daniel lee» Travel | daniel lee

Merry Christmas from LA!

coolyoungsuk — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:22:15 +0000

I was planning to spend Christmas in SF as usual, but happened to stumble across an extra vacation day and used it to spend the weekend with family and friends at home in LA! It came to be an aggressive plan, considering I am planning to drive down to LA the very weekend for New Years. Nevertheless, it was great times, time well spent, and well worth the drive!

12/23/2011: Beautiful drive down I-5! The drive back up was infinitely painful, for reasons I cannot disclose.

12/23/2011: I found Santa! The 21st century Santa apparently drives a Subaru.

12/23/2011: First stop: Merry Christmas weekend from Vibe!

12/24/2011: Christmas Eve dinner @ Beach 활어! Love their uni rice mix.

12/24/2011: Celebrating Christmas @ home with cake & wine! Took a long time to convince my dad that good wine must be opened.

12/26/2011: Best part of Corona? Quiet Starbucks with plenty of seats!

Flashback: Busan 2011

coolyoungsuk — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:55:11 +0000

Tina & David Wedding

coolyoungsuk — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 19:25:55 +0000

Tina & David tied the knot at the beautiful Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, CA. Congrats to the newest beautiful couple!

08/20/2011: A little HOT, but otherwise a perfect wedding weather! The sun umbrellas were a nice touch!

08/16/2011: 310 Daniel near the 310!

08/20/2011: I stalked them during the whole reception to get this picture... and David has his eyes closed.

08/20/2011: Bay Area Crew!

08/20/2011: Congrats Tina & David!

LA Golfing

coolyoungsuk — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 03:23:42 +0000

Sunday was anything but chill. It started with my parent’s friends coming over to go golfing, and me getting kicked out of the house… but that’s okay, because I had my own tee time with Aaron & Jae. I was bracing for a ridiculous heat wave, but there was a gentle breeze that made it bearable. It was a bit hard to overcome Aaron’s handicap, but Jae did most of the work with a single sing of his 8-iron, and Aaron broke down on the 18th.

07/03/2011: Golf with Aaron & Jae @ Diamond Bar Golf Course

Afterwards we ate dinner at Il Pastaio in fancy shmancy Beverly Hills 91210.

07/03/2011: Hendricks & Tonic @ Mastro's

07/03/2011: Chic staircase @Mastro's w/ J & J

07/03/2011: 2cha @ Saek Dong

07/04/2011: HOT. I was wondering where I got a funky tan line on my arm from... mystery solved. From driving.

Road Trip to LA with Lubs

coolyoungsuk — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 02:14:54 +0000

Last weekend I took a road trip down to LA to see my parents who recently returned from Korea for the July 4th holiday, and take Lubs back home, and also to hang out with Aaron & friends. I was expecting the worst since Luby doesn’t really like to stay in one place for too long, but was surprised to find that she basically didn’t move the entire trip. I only had to stop once, and she pee’ed and poo’ed outside, not making a sound or finding trouble while I was driving. She was also super good at work, and didn’t embarrass me too much. My parents were ecstatic to see Luby, and only greeted me after saying hi to Luby about 20 times. Tis true what my sister says, “…we’re always so much more excited to greet whatever you’re holding more than you. example #1: wine. example #2: luby. hehe.” sigh.

07/01/2011: Road trip to LA with Luby in 25 frames.

07/01/2011: Dad made me a margarita as a welcoming present- it was delish.

I kept Saturday super chill (although ‘chill’ is probably not be the best word to use considering LA was ridic HOT) and hung out with my parents. My dad went off for an hour on how terrible and wrong everything I’m doing with my golf swing… and he’s probably right. Golf swing correction/modification/metamorphosis- in progress.

07/02/2011: A cold one with Pops after a long, LONG day at the range. Ride back from range: dad "I want a beer, I want a beer, I want a beer" me: "Me too, me too, me too!"

07/02/2011: Parents: "You can pick any wine you want! Except for the expensive ones."

07/02/2011: Today, I am thankful for America. And their beef.

07/02/2011: Mum enjoying Luby's company. She's happy Luby is back ^.^

Busan 2011

coolyoungsuk — Tue, 31 May 2011 19:56:13 +0000

pie ranch

coolyoungsuk — Sat, 21 May 2011 23:06:26 +0000

I always thought it would be fun to have a little plot of land where I can grow various fruits & vegetables, maybe have a couple hens to lay me some breakfast eggs. I still think it would be fun, but I quickly learned today that farming is no joke. I volunteered with the Michigan Alumni at pie ranch, a community run farm down in Pescadero, CA. The majority of the work was pulling weeds from the raspberry farm, and cleaning up the strawberry farm in order to prepare the land for a fresh batch next year. It was only about 3 hours of work, but it was hard back-pain inducing work. Now that I’m reminiscing, it had some fun parts, and I wouldn’t mind going back for some more weed pulling.

The main barn & store at pie ranch.

Do you think they'll notice if I just took a couple hens? And who would've known that "Extra Large AA" on egg cartons actually meant something?

My job was to make the lower left picture... look like the lower right picture. Yes, I ate some strawberries along the way, and yes, they were delish.

LA Road Trip

coolyoungsuk — Wed, 26 May 2010 07:02:47 +0000

Next on the agenda for quite possibly the busiest (and most fun) couple of months was a road trip down to LA. Unlike the previous few trips where it was just me or me with another friend, this one consisted of six people! We were to drive down in a fun filled caravan, but people’s work schedules and so forth derailed those plans last minute. Regardless, we all made it down safe and sound, and other than the 1 hour traffic delay in the middle of nowhere, the drive wasn’t too bad.

