres a couple big Ghirardelli gift shops full of those little chocolate squares, and they hand out whole squares as samples (free samples are always fun).  And theres a really delicious ice cream parlor where they make all these super fancy sundaes and stuff that are 500 calories a lick (100 if you look at it)...but REALLY expensive! I shared a single scoop of chocolate ice cream with my sister and it cost me almost 4 dollars! It was worth it though- so rich and chocolatey.  As you can see I had a whole day of eating last Sunday...

cool mermaid fountain in ghiradelli square

doesnt sound too authentic japanese does it?

 Here's a couple pictures from Fisherman's Wharf- I'm obsessed with mermaids so I thought the mermaid bar sign was really cool and the "flying ninja sushi" just needed to be documented...

chinatown

sorry my phone was out of battery and i didnt take any pictures this is from the internet its the chinatown gate we saw

After ballet class last Saturday I got to go to chinatown! Asians are VERY good at taking advantage of tourists. Chinatowns are generally packed with cheap, touristy junk, but they have great food and you can usually find some interesting stuff.  The Chinatown in San Fran is definitely the largest and most picturesque that I've seen.  New York Chinatown/Canal street is great for finding knockoffs, and LA Chinatown has some fun shops , but its easy to see why the one is San Fran is so famous.  Sure it's a little run down and dusty looking (and not a great place to be at night) but for some reason it has this charm to it.  Something about the banners hanging over the busy streets and the carts of exotic vegetables mixed in with bins of plastic toys...it has a really interesting atmosphere.  There's actually a lot of cool buildings that imitate asian stye roofs.  Even though its all plaster and show, there's an ironically authentic feel to the San Fran Chinatown, just because it is so old. It's where so many Chinese immigrants made their home in the United States.  I loved it and since I'm going through a cut-up shirt phase, I bought a couple cool T-shirts.  I won't worry about ruining it if it only cost a couple bucks right?  It's so funny- I saw this really awesome vintage looking "Port of San Francisco" shirt on display under a bunch of newer shirts and I asked the lady if she still was selling it.  She kept telling me that it was not for sale and there was no more, so I asked her if I could just buy the display (it was taped on the edge of a table).  She thought I was crazy and tried to convince me that it was too dirty until I begged her to let me have it for 2 dollars.  I should have just asked for it for free.  She obviously didn't want it and look she got 2 dollars off of me for an old T-shirt no one else was going to buy.  Lesson learned- next time bid lower.

San Francisco Ballet Intensive Week 1!

So today was day 4 of the San Francisco Ballet intensive! I am so sore.  I hope that I will come out of this intensive stronger, because its is such hard work! Here is a little example of how my day goes....

So I have been waking up around 7:30...which is sleeping in compared to the school year! Then I eat breakfast in the dorm cafeteria- they actually have a lot of interesting food for breakfast. Like today they had a quiche! I've been eating SO MUCH here- I feel like I need more energy to dance!!

It takes a long time to get from the dorms to the ballet school.  We have to walk to the MUNI train station (it is like a combination between a subway and train), then we take a 20-25 minute train ride into the city.  Then we walk to the ballet school! 

We have ballet technique class pretty late in the morning- 11:00.  That goes to 2:00, then we have a break or go straight into pointe class.  But we take the entire ballet technique class en pointe! Yesterday we didn't have a break between technique and pointe, so we have 3 hours straight of pointe class!! My feet are in so much pain! I feel like such a wimp here- I hope my toes toughen up!

After pointe class we have another shorter break, then we have either pas de deux (partnering class), contemporary, or repertoire/variations class ( where you learn solos from famous ballets).  

Then I go home and fall asleep! 

Haight-Ashbury

50s dress

I'm in San Francisco!! I got settled in the dorms and met my roommate.  She is so sweet; she is from Japan and still learning English.  I never realized just how poorly I speak English; I need to get rid of the "likes" and stop slurring words together so I can help her understand better!  I am amazed at how brave she is to spend a whole summer in a foreign country...

