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Halloween 2000.10
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San Diego 2001.02
King's Canyon 2001.05
Hack and Velvet 2001.10-2003.09
Henry and Soo Sun in NYC 2001.11
Yosemite 2002.08
Los Angeles 2003.04
Soo Sun and Henry's Wedding 2003.04
Random Stuff
In the Spring of 2003, I spent two weeks in Southern California to visit friends and celebrate the wedding of two of my closest friends from college, Soo Sun Choe and Henry Lee. While I am actually more familiar with Henry, since he was the first person I met in my dorm Freshman Year, I am bowing to the wisdom of sucking up to the wife in any relationship. So, Soo Sun always comes first.
My journey began in Brooklyn. Being anal and possessing the free time for experimentation, I had made a dry run of using public transit to commute to JFK from my apartment and back the day before. The ride was easy, but took about an hour and a half. I discovered that it wasn't really that bad of a trip, so hiring a cab would not be necessary. I also discovered that a bus that stopped near my apartment actually came to the terminal I needed, so I checked the schedule online when I got home and resolved to take it the next morning.
Big mistake. Well, not that big. The bus took as long as advertised to get to the terminal, which ended up being about an hour and a half anyway. However, not being the most comfortable in a vehicle (i.e.: likely to get motion sick if not the driver), I didn't quite enjoy the ride so much. Even focusing intently on reading a book ("The Great Book of Amber", Roger Zelazny) didn't help, although only getting two hours of sleep the night before probably helped even less.
Check-in and passing through security was very easy, in the sense that I'd done it so much before that I was able to just take it in stride. I can't say the same for many of the other travelers in line before me, though, who still seemed to be very confused when told to remove everything metal from their persons. I swear, it'd be easier if they just told everyone to lay on the conveyor belt and passed them through the x-ray machine.
I flew JetBlue out of JFK Terminal 6, with tickets kindly provided by Soo Sun and Henry after I helped Soo Sun with tickets a couple of months earlier when she ran into problems on the East Coast. The tickets are very reasonable and the rates are very hard to beat if you buy them under the 21-day restriction for most lower fares on other airlines. The change conditions are also not as heinous as, say, Continental Airlines, which was my original choice since I have a decent investment in their frequent flier program. Part of their deal for keeping costs low is not providing in-flight meals, but honestly, it wasn't really hard at all to prep a couple of sandwiches and bring them on the plane. There was a handy canteen nearby to buy carry-on meals if you hadn't prepared one in advance.
The flight was fantastic. The route was JFK to Long Beach and the ride was on-time and comfortable. The amenities and service were also highly commendable and friendly. Every seat had its own monitor with DirectTV connection, though the quality of television was hampered by the fact that we were flying during the daytime hours. The flight attendants were very courteous without being oppressive, though the latter problem seems less and less a problem on most American airlines.
I landed in Long Beach a few minutes early, just in time to be picked up by my college pal, Andrew Warner (generally, just "Drew"), who had come up from San Diego that morning. The airport is a small airport, just large enough to accommodate jets about the size of an Airbus A320 or Boeing 737. It's a great little airport. All in all, I highly recommend JetBlue if it services destinations suitable for you. It's a pretty small airline right now, but I really wish them success as they continue to expand their markets.
Most first days of vacations generally seem to be uneventful, but that would prove not to be true on this trip. I hit the ground running and it was pretty much non-stop from there.
This was still considered a working day for both Soo Sun and Henry--the last one for both until after the wedding, actually--so Drew and I skipped off to amuse ourselves for the afternoon and arranged to meet up with them in the evening for dinner.
The first thing we did was look for food. It was getting close to my regular "dinner" time, though it was only mid-afternoon in LA. Recommending an El Salvadoran restaurant with excellent fish tacos, Drew and I set out to look for the place.
We got lost.
Well, that's not entirely fair. It's more accurate to say that we were driving along and seeing the passing buildings on Pico Blvd. through the eyes of the hungry, so we decided to stop at a panaderia (pastry shop or bakery). After passing one, we ended up settling on another, which turned out to also be a combination tortilleria.
As the name suggests, this was a place that made tortillas, and they had just made some fresh, fresh, fresh corn tortillas. Now, my past experience with corn tortillas has not been great. I'm not a big fan of them, because they tend to taste grainier and dryer than flour tortillas, but I couldn't give up the chance to have some tortillas fresh off the press. We snagged a bag that was all puffed up from the steam coming off the tortillas inside and hopped back in the car.
The tortillas were good! No, they were better than good. Way better than good. Still hot, still moist, and ever so tasty. We didn't even bother with toppings. We started pulling out tortillas and would just roll them up and eat them straight up. No Atkins dieters here, that's for sure. We were so excited by this that we totally missed the intersection of Pico and Crenshaw, where our target restaurant was located. We missed it by over ten blocks.
Not to be deterred by lack of attention to the streets or our constant snarfing of hot tortillas, we doubled back and hopped in for some fish tacos and tamales. Both were truly a delight for someone who hasn't had good Mexican or Central American food in a long time.
Lunch (or "dinner") was finished off with some sorbets from Mateo's nearby, which makes their chilled and frozen products from fresh fruits daily. There were many types of ice creams, sorbets, juice bars, aguas, liquidas, and more with some very exotic choices in addition to some of the mundane. I ended up grabbing myself a scoop of soursop sorbet and a scoop of guava sorbet in a waffle cone, which I enjoyed while walking up and down Victoria Street with Drew, leading to the pictures below.
