When It Rains, It Pours

It’s been over a week since I’ve been back, so a lot of posts are long overdue. I’m so backlogged it’s overwhelming. But I think the next month or so should be much calmer for me in terms of events and outings now that it’s cold, so I should be able to catch up. I always say this but it’s always been so true in my life: when it rains, it pours. Sometimes I’ll be bored and have nothing to blog about and sometimes I’ll be so overwhelmed with things that I don’t even have time or know where to begin.

There’s so much. I have to write about OMG Dessert Goals, my birthday, my trip to Disney and other various pop-ups that are long overdue. I still have topics that you guys have asked me to touch upon that I just haven’t had time to sit down and write.

I have some things to attend to this month as well so I do want to play catch up as fast as I can before I end up diving into that. My sister scored a Tiffany’s Blue Box Cafe reservation for me as part of my birthday gift and I’m excited to attend that this coming weekend. I also have Anime NYC on the agenda that day too, to report upon. As well as any other gram tour stops that weekend we’ll stumble upon. And then the week after is Thanksgiving! Currently I have plans to watch the parade and then race back home to attend my in-laws dinner that evening. This entire month’s theme has been early morning appointments. Despite being up for the gym almost every morning, I am still not a morning person so all these events are going to have me dying and looking like a zombie. Thank god for makeup.

And for the holidays, I actually have no gym goals except to hopefully maintain my weight until I start training for the Princess Half marathon. I slowed down for a bit for now because it’s getting a little too cold for me to run outside and I get bored really easily running on the treadmill so I don’t want to start until a little closer to the race. I also need to figure out what to do about the pain I get in my right leg every time I run past an hour. I don’t want to overexert myself before the event and jeopardize not being able to participate. Hopefully I can find time to get it checked out during the holiday season. But anyways, I’m going to allow myself to eat what I want again in moderation. Diet season for me is over, I’m still working out, but I’m not going to be as strict as I was when I was trying to lose. Right now I’m comfortable at my 105-110 rubberbanding so hopefully I can maintain that for the season until summer is here again. Besides, I get cold rather easily (I’m actually always cold) so I need some fat on me to keep me warm for the winter, right?

Anyways, until I can organize all these posts, here are some preview pics of what you have to look forward to and topics I’m going to write about. I also updated my photo galleries in the meantime with my Disney session and my recent fall fashion shoots in Central Park and Avalon Park.

  1. OMG Dessert Goals - is it worth it? Will I attend again?

  2. Birthday dinner at Tao Downtown - how being 30 feels

  3. Disney Birthday vacation - using a travel agent vs self-planning, Halloween in Orlando vs Cali (who wins?), Disney perks of staying on property, best photo spots, affordability of a Disney vacation and park tips.

  4. Wedding Anniversary - 4 years married, 16 years together (although really 17)

  5. Pop-ups: Fairy Island NYC, Opal Orchard, Brandless, Mickey’s True Original

  6. Tiffany Blue Box Cafe

  7. Anime NYC

  8. Thanksgiving Day Parade/Thanksgiving holiday/Black Friday

Ipsy GenBeauty 2018

My sister invited me to last year’s GenBeauty last minute and I had a lot of fun in just a few short hours so of course I was interested in checking it out again this year.

We brunched at Bluebird London at Columbus Circle that morning with a gorgeous view before heading over to the convention. I’m usually only passing by this area quickly so it’s a new location for me to adventure in. There are a lot of nice shops that I would love to take more time to browse one day next time I’m around the area. The service at brunch was good, the waiter was super cute and the food was delicious. The girls even wear Ted Baker dresses as their uniforms, how snazzy! Unfortunately we didn’t make it to their tea service since it’s only served certain days and certain times so I guess we’ll be returning for the gram for that pastry tower. If you’re lucky enough to get a window seat, it’s really something. It actually reminds me a little bit of my time in Paris. Oh, how I miss Paris! I still have yet to find time to blog about that for you guys too.

