Bathroom Remodel: Quick Before & After

Will post more details later, but in the meantime, here was our bathroom before our remodel:

Complete with laminate countertop, mismatched faucets, laminate floors, and a weird, pentagon-shaped tiny shower that we never used.

Annndd.... our bathroom after the remodel! New everything:

More details to come, but I will say that Eric's favorite spot in our house now is underneath the rain shower :)

Hannah & Eric's 2012 Year in Review

Dear wonderful friends and family,

What a year it has been! In 2012, Hannah and I trotted the globe, witnessed friends and family members tie the knot, and waved goodbye to our twenties. It truly was a year to remember. While still fresh in our minds, we wanted to share some of the highlights with you. At the end of this note, we also compiled a list of lessons learned and a few things that, looking back, were totally worth it.

The first weekend in February was big for the Kim family: Hannah turned 30, and two days later, her sister, Erina, got engaged to her boyfriend, Michael!

Alta Plaza, San Francisco - Hannah’s 30th Birthday Scavenger Hunt

Berkeley - Erina and Michael’s Surprise Engagement Party!

Lake Tahoe - Alexander All-Stars with Maine Lobsters

In March, we revived the annual South Lake Tahoe cabin trip with our friend Melissa and her all-star friends. It was extra special this trip because we were celebrating her co-ed Bachelorette party. The snow was soft, skies and lake blue, beers cold, and hot tubs...hot! One friend who couldn’t make the trip generously shipped over 25 fresh lobsters from Maine, which allowed us to feast after a day of snowboarding. That Sunday early morning, Hannah drove us back to San Mateo, and then she went straight to the airport to fly to Paris (for work)!

In May, we went to Cabo San Lucas, where we enjoyed the sun and sand, and over-indulged on too many tacos at our all-inclusive resort. I then visited Washington D.C. for my nephew's birthday. We were sad Hannah couldn’t make it, but it was still quality Wu family time. Instead of sharing yet another adorable baby photo (I’m sure you have plenty baby photos to enjoy between Facebook and Instagram), here are the men celebrating their son/nephew/grandson turning one.

Takoma Park, Maryland - Wine and Cigars

June brought the official start of Summer and wedding season! In between weddings, bridal showers, and more weddings (we attended 10 in total this year), Hannah and I managed to squeeze in a weekend trip to Yosemite National Park with a few of her friends to hike up Half Dome (17 miles round trip). The final ascent with cables made the hike exceptionally thrilling and set it apart from past hikes.

Half Dome Summit, Yosemite National Park - Triumphant Wu’s

NorCal - Fun with Angie and Drew

Starting in July, Hannah’s cousin, Erika, stayed with us for a couple months until she found a permanent place after moving back to the Bay Area from New York. We had fun sharing the house with a familiar roommate (Hannah and Erika were roomies in San Francisco for four years) and indulged in all the sinful desserts she brought from the East Coast.

Over the 4th of July weekend, my sister, Angie, brought 13-month old Drew out to California for his first trip to San Mateo. He really enjoyed meeting all of his Northern California relatives at a barbeque we hosted at the house. We also took a day trip to Santa Cruz so he could play on the beach. While he wasn’t a fan of the icy cold ocean water, he had a blast playing in the sand.

On July 21st, the Kim family officially welcomed another son-in-law when Erina and Michael got married in Los Angeles. Hannah was the Matron of Honor and I was an Usher. It was one of the most heartfelt, personalized, and fun Christian ceremonies we’ve ever witnessed. We were also able to squeeze in a Joshua Bell concert at the Hollywood Bowl that weekend.

Los Angeles - Family Expansion

August was filled with more youthful escapades as Hannah and I attended the Outside Lands three-day music festival in Golden Gate Park. The following weekend, I reunited with Dr. Creb (my childhood friends from Indy) in Miami for Robert’s bachelor party. Additionally, Hannah’s sister, Mia, landed a job teaching 1st grade at a school in Redwood City, so she lived with us for a few months until she got settled into her teaching routine. We were happy to have the 3rd Kim sister join us in Northern California and hope she likes it enough to stay!

