Big Apple Dancesport Challenge

Hello everyone!

Last weekend, we (the BU Ballroom Team) went to NYC to compete at the Big Apple Dancesport Challenge hosted by Columbia!

It was a crazy weekend full of dancing, getting absolutely no sleep, and lots and lots of team bonding. I didn't compete, but I did get to watch a whole lot of awesome dancing, and help out with hair and makeup =)

PC: Jimmy Chau

I didn't take too many pictures of the dancing because we have 2 dancers on the team who are amazing photographers, but I did snap a few of the awards ceremony =)

and there were many photo opportunities because everyone did so well!!
aww I was so proud of the team!

look at the BU team representing!  =)

It was an incredibly exhausting weekend, but also a really fun weekend!  I did take some videos of the evening, so if you want to see a few videos, head over to here to check them out!

Also, here is the showcase of Pasha and Daniella  =)  They were so. incredible!

I hope you enjoy the video, and thanks for stopping by!
--Janny

New Jersey, NYC, and Boston with the larks!!

Hello everyone!!

I ended up taking an unplanned break from blogging because I didn't end up bringing my computer with me on my audition spree...  and I have to admit, it was tough at first (I spend so much time on my computer!!) but actually, it wasn't so bad once a couple days passed.  haha  Anyway, the past two weeks have been a blur of practicing, rehearsing, auditioning, spending time with the larks and the amazing friends we have in Boston!

The beginning of our trip started with some time spent in New Jersey (Timmay's stomping grounds)! We arrived in the middle of the Polar Vortex, so we ended up spending most of our time indoors cooking up a storm (as we always do.  like look at that roasted chicken!  haha) and cramming hardcore for our upcoming audition!  

Also, we met one of the most generous people ever: Cathie.  She is such an incredibly sweet lady who heard us play a couple of years ago and when she found out that we were back, she insisted on taking us out for a meal and giving us a tour of her charming home.  oh, and giving us cake!  haha  It was such a warm-fuzzies kind of an afternoon, and we are just so blessed. and so grateful for her  =)

Then, we stomped around NYC for a couple of hours before heading up to Boston!

Can I just say, I absolutely LOVE Boston. I have loved the city from the first visit when I was about 16, and every visit, I fall deeper and deeper in love with the place. It was Abers' first time in Boston, and she fell in love with the city as well!  I knew she would!  haha

We were only there for about 1.5 days, but we got in a coaching with Bayla Keyes (who is just amazing and we are absolutely in love with her) and also our audition!

and we also got in a photo with Beethoven  ;)  haha

THEN!!  party time!  haha  so many of our friends came out to Charile's Kitchen in Harvard Square, and we had such a fun time!  

These awesome photos were taken by one of my friends, Bryan Tyler, who is a wonderful violist! Tim and I met and played with him at Foulger a couple years back, and it's been so great keeping in touch with him!  Check him out here!

With Bryan himself! =)

^^ oh, that burger?  Double jalapenos burger.  so good.  but your lips will burn.  you have been warned!  haha

Bryan's candid shot of me  haha

Boston...  Love the city, love the people...  basically head over heels in love with the place, and I'm going to live there some day  =)

So yeah, that's what's been happening in my life for the past 2 weeks!  I hope you have all had a wonderful month so far, and thanks for stopping by!
--Janny

Salsa dancing in NYC

Hello everyone,

A couple of nights ago, we started salsa dancing randomly at Foulger, and though Timmay and I tried our best to show them the moves we knew, we knew it was nothing compared to what they would experience in a real salsa bar watching and dancing with real street salsa dancers.

(because there is a huge difference between street salsa dancers and ballroom salsa dancers. 

I, for example, am a ballroom salsa dancer, and I was completely lost when I was dancing with 

a street salsa dancer... all these crazy, cool, and rather fuzzy leading techniques)

So on Saturday night, we decided to try out our moves in NYC in a real salsa club.  

(It was definitely an impromptu decision, but we seem to thrive on these as a group...)

A couple of us had been to this bar before, Iguana,--as seen in this post--

so we led the rest of the crew to the same bar.  

getting food on our way to the salsa bar!!
hahaha Christine and Tae...
if Tae would smile, she wouldn't have to do that  ;)

What we didn't realize, however, was the fact that Saturday night in NYC and Sunday night in NYC

are completely different matters altogether.  

This was how it was Sunday night:

no bouncers, no carding, no lines, cover fee of $5.

This was how it was Saturday night:

2 intimidating bouncers, carding, looong lines, and cover fee of $12-20.

This was a problem since not all of us were over 21, and none of us felt like paying the cover fee,,,

so we decided to start our own again!

