Fantasy Game Shop Board Game Day

As long as I'm in St. Louis, I will always look forward to the second Saturday of even numbered months.

Why? Because The Fantasy Shop (in St. Charles) has a board game day that lasts from noon until 11 pm, feeds you lunch and dinner with nearly infinite snacks, AND you get raffle tickets -- all for 15 dollars! It's one of the most amazing things I've been to.

Early August, my boyfriend and I went with some friends. We got there and I quickly shot some photos of the wall of games:

and the candy bowls:

St. Louis Renaissance Faire

I meant to post this earlier, but I got busy.

Early in June, my friends and I went to the Greater St. Louis Area Renaissance Faire. It was lots of fun. We saw musical performers (who were willing to teach),

jugglers,

 and acrobats:

 I got to see a guy I saw at the Pirate Festival perform again. Actually, we saw him twice. :) He put himself through a tennis racket...

and then my friend tried to do the same. Being really tiny, she had a very easy time of it... so to make her life more challenging, she tried to JUMP through the thing... and ended up with a dent on her nose...(see the band-aid?) It's now (after almost two months) a not too noticeable scar.

During one of the performances, an inchworm landed on me. My boyfriend played with it and tried to eat it:

However, my favorite part was the jousting. Last year, my roommate and I saw the jousting at around noon. We sat on the evil side and I screamed "to the death" way too much. Sadly, there was no fake bloodshed. This time, we went to the last show of the day and we saw horses clashing, people falling, back stabbing, and bloodshed. My only complaint? The good guy won. >.<

What a great way to end a day.

<3
Hao

Live Action Angry Birds

One of my favorite stores in St. Louis is Star Clipper -- the local comic book and random things store. I saw it from the froyo place across the street two years ago and over the last year or so I've become a huge fan of the place.

Recently, for the month of July, the star clipper people decided to put together a live action Angry Birds Shooting Gallery in the back where they often have nifty art.

I heard it opened on a saturday, so I went there early in the morning, hoping to shoot some angry birds at evil green plush pigs. They weren't ready yet. I left and went back twice the same day. On my third try, they said I could be a beta-shooter and held out a slingshot for me and handed me a yellow angry bird. The set up was simple: cardboard boxes painted random colors and pretty silver paper so you could see what you were hitting. People would hold the slingshot for you and you could pull back and fire.

Unfortunately, they didn't have pigs in stock, so they made some out of green trash bags. They even drew faces on the pig.

A little girl in pink with her mother showed up and the girl was very into the game. Some other kids also dropped by. My boyfriend and I were there for about 3 hours helping and playing:

It was awesome. :)

<3
Hao

PIE-venture!

I have a friend who LOVES pie. And I really do mean LOVE pie. Recently, he heard from his mother that there is an amazing pie place about 40 minutes outside of St Louis with good country food and famous, travel network worthy pie.

With much gusto, my friend gathered many of us on a pie-venture. We drove for 40  minutes and arrived at a dinky little town called Kimmswick, Missouri. The pie place was definitely the largest structure in the area. And it was painted blue -- rather appropriate since it was called the Blue Owl:

Botanical Gardens and Jumping. Lots of Jumping.

So early April, I went to the botanical gardens with my friends.

We climbed trees:

I pretended to be the three anti-evil monkeys:

And then we did lots of jumping. I really like this picture:

And that was that.

I'm fond of the botanical gardens. :)

Firespinning Tonight!

I <3 fire. I <3 how St. Louis has really lax firespinning laws. That's why my roommate and I go fire spinning often.

Yesterday, I decided I was going to drag some friends with me to watch me spin. I'm not very good, but I am very addicted to the art. If you've never HEARD fire, you won't understand, but the whooshing sound is so loud and so close to your ears that it makes your blood rush. It is one of my two addictions (the other is caffeine).

Anyway, my friend has a really nice camera, and he took some pictures of me tonight. I might post more later, but here are 3 to start. Enjoy!

 Fans. This was right after I lit them. I over fueled them enough that my safety was telling me to be careful. 

 

Photos at Dawn

Three weeks ago I got to make a choice. I could pull an all nighter in lab to get my work done and then hang out with my friends who were visiting or I could go home, sleep, and not get to hang out with my friends. If you know me, you'll know which choice was the only choice I could make.

Anyway, I stayed up until almost dawn watching buffer drip through a his-bind column (translation: I watched salt water drip through some beads so I could collect proteins I wanted). There was a lot of down time, so at around 6 am, I went home, took a shower, grabbed my camera, and went to the park. It was one of the few times I'd be awake at that hour, and I was determined to catch the sunrise.

It was still rather dark when I got there: 

Snowy Forest Park

In February, on a particularly sunny day, I was hit with the sudden urge to be artsy. That was the day I poked at Food for Thought. That was also the day I wandered to the local park to take pictures.

Forest Park in St. Louis is the coolest thing about living in St. Louis. It's about 2 square miles of land that is free and open to the public for picnics and fun. There are two free museums and a free zoo on the property, lots of fountains and lagoons, and even places to rent paddle boats! Also, there are musicals in the summer (not free but not too expensive) and free music concerts.

One of the prettiest spots in the park is Art Hill. Every winter, after it snows enough for sledding, the city lines the bottom of the hill with bales of hay. At the top, there are two fire pits and the city throws out some firewood. Children of all ages (myself included) would bring sleds (or steal dining hall trays) and sled down the hill. The bales of hay are to prevent the sledders from falling into the ornate fountains from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair at the bottom.

Food for Thought (Feb)

The Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) in St. Louis does nifty free events. On the first Saturdays of the month, they do this thing called Food for Thought. I've been thinking about going and trying free food for a while. I finally got unlazy enough to go today! HUZZAH!