We dropped our stuff off at Aaron’s as soon as we arrived and headed straight to our go-to Ktown bar, Gaam. The place was packed as expected, but we surprisingly got a table for 10 in a matter of minutes. We ordered enough drinks for 10 people, but the other half didn’t arrive for another 30 minutes or so… hence, we drank everything and ordered more. Towards the end of the night we were joined by some more friends and we all headed to Maitreya. At Maitreya, we ran into the ktown cowboys actors and I couldn’t resist but take a picture with them. We chatted for just a few moments and I wished them good luck on their future episodes.

On Saturday we headed to Father’s Kitchen for some burgers, and I guided Grace & Will around Torrance, Redondo Beach and the Friendship Bell in San Pedro. It was nice to stop by home and drive around my home town, but the driving was exhausting. Note to future self: don’t drive so much next time.

I recently learned that Janet Cha (now Shin) lives in LA, and Esther Ahn was also in town so we got together for some good Korean food. Now that I think about it… we didn’t take any pictures together, bummer I’m sure I had my camera with me, but I was probably too embarrassed to start taking pictures of food in front of her parents. Regardless, we enjoyed awesome galbi & galbi jjim, and afterwards headed over for a tour of their condo nearby. After hanging out there for a short time, Esther, her friend Jason, and I headed out to Gaam (two days in a row for me!), and then to Orange to meet up with the rest of the group. Again, no pictures, bummer.

Sunday’s lunch was galbi tang, completing the tri-fecta of galbi within a matter of hours for me. Dson and Koun joined us this time! After grabbing a quick dessert at ice kiss, we were headed back for SF. Again, I think all the driving on Saturday took a toll and made the trip feel very… tiring. To commemorate the trip, I made a quick video to recap the weekend. Here it is:

Napa for Parkie

coolyoungsuk — Thu, 13 May 2010 00:01:30 +0000

May 1, 2010

I took a last-minute trip to Napa today to celebrate Parkie’s birthday. This was my SECOND time (almost feel like a veteran of Napa saying that) visiting wine country, and my first in a fancy shmancy limo! I got to hit up some new wineries, starting with V.Sattui for lunch + wine. DK was right, this place has really good food for a reasonable price with a beautiful garden to eat!. The garden reminded me of Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte!

Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte!

Our lunch spot at V.Sattui. The picture may not seem THAT similar to the painting, but there is a resemblance, no? Like the painting, there are people of different social classes doing various activities!

Our table filled with wine, cheese, dips and crackers!

My turkey & cranberry sandwich was seriously yum! Soft bread, tender turkey, yummy cranberry sauce!

Despite the unfortunate little fall over, the cupcakes were still delicious!

After the wonderful lunch, we headed over to Artesa for a real wine tasting. One of the best part of this winery was the beautiful building/location itself! The wine tasting was also very unique (i.e. the chocolate cup shots of wine) and the wine was delicious too. Then we headed across the lot to Domaine Carneros to finish off the day with some champagne! Not sure if that’s the proper way to end wine tasting, but I sure liked it.

The views from Artesa was amazing!

View from Artesa 2. Kind of reminds you of the windows xp desktop picture no?

Never had a shot of wine in a chocolate cup before! It was, interesting, and good! I want to do it again….

Who knew there were different kinds of champagne? Not me…

Where do all the bubbles come from?

Heading back home in our awesome limo. Happy birthday again Parkie!

Earth Day 2010!

coolyoungsuk — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:10:00 +0000

April 24, 2010

As part of Earth Day as well as Michigan Community Service day, the AAUM headed down to Half Moon Bay to pick up trash at one of the beaches. They were surprisingly (and somewhat disappointingly) really dirty! There was trash everywhere and our bags got full really quick. Some went back for second bags… I… was content with just one. But to be fair, it was one each of the recycle bag and the trash bag!

Look at all that trash!

After all our hard work, the group headed over the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company close by and enjoyed some drinks and appetizers. The beach clean up was really a great event. It attracted a mixture of alums, and who doesn’t like walking up and down the beach on a perfect Saturday morning?

The lucky alums who came out to help clean the beach!

Obama Ale! Yes. I tried it. Yes. It was good.

As I was about to leave, I got a call from WJ hyung asking if I wanted to go to HMB! When I told him I was already here, he said they were heading to HMB Brewing Co., haha. Instead of sitting at the table by myself for 30 mins while waiting for them, I hit some balls at a nearby golf range and came right back to start part II of HMB.

Understandably crowded. ME: Can I make reservations outside? HOST: No. But you can make rsvp for indoors. ME: (Walk indoors) Can I make rsvp for 2:30pm? HOST: No. We only accept rsvp in at least 2 hrs advance. FAIL.

More beer!

And lots of food! Don’t you hate those people that say they’re not hungry… but end up taking a little bit of everybody’s food? Yeah… that was me today. I wasn’t hungry, but everything looked so good!

Food. Gone.

We headed out to a “secret” beach after dinner to enjoy what was left in the day. I’d tell you where this beach is… but you know…

THIS is how EXCITED Ahsome was to be at the secret beach.

“I’m on a horse”- this reminded me of the time Aimee wanted to go horseback riding in HMB, but the horse people said we couldn’t because the horses were tired that day… -______-

Good bye for today HMB…. we’ll see you again soon!