Halloween + Dim-Sum Run!
Posted by | Posted in Personal life | Posted on 11-02-2009
Ahh, Halloween. The one day of the year it’s perfectly acceptable to be a walking fashion disaster. The one day of the year we can all be childish and silly… and no one really cares!
Naturally, after a week of hard work, I felt the need to exploit this fact. Cue frantic trip to Garment District for last-minute costuming (the place was so packed), an hour of preparation (in which I was mostly trying to get my socks to stop falling down), and a meetup with some friends for the SaveTFP-sponsored Spooky Skate!
Schoolgirl Vivian and Gothic Fairy Sheila!
I found Sheila and her friends standing in line and eagerly joined the group. We were let into the rink soon after, and ended up spending an hour or so gliding around. At one point we were in a four-person line, which was fun.. except for the fact that Minshu and I were the only ones who actually knew how to skate. Cue hilarious falling-down-flat-on-our-butts.
Soon we were joined by Amy Zhang from Harvard, and we all trudged down Mass. Ave to the Alpha Delta Phi house, where they were having a heaven-and-hell-themed party called “Purgatorio.” We first headed upstairs to say hello to Jason, who was DJing for the Heaven area, then joined some of our Next House friends downstairs in Hell. Mallika and Rebecca were ingeniously dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2 (from the Cat in the Hat books), while Wei was dressed as a “problem child” and Steve as Abraham Lincoln (complete with a “Vote for Me” shirt). It was rather crowded in the small, smoky room, however, and we soon headed back upstairs for some amazing techno music, psuedo-raving, and dances.
Interesting highlights of the night:
- Sheila, Jenn, and I dancing the choreography of Lee Jung Hyun’s Vogue Girl to any song Jason happened to play
- Wei spontaneously breakdancing on the dance floor
- Getting a rather interesting tour of the house, from the hot tub room to the TV room
- After a while, “Hell” was shut down and all the inhabitants moved to the “Heaven” area, thus effectively making it “Purgatory”… aha, clever, no?
Before long, we were tuckered out from dancing and the party had died down, so we stumbled back home (by this time my feet were screaming in my new cherry-patterned heels). While it had been extremely warm earlier that night (70′F or so), by the end of the party it was probably 55′F or so. Thankfully we made it back home without ourselves freezing, and I promptly collapsed into bed.
This morning, I woke up just in time to participate in ATS’s Dim-Sum Run! Christine Lai (my little) and Wei (my big) were the only members of my family present (though we later adopted Jason), but there were at least 20 others, all traveling to Chinatown. We ate at China Pearl, which was arguably better-tasting than Emperor’s Garden.
Patrick, as lead connoisseur, ordered a majority of the items on our table – everything from shumai to tripe to tofu-fa. But the most interesting was the large bowl of periwinkle snails he grabbed from the buffet area…
Yes, the plate on the right would be the empty shells of all the poor snails that fell prey to Patrick’s stomach. I, naturally, was definitely too queasy to eat any more than one of the snails. And even that was a bit of an effort, I must admit. They didn’t have much taste, but the texture was horrid..!
By the end, though, we all managed to leave happy and full. We stopped at Juice Bar for some bubble tea, and then Jason and I made a stop at the store right next door which sold.. (drumroll please) karaoke DVDs, concert DVDs, drama boxsets, CDs, and more. I was absolutely in heaven, and actually bought two CDs. The first was a bootleg DVD compilation of some of Qiao Qian Jin and 4GP’s Chinese New Year music videos; the second was a relaxation CD of some Chinese classics performed on traditional instruments (erhu, guzheng, etc.) I’ve been listening to it for the past two hours and feeling rather content after a happy day. In addition, I also bought myself a back massager from Brookstone, which I will definitely be putting to good use ;)