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Left: Victoria Street near El Baron and Mateo's. |
With still more time to kill before our friends would be free, Drew and I continued down Pico Blvd., stopping off at an anime store along the way. Don't remember the name of the place, but it was pretty small and across the street from the Westside Pavilion, which I later discovered was the mall where they filmed a shopping scene in Clueless and Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" video.
I was big into anime once, back in late high school and early university, but the high cost made the interest fade away. Looked at some toys and moved on to the equally not affordable hobby store next door where they had mostly gas-powered radio-controlled things. Model building and parts. Don't need to keep up with a lot of current media to know the basics there.
Soon enough, 6 p.m. rolled around and Drew and I headed off to find Henry and Soo Sun, mostly because the free parking ended at 6 p.m. and we wanted to get away from the curb before the subdivision sent the meter maids around to fill the city's coffers.
TUrns out Soo Sun was at UCLA for a lecture and would be there for awhile, but we found Henry on his way home from work and, after a brief pit stop at his place, hopped off to the UCLA area for dinner at Noodle Planet in the hope that Soo Sun would be able to join us.
You can tell that the area was a very "college" area by the clientele and waitstaff, but for some reason, the menu struck me as pretty collegiate, too: it had something of everything. To wit, it was a pan-Asian noodle place, so you could get pho (Vietnamese) or pad thai (Thai) or udon (Japanese) or wonton noodle soup (Chinese) or a wide variety of other foods. I had pho and I think Henry had pad thai or bi bim bap. Drew snagged some mango and sweet rice with coconut milk that he shared around. Wow, was that mango ever fresh and delicious!
Ultimately, Soo Sun couldn't join us, so we got her something to go and brought it home for her. She didn't get home until pretty late, though, so by then Drew and I were already passing out on the floor or couch. considering it was getting close to 3 a.m. by my biological clock and I'd only had three hours of sleep the night before, I didn't do too badly. Didn't do well enough to go up to the guest house in Malibu to drop off my stuff, but that wasn't a big deal.
After spending the night, Thursday was going to be the day that Drew and I would hop down to San Diego for a few days, coming back up on the weekend. Drew was off school (he's a teacher) for the week while Henry and Soo Sun were still putting in time at work and school, so it was easier all around for me to slip off. Besides, it gave me a chance to visit some folks down in San Diego that I hadn't seen in awhile, Drew's family.
Before heading down to San Diego, though, we drove up to Saddlerock Ranch with Henry and Soo Sun to take a look at the site of the Korean and Chinese wedding ceremonies that would be held in the afternoon of the wedding day. Henry and Soo Sun were there to get some photographs taken so it gave Drew and I some time to wander by ourselves, though we seemed to keep drifting back toward the other group anyway.
Grabbed a bunch of pictures while I was there, which shows the place unaltered by wedding decorations. The amazing part is that the wedding had use of the grounds and a cabana off to the back. There was a huge house there that is apparently a real house for the owners of the ranch to live in. The place is gorgeous! It'd be so amazing to wake up to this kind of view every morning, though the commute to work (if you worked in the city), would be a real pain in the ass. Ironically, I would find myself thinking the same thing about another place soon enough, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
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Left: Soo Sun and Henry with horses. |
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Soo Sun and Henry being photographed on the deck. |
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Left: Soo Sun and Henry on the deck. |
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Left: Soo Sun and Henry on the deck. |
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Left: The pool. |
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Left: The house. |
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Wooden swing set and the house. |
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After Henry and Soo Sun were done with their engagement pictures or pre-wedding pictures or whatever they're called, it was getting into lunch. By "getting into lunch," I mean that it was about noon and we were all pretty hungry by that point with no food nearby. Using a very logical process, we decided to go to dim sum, to avoid trying to do it when SARS-wary visitors were around to veto the choice.
About an hour later, we were at the Empress Pavilion, reputedly one of the best places for dim sum in the area. I wholeheartedly agree. It was some of the best dim sum I had ever had, and that's coming from someone that's had dim sum in New York, Toronto, and Hong Kong.
Post-lunch, Drew and I bid our adieus to Henry and Soo Sun and caught a wave on the I-5 down the coast toward San Diego and a bit of scening ocean viewing. Just past Camp Pendleton, we slipped off to the Pacific Coast Highway for a more scenic drive and giving us a few opportunities for some great pictures. It also reminded me that I had allergies.
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A panoramic view from a lookout point in Oceanside, just south of Camp Pendleton. |
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Left: A hawk that was flying around a lookout point in Oceanside. |
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Left: San Diego sunset, from Drew's parents' house. |
As soon as we got into San Diego, we were racing along. Drew grabbed a quick haircut and I got some antihistamines. Then, we were off to his parents, where we also found Drew's brother, Paul, and his brother-in-law, Ebert. Alas, his sister was out of town for the weekend.
There's an interesting side note for the dinner itself: it was pizza and Chinese food. Originally, it was going to be just Chinese food, but Drew managed to convince his dad to order both, seeing as how both of us were somewhat picky about our Chinese food for different (albeit similar) reasons.
The rest of the night was spent at Drew's parents' house, relaxing, looking through pictures, chatting and stuff like that, until it was time to head home and get some rest. We made plans to meet up with Ebert again the next evening to see an IMAX film, after Drew and I got back from our planned trip out to "the desert."
The next day, we woke up. Yeah, we woke up. I'd like to say we woke up early, but we didn't, since we'd spent a few hours the night before just talking and stuff. So, in short, we got off to a later start than we had planned.
