The weekend after we got back from the wedding we kept the momentum going by traveling to LA for a 4 day trip to see Yenari’s father who traveled from Korea for a business trip. Yenari’s father was quite busy with work, but we were still able to spend quite a bit of time with him. We met him at the airport on Sunday and spent just about the whole day with him.

Yenari’s father probably spent half his time with us watching Hazel while we ate – I wonder if he even had a chance to eat anything the whole time. We had a terrific Korean BBQ dinner at Chung Dam Korean BBQ and a reprise of the awesome spicy crab soup we’ve had on our last few trips to LA at Ondal 2.

Here’s a short video of Hazel ‘walking’ with her grandfather and Yenari:

Hazel walking with some help from Mom and Grandpa from Greg Neustaetter on Vimeo.

We had a great time seeing Yenari’s father again – Hazel definitely remembered him from our Korea trip and quickly rekindled her friendship with him. One of the things that Hazel started doing while we were in LA and that she’s continued doing every….few seconds, is to ask for things. She does this by putting her hands together:

She does this whenever she wants anything – food, toys, us, dogs, and even when she sees other kids out in public. It is totally cute but grows a little old when it happens every ten seconds or so. What doesn’t grow old is her bowing when she gets what she was asking for. Yenari taught her this when she was teaching her to ask for things, ‘Chusayo’ in Korean. Here’s a quick video of Hazel asking for something and bowing once she gets it:

The rest of the month was definitely more low-key…no more traveling for us, but we’ve still been busy trying to keep up with Hazel. Here are a couple other photos from the rest of the month:

The whole extended weekend was spent hanging out with my family, meeting Andrea’s family, and spending time with both of their friends. A couple photos of the company we were keeping:

They had their rehearsal dinner at a beautiful organic restaurant where the waiter (in a fake British accent) overwhelmed us with all the details about where the butter was made, how awesome it was, and how it was accompanied by the homemade bread…yup, the butter was accompanied by the bread, not the opposite. The dinner was incredibly tasty, the scenery beautiful, and the company excellent:

It was at this rehearsal dinner where Hazel met Coralie, her best friend of the trip:

On the day of the wedding, the weather did not look like it was going to cooperate…the sky was filled with clouds and it was raining on our way to Weather Lea Farm, the beautiful wedding spot. Somehow, magically, the sky cleared just in time to decide to do the ceremony outdoors instead of the backup indoors spot. We got Hazel all geared up in her princess dress:

Hazel had so much fun seeing everyone that she totally passed out right before the ceremony. We walked down the aisle with other family members to kickoff the ceremony, Hazel passed out on my should for the whole walk. She stayed sleeping as I held her over to Yenari so that I could hand over a ring, kept up the sleeping as Yenari held her back, and continued sleeping as we marched out after the ceremony…totally passed out. Some photos of the ceremony I caught from the front row:

and sleepy Hazel…

After a cocktail hour we head into the barn for the reception, and almost on cue the rain resumed, having cooperated for the whole ceremony and cocktail hour. Hazel bounced around from table to table, stolen away by friends and family…giving us a chance to actually eat our food without rushing and without having to keep an eye on her. Hazel awake and ready to party:

We all joined the crowd on the dance floor and Hazel had an awesome time moving to the music, spinning around, and seeing everyone else having so much fun. After a couple hours of dancing Hazel was worn out again and totally passed out…on the dance floor…Lady Gaga blasting away. We had to tone down the dancing a bit while she was asleep, but we stayed on the dance floor and kept on moving! Here’s the crowd:

The wedding was great – a beautiful ceremony, such great people on all sides, a great Thai dinner, and so much time to spend with family. Hazel was wasn’t always the center of attention – the bride and groom took that honor – but I’d say she ranked quite high on the list. Not only did Hazel have a blast entertaining and being entertained, but she got herself a new Aunt! Welcome to the family Aunt Andrea!

Right after our Korea trip, meaning the day we arrived back in San Fransisco, we all hopped on a plane to fly out to Boston so that I could make it to some meetings in in Southborough, MA.  Considering that we had already flown for 12+ hours that day, Hazel handled the 6 hour redeye flight east really well.  We arrived in Boston, got our rental car, drove to Southborough, and I ran straight to my meeting while Yenari and Hazel slept for most of the day.  Because they slept almost the whole day they were wide wide wide awake when it was time for me to get some sleep that night.  We had a couple rough days of sleeping and catching up from the difficult 12 hour time difference.

