a few new discoveries | a day in the life

___Tuesday May 19, 2015

Because I was feeling adventurous, I took a spontaneous trip to one of my neighborhood towns, Bergenfield. It is also known as "Little Manila" of Bergen County, so I was looking forward to trying out some delicious Filipino baked goods and food. 

The first stop was Sona Beauty Salon, located in [65 S Washington Ave, Bergenfield, NJ 07621] to have my hairy eyebrows threaded. I found Sona through Yelp, and despite having just four reviews, people seemed to like their service. I have actually never done threading before, but have always been curious. After making up my mind about threading I watched the Buzzfeed video 'People Try Threading for the First Time' so that I won't be too surprised; nevertheless, the whole experience was still beyond my expectation. 

As I leaned back in my seat, Sona started by powdering my eyebrows with a soft brush. Sona and I briefly discussed on my eyebrow shape and I said I'd like to follow my natural brow shapes: not too thin or arched. I also asked her if the fine hair around my upper lips can be removed by threading and she said yes! She cut a long length of red thread and started to pluck hairs on the upper eyebrows. At first, the sensation and sound of the treading motion made me feel like my brows are shaved rather than plucked. But having seen my brows left poreless clean afterwards, I agreed that they are indeed plucked. 

Before (left eye)

After (right eye)

Horrible iPhone quality, but hopefully you can see the difference.

If I were to rate the pain on a scale of 0 to 10 (a habit I picked on from Baymax), those upper eyebrows were 1. These areas won't hurt at all if you're already used to plucking with tweezers. The lower brow areas were a bit uncomfortable but not intolerable either: 3. The most painful area personally was the upper lips, which is understandable because they are one of the finest hairs on my face. Though it was quite painful, perhaps a scale of 5, I don't regret it. I couldn't dare pluck them myself with tweezers and I've experienced a minor burn before using a hair removal cream. Sona finished the whole process by gently trimming a bit of eyebrow hair at the end.  

I walked in at 5:30PM, waited 5 minutes and got out at 5:50PM. For both eyebrows and upper lips, I paid $10 (not including tip). My eyebrows are "on fleek" indeed, the results were a way better than any other hair removal methods I've tried (waxing, cream, tweezer), I can't believe I just discovered this marvelous world of threading for the first time in my life. Bye bye ingrown hair! Bye bye burns! Sona recommended retouching the brows every two weeks, so we'll see how it goes.

*TIP: Do wash your face afterwards, you might be surprised to see how much leftover hairs are on the face. Also, apply some aloe gel on the area where it's threaded in order to soothe the skin.

Anyhow, because the weather was unusually hot today, I briefly stopped at Red Ribbons to get mango Halo Halo, a popular Filipino shaved ice dessert. I also picked Ube Mamon, purple yam chiffon cake. I was disappointed that they were both too sweet for my liking. 

Then I walked past Bergenfield Cinema, saw that not only are they playing Mad Max: Fury Road, but also have Super Tuesday deal, where all movies are $6 on Tuesdays. Got the 7:45 ticket and realized there's about 1 hour left. I decided to chill some time by having a Filipino dinner at Bamboo Grill.

At Bamboo Grill, I ordered Lechon Kawali which is deep fried pork belly. I really enjoyed their free self serving Bulalo soup, which is just beef broth soup with cabbages. It surprisingly reminded me of muguk, Korean beef radish soup. However the actual entree was unimpressive. The meat was too solid, almost like rock-- making it too difficult to chew. The liver sauce was exotic, complemented the pork but wasn't great enough to fall in love with the food. The last thing I wanted to add is how pricy their food is. Their menu on Yelp is not updated because everything on the real menu was priced at least $5 more. Lechon Kawali was $17.95 instead of $12.95, and Kare-Kare was $21.95 instead of $14.95 on yelp. I was even more shocked that their halo halo, was priced at $9.

Leaving my disappointment at Bamboo Grill behind, I was excited for tonight's movie: Mad Max. I'm a big fan of Tom Hardy and I was excited to see Nicholas Hoult as well because his other movie Warm Bodies was very memorable. A new discovery was definitely Charlize Theron though. I didn't know a human being can be this beautiful in freckled, sun exposed skin, shaved head, ragged clothes, and black automotive grease. The epic soundtracks, the long-take road scenes, the real sweat from the actors, the visual effect, and the core message-- "Where must we go, we who wander this wasteland in search of better selves"-- EVERYTHING was such beautifully filmed within 2 hours and there wasn't a single moment that I felt bored. You'll feel like you're playing an intense video game while watching this. It was truly the most mad, crazy, shocking action movie I've ever seen.

** a couple of "symbols" that lingered in my head: Chastity belt, Washing blood with mother's milk, The seeds from Greenland.

By the time the movie ended, it was already 10pm and it was time to go home. It was a lovely evening excursion (though a bit exhausting) and I was glad that I picked up a few new discoveries.