Fourth Leg of the Trip - Oklahoma

*edit* Sorry about the lack of updates people, it's been absolutely crazy the past few days!

*edit edit* I just found out that "Y" reads this blog! omg omg omg *gasp* Gotta make sure my pictures have proper composition and lighting and are interesting and omgash I'm gonna die!

*edit edit edit* Don't be jealous Lisa ;)

*edit edit edit edit xMAX* It's been MONTHS since my last post. SOOO SOLLY!

Woo! We're just blasting through the crazy adventures aren't we? Let's celebrate by looking at another picture of Thanh sleeping!

Yeah, I get a lot of opportunities

The drive to Oklahoma City was very long and painfully plain. We drove for almost 13-14 hours and what we forgot was that we were going through two time zones too. So when originally thought we would arrive at 1AM, that was correct according to Pacific time but we were going to end up in Central time... so that ended up being 3AM or 4AM. Wow, we're really sorry Bich and family! :(

A whole lotta nothing!

Why am I more amused than scared?

Anyways, we finally arrived in Oklahoma City close to 4AM. I felt so guilty that I almost wanted to just stay at a motel for the night rather than wake up the family. Surprisingly though, Bich woke up quickly (she didn't even seem tired!) and C. Lien was actually up since 2, waiting for us. Awww thanks guys! Makes me feel all warm and bubbly inside. After chit-chatting a bit and waiting for Thanh to finish his shower, it was my turn. As I head up the stairs I see A. Tinh step out of the room and he's dead tired. I found out later that he just back from doing security for a Kingdom Hall build. Poor guy. Well I say a quick "hello" and when he sees me, he puts his arm on my shoulder, says hello, and then says:

"Wow, why are you so fat?"

...
...
...
WHAT?! It's FOUR O'CLOCK in the morning and the FIRST THING you notice is my FATNESS?! Way to destroy a fragile ego man! The only thing I could do at that point was run straight to shower, crawl up into a fetal position and cry while the shower washed away my pain... MY FATTY PAIN!

Anyways, after all was said and done, we got to sleeping on two recliners. They were surprisingly very comfortable. It gets hard to sleep though when you combine thunderstorms (that are SUPER loud in OK) and Thanh's snoring... it can get rather difficult. We woke up about 5-6 hours later. Thanh was still sleeping (of course) so I decided to take the opportunity to take care of my morning ritual. As I was exiting the bathroom, I heard C. Lien call out to her daughter:

"Bye girl! Get me a lot of tip!"

Haha, that C. Lien always cracks me up. Anyways, when I was about done, everyone else had left the house so it was just me and Thanh. We had called up Duy and surprisingly, he took the day off from work to go hang out with us (Thank you Duy! You're awesome!). He wouldn't be arriving until later so we took advantage of the time to check our email and pick our noses (j/k [well, not really j/k it's just embarassing okay?!])

Around 12 Duy arrived... and OH MY GOODNESSS that boy changed. He slimmed down a lot and shaved off about 5 years. That boy looked good! Makes me feel kind of jealous with my fatty ways.

Anyways, we waited for Nhan (another Viet dude who's in English) and then we headed out to get some pho. Finally some Viet food and no more of that stupid country fried steak with over-easy eggs and hashbrowns!!!! (In your face Thanh!!!!)

In any case, after munching down on some Pho we headed out to the mall where the guys did some shopping (I'll still never get used to that). Seeing as to how I needed some new shoes, they took me to this Shoe Carnival place. The best part about it? It had a "Buy one get one 1/2 off" deal! Woo! After some trying out and perusing and "Does this make me look fat?" I settled down on two shoes. I'm so proud of myself!

Why is this so significant? Well, this was the first time I ever bought shoes that were not under $20 from Big Five that weren't New Balance or L.A. Gear. I bought some sweet lookin Reebock basketball shoes (ooh shiney gold trim!) and some Marc Ecko shoes. Not bad not bad at all!

Anyways, after the whole gig, we decided to go visit Bich and her "work." BOY WAS I SURPRISED! Bich was actually working! I'm so proud of her! :D She was working her stuff in the hair salon and to be honest she was doing a pretty good job. It kind of reminds me of all those afternoons where I would have to take out 2 or 3 hours of my day just so she could get some practice. AND LOOK AT HER NOW! Time well invested I suppose!

Thanh in his natural setting

Wow! Who woulda "thunk it?"


Duy... CAUGHT RED-HANDED! WHATCHU LOOKIN' AT MANNN?


Begging + Peer Pressure + Nothing better to do = Bich cuts Thanh's hair


Hurry up Bich, I can feel my clothes getting trendy again...


