Ni Hao.

Guess how much I paid for the brunch I had last Friday. 
10.75 dollars for two. Less than 6 bucks per person. WHAT A DEAL! 


One thing I learned from traveling around various places is this: When in doubt, go to Chinatown if you're hungry.  It's like a treasure island where you can find some unexpected surprises. Last summer, I was on a mission to find a decent Dim Sum place. I went to few places in SF Chinatown with my Chinese friends but no place was worth 4+ stars. I was looking for a place where you go in and you only see REAL Chinese people enjoying their small meals. I Googled and Yelped for about an hour and found Joy Luck Restaurant in Oakland Chinatown, 15-min driving from Berkeley. 


My first visit to Joy Luck was a satisfying and stomach-filling experience. They had ladies with carts!!! Also, when I saw people making hundreds of dumplings by hands in the back of the kitchen, my stomach filled up even more. NOM NOM NOM. The best time to go there is around 11. Just like a typical brunch cafe. 
Some extra tips: they do not speak English well so you would have to study a bit before you make your first visit. These are some of the popular/common dim sum dishes! Shrimp Dumpling (蝦餃 har gau) Lotus leaf rice (糯米雞 lou mai gai) Egg tart (蛋撻 dan tat) Char siu baau (叉燒包, char siu baau) Rice noodle rolls or cheong fun Potsticker (鍋貼, woh tip) Shaomai (燒賣 siu mai)

C i e l e e

F A C T S
1. Christine Jiwon Lee.
2. Had Twenty birthday cakes and countless candles. Now, waiting for the 21st one.
3. Believes in God.
4. Studies Media Studies and Psychology.
5. Speaks Korean, English, very basic Japanese (forgetting), and Chinese (learning).
6. Lives in Berkeley, California and visits family in Seoul, Korea every year.
7. Listening to Comfortable by John Mayer
8. Subscribed to Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, and TIME.
9. Interested in men.
10. Has visited Paris, Giverny, London, Tokyo, Osaka, Nagasaki, Sapporo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Phuket, Boracay, Cebu, Manila, New York, Chicago, Honolulu, Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego etc.
11. Loves looking at the blue sky, taking pictures, traveling around the world, trying something new, sleeping in on weekends, working out and practicing yoga, looking up lyrics of favorite songs, cooking food with and without recipes, sunbathing on the grass, trying out new restaurants in town, going to concerts, wearing scarves, talking on the phone, reading old and new magazines in bed, listening to old music, going shopping alone, drinking black coffee and green tea, and writing letters or notes to the loved ones.
12. Prefers chilly winter over hot summer, puppies over kitties, phone-calls over texts, nutty dark chocolates over creamy milk chocolates, listening to others than leading the conversation, going skiing over going to the beach, vanilla over chocolate ice cream, water over soda, any other genres over horror film, wine over vodka, thin crust over thick crust pizza, oatmeal raisin cookie over chocolate chip cookie, quiet music over loud dance music, taking notes on paper over typing, and walking over running.
13. I will...Do something memorable and crazy, something that I would never do more than once, every year in my twenties; Always believe in love; ;Study abroad or live in a different country; Travel, travel, travel, and travel; Go on a backpacking trip in Europe; Write+publish my own book. hopefully a travel journal; Live a physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy life. Keep a smile on my face no matter what; Be optimistic; Cherish every moment I breathe; Always believe in myself.

A proper funeral to my innocence: Zenga

To whomever undergoing a 'growing up'
Baby, Growing up is no big deal, Let me explain. You are to play a Zenga game of life: growing up. Life, a lot like a game of Zenga, we assign whatever that are meaningful or valuable to us to each Zenga block of life and make a pristine tower out of it for a while. After a while, about a time when the Zenga tower is completed, we remove each blocks one by one, sometimes unexpected circumstance of our lives forces us to remove them or we just simply feel the need: 'it is about time. We still cherish the tower,thus try keep the tower stand still as long as it can hold. However, it does not hold too long. The tower breaks down and blocks fall apart and that is when we give a proper funeral to our age of the innocences.  So what is on your Zenga blocks today? What did you remove and make?  I realized that I had discarded my innocence while ago, back when I could not even remember and had not given any consolation for it. So here is it: things that I loved, my past, my yesterdays, my youths. Now I am only naive but innocent. I miss it sometimes.

On my Zenga piece: family, friend, relax, stretch, lust, loved ones, anger, sin, charge, crest, virginity, time, collect, flight, fountain, plane, situation, recess, unconditional, faith, naive, divorce, organic, youth, joy, fun, I and Me, Timothy, birthdays, exploration, discovery, life, innocence, temperance, Elijah, baby, surprise, expectation, hope, fear, correct, stance, smile, mind, enthusiasm, birth, everlasting, morning, cigarettes, whore, colors, freedom