I basically lived at the Javits for the past 3 weekends it seems. It’s where all the conventions are held due to its abundance of space for vendors and set up of booths and content. The perks of this con is all the free products you swipe at each booth by simply scanning your badge. You learn about new indie brands and their products and get to test them out. You’re not obligated or pressured to buy anything since they bring limited product with them anyway. And the booths that do sell their products, sell at some pretty nice discounts compared to their retail prices. Meanwhile a lot of the free products you get are decently sized, if not full sized! For example, I stopped by the Wen booth because I just wanted to snap a pic on their floral swings but they ended up filling my bag with full sized hair products. I didn’t expect this so that was a pretty nice bonus. It’s really nice to get free products because it's a nice way to test out new products and new brands without having to feel like you wasted your money if it doesn’t turn out a winner. You also get to discover new brands this way that you might end up falling in love with, that you would’ve never heard of otherwise. This con is basically like a Costco buffet, but for makeup. You go from booth to booth just getting samples of new products. Not a bad deal if you ask me. If you like trying new products and learning about new indie brands as they hit the market, this is definitely a con for you. Or even if you don’t, if you love taking cute photos with Instagrammable backgrounds, this con is also the con for you. There were a lot of cute photo opportunities but unfortunately I didn’t get to do them all due to the time constraints and long waits towards the end of the day so I don’t have all the photo ops you could do pictured, but hopefully next year I can attend on a Saturday for full coverage of the event for once.

My sister also eyed the MAC booth and saw they had these shirtless muscle guys chilling in the middle to promote their brand and obviously try to get girls to flock over cause duh, eye candy. Except that’s not what she saw, hahaha. She dared me to go over and flex with them to make them feel small. I can’t resist a challenge so I walked over after we finished with the Wen booth and shut those boys down. They thought I was going to hit them with the hand on hip pose but I had my guns ready to go. They were like “SHEEEET. THIS GIRL DON’T PLAY.” #dead.

Towards the end of the convention at closing time, some booths started giving away a lot of their goods. They started throwing them into the crowds causing hordes of girls to run over and trample each other just to score some freebies. It was crazy. Mayhem ensued. I got hit in the head with makeup, hahaha!

We ended the day with Ichiran ramen and Sweet Gloria honey ice cream even though I’m not at goal yet for my weight loss but I’m still meeting all my targets so far so a little cheat was okay. I had a sample of Ichiran at Japan Fest over the summer and it was delicious so I was looking for an opportunity to try the full bowl of ramen with all its fixings. And it didn’t disappoint. Ichiran was so good I drank all the soup! I stumbled upon Sweet Gloria last week and man I’ve been craving honey ice cream all week so I had to go back. It’s so delicious. It’s a small and simple ice cream shop but so good! All in all, it was a nice weekend and a beautiful day with my girls.

NYHS's Harry Potter: A History of Magic

My best friend is a huge (understatement of the year) Harry Potter fan.

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I didn’t really get into it until just a few years ago. I ignored it in high school when my brother got into it because I was too busy being a stupid girl with emotions and teenage angst and going gaga over boys at the time. I watched the first movie a LOOOOONG time ago but I wasn’t really that into it. I fell asleep during all 3 of the LOTR movies as well. I don’t know why, I just wasn’t into those fantasy movies. But I think it’s because I’m more interested in stories with a female protagonist and pretty girls. I mean, I like dragons and castles and magical worlds, but I wasn’t in love with this vision of it. I’m superficial but there wasn’t enough “pretty” going on to draw me into these worlds.

In 2015, I went to Universal with my best friend on a spontaneous vacation and was introduced to Harry Potter World in the parks. I hadn’t been since I was about 15 or so, so it’s been quite a while and clearly a lot had changed. There was no Wizarding World part of the park back in 2003. It was a new experience for me and I found it pretty cool. I appreciated what they had built and that there was a train connected between the two parks, further immersing you into this world they brought to life. I rode the rides, visited the shops and explored the alleyways and corners. But I didn’t really understand it.

Over the next few years, I started traveling more with my friends and visits to the Orlando and Hollywood parks spiraled out of control. I started watching the movies, and then slowly got through the books. It took me a while because adulting and all other things I have going on in my daily life, but I finally finished the books this past summer. Better late than never, right?