On our second night in Southborough we went to see Alden, Katie, Violet – this was the week of baby Field’s arrivial, but he hadn’t quite arrived yet.  We hadn’t seen Alden and Katie in over a year, so this was the first time they had seen Hazel.  It was great seeing them after so long – we had hoped to see a little baby, but we were a couple days early for that.  It the excitement of it all I didn’t manage to take any pictures though – booo.

On Friday afternoon we picked up Liza at the train station and then drove down to Connecticut to my mom’s house for a weekend of fun.  We spent just about all of our time in the house, but had many visitors to keep us busy and check in on Hazel.  Here’s Hazel with her grandmother and great grandmother:

and here she is with Yenari and her Aunt Kathleen:

all of the excitement definitely tired her out:

On Sunday, right before we left, Joe and Sophia came for a visit with their little one, Vera. Hazel was kind of afraid of Vera and got really jealous when Yenari picked her up. We snuck the two of them close enough together so I could take a picture, but they definitely weren’t doing much playing together on this trip:

Finally, on our way back to the airport on Sunday afternoon, we stopped by Yenari’s high school friend Jungeun’s place in Boston. Jungeun and her husband have a little baby boy, so we wanted to have a meeting of the babes. Hazel did a repeat of her jealousy act when Yenari picked up their baby and seemed afraid of him – just like he was with Vera earlier in the day.

And with that…our trip was over and back to California we went – this time for more than 12 hours!

We started off the week on Monday picking up Yenari’s grandfather who was set to leave for Thailand the next day – he lives part-time in Korea, part-time in Thailand, so it was great to see him again (after the wedding the previous day).  We all headed to Yenari’s father’s office and met up with him to go to a nearby sushi restaurant for lunch. He are a couple of us eating the feast:

and Yenari’s father keeping Hazel occupied – but Hazel did the reverse – she kept him so occupied he didn’t really get a chance to eat anything:

Next we headed up to Yenari’s father’s office at the Korean Creative Content Agency, a government agency that promotes Korean culture overseas, with a focus of Korean music, movies, tv, animation, and video games – they do both promotion overseas and give grants to Korean content producers to allow them to finance their efforts. Up in his office, Hazel spent her time pretending that she was the boss:

His office was great for kids and much more fun that the average office since it was filled with stuffed animals, action figures, and posters from various things he’s worked on. The bottom floor even had a full Pucca Exhibition – here a couple shots from our visit:

It was a great little excursion of spending time with Yenari’s family, eating great food, and seeing a cool exhibit. On the way back to Yenari’s parents apartment we stopped so that both of u could get new glasses, and while waiting Hazel read the paper with her grandmother:

The next day was a busy day – we first went to lunch with Jooyoung, one of Yenari’s high school buddies, at an American themed restaurant (though it wasn’t actually so American!). Yenari had a great time catching up with her, but Hazel was a bit cranky so I was busy walking her around the restaurant and getting her to sleep – in all the excitement was forgot to get a picture with Jooyoung. After spending a couple hours with her at the restaurant Jooyoung gave us a ride to Doyoung’s house so we could spend more time with her.

It was a nice day so we went out on a walk with Doyoung and her almost two year old boy Daehyun. As we were walking Doyoung spotted one of her son’s favorite places – a mini amusement park / restaurant aimed at 2-4 year olds called Chiro & Friends (who are cartoon characters in Korea). Hazel was a bit too young to fully enjoy all that they had to offer, but that didn’t stop her from having an awesome time – here are some photos:

The kids weren’t the only ones playing – here are Yenari and Doyoung showing off their architectural work:

We ate some good food there and then paid the extra fees for spending more than the two hours that came with the price of admission. The three hours we spent there were a blast!

The next night we met up with another of Yenari’s high school friends, Sanghee. Sanghee went to school in San Francisco a couple years ago, so I know her too. Here are the girls, catching up at an Italian restaurant in the middle of downtown Ilsan:

And…last, on the list for this week was Daehyun’s 2nd birthday on Thursday. We met up with Doyoung and Daehyun for some lunch and then headed back to their place to help prepare the decorations for the party. Hazel had fun with all of the people giving her attention, and Yenari had fun spending more time with Doyoung and seeing Jiyoung, another high school buddy. Somewhere in the midst of decorating Hazel caught on to crawling – not a traditional crawl yet, but she can make her way across a room to where she wants to get, so she’s dangerous now! Here are some photos from the party:

All in all, a great first week in Korea!

We had to keep a close watch on her since her idea of fun was to attempt leaping out of the bassinet to play with us. Most of the time she spent on our laps while we tried to entertain her while watching movies. Yenari plopped Hazel in front of the TV and put the headset on her to see how she would react and she was transfixed – we’d never seen her act that way in front of the TV. It was a Korean cartoon and Hazel shrieked out in excitement whenever the shark came on the screen.

