four years

 

i recently celebrated four years together with my partner! 

every year on our anniversary, we give each other gifts at midnight, and then in the morning, we go on a big, all-day date. we work together before the big day to plan special outings we don't usually get the opportunity for. (we take our anniversary very seriously lolol.) today, our outing of choice was a trip to the zoo and conservatory, and then dinner at the MOA. it was a super long and fun day, and it's absolutely one for the books.

coord rundown 
jsk - chess chocolate, angelic pretty
cutsew - sleepyland
headbow - angelic pretty
head accessories - angelic pretty, chocomint
scarf - angelic pretty
socks - angelic pretty
shoes - LIEF
bag - emily temple cute
parasol - dilettante crush
accessories - angelic pretty, dolly house, chalmiere
 
we did a lot today, so this post is super image heavy!! 

i'm also endlessly bragging about my partner lol. goopy warning!!!

 

as it often does, our gift exchange took place right at the stroke of midnight. gift giving at the stroke of 12 has become kind of a tradition for special days because we get so excited to give them :''D 

 

i gave my gift first - a cool screenprinted tank top, cute pants they've been wanting, and knitted gloves. they were super super pleased. (and even wore most of them to the actual date ^_~) it made me so so happy to see them so happy.

 

my lovely wonderful thoughtful amazing partner got me a beautiful secret cake factory shirring JSK and a beautiful going-out heart bag!!! i was so unbelievably excited and i did scream like a little kid. 

no judging, you'd do it too if you were me. 

because it was the middle of the night (lol) we went to sleep shortly after. and then, i woke up to...

 

 homemade souffle pancakes in bed. holy shit bros..... today my partner woke up and decided to be prince charming on a white horse but cooler. we had breakfast in bed together, and then got up for real and got ready for the big day. 

 

 

 

first, we headed to the zoo and conservatory! we've both been to the zoo before, but never to the conservatory part of the facility, so we went to that part first.

 

 candid my partner took. i look like two umbrellas stacked on top of each other lolll

the conservatory was absolutely beautiful -- we started out in the first couple of rooms of a huge, intricate, glass greenhouse. there were plants from all over the world inside, and it was much hotter than it was outdoors in order to keep the plants healthy year round hahahaha.

 

different rooms had different focuses! the first room was entirely ferns and fern relatives. it's amazing that you can fill up a whole room just with that. there was also a room dedicated to colorful flowers! by far my favorite part of the indoor conservatory, though, was the culinary themed room. they had an entire jungle of different plants used for food and seasonings all over the world. there were tons of different herbs and spices, as well as such cool things as starfruit trees, taro plants, and cacao trees!! it smelled super good in there and it was fun to identify plants that we use in our own cooking and baking.  the culinary room also had a koi pond right in the middle. the fish were absolutely enormous and fat and beautiful.

 

 

after exploring the greenhouse, we headed into an outdoor bonsai exhibit and japanese garden.

 

this japanese camelia bonsai is older than me.

fun fact -- saint paul, minnesota, and nagasaki, japan are sister cities. it's the first sister city relationship ever established between an american city and an asian city -- this relationship is the grounds on which an enormous and beautiful japanese garden was built to explore. we had no idea this was here at all, so it was super fun to walk around.

 

they look like a cute children's book character here!

 

i was so worried about slipping and falling in lmao

so were they!!

partner says they look like stairs, i say they look like little hats.

standing at the gate to the little replica house!

top 5 photos of me ever taken

tiny garden within a bigger garden!

we couldn't go inside the house at this time, but we could stand on the porch :-)

after exploring the whole conservatory + garden, we still had a lot of time before closing to go see the zoo!! the first cool animal we saw wasn't part of the zoo at all, but instead, a wild albino squirrel wandering around the grounds.

shiny pokemon irl

once inside, we headed straight for the marine animals exhibit. they have everything from fish, to seabirds, to seals and sea lions.

gray seals are so cute and weird looking <3

penguins chilling.

we arrived at just the right time to see the sea lions have "hot tub time," where they come into the inside part of their exhibit to play in kiddie pools of warm water. they put the kiddie pools right up next to the glass so that you can see the sea lions super up close.

"AHHHH!!!!!"

 after seeing "hot tub time," we left to go look at the land mammals! we just barely missed the polar bears (we saw a bear butt just briefly as he left for some privacy) but got to see bison, tigers, and even arctic foxes roaming around. i wish i had taken more pictures, but it was chilly out and i had gloves on. my phone doesn't react well to my gloved fingers! :-P

i did get pictures with a zebra with a staring problem, though. i always forget how cool they are until i see them in person.

(stares at you in a zebra way)

get a load of this guy.

 bonus giraffe and gorilla statue photos!

sorry, baby giraffe, there's only room for me and UR MOM

 actually, the gorilla statue marked the entrance to the last leg of our zoo trip - the primates exhibit! the primates exhibit here absolutely rules. a lot of the monkeys will come up close to the glass and interact with visitors.