The route we took was somewhat roundabout, starting northbound on I-15 out of San Diego and skirted northeast on Scripps Poway Parkway and Rte. 67. From there we went east on Rte. 78 to Julian, then backtracked a little bit to Santa Ysabel and north on Rte. 79 to get to S2, which we took eastbound to S22 which led us into Borrego Springs on the desert floor. Coming out, we took S3 south to Rte. 78 and headed west to Julian. There, we split off again to take Rte. 79 south to S1, also known as Sunrise Highway, down to I-8, which we took the rest of the way west back to San Diego.
During the roundabout trip that we took through the mountains and the desert, we stopped in a few places, starting with a pit stop for freshly baked bread and apple butter at the Dudley's in Santa Ysabel, followed by lunch in Julian at the Rongbranch Inn.
Not including stops to take pictures just about everywhere--not to mention a little bit of rock collecting, but you didn't hear that from me--we didn't stop again until we reached Borrego Springs, where we spent some time at the visitor's center to check out the informational displays and watch a film on desert flowers. We were lucky: it had been a wet winter, so we saw a lot of flowers that were in the film on our way down to the desert floor.
Time was growing short so we couldn't really spend more time wandering the trails to look at all the plant life that they had gathered in the garden--it's hard to think of an area that looks like it's all dry sand with cactii sprouting out of it as a "garden" but I guess that's what you'd call it--and had to move on. Back into the car and...
Would you believe it? Just an hour after being on the desert floor and feeling the heat of the late spring coming down, we were up in the mountains and having a snowball fight! It was severely windy, too, so jumping out of the car was actually quite a task, not to mention getting the jacket on before I froze to death. That was a rather bizarre experience indeed.
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Left: Drew, by an informational sign, on the descent to the desert floor. |
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Left: The desert floor of Anza-Borrego. |
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Left: Flora on the descent to the desert floor. The fuzzy pale green cactus in the front is a jumping cholla. |
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Left: A road cut on the descent. |
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Left: Blooms of an ocotillo, with the desert floor in the background. |
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Left: An ocotillo bloom with the national and state flags in the background. |
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Left: An hour after the previous pictures, we were up in the Lagunas Mountains. There was snow. |
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Left: In the Lagunas. |
On our way back to San Diego, we had to change our plans slightly. A quick run past home and a couple of showers later, we breezed through a Toys R Us and hit a local Italian joint--maybe it was a chain restaurant--for the birthday party of Drew's friend, Jason. It was a good time, but we couldn't join the pack as they continued into the evening as we'd made prior plans with Ebert.
Those plans took us to Balboa Park, which I had visited on my last trip to San Diego, albeit in the daytime. There was a special promotion for the IMAX theatre going on and we jumped in with a bunch of Drew and Ebert's friends to see a show, "Coral Reef," that was really quite nicely done. In retrospect--since I'm writing this in June--it was a really nice teaser before Finding Nemo. I liked it a lot and chatting with Drew and Ebert's friends was cool, as was checking out Ebert's--actually Drew's sister Lorena's--new truck. We made plans to go to a barbeque the next evening and went home for the night as it was getting pretty late by that point.
The next day, we woke up. Yeah, we woke up. I'd like to say we woke up early, but we didn't, since we'd spent a few hours the night before watching the Trigun DVDs that Drew had received in the mail the day before. So, in short, we got off to a later start than we had planned.
Hold on, that sounded vaguely familiar. Ah well...
We poked around on the Internet figuring out train schedules and such for a planned return to LA on Sunday before striking out to look for a pinata for the wedding. When I called Henry to confirm, though, it turned out that he had he had expected me back in LA on Saturday, rather than Sunday, to help take care of a few things. Scrambling a little bit, we found a suitable train and made plans for me to get picked up in LA by Soo Sun later that afternoon.
In the meantime, Drew and I didn't have much time to do anything before I had to go to the train station, so we took the opportunity to crash the old favourite from my last visit, the Super Bronco Taco Shop. It's a little mom and pop type place that's just a few minutes walk from Drew's apartment, so it's every way the "neighbourhood establishment." It's good, comforting Mexican food, that's for certain. They drenched my chilaquiles, but Drew's carnitas and carne asada were excellent. It's hard to imagine going to San Diego without a stop at the Super Bronco Taco Shop. I'm told Henry used to come down to San Diego for the food, too, before he found a place or two closer to home.
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I wish I had something more exciting to show you about San Diego before I left, but I don't. I have this picture of the sign outside a favourite neighbourhood restaurant in San Diego, though. |
About mid-afternoon, I said good-bye to Drew and caught the Surfliner up to Los Angeles. The train was very clean and new and wonderfully appointed. They even had AC outlets for the power cord for my laptop at every seat, which was a marked improvement from my last non-commuter train ride--New York to Philadelphia--where I had to sit in the dining car to plug in. The ride was pretty uneventful, though I got to listen to a pair of college guys hitting on a gorgeous blonde that was sitting behind me the whole way up.
Correction: trying to hit on the gorgeous blonde sitting behind me.
As expected, Soo Sun picked me up at the train station and we skipped off to the airport to rent a car that I would be using for the next couple of days before switching to a minivan. Thus began my LA adventure as a chauffeur. As much as various apologized for sticking me with the job, I actually found it enjoyable. I like driving and LA driving was challenging and interesting. Would I enjoy it if I had to do it every day? Maybe not, but for a week, it was pretty fun.
