I Went to a Strip Club

Sorry for not blogging for such a long time. Just that I was away and doing stuff and PC dying and then more stuff to do. I believe with things more settled now, I will have more time to blog.

Now that I have gotten your attention, I DID GO TO A STRIP CLUB. It’s a women’s only club (with men stripping) called La Bare. Yes yes, the men there are hot with nice body and no no they are not gay (we asked).

It was one Thursday evening and the girls (5 of us) had dinner together before calling for a cab to take us to La Bare. The taxi driver (who said he’s half French) asked us why do we want to go there and we said to see men perform.

Once there we picked our seats in front of the stage and enjoyed the show while sipping on champagne. Each stripper, I mean performer, came out in a uniform. There was a fireman, a pilot, a cowboy, a singer I think and I don’t really remember the rest. They will then dance and eventually strip. They don’t go fully naked, they have their speedos on.

The ladies who are watching can walk up, have a little dance with the performer and then tip him. Tip has to be put into their underwear ;-P

We laughed alot that night. It was funny seeing the performers dancing in suggestive manners and it was more funny when you see cougars paying for private dances by the side. Each private dance is $25 for about 10 minutes. You pick one performer and he will take you to a booth at the corner and give you a private lap dance. You can only touch his body and not his privates.

No, I didn’t have a private dance, I didn’t have the guts to do it but a friend of mine did it. Actually it wasn’t her fault, we paid and tricked her. She enjoyed it though.

Our waiter for the night was a bald, horny, short guy. When we paid our bill he asked us to slip the money into his pants. My friend asked him if he wore underwear and he said no and he immediately unzipped his pants to show us his hairy bush. Thank god we didn’t see his private, it will be yukky.

So who do we like most? Check them out here. We liked

1) Chandler - he came out as a fireman. He is quite good looking and has a nice body but he has since retired.

2) Tyler – The CowBoy. His thighs are as thick as my waist.

3) Tha One – he’s funny. I think he has the longest private of all because he loves to open his legs wide and swing it back and forth. His action makes us laugh alot.

I know we were suppose to enjoy the show but everything seems very funny. It was an experience and all 5 of us had a great night. 2 of my friends went back again a few weeks ago because their husbands were out of town. Now the rest of us are jealous and are scheming something when our husbands will be away come Dec. ;-p

*This post is dedicated to Su. Hope it cheers up your stressful days at work.

 

Some Culture in Houston

Adam and I have decided that we should embrace what Houston has to offer and enjoy what we have before we leave. Since Houston has a great concentration of museums and one of the best theater disrict in the US (2nd to Broadway), we have decided that we will do something cultural more often, at least once a month.

At the Theater District, we are now members of the Houston Grand Opera (have been to 2 operas), Houston Symphony (seen Yo Yo Ma perform) and Houston Ballet (yet to go for one).

As for the Museum District, I plan to go to at least one museum a month (have been to the Museum of Natural Science twice, Museum of Contemporary Arts and the Museum of Fine Arts) and one evening at the art galleries a month. The Schlumberger Spouses Association (SSA) plans visits to the museums and art galleries and Adam will definately join us at the evening events.

Last Thursday, Adam and I with 2 other friends went to the Museum of Fine Arts to see their special exhibition, the Masterpieces of French Paintings from 1800 to 1920. These paintings are loans from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Met) which is currently under renovation. Those of you who has been to Met knows that it has one of the finest French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection outside of Europe. Houston is the only city in the US to have this collection for 3 months and will then be moved to Berlin for another 3 months before they get to go home to Met.

Among the paintings in the exhibition are three canvases each by van Gogh, Matisse, and Picasso; four each by Ingres and Bonnard; six Renoirs; eight by Degas, nine works each by Cézanne and Manet, and ten each by Corot, Courbet, and Monet.

I was never an expert when it comes to art, though I have heard of the names of some artists featured I have never seen their actual work. The tour was really good, everyone gets an individual earpiece for a personal audio tour. The audio earpiece helps alot, they have very good explanation of the art work and the artist. Just brilliant!

As I walked into the exhibition hall, some art does look really normal but there are many which are really very good and it makes me go ‘Wow… Now I know why this person is so famous’

Some of my favourite pieces at the show are

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch), 1853-1890

Cypresses 1889

Oil on canvas

It looks pretty mediocre here but the real thing is fabulous. You can see each brush stroke so clearly. This is a WOW painting to me

Georges-Pierre Seurat (French), 1859-1891

Study for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" 1884-85

Oil on canvas

This is another awesome piece. The painting looks really blury and that’s the whole concept of this piece, it’s made up coloured dots to form an object which seems so perfectly done at the actual piece. This painting is Seurat’s most famous work and is widely considered to be one of the most remarkable paintings of the 19th century

Jules Bastien-Lepage (French), 1848-1884

Joan of Arc 1879

Oil on canvas

I love this piece because the longer you look at it, you find more intricate details on it.

