Our trip was broken up into two phases:

1. the first day when we were on our own with Hazel
2. the rest of the trip when we were joined by two of Yenari’s friends from Korea – Eulji (who visited us in California the month Hazel was born and who we saw many times when we were last in Korea) and her friend Gohwoon

We arrived early on our first day and walked the couple blocks to Fort Derussy Beach where Hazel had her first fun playing in the ocean and on the beach. Even though we live in California Hazel had only seen the ocean, she hadn’t been in yet. Here she is, enjoying her time in her bikini on the beach:

Over the course of the 6 days we were in Hawaii Hazel played a lot on the beach and managed to get sand just about anywhere possible…her favorite routine was face planting into the sand right after having her sun block applied and her daily attempt at eating sand. She was initially scared being in the ocean…particularly whenever the slightest drop of water touched her face, but over the week she started really enjoying it and having fun with us.

Around lunch time on our second day Yenari’s friends showed up at the hotel. We had a big suite and all stayed together as a big, happy, Hazel-watching family. Hazel almost immediately became best buddies with Eulji and Gohwoon – I think by the end of the trip she was convinced that they were HER friends who were there for her entertainment. Here are the girls (minus Hazel who was passed out in her stroller) sampling Mai Tais on the beach:

The next day we went out for our first non-eating, non-beach activity – a trip on the Outrigger Catamaran to go snorkeling. Here are some photos of the day:

Most of the time on the little excursion was spent snorkeling – it was fun, but not nearly as good as the snorkeling we did on our honeymoon in the Cook Islands. After the snorkeling they let out the sails and started cruising…Hazel got totally nailed by a big wave that crashed aboard the boat and was not a big fan of the bumpy and windy ride. Here she is hiding from all the excitement:

We had many great meals on this vacation – many driven by Yenari’s desire to eat any and all ramen in Waikiki…a place that has a lot of ramen joints – I think we ate at four ramen places in our 6 days. We also ate some other great meals…the winner was definitely Morio’s Sushi which had raving reviews on Yelp. We called early in the afternoon to try to reserve a table for dinner and they asked us to call back at 8:30pm…maybe they’d have room. We ate a late lunch to prepare for a potentially late dinner and called them at the requested hour….when they said they’d call back by 9pm if they had a table…which they finally did. By the time we made it there Hazel was passed out:

Morio’s is a BYOB kind of place (SWEEEEET) and it seems that all of the diners take advantage of that and bring booze not just for themselves, but for Morio and the two others working there. It is a tiny place, but the booze still adds up. We were at the sushi bar talking with chef/owner Morio, and since the night was almost over, he had quite a few free drinks already…enough that he started giving away all his extras to us – in addition to the bottle of wine we brought we drank another 4 bottles of sake from Morio. The sushi was incredible (including all of the leftover toro at the end of the night) and it was probably the most entertaining sushi dinner I’ve had…primarily filled with Morio hitting on Yenari and her friends. We stumbled back to the hotel a little more intoxicated than we had planned, but took these photos first:

The rest of our trip was filled with a lot more food and a lot more beach time. Hazel had so much fun with both the beach and with her friends. Eulji and Gohwoon were both so great with her and kept her entertained everyday until she passed out:

Thanks to both of them for choosing to spend their vacation with us and for putting up with all of Hazel’s inquisitiveness and all of her requests to play. We had a great trip and we all planning where the next trip will be. Here are some more photos from our trip to finish it off…

London was the first on our list. We got into London on a Wednesday afternoon and I had a couple of busy days in our European headquarters right on the Thames. Yenari and Hazel spent most of the mornings and afternoons sleeping, making both of them slightly nocturnal. Yenari did manage to crawl out of bed on day and visit the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and the Tate Modern museum:

To celebrate the end of my work week in London we took the tube to the London Eye, the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe, for a nighttime ride. Hazel was passed out for the beginning of the half hour ride but soon woke up and started walking around the massive cabin and checking out the view.

Our flight back was on Monday morning, so we had the whole weekend to be tourists. Saturday was our Museum day where we went to the British Museum to check out the Greek exhibits of the Parthenon, the mummies, and all of the other items items plundered/discovered/recovered/bought from the British empire over the past several hundred years.

Hazel slept during most of our museum visits, but she did find some time to check out the exhibits:

Speaking of sleeping Hazel….here she is passed out at the museum followed by another one of her passed out with Yenari at Trafalgar Square, following our visit to the National Gallery the same day. She was a sleepy baby.