Now all the rides and details of the park world makes sense to me when I revisit. And funny thing, I’ve visited three different Harry Potter Worlds now. I’ve been to the Universal in Orlando, Hollywood and the one in Osaka, Japan. They’re all similar but have their differences.

And this fall, my best friend wanted to visit the new Harry Potter exhibit at the New York Historical Society Museum that just opened up. We went on opening day, a Friday evening since all weekend tickets for October was sold out for the month. Actually almost all the weekends are sold out til late November! I didn’t think it would be this popular before it even opened but I’m not that well informed regarding the HP world and all its popularity.

If you’re a big Harry Potter nerd, I would definitely recommend you stop by this exhibit if you’re in the New York area. Buy your tickets in advance and if you still have your school ID like I do, cop that discount! It’s decently priced for what it is and will definitely fascinate your inner Potter nerd.

Unfortunately for this exhibit though, there is no photography allowed once you past through the exhibit walls. There’s artwork you can freely take photos of before you enter, and the gift shop itself is something to marvel at, but the actual walk-through is for your eyes only. I snuck two photos in so you can see what it looks like somewhat but I wasn’t able to get any good close up details of what the exhibit entailed. Although, photos can’t truly describe it. You need to see it for yourself to appreciate the work that went into the exhibit, as well as the work and research that JK Rowling put into creating this world and translating it into a literary dream.

There are letters, photos, drawings, storyboards, and other various pieces of history that they have displayed regarding how the books came to fruition. For example, you’ll see how JK Rowling envisioned Harry to look in her own caricature of him, versus other illustrators visions. There are letters of how the title came to be and why there are different versions for America and the UK. There are different halls, each devoted to the subjects that the students took in the book like herbology, divination, the Dark Arts, magical creatures, and potions. In each of those rooms, they had ancient books of magic, witchcraft and fantasy that had been the research and inspiration for JK Rowling. You can tell she poured a lot of work into this, meticulously planning every detail out, down to the character’s names, the spell names, and the details of how each creature was to appear.

One interesting thing I noted at the exhibit was that even for a Friday evening, it was quite busy and crowded so I wasn’t able to look at everything, but that the particular crowd there that night was not the demographic I had anticipated. I thought the attendees would be in my age group or younger but there were actually a lot of older people there too. It’s particularly extraordinary to see the many different faces, age groups, and styles of people drawn into Rowling’s wondrous fantasy. Originally supposed to be a children’s book, she probably never envisioned that this would spiral into such an obsession for such a wide audience of people, and spark into movies, theme parks, countless amounts of merchandise and more. It’s crazy because you’ll never known what will catch on and what doesn’t make the cutting room floor when it comes to fandoms.

In my honest opinion though, I do appreciate the world of Harry Potter but I didn’t catch onto it and dive in as heavily as some of my friends have. Maybe if the story had been about Hermione or another girl, I would’ve loved it more. I do find myself enjoying Harry Potter World more than the rest of the theme park when visiting Universal. One of my favorite places to eat is actually The Three Broomsticks. I love walking through the castle and the bank. There’s so much detail to look at while walking through the line that you never really mind the long wait since the buildings are a piece of work in itself to view.

Oh and if you’re wondering, hahaha. I was sorted into Slytherin by the hat in the WB Studio Tour in Hollywood. BUT, I had also been sorted by a friend many years ago before I read the books, as Fleur Delacour. I didn’t understand it at the time but once I finished the books, I found the comparison oddly fitting. I’ll take it since I never really gravitated towards any one of the original 4 houses. And Beauxbaton being a French foreign school is more fitting for my nature. I would wear their uniform over the Hogwarts one. It’s more my style.

The exhibit is also notably right next to the Museum of Natural History, one of my favorite museums in the city, if you’re looking for other things to do. (And if you’re not a New Yorker or maybe you are but just don’t know, this museum is a pay as you wish museum so you can get in and view most of the exhibits for as little as $1! It’s all suggested donation based unless you wish to view the planetarium shows and other special exhibits.)