London, England - Walkers and Wu’s Across the Pond

Our much anticipated big vacation of the year finally arrived in September when Hannah and I traveled to the UK with our friends Drew, Sara, Ranjani, and James. We enjoyed our first Ceilidh in celebration of Ranjani and James’ marriage and do-si-do’ed the night away in the gorgeous backyard of James’ childhood home a few miles outside of Cambridge. After the grand evening with the Americans and Brits, we hopped over to France to soak in the cuisine, sun, and wine in the French Riviera, Provence, Saint-Émilion, and Paris. Hannah and I celebrated our two-year anniversary in Nice, and while we could write pages about the trip, it can be summarized in five words: we want to go back!

We returned to the States just in time for four more weddings in four weekends (in three states)! Congrats to Emily + Ryan, Melissa + Scott, Chris + Debbie, and Robert + Ashley.

Turkey Day was spent at home where we hosted a feast again. Some friends came over for a day of party games, wine, a bonfire, pushups, a partial viewing of Up!, and of course delicious eats. We drank a special double magnum (3 liters) of Merlot from Gundlach Bundschu that friends gave to us on the day Hannah and I got engaged (thanks to LJG, SLP, NKE, MAD, and JT) . While Hannah and I were sad to see close friends leave the Bay Area this year, we were thankful to have two of our favorite Midwesterners, Kristin and Chad, finally make the move out to the best coast!

In December, it was my turn to say goodbye to my twenties. Eight brave friends joined Hannah and me in Las Vegas to send off my twenties in style. You can imagine it was a successful weekend given Hannah and I both won at the casino. On Sunday, Hannah took another cross-continental flight, this time flying from Vegas to Sao Paulo, Brazil. The following weekend, we paid our final respects to Hannah’s grandmother, who passed away peacefully in her sleep at the age of 89. She was a big part of Hannah's life and will be remembered as the greatly respected family matriarch, full of grace and courage.

At last, we ended the year by swimming and snorkeling our way to Christmas Day in Kauai, Hawaii. The major highlight of the trip--aside from just relaxing after a fulfilling year--was a Na Pali Riders whale watching tour that took us along the Na’Pali Coast. It was the beginning of mating season, so we saw well over a dozen humpback whales and even more bottle-nosed dolphins. 

Hannah and I have had a fantastic year and are looking forward to more adventures in 2013. We are finally ready to "settle down," so maybe this time next year our family will look a little different! ;)

Poipu, Kauai - Christmas dinner at Tidepools restaurant

2012 Lessons Learned

1. When driving a stick shift for the first time, do your best not to take the wrong turn that takes you through the city center of Arles, France with its small, one-way, pedestrian-filled alleys. 
2. When traveling in a foreign country, make sure you are at the correct bus stop to avoid sprinting to catch your bus while carrying a 50 pound backpack 
3. Matching tuxedo t-shirts make for a guaranteed unforgettable evening 
4. Play craps with Hannah. She’s lucky. 
5. Don’t play Yahtzee against Hannah. She’s lucky. 
6. Sneaking wine into Outside Lands in large Ziploc bags = lots of saved $$ 
7. Bathroom remodels are a lot more work than one might think 
8. The word “terroir” (used in every other sentence in French wine country) is really difficult to pronounce correctly. Try it. Seriously. Terroir. 
9. School buses are a great method for transporting wedding guests 
10. “Less drowsy” Dramamine (motion sickness medicine) still turns Hannah into a zombie

Totally Worth It 

1. Waiting 2 hours at the top of the Eiffel Tower for the sunset and the City of Lights to live up to its name 
2. Climbing up to the top of Half Dome and being crazy sore the next day 
3. Traveling around the country to attend every bachelor/bachelorette party and 10 weddings 
4. Waking up at 5am to go on the Na Pali Riders whale watching tour in Kauai 
5. Standing on our tiptoes to watch Andrew Bird live in concert 
6. Every video chat with our parents/sisters/nephew/friends 
7. Eating Hannah’s homemade cookies when I’m already full from lunch/dinner 
8. Bottle service at XS
9. Chateau Haut-Sarpe B-Winemaker tour in Saint-Emilion where we mixed our own blend 
10. Bone-in filet mignon at Bobo’s Steakhouse

Other Notable Mentions 

1. Gangnam Style. Yeah, that happened. It played 5 times at 4 weddings in 4 straights weekends. As a Korean, Hannah is both proud and bewildered.
2. What an incredible season for Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck leading their teams to the NFL playoffs 
3. Indiana Men’s Basketball ranked #1 from the beginning of the season to just a couple weeks ago 
4. Giants won the World Series in sweeping fashion!

