{travel & eat} I heart America!

Freshly back from a 2 1/2 week trip to the States, it’s odd to be back in SHA and its impossibly muggy and humid weather.  As much fun as I had in LA (and I had a TON of fun!), it’s nice to come home to the hubs and the kitties.  I miss and love California, I’ll always be a CA girl at heart, but home is with M and the little furry guys.

I got into LA on Monday, July 25, and spent the next 3 days taking that horribly long and awful test that I swear each time (!) that I’ll never do again.  Freedom started on Friday, July 26, with lots of meals and quality time spent with lovely people and delicious food.

I blogged about Seattle in the last post, but here are some leftover pics from my 10 days in Seattle.  I can definitely see myself living there in the future.  The summers are perfect there.  =)

Study break in the park next to Burien Public Library

Farmer's Market

One of the many Mexican meals I enjoyed in Seattle. Yum!!

Dinner at Poppy with my cousin. Indian fusion food. Local, gorgeous and delicious!

Funny quote on the wall at Pottery Barn Kids.

Thursday, July 28

I met up with friends I hadn’t seen in FORVER for dinner to celebrate the end of the bar (yet again).  While I was really tired and was really just worn out, I had a great time enjoying yummy food at El Portal in Pasadena with excellent company.

Friday, July 29

I spent Friday night at my dear friend M’s brand new house in Whittier.  Such a cute little house!!  M has been very busy upgrading her house and she’s done such a great job!  Not only that, M was such a gracious host and insisted that I sleep in her bed while she slept on her futon.  The following morning, we went to breakfast at Scotty’s, a local diner near her place.  It was so cozy and yummy!!  Thanks, M!

M's adorable house!! Congrats on your house, M!

First thing you notice when you walk into Scotty's is the decoration. In celebration of July 4th, the restaurant had a billion stars hanging from the ceiling. It was cute and kitschy without being overdone or tacky. According to M, Scotty's switches up the decorations for all the holidays.

M ordered the pancake breakfast.

I ordered the waffles with a side of hash browns. It was delicious! The waffles were light and airy, and perfect with the butter and syrup. The hash browns were crispy on the outside and soft and potato-y on the inside. It was so delish!!

Saturday, July 30

After the yummy breakfast with M, I went to my old church in Placentia.  I really missed everyone, and it was great to spend some quality time with them.

Following lunch, couple friends from church and I went to Yogurtland to enjoy some Hello Kitty flavors.  Pastor S didn’t believe us that Yogurtland had partnered up with Sanrio, so I took a picture of our yogurt and texted it to him.

Hello Kitty at Yogurtland! (I told you so, Pastor!!)

After the Yogurtland break, I drove down to South Coast Plaza to meet up with M’s friends, J and C.  J had visited us in SHA in early April and had a suit made.  Because J wasn’t in town long enough to wait for the suit, I brought the suit back for him.  While waiting for J and C to arrive at South Coast, I wandered around and notice the Windows store (?!?!).  I guess they’re trying to compete with Apple, but it was nowhere as impressive as Mac.  Brownie points for trying??

Dinner was at Red Medicine in Beverly Hills with J & R, H & his new gf J!, A, and W.  A Vietnamese fusion restaurant, I read a review on Oh Joy! blog and wanted to try it out.  The food was fresh, good, and an interesting twist on traditional foods that we’re used to from Vietnamese places.  Even better was spending quality time with friends.

R & J, me and W

A fuzzy group shot taken by our waiter.

On the way to C’s house after dinner to crash there, W and I drove by LACMA and realized that the installation that I’ve been wanting to see is open even at night!  So I flipped a u-turn and parked the car for a little picture taking.

The Mini getting in on the action.

Sunday, July 31

Baby shower time!!  My friends were so sweet to throw me a baby shower at Firefly in South Pasadena.  We enjoyed a yummy brunch, fun baby shower games, and M and I got some pretty awesome gifts for our little boy.  Thanks, everyone!!

The men of the baby shower

Our adorable little A!! He has the best skin! And the cutest little sad face when you give away cookies.

Me, N and her adorable boys! They were our ring bearers in our wedding. I can't believe how much they've grown!!

Thanks everyone for coming out and for all the wonderful gifts for our little one!!

We had a few hours to kill before dinner with my family, so J offered to take W and me to Half and Half, the latest thing in the boba movement.

(This is like an ad for Half and Half.  Haha) I ordered the milk tea with honey boba and pudding, but I think they also added caramel, because J ordered caramel in hers and ours tasted unusually similar.  Truly, it was the largest boba I’ve ever had.  It’s like a meal (or two) in itself.  And the cups we ordered aren’t even their really large size!

We finished the night off by joining my family for dinner in Koreatown at Bann.  Traditional Korean food restaurant, Bann was pretty good.

Cousin J, big brother J, and sister-in-law C

Cousin D, me, W and J

After dinner, my brother and I compared belly sizes.

Monday, August 1

After a hectic morning running tons of errands, I finally got to watch “Harry Potter.”  It was so exciting!!  This was the ONE movie I really wanted to watch in a theater, and I made H promise months ago that he would watch it with me.  Hehe…H wasn’t quite so excited, but I really enjoyed it.  The movie was nowhere as good as the book, but they did a pretty good job.

We watched the movie in 3D. Look at H's excitement. He's practically jumping out of his seat!

Tuesday, August 2

Another day filled with last minute errands.  Although this time, I went to UCLA Medical Center to get a physical and get the baby checked out.  And guess what we found out??

We’re having a BOY!!

Since I was in Westwood, I decided to take advantage of the super expensive parking I had already paid for at UCLA and wandered around, making sure to take advantage of that magical place called Diddy Riese.  I picked up a dozen cookies to bring home to M.