Homemade salsa dancing partay!

since I was dancing the whole time, I forgot to take pictures of the actual dancing,,

but it was a grand time   =D

Tae and his groupies.  he loves us  =p

and when we got tired of dancing, we played with the nerf guns.

battling it out.  western style.
5 steps, turn, shoot.

and we found that girls had better aim than guys  =p

and when we got tired and hungry from burning all those calories, we made some food and enjoyed it.

I'm not a huge fan of pancakes, but it seems the exercise and the company makes all the difference!

pancakes and strawberries!

and before we headed back to Foulger, we decided to stop by Ktown
to enjoy another Korean meal  =)

  

are we sad or glad to be heading back to Foulger?  haha

I can't believe that we are already in our 4th and last week of Foulger!

These 3 weeks have really flown by, and it's funny to think that I have grown so fond of these lovelies

in such a short amount of time.

It's almost as though summer music festivals are in a different dimension where time is expanded.

The time ticks by slower inside the festival than in the real world so that 

a week of festival time equals a couple of weeks in the real world...

This is the only way I can explain the amount of work we get done, 

as well as how much I've grown to love the friends I've met here.

It's a phenomenon I have witnessed ever since I started attending these summer festivals many years ago, and the contradiction of the weeks seemingly flying by much faster than usual, and the incredible amount of work and socializing we do (months and months' worth) that is compacted into that time 

has always boggled my mind.

This week is going to be of no exception, I am sure.  

It will be perhaps one of the busiest weeks as we prepare for our performances at the Lincoln Center this Sunday, and because we don't want the festival to end and have to say bye to all of the friends we have made here, the time will seem to fly by even quicker than before.

Though I always get a little sad at the end, the nice thing about the music world is that it is so small that chances are very high that I will see these people again and again in the near future  =)

Thanks for stopping by, and happy Monday!!

--Janny

The night 4 friends acted out a scene from an action movie

Hello everyone!

On Sunday, Foulger unleashed almost all of its students in NYC--imagine the start of the Boston Marathon, and that's kind of how it was I think.  Poor New Yorkers, they didn't know what hit them  haha

It was truly a wonderful day that ended with an epic episode that highly resembled a scene from an action movie.  But before we get to that part, here are the other wonderful aspects of our trip.

First and foremost, we had to go eat Korean food.  Remember this post?  It was a necessity. 

yay food!

The Koreans (on the left side) all had Sulungtang, and Alice and Fahad had Mandooguk and Bibimbab respectively.  It was kind of funny that all of us got such hot dishes when it was also incredibly hot and humid outside, but perhaps because of that, when we came out, we didn't think the weather was so unbearable! =)

And we were so proud of Fahad!  He ate the whole meal using chopsticks!  no forks for this manly man!

and then began the shopping...

lots and lots of it.

too much of it.

but we enjoyed the beginning of it very much!

We first entered Chanel and tried on ridiculously expensive shoes.  I mean, why is it necessary that a sandal that is made of the sole and a thin piece of leather costs as much as a computer?  It isn't.  

but we had fun trying them on anyway.

And Burberry had really nice smelling perfumes..

But those smells were nothing compared to this place!

Porto Rico Importing Co.!

oh the smell of amazing coffee!!!

And they had the best names: Vienna Sumatra Mandheling.  so exotic!

at probably another ridiculously expensive shop...  we went to so many of them that I can't keep track...

Now this place.  This place was really something.

Do not be fooled by such an innocent looking banner of this shop. (is it innocent looking? hmm can't tell)

Alice and I were talking, not paying much attention to where we were going, and letting the boys lead.  Perhaps that was the mistake?   haha

Anyway, we walked into the shop, still very much so deeply in conversation, when we noticed the much darker lighting and a rather strong smell of some sort of (apparently it's supposed to be seductive) perfume.

It was a lingerie shop (with extra... things).  A very high class one apparently.

They had really nice chairs, and by this point, that was all we wanted in a store, so we thought about staying.

However, we left pretty quickly as the store workers kept asking us if we needed any help... multiple times...

We definitely had fun, but man!  Shopping is really tiring!  Especially when you do it for 5 hours!

 After eating sushi for dinner, we decided to try a salsa bar.  

Things were not looking great at this point because it had started pouring in NYC

and none of us had umbrellas.  

When we got to the salsa bar 8 blocks away from the subway station, drenched and tired, 

we found out that the bar was closed.

SO SAD!

At this point, the little Foulger group of 10 or so people decided to split up, and 

Jean, Fahad, Tonya, and I ventured out on our own. 

Initially, our plan was to just go back to Foulger, but we had left at an odd time for us to catch the train, 

so we decided to find something fun to do for an hour until we could catch the next train.  

As we were contemplating getting something to eat at a pastry shop (definition of fun = eating. haha) 

we struck up a conversation with the clerk there who gave us some napkins

--we were drenched, and must have looked quite the pitiful bunch--

and informed us of another salsa bar right around the corner from the pastry shop!

