judyonthenet

I still haven’t had the chance to write any sort of organized post about either the wedding or the honeymoon, but thankfully, Kelvin’s managed to put a few videos up on his Youtube channel already. These are just clips we took on our digital cameras, including Kelvin’s Canon SD870IS for which we bought an underwater case for. (Costs as much as freakin’ camera! At least we didn’t have to pay for it… many thanks to the folks who gave us the Amazon credit to get it!) He put up video he had viewed completely and felt didn’t need editing.

All the videos, like typical vacation footage, are fairly mundane. They haven’t gotten many hits on Youtube, not surprisingly; most have only gotten under 30 views since he posted it. However, there is a video of me snorkeling that’s already gotten *143* views. I imagine it probably has something to do with the fact my rear end in bikini bottoms is a predominant portion of the video snapshot.

I’m pretty sure most of those 143 people were very disappointed upon click (as shown by one person rating the video 2 stars, lol). Anyway, I’ll eventually go through the honeymoon in greater detail. For now, I hope these clips can satiate you guys for the moment. And in case you haven’t talked to me or Kelvin recently, the honeymoon was indeed quite awesome.

New thing I learned today: Billy Idol’s song “White Wedding” was inspired by his sister’s wedding. Also, two music groups have had #1 singles named “Float On”: Modest Mouse (2004) and The Floaters (1977).

Thank you Rock Band 2 for more useless information :P

We survived our two week journey through Fiji and New Zealand and got back home Monday evening. We’re organizing our pictures and video so we can thoroughly bore you guys to death, so check back in a couple days.

New thing I learned today: In addition to the fruit, the word “kiwi” can refer to the bird, a New Zealander, or the New Zealand dollar. In New Zealand, the fruit is primarily called “kiwifruit” instead of “kiwi”.

There won’t be any posts for a while, since we’re officially on our way to our honeymoon. The only flights to Fiji are from LAX, so we’re kicking it in the City of Angels at Sandra’s place for a day. (Thanks for taking us around and letting us sleep over, Sandra!) I’m super excited, though not exactly super prepared… might try to do some last minute shopping in LA. Anyway, a basic map of some places we’re planning to go to:

I’m unsure about internet access during our trip or if I’ll have time to post, so I’ll have to see y’all in December! :)

New thing I learned today: In New Zealand driving, “Yield” is instead called “Give Way”.

The next morning, Sandra took me to Bed Bath & Beyond so I could get a last minute wedding gift (I need to procrastinate less…) and dropped me off at Budget so I could get my rental car. We got a blue Nissan Altima, which is actually a pretty okay car, especially when considering the POS rental Ford/Chevy compacts I’ve had to drive in the past. (Driving one of those is like driving a toy car… scared the sh*t out of me driving one of those on a freeway.) I found the braking and acceleration to be a little jerky, but for the first few miles, it was apparently because I left it on first gear :P (It’s a freaking automatic, how was I supposed to know it has “gears”?)

The church the wedding was held at is about 45 minutes away from Sandra’s place. Both Sandra’s place and the church are close to 405, so the drive was easy. We left early in case of bad traffic, but traffic was fine, and we got there early. Sean and his now-wife Susan were getting in this giant glass church called the Crystal Cathedral. It looks like an elaborate greenhouse with a row of fountains in the middle and a giant organ in the front. The church was next to two other buildings which also had interesting architecture, and the grounds were sprinkled with statues pertaining to Bible events and figures.

Joseph: I told you not to accept gifts from strangers! BAD T1000 Baby Jesus! Bad!

