x. Ellie

Hallo Ocarina, how is everyone doing? Family Day is coming up for us Canadians, that means we got a long weekend wahoo! Except for me, I will still be tutoring on Monday. I can't wait for March to come, mostly because the GazettE is going to release a new song/album coming out. Speaking of music, I finally got my FFXIV vinyls from Kiriya!!

I instantly displayed three of them on my piano, look at the art (´◡`)! I now need to go buy a vinyl player, otherwise, they're just going to be sitting there as display.

Ria visited me, Sas, Neru, and Ubi back in December, yes very belated to post this. I was going to bring her to this really decent restaurant that mainly specializes Korean Fried Chicken, but they were really full (no, they don't do reservations). So we went to a nearby restaurant that also happened to serve Korean dishes, and they were actually decent!

Also super belated... Around Christmas, a few of my girlfriends and I decided to go for hotpot for our Christmas gathering. Reservations are allowed, but the time that I wanted was gone, so I decided to call the restaurant to give it a shot. I was genuinely surprised that the hostess spoke perfect English (mind you, this city is Chinese dominant and most people speak broken English in Chinese restaurants).

She told me if I want a 6PM slot, I can book for a 5:45PM slot. She explained that they don't start the 2 hours timer until we started ordering food, so I'm like "SWEET!"

Tokyo had been using this system for years, which is menu tablets, and to see it HERE!? Boy, was I excited to take over the tablet and spam order aka lots of MEAT °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖° !!!

Yes, we ordered a noodle guy from the menu LMAO!! OKAY, it's more like a guy that does some noodle dancing trick and then he plops the noodle into your hot pot. It was hilarious.

I cannot forget... we got a cart booth and under each cart seat, there is STORAGE SPACE FOR YOUR BAGS AND COAT. Like, they really put a lot of thought into these seatings when they were renovating this restaurant. Our waitress was so kind that she helped each one of us put our bags into the storage space AND SHE KINDLY FOLDED OUR COATS NEATLY TOO.

I had an extra bag with me (it was basically my Christmas gifts for my friends), so I had my bag behind me. Our waitress also brought us aprons for us to wear, in case we get messy and get the hot pot soup or sauce on our clothes. We got hair ties and a plastic bag for our phones (just to keep it clean). The best part was our waitress brought an extra bag to COVER UP MY CHRISTMAS GIFT BAG... and she told me it helps to keep my stuff not smell like hot pot. HALLO!?!?!? WHAT IS THIS SERVICE!?

We also get unlimited fruits and ice cream. UNLIMITED. ICE. CREAM. I was so full at the end that I could only order 2 ice cream for myself (ಥ﹏ಥ)

Last month, Neru, Ubi, and Kiriya came over to my apartment to celebrate Sas' birthday. Neru brought over an escape room board game. At the beginning, it was interesting! Until we hit this puzzle and I'm like: Neru and Ubi, please carry. My brain just can't with this.

Basically, this puzzle does require us to follow a trail for 30 steps total, and while we're figuring this out, we need to fill in the blanks. After like three tries, I gave up. But after this puzzle, we were able to solve the case and we won!!

Kipp and I grabbed dinner one evening - bubble tea and Katsu don. Nothing can go wrong with that combo. Did some catching up, and of course, trash talk his skills in raid ( ≧∀≦ ) JOKING, I DID NOT LOL

Last week, my mom made me lunch and it's my favourite dish from her! It was black bean bittermelon and chicken wings. I LOVE BITTERMELON. IT'S DELICIOUS. If you don't like durian, you may not enjoy bittermelon. Probably think it's the most vile melon on this planet, but that's okay with me, because that means I get more bittermelon to myself ( ˘▽˘)っ

Recently, Sas and I went to a local cafe nearby our area. I wanted to go to a different cafe, but they were swarmed with fan girls because it was some BTS LA concert event. No, I don't follow BTS, but it's hard not to recognize BTS things when you listen to other K-Pop bands.

This cafe is also popular with their black squid ink things and they're somewhat overpriced. Black squid ink sounds unique but it really isn't, considering Hong Kong McDonalds do black squid ink burgers occasionally. There is a faint ink taste... I don't know how to...describe it, it tastes squidy? HAHAHAHA of course, this instantly gets covered if you use sauce or eat it with other things!!