The Blingest Rims I've Ever Seen

Had me speechless.

So you can't really tell what the rims look like from afar ...

 
So here they are in all their up-close-and-personal glory.

Aiyaaa.

"N'awlins" and Baton Rouge, Louisiana With the Fam: Days 3 and 4

For our last day in New Orleans, we went on a tour of Laura Plantation. Mrs. Jang was right when they said they had a lot of very interesting stories on the tour. We also visited neighboring Oak Alley Plantation, which was more picturesque and great for photos. That evening, Leon, their son, who my brother and I have been friends with for a long time also, drove all the way out from Baton Rouge to join us for dinner. He invited us to visit the LSU campus on our way home, and we thought, why not?

We missed you, Howard! [ see all photos ]

Leon was kind enough to be our personal tour guide around LSU. We'd been there a looooooooong time ago for a table tennis tournament, but definitely did not tour the campus in detail like we did that day. Leon also told me that visitors to LSU were supposed to engage in a ritualistic activity before leaving LSU ... so of course I went ahead and did it (I asked my dad to join me, but he declined):

Yeah ... I pretty much regretted doing that. My body really ain't what it used to be. I was nauseous pretty much for the rest of the day. Ugh!

Thanks to the Jang family for hosting us in Louisiana. Come visit us soon! :D

"N'awlins", Louisiana With the Fam: Days 1 and 2

My parents had been wanting to visit some family friends who live near New Orleans for a while now, and the opportunity arose pretty recently. They asked me to join them (my mom claims that I make it more fun for them, haha), so off we went.

Me 'n Mom being silly in front of the Mississippi

Day 1 was just driving (~6 hrs / 370mi). That evening, Mr. and Mrs. Jang explained in detail the tours we could go on the next day. My parents entrusted me with planning our itinerary, and so they were basically forced to do what I wanted to do. :) It consisted of a walking tour of the French Quarter (my first choice was actually a bike tour, but ... I think I'll have to do that with other like-minded people, heh), and then a swamp tour. THAT was awesome. :)

Gator Vid 2 / Gator Vid 3 / Gator Vid 4

While headed to Jackson Square for the walking tour, a lady who saw we were blatant tourists told us she was headed that way and kindly walked with us in that direction. She told me a little about herself and how she'd moved from Arizona to New Orleans, and that if we had a chance we should go check out the Garden District. If we wanted to take a horse carriage out there, she highly recommended a man by the name of Marlin Malloy. "That's my ex-husband," she said. "Now I don't recommend him as a husband or a father, but he's a damn good tour guide, and you know he must be good if I'm recommending my ex-husband to you!" We shared a laugh, and parted ways. Never got to see if I could find Mr. Malloy amongst the horse carriage drivers and tell him that his ex-wife had recommended me. :)

I have never been interested / good at history, but I actually learned a lot about Louisiana history on all the tours we took. So excuse me if my captions are a little long-winded, I'm excited that I learned a thing or two on this trip. :) See the whole story in ze pictures!

Blue Label Lounge: Racist

I know what you're thinking. I've probably just jumped the gun, jumped to conclusions, didn't really give them a chance. Well, this is my story of what happened on the evening of Saturday, August 8th, and you can derive your own conclusions.

After having a major blast at Alice's wedding, a bunch of us still were not sated and headed out for post-wedding clubbing. Friends brought friends, and we ended up with a group of 12 people, 11 Asian (9 dudettes, 2 dudes), and 1 Caucasian (yay for Tree Frog for being the token white guy!). An initial group of 4 ladies had gotten there first, and were turned away from the door after a brief dialogue:

Bouncer: Are you with the private party?
4 Ladies: No ...
Bouncer: Sorry, if you're not with the private party, we can't let you in, there are too many people.

While waiting for us, they observed that non-Asian people were being let in just by showing their IDs and without the same questioning.

We arrived, and we were turned away with the same dialogue. Still in disbelief, we decided to test the system. We asked token white guy Tree Frog to try getting in. And sure enough, they let him in without even asking him if he was with the "private party".

So, we butted heads with them some. While doing so, people came and went, and after some time, Tree Frog asked, "Look, if it really is a numbers issue, I've seen about 10 people leave, and we have about 10 people in our party. What's up with that?" No answer. Management was talked to, and they kept mute as we spoke of their unfairness. Another group of partygoers, a mix of whites, Hispanics, and Asians, was also turned away while we were giving the manager of piece of our minds. One of the ladies in the initial group was surprised because she'd just been to Blue Label the night before at an all-Asian party. After a while though, we just weren't that direly in need of giving them our money anyway, so off we went.

And while my remaining clubbing days are numbered, I won't be tapping Blue Label Lounge for business if I have a choice.

Aside from that, I was glad we were able to have a post-wedding hurrah for Alice and Chun. I was definitely buzzing very well. :) [ to the pictures! ]

* I suppose one remaining possibility is that if there actually WAS a private party going on there, that it was hosted by someone who had a thing against Asians.