People were still setting up inside and outside the church, so we wandered around for about half an hour before settling at a church pew. The ceremony was nice, as expected. I was surprised at how religious it was, probably because I wasn’t aware how involved Sean and Susan were involved with church. There were two pastors speaking. One of the unity candles went out during the ceremony, but it didn’t phase the pastor at talking at the time, which is smooth. The ceremony was thankfully not too long. (Don’t get me started on a wedding I went to where they had 7 pairs of married couples do individual vows for them during the ceremony. Ugh.) This did mean, however, there was over two hours left until hors d’oeuvres started at the reception location. Not being the mingling type, Kelvin and I walked around the church a bit more, loitered at a local Best Buy for an hour (Lego Indiana Jones is disappointingly boring), and then arrived early to the reception location at DoubleTree Guest Suites next to Disneyland.

Sean and Susan’s first kiss as husband and wife

We watched several girls set up the lobby while we were there. There were several large portraits of the lovely couple, including the mandatory giant album of Chinese studio pictures. I signed in at the reception table, where I found out I was seated at Table 6.837 AKA Intro to Computer Graphics at MIT. (Now that I think about, I think I took that class the same time as Sean did. I think his group had an awesome final project, while ours… well, no comment. It wasn’t exactly a good class for me.) I also noticed that there were 40 tables of 10 each, so I realized there was at 400 people at this thing!

An hour later, when hor d’oeuvres were being served, I was more aware of the size of the wedding as the waiting area became PACKED with people, most of which were Cantonese. Man, those Cantonese like their large weddings. One old Cantonese lady tried to cut in front of us in the hor d’oeuvres line, but then Kelvin gave her a major stinkeye, so she instead cut behind me, where the couple behind me was preoccupied talking with friends. Hor d’oeuvres were miscellaneous fried Chinese snacks, like these fried wonton/crab rangoon things. (Crab rangoons are incredibly unauthentic, as they’re basically cream cheese wrapped in wonton skin deep fried. That said, last time I had crab rangoons was in Boston, as I have yet to see a restaurant near San Jose serve them. They were soooo yummy.)

The “head and shoulders” tables

Eventually, the doors to the reception hall were opened, and people herded to their tables. Table 6.837 was adjacent to the dance floor and near the bridal party. In fact, we were next to the bride’s parents’ table. With the reception hall completely filled with dinner tables, the cake table was situated on a table in the dance floor, with decorated with several frosting math equations. My table was all MIT alumni. Even tho they were all my year and most of them my major, I didn’t know any of them. (I’m not kidding when I say I wasn’t social in college.) Most of them were Sean’s frat brothers; they’d leave periodically throughout the evening to do shots, according to Kelvin. The table had a lazy susan with a simple but tall centerpiece. Each person got a small menu, a wrapped Chinese pastry, and a neat-o hand-rechargeable LED flashlight to take home. Not only was the flashlight a favor that actually had some sort of utility, you could use the lights to light up the ceiling to cheer and be festive during parts of the wedding. I was very impressed with the favor idea.

Dinner was a several course Chinese banquet, with plenty of seafood and meat dishes. I don’t think it was totally traditional or authentic; it seemed to have twist to it. It wasn’t bad, but I can’t remember what food was served because I forgot to take a menu, and I went to another Chinese banquet the weekend after. To add to the nerdiness of the wedding, the banquet started off with food marched in by waiters to “The Imperial March” (AKA Darth Vader’s theme). The DJ played random music in the background as we ate. We were also entertained with the typical maid-of-honor/best man speeches, parent dances, and cake cutting. Highlights of the evening was the bride and father-of-the-bride disco dance (that daddy must really love his daughter to do that), Sean’s little brother/best man’s SUPER cute musical tribute to the groom, done to the tune of “Uptown Girl”, and finally having a chance to actually speak to Sean when he visited each table. What’s funny is that, after we shook hands with the parents and the bride (who I’ve never met before, and after shaking her hand for about two seconds, I’m pretty sure she still has no idea who I am), Sean kinda hung around our table to talk to all his friends. The bride and both sets of parents kept going on, leaving Sean behind. I guess that shows how important the groom really is in everything! Sean certainly didn’t seem to mind; he finally ran off to catch up with them once they were 4 tables ahead of him. I’m glad he took a long stop at our table so I could finally get a picture with him!

