Travelogue: Atlanta (Dec 2016)

Posted on June 1, 2017June 1, 2017 Posted in art, Food, photography, travelTagged aquarium, atlanta, banh mi, boba, brisket, bubble tea, city skyline, coca cola, cocktails, georgia, long exposure, night sky, ribs, southern bbq, street art, vietnamese, wall muralsLeave a comment

Long weekend means road trip time! We flew into Atlanta and began there.

I’ve always wanted to go to the largest aquarium in the U.S. — the Georgia Aquarium.

It reminded me of the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans, which to this day remains my favorite (for blog post on that, click here).

Next to the aquarium is the World of Coca-Cola.

With the admission fee, you get a “free” coke at the start of the tour:

Here you can test out all the flavors of Coca-cola products from all the continents in the world.

After loading up on excessive sugar, we went to eat some BBQ because Atlanta.

Twin Smokers BBQ

The brisket was good but the BEST part was their DINOSAUR RIB!

The picture does not do it justice. And also the corn souffle (SO GOOD):

Ponce City Market reminded me of Chelsea Market in NYC, with lots of food options and retailers selling hipster things:

The “Beltline” also reminded me of the Highline in NYC, attached to Ponce City Market like the Highline is attached to Chelsea Market.

I saw a lot of people riding bikes here.

And of course, the main reason for coming here was for the wall murals nearby:

Dinner at King + Duke:

My chartreuse!

Bone marrow and amazing steak.

After dinner, we went to the Ivy for drinks and met up with a friend from college.

Of course I had to do a long exposure night shot of the city skyline:

Next morning, we went to grab some amazing banh mi for $3 (SO FAST AND SO CHEAP):

GET THE BANH MI DAC BIET!!!!!!!!!

It’s located inside an Asian shopping center which means lots of parking space and bakeries.

Tea House Formosa for bubble tea:

And that was it for Atlanta! It was a fun 1.5 day(s?) there, lots of good food and wall murals, kinda rushed because we were short on time. We could’ve eaten more fried chicken there. Next, we head to Chattanooga on the way to Nashville, Tennessee!

LA: The Broad, Little Tokyo, Griffith (Nov 2016)

Posted on December 23, 2016January 24, 2017 Posted in art, Food, photography, travelTagged daikokuya, eggslut, golden hour, griffith observatory, infinity room, los angeles, mikawaya, mochi, museum, ramen, sunset, the broadLeave a comment

Eggslut time.

This one is located in the Grand Central Market.

We sat at the counter and chowed down on the most delicious magical egg sandwiches ever. They give you so much bacon and meat!

I ordered the “Slut”, which is coddled egg with warm potato puree, it was like a warm delicious blanket covering me in the middle of a blizzard in New York City. Also, it’s fun to hear them yell out “Slut” to each other repeatedly.

We walked over to the Broad Museum. I reserved advanced tickets so that we didn’t have to wait on the standby line. The earliest time I could get was 11:30AM. In order to sign up for the Infinity Room, you had to be inside the museum, so I wanted to be there as early as possible.

As soon as we got inside, I signed us up for the Infinity Room. The wait was around 2 hours, so we explored the rest of the museum.

Finally, we got a text to notify that we will be able to go into the Infinity Room shortly. We lined up on the first floor. There was a short queue. You can choose to go in with your friends or go solo. We decided to go one at a time.

The lights flashed periodically, so it was hard to get a good shot at the right moment and enjoy the moment at the same time. You get 45 seconds in there, and you can only step onto the platform. After 45 seconds, they open the door for you to get out and the next person to go in.

After the Broad, we walked over to Little Tokyo for lunch!

The original Daikokuya.

Their takoyaki (octopus balls) were actually pretty good. Ramen was okay. I’ve had better in NYC.

Mikawaya has lots of flavors of mochi.

We walked around Little Tokyo’s cute stores.

Then we Uber’ed to Griffith Observatory for the sunset.

Hello LA.

LA: Irvine, Laguna, LACMA (Nov 2016)

Posted on December 22, 2016January 24, 2017 Posted in art, Food, photography, travelTagged california, hello kitty cafe, honey & butter, irvine, lacma, los angeles, macarons, spectrum center, sunset, sushi, taiko, urban lightsLeave a comment

My first stop after getting out of horrendous LAX traffic: Irvine.

