Tasty Asian Culture

I don't know if you realized, but this week has quite a few holidays! Mardi Gras does always proceed Ash Wednesday (or the first day of Lent), but they don't usually land on the same week as the Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day!

Today I got the opportunity to make some Thai Tea with Boba!! Following a recommendation from a friend's blog, I promptly ordered some Tapioca Pearls and large straws from Amazon! They didn't arrive in time for our Chinese New Year Feast, but close enough!

Mail Order!

Delicious Thai Tea with Bubbles!

This year, in honor of Year of the Snake, my family decided to start some new traditions. We made some tasty Asian foods, including: Mango Chicken Curry, Chicken Lo Mein, and Chicken Tempura. We adorned our table with a stone snake (the new year) and a dragon (last year) and our plateware from Japan. I put on a cd with traditional Chinese music that I purchased when I was in Hong Kong. We also decorated our cake in honor of Year of the Snake! It's fun to be festive!

Tasty Food for the New Year!

It kind of looks like a snake....

Another tradition we started this year was writing out some goals for the year to put away until next year. I have this large glass owl jar that we plan to fill with pieces of paper with great moments of the year written on it, to read at the next New Year's event. We put our yellow pieces of paper with our goals in this jar too. I think by next year I might need to learn some new Origami! (Mine is the frog.)

Decorated Goal sheets

I hope that you all enjoy the holidays of this week, and try something new this year! Start a tradition!

Designer: Jeremy Scott

From the first time I watched a Korean Music Video, I have loved their clothes! In developing myself as a designer, and trying to figure out just what it is I want to do in the Apparel Industry, I have thought often about how amazing it would be to design for Korean Pop Bands.

It seems that there isn't really designers that design specifically for a certain band, it seems more of a designer creates masterpieces of clothing and the band wears them in their videos. Sometimes relationships are formed and designers do design for their favorite band. One example of this would be Adidas designer Jeremy Scott and his fantastic relationship with the band 2NE1.

Jeremy Scott

Jeremy Scott attended Pratt Fashion School in Brooklyn, NY, and has designed for many runways, including Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, London and Seoul. If you want to see his most recent runway collection, go to his website!

In 2011, 2NE1 all wore clothing designed by Jeremy Scott to the MTV's Best New Bands Concert. Here are some photos from that event:

And can't forget the shoes!!!

I love Korean Pop music, but they aren't the only ones who wear Jeremy Scott's clothing. Here are some people from the American Pop Music Industry!

Katy Perry

Rihanna

I went to Adidas website, and found some things I would love to buy! Including this beautiful pair of boots, designed by Jeremy Scott, inspired by a butterfly!

And I will leave you with a more recent photo of Jeremy Scott with his favorite band!

My Dream Job

It's very difficult to get anywhere if you don't know where you want to go. When I decided to pursue a degree in apparel design, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and that was to design disc golf wear for women. As I went through the program and was introduced to more areas of fashion and design, I wasn't so sure of what I wanted to do anymore. Now, coming to the end of the program and closer to graduation I know what I want to do again. The funny thing is, it hasn't really changed much, it's just including different things than I originally planned.

So, my dream job now is to design outer wear in Asia. I would love to come back and start my disc golf clothing company, but I feel so much more complete knowing I can combine the love of functional design with amazingly different Asian designs. This epiphany came about by watching this video: Big Bang & The North Face

Please give it a watch! It's great! And here's some photos in case you are too lazy:

And my favorite from Big Bang:

Oh the drama!!

Today at work, I was helping a lady with her fabric and her phone rang. Her ringtone was an SS501 song that just happened to be the theme song of the Korean drama I watched earlier this summer called "Boys Before Flowers." I was SO excited! I told her that I knew the song and that it was from that drama, and we shared a little moment of Korean drama and Korean pop discussion!

I was very excited to find out that the heart-throb in "Boys Before Flowers" is now starring in a new drama called "City Hunter." She also recommended that I watch "IRIS," which has one of my favorite band artists in the cast (TOP from Big Bang!). So now I really have to watch some more dramas! Kind of makes me wish I was trying to learn Korean right now instead of Japanese...

Here are the links to the shows if you are interested. After I watch them I'll post a little review:

City Hunter
IRIS
Boys Before Flowers

A note about "City Hunter": this show is currently going on in Korea, and isn't supposed to end until August. If you are interested in watching "Boys Before Flowers", I definitely recommend it, though the end gets a little cheesy and ridiculous (still cute though!).

And here is a photo of Lee Min Ho. This is why these dramas are so addicting :)

Asian Zippers

Hey! 3 posts this month! I'm on a roll!

If you don't know, I have an internship thing going on at the Rain Shed here in Corvallis. If you don't know what the Rain Shed is, it is a specialty fabric shop with lots of great outerwear fabrics and more!

Every I leave that place, I learn something new or am extremely inspired. A couple weeks ago, one of the ladies there introduced me to this awesome zipper company's website. I have yet to see if they sell retail, but some really fun zippers!

She thought they were a Japanese zipper company, but it turns out the headquarters on Chinese Taipei (Taiwan). The company is KCC (Keen Ching Industrial Co.). You should definitely take a look at their zippers.

I love this zipper:

Alright, that's my quick post for the night. Hope the zippers inspire you as much as they inspired me!

People, blogs, and links!

It's about time I update my blog a little bit. First, I would like to introduce some awesome people who's blogs I've been reading and I think you should definitely take a peek at. The first blog is Chic Steals, which is written by Carly J. Cais. I had the pleasure of meeting her at Portland Fashion Week back in October. She is full of really great fashion information, and I'm happy to have a different perspective for viewing designers.

The reason I got to meet this lady was all because of my friend Amanda, who writes Grishley's. Both her and Nicole (author of Cut & Sew) are talented young women I get to take classes with. Go take a look at their blogs too!

The main reason I am updating my links and blogs, is because a disc golf store called discgolfstation.com contacted me about posting a link about them in my blog if they gave me a disc. I was first of all, very excited and a bit surprised that they found me through my blog! They are sending me a lightweight Buzzz, and I'll be sure to post again when I actually get it!

The last new link I want to mention is a link to an online store called Yes Asia! It is so amazing! I have had a really difficult time finding some of the Japanese artists I've become addicted to over Youtube on the internet. This website not only has all of these awesome music artists, but they also have DVDs of the Taiwanese drama "Basketball" (or Bullfighting) that I watched over the summer. (Be careful to start watching, it is very addicting and not all of the episodes are available on youtube!) Maybe I can start making a list on here of what I want for Christmas/ Birthday! :D