Joan of Arc in this piece was so well painted that it does not look like a painting, it looks like a photo taken of her, yes that’s how real she looks!

I enjoyed this exhibition alot. I wished I had more time to read about each painting (we were there an hour before the museum closes) Some paintings are actually leaving Met for the first time and most likely the last. I will definately go back again (maybe next week) before this show leaves Houston for good.

 

The Tale of Cinderella

All of us grew up with fairy tales like Cinderella. It is arguably one of the oldest and most widely distributed folk tales in the world. Did you know that there are more than 500 versions of the story in Europe alone? The story of Cinderella actually goes back into Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese story telling long before it hit the European continent!

Why the sudden fascination? Adam and I went for Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Cinderella) opera performance at the Houston Grand Opera on Wednesday. These facts are part of the pre-show lecture.

La Cenerentola is part comical and rather than a fairy godmother there’s a court philospher who is also a tutor to the Prince. There isn’t a wicked step mother but a wicked step father instead. Also, no glass slippers but there’s a pair of diamond bracelet (the prince have to find the girl with the matching bracelet). The show was excellent! We were just 7 rows from the stage and the orchestra. We saw much more than we did when we had our first operatic experience 2 weeks back (then we bought the cheapest ticket, it cost $55 each and the story of Faust was boring)

Scholars point out that there are 3 diferent strands of this story from the colleaction of Cinderella tales found around the world.

1) Girl’s father remarries a wicked woman and the girl is made the maid of the household
2) A king wants his 3 daughters to say how much they love him but the youngest daughter gave him an answer he didn’t like, so she was thrown out of the kingdom
3) A king desires his daughter and she runs away to a neighbouring kingdom for safety (an incest variant which is kinda sick)

The Cinderella tale we know has a fairy godmother, a midnight warning and a pair if glass slippers. These elements were only added into the original story in the 17th century in France. And the singing mice? It’s only in the Disney version.

In the Chinese version, and old man and a magical carp came to Cinderella’s aid rather than a fairy godmother, while in other European versions of Cinderella, there’s the fairy godmother, a good godmother and even the ghost of her mother giving Cinderella advices or magical help.

What about the Prince having to find Cinderella with her small feet and she has to fit into the tiny glass slippers? Europeans never have small feet, so experts believe that part of the story came from the Chinese version where in China they perform foot binding and the lotus foot is originated.

Also, glass slippers sounds very uncomfortable. Why glass? It’s believed that Cinderella had fur slippers but one day a translator of the script made a wrong stroke of the pen and instead of writing de vair (for fur) he wrote de verre (for glass).

Interesting isn’t it? I didn’t know much about Cinderella until now. Operas can very entertaining but if the song’s are boring or the storyline is slow, you will find yourself yawning halfway through it. I am looking forward to our next opera performance in April, Verdi’s Aida. This is supposed to be very good.

 

Asian Festival

Over the weekend when everyone in Malaysia was busy with the Deepa-Raya celebrations, rushing to balik kampung or getting ready for a vacation, here in Houston was the 27th Asian American Festival.

This is an annual event that celebrates all Asian cultures in Houston and is held at Hermann Park (only minutes away from my apartment). This celebration showcases the dance, martial arts, puppetry, music, folk art and cuisine of the different culture and is free to everyone.

It was a lovely Sunday, 16C and sunny. Adam and I decided that we should go to the park, enjoy the celebration in that beautiful weather and have a little picnic. What’s in our picnic bag? I made bacon, egg and sausage sandwiches to fill our tummies and a flask of hot tea, a flask of cold water, a small bottle of grapefruit juice and a bottle of wine to quench our thirst. YUM!

Smiling with a full tummy, though not a very good shot.

When we got there, the place was packed! Packed with Asians! I have not seen such a great concentration of Asians in one venue in Houston until now. There were 3 performing stages, one each for martial arts, dance and music.

We got there just on time for Shaolin Kung Fu presented by the Houston Songshan Shaolin Temple. It was amazing how some kids at the age of 4 can do so much! Also, it wasn’t only Chinese who does kung fu, there were a few white and black kids too. Adam and I were amazed by their performance, they were so flexible and agile.

