I often joke about suffering from “yellow fever.”  Mike thinks it has something to do with my dad filling multiple fish tanks inside our house with arawonas (as he says, I basically grew up in a Chinese restaurant).  Well, whatever the subconscious motivation, I must admit that I have a major fascination with all things FOB.  Last Sunday afternoon, a trip to Diamond Jamboree Plaza in Irvine allowed me to indulge this love in a big way.

We started with lunch at 85 degrees, a Taiwanese bakery that serves coffee, various desserts and bread.

And when I say they serve bread, I mean it.  You walk in, grab a tray and tongs, and put as many refined carbohydrates on your tray as possible.

They have plain breads, sweet breads and savory breads.  And about 30% of the offerings also incorporate hot dogs.  This is probably why Mike loves it so much.

I also enjoyed a Sea Salt Coffee.  I ordered it out of a sick curiosity, but was surprised at how non-gross it was.

After we were satiated, we wandered around the glory that is Diamond Jamboree Plaza.  It’s seriously a festival of FOB- very similar to Diamond Plaza in Rowland Heights, housing a Capitol Seafood, several sushi joints, Mike’s favorite Korean fried chicken restaurant (called, very originally, BBQ Chicken), about 30 places to get boba, a cosmetic surgery center and 2 math tutoring centers.  It’s a place where the FOB flag flies high and proud.

We were just about to leave and go back to the car when we passed a storefront that caught my eye.

I looked inside.

And then my eyes lit up, my hear began to dance and the following conversation took place:

Me:  “OH.  MY.  GAWD.  Is that…  is that…  is that what I think it is?”

Mike: “A sticker picture booth store?”

Me: (at this point you could distinctly hear the hope in my voice) “YES!”

Mike: (sighing, eyes rolling) You want to go in there, don’t you?

Now, Mike and I are not exactly the world’s most publicly affectionate couple.  We don’t get very touchy in public, we are more likely to mock one another in a crowd than say something mushy, and Mike’s pet names for me have included, over the years, “monster,” “shrek,” “quasimoto” and “booger.”  He has even tried to convince me that our secret code for “I love you” should be “I hate your guts.”  Well, if there was ever a time that I was unsure that he really, really loved me, all of my fears were instantly alleviated when he walked into Sticki Picki with me and proceded to take the GREATEST PICTURES EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

Dear god I love this man.  Especially when he looks like an Asian pop singer.