Before I checked into the dorms, I got to check one of my destinations of the list!  My mom took us to Haight-Ashbury, a location that was the heart of the 1960s hippie movement.  It's a district in San Fran that is considered the iconic center of American counterculture. 

strange i know....

It is actually a very picturesque neighborhood.  It has a bohemian feel, and there are a lot of interesting stores.  I went a vintage store that was categorized by time period and I found these amazing dresses that were supposedly '80s "valley girl".   Then we found this adorable dress shop that was filled with these sailor-style/ '50s clothes that looked like they came right out of Back to the Future! I wonder if the people who work at these stores just hated me; I had a blast trying on a million dresses but didn't buy anything.......

The best came last- we wandered into this outlet-style store called Crossroads Exchange and found a bunch of used name-brand stuff for super cheap! I bought an Andrew Marc coat for 27 dollars (actually I didn't know who he was before, but the coat is beautiful).  I thought it would be perfect for the summer...why a coat for the summer? Because it is freezing here! It was 50 degrees yesterday! I'm going to have to get used to this strange weather....

vintage clothes

I spend hours with my cousins and my sisters trying on our grandma's old clothes.  It is absolutely hilarious to see what people wore "back in the day".  Shoulder pads are the best! They look like a football player. And high waisted jeans are great too.  I love the 80's; I want the 80's to come back!

Going through my grandma's closet is always fun.  My grandmother was probably one of my favorite people in the world. She was the most hilarious and glamorous grandmother I could ever imagine. She was also a shopaholic. I think living through the Great Depression made her appreciate material possessions more.  And food.  She used to tell us that she and her 11 other siblings used to scrounge for bits of tar to chew on for lack of sustenance.  Well, in the time I knew her, she was certainly prepared with enough food to last through a several depressions.  She kept stashes of stale or expired food all over her kitchen, and when criticized she would explain plainly, "when the famine comes, you'll all be coming to me for food".  She was the same way with clothes.  I have countless fond memories of shopping with her, in which, after spoiling me and my siblings with presents, she would spend hours searching for the best pair of white socks in a pile of a hundred identical pairs, or buying multiples of the same perfect blouse.  So usually if we find something in her closet, there's a twin somewhere!

She used to tell me about how she went on dates almost every night (before she met my grandpa), and how she would go home and sew a different dress before each date!  I desperately wish that she kept all of them...

Although the date night dresses are missing, her closet is stuffed with clothes.  I honestly don't know how one woman could have worn so many clothes.

I wear her clothes to school all the time, and I always get so excited when people comment on them.  Vintage clothes are a blast.

dim sum

dim sum platters

different dumplings

If you've never had dim sum you are missing out on some amazing Chinese cuisine.  My grandpa says that "dim sum" is hard to translate, but it means something like, "a little bit of heart".  I'm half-Chinese, and while don't speak the language, I can definitely appreciate the food. My family goes to this hole-in-the-wall restaurant that, like many small Chinese restaurants, serves dim sum in the day and dinner in the evening.  Dim sum is just a bunch of Chinese dumplings and other savories that are served in small portions on little pans.  You just keep refilling this tiny little plate, so you don't feel like you are eating very much until you look up and realize that all the pans are empty and you just ate a whole weeks worth of carbs and seafood and greasy goodness.  But it's totally worth it because it is absolutely delicious.

egg tart

The entire atmosphere at a dim sum is loud and busy and bustling.  This time we went, the place was already packed.  But this one man who works there (one of the managers?) recognizes us because we were loyal customers to the restaurant he USED to work at so he got us a table right away...Anyways, first you are seated, then you are bombarded with successive servers pushing carts of steaming, yummy dim sum, shouting what different foods they have for you.  Then you take what you want , but sometimes they try to get you to take something you don't want , and you have to shout that you don't want it several times before they will try to sell it to someone else.  It's a very exciting way of eating out.

My favorites are

•  蝦餃 har gau, which are delicate little shrimp dumplings
•  燒賣 siu maai, which is pork/seafood in a thin noodle-like wrapper
•  叉燒包, char siu bau barbequed pork buns
• 蛋撻  egg tart, which is flaky pastry filled with custard
• 煎䭔 煎堆 jian deui, the most greasy and delicious: sesame seed covered balls of glutinous rice filled with red bean paste
• wow- did you notice half of my favorites are sweets?