Also, whenever there’s something to do with kung fu, there will be Wong Fei Hung music. This time is no different and it brought back memories of Malaysia. You know how every Chinese New Year, the tv stations will never miss a chance to broadcast one Jet-Li movie? Ahh… the sweet memories of CNY, spending time with my family with alot of food and drinks (alcoholic) and meeting friends and eating even more. Card games, mah jong, mandarin oranges, kuaci, meat floss, BBQ meat (pork yuk kon), loh sang and booze… such great memories.

We kinda have had enough of kung fu after an hour, so we walked to the other side of the park to enjoy some dance performance. We watch an Indian classical dance which was awesome. The beautiful costumes and accessories and the graceful movements.

After that was a dance session called Pride of the Pacific, Hawaii. The aboriginal culture of Hawaii is Polynesian, which is why here they are somewhat classified as Asian. The audience were presented with some dances and songs.

Not a very clear photo of some kids doing a Hawaiian dance.

One of the performance which I really enjoyed was the Kaminari Taiko. Taiko means drum in Japanese. The group of Japanese (and some Americans) had a good performance, strong beats on the drums which exert some powerful energy in their performance – just brilliant.

Kaminari Taiko performance

When Taiko was over, it was close to 6pm and we wanted to leave. Though the celebration ends at 8.30pm we decided not to stay as the temperature was getting colder. It was a great way to spend Sunday, especially in such cool Fall weather.

 

Saturday Night Birthday Party

I had a fun and educational Friday night, though I can’t say the same about my Saturday night, I mean it was definately fun (with alot of drinks, food, crazy dancing and rubbish singing – loud too!) but educational? Erm, maybe not…

A bunch of us got together at Ali’s loft (very tastefully decorated) to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Hector’s the birthday boy (I can’t reveal his age…but still young)

Hector got 2 birthday cakes and 2 birthday songs – one is the normal English birthday song all of us get and another in Spanish.

Some photos from the night – not difficult to tell when people starts to get drunk.

Sandra, Hector, Adam and Ali (they met while working in KL and each of them eventually got transfered to Houston and somewhat reunited)

Horatio, Raul, Diana, Sandra, Hector, Tessy, Adam & Ali

Here’s everyone with country of origin – Raul (Colombia), Adam (England), me (Malaysia), Diana (Mexico), Hector (Mexico), Tessy (Mexico), Sandra (Colombia), Joanne (Iran), Horatio (Colombia), & Ali (Iran)

There was an after party at midnight. All of us headed to The Red Door, which is about 5 mins walk from the apartment.

Red Door is a 2-storey club. The top floor is a penthouse-like spacious patio with a panoramic view of Downtown Houston. It was crowded and being on the patio on a humid summer evening wasn’t a good idea but all. Everyone was sweaty and sticky, but all had fun nonetheless. (Sorry, no photos)

 

Party with Dinosaurs

Venue: Museum of Natural Science

Time: 6.00pm – 11.00pm

Dates: Every Friday Night in Summer

This is a Friday night summer social organised for people to experience the museum in the different way altogether, with live band, bars (alcoholic!) throughout the ground floor of the museum and simple food stations (serving hotdogs and crisps).

The live band is smacked right in the middle of the Paleontology Hall. People drink and dance around the dinosaur fossils. It’s really fun!

We had a drink around the dinosaurs (I was pretty sure the dinosaurs were salivating over our drinks) and then moved to the Weiss Energy Hall. I was there with Adam and 5 other friends (mostly Petroluem Engineers). We walked around the oil and energy halls with our drinks, stopping for some food once in awhile and have the engineers explain what each equipment does and the processes involved in oil production in layman’s term – fun and informative.

After several drinks and having had enough of the exhibition halls, we went for an Imax movie – Mystery of the Maya. Imax pictures are huge and you feel like you are part of the movie – really amazing. I totally enjoyed the short film and the beauty of the Mayan temples. Obviously after that I told Adam I want to go to Mexico (next year Darling, next year…).

It was a fun Friday night indeed. That was the last party at the museum this summer, lets see what they have to offer in fall.

 

Lonely… Not Bored

Adam left for Doha, Qatar Saturday noon, he’ll be away for about a week. That means I will be spending the weekend without him – yes, it’s going to be a lonely weekend but that does not mean it’ll be a boring one!

Saturday evening – Jazz Tribute to Billie Holiday @ Miller Outdoor Theater

Sandra, Ali and I decided that we want to do something together Sat night. What better way to start the evening than a free jazz concert?

We arrived at Miller a little after 8pm and got a spot by the lawn. We brought with us some red wine, beer, bottled water, soft drinks, cheeses, carrots and grape leaves wrap (very yummy appertizer by the way).

Cheers!

We had a fun time chatting and drinking on the lawn while enjoying songs of Billie Holiday. Another friend of ours, Sue, joined us abit later.

