23 doesn't seem like it would be the kind of birthday that would have any fanfare around it. In truth, I shy away from celebrations because I am too lazy to organize parties for myself, and also because I have always harbored a fear that nobody would ever show up if I threw a party. But this birthday turned out to be the most eventful of most of my birthdays! I mean, jumping out of a plane last year was super exciting, but this was quite exciting in an entirely different, and slightly less life-threatening way.
S. kicked off the gift-giving on Saturday by buying me an iPhone, which I have been hankering for since my first few weeks in the city. It isn't that essential if you're floating around in suburbia, but boy is it necessary when you live in Manhattan. It has a Hopstop app so I can figure out if the E train is running on the wrong track (or running at all) at the dreaded witching hour (11-11.30pm) when trains begin to run off their regular schedule, thus derailing all my subway-taking plans. It has a yelp and Google map app, whose combined powers I can use to find vintage stores, hole-in-the-wall taquerias and indie movie theaters when I'm in a particular neighborhood. It has a NYtimes app which now means I don't have to get out of bed and walk to my laptop to read the news - I can do it while lying horizontally on my incredibly comfortable bed. It also has an Allrecipes app, which means I can continue my recipe stalking even when I'm standing on the sidewalk. In short, it is AMAZING. So it was a pretty good gift.
We had dinner at Penang because I was craving any semblance of Singaporean food, during which I over-ordered on purpose, dropping something like 50 dollars or more on kang kong belachan, popiah, roti canai, char kway teow and wonton mee (of course lah, how can I not order wonton mee ...) I was VERY HAPPY, to put it lightly. I wanted to cap off the night with An Education, the new Carey Mulligan and Peter Saarsgaard movie, but it was all sold out, so I trekked home, took a warm shower and curled up in bed and watched Adoption Diaries(don't knock it), ready to end my celebratory day in typical homebody fashion.
At 10.45, S. told me I had to get dressed, because we were going someplace special. So I threw on some kind of cheap Forever21 party dress, and we walked 2 blocks to the heart of Koreatown, and made our way to a Karaoke lounge. I had said that I wanted to have a little Karaoke get-together for my birthday if my friends from D.C. came down, but they didn't and I was lazy, so I never ended up organizing it. Like a good boyfriend, though, S. enlisted the help of a friend, who called all the people we hang around with in the city, and something like 25 people ended up showing to our little private lounge, where we swilled Grey Goose while singing Journey very badly. Epic.
We capped off the evening with a 3.30am meal at Kun Jip, where we ordered a smorgasbord of Korean food. Everybody kept asking me to help with the orders, after which time a French boy I had only met that weekend had to remind them that I was not, in fact, Korean. Good man. Okay, well, the real highlight of the evening was watching a enraged Korean lady about to beat the living daylights out of an equally drunk portly Korean guy in the restaurant itself. Which was promptly followed by a huge drunken fight amongst a completely different set of angry Koreans right outside the restaurant. Terrifying/amazing. I ran home.
On my actual birthday, though, I lunched at Westville with C. and M., and then spent the rest of the day consignment shopping in the East Village with M., where I picked up a Thread Social dress for $80 that probably retailed for over $500, a Steven Alan Liberty print skirt for $28.00 that retails for $150 and some creepy black snake earrings for a song. I then re-joined C. for a fancy dinner at French/Molecular Gastronomy up-and-comer Corton, died from fatness, and then went to watch Paranormal Activity, which made me laugh(sincerely) more than any other scary movie I've seen.
So basically my birthday got a 10/10. Happiness!
S. kicked off the gift-giving on Saturday by buying me an iPhone, which I have been hankering for since my first few weeks in the city. It isn't that essential if you're floating around in suburbia, but boy is it necessary when you live in Manhattan. It has a Hopstop app so I can figure out if the E train is running on the wrong track (or running at all) at the dreaded witching hour (11-11.30pm) when trains begin to run off their regular schedule, thus derailing all my subway-taking plans. It has a yelp and Google map app, whose combined powers I can use to find vintage stores, hole-in-the-wall taquerias and indie movie theaters when I'm in a particular neighborhood. It has a NYtimes app which now means I don't have to get out of bed and walk to my laptop to read the news - I can do it while lying horizontally on my incredibly comfortable bed. It also has an Allrecipes app, which means I can continue my recipe stalking even when I'm standing on the sidewalk. In short, it is AMAZING. So it was a pretty good gift.
We had dinner at Penang because I was craving any semblance of Singaporean food, during which I over-ordered on purpose, dropping something like 50 dollars or more on kang kong belachan, popiah, roti canai, char kway teow and wonton mee (of course lah, how can I not order wonton mee ...) I was VERY HAPPY, to put it lightly. I wanted to cap off the night with An Education, the new Carey Mulligan and Peter Saarsgaard movie, but it was all sold out, so I trekked home, took a warm shower and curled up in bed and watched Adoption Diaries(don't knock it), ready to end my celebratory day in typical homebody fashion.
At 10.45, S. told me I had to get dressed, because we were going someplace special. So I threw on some kind of cheap Forever21 party dress, and we walked 2 blocks to the heart of Koreatown, and made our way to a Karaoke lounge. I had said that I wanted to have a little Karaoke get-together for my birthday if my friends from D.C. came down, but they didn't and I was lazy, so I never ended up organizing it. Like a good boyfriend, though, S. enlisted the help of a friend, who called all the people we hang around with in the city, and something like 25 people ended up showing to our little private lounge, where we swilled Grey Goose while singing Journey very badly. Epic.
We capped off the evening with a 3.30am meal at Kun Jip, where we ordered a smorgasbord of Korean food. Everybody kept asking me to help with the orders, after which time a French boy I had only met that weekend had to remind them that I was not, in fact, Korean. Good man. Okay, well, the real highlight of the evening was watching a enraged Korean lady about to beat the living daylights out of an equally drunk portly Korean guy in the restaurant itself. Which was promptly followed by a huge drunken fight amongst a completely different set of angry Koreans right outside the restaurant. Terrifying/amazing. I ran home.
On my actual birthday, though, I lunched at Westville with C. and M., and then spent the rest of the day consignment shopping in the East Village with M., where I picked up a Thread Social dress for $80 that probably retailed for over $500, a Steven Alan Liberty print skirt for $28.00 that retails for $150 and some creepy black snake earrings for a song. I then re-joined C. for a fancy dinner at French/Molecular Gastronomy up-and-comer Corton, died from fatness, and then went to watch Paranormal Activity, which made me laugh(sincerely) more than any other scary movie I've seen.
So basically my birthday got a 10/10. Happiness!
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