(I just copied the chinese from wikipedia because I was looking up the spelling and it looked cool; I apologize to any Asian readers if I messed it up.)

So for those of you who haven't had dim sum before, you should try it if you ever get a chance! 

i had never had this before and i don't even know what it was called-  it was some kind of shrimp dumpling inside a piece of melon

lombard street

One of the tourist attractions I need to see in San Fran: Lombard Street.  It looks like it should be in Alice in Wonderland or something! 6 days till I leave....

summer t-shirts!

see the blue?

Today I went to Laguna Beach and ended up in this store I had never seen before called LF (which I guess is a chain of indie hipster kinda stores) and saw all these awesome fringed shirts made from vintage-looking T-shirts. Cool right? Except that they were all over 100 dollars! Who wants to pay that much for a cut up old T-shirt?






So when I got home I tried to make one. But...it didn't really work out. I think the shirt I used was too small. I tried to make these intense long armholes but I cut it wrong and it ended up looking more like a shrunk-up racerback than a loose, summery shirt. I'm going to try again with my dad's old shirt.

June gloom..

Right now it's starting to clear up, but this morning was super gloomy and depressing! I thought, isn't it supposed to be sunny and summery right now? The gloom makes me sad- my mom calls it "seasonal affect disorder"... Then I remembered- San Francisco is famous for SUMMER FOG.

looks cool here doesn't it?

Right now I'm googling San Fran weather... According to baynature.org, the San Fran Bay area is known for a thick "tule" fog that occurs mostly in the warmer summer months.

I better get used to June gloom! Oh well, all part of the adventure right?

So right now I'm just posting the stuff I put in my "San Francisco page" but I wanted it to be an official post plus I like posting things.  I'm making a little list of things I want to do while I'm in San Fran.  Here's what I have so far, but tell me if you have any other ideas! We leave on  the 24th, so that makes it 9 days till departure! (Did I mention that my sister is also attending the SFB intensive?)

• Chinatown
• Golden Gate Park/ Japanese Tea Gardens
• Pier 39 Ghirardelli Square
• ride a cable car/go to the cable car museum
• Japan town
• St. Peter's Cathedral
• some kind of hippie history site? 
• and what else? any suggestions? leave a comment!

oh so epic :P

and did anyone else notice how many movies are out this summer? I love seeing movies.  These are the movies I would love to see this summer, how about you?

• Harry Potter 7 Part 2!!! (yes I am a major Harry Potter nerd and I am probably going to cry when i see this) 
• Transformers 3 (can you believe they made ANOTHER one?)
• Kung Fu Panda 2 :)
• X-Men first class
• Cowboys and Aliens? (gotta see Harrison Ford's comebacks)

why hello there!

For someone who usually resorts to hitting the computer in frustration when things go awry, the creation of this blog was a great undertaking.  While I do admit to spending long hours on the internet thanks to Facebook and Youtube, I am definitely the least tech savvy person in my family.  I usually have to ask my little sister for help when iTunes is frozen, or when I need help formatting a powerpoint.  It took me 37 minutes to figure out how to get the starfish picture on the background of this blog. This is all a very new experience for me.

Since this is my first blog, I thought I should just introduce myself and the explain why I decided to venture into this confusing realm of personal expression through the internet.  I was actually inspired by the movie Julie&Julia.  (You know the one where Amy Adams sets this challenge for herself to cook every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook and blogs about it).  Because I want some practice writing, and because I thought it sounded fun, I decided to make a blog for my summer in San Francisco.  I am an aspiring ballet dancer, and I'm going to be attending the San Francisco Ballet's summer intensive training program in a couple weeks.  So I get to live in San Fran for 5 weeks! I'm planning on blogging about ballet in general, being a tourist in San Fran, plus other random summery stuff.  Like food and fashion and makeup and movies.  Fun stuff. 

Well,  I highly doubt anyone's reading this right now.......so...........

With love, Serendipity