After the museums we spent the rest of our afternoon at the Tower of London. Hazel slept through the tour of the Crown Jewels and the Royal Armory to enjoy the nice afternoon whether and check out the Tower Bridge:

After all the museums and the Tower of London we were tired! We made our way through the city all day on the Tube…which is just one of the key examples of London as a stroller unfriendly city. Most of the tube stations and even many of the museums have only stairs which meant carrying a stroller with a sleeping baby inside up and down many many flights of stairs…a fairly awkward and not so fun thing to do…over and over again in London. It would have been a lot easier if Hazel had been awake, but hey, we were in London, so I’m not complaining (too much).

After crashing for a while we took the tube down to the Thames where they were throwing the Thames Festival…a weekend festival of food, shopping, and entertainment on the Thames. Yenari tracked down a chocolate truck and thoroughly enjoyed the hot chocolate and brownies while I ate a Indian-spiced lamb burger.

For our last day in London we started it off with the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. It was packed so we didn’t get anywhere near the gates and Hazel wasn’t able to attempt my sister Liza’s (HI LIZA!) feat of getting her head stuck between the fence surrounding the palace. That would have been made for a good picture, but alas these are from afar:

After the changing of the guards we hopped on a bus tour so that we could see a little bit more of the city. Hazel had fun on the bus, repeatedly yelling ‘whoa’ right in the the ears of the guy sitting in front of us.

When we got nearby the Thames we hopped off the bus and went back to the Thames festival for an encore cup of hot chocolate and to checkout the tent and events that KOCCA (the Korean government agency that Yenari’s father works for) was hosting. Hazel was (of course) asleep and missed out seeing a huge cut out of her favorite cartoon character, Pororo.

From there we head across the river and took a roundtrip boat tour of the Thames, where Hazel woke up for a few minutes to enjoy the ride:

We rounded out our tour of the city by hopping back on the bus tour and making our way to the beautiful St. Paul’s Cathedral.

It was a fairly hectic five days, but we had a great time in London. Hazel will surely have fond memories of sleeping in hour stroller in all of the beautiful museums, sleeping while we ate our meals, and sleeping on our tours around the city.

We had a leisurely 11 hour flight back, followed by 2 days at work for both of us, followed by a vacation in Hawaii…covered in the next episode…

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Two weekends ago we made a trip to the aquarium in Monterey – we weren’t sure whether Hazel would love it, not pay attention at all, or hate it. Almost immediately she started copying us and others around pointing at the fish and saying ‘whoaaaaaaa, whoaaaaa’ in a reminiscent of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. She had a great time…here are some photos:

Disneyland

This past weekend we made a trip with Yenari’s aunt and uncle to LA first (where we ate a bunch of Korean food) and then to our primary destination, Disneyland. This was another one where we weren’t sure whether she’d like it or not…she ended up kind of ambivalent about it, having fun sometimes but being bored others – but she didn’t meltdown and we had fun at least . Here we are, just arriving at the park:

Luckily there are enough tame rides at Disneyland that Hazel was able to join in on the fun. While waiting on the line for the Dumbo ride Hazel pulled out the oooooing and awwwwwing that she learned at the Aquarium as all the Dumbos flew by. One we got on she seemed fairly entertained, continuing her oooooing and awwwing soundtrack. Here she is:

One of her favorite rides was It’s a Small World where you ride on a meandering boat while little dolls from around the world sing “It’s a small world afterall” over and over and over. Hazel was dancing away to the music and having fun – she’s a big dancer these days, she starts bopping up and down, side to side, whenever music comes on – from children’s music to Nirvana or Alice in Chains. She was so comfortable on the ride that she transitioned quickly from dancing having a great time to being totally passed out.

We also went Mickey’s House so that we could get a photo of Hazel with Mickey Mouse. On the way there Hazel and Yenari were thrown in jail, but luckily Hazel pulled the bars apart and they were able to escape:

Once in Mickey’s house we ended up on a massive line waiting for the photo…quite deceiving since his house looked tiny. After waiting for at least a half hour or maybe even an hour we made it to Mickey…Hazel was in a good mood, but that changed the second she was standing next to Mickey…when the waterworks began. Apparently stranger anxiety is just as applicable to stranger mice as it is to stranger people. Here she is with Mickey:

After a long weekend driving, in LA, and at Disneyland we headed home. Hazel wasn’t nearly as cooperative as she had been on the way down to LA so we had to use our magic weapon in silencing her cries and wiping away here tears: showing her Pororo videos on YouTube on our phones…repeatedly until we got home. It was a fun trip – thanks to Yenari’s aunt and uncle for sharing the fun with us!