Once we made our way to Seoul and then through immigration, baggage claim, and customs we were greeted by Yenari’s very excited parents. Yenari’s mom was with us in California for the first four weeks of Hazel’s life, but hadn’t seen her since…and Yenari’s father had met her yet. Yenari’s father was a little worried because Hazel is very fearful of strangers (and particularly men), but she only gave him a healthy level of caution and didn’t freak out too much. Here’s their first meeting in the airport:

Since it was about dinner time, we went straight to a restaurant and met up for dinner with Yenari’s brother who was also meeting Hazel for the first time. Yenari’s dad continued his courtship of Hazel – trying to feed her and carry her around the restaurant…this courtship was successful at times and cry-inducing at others, but it was a start. Yenari’s father is a very energetic guy and this energy scared Hazel off for the first day or so, but Yenari gave him some advice to start slow and build up to his full energy level over time as she begins to trust him. Now, after a couple days, Hazel seems to be quite comfortable with him and sits happily on his lap and lets him carry her around. Here’s her father feeding Hazel at that first dinner:

After dinner we headed back to Yenari’s parents house and Yenari’s brother picked up Yenari’s grandmother to meet Hazel. Here she was kind of assaulted by love and affection…something that was a bit overwhelming for Hazel and resulting in a bit of a meltdown. We went to bed soon after and slept well, though Hazel woke up at an early 5am and turned the scenario around for Yenari’s parents by showing them what it feels like to try to play when you’re tired!

A little later in the morning we went with Yenari’s mom to bring Yenari to the salon – Yenari likes getting her hair cut a lot more in Korea than the US because they understand Korean hair better here. Yenari had recently trimmed Hazel’s bangs very unsuccessfully and Yenari’s hair dresser saw it and couldn’t resist giving Hazel a bit more of a trim to straighten things out. Here she is with Yenari’s friend Eulji who joined us at the salon:

While this was happening Yenari was busy being attacked by a ceiling-dwelling-robotic-octopus…or at least that’s what it appeared to be:

Later that afternoon we went over to Yenari’s Doyoung house – Doyoung is Yenari’s friend from middle school and high school and she and her husband have an almost 2 year old boy who we were meeting for the first time:

By this time I was somewhat zonked from the jet lag, but everyone happily chatted while I passed out on the couch. I’m pretty much caught up now, but the first two days were a bit rough.

Yenari’s mom and brother picked us up from Doyoung’s house and we went to pick up her father who had been on a day trip for business to Sunchun. While in Sunchun, Yenari’s father called to a restaurant called to a restaurant to get the famous Gwanyang Bulgogi – he didn’t have enough time to go to the restaurant, so he asked the owner to bring a cooler full of bulgogi (an order for 15 people!) to the bus station. Yenari’s dad didn’t want to cook it at home, so he called a BBQ restaurant where you cook at the table and asked if we could bring our own beef to cook – kind of bizarre, but they were okay with it. The bulgogi was incredible, nothing like the bulgogi we get in Santa Clara, LA, or anywhere else in the US. We also order some beef sashimi – raw beef marinated in pear, garlic, onions, sesame oil, and green onions. Here’s the family:

and here’s Hazel passed out – I wasn’t alone is suffering from jet lag:

Eventually we made it through almost all of the food…so the 5 of us ate about 13 servings of the bulgogi plus 2 orders of the beef sashimi. This was definitely some serious eating…the rest of the evening is a blur due to the beef intoxication!

The big event for Sunday was Yenari’s cousin Youngjoon’s wedding. We lucked out in having a family wedding while we were here – it gave us a chance to see lots of extended family without having to drive all of Seoul and the surrounding area to meet people. The wedding was also a new experience for most of us because it was a Korean traditional wedding – something that is very rare – both Yenari and her mother had never been to one in person. Yenari’s grandmother came over before the wedding and played with Hazel – she was in a much better mood this time and had a blast with her great grandmother:

The wedding was at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul and was held outdoors. Here are some photos of the ceremony:

Hazel was well behaved during the ceremony and didn’t scream out or anything like that. After the wedding she was mobbed by extended family members who wanted to meet her, hold her, and snap pictures of her. We saw Yenari’s grandfather (who we had seen recently in California) and I met Yenari’s aunt Jihae and her uncle Sungtae – both of whom I hadn’t met – now I’ve met all of Yenari’s mother’s siblings. The reception was very different from that of an American wedding – it was a no nonsense eat your food and get out of there situation – no dancing, music, or anything like that. We enjoyed our meal and then headed home.

