the best back-home birthday

today:
_san gabriel automotive
_kingburg kitchen
_cathy's bakery
_half&half tea house
_guitar center


on my days off, i always want to get a lot done. while its like an almost-mini-vacation, i like my vacations productive - errands, quality time, and new things make the perfect agenda.

so after picking up the applause (my new acoustic vintagey beater), i headed up to san gabriel to get some new brakes on my car. richard [my mechanic] rocks. i ended up getting new brakes/rotors, filters, and an oil change.

in the meantime, will and i did some quality chinese-style damage. we ordered in mandarin, at all the places we went to! i'm glad i still remember hahaha... and for a cantonese guy, will's mandarin is pretty damn good. [i'm afraid his vocab is better than mine]

it was definitely the best hometown birthday i've had in a long time...
lots of awesome fobby soul food, a good heart-to-heart, and sweet weather.
we had a much-needed catchup afternoon.

soy tea egg
(cha yeh dan)

beef noodle soup
(nyo roh mein)
pork, sea cucumber, and shrimp dumplings
my long awaited bday cake!
i havent had this in YEARS.
crispy layer cake from cathy's!

and of course, it was a good day out for lambo
got some new elixirs for the beater and ran into jake cheung!
totally forgot he was asst manager at guitar center... thanks for the hookup =)


the boys made for great company today.

+new music on my ipod, happy sleeping dog, quality time with an old friend
+time to learn some new songs on the old guitar
+i should really try this mobile blogging thing... i'm always so much more inspired on the go than i am by the time i finally sit down at the compy
+tomorrow is going to be awesome. right?