Ever catch a deer with your headlights? Yeah, it's kinda like that

After goofing off and finalizing some plans at the hair salon, we decided to go home and freshen up a bit. Me and Thanh decided to take a picture of our shower.

"What is this? A shower for midgets?"

Later that evening, C. Lien cooked us an awesome awesome dinner and A. Tinh made some awesome BBQ meat. Seriously, you guys have no idea how good it is to eat good 'ol Vietnamese food. Sighhhh. After recovering from our food coma, Bich came home and we all decided to head out for some "Cuppies and Joes" which is basically a really small and cozy cupcake and coffee shop. It definitely has that "college kid" vibe. We met up with Trinh and Richard and we had a pretty good time. Apparently everyone took turns passing my fedora around. If they like it so much, why can't they just get their own? GOSH!

The car group. Duy is MIA apparently...


Oh, please oh please leave me behind...


We all said Bich couldn't do it, but her no-preview camera skills are unparalleled... And what's up with Thanh? O_O


I just found out that there's tournaments for espresso art. Makes me want to give it a shot!
(HAHA GET IT?! Shot? Espresso? nevermind...)

After some super awesome cupcakes (mint chocolate ftw!) we all headed out to the movies. Yet again, my fedora was passed around...

One note... The theater was in a part of town called "BrickTown." Apparently, almost all the buildings are made of brick. When one thinks of brick, you probably think of something rundown and very inner city... WELL THINK NO MORE! I have to admit, BrickTown was by far one of the coolest areas in the US I've ever seen. Yes, everything is made of brick, but they make it work! It looked rather upscale too. It's one of those things you gotta see for yourself to believe. Unfortunately I don't have any pics because it was just way too dark. :(

"Hey look ma! I'm Ne-yo!"


"Why yes, you MAY have my autograph. Take a number first."

After the movies, it was time to go home and get ready for the next day. We're already heading out to St. Louis? So sad. The trip just went by so fast :(

Haha, this never gets old ;)

Before we left, C. Lien wanted to have me meet some people at the Kingdom Hall. Incidentally, Oscar Gramillo was there. Talk about a blast from the past. I haven't seen that guy since the Bethel days and I did some artwork for him that he used in one of his public talks. Very very cool and coincidental for sure.

Paul - "So cool to see this guy again!"
Oscar - "How do I know this guy again?"

After the Kingdom Hall, we headed out to the dry cleaning shop that A. Tinh and C. Lien run and had a good talk with the both of them. There's so much work to be done outside of California and so many Vietnamese to preach to, it's not even funny at all. The East Coast needs love too people!!!

Anyways, after the shop, we went to get some pho. It was actually one of the last decent Vietnamese meals I was to have for a good while (Double meaning: St. Louis Vietnamese restaurants are simply TERRIBLE).

Great, now Thanh has my fedora. -__-


Me and my hot hot date with C. Lien... JUST KIDDING! (please don't hurt me Vu family)


Me and the ~ladies~ awww yeah!

After some sad and long farewells, we headed out to our final destination... St. Louis. Who would have thought through all my misadventures in my short life I would end up in St. Louis? To be honest, this entire experience has left me dumbfounded.

I apologize for the lack of posts as I've just been... well... lazy. It's not so much as being busy as it is just being a BIG OL BUM. CUZ OF MY FATNESS. Anyways, that's the last leg of the trip, I hope you enjoyed it. New posts WILL follow, but for now, I'll leave you with this:

Thanh likes Pocky... a lot

Third Leg of the Trip - Flagstaff/Phoenix

Okie dokie!  It's time for the third leg of the trip... onwards to Flagstaff!  Why might I want to traverse all the way to Flagstaff you ask?  Well, that's where my friend, Mykol Hnatyshak (My-kohl Nah-tee-shack) lives.  He used to be my roommate when we attended MTS together.  Good times, close friendships I tell you.

Anyways, before we begin, I tried to take as many shots of Thanh sleeping since he finds it annoying... SO OF COURSE I'm going to take more shots!

That IHOP really knocked the poor guy out...

!

Anyways, he eventually woke up and we decided to listen to his CD.  We were head bobbin to the latest single from Black Eyed Peas "Boom Boom Pow" and the resulting picture was this:

Yeah. We cool and we know it!  Boom boom pow!

Anyways, we ended up driving through some rather plain desert and I had no idea if I was going to hit a gas station anytime soon so we both decided to stop at the very first gas station we could find, no matter how much gas we had.  SUV + fully laden + two big guys (NOT FAT! just big...) = major loss of gas. 

Gee, I wonder what they sell here?