After renting the car, we picked up Henry's mom, Rita Lee, and headed home with Soo Sun leading the way. We got there, but not without overshooting our intended exit. Seems that Soo Sun was so absorbed in catching up with Rita that she wasn't quite watching the exits, which introduced me to my first chance to "drive on the fly" as I watched her cut across three lanes of traffic to get to an exit and thought, "There's no way I can follow her without killing someone, namely me." That's the worse that it got, really, and I made sure I was prepared the next time by snagging a map at my earliest opportunity. That's the way I like it. Gimme a car and a map and I'm happy.
As soon as we were home, we were back on the road, with me taking Soo Sun and Rita out for the beginnings of Soo Sun's bachelorette party. I was able to join a small group of ladies for dinner at Pari, a vegetarian restaurant, but left to take Rita back to Henry's place so that the others could haze Soo Sun appropriately. I heard that they--Soo Sun, Jamie, Jin Kyoung, Tammy, Na Young, and Aehwah--were joined by quite a few more people when they went to the Conga Room, but after that, their lips were sealed.
After waiting for Soo Sun awhile and ultimately deciding that she wouldn't be home at a reasonable hour that night, Henry and I went up to the Malibu guest house, which was graciously provided by their friend.
The house was phenomenal. It was big and airy and wonderfully furnished with some great electronics (huge widescreen plasma TV, etc.) and, most impressive of all, it was built on the side of a canyon, offering fantastic views when there was light out.
I stayed in the house up until the wedding day, along with a few other characters that would come in and out over the next week or so. All I can say is that it's fantastic to wake up in the morning, crawl out of the king bed, and take a few steps to a balcony that overlooked the canyon behind the house.
The only thing I didn't like was the drive to and from the house. Actually, I didn't really dislike it so much as I know I would if it was a drive that I had to make twice a day to get to and from work. For the week that I had to drive it, though, the winding mountain road was challenging--especially when I was trying not to upset my passengers--and a lot of fun.
The pictures below were taken later in the trip, but rather than insert them chronologically, I figured I'd put them in here, when I first encountered the house.
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Left: Malibu guest house, exterior, garage. |
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Left: Malibu guest house, view from back yard. |
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Left: Malibu guest house, back yard. |
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Left: Malibu guest house, view from balcony of master bedroom. |
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Left: Malibu guest house, living room. |
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Left: Malibu guest house, family room. |
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Left: Malibu guest house, downstairs study. |
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Left: Malibu guest house, kitchen's eat-in area. |
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Left: Malibu guest house, master bedroom. I slept here. That king sized bed is sooooooooo comfy. |
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Left: Malibu guest house, master bathroom, left side. Never bothered to use the appealing tub that was there. It would have taken too long to enjoy it and we just couldn't afford the time. |
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Left: Malibu guest house, second bedroom. This room was used all of the days that I was there by Henry or Soo Sun and, later, another guest. |
One of the conditions for the use of the house was dog-sitting. There was a German Shepherd there named Hedwig. She was the sweetest dog and obviously very happy for all the attention she got. It felt bad to have to push her outside before we left each day only to return late to let her in, but I suppose it's far better than coming back to find gifts littered around the house.
The pictures below were taken the same day as the pictures above, but again this seemed the best place to put them since this was the first time I met her.
An interesting little side note: Hedwig's owners are two men and it was a little funny how she would be reluctant to listen to Soo Sun when she told her to do things like going to bed. By comparison, she was more cooperative when it was a male voice giving the orders. Go figure.
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Left: Hedwig, wanting to return to the house, with Soo Sun controlling the door. Just moments earlier, it looked like they were having a conversation through the glass. |
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Left: Hedwig in the back yard. |
It says something about how little I know about Quakers the way I interpreted the fact that there was a "Quaker meeting" Sunday morning. Of course, what was really meant was that we were attending a Quaker Meeting, which is a religious service for Quakers, much like Mass is there for Catholics, though without all the pomp and circumstance. The Meeting went well and everyone was rather nice, though Soo Sun and I had to run off shortly after it ended in order to pick up her mother (Nova Nell) and stepfather (Jarvis) at the airport.
The flight pickup was followed by a trip to an Indonesian restaurant, where we met up with Henry and Rita. The selection was quite varied and excellently prepared, though I admit that I would have liked it spicier, though that probably wouldn't have been prudent with such mixed company. There were quite a few dishes that I'd never seen before, which made this meal a rather fun one for me, not that I've had Indonesian food that often.
After lunch, Henry and Rita went off to do an errand, while the rest of us drove over to the Walter Beach House in Venice--the city just south of Santa Monica along the Pacific Coast--to get the new arrivals settled. Considering the time zone change and the early start they had on the East Coast, Soo Sun and I left her parents there to rest and freshen up for a bit.
Soo Sun and I walked Venice Beach for a bit, then walked over to Grand Canal to find the other guest house. Though we didn't have keys, we were able to take a few exterior shots of the surrounding area. Below are pictures of the Walter Beach House and the Grand Canal House. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to see the inside of the Grand Canal House.
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Left: Walter Beach House, exterior. |
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Left: Walter Beach House, study. |
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Left: Walter Beach House, dining room. |
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Left: Walter Beach House, second bedroom. |
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Left: Walter Beach House, master bedroom. |
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Left: The Grand Canal in Venice. |
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Left: Soo Sun befriending a cat. |
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My favourite house at a junction near the Grand Canal guest house. |
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Left: Venice Beach near the end of Venice Street. |
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Left: Raver girls practicing with poi on Venice Beach. |
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Left: Footprints in the sand. |
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Left: Ian, with sea gulls. |
We came back late in the afternoon to pick up Nova Nell and Jarvis and took them over to Soo Sun and Henry's place in Santa Monica. I believe that Nova Nell and Rita were supposed to meet with Jamie, one of the wedding coordinators, for a Meeting of the Moms this afternoon, but I'm not sure if that was ever accomplished. I'm a little fuzzy on it and it might very well have been postponed until the following day.