I forgot to recharge my battery before flying down, so of course, my camera
dies right when I get a hold of Sean. Luckily, Kelvin has a tolerable camera on his
phone. Sean’s Chinese getup looks way more comfortable than Susan’s qipao.

Around 10PM, Kelvin and I were getting ready to jet, since we had to leave for San Jose the next day. I insisted on staying until we got some cake, which we did. In order to keep the people from chaotically yoinking the centerpieces, they designated centerpiece ownage to the oldest lady at each table. I’m sure this is meant to respect your elders, but for a table full of young people, it was hella awkward. Everyone at our table was the same year, so of course I end up getting the centerpiece since I was born in January. Yay for being old :P The dancing began around this time, so it was time to jet. I spotted Sean for a second, so we ran off to go say goodbye, but then we lost him again. I was bummed I didn’t get to say goodbye, but I was getting tired looking for him, so we finally left. I wonder if there was a bouquet or garter toss, as we seemed to have missed it.

The drive back was just as easy as the drive to the church. I spent the rest of the night chatting with Sandra, Owen, and their friend Bryan, the other person who worked on the Veidt commercial that wasn’t submitted in time. (Have you seen the winners to that contest? They’re not bad; I rather like the one by watergunfilms. The exception is the Nostalgia commercial picked by fans they have featured on the Youtube main page. Ugh, terrible. Can you say “rigged”?) The next morning, I returned the rental and flew back home, ending my short trip to SoCal.

New thing I learned today: How to spell “hor d’oeuvre”.

The weekend after my engagement pictures, Kelvin and I flew down to LA to attend my collegemate Sean’s wedding. In all honesty, I don’t remember how I met Sean, but every meeting with him I can think of seemed to have something to with anime. I know he was in MIT Anime Club, so maybe I met him while trying to get the club to show Sokodei’s parody dubs. Anyway, he apparently was getting married, and I was invited. Even though it was all the way in LA (and ticket prices are *&%$ing expensive right now), I figured I’d go down there, enjoy being part of his special day (also do some wedding research ;) ), and FINALLY see Sandra. I’ve been telling her I’d go down the last several months, constantly flaking out.

We hopped on a plane after work on the Friday. The trip was quick and fairly smooth, definitely much nicer than driving down. Sandra lives fairly close to the airport, but she didn’t make it LAX arrivals as soon as she thought it would because gajillions of people were arriving in LAX at the same time. Not to mention half of these people (and the people that were picking them up) were complete dipshits. There’s two lanes for driving by, plus an additional lane for stopping. I witnessed TONS of the following:

1) Idiot drivers parked in the stopping lane, with their passenger nowhere in sight. (I see this at every airport.)
2) Idiot drivers parking with the front half of the car in the stopping lane, back half of the car in a driving lane, blocking the driving lane.
3) Idiot drivers driving in parking lane.
4) Idiot passengers running over across two lanes to the left most driving lane with their luggage and loading themselves into their ride in the
leftmost lane, almost killing themselves and causing traffic mayhem, especially with the leftmost lane being blocked by a parked vehicle.

Eventually Sandra and Owen made it through the sea of retards, picked us up, and took us to her place to dump our bags. It was already 10PM-ish, but since this is LA, there are actually plenty of restaurants open late. We went to Cafe 50’s on Santa Monica. Kelvin and I had eaten a little before the plane ride, so we each ordered a set of fries. I ordered a large so I could share with Sandra and Owen. HUGE mistake. Kelvin and I each got an obscene amount of fries, especially me since I got a large. Kelvin got garlic fries, and his garlic fries has WAY too much garlic. Sandra and Owen’s meals were already decent sized, so they couldn’t help me with the fries. Kelvin and I should have shared a small. We had an obscene amount of leftovers we couldn’t keep. What a disaster.

The perspective of this picture is weird. It doesn’t look it,
but my plate of chili cheese fries is like twice the size of
Kelvin’s plate of garlic fries, which is like the size of my head.