What's interesting about the first gas station we stopped at was that it was owned by a fellow Witness!  How did we know?  Well... the first thing we noticed when we walked through the door was a VERY nice and detailed display of all the latest magazines... including Vietnamese!  Not only that, but near the dining area were bookcases of literature too!  Just to be absolutely sure, as I was paying I mentioned to the cashier that it was very nice of the owner that he allowed Witnesses to display their literature.  His response?

"Well, that's cuz it's owned by Witnesses!  And I'm the owner!"

Haha, well of course we got to talking while Thanh was taking his lovely time in the restroom.  Turns out the brother commutes about 50 miles to get to the station and since it's a 24 hour station, other Witnesses take turns during the day.  Not a bad setup if you ask me.  What else was neat about the gas station was this:

Yup!  It's a drawn map!

All around the entire store was a map with approximate times to get to certain places like Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Phoenix, and even Oklahoma city.  Very very cool since it was a sister who drew it all.  Anyways, it was time to move on!

The drive was pretty uneventful until we stopped at our next gas station.  While Thanh took care of business (I swear, that guy has a bladder the size of a shot glass) I went inside the store to pick up some chips.  The funny thing was... it felt like this wasn't the first time I was at this store.  There was the popcorn machine to the right.  All these cowboy hats to the left... THEN IT HIT ME!  This was the same exact gas station that I stopped at two years ago when Alphonso and I drove with some friends from the Las Vegas Vietnamese group on our way to the Grand Canyon.  All you had to do was add some snow and very slick black ice... and voila!  It was the same stop.  Talk about a blast from the past.

Anyways, we were only about an hour away from Flagstaff and Mykol had said he would be out of prison by then to receive us.  Wait wait wait.  Did he just say prison?  Actually, as it turns out he has a study who's in prison.  Cool huh?

When we first saw each other again... awww I wuv you Mykol!

Yeah I know you wuv me too :)

After settling in a little bit, Mykol wanted to take us on a tour of the awesome town that is Flagstaff.  Of course Mykol had to clean up a bit since he had taken a little off roading trip the day before, I helped to clean up a bit.

Man that thing is sharp!

Here's a quick peek at the basic architecture of Flagstaff.  Very neat!

We stopped at this rib place (which had very awesome ribs btw) and Mykol referred to it as a "peanuts on the floor" place.  Huh?  Turns out, when you eat your peanuts here you're supposed to wipe them all on the floor since the staff don't want to bother with cleaning up the tables.  Convenient huh?

So messy, yet so right!

After some eating, we stopped at a music shop where Mykol wanted me to show off my chops on the bass.  I hope he was satisfied... actual musicians are so critical! Gosh!  Anyways, afterwards he wanted to go watch a movie so we stopped by the theater... and it turns out his little sister Kris is the second top manager there!  Talk about cool.  There was a debate as to which movie we were to watch... Mykol wanted to watch Earth.  I wanted to watch Soloist.  Thanh wanted to watch Obsessed (cuz Beyonce reminds him of someone... ;])  Anyways, we ended up deciding on Soloist but had some extra time so went to go to this place:

That's right, it says "Wicked AZ Coffee."  Double entrende ftw!

Check out some of the names... Chunky Monkey?  Sexi Mexi?  THE ANNIHILATOR?  Yup, these are some "wicked cool" coffee names for sure...

Anyways, got some coffee then watched the Soloist.  What an awesome movie!  In any case, it was too late to do anyting else so we retired for the night.

The next morning was full of surprises.  For one, I took another shot of Thanh sleeping.  I seem to have many opportunities since well, he's always sleeping!  Hah!  I also played a little prank on the sucker.  Check out the video below:

Just five more minutes...

Mwahahahaha!

Afterwards, I was able to talk to Brother Hnatyshak (Myk's dad) for a little bit and then we waited around a bit to go to Phoenix to drop off Myk's little sister, Lisa, off at the airport.  Turns out Mykol isn't exactly a morning person so I goofed off on the piano while Thanh got ready.

After a million years, Mykol gets out but decides to show off his mad skills on the piano.

"Let's see how I can make Paul look like a loser today..."

This bird... is not friendly...

Turns out as we're ready to go, I double check all my stuff.  Keys? Check.  Glasses? Check.  Phone? Check.  Wallet? Er... not check? YUP!  That's right.  I lost my wallet.   We frantically searched and searched but to no avail.  The person working at the theater was being difficult, we had to get breakfast and pick up Lisa, and the theater wouldn't even be open for another 4 hours.  Great.  Anyways, we went ahead to get breakfast and we had "American style" breakfast yet again (Thanh = happy).  We went back to the house to check one more time...