That night, we had dinner at Monte Alban, a Oaxacan restaurant. Oaxaca is a state in Mexico, so the food was "Mexican" but nothing like the typical tacos and burritos that I'd find out East. Instead, we had dishes like Prickly Pear Cactus Salad, fish in a sauce that I can't describe, and chicken in mole sauce made of chocolate. We also has a kind of rice-based drink that was very refreshing, though I've since forgotten the name.
On my own on the road for the first time today! I'd like to say I acquitted myself well, though I didn't anticipate the time to get to LAX very well and showed up a little later than I had planned. Fortunately, the person I was there to pick up, Tammy, hadn't cleared Immigration and Customs yet, so it didn't turn out to be so bad, especially since I'd managed to go to the wrong terminal. Who knew that United had all their domestic flights at Terminal 7 and their international arrivals at Terminal 6? At least they were within jogging distance of one another.
While the sedan had been sufficient for the weekend's wanderings, starting on Monday, more and more people were going to need ferrying around, so right after picking up Tammy, we skipped over to the rental agency to swap the sedan for a big white minivan. This took longer than expected, but eventually we were on the road and meeting up with Henry in Chinatown for a dim sum lunch at Ocean Seafood with his mom.
Afterwards, we just sat back and relaxed at Henry's for a bit, waiting for Soo Sun to get back from whatever errand she had to run. Once we had everyone together, a big bunch of us went to Koreatown to check on some gift bags that were being made, as well as to get fitted for hanboks (traditional Korean garb).
On the way to Koreatown, we had dropped off Jarvis on Museum Mile where he could amuse himself while the rest went about doing their tasks. When we picked him up after all was said and done, we found out that he had wandered into the La Brea Tar Pits Museum and had himself a grand old time.
The drive back to Santa Monica was pretty rushed as I had to get Soo Sun to a ballroom dancing class on time. I don't even remember if we made it there early or just a little late, but we weren't grievously behind schedule. Once that was done, though, everyone else had some free time. I dropped off Nova, Jarvis, and Tammy on the Santa Monica Promenade before taking Rita back to Soo Sun and Henry's place, then ran off to do an errand of my own, dropping off dry cleaning. Rather than wander back to the promenade, I chose to hang out at Santa Monica Beach instead and took pictures of the sunset, heading up along the Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu at one point to snap more pictures.
I'm not sure what we did for dinner exactly, since people seemed to be scattered to the four winds, but I think that Tammy, myself, and Henry had a home-cooked dinner, courtesy of his mom. The evening was pretty quiet; we watched Four Weddings and a Funeral. That night, Soo Sun came up to the Malibu house with Tammy and I.
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Left: Pedestrian and bike paths at Santa Monica Beach. |
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Left: Santa Monica Beach. |
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Left: A sea gull's ass. |
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Left: Another sea gull. Wonder why I've got so many pictures of sea gulls? The wind was really strong that day, blowing in from the ocean. All of these sea gulls were pretty much "gliding" on the wind, though they were pretty much stationary. I had one hovering ten feet to my left for half a minute. |
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Left: Santa Monica Beach, just before sunset. |
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Left: Santa Monica Pier. |
Tuesday was a work day. Soo Sun and I left Tammy to sleep off her jet lag and went back to Santa Monica where we worked on organizing details for the wedding. This is really much more boring than it sounds, so I'm not going to bother trying to make it sound exciting.
Around noon, Henry, Nova and I went out to take a look at a house in Bel Air that Henry was considering renting to accommodate more out of town travelers. While the house itself was gorgeous, the furnishings were absolutely atrocious. Weird looking antiques were arranged all around the house, complete with exhorbitant price tags still affixed. I sorely wished that I'd brought the camera because I don't think I'm ever going to be quite so amused at any open house ever again.
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Left: Franklin guest house, exterior. |
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Left: Franklin guest house, office. The picture was actually taken on Sunday, 27 April, so there's a relatively full house of people here (Drew, Sue behind him, Neil, and Kai), but I decided to put the pictures here because this was the day that the house was viewed and rented. |
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Left: Franklin guest house. Ian's face in the huge mirror at the top of the stairs on the top floor. |
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Left: Franklin guest house, second bedroom. |
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Left: California guest house, street view. |
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Left: California guest house, second floor... deck? Patio? Balcony? Not sure what to call it. It was like an exterior hallway. |
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Left: California guest house, master bedroom. |
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California guest house, kitchen. |
We picked up some supplies on the way home, where I dropped off Henry and Nova, before continuing back to the Malibu house to pick up Tammy and bring her down to the rest of civilization. In the meantime, Henry had checked out two more houses in the Santa Monica area with Jiwon and found them suitable. Jiwon is Soo Sun's brother's girlfriend. Soo Sun's brother is Sung Won, by the by.
Early evening, Henry and I bid adieu to everyone else for the evening and headed into Koreatown to meet up with Alex, Jang Woo, Kiwon, Wonsuk, and Yong Bin for Henry's bachelor party. All that was originally planned was a trip to the Mokyoktang (communal bathhouse). Amusingly enough, Henry thought that's all that it'd be, but we ended up finding ways to keep him up and out until well into the wee hours of the night. Like the girls, we're keeping our mouths shut.
