Rain + Umami Burger

Las Vegas is ridiculously notorious for its sweltering summers. As a resident of this city, I advise everyone not to step out of their house when the temperatures reach triple digits! However, if there is one thing that will surprise us Las Vegans (or Hendersonians, depending on where you live), it is rain. Rain is such a foreign blessing in this damn dessert that even a little downpour will surprise us. This past Friday, we had ourselves a storm that not only left my car a dirty mess but gave us some damn awesome cloud formations.

My family and I had reservations at SLS's Umami Burger and right before we left it finally began to pour. Beforehand, I took some pictures from my bedroom window of what the clouds and atmosphere had looked. 

As a visual artist, I completely fell in love with the sky's color palette. Gray, Pink, and a hint of Beige strangely make a comforting combination. 

After we left our house the rain decided to finally pour, and it poured. Hard. I tried my best to capture some of the lightning strikes in the vicinity, but I'm not that experienced as a photographer, hehe. So instead of lightning shots, enjoy these prolonged exposure shots. 

 

I should start shooting more pictures like these. They all remind me of some sort of Indie Emo Band album covers. 

 I don't know what happened I think I moved or something. That could also be the album title for this. 

In a city that seriously never sleeps, the rain makes everything look prettier.

One thing I really like about the SLS is the LED floor that greets you when you walk in. I pretended to be a pop star walking down their stage. Huhuhuhu. 

Umami! The first time I actually ate at Umami was I think a year ago? I don't think it really counts though, I was up at LAX waiting for my flight. When it opened here, I knew I had to try again. 

Umami is a sports/gaming bar, so it's only appropriate for the decoration to be, well, sporty!

 Stalker shot of this group of friends. It was quite funny, when their food was brought out they all had their cellphones at the ready. I thought they'd go and just take pictures of their meal but nooo, they actually held the plate of food to their face and took selfies with it. Creative points to them. 

The Menu. I ordered the Truffle Burger. 

I thought that it was extremely charming to see that they serve their soda in the respective bottles. I'm a big fan of bottles, lol. 

 For starters, we ordered Truffle Fries, Beet Salad, and a Pickled Plate. Truffle Fries and Beet Salad, to die for. Pickled Plate, well the pickles were good, as was the mushroom; however, the carrots on the upper right tasted like sad. Yep. If sadness was a taste, it would taste like those carrots. 

I love myself some onion rings, but do I love biting into an onion ring and not tasting anything? Not really. I was really disappointed! The onion rings looked so good but tasted so bland! Luckily though, Umami makes their own ketchup and that tasted absolutely wonderful. Dipping the onion ring in it made up for the lost flavor. 

My burger. I was too hungry to take a picture of my sister's and my parents' burgers, lol. Overall, the truffle burger was good! It was what I had up at LAX, so nothing too new. 

Out of five Syd Stars, I'd give this place a Three and a Half. To be quite frank, there is this huuuge hype about Umami Burger that I don't quite get. I love the place, it is very good, but like my sister, we'd rather eat at the one in LA as opposed to the one here. It's very different, if you've eaten at the original. I would come back though! 

I love the giant blob creature up front.

I also, really, really love the glowing plastic sofas they have in the Valet section. 

Thanks for reading, stay tuned for the next posts!

.x

Morning Coffee

I feel as if the older I get, the harder it is for me to hang out with close friends. Busy schedules, school, all that stuff kind of get in the way of hanging out, but hey that's life. I do love though, whenever we have that one day where we can all meet up and chill out, even if it is only for a few hours. Luckily today was a wonderful opportunity to hang out with my two favorite weirdos, Tiffanie and Nikki. Remember them from the San Francisco blogs?

A few hours ago we met up for morning coffee; or in Tiff's case, her morning tea latte at probably our new favorite coffee shop, Sunrise Coffeehouse. I've constantly heard about this place through my friends but never really had the time to go. So when this hang out came to be, it worked out!! 

I was expecting the place to be a far drive but in actuality it really isn't. I was a bit shocked though because where Sunrise Coffee is located, I've never actually seen that area! I loved how right behind them is a paintball arena. Diverse surroundings are always a must. 

I love how right where you order your drinks, they have a selection of Hario made coffee contraptions. Also, it's pretty awesome how you could buy some of the coffee beans they have, and they give you the option to have them grounded. I'm just not sure how much they are. 

I ordered a Mocha Latte while Nikki had herself a French Vanilla one. Excuse the crudeness of this shot, lol. 

We

 

We spent the majority of our time catching up with each other. Somehow the conversation went from "Oh I absolutely hate the parking at UNLV" to "Yeah this person asked me if I've ever been in love" to "Same person asked me what car I liked?". For the most part, it was Nikki brightening up our morning with her stories. :) 

The weather in the morning was perfect, but when we left a little before 12, this massive heatwave just came out of nowhere. No bueno. September, you're supposed to be cool and breezy, not dry and blazing. 