We got our rental car, a three row mini-van, and Yenari’s father assumed the role of tour guide for the duration of our trip. On the way out of the main town we stopped at a supermarket to pickup some food, and then at the public market – a crazy place – to pick up some abalone. Check out the massive scallops next to the abalone:

On the way to our hotel on a drive through the center of the island we stopped at big volcanic crater to take a look. Yenari’s parents and grandmother watched Hazel (which they did at countless spots in the trip) while we made our way to look around. The area was covered with magma everything – from the rocks lining the stairs up to the crater to the roofs of the surrounding buildings:

We continued onto Royalville – our hotel that was a modern condo-like setting right on the ocean with 3 bedrooms, and living room, and kitchen:

That night Yenari’s father prepared the abalone three ways: sashimi, pan-fried, and as a part of a rice porridge – all were excellent. This trip was the first extended period of time that Hazel had with her great grandmother…and they became great friends. Here’s Hazel sitting between her great grandmother and her grandfather at breakfast the next morning:

The next day we spent primarily driving around the island and checkout out the shoreline and the waterfalls pouring local streams and rivers into the ocean:

At the end of the day we headed to the Jeju airport to pickup Yenari’s friend Eulji who joined us for just over 24 hours – but an action-packed 24 hours – on Jeju. In those 24 hours we did a lot of eating, climbing, fishing, swimming, and sight seeing. A couple photos:

We made a number of trips to that swimming pool at our hotel and Hazel started to enjoy it quite a bit at the end. She was a bit scared in the beginning and definitely didn’t like any water getting on her face, but she had fun with everyone carrying her around the pool, splashing water, and playing in an inner-tube:

It was a great trip – so many beautiful things to see, great things to eat, but more importantly we had such a good time with Yenari’s parents, grandmother, and Eulji. Hazel formed a real bond with both her great grandmother and her grandfather and everyone took their turns in playing with her. She was so excited and pumped that she wouldn’t nap or sleep well…so she just partied until she crashed:

At her 9 month checkup a couple weeks ago she measured up well – she was ‘off the chart’ on height, coming in a just over the highest line on the growth chart at around 30 inches. She weighed in at just under 20 pounds (70th percentile) and her head circumference was around the 75th percentile.

One of her biggest changes in behavior has been her stranger anxiety. While she is cautious around just about anyone she doesn’t see on a regular basis she is much more weary of men…and the scariest of them all seems to be my dad! Last week he came for dinner and Hazel burst into tears before he even stepped in the house – the mere sight of him did it. After a while she (mostly) lets down her guard – here she is after a couple hours:

One of the big things we did was to go on a short road trip down to LA with the sole purpose of satisfying Yenari’s craving for Korean food. The Bay Area definitely has much better Korean food than most other areas of the country, but it is still no match for LA. This was a very similar trip to the one we took about a year earlier except this time we had little Hazel to keep us busy. She did great on the drive down to LA and was fairly well behaved in most of the restaurants we went to. Here’s the Korean food connoisseur and Hazel taking in the end of a crab feast at OnDal:

And a quick stop for ho dduk – a sugar-filled Korean dessert pancake. This was the first of many visits to this place and was inspiring enough to Yenari that she was talking about wanting to open up a ho dduk stand of her own!

Hazel had a blast in our hotel playing on the big king size bed:

On the way out of town after three days of gorging on Korean food and watching the Korean Olympic speed skaters kick some serious butt, we stopped by the house that my great grandfather build – the house where my grandmother grew up, my mom lived for many years, and the first house I lived in in the weeks after birth. Hazel didn’t seem very excited about any of this and slept through the visit:

On the way back home from LA we took a detour to Delano to see Carol, Yenari’s buddy from nursing school:

This trip to Korea town in LA was just practice for the real thing – this coming Thursday we’re flying to Korea for a two and a half week vacation. This will be the first time Hazel meets her grandfather, great grandmother, uncle, many other relatives, and Yenari’s friends. While we’re not looking forward too much to the 10 and 12 hour flights, we are excited about having the chance to take a long vacation and spend some time with Yenari’s family in Korea.

