last friday i turned 28. surprisingly, this year i really couldn’t care less about my bday. back when i was younger, i looked forward to my birthdays like crazy, then as i got older, i kinda started dreading them… but this year, i just didn’t really care one way or the other. birthdays are just weird. you’re taught from a very young age that your birthday is your own little special day and that it’s so important and a huge deal, but as the birthdays lose their significance. sometimes you dont really do anything to celebrate, while other times you try to go all out, but you can never recapture that incredible feeling you had when you were little and your birthday came. i did want to do at least something though, so this year Elena and i decided to have a trolley party for our bdays. i’ll post about that in a separate entry though…
anyways, my birthday started off pretty mellow, just hung around the house and packed. eventually, caryn came home and we went to lunch at Ebisu. i wanted to try something new since it was my birthday so i tried the amaebi. it’s raw shrimp, and they server the shrimp heads deep fried on the side. honestly, i can’t really say that i liked them all that much… they were ok, but kinda weird. i think w/ the heads you’re supposed to eat the whole thing including the little eyeballs, but i just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
after stopping by the health dept to get more vaccines for our trip (fun!), we drove down to mountain view to have thai food w/ my family. my family isn’t very adventurous w/ food, yet they agreed to go to thai food because i wanted to. they also drove to Max’s to buy me a low-carb cheesecake because that’s the only desert i could have. it never ceases to amaze me how my family is totally willing to go so out of it’s way to make me happy all the time. it really means a lot to me how they try so hard. my mom is so distressed about the fact that i’m leaving and it really sucks to make her so upset, but i think she understands that going on my trip is something i really really want to do.
one of the highlights of my bday was on the next day actually. caryn got us a reservation at this high-end Vietnamese place called the Slanted Door. i’ve wanted to go there forever, but you can’t go unless you make reservations some time in advance. after eating there, i can totally see why that places has such a good reputation. the food was sooooo good. every little thing we ordered was incredibly delicious and the presentation was really cool too. i was so glad to finally go there!!
*v