Sit at the sushi bar at Taiko and tell the chef what you want. The sushi there was amazingly fresh and I loved everything we ate! Very affordable too.

At the Irvine Spectrum Center:

Check out Honey & Butter and their unique macaron flavors!

The matcha one was so good!

Right inside the same shopping center is Hello Kitty Cafe.

We drove to Laguna Beach, just in time for sunset.

Stumbled upon a wedding shoot!

Back to LA…

Fat Sal’s — I love that everything here is “fat” and it’s good to be fat. My fat sandwich had cheesesteak, chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, crisp bacon, fried eggs, fries, mayo, ketchup, etc. How could you resist?! Best sandwich ever. Also got the milkshake but it was too thick to sip.

We headed over to LACMA to take pictures with the “Urban Lights”. If you’re only there for this outdoor exhibition, you can just park your car temporarily right outside where the signs are. We didn’t know this and looked for parking forever.

Travelogue: Arizona: Camelback Mtn & Grand Canyon (April 2016)

Posted on May 1, 2016July 9, 2016 Posted in Food, hiking, photography, travelTagged Airbnb, Arizona, cactus, Camelback Mountain, Echo Canyon Trail, Grand Canyon, hiking, Paradise Valley, Phoenix, PHX, scrambling, Sedona, UberLeave a comment

Solotrips are fun in that you get to do whatever you want whenever you want. Naptime anytime. The only downside is not having a consistent photographer to take pictures of you. I loveeeeeeed Arizona and will definitely have to go back. There’s so much to do and eat.

For this trip, I booked 2 Airbnbs. One was in Paradise Valley and the other in Downtown Phoenix (for the next post). I took an Uber from the airport (prices are really cheap there). There are specific pick-up areas called “prearranged vehicles” that are basically designated just for Ubers.

Paradise Valley is a really nice neighborhood, and I chose it because I wanted to hike up Camelback Mountain as soon as I landed. My Airbnb place was right near the Echo Canyon trailhead.

This is where I stayed for 2 nights!

It was only 10AM and the parking lot was full already. Good thing I only had to walk from my Airbnb.

It was 90 degrees and sunny. Bring lots of water!!! The Echo Canyon Trail is very steep with lots of scrambling. It was a lot of fun and I met people from all over the country along the way.

There were stairs and then there were railings to hold onto…

Some wildlife.

This was not an easy hike, especially in 90 degree weather. But I loved it.

At the summit, you can see the city of Phoenix.

It took about an hour & a half to get up there (stopped to take pictures) and faster to go down. Be careful, as it can be very steep.

The next day, I took a Viator tour to Sedona and the Grand Canyon.

(The view from my Airbnb at sunrise)

Walked through some residential areas to go to the meeting place. The tour guide/driver, Robert, picked me up right on time at 6:40AM. The company that Viator used was Detours of Arizona. I didn’t want to drive 3 hours to the Grand Canyon and only had a day to spare, so this was a great way of seeing it (next time, I’ll go back to hike & camp).

Sedona first.

Robert gave us time to wander and showed us cool places to take photos. And then gift shops, of course.

This was half of my gigantic sandwich that was included in lunch. So tasty.

When in Arizona…

Next, we drove to the Grand Canyon.

We went along the South Rim and stopped at different spots to take pictures.

Definitely coming back to the Canyon. It sure is grand.

I loved living next to a mountain. On my last night, my Airbnb hosts gave me a homemade blueberry protein shake. They were both ultra-athletes and told me about the running routes nearby, so I took their advice the next morning.

The neighborhood was really something. Although it was hot, it wasn’t humid. “Paradise Valley” was aptly named. I felt like I was in Hawaii again.

Downtown Phoenix coming up next! To be continued…

Maxine & Eric (Port Washington, NY)

Posted on December 11, 2015December 11, 2015 Posted in New York, personal, photographyTagged city hall wedding, marriage, port washington, rings, wedding4 Comments

I first met Maxine & Eric in college back in 2006, when they were just freshmen and newