October | 2011 | Little Choices

Happy Halloweeeeeeen!!

A gypsy fire is on the hearth,
Sign of the carnival of mirth;
Through the dun fields and from the glade
Flash merry folk in masquerade,
For this is Halloween!

Have a very merry, scary holiday children and adults and all those in between!

Tonight in Seattle you can join this festive partaaay: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendy-k-leigh/occupy-halloween-in-seatt_b_1067736.html. Or if you were lucky you were able to attend the sold out Halloween bash at The Showbox. Lucky!

Last year for Halloween I dressed like a college girl on a Thursday night and added cat ears. It’s the easiest costume to throw together. Somehow during the night I acquired pieces of other people’s costumes; a plastic handgun, Ray-Ban aviators, glitter, a cowboy hat, Ashley’s phone. To name a few. I was quite a confusing character. Fortunately, the Chinese are not strict about their Halloween merriment. They enjoy the chance to dress as a fantasy, however they have much less creativity than our western land. Many witches, many Hello Kitties, many vampires. So so many glow sticks. And they all head to the amusement parks. While we were at the bar, the Chinese migrated over to the tourists traps for their own play-time. Actually sounds like fun to me. I’d dress crazy and hit up Disneyland for a thrilling Halloween ride! How cool would it be to be dressed as a make-believe person in a fantasy land? Sounds like the ultimate Halloween to me. Well, my advice for anyone looking to head over to the Orient is to grab a generic black costume and head to the cheesy side of town. Unless you go to Japan, I think they take ghosts much more seriously over there. Happy Halloween!

2011: 10/31
CATEGORY: Culture Shock
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September 18

Bet you thought I’d quit huh? Tricked ya!

I just got busy. Being 25 means I have lots to do you know…

Well, kind of. I did keep my goal of doing a new thing every day up until my birthday. September 15 I ate ice cream for breakfast – not frozen yogurt, and not sorbet, really fatty fudge filled cookie topped ice cream. YUM! I couldn’t eat sweets again for a few days but it was worth it. September 16, I picked up my boyfriend, Stephen, from the airport. I’ve only ever retrieved my family members before, which is less spectacular because a) if you refuse you might not get picked up after your next trip (bummer), and b) you pretty much impatiently wait in the cell phone lot hoping that your pickup is a fast plane-exiter and didn’t check bags so you can get the heck out of there. But with a boyfriend, you park your car and wait at the top of the escalator, checking your phone every 5 seconds while thinking that all the men coming out of the airport slightly resemble him. We also took the new light rail (http://www.soundtransit.org/Schedules/Central-Link-light-rail.xml) into town, which was completed when I was away in China. It was pretty cool. A lot more relaxing to talk about flight comfort and evening plans without also navigating through parking garages. The 16th was also the first time I ever stayed in downtown Seattle with a boyfriend. After working in Hotels around the area it was nice to be on the receiving end of service. We even got a beautiful view of the city and water from our window. The only one I really planned was using the light rail but I think I’ll count them all.

From here on out it was easy. There are so many things I hadn’t done downtown until I had someone to show around. Watched the fish being thrown in the morning (http://www.pikeplacefish.com/), picked some flowers, ate clam chowder at Pike Place Chowder (http://www.pikeplacechowder.com/), Visited The Gum Wall (http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/the-seattle-gum-wall-a-sticky-attraction.html), went to Gameworks (http://www.gameworks.com/), took pictures in a photobooth. Okay I do that last one all the time, especially with Stephen, it’s my favorite. Stephen did a bunch of new things too, including going to his first Major League Soccer game! And he had the time of his life, he told me.

And then comes September 18. The Birthday. I honestly didn’t have much planned for the day, I was just happy. I love birthdays. So Much Fun. The whole family got up late, started making breakfast. I got crazy and went with pumpkin scones while Stephen, my mom and my dad made eggs, bacon, and fruit. My brother set the table and my friend Maya and her son, Will, entertained us all with stories and baby faces. The day went on to get even better from there but I’ve decided to count turning 25 as my last new thing.

It has been a fantastic 18 days full of lots of new things that I am happy to say I have now done. Time to move on to all those other things still waiting!