11 AM and there was a long line!

That night, I enjoyed a last minute dinner with friends at Doughboys, and met J’s really cool cousin from Michigan.  They came over to T’s house and hung out for a bit before heading home.

As always, it was so nice to see everyone while I was in LA.  I hope to see all of you soon!!

{travel} Maui

From LA, M and I flew to Maui, where M’s friend HW was getting married.  Considering that SHA was in the 20s when we left, Maui with its 80 degree weather was heavenly.

Driving around the island.

Once we landed in Maui, it took us a really long time to get to the hotel, mainly because someone was under the impression that the hotel was on one part of the island when in fact it was on the other side of the island.  That someone shall remain nameless…

After driving for several hours, we finally made it to our hotel, the Kapalua Villas.  The scenery was beautiful and amazing.

Our hotel suite was really nice.  It was more like a condo, with a separate bedroom, kitchen, dining room and living room.  The only problem was that it smelled like old lady / mothballs.

This is a picture of our entry way.  For the entire time we were there, we didn’t realize that the room had a The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe aspect.

The wardrobe was actually the door to the second bathroom and laundry area!  We figured it out the day before we left.  Haha…Oh well.

Because M was one of the groomsmen, we really didn’t have too much time to spend by ourselves.  But we managed to squeeze in alone time where we could.  We did have one morning to ourselves, so we went to grab some breakfast in downtown Lahaina.

After breakfast, we walked around and stuck our feet in the water.  This proved later to be the only time we had to hang out at the beach as HW’s wedding and wedding-related activities took up most of our time.

M was one of HW’s groomsmen, so the night before the big day, we were invited to HW’s rehearsal dinner, or rather, luau dinner.

M and our favorite Aussie

We gathered around the sand pit and watched the luau people take out the poor piggie from the bbq pit.

M woke up bright and early the next morning and played golf with J, who flew in from Australia for HW’s wedding.

That evening was HW and C’s wedding.  Overlooking the ocean, the ceremony was held at the Ritz Carlton.  The weather was perfect, the flowers beautiful, and the ceremony was romantic.

My very dapper husband, with his friend J.

The adorable flower girl and ring bearer. They're twins!

Mother of the Bride. So pretty and gorgeous dress!

The beautiful bride! Check out her dress!!

Sadly, I thought I would have a great view of the ceremony because I was sitting near the front, but instead, this was my view for most of the ceremony.  Pretty flowers though.

We had a great time at the wedding.  HW and C did a great job, making sure all the guests were well taken care of and had activities planned for everyone during the long weekend we spent in Maui.  M and I really enjoyed our time in Maui, spending time with friends who we haven’t seen in a long time.

Congrats, HW and C!

{travel} Los Angeles – Part 1

This post is waaaay past due.  In fact, it might be so far past due that you all in the States may have forgotten that M and I were there in February.  Remember?  Remember?

So back in February, M and I made a trip back to California, to see friends and attend the wedding of his close friend H in Maui.  Because M only had one week here, while I had 1 month, we squished as much as we could in 7 days.  Once we landed at LAX, we took off running, starting with a run to Costco (thanks, Mr. C!) where we stocked up on goodies unavailable or hard to find in SHA.

We met up with friends for dinner on our first night in LA.  It was so great to see everyone!!

M with the expectant parents, B & S!

So SO happy to see these beautiful people!  We really had missed everyone.

The following day (Monday) was a very busy day.  In the morning, M and I went to the Chinese Consulate to get our visas and then headed downtown to the Social Security Office.  Because we parked right near Bottega Louie, we stopped in for a little treat.

My earl grey macaron. It was good but not great (I think Bouchon or Paulette's are better). But it was definitely pretty with the gold leaf!

After our lovely snack, we walked across the street to the Social Security office.  The signs directing you to the office were incredible.  There was absolutely no way to get lost in that building.

In the elevator

Right when you exit the elevator

Right after you turn the corner from following the previous sign.

So no, we did not get lost getting to the Social Security office.  Haha.  After a very long wait (I think we waited longer because we were dressed up (more on that later)), M got his social security card replaced, and we headed back to Koreatown for lunch.

Can someone say, EL TAURINO???

M and I crave mostly Mexican food while we’re in SHA (although we’ve recently remedied that with the appearance of tortillas at the supermarket here!).  And because M had never been to El Taurino (*gasp!*), it only seemed natural that we take this opportunity to eat some real Mexican food.

The mural outside El Taurino. Kinda of cheesy but oh so fabulous!

Just in case you forgot that you were at El Taurino, there were lots of bulls' heads on the wall.

M's taco with red sauce.

M's sope with queso fresco

Our really big horchata. It helped to put out the fire in our mouths from the hot sauce.

Mmmm...fresh guacamole!

My bean, cheese, rice burrito with fresh pico de gallo. So good!

That was a great meal.  We were so stuffed!!

So, to the reason why M is wearing a suit (I was dressed up too).  My boss JCC passed away right before the new year.  Because it was so sudden and without warning, we were really ill-prepared, both emotionally and preparation-wise.  While there was a memorial service and funeral service for JCC in January, the family was kind enough to wait a few days for me to arrive in the States to hold the burial service (JCC was cremated).  After our morning errands and yummy lunch, we headed over to Culver City to attend JCC’s burial service.  I was really sad.

After a very long day, we headed home to M’s brother T’s house in mid-city.  We relaxed, hung out and enjoyed our bottle of Opus One, our wedding gift from M’s friend F.

To make sure that T wouldn’t enjoy by himself (since we did entrust him with the bottle before we left for SHA), M wrote a little note on the bottle.

That was our stay in LA for three days before leaving for Maui the next morning.