I'll say this much, though: the bathhouse was fun. There's a lot of self-consciousness at first, what with showering and bathing naked in front of your friends and a whole lot of strangers. On the other hand, once you've stuffed yourself into a scalding hot tub of water and lay there for awhile, you really don't care about any of all that. It was an incredibly relaxing experience and given the chance, I'd do it again, maybe taking advantage of some of the other scrubbing, massaging, and spa-like services that they offered.
Oh, and I was introduced to bo ssam during the bachelor party, which has quickly become my new favourite Korean dish. The downside is it's not really meant to be eaten by one person, as the portions can be somewhat large, so I'll probably have to stick with the kimchi jigae when I'm on my own.
Let's see... a night of drinking and carousing, a late return to bed... What could possibly come next? Why, sleeping in till noon of course! Henry took off early, along with Soo Sun, leaving Tammy and I to snooze away. We didn't get out of the house until almost mid-afternoon, when Henry called to ask if I could pick up his mom in Chinatown, where she had been shopping for teapots and teacups for the wedding.
I dropped off Tammy at Soo Sun and Henry's place before making the speed run to Chinatown, something that I was really getting the hang off by this time, even if it meant driving in the big white whale. It was one of my misgivings from the beginning whether or not I'd be able to handle the minivan, but it turned out alright. I think I only missed someone in my blind spot once the entire week.
When I got there, Henry's mom was waiting, but the china still wasn't ready for transport, so she and I stopped in at a Vietnamese restaurant for pho (noodle soups). Had I known that we'd be going to dinner shortly after we got back with the tea service, I probably wouldn't have eaten so much. Such is life, though, and I enjoyed both meals.
The second meal was at a vegetarian Chinese restaurant in Monterey Park. Henry and I went out first with others following. Unfortunately, Henry and I were both scheduled to be somewhere that evening, so we were under time pressure and had to start before the others could arrive.
By this time, Kai and Juliet had arrived from Amherst and DC, respectively. Henry and I got to see them for maybe all of five minutes before we had to run out to make our appointment. They were able to join us when they were done, though, so there was quite a bit of catching up.
For those that don't know the history, my Junior Year at university, I lived in an old stone house on The Knoll in Ithaca. Henry, Soo Sun, Kai, and Juliet were all housemates in that house at one point or another during the year. Others from the house would also be present at the wedding (Una, Rajiv), including a few people that didn't live in the house but were closely associated with the residents (Drew, Tammy).
Anyway, the important meeting that Henry and I had to make was a conference between the lead drummer of a Korean drumming group and the leader of a Chinese lion dancing troupe to iron out the transition from the planned Korean and Chinese ceremonies. We had all gone up to a cul-de-sac that had been dubbed Dragon Mountain by the local news media where Jeff Chang and his troupe practiced.
Having done lion dancing in the past when I was studying kung fu, this was really fascinating for me, so I had a great time hanging out with the lion dancers and watching them practice. They even let me try out a few things in one of the lion heads, which was fun, since it's been so long since I was able to take on a head.
Turns out that Jeff Chang is a really engaging man, somewhere in his 50's or 60's, maybe older. He had a tonne of stories and could keep on talking forever. He had been a football player in his youth and eventually got into show business. His troupe has done parades all over California and also some smaller functions (bar mitzvahs? who knows?), but his favourite claims to fame were working in The Replacement Killers and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
After the lion dance rehearsal, the "Knoll group" headed back to Soo Sun and Henry's where we hung out for a bit, but given the lateness of the hour and the travel that had been done by some that day, we ended up going to our respective guest houses and got some sleep.
Ah, but not without watching some cartoons first. Over the week, I would watch Trigun episodes up at the Malibu house before going to bed. Got through a good number of them, but sadly didn't finish the series before I had to leave.
Trigun is Japanese animation and, while it starts off rather silly, it gets a little more serious a few episodes in and becomes a very good series. I definitely recommend it for those that like anime. For those that don't, it might come across as rather goofy and silly at times, but it's still a far cry better than watching Yu-Gi-Oh on Saturday mornings.
The day was fairly relaxed, or at least it started that way. The gang gathered at Soo Sun and Henry's and hacked away at wedding planning and chatted for awhile, until we all had to make the mad dash to Koreatown for teh first of two wedding rehearsals. This was the first time that any of us had would see the script for the afternoon ceremonies. There would be three ceremonies when all was said and done: a Quaker ceremony in the morning, followed by a Korean and Chinese ceremony in the afternoon.
Originally, I had thought that I would be a palanquin carrier with Drew. The palanquin would carry the bride to the altar where she would be wed to the groom. That's what I thought anyway. See, Soo Sun kept referring to me carrying "something". In my mind, I kept hearing "duk" which I interpreted to be the Korean name for the palanquin. It wasn't until the rehearsal that I found out I was to be carrying ducks.
It's really quite interesting, actually. There is a pair of ducks made of wood and painted very colourfully. One of them has a ribbon tied around its neck, representing the bride. I would have to carry them and walk in front of the groom in the procession and, before the groom walked up the aisle to the altar, I was supposed to hand him the ducks and give him a few words of advice and then depart.
In not so many words, I'd just found out I was the "best man."
Cool.
After the rehearsal, Soo Sun and Henry had arranged for a ballroom dancing class at their school, so the lot of the out-of-towners went back to Santa Monica for the rest of the evening to learn a little salsa.
