VDay Roses & Baja Fresh

Well today is Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year.  I went to the San Gabriel Valley to have lunch with a friend - where the real "China town" of LA is at.  It's about 10 miles east of Downtown LA.  So after getting really full from some yummy Chinese food, I went to a florist there that does Hong Kong style wrapping for flowers.

 

 

I normally hate Valentine's Day because I feel like it's just a made up holiday for Hallmark and florists to make money.  My boyfriend and I never celebrate it.  Especially since our anniversary is exactly a week after VDay, so we rather celebrate that instead of going out and fight with the crowd on VDay.  But this year I have seen some really good deals on flowers and chocolates from different vendors.  I guess it's because of the economy.  

I've always really liked the Hong Kong style wrapping for flowers, they are just so pretty!  They use like at least 5 layers of different wrapping paper, which gives a fuller and more exquisite look to the flowers.  Each rose is wrapped with this lacy fishnet material to keep it in place.   The top of the rose is dipped in glitter, which almost makes the rose look fake, but it's real of course.  The way they do that is they hairspray the rose, then dip the top of the rose in glitter.  So the hairspray acts like a glue for the glitter, and supposedly also makes the rose last longer. 

Since I was in the Chinese hood, of course there were tons of florists that specialize in this technique, so I decided to get one for my boyfriend!  I knew that he would not be expecting that since we never do anything for VDay.  Sometimes I like the surprise more than the present itself.  

For a single rose, it was priced fairly, at $10.  Except the red one is $12.  I opted for the $10 one to save two bucks lol.  Of course $10 is kind of a lot for one rose, but it is VDay, and with all the wrapping and bow, I was totally fine with it.  The other bouquets they had that were half a dozen or a dozen were very very pretty.  They had pre-arranged bouquets, and you can also choose different colored roses to make your own bouquet.  When I was in the store, lots of guys came in to buy big bouquets.  I think they were like $60 or so for half a dozen and $120 for a dozen.  

I think the way they wrapped these roses would make them very pretty dried roses as well.  The wrapping would ensure that the rose stays up right, and probably don't even have to hang it upside down.  I do realize that all the wrapping and bow make it look extremely girly, but my boyfriend liked it.  =)

I don't think there is any florists in West LA that does the Hong Kong style flower wrapping (note to self to look it up), which is too bad.  Because San Gabriel Valley is all the way on the other side of town!  With traffic (there's always traffic), it takes at least an hour to get there.  Not worth a 2 hour round trip drive just to get some flowers.  Otherwise I would totally require that all my flowers be wrapped in that style and send my boyfriend over there every time! lol...

Baja Fresh

Well since we don't care for VDay all that much, we just picked up Baja Fresh for dinner again.  It's less than a minute walk from where I live, and it is always the fall back choice for dinner when I'm tired of making fish for dinner everyday.  I LOVE the Baja Burrito with shrimp and get it every time I go there. 

 

It tastes very good, and is nutritionally pretty balanced.  It's got cheese, guacamole, fresh salsa, shrimp (or any other meat of your choice), and of course the tortilla.  So basically, you get your carb from the tortilla (no rice in it so carb content is not too high), healthy fat from guacamole (of course cheese has fat too but there's not too much cheese in it), fresh salsa which is very low in calories, and a protein of choice.  So the only thing that you gotta watch out for is the sodium content.  I never looked up how much sodium is in it, but I always get very thirsty after eating it, so I'm guessing there's A LOT and I probably wouldn't want to know the exact amount.  I also think that the calorie content is probably too high for the whole burrito and I am much better off eating just half of it and save the other half for later.  But I always end up eating it all.  Oh, I also eat the chips that they give me on the side.  I guess I'm not that good at disciplining myself when it's right in front of my face!  Oh well, it's normally my "cheat meal" so whatever.  It's yummy and one of a few "fast food" restaurants that I like!