When we got back to Sandra’s place, we showered and just hung out, playing Mario Kart Wii until bedtime. Sandra and Owen have a pretty cool apartment setup; lots of neato toys everywhere and art on the walls. It was really nice to finally hang out with Sandra on her home turf.

Around this time, I also gave Sandra her “mystery bag” from Taiwan. There’s this stationary store near my grandparents’ house that I always go to, and they sell these mystery bags, which are paper bags of leftover, unsold crap from their store. Last time I got her one, her bag had the worst crap in: cheap rusty skull rings, plastic pictures of mystery Chinese idols you’re supposed to carry in your wallet, and I don’t remember what else. This last trip to Taiwan, I bought her the most expensive goodie bag ($6USD!), and I got myself the cheapest one ($1USD!) for comparison. Surprisingly, my bag didn’t turn out as crappy as Sandra’s last bag. There’s actually usable stuff in it! I got a cheap cellphone trinket that’s filled with old water and beads, a “painted pen”, and, uh, bar code stickers! And three kinds of glue! (That’s right bitches… three.)

Sandra’s bag had some quality stuff… Naruto pencils (one needs to be sharpened and one is that crappy kind were it’s basically a FIFO of lead), Naruto pencil lead (which she can’t use in any of her Naruto pencils), Naruto highlighter, Naruto ruler, Naruto glue, and a Naruto pencil case to put all her Naruto junk in. She also got 3 pens that had nothing to do with Naruto.

You know what I just realized? I was just going through my stuff to remind myself what I got, and it turns out I stole Sandra’s Naruto glue when I was packing. Awww yeah, FOUR kinds of glue… (Sorry for stealing your glue, Sandra. I honestly don’t need it.)

After laughing at our prizes, it was about time for bed.

Next, Sean’s wedding!

New thing I learned today: Route 66 starts in Santa Monica, and the Cafe 50’s we went to is located on Route 66.

Because I didn’t arrange our engagement session sooner with our wedding photographer, FC Wong, he ended up being booked for several weekends straight until July. I wanted to take our engagement pictures before then, so I made an appointment with him on a Thursday. Kelvin had suggested Palace of Fine Arts (PFA) as a photo locale, and he also recommended we check out the Exploratorium while we were there. Well, if we’re going there anyway, why not take some pictures in there while we’re at it? FC was open to the idea, so I arranged to meet with him at 3PM in front of the Exploratorium on the chosen Thursday. Kelvin and I had to take days off from work, so we made sure to make a day of it.

We left early to get lunch in SF. I had my Shu Uemura makeover appointment at 1:30PM, so we just ate somewhere nearby in Pacific Heights. We ate at some random Japanese restaurant two doors down from Shu Uemura called Osaka. It was alright, nothing exceptional. After lunch, I got my makeover done early, and we headed off to the Exploratorium, pretty close to Pacific Heights.

We were 45 minutes early to the Exploratorium (we would have been even earlier if we didn’t accidentally get on the freeway instead of turning into the PFA parking lot), so we bought tickets and scouted out the museum. I had never been to the Exploratorium, so I was eager to check things out. The Exploratorium is a science museum where almost all the exhibits are interactive. I imagine there’s usually tons of kids, but because we were here on a weekday, there weren’t many people around. (The exception is the first Wednesdays of each month. Apparently, the Exploratorium has free admission on those days.) I wanted to look for interesting places to take pictures, but Kelvin and I didn’t make it very far, getting distracted with exhibits near the entrance.

In particular, there was this one table with a spinning disc, and you roll other discs onto the table to try and get them to keep rolling. It shouldn’t be that fascinating, yet we were enthralled.