Asia Trip 2011 - Part 2

Sunday, October 16
We took a day trip to another city at the southern tip of Korea, Busan (about 280 miles away from Seoul). I had taken a trip to Busan back in 2002, when I studied abroad for the summer in Seoul. Back then, we took a bus, and the bus ride took like 5 or 6 hours.

Nowadays, there is a high-speed KTX train, and we were able to get on a non-stop train from Seoul to Busan which took just about 2 hours.

The train stations in Korea are super nice.

We went with our friends Susan and Carlos (two KTX bears above haha), and also Carlos' brother Clayton and his fiancee Nora (who we met for the first time that day).

Our first stop in Busan was a fish market... it was very crowded with all sorts of live (and freshly dead) fish and other seafood for sale. We ate at a restaurant that served us a few different types of fish, pan fried. Pretty delicious...

After lunch, we took the subway to one of Busan's beaches.

There were a lot of cute cafes and restaurants along the waterfront. Notice "Lamer Cafe" below. We think it was supposed to be "La Mer Cafe"... the space makes a big difference haha.

We ate another meal at one of the many seafood restaurants. Busan is famous for really good sashimi, but the sashimi we got wasn't that great... maybe we ordered the wrong thing or didn't pick the best restaurant, but it was just eh.

We took the train back home after our late lunch/early dinner, and capped off the night with some street food :)

Monday, October 17
Eric and I had lunch and tea/dessert with three of my aunts (my dad's cousins) and my second cousin Heejae. We had some good conversations catching up, and of course gossiping about our family haha.

The neighborhood where we ate is called Insa-dong, and its a cute/trendy area with more of the older traditional style buildings/architecture. Lots of small alleyways filled with cafes and restaurants, and also some shops.

Later that night, we met up with all of our friends for dinner. We have several friends doing Asia trips around the same time as us, and we all overlapped in Seoul for a few days.

Dinner that night was amazing... Korean bbq place that gives you a lot of different types of dduk (rice cake) to wrap the meat in. They also put kimchi at the bottom of the grill, so the fat from the meat drips down into the kimchi, and the kimchi cooks in the meat fat. yumm haha... (btw I think Eric and I have each gained at least 5 pounds so far during this trip.)

Good times... more to come...

Asia Trip 2011 - Part 1

For those of you who didn't know, Eric and I are currently in the midst of our big trip of the year -- Korea (Oct 14th through 20th) and Taiwan (Oct 20th through 30th).

Seoul is a HUGE area... more of what we would consider a county in the US (or kind of like "the LA area"), and there are over 10 million people who live in Seoul proper, with another 10 million people in the surrounding suburbs. According to wikitravel, "by some measures it is the second largest urban agglomeration on the planet, after Greater Tokyo."

We landed in Seoul on Friday, October 14th and got to our hotel, which was super nice and very centrally located... that is one nice thing about traveling a lot for work, is utilizing all those miles and hotel points for vacation! We got settled in, and then went walking around Myung-dong, a trendy shopping area right by our hotel:

Lots of people out on the streets...

Lots of yummy street food (spicy rice cakes, fish cakes cooked in broth, various other snacks) everywhere:

The subway system is pretty awesome... super clean, very extensive and organized, frequent trains, and super cheap at less than 90 cents (USD) per ride. 

On Saturday, it started pouring rain. We stayed out of the rain by checking out a huge traditional food market area, and also by going shopping for clothes inside ginormous malls.

There were tons of stands that sold various food products at the market area:

So many red peppers!

Lots of different spicy side dishes:

One of the many ginormous shopping malls, with tons of clothes/accessory shops inside. We literally spent like 3 or 4 hours inside this one building, and there were several more the same size or bigger right on the same street:

Eric had a hard time fitting into Asian men sized clothes. This jacket was the largest size they had (XL) and too tight! Also, I thought the baby/kids clothes below were hilarious haha [pics below taken on phone]

On Saturday night, we met up with our friends Susan and Carlos (and Carlos' friend) and ate some delicious spicy chicken, cooked at your own table with veggies, rice cakes and noodles.

 

Another Seoul night scene in a different area:

Okay... more to come! We're currently in Taipei, our first night in Taiwan...