Until next time Sunrise Coffee! Thanks for having us! 

and thank you for reading! 

.x

University Days

Like I said in the post before this, I promised a post about school. This post covers the first two days of my weekly schedule. I figured that if I even tried to fit in all five days, then this post would go on forever, lol. University life has been pretty good to me, I'm glad that all my classes are in the same building and that I don't have to walk across campus just to get to the next room. As a Freshman, I'm taking five classes, spaced out Monday through Friday. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have my Design and Drawing class, while on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have Sociology and English. As for Friday, I have my first year seminar class.

MONDAY

My Mondays are pretty relaxing. My art classes take up the entire day, so that's basically back to back two and a half hour classes of drawing/designing/art-ing. Before school however, I pick Nikki up from her place and we carpool together. Having someone in the car with you for a 30 to 45 minute drive is awesome. We usually catch up with each other about the weekend, things we did and stuff. Nikki's also my navigator so if ever I get lost she's on Google Maps trying to figure out the way, LOL. 

We usually go forth and sit on a bench that isn't too far from my classroom. It's situated nicely in the shade, so we deemed it our "spot" where later on, we meet with Sara. UNLV's campus itself is pretty big, so it's always fun people watching while sitting down sipping coffee. The diversity in the campus is probably one of my favorite things about the school. 

Oxfords for me, Wedges for Nikki. 

It's always nice seeing sculptures from the Art Department. 

Nikki brought her camera on Monday as well, you can read her blog post right over here

I really do love the Fine Arts building. Not only is the gallery there that we can freely walk into, but the building itself and the rooms have so much character in them. I didn't get to take photos inside my first art class since we got straight to work and I didn't wanna make a scene with such a large camera. 

My second art class though, I was able to go and take photos. I'm in love with the fact that our class has these huge windows up top, it lets in natural light so that's pretty awesome. 

My assignment was to draw a screw driver. Was it fun? No, lol. 

We had critiques to do, so these horses were turned on their back and such. I would have honestly much rather drawn that plant instead of my screwdriver. 

After this class ended, I had a study session with Nikki and Sara at Sara's place, so we met her at her house first. Long story short, we got hungry and drove to Chinatown for some Korean Barbecue. KBBQ is the answer to all the questions in life. 

Sara recently got her license so she drove us to KBBQ! Notice anything similar? Sara and I actually drive the same exact car, just different interior colors. Hers is that light milk tea color, while mine is a chocolate. Hah, using beverages to describe beige and brown. How artsy of me, lol. 

I'm pretty positive the servers at Korean Garden BBQ know us already. We're here way too often. 

TUESDAY

On Tuesday I've got a little bit of leg room for time, since my class doesn't start until 10:30. Nikki, Sara, and I are usually at campus by 9:30 and we hang out at that bench of ours. The thing about University I absolutely and wholeheartedly detest the most is the parking. At UNLV there's I think 3 parking lots, and I park at Cottage Grove which is the closest parking structure for me to get to. After 9:30, the parking immediately gets full! To all those kids going to college next year, good luck with parking. 

From my instagram. (follow it! @happy_evil) This is the bench Nikki and I sit on. 

My first class is Sociology, but with the amount of kids in that class I can't just whip out my camera, so enjoy these iPhone pictures. 

Notes on Sub-Culture and Counter Culture. 

There's roughly 50 something kids in my class. I really like Sociology so far! The professor is extremely nice and very relatable. We watched videos on Vampires and Superheroes! 

After my Sociology class I have an hour and a half lunch break. I usually head towards Lied Library and hang out there with my friends. One thing I love about University also, is the fact that we're able to eat in the library. Back in High School, that was a big no-no. 

The exterior of the five story library is pretty sleek in design. I love it!

Esther and her grilled mushrooms, that of which she shared with me for lunch. Thank you Esther!

With how big this library is, it's kind of funny how I've never quite ventured all the way to the 5th floor. I've stayed in the 2nd floor with my lunch buddies since the first week of school. 

After that hour and a half, my last class of the day is English which isn't far of a walk from Lied Library. 

My classroom is right up at that building you see with the blue and red. 

My English class is technically a creative writing class, but instead they changed it into an English class MADE for the Fine Arts Department. I guess they wanted it to sound fancier? I love this class to be honest. We're watching futuristic/dystopian movies to help us with our essays. 

Case in point, we watched I, Robot. 

One of the highlights of walking back to the parking lot and driving home. I get this pretty awesome view of the Las Vegas Strip. It's pretty awesome how the life of Las Vegas isn't that far from my school.

Thanks for reading!

.x