We wasted so much time on the spinning table, we didn’t have time to scout any good spots to take photos. We met up with FC around 3ish out front, gave him an admission sticker, and we all went back to start the shoot. FC had never been there before despite taking lots of engagement sessions right outside at the Palace of Fine Arts. He had expressed initial concern about adequate environmental lighting in an indoors location, but from his first look, he could tell lighting was not an issue. He gave us a spiel about what to expect, which basically was he’d let us do our own thing and wouldn’t give explicit instructions unless he thought something might be neat or necessary.

Throughout the day, most of his instructions were to “act natural”, like talking to each other about whatever and playing with the exhibits. Every so often, he’d tell us to do something romantic, most likely something to do with kissing. Kelvin and I kissed a lot in the museum, occasionally freaking out a child passerby. (I didn’t hear exactly what one girl said, but I assumed she said “Mommy, they’re kissing!” because I heard her mom grumble in response, purposefully looking away from us, “Yes, they are… let’s keep going.”) Sometimes we’d pass by an exhibit, and FC would say, “Oh, we’ve got to get you in there.” If we were distracted by a non-photogenic exhibit, FC would either wander around looking for more spots to take pictures, or he himself would get distracted playing with random exhibits. FC seemed to really like the museum, and I think he liked the opportunity to take a pictures somewhere a little atypical. Here is a small sampling of what he took:

This tile wall is actually at the entrance to both the men’s and women’s bathroom, so
we’re making out in front of the bathroom as people are passing us so they can go do
their personal business. This tile wall is an optical illusion called the cafe wall illusion.
The lines in the tile are parallel!

This exhibit talks about effects of the mind, like even though the toilet water fountain
is as sanitary as any other water fountain, it’s harder for people to drink from it since it
looks grosser. Even though Kelvin is over a toilet, he looks so great in this picture,
doesn’t he? Kelvin grumbles about it, but even FC mentioned this was his favorite.

I should have taken my own picture of the entire exhibit, since FC is focused on making
good couple-y pictures, but this image is actually the head of a robot. The screen is
what it sees. So basically there’s this giant robot with lightening beams between its arms,
watching us make out. There was also a small crowd gathering around, either curious to
see what we were doing or irritated that we were hogging the exhibit.

In this exhibit, you try to figure out what things are by touching and feeling them. FC
made a ring shot out of it. Kelvin is caressing my hand; I’m caressing a light switch.

This is actually a giant screen with a simulated sky and ocean, with variables that can be
modified with a provided Xbox controller. We made the poor decision to try the “scary”
option before taking the picture, which created all these ugly super-high mountains in
the ocean. We had to wait for the peaks to fade before we could take a nice picture.
Also, the view shifts, and the moon would keep rotating out, so we had to wait for the
moon to show back up. I’m surprised how nice the background looks, because in person
it looks really pixelated and kind of ugly.

I think this exhibit, which was a giant plastic ball attached to a lense, demonstrated how
an eye functions. It didn’t look anywhere near this clear in person; to me it was really fuzzy
and pale looking. I don’t get how FC got this shot. Maybe I was looking through it wrong.

As the picture clearly shows, we’re sitting in some sort of sound booth with headphones on,
listening to some audio clips. What the picture doesn’t show is what we’re actually listening
to, which are audio clips of married couples arguing with each other. We didn’t realize what
the exhibit was about until we got in, put the headphones on, and read the display. I think the
goal was to figure out which couple is arguing in the most civil manner. I thought they all
sounded pretty pissed. Anyway, the audio was very unromantic and strangely (in)appropriate.

We didn’t get to see all the exhibits since we only had a couple hours until closing (5PM closing time is so early!), plus some of the exhibits were closed/broken. When the Exploratorium was about to close, it was time to go outside and do more standard engagement shots. Being outside sucked, as it was cold and windy, and my hair was flying all over the place. FC was concerned about the timing; he usually starts engagement sessions closer to sunset when the light is soft and flattering. At 5PM with an 8:30PM sunset, the sun is still high, and the light is harsh. Luckily, the area between the Exploratorium building and PFA structures had a lot of shade, with the light poking through the trees creating a soft light, so he was still able to take several pictures in not-as-harsh lighting conditions.

