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Happy Halloween!

I know I know, two weeks too late. I stayed at work until about 6 pm on Halloween to finish up some things and boy was that a mistake. I sat in traffic for almost an hour. It doesn’t sound that bad, but the drive to my place is about 7-10 minutes so it was ridiculous. Every road I turned to was backed up, I should have just taken the freeway. Then I get home and it’s late, I’m cranky from traffic and it’s raining. I promised my brothers I would take them trick or treating but as we walked out – it started to pour. I let out an exasperated sigh and asked if I could just buy them candy and make it a day. They agreed. (THANK YOU LORD). So Longs got a hold of my wallet that night but it was so worth it. Anyway, just wanted to share some Halloween themed items I took part in that weekend!

141114-01Centerpiece for a Halloween Party – I thought it was very cute! Creative and cute, I loved it.

141114-02Dessert from Little Oven. Here is the graveyard ice cream sandwiches. Cute huh?

141114-03Franken Fluff – a chocolate brownie topped with homemade marshmallow fluff. Yum!

141114-04Bloody Lemonade

This was a special for the Halloween weekend. I figured it would be strawberry lemonade but it was actually lemonade with grenadine. Pretty right? How was it? Um…SWEET. Like SUPER SWEET. Like I kept adding water upon water to the drink to make it bearable. I think I must have added at least half a cup of water to make it normal.

711 Eats

As a college student, I have been indulging in eating out way too much. But I’ll be damned if I have time to cook anything these days. So I’ve been getting very familiar with 711’s everchanging assortment of food. I am also super sick of fast food and can’t wait to start cooking again. I can’t wait for this semester to be over…haha. But I do enjoy taking the classes and my classmates are all pretty cool this semester! They look like they are all part of the same starting core group so I would like to continue taking classes with them if I can. You know what that means…

Anyway, quick post about some foods I tried recently.

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141109-02I’m a sucker for meat in gravy. Loco Moco is one of my favorite dishes. How was this? Not bad. I don’t know what the obsession with putting fried rice in these dishes are. I mean there’s so much going on up top that I don’t see a point in putting a seasoned starch underneath. I’d rather have this with white rice.

141109-03I saw this and just had to try it. The pork hash looked a lot like spam which is a bit unnatural…haha. How was it? Well I can say that it was not memorable, not great but not bad. I rather just go for the spam musubi because it’s cheaper anyway.

Apple Juice

This post is for Jalna. I saw her post about the incredible apple juice she bought from Marukai and it had me salivating. I went to Don Quijote the next day for a usual run and ran to the juice section to look for it. Eureka I thought when I found something that looked very similar…and even more score…it was only $5.99! One dollar off! I bought it and chilled it to try later in the day. It tasted…good. Apple-y. But when I looked back at her post, I realized it was a completely different brand! So I’m thinking we didn’t get the same thing…so now I will have to keep the one she talked about in my sights because she made it sound so good!

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Flowers

Hey y’all. Did you guys get the big downfall about an hour ago? Felt like it came outta nowhere yeah?? Today was Monday and it was pretty busy. I went into work on both Saturday and Sunday to get some work done and the no air conditioning did me more bad than good. I got nothing done! And look at me here tonight. I’ve done no homework tonight. I’ve mainly been prepping my old iPhone to give to my Dad. I’m a bit afraid of what he will do to it but it is time for him to move up and away from the flip phones. I had class tonight and we started watching a really interesting documentary, I was sad that class was over before the documentary ended! Who ever says they were sad class ended yeah?

Anyway, as I mentioned – last week was the anniversary of my mom’s passing. I drove out to Kaneohe in the morning and bought her some nice flowers. It was a nice trip and it was nice visiting her and putting out the flowers. I forgot about the wetness of Kaneohe and walked around in slippers, big mistake. I got back to work at a pretty good time, I didn’t have traffic both ways! Well, I hope you folks have a great week!

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Where’s the Rain?

As I was finishing up my laundry today, it started to pour and I loved it! I do love rain, when I’m not getting soaked in it. I looked at my phone and it read rain all day. It is totally clear and sunny now. That’s Hawaii for you. I do hope we get more rainy days soon, mainly so it won’t be so HOT. I had a pretty okay week. It was busy but am glad for the rest. This week is the death anniversary of my mother so I plan to take some time off to visit her. Gosh, death anniversary sounds so terrible. Isn’t there another word for it? It wouldn’t be memorial day right? Anyway, I just wanted to share a mish mash of pictures today. Hope you folks have had a good weekend so far!

140928-01I love cute plant arrangements like this. When my kitchen is done, I would like to place something similar to this on my window sill. Perhaps herbs as well! By the way, this is from Mr. Tea Cafe. I tried their bubble tea with 100% sweetness, I was not happy at all. I cannot recommend this place even though they have cute plants! The balls were hard, the drink was not sweet enough…Thang II is still the best in Hawaii.

140928-02Our Campus Center had an open house and I got to try some of their catering options! See the neon stuff on the left? That’s actually mashed potatoes infused with beet. I’m assuming beet puree. How was it? Ehh…a bit weird. You could totally taste the beet in the mashed potato…I liked that they tried it but I think it could be done better. The asparagus was good and the salmon was great!

140928-03This was some kind of moroccan chicken with lemon. Strong lemon taste. It was good though! I just wish their catering prices weren’t so high…

ALOOOOHA

This aloha friday couldn’t have come fast enough. It’s been a pretty junk week for me…real junk. I also had a class presentation tonight and I woke up feeling sick. I think I did okay for the presentation. I got my major points out – I felt nervous but got through it fine I think. Just glad it’s over. Now I gotta think of my other presentations. I think my next one for this class will be more of an activity so I won’t have to talk the whole time. Yes! I hope you folks had a good week though. I’ll share a nice and serene picture I took a few weeks back.