We arrived completely soaked, but the amazing dancers at the bar didn't seem to care, and we all danced the night away.

The guy wasn't a very good photographer..

This girl's got moves!!

Unfortunately our dancing was cut short at 10:45 when we realized we had to get back to the Penn station to catch the 11:07 train. 

We quickly left the bar, but the urgency was completely forgotten as soon as Jean mentioned 'pastries'.

Jean had gotten them from Korean Town earlier, and we spent a couple of blissful minutes passing them around.

I have never tasted better pastries!

heavenly.

We were about to buy more when we realized that we had forgotten about the train, and this is when the scene from an action movie began to take place.

We instantly started running for the subway station, but in the middle of running, I heard Jean say "go on! go without me! I'll catch up with you guys later!"

We hesitated for a couple of seconds, but at another urging from Jean, we began to run again.

The problem was that the only person who knew NYC was Jean.

Fahad, Tonya, and I stood outside of a subway station, running in place, watching the clock ticking by.

By the time Jean caught up to us, it was 10:57.

Because we knew we wouldn't make it to the Penn station in 10 minutes via subway, we hailed a cab.

The first one was out of service.

The second one agreed to take us, but said it would be impossible to get to the station in 5 minutes.

At 11:03 the taxi was stalled in the middle of the road about 2 1/2 blocks from the station.

We all jumped out of the cab in the middle of the street, ran through the cars, got onto the sidewalk, and started sprinting as fast as we could to the station.

I hope it resembled something like this.  ;)  haha

Matt Damon = us.  Motorcycle = the taxi.

We never stopped running, even when we got to the station, and somehow Fahad and Jean were able to read that our train would be departing from Track 1.

We ran all the way up and down the stairs--seriously. so many stairs!--to the Track 1 to find...

that the train would be leaving in 1 minute!

We made it!    Like champs.   With a whole minute to spare!

We were so high on adrenaline for the rest of that train ride!

We sat there in a nearly empty train, eating some pork buns Tonya had bought from China town,

bonding over the food and the epic race of the night.

=)

I hope you had an amazing weekend as well!

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

NYC!

Hello everyone!

The first day I arrived in NYC was exactly what a post-redeye flight person needed.

As I mentioned, I'm staying with my friend Timmay who lives in New Jersey, but for the first day, 

he invited me for a lunch with his grandma.  

As an added bonus, I got to see my violin teacher Julie there as well along with her whole family.  

If you're wondering why my violin teacher is at Timmay's grandma's house, here is the relatedness.

If you've met Timmay, you've heard this before, he loves explaining the relatedness  ;)

Timmay is one of my bestest friends. Julie is Timmay's cousin, who is also my violin teacher. Greg is Julie's husband, who is also Timmay's cello teacher.  and I just love Greg.  the circle of life. there.

We love it.  Well, we can't speak for Julie and Greg, but Timmay and I love it!  haha!

It was such a lovely afternoon of eating, hanging out with their adorable daughter, 

and taking a nap (hallelujah!) 

and I am so grateful for the invitation!  =)   They are the greatest.

Because I was running on perhaps 20% brain power, I didn't remember to take many photos... and the photos I did take, I found, were all of their daughter Noori.  haha. Can you blame me? she's adorable!

See what I mean?!  she has got to be one of the most adorable kids I know.  

AND she likes me!  little kids usually don't like me!  haha

She's a special one  ;)  

She really liked my camera, and tried to take photos with it, but kept pushing the wrong buttons.  

It was the cutest thing.  but she did succeed in taking this one!

It's pretty good, no?

She really captured the essence of Timmay.

This one is my FAVORITE of our playtime with Noori.

 A girl after my own heart!  If you know Timmay and my relationship, you'll understand what I mean.  

A very sibling moment.

Cutest family eva.  =) 

After the lovely afternoon with Timmay's family, we went to Times Squre.  

(It's kind of strange really. Times Square has to be one of the most famous touristy spots in NYC, and though I've been to NYC 5 times or so now, I've never been to Times Square!)

It was really fun, more so than I expected.  I think it had something to do with having seen the place so many times in pictures and in movies, and then finally seeing it in person.

Timmay was a champion gentleman and carried both of my suitcases up countless flights of subway stairs!

Thanks Timmay!

Almost as soon as we got off the subway, we met Elmo.

Poor guy, I think he was dying of heat... it was in the 90's that day--it felt like it was in the 100's.

Though I don't necessarily share the infatuation with NYC that some people have, 

I can understand why this city is loved by so many people.

There's something interesting happening at all times, there's so much diversity that I had fun just sitting back at a drugstore people watching for 20 minutes (not very many other places can say that!), 

and the energy of the place is truly contagious.

It's a place I will always be excited to visit for short periods of time.  =)

Thanks for reading!

--Janny