Saturday night – Planeta Bar Rio

Concert ended and Sandra suggested an after-party. We went to Planeta Bar Rio. This is a chain of clubs – currently only 3 of them (Monterrey, San Antonio and Houston) focusing on Latino acts.

When we got there, there was a very long queue of people trying to get into the club. We were told the club is worth queuing up for. We got in line and in no time at all we got in. There was the usual ID check and we paid a $10 cover charge.

This is a huge club! At least 85% of patrons are Latin Americans. They have a good live-band. 2 black guys performed in Spanish and they were good! I was told that they are really famous in South America (I don’t remember their names though)

Partied til 1.30 am, had taco for supper at a Mexican joint and headed home.

Sunday noon – All-Latino Concert @ Pasadena

I met Sandra at her apartment and we took a 45 mins drive to Pasadena to meet her friends, Leo and Iliana, whom we are going to the concert with. This concert, to my surprise, is free!

The concert starts at 1pm and ends at midnight with performances from a long list of Latin American artists (we were there to see Fonseca and Julieta Venegas).

It was a freaking hot day. We got there at 3pm and the heat was just horrendous. Each of us had a Colombian hat, which did some shielding work.

Sandra, Leo and Iliana

After 2 hours under the sun (temperature was 35C) and an enjoyable performance by Fonseca and Julieta Venegas, we decided it’s time to leave, but not before the Colombians take another photo.

The Colombians (Iliana is Mexican, I am Malaysian but Sandra insisted)

Oh! When we were about to leave, the black guys who performed at Planeta Bar Rio the night before, was performing! I am now convinced they are really famous in Latin America based on the crowd’s response when they got on stage.

It was indeed a fun weekend but how I wished Adam was there with us. Am looking forward to having Adam home Thursday evening.

 

Tax Free Shopping Weekend

Today (Friday) through Sunday is Tax-Free Weekend Shopping - but it’s only for clothes and shoes priced at $100 and below.

Here’s the list of tax-free items

• Most clothing and footwear
• Athletic wear, such as baseball or football jerseys, ball caps and tennis shoes or sneakers
• Accessories such as belts, hosiery, socks and neckties
• Underclothes and pajamas
• Cowboy boots and hiking boots
• Coats and jackets
• Gym suits and sweats
• Work clothes and uniforms
• Baby clothes and diapers

Here’s a list of taxed items:

• Clothing and footwear meant for athletic use, for example, football padding or cleated shoes.
• Accessories such as barrettes, jewelry and watches.
• Items that are carried rather than worn, such as handbags, briefcases or wallets.
• Backpacks
• Safety clothing and glasses
• Hard hats and helmets
• Recreational boots, such as those used for climbing, fishing or skiing
• Belt buckles

Wanna guess what I’ll be doing this weekend?

 

Movie Date

Adam and I went on a date to the movies last night.

My 1st cinema experience in the US! Actually, this is my 2nd – the 1st time was at City Walk at Universal Studio in Orlando. The morning I arrived at Orlando, a friend and I went to Universal Studio. After the fun at Universal Studio we decided to catch a movie before heading back to our hotel. We watched The Last Samurai. I fell asleep 20 minutes into the movie! I was tired from the entire flight, the energy spent at Universal Studio and was jet-lagged =P

Anyhow, my 1st time at the cinema in Houston. Adam and I watched Cars. Yeah, it has been out for awhile now. We have always wanted to catch the movie but have never gotten around doing it.

Ticket costs $8 if you purchase it from the box-office at the cinema. If you want to make a booking online, it cost $9.25 (add $1 of Convenient Fee – yes, that’s really what it’s called). I made my bookings online.

The cinema we went to looks really nice and big! It has 20 halls. Auditorium 1 is on ground level with 10 halls and Auditorium 2 is on Level 1 with 10 other halls, each audotorium has their own consession stand.

The popcorn at the consession stand doesn’t look tasty. They only have buttered popcorn, unlike GSC where they have the sweet caramel popcorn, so we only got some drinks.

Girl: How can I help you?
Me: I would like a Diet Coke and a Frozen Coke please
Girl: What size?
Me: What sizes are there?
Girl: *showed me a cup which is larger than our Large in Malaysia* This is Small
Me: *shocked* That’s small?
Girls: Yes maam.
Me: I’ll have small for both please
Girl: That would be $8

The hall is very clean. The chairs are very well cushioned and it reclines slightly – very comfy. There are alot of leg room, even for Adam.

Loved the show, frozen coke was delicious, seat was comfy – I have to say it’s a $30 well spent (they charge $3 for parking).

It was a good night out. We should go out on more movies dates