We call this “the stalker photo”.

Another thing FC had warned me about was that the PFA was currently under construction, and the dome thing had scaffolding all over it. I figured we’d still be able to find nice shots of other structures, and the PFA is near a lot of other places to take engagement pictures (Presidio, Golden Gate, Golden Gate Park, etc.). I wasn’t surprised of the scaffolding of the dome, but I was surprised some of the other structures were also surrounded by ugly metal fences and construction equipment. We still had some free columns to pose next to, thankfully.

Out of pictures FC picked for us, there were two taken with both harsh lighting and construction in the background, but I actually thought they were pretty nice. In fact, this one is one of my favorites:

I also took a picture of my own in harsh lighting and construction in the background, and I like that one too!

After circling around the PFA, FC felt it’d be nice to go to one more place, since the PFA was pretty limited. I thought he’d stop at this point, but I was happy he was up for one more locale. He suggested Baker Beach, which was pretty close to the PFA. If you don’t know Baker Beach, it’s the beach in SF west of the Golden Gate Bridge. Look at any Bay Area wedding photographer’s portfolio, and I can pretty much guarantee they all will have at least one picture from this beach. If there’s a couple walking/running/hugging/kissing on a beach with the Golden Gate in the background, that’s Baker Beach. I’ve never been to this beach before, and I was surprised there was actually a somewhat decent beach in Northern California that didn’t have bark and seaweed all over the place. It still had quite a bit a wood, but it was still pretty. The beach was real windy, and the water was still f*cking cold, of course.

We took the typical e-pic shots, and then FC wanted to try something with the rings. This involved us spending quite some time trying make handprints in the hard sand. I guess NorCal beaches still aren’t that nice after all. Eventually, we were able to make non-crappy handprints, but it was closer to the waves. FC then specially placed the rings for this cool shot:

Kelvin really likes that shot since you can see the tension setting of the ring in shadow. As FC took shots of this, Kelvin and I had to pay really close attention to the waves. If the waves hit the handprints, you’d be left with a very unhappy couple.

When we took our last picture at Baker Beach, it was already 7PM! I was so tired from the whole experience, but the whole thing was really fun! You can tell how much fun I had because I have an goofy grin on my face in so many of the pictures. FC was fantastic to work with. The last time I saw him was when we first met with him to talk about his portfolio and rates, and he was very nice then, but who knows if he was just giving a good first impression to lure us in? After the engagement shoot, I can say he really is a nice guy. (What a relief.) I never thought Kelvin and I would be comfortable being all smoochy-smoochy in front of somebody, but FC is strangely not-creepy like that. Aside from the locale, we gave him zero input on the shots. I liked his natural shots, but I’m also appreciative that he made sure to do more traditional pictures. FC gave us very little direction, which is in total contrast to the studio pictures we took, where every inch of our body was specifically placed and posed. The former’s method gives more natural and artistic (and not as corny) pictures, and it took me a little time to get used to looking at those kind of pictures, since I’m very self-conscious and don’t particularly like looking at my own pictures. (Damn my slouching, where is my mom when I need her to slap me on the back every five minutes? And my profile… I still hate my profile!) I got used to it though, and I think I may actually like how I look in them! Kelvin looks great in all the pictures, damn him *shakes fist* One thing I regret about the shoot is that I completely forgot to take a picture of FC… I had kept reminding myself earlier in the day to do so, but it didn’t happen :\ Anyway, FC has been great so far; I really look forward to doing the rehearsal dinner and wedding pictures with him!