(i visited a few years ago to draw the animals for a college project -- my friend and i drew the baby orangutan and showed him his portrait.)

this photo isn't from this visit, but, come on, i have to show proof of my baby orangutan story.

back to the present -- here are a bunch of the cute primates we saw! 

i think this one is a spider monkey.

sloths aren't primates at all, but it feels fitting to house them with the monkeys.

 

this monkey's name is julie, and she had opinions about my coord.

following our little monkey adventure, it was about time for the zoo to close, and so we headed out for the day. i definitely want to go back for another occasion, it's such a fun place and there's so many cool things to see and do there. we didn't quite get to all of them! we left the zoo and conservatory, and because my partner is very sweet and my biggest cheerleader, we did a little impromptu photoshoot on the grounds. i think i'll put all of these into a separate post since there's so many great photos and i don't want to interrupt the flow of this one.

 

me and the best person i've ever met ^_^

 

 

 

we headed to the MOA for dinner. we had a reservation and arrived a little bit early, so we did some exploring. there's a little miniatures shop our friend told us about that opened up recently, so we had a look at that. (super charming) we also went to gamestop to goof around -- there were enormous pokemon plushies, which we didn't buy. (though my partner found a secondhand misa amane figure that they did end up getting.)

 

 

 

 then, finally, it was time for our reservation! we went to a sushi place that opened up sort-of recently. it's a revolving sushi bar and it's rather high tech... they have a human greeter and human kitchen staff, but the waiters are robots, the food is on a conveyor belt, and if you want to special order something, it'll get sent to you by getting shot through a tube LOL it was a LOT of fun.

 

the regular conveyor belt is on the bottom, the special order belt is on top, and the game screen is on the very top. (what? game screen??)

 the weirdest part of the whole thing is that the dinner is also a gacha game. i'm serious. every time you clear a plate, you get a point, and if you rack up enough points, the machine will dispense a gacha ball with a prize inside. i didn't realize this was a core part of the experience, and i was very confused and amused the entire time.

 

this is kind of ridiculous and excessive but it's hilarious.

when we went, the restaurant was having a collaboration with apothecary diaries. i haven't seen it, but my kid sister enjoys it. i'm pretty partial to historical (or historically inspired) fantasy anime and games, so i feel like it might be up my alley? i might need to check it out, seeing as i now have gacha merch of it lol. 

 

in any case, the food was very very good! we won two prizes, almost a third, but we had to tap out just before the finish line. we're only human, and we can only have so much sushi without making ourselves sick.

  

the restaurant has lots of beef sushi for people who don't like fish lolol

sweet shrimp sashimi for me!

i believe these were tuna and eel respectively...? i had fancy rolls, too, but the sashimi was just too good!!!

it was a lot of fun, and very very novel! the food was absolutely amazing, a solid 10 out of 10, and i got to try some new things that aren't commonly available in my corner of the world. (like sea urchin! wasn't super to my liking, but i enjoyed trying it.) i think my biggest mistake was getting a hand roll -- it was absolutely delicious, and very big! if i want to win the game next time, i'll have to be more strategic :-p hahaha.

 

me and the partner will definitely have to go again, but it'll be a bit since it's a bit expensive!

 

 

 

with all our plans finished, we were ready to head home ... but we fell for the allure of marketing and found ourselves wandering into the next door sanrio build-a-bear. one thing led to another, and we ended up making a gudetama together...

 

guuu........

he's wearing designer. i did a good job censoring this photo (eyeroll)

 it was very very kind of the worker there to indulge two 23 year old adults that late in the evening hahaha. but it was a super fun time, and with that, we decided to head home for real. we were thinking about watching a movie, but we were so wiped out that we turned in early.
 

well, actually, we ended up making fun of commercials on the hospital TV after i went to the ER the same night. well, i guess that's life when you're chronically ill. (eyeroll) even a late night hospital visit could not put a dampener on how wonderful our anniversary was. true love, after all, is being there for the one you love through thick and through thin. and how lucky i am to have a partner who i can spend fun days with and bad times with, and be so happy and grateful through both.

 

to my partner, because i know you quietly read my blog! 

 

i love you so much! thank you for being my person for four whole years!!! it's gone by in a flash and it only feels like yesterday that we were two young students working through our undergrad program together. what a privilege it is to know you so well and love you so much. thank you for the fun times we've had, the romantic dates, the companionship through my sickness, the stupid jokes we laugh at until we're crying and gasping for air, the shared cat-parenting, the creative spitballing and collaborative writing, and the greatest joy i've had in my whole life!

 

to the people who are not my partner and are going "ewww, mushy!!!"

 

look at my cat