Engagement Pics - San Diego Edition

On October 15, 2009, Malcolm and I met up with our wonderful photographers, Ariel and Josh of Anika London Media, for our San Diego engagement pictures.  We chose Balboa Park for our pictures because there's such awesome architecture, and so many different choices of scenery for pictures.  Balboa Park, which houses 15 museums and the world famous San Diego Zoo (the only pandas on the west coast!), is 1,400 acres and used to be someone's home.


Ariel and Josh, who are husband and wife, were really great with us.  They gave really good direction, and they worked really well together.  Just as a side note, they are a really really good looking couple.  After our initial meeting with them, Malcolm and I looked at each other and said, "Damn.  They're both hot."

After we took pictures at Balboa Park, we headed over to Mission Beach to take pictures.  While Balboa Park was sunny and gorgeous, Mission Beach was foggy and the sun was really hard to see!  Ariel and Josh used camera/flash magic and got great pictures of us.

Stayed tuned to the wedding for more of the engagement pictures!  Ariel and Josh took over 500 pictures of us that day!

3 Apples

Audrey, Anita, Jeanne and I went to the 35th anniversary of Hello Kitty art exhibit held at Royal-T Cafe and Art Space in Culver City.


To commemorate Hello Kitty's birthday, Royal-T hosted various artists' artwork as well as Hello Kitty products, all for viewing to the public.  We arrived at around 7:30 pm, and the place was packed.  Not only were there tons of people, there were Hello Kitty products everywhere, there was a "real" Hello Kitty walking around taking pictures, and tons of Hello Kitty artwork.  It was interesting to see how far Hello Kitty has come since her kitten days.


None of us remembered to bring our cameras, so we relied on our cell phones.  I took a lot of pictures, but a lot of them are kind of grainy.


As a side note, anyone know the significance of "3 Apples"?


This is the event poster:

When you first walk into Royal-T, the exhibit was laid out so that in the beginning, you saw all the Hello Kitty products.  Among all those products was this Swarovski crystal-encrusted Hello Kitty by Kimora Lee Simmons.  I thought it was a very blinged out necklace.

Apparently, I was wrong, as demonstrated by Lady GaGa.

There was also the actual Hello Kitty dress worn by Lady GaGa in her photo shoot especially for Hello Kitty's anniversary.  The dress is strapless.

Then, there was the shot of Lady GaGa pretending to be Hello Kitty.  It was a bit frightening.

Moving back further into the space, we saw what would happen if Hello Kitty threw up.

After all the Hello Kitty products, there were art pieces created by various artists for the 35th anniversary.


I really liked this one by Tokidoki.

One aspect I did really like about this exhibit was that it wasn't all cutesy.  There were some ironic ones, scary ones, tongue-in-cheek ones, etc.  Here were the ones I liked.

This sculpture reminded me of Murakami's creations.  It was all very cool.

And finally, so cute!

So what is the significance of 3 apples?  It is supposed to be the weight of Hello Kitty!

Bridal Shower Preview

My lovely bridesmaids hosted a bridal shower for me this past weekend.  Not only did Wendy drive down from San Francisco, and Jeanie graciously allow us to invade her home for the shower, they all surprised me with a video chat with Malcolm, who is currently slaving away in Shanghai.  

Aren't these gorgeous??  Thanks to Debbie for the beautiful flowers.


Stay tuned...more to come!

As a rational and logical pet parent, I like to have Bob involved in all aspects of our lives, including holidays.  Especially now that Bob is getting older, we try to have Bob participate as much as he can.


For Halloween, Bob insisted on dressing up.  What else could he be except a chicken??  

High-Fiving Panda in Macau

Need I say more?

NYC Engagement Shoot

As mentioned before, Malcolm had the wonderful idea of having engagement pictures taken in both San Diego and New York City, to commemorate our bi-coastal relationship.


So for NYC, we chose photographer S.J., who is the sweetest, nicest person.  If we had met in a different circumstance, we would've been great friends.  She is definitely our type of people.


That being said, I'm sad to say that our engagement pics turned out to be so-so.  The subway one is quite awesome and amazing.  The rest were ... eh.  Having now gone through our San Diego engagement photo shoot (although we're still waiting for the results), I think our pics might have come out better if we had more direction from the photographer.  Sadly, there were a lot of double chins and half-closed eyes.


We spent an hour and a half at Central Park on Labor Day, taking pictures.  Here are the good ones!

And of course,