And for reference, FC posted previews of our pictures in his blog the day after the shoot, and the gallery was done just 3 days later. Pretty quick. Prints can be purchased from the 30-day gallery. Getting the digital negatives for the engagement shoot cost extra from the actual shoot. However, they’re included with the digital negatives we’d get with for our wedding day, which for our package requires an album purchase. We probably won’t be buying any albums until after the wedding, and we’re tight on the monies right now, so I don’t know if we’re going to have any prints from this session for our wedding. I’m curious to see the unedited digital negatives, as FC said it’d include all the pictures taken. FC selected all the pictures in the gallery. Considering how Kelvin tends to look in pictures, I hesitate to think what some of the reject pictures look like…

Since this was a rare occasion where I was up in SF, I planned to meet up with Rodney for dinner in the city. After the shoot, there was an hour until dinner, so I just relaxed and enjoyed the beach atmosphere in the warm shelter of my car. I ventured out momentarily to take a couple of my own pictures before driving off to meet up with Rodney and his coworker friend Alice at a restaurant only a couple miles away.

Dinner was at Isa, a French tapas restaurant with TONS of Yelp ratings. I say it lives up to its ratings. All the plates are meant to be shared, and we had 9 different dishes plus 3 different desserts. It was all pretty delicious. I’m particularly partial to their steak dish and goat cheese dish. (Oh, that goat cheese is SO GOOD.) I also tried foie gras for the first time. I was scared it’d taste like those gross livers in Chinese dishes, but fatty liver is… fatty so it tasted okay. I’d still rather have my goat cheese. We also had one of the best waiters ever. He was very knowledgable and informative about the dishes, and he was friendly and cheerful without being fake or annoying. Too bad I don’t remember his name… how was I supposed to know the service would actually be good? At least, we tipped him pretty decent tho.

Because of Isa’s weird serving method (only one or two dishes served at a time), dinner was like 2.5 hours. When we got home to the South Bay, it was past 11PM, and I was exhausted. Man, what a day, but it was worth it. I got a bunch of nice pictures out of it, great food, fancy makeup, and I had a ton of fun all day. I need to go to the Exploratorium again sometime, but next time more playing with toys and less making out :P

New thing I learned today: The cafe wall illusion is given that name because the doctor who first described it saw it on a cafe wall in Bristol, England.

I tried to learn what causes the optical illusion, but I’m too tired/lazy right now.

I wanted to wear makeup for my engagement pictures, and my coloring/makeup skills are nonexistent, so I looked for makeup shops in or near the Marina District for makeovers. All the bridal makeup artists seem to like using MAC, so I initially looked for MAC shops. The closest MAC shop was a “pro” shop, so you had to pay $50 for a makeover instead of buy products. The second closest MAC shop, which was by Japantown, gave free makeovers for $50 purchase, so I made an appointment with them. But then I found out Shu Uemura was just down the block from them, and I heard good things about them from Kelvin’s sister, so I switched my appointment with them since they had the same minimum purchase requirement. (It’s $25 more if you want to get some of their famous fake lashes.) There aren’t many Shu Uemura standalone shops in the country, so I figured I might as well check out a “rare” retail store.

The store is located on the corner of Fillmore and Pine, a few blocks from the Sundance Kabuki movie theater. I came in after lunch, over half an hour early. The only people in the store were a few employees, as it was a slow, weekday afternoon. The store is incredibly crisp and sharp looking, with lots of white space, a weird makeup bar in the middle, and anime geishas on the wall. Two guys were hanging out in the front, and I mentioned to them I was early for an appointment. One of the guys was a black dude with a golf caddy hat named Nicky, and it turns out he was my makeup artist. He said he could start now and showed me to a seat by the makeup counter against the wall. Kelvin was also welcome to sit by the counter and wait, which I’m surprised he accepted since there were shops nearby and it was going to take a while.

