"Do you remember the last time we were in the World Trade Center?"

"Yes, in 1994."

"We walked on the ground level with all the little shops in it and going out the other end of the WTC onto the street level. We were walking all around there to go to Wall Street, 21st Century outlet and to the McDonald's with the grand piano in it."

Who knows when we'll be able to do that again in our lifetime.

:::

Amidst the chaos of yesterday's tragedy , I got out of the house and went with my friend AH to the bridal studio along with her sister, PR Chick, and friend CC. AH is getting married next month up in the Bay Area and I offered to tag along to keep them company or actually, they were kind enough to let me tag along with them.

I haven't seen AH in many years, even though we live only mere streets away from one another and have communicated via phone and email throughout this time. We also go to the same gym but have never run into one another (which tells you that one of us doesn't go to the gym much - haha). It was finally nice to get together again live in 3-D to talk and laugh, just like old times.

Inside the bridal studio, one would never have imagined that today was a day of horrific proportions. Perhaps people like to preserve a dreamy atmosphere in bridal salons but these people acted as if nothing happened in NYC and DC. I guess they wanted to keep the soon-to-be-brides happy and chipper. Sure, there's a business to run and customers to please but at least be a bit apathetic to the situation today. People there just acted as if nothing happened.

But I did get to see AH try on her new dress and she looked wonderful in it. Don't all brides look lovely in their gown? I'm excited to see her get married, it's something one wishes on all of their friends - for them to find a certain someone to spend the rest of their life with. It's always nice to see people so happy before their big day.

The freeways today were not jam packed with cars as it usually is during peak rush hours. We hit a few troubled spots but for the most part, we glided to and fro. The air was thick and the skies were not clear. It was extemely hazy and uncomfortable being out today. It's as if the debris from the WTC floated Westward into the air. The events of today hung errily over everyone in this country, affecting those at the farthest corners of this nation. But how we feel cannot even come close to what those in NYC is going through at this moment.

Meanwhile we try to take our minds off things at Tea Station. Nothing quite like Boba to the rescue.

More later today. Check back.

:::

11:00pm: I didn't have much else to write about today since I've been glued to the tv and my September issue of Vogue but around 6:30pm, my friend A called me and asked if we wanted to have dinner with him and his friends in Jtown. Speaking of A...

Happy Birthday! :)

Since the birthday boy asked us to come out, we really couldn't say no to him. :) He originally had plans but something came up and in turn enlisted all of us to help him celebrate his birthday again. It turned out to be a night of 6 guys and me. Which is fine since I'm pretty much a guy around most of them - we talked about girls, porn, bad words and other lewd things. Fun.

We had dinner tonight at Yoro No Taki - an izakaya in Little Tokyo. I've passed by there on numerous occasions and had gone there a few times to find it closed. So I was very happy to go there tonight and actually eat there. For those of you in the LA area, it's in the Honda Plaza right near Sushi Gen on 2nd Street. Since it was an izakaya, the natural thing to do is to drink. Beer was on the menu tonight and we had about no less than 10 pitchers I think. I drank alot of Coke though as to not indulge in the alcohol but it wasn't quite the same since part of the fun is eating all those good dishes with a beer, sake or chuhai in hand.

We had dishes of grilled chicken, beef and pork on skewers, grilled pike, chazuke, grilled squid, gyuniku tataki, slice raw mackerel, various sliced sashimi and tons of other small dishes to complement the beer. Too bad it was a weeknight though as we couldn't stay out later and chat longer. We got a whole room to ourselves but I'm sure the whole restaurant heard us as we were getting rather loud and I'm sure extremely irritating. I certainly didn't expect to sit on the tatami mats tonight and was chastising myself the whole night for wearing jeans. And of course, I forgot my digicam too. Damn.

Next time, I'm sure I'll snap some pics and have more to describe to you all. As for now I'm getting tired and really sleepy.....and I'm sure it's the beer talking.

Yoro No Taki
432 E. 2nd St
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 626-6055

Goodnight.

I'm out.