Didn't Einstein say something like... "The mark of insanity is when one repeats a particular action again and again hoping that the result will be different each time."  Yeah... we're insane.

Nope!  No wallet.  Oh well, all I could do was pray that it would turn up in a little while when Kris came to work and that was that.  With that, I had no license so Thanh had to drive.  Since I was sleep deprived (Thanh's snoring + dirty carpet = moody Paul) I decided to take a nap.  Thanh finally took this chance for revenge.

You son of a gun...

Somebody thinks he's all cool... humph!

We played this game where we would hold our breath while going through a tunnel...  Yeah, we're still tied... BUT I WILL COME OUT THE VICTOR SOMEDAY!

Anyways, we dropped off Lisa (Off to Hawaii! luckkyyy!!!) and then headed out to the Myk's friend's house to drop off our stuff since we were going to be staying in Phoenix for the night.  Then we headed out to the nearest Claim Jumper since that's where Mykol's girlfriend, Ashley works.  

...

WHAT?!  MY MYK-Y WIKE-Y HAS A GIRLFRIEND?!  Ohhhhh no she didn't!

Actually she did.  Yeah, Mykol found himself a girlfriend and here she is:

Say "Hello" Ashley!  You friend-stealer you!

What else was really cool was that my good buddy James (also a fellow MTS classmate) was in town.  When we all got our assignments, James was assigned to Phoenix to help out the Korean congregation there.  The thing is, most of us were asked to be at our assignments by May 1st.  James, on the other hand, decided to be all spiritual and stuff and moved in a month early!  Wow!  It was great since we were able to see each other again.

Asian powers unite!

We had some great sandwiches and then headed out to go bowling.  Surprisngly, James whooped all of us.  Must be the Asian persuasion or something.  Or maybe he's just that good.

I see you... stop holding hands!  Stop it! >.<

Anyways, after the enormous whupping that James gave us, Ashley ran out to get back to work.  That poor girl.  She's a pioneer, preaching to the Albanian people (there's no official group yet), and working 3 jobs just to survive in Phoenix.  Talk about sacrifice eh?  And she's been pioneering since she was 16!  She makes me feel like a spiritual infant.  Boohoo :(

After Ashley left, we headed out to the nearest mall to burn some time until Ashley could get off her shift.  First thing we see when we enter?  Yup, the arcade so the three Asians (Me, James, and Thanh) naturally wanted to go in.

Yet another claw machine.  Thanh actually won something too!

While we were at the mall I got a good piece of news... KRIS FOUND MY WALLET! (KRIS I WUV YOU TOO!)  Man what a relief!  Now that I had nothing on mind (how is that any different from the usual?) I was free to skip around like a little school girl (no not really, please, do you think I'm really that kind of guy? DON'T ANSWER IT!)  After running around we headed straight for the bookstore where we frolicked in history books, humor books (Farside + book of Chuck Norris facts = bellyaching laughter), and comic books.

"Me lova ping pong long time!"

Yeah, we all needed to read that book...

After running around a bit, Ashley was finally off her shift so we headed out to a pool place.  We all got creamed by the girls and by golly did we eat a lot of nachos.  Wait, I thought I was supposed to lose weight?  Sigh...

If you ask for water with cherries... they'll actually give it to you! Awesommmeee!

After all that, we went back for some sleep.  Again, I could not resist:

Haha Mykol... some things never change.

Cute Pomeranian.  he's about 10 years old and very tame.

"Bark bark woof grrr!"  - Roughly translated to: "Watchu lookin' at foo?!"

After everyone went through their morning rituals of awakening (RISE RISE RISE!) we headed out to American Egg, for yet another "American style" breakfast.  Thanh was of course one happy camper... again...

Mykol and James lovin the camera

I tell you what.  It was so good to see these guys again.  Mykol is one of my closest friends despite the fact that we don't talk all that often.  We may not even communicate with each other for months on end, but I am always ensured of his loyal friendship.  And James will always be the Asian Sensation on the other side of the country.  You two rock, majorly.

In the end?  Phoenix was a cool place.  It may be a bit dry and dusty but it just showed me that anywhere you go in the US, the places are still basically the same.  All will have their McDonalds, Best Buys, and KFC's.  What makes each place unique is the friends there and Arizona is one unique state for me, that's for sure.

Anyways, after breakfast, me and Thanh drove up to Flagstaff to pick up my wallet (I WUV YOU KRIS!) and got some more "Wicked AZ Coffee" and began our long and painful drive to Oklahoma.  More on that in the next post, see you soon!