140919-01Nice yeah? Filter and nice font later. This is shot from Makapu’u Lighthouse Trail.

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You didn’t think I would leave you without some food pics right? Another dish I tried from 711 recently. Not too shabby!

140918-02I didn’t know this was there…but look! A sheet of plastic on top! I think it’s to help the cream sauce from burning when you heat it up. That’s just my guess…I hope it doesn’t give me cancer!

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How was it? Pretty good! This picture makes it look kind of lumpy huh? It wasn’t…the noodles were still pretty firm and the sauce was nicely preserved!

Pumpkin Spice Latte

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140916-02Pumpkin Spice Latte is back in stores! That’s the true sign of Autumn. I decided to give the iced version a try the other night. I wasn’t a fan – I would definitely recommend the hot one only. Delicious!

Go Pink or Go Home

If I were to compare my studying last Saturday to today – I would get a big fat F. It was a pretty tough week and I basically spent today sleeping. I had two long naps! Crazy right? Anyway, I help out by picking up my brothers from Chinese School on Saturdays. Chinatown is abysmal but in the past, I was able to stop on the side and they would run out. Well, this year – the teachers have decided to play it safe and not allow the kids to run off anymore. What does that mean for me? It means I have to find legal parking, park and then walk over. Parking in Chinatown – horrific. But I’m able to find spots so I pay the meter and run out to grab them. Today was a weird day. My usual spot was taken so I had to park further away. So my car is parked and I am waiting for the right moment to leave and notice a woman passed out on the side. She seems to be normal (meaning she wasn’t obviously homeless…how do I explain..) and she was just laid out and her pants were like a bit down so her butt was on full display. It just so happened that a cop had pulled up and parked his car right next to her at the same time as me so I figured, okay good.

Well a few minutes later, I get out of my car and start walking towards the school and towards her…I’m freaked out because I’m actually hoping this woman is alive. I look at her…her face is all red and sweaty (the sun is right on her!) but she moves so I breathed a sigh of relief. I glimpse at the cop and he’s in his car with the windows down. I keep looking at him because I’m thinking – is he gonna come out? Now that I think back to it…he had a baby car seat in his back seat. This was totally his personal car but he had one blue light on top. I’m still confused. Anyway, I grab the kids and come back to my car and lady is still in the same position passed out. The cop still in his car. I get in my car and sit there staring at her…cause now I feel a sense of like responsibility. The cop then drives off! I’m not sure why he was parked there in the first place. So I sit there for at least 5 minutes wondering what to do…like if I should call 911. When finally she gets up and starts like arranging herself, I finally feel okay to leave. I don’t know what to say. Maybe this is just how it is all around Chinatown? What is the proper protocol in these situations? I can tell you what I did observe, choke people walking by and seeing her and just…like taken aback and then moving right along with their business.  I knew I wasn’t going to leave her like that unless I saw her gain consciousness or I would have called 911. Anyway, that was my Saturday so far. I hope that all my sleeping today leads to a good night of studying – I doubt it. Hope you folks have a good one.

140904-01Quick share of a recent purchase. That’s right, pink tools. Go pink or go home. Wait, I already stay home. Haha nah, I just wanted some handy tools around. These are definitely not high quality but gets what I need done…which is nothing serious.

Any Kine Grinds

I should just start a corner of random foods I eat. Just a quick update!

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140902-02Looks good ah? It was pretty good. I could do without the carrots. Why did I add them in??

140902-03Look what’s back! Chicken Fries at Burger King! Gosh, they used to be so good so I was surprised they took them away. They brought them back for a “limited time” maybe this will be their McRib Sandwich.

P.S. I did bring the caramel apple oreos to work and the office practically ate it all! In fact, it’ll probably be gone tomorrow…ha!

Happy September!

September! You know what that means right? Autumn! I consider this officially autumn and while Hawaii does not have seasons as much as I would like, I will still enjoy it and look forward to the holiday season. I was walking through Target the other night and noticed a new variety of Oreos. Is it bad to say that I half bought it to share the results with you folks? Ah, you guys are worth it…:)

140901-03This sounded really good when I saw it. I also hadn’t eaten yet so….

140901-04Here they are in the opened glory. How were they? Gosh, I hate to say it but it’s another dud for me. I really wanted to like it but the filling tastes so dang artificial that I can’t like it. The apple was a very weird waxy apple candy like taste…and I guess the caramel part was fine. I couldn’t shake the artificial apple taste from my mouth for a while so that bothered me a bit. This all could just be me. I hope my co-workers will like it better than I did.

So how did I spend my three day weekend? While I did have productive spurts here and there with housework – I mainly locked myself up and studied. As I explained last post, I am taking two courses this semester. So far, one course is super on it with the syllabus and assignments. The other…I don’t know yet. No syllabus and no assignments just yet. I spent all weekend reading up chapters (reading not necessarily understanding). Status update? Right now I have finished my assignment for this week and just finished the reading for next week. I plan to continue though. I also have to start thinking about the papers and projects we have to do.

140901-01My Saturday. Book open. Huge cup of coffee. Netflix sponsored fireplace. It’s awesome. It has a holiday version, plain crackling fire version and a easy listening version. LOL. I love it. You know what my brother asked me? Is there a season 2? Hahaha insane.

140901-02This is how everything looked yesterday. This was after I made a trip to Target to up my studying supplies. This is very similar to how things looked today. I hope you folks are all having a great three day weekend!