When Henry, Soo Sun, Tammy and I finally retreated to the Malibu house that evening, there was still work to be done. I had mentioned gift bags earlier when we went to be fitted for hanboks on Monday. In the gift bags were supposed to be a bunch of knick knacks and candy. One of these things was Global Exchange Fair Trade chocolate, which is organically grown and sold through Fair Trade practices that support the farmers and promote a commitment to social justice. One of the requirements of giving away this chocolate was the inclusion of a flyer explaining the origins of the chocolate and the benefits of supporting the producers that make it.
Though the task of folding up the flyers so that they'd fit in the bags had been started during the rehearsal, there were still quite a few left. Kai and Juliet had come up to the house with us and joined us in watching a bit of the movie, Hero, but couldn't stay too long before they had to return to Santa Monica. Henry, Soo Sun and I ended up folding the flyers late into the night while watching the rest of the movie and then some Trigun.
Having put it off all week, I couldn't avoid it any longer. I had to get a haircut. I'd let it grow just a bit too much and by now it was too late to be idea. I should have gotten it cut a week earlier so that it had some time to grow out. Lack of planning meant that I looked just a little too hairless come wedding day. Still, it was better than looking too bushy.
Dragging Jarvis along, since he would have been bored watching the moms and everyone else assembling the gift bags, I went down to Chinatown, where I treated him to a dim sum lunch that I'm told he still reminisces about. I just thought that it was excellent dim sum, but then again, I've had far more exposure.
Leaving Jarvis to drift through the toy stores in Chinatown--Jarvis is a big collector of toys from all over the world--I went off to get my haircut. Nothing too eventful there, but it was followed by a task that seemed far harder than I thought it should have been. I was looking for crisp new $20 bills for part of a wedding gift and I had a lot of trouble finding any. In the end, I had to settle for "mostly new" bills, since the banks apparently didn't stock new bills except around Chinese New Year.
After picking up some sparklers for the kids, it was off to Saddlerock Ranch for the second wedding rehearsal, with a quick pitstop at Soo Sun and Henry's for a change of passengers. We got to see what the blocking would be like for the ceremonies and ironed out the rest of the details that weren't covered the day before.
When the rehearsal concluded, we all headed back to Koreatown for dinner at Shin Peking, which was a Korean restaurant giving their interpretation of Chinese food. It was quite good, but being accustomed to more Cantonese flavourings, it tasted a little odd.
By this time, just about everyone else from the old college gang had arrived. At dinner, we were joined by Drew (San Diego), Una (Boston), and Sue (Raleigh) and Henry's old high school pal, Cesare and his girlfriend, Maureen. It was just like old times and everyone fell into that old familiar comfort zone and spent the night talking away until we all had to tear ourselves away to get some sleep before the real fun began the next day.
However, that wouldn't be all for Drew, Tammy, and I. When we got back to the Malibu house that evening, we still had the big box of teapots and teacups in the back of the van. With the sound of a parent saying that they should be washed before use ringing in our ears, we spent the next couple of hours washing every teapot and cup. Altogether, there were twenty teapots and 250 cups. The fact that we got through the lot in so little time and only chipping one cup was amazing.
The wedding day was a busy day and far too busy for me to really be thinking of taking pictures, so I didn't really end up with very many until the sun had gone down at the reception.
I'm not going to go into too much detail on the wedding itself here because I have a separate page for it. More can also be found at the "official" site, www.soosunandhenrygotmarried.com.
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Left: A drink backlit by a candle. |
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Soo Sun and Henry's first dance. |
The next morning, minus Juliet who had an early flight, the college bunch joined Soo Sun's relatives on her dad's side for brunch at Ocean Seafood in Chinatown, where we also celebrated Henry's birthday a day early.
The food was good and the camaraderie was still riding the high from the day before so the company was very pleasant. It would be too short for some, though, for Cesare, Maureen, and Drew all had to drive back to their respective homes that day to be ready for work the next day. We said our good-byes and had to continue on the rest of the day without them.
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Left: A dignified group picture. Front (l-r): Woomyoung, Jiho, Soo Sun's Gomo, Jiwoong, Soo Sun, Henry, Rita. Middle (l-r): Tammy, Jayoung, Una, Maureen, Rajiv, Na Young, Sue. Back (l-r): Sungwon, Neil, Ian, Cesare, Andrew, Kai. |
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Front (l-r): Henry, Rita. Back (l-r): Maureen, Cesare. |
Ten of us remained after the post-brunch farewells: Soo Sun, Henry, Na Young, Sue, Tammy, Una, Kai, Neil, Rajiv, and I. After bouncing around some ideas, we decided to go up to Will Rogers State Park to take a little hike. Na Young stopped for sorbet at Mateo's, which sounded like madness initially, but once we all got up there and were sinking little spoons into the tasty treats, we were all very glad she did.
I don't think I've ever done a group hike like this, but it was a lot of fun. It was sort of like a cocktail party, only more active, and with frequent switching around of conversationalists. Being the one to hold one of the buckets of sorbet (the guava one), wasn't such a bad lot in life either.
At the top of the trail, we stopped to rest for a bit and simply enjoy the view of Los Angeles below. I was able to get some pictures that I thought were great, but the lighting messed with the shots somewhat. Also, for the life of me, I can't figure out why I never took that one last picture that would have completed a 360-degree sweep from the top of the trail. As it is, I have an almost 360-degree panoramic.