We finished off the eating for the day by treating Yenari’s parents, brother, and grandmother to a dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I lost count after a while, but Yenari just counted out at least 7 courses. So, this was definitely a continuation of the massive food quantities we seen at just about every meal. I bet I’ll gain around 10 pounds if this eating style continues. Aside from the food, my favorite thing about this restaurant was that the brick wall was painted with a series of greater that life size paintings of Bruce Lee! No Bruce Lee photo here, but one of Yenari and her mom kissing Hazel instead:

When we got home to Yenari’s parents house they brought out Hazel’s early first birthday present, a beautiful wooden block house from Soopsori, a Korean company that makes toys entirely out of wood…and entirely out of wood it is – even the screws and screw driver used to assemble the house are made of wood. Everyone was busy playing with the the little animals, appliances, and the house:

A great present that we can’t wait to get home with us!

We’ve had a great time so far in Korea and are really looking forward to the rest of our time here. This post is way too long already so I’ll hold off on covering today’s events, but will do my best to keep this up to date….

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…

First off, we had a visit from my Aunt Janet (Janet Brown that is…two Aunt Janet’s if you’re counting) and cousin Morgan.  Here they are playing with Hazel:

Two days after the visit from Janet and Morgan, we drove up to Yenari’s Aunt JungHae’s house to see Yenari’s grandfather who had just arrived from Korea.  This was Hazel’s first introduction to her great grandfather and my first introduction to my grandfather in law.  Because this was the first time I saw him (and the first time Yenari saw him after getting married) we bowed to him and he gave us advice on how to have a good marriage.  When he came from Korea both of his checked bags were for us: a big and colorful playmat sent by Yenari’s mom and the second suitcase filled with food from Yenari’s grandmother.  He is a very sweet man and it was great to finally get to meet him and to see him playing with Hazel and keeping her entertained:

Hazel on her great grandfather's lap

Hazel hanging on the couch with her great grandfather

Just a couple days later my brother Andrew arrived for a short trip from DC to come see his niece for the first time.  Andrew balances a pretty wild schedule between work, law school, and breathing, so it was great that he was able to make it out to see us in one of his few free moments of the year.  Just after picking my brother up at the airport and visiting Yoni, his friend from college, we went to the Button’s house in Alameda for the annual bbq which was a lot of fun (as usual).  Hazel saw her first competitive croquet match! Here are a couple shots of my brother playing with Hazel and a video he took of her dancing (with a bit of Yenari’s help) to the Flight of the Conchords’ The Humans are Dead:

And finally…catching up to the present…we made our first big trip with Hazel yesterday, flying from San Francisco to Boston (yay direct flight, yay Jet Blue) and Hazel was a real champ.  She didn’t cry much – she spent most of her time sitting happily on our laps watching tv, sleeping, and eating…all the things ‘real’ people do on flights!

She and Yenari spent their time in the hotel today, and then when I came back from work we brought her down to the pool for her first swimming experience.  Here she is, decked out in her bathing suit doing her thing:

I can’t say that Hazel loved her first swimming experience, but at the same time she wasn’t crying, so it must not have been too bad.  The water was a little cold for her, but we made the best of the short experiment by taking a lot of photos.  And yes, Hazel has the fanciest swimsuit in the family – thanks to Sarah Lee for Hazel’s stylin’ Juicy Couture suit!  After the swimming we brought her back to the room and Yenari took a warm bath with her – definitely a more enjoyable experience for her.

And next up?  After I finish work tomorrow afternoon I’m going to pickup my sister Liza at the train station and we’re going to drive down to Connecticut to spend the weekend at my mom’s house and then drive back up to Boston on Sunday evening to fly home…

]]> http://www.gregandyenari.com/baby/2009/08/27/visits-visitors-and-trips/feed/ 2 http://www.gregandyenari.com/baby/2009/02/25/3-day-weekend-in-la/ http://www.gregandyenari.com/baby/2009/02/25/3-day-weekend-in-la/#comments Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:14:37 +0000 greg http://www.gregandyenari.com/baby/?p=138 Long time no posting – I’ll make it up with a painfully detailed post!

Yenari had a rare 3 day weekend this past weekend so I decided to take off Friday so that we could do something fun.  We decided to return to our roots – LA.  I was born in LA, but more importantly, LA has the biggest Koreatown in the US and thus the best Korean food in the US…and Yenari is definitely a fan of Korean food, so we settled on an eating tour of LA’s Koreatown.