And now…more pictures:

My mom, Duncan, and my grandmother came down from Connecticut to spend about a day and a half with us.  I was at work during the day, so everyone hung out at the hotel, played with Hazel, and ate food.  My mom saw Hazel just a few weeks ago, but Nana hadn’t seen Hazel since she was about 3 months old, so the 8 month old Hazel was definitely a much different baby.  Hazel was in excellent behavior the whole trip and kept everyone laughing.  Here’s Hazel with her Meemaw and Nana:

The New York trip was also the first time Hazel got to meet her great aunt Janet, great uncle Bill, and their daughter Sarah.  Here are a couple photos of Hazel meeting them:

This trip was also Hazel’s first time meeting my good friend Michael Ross – we met him for a BBQ dinner.  The last time we’d seen him was when Yenari was pregnant and Michael was still living in Chicago – it was great to have the chance to see him now that he’s in NYC.

On the way back from dinner with Michael it started snowing – Hazel’s first snow! So we headed the block from our hotel to Times Square to take a couple late night snow photos:

The trip was definitely too short and we didn’t get to see all of the people we would have liked to have seen.  It was an exhausting couple of days and only got more tiring when we got back since our 6am flight back home brought both of us into full work days resulting in 24 hours of awake time!

Switching gears to the 8 month update…teeth are still coming in and she’s doing a lot of chewing, whether she’s eating or not.  She’s been a more adventurous eater, with a particular love of beef related food such as the beef broth from Korean gom tang soup and Gerber beef baby food.  Other things that she seems to like are yogurt, tomato, avocado, and chicken.  This newfound interest in ‘real food’ has made going out to dinner a lot trickier as she is no longer content to sit in her car seat and watch us eat – now she wants to be an active participant in the meal and also does her best to knock over drinks, pull table cloths, and reach for hot and sharp things.

Hazel is sitting like a champ – she started sitting on her own about a month ago, but now she can really do it without us spotting her.  She’s a big hand waver now – not actually waving goodbye to anyone, but just generally waving her hands and opening and closing her hand like she’s petting something.  She has much better hand eye coordination – she’s got the pincer grip down and she also is able to use both hands together to play around with things.

Here’s to the next month of new adventures and changes!

Yenari and Hazel stayed locked down in our hotel the whole time I was at work both days – they didn’t leave at all without me!  Last post I had some photos of Hazel swimming in the pool, so I’ll skip ahead to the end of the second day.  Yenari checked out of the hotel around 4pm (thanks to their kindness in letting us have a super late checkout) and I made it back to the hotel after work to pick them up around 4:45.  Then it was off to the Southborough train station to pick up Liza and then drive down to Connecticut.  Again, Hazel was a travel champ, passing out and sleeping the 2 hours down to my mom’s house in Durham, CT.  After some dinner, chatting, and baby playing we went to bed.

The first thing on the lazy day agenda for Saturday was the arrival of grandmother and Hazel’s great grandmother.  Even though she’s a great grandmother she’s still ‘Nana’ to Hazel.  This was her second time meeting Hazel – she first met her when she was only about 3 weeks old, so Hazel was a lot bigger and more responsive this time around.  Here are a couple pictures of Hazel sitting and smiling with Nana:

Next up was a visit from my college friends Joe and Sophia.  They’re expecting a baby anytime now – Sophia’s about ready to burst!  We had a great brunch with them filled with baby talk, baby play, and catching up.  Here’s a couple photos of them playing with Hazel:

It was great to see them.  Best of luck to Sophia and Joe in the coming weeks!

That night my mom planned a dinner party to show off Hazel to many of her friends.  Some of these friends I’ve known my whole life, so it was great to see everyone and the excitement everyone had for Hazel and for us.  Here are a couple of (out of focus – guilty me) photos of the girls and the boys of the party:

After the evening of great company and excellent food Hazel was a bit cranky from the over-stimulation but eventually got to bed and slept well.  In general she wasn’t really phased by the 3 hour timezone switch on either end of the trip, so we lucked out in that regard!

The next morning Hazel’s aunt Kathleen came over and we had a great time playing with Hazel on the couch, with high spirits all around…photos of Hazel with my mom (meeeeeeeemaw), Liza, and Kathleen:

The whole Connecticut trip was great – we got to pack in a lot of time with a lot of great people without having to even leave the house!

The trip back wasn’t so fun though.  I’ll skip the full story and just mention: long drive back with tons of traffic on the Mass Pike, lots of traffic near Liza’s place with students returning to college, GPS suddenly not working leading to aimless driving through Boston, boarding pass that didn’t mention Hazel requiring second trip through security, Yenari and me being in different rows of the plane with others only agreeing to switch so we could be together halfway through, crying toddler keeping Hazel awake and crying, more crying, and finally back home.  It was about a 14 hour trip door to door and definitely not too fun, but we survived, and had a great time on the trip, so it was worth it…