We probably looked odd doing it, but both Henry and Kai were convinced to talk to us a bit about the Qigong exercises they had been learning. Henry was studying Qigong in LA as a supplement to his Eastern Medicine studies and Kai was learning Qigong as part of his Bagua (a "style" of kung fu, or alternatively another martial art altogether) studies. We all got to do a few exercises and goof off a little bit and then made our way back down to Santa Monica.
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An almost 360-degree panoramic view from Will Rogers State Park. I don't know what got into me to forget to take that last picture that would have made it a full 360 degrees. |
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On a subsequent trip to LA, I retook the previous picture, this time getting the full 360 degrees and then some. |
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Left: A northward view in Will Rogers State Park. |
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Left: A northward view in Will Rogers State Park. |
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Left: Na Young giving Soo Sun a shoulder rub. |
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Left: Una. |
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Left: Performing a mystical ritual around Kai. |
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Left: Front (l-r): Neil, Henry, Kai. Back (l-r): Rajiv, Ian. |
We all went to Monte Alban for dinner since Tammy had yet to have Mexican food while she was back and wanted to have some before she had to leave. She was scheduled to leave the next morning, so this really was her last chance. Once again, dinner was excellent and the fare was similar to the meal I had earlier the week before.
After dinner, Na Young went off to study for her class and the rest of us returned to the Franklin guest house. While a few disembarked to relax, Kai, Rajiv and I took Neil to the airport for his redeye flight back to Raleigh. He had arrived just the morning before and already he was gone, but he wasn't able to afford the vacation days off. Still, it was great to have him around and we were sad to see him go.
When we got back to the house, we picked up the others and went back to Koreatown for noraebang with some of Tammy's friends. The easiest way to describe noraebang is to say that it is karaoke in a private room, rather than in a public bar. If you don't know what karaoke is then, well, think of you singing with the songs on the radio. Now give yourself a microphone, a TelePrompTer, and an audience.
It was another late night, I'll admit, and a few of us stayed up really really late talking our ears off.
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Left: Jan, Na Young, Tammy, Michelle and Rajiv at noraebang. |
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Henry and Soo Sun outside Cohen's for noraebang (karaoke in private rooms, instead of clubs). |
At some point, before noraebang, we had left Sue at Soo Sun and Henry's place. She ended up spending the night there, so Soo Sun and I woke up early to pick her up and get the rest of her stuff packed up and then make the airport run. Upon our return, we crashed out again, at least for a little while. Only a handful of hours later, I had to wake up again to take Tammy and Kai to the airport. It was sad to see everyone go so soon, but I had the consolation of knowing that Tammy would be in New York so I could see her again.
When I got back to the Franklin house, I got there just in time to see Una, waiting for her friend to pick her up for lunch. We sat outside for awhile and chatted in the beautifully sunny weather. I'd like to think I was intelligible, but I'd had so little sleep, I couldn't be sure. Then again, some of the best talks are had when severely deprived of rest.
I took another nap and eventually crawled out of bed feeling half human late afternoon, just in time for dinner. Soo Sun's relatives had pretty much all gone home by now, except her brother, so dinner was at a "hole in the wall" Korean place that served a most excellent abalone congee (thick rice soup). We were pleased to have Jiwon with us, as well as Soo Sun's high school friend Mohan, and his girlfriend, Alyssa. Henry's mom was also joined us.
In what seemed a recurring theme, the end of dinner marked another departure for Mohan and Alyssa had to return to the East Coast. We said our good-byes in front of the restaurant and they drove off to LAX, while the rest swung by one of the photographers' homes to pick up the CD's with all of the digital photographs from the wedding. I was fortunate to squeeze in the time to copy all of the CD's to my hard drive before leaving. Imagine this: over 1200 photos from one photographer alone. I had over 400 for my entire trip. I don't know how many pictures the print photographer took at the afternoon ceremonies.
Then, after dropping everyone off at home, Henry and I engaged in a fit of madness and went to dinner again, this time at one of his favourite sushi restaurants at the Santa Monica airport called The Hump. I couldn't recommend this restaurant more. If you have the chance to go, you should. The prices are a little high, but the ambience is fantastically cozy and the service is top notch. And, the most important of all, all of the food is incredibly fresh.
We talked to the chef for quite awhile, with Soo Sun joining us a little later, and he told us about how the shipments would come into the airport and they would snag the stuff before they went "downtown" for processing and sale to other merchants. So, in a sense, they really did have the freshest ingredients. Then again, he could have been blowing smoke up our asses, but having tasted all of the wonderful fishes, I'm a believer. The selection was so much more varied than what we get on the East Coast and some of the choices were ones I probably wouldn't have expected outside Japan, including a few things that we probably weren't supposed to eat. Definitely worth the trip, if you get the chance.
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Sungwon shows off a birthday present, with his girlfriend, Jiwon. Jiwon had been vital during the wedding preparations and had been the one to find the Franklin and California guest houses. Many thanks to her for the wonderful accommodations that she was able to procure! |
By this point, there were only two left from the college crew, Una and I. Una's flight was early, so once again I was up before the sun had even risen and driving out to LAX with Soo Sun to take Una to her terminal. The details are a little blurry, but I'm sure we returned to the Franklin house and rested up a little bit and cleaned up before going to catch my flight home.
Thirteen days after arriving, I finally had some time alone with Soo Sun and Henry while we had brunch near Long Beach airport. I have to say I wish I could have spent more time with them this way, but I guess weddings are never a good time to spend time with the bride and groom.
The good-byes were tearful, though I don't think Soo Sun or Henry saw it while I walked through the gate to my plane.