We drove down on Friday morning, stopping at In-N-Out Burger (the only non Korean food for a few days!) and eventually making it to our hotel by around 2.  Once settled in, we headed down to Koreatown and drove around to get our bearings and eventually made it to a Korean salon where Yenari got a haircut.  Here she is mid-haircut:

Yenari getting her hair cut

Yenari knows several Koreans who live in the Bay Area that travel down to LA regularly to get their hair cut by people who ‘know how to cut Korean hair’.  After the haircut (the outcome can be seen in some of the other photos) we lazed around for a while and eventually headed out for dinner.  Yenari’s cousin (who also lives in the Bay Area) has become an expert in LA Korean restaurants and gave Yenari and cheatsheet of her favorites which we dutifully followed.  Our first pick was OnDal 2, known for their spicy crab soup.  They first serve the soup, you eat the crab, then they cook homemade noodles in the broth, and then they cook fried rice…all stages are pictured below:

Ready to start the crab soup dinner at OnDal 2

Crab soup closeup

Homemade noodles in the crab broth

Fried rice made from the crab broth

This was a truly excellent meal – each step was so good and so filling that we were stuffed beyond belief.  Yenari and I both can pack away a lot of food, but we had no chance here – we took about half the rice back to the hotel and passed out at about 9:30, exhausted from the eating (and maybe a little from driving 5 and a half hours).  I awoke at 7:30am to the sounds of Yenari chowing down on the rest of the rice!

After a passing out again from the great food, we eventually got up and decided we needed to be a bit active, so we headed down to the pool for some swimming.  Yenari has been convinced that she’s turning into a whale, so she figured it was time to bring it too fruition.  Here goes the swimming!

Yenari in the pool at the hotel

After the swimming we headed down to Koreatown on the subway for a late lunch at Myung Dong Kyoja, a restaurant from Seoul that opened up a branch in LA.  Yenari used to go the the restaurant in Seoul so she was interested in trying out the noodle soup and dumplings that she remembered eating there.  Here they are – both of ‘em excellent:

Steamed dumplings at lunch

Noodle soup at lunch

After lunch we took a long walk all the way across and through Koreatown to the Galleria shopping center – a massive Korean supermarket and mall – Yenari was in awe of all the things that had there and decided that a return trip with a car was needed.  Before leaving the city we did make that trip back and stocked up on lots of stuff that the Bay Area Korean markets don’t have.

For dinner we just kept on going with the Korean theme, dining at Dong Il Jang, a BBQ joint.  We went with a BBQ beef dished that we grilled at the table.  This wasn’t the standard marinated beef (bulgogi or kalbi), but instead was very high quality unmarinated beef that is just grilled and the dipped in sauce made of sesame oil and salt, eaten with a simple Korean salad.  It was great, and just like the crab dinner the night before, ended up with fried rice being made at our table.  Here’s the food!

BBQ beef at Dong Il Jang

Fried rice cooked at the table at Dong Il Jang

After stuffing ourselves with beef and fried rice we walked across Koreatown for another spot on Yenari’s cousin’s list – Pinkberry, a frozen yogurt place.  I don’t like frozen yogurt, so luckily I wasn’t tempted to add to my already loaded stomach, but Yenari was….here she is daintily going for the first taste:

Yenari taking the first stab at her froyo at Pinkberry

and then diving in head first for the rest!

Spoons are too slow

She actually didn’t eat the whole thing sans-utensils, just took off the pointy top part that way, but its not too difficult to image her just tearing into it.  With the noodle soup, dumplings, BBQ beef, rice, frozen yogurt, and a heck of a lot of walking under our belts, we headed back to the hotel and went to bed.

Yenari started off our last morning in LA by swimming again, we packed up, checked out, and then we headed out for our last meal in LA, a stop for some abalone rice pooridge at San:

More food!

Abalone pooridge for breakfast

After the tasty meal – the first non-massive meal of the trip – we headed back to the Galleria market for shopping and then headed out of LA.  On the way out of town we stopped at one of my favorite places in LA – the Getty Museum.  This was my third trip to the Getty in the last 10 years.  While the exhibits are great – we saw a couple good photography exhibits on portraits and early California photography in addition to the permanent collections of 16th – 18th century paintings, my favorite part about the Getty is the outdoor space, gardens, and architecture.  It is a beautiful place, perched up on a hill (you need to take a tram to get to the top) with great views of LA and great open space.  Here we are:

At the Getty Museum

The gardens and museum in the background

and yup, proof that I went on this trip too!

Yup, Greg was there too

And with that, after a great 2 day trip to LA, fueled by stomach busting quantities of Korean food, we hopped (as best we could after that much food) into our car, and made our way back home.

Phewf…the mega post is done – congrats if you made it this far!