Kelvin lounging around in Shu Uemura

Nicky got started with my makeup, beginning with the eyes, then did skin care, and finally cheeks and lips. Nicky is super, super nice. I never wear makeup, and I’m sure this was obvious to him, but I never felt he looked down on me or belittled me. Instead, he would explain every step he took to pretty up my face, telling me why he used certain products and giving out tips whenever he could. He has a very neutral (not quite monotone) voice that’s instructive and calming at the same time. He let me hold a mirror the entire time so I could observe what he was doing, insisting I try to get a good view of him working and not worry about blocking him because he can easily work around the mirror. He was great about answering any questions, and even though I’m totally ignorant about makeup, he never made me feel stupid or ugly. He also didn’t care how I spent my $50 minimum and never pushed expensive (of course, I mean relative to Shu Uemura stuff) products. I felt comfortable with him. Nicky is da bomb.

Nicky applying eye shadow

Shu Uemura products don’t have color names; everything has numbers. As a result, I don’t really remember what Nicky used on me. He decided my look for me, knowing I was dressed casually and was going to be photographed for engagement pictures. One of the two eye shadows he used he described as a “gunmetal” color, which I thought was awesome. My eyelashes were crimped with the eyelash curler that all the Yelpers rave about, and my lashes were mascara’d by some sort of gel mascara. Since I never use makeup and I’d be unlikely to buy foundation, he mixed foundations to get my exact skin tone instead of sticking to one color I might want to buy. I can’t remember the blush he used for my cheeks, but he kept it pretty light. For lips, he used copper/caramel-ish kind of color. About 50 minutes later, he finished, and my face was looking pretty good. I’m also sold on the quality of the makeup because it felt like I had nothing on. I was surprised at how light the foundation and concealer are. Kelvin complained that his face looks blotchy next to my finished face. I couldn’t stop looking at my face in the mirror. In fact, I was so enthralled with my makeup I forgot to take a picture. Oh well.

To cover my $50 minimum, Nicky recommended skin care since I don’t use makeup. He also suggested the lip products he used on me for touch-ups throughout the day. I went the latter route. The cleansing oil he recommended felt great, but they only had a large bottle which was $70+ bucks. Instead, I got the lipstick (Rouge Unlimited BG 951 - $23), the lip pencil (brown 718 - $18), and I like lip gloss, so Nicky recommended a Sweet Lip Gloss color for me (Rose Candy - $18). That’s a total of $59 + San Francisco tax. No, I can’t believe I spent $60+ on lip products for myself either. I can’t judge the products, as I haven’t used them yet (aside from lipstick touch-ups) and know diddly-squat about makeup (now that I think about it, I don’t even have a sharpener for the lip pencil!). The lipstick has real neat-o packaging tho; even Kelvin was intrigued by the clear casing.

The goods.

The makeup stayed on pretty well all day, with the exception of the lipstick (no surprise with all the smooching) and the mascara. I was having a lot of trouble with the mascara. It didn’t run or anything, but it kept coming off until my lower eyelid. I think every time I blinked, my Asian eyelids were causing my upper eyelashes to dump more mascara underneath my eye. I don’t know if my eyelashes needed to be dabbed or maybe Shu Uemura mascara just doesn’t like me. I tried to clean it off throughout the day, and I hoped I wouldn’t come out looking like a sad panda in my pictures. (I didn’t, yay.) It was too bad about the mascara, because everything else stayed on and felt natural all day. It was kind of depressing to wash off all the makeup that made my skin look flawless at the end of day and seeing my acne covered skin return.

My face 6 hours later with some mascara wiping and no lipstick touchup
in harsh sunlight, after running around in a museum and windy beach.

Anyway, if you want a makeover, I highly recommend Shu Uemura. I especially recommend getting a makeover with Nicky, because he is just so nice and easy to talk to. He’s been doing makeup for over 10 years, but he’ll be cool to you even if you’ve never seen mascara before. He’s also a freelance artist outside of Shu Uemura. I didn’t ask if he did bridal, but I figured he’d probably be outside my price range anyway with travel fees from San Francisco. You can check out his webpage at nickyposley.com.

New thing I learned today: Shu Uemura’s Rouge Unlimited lipstick casing is designed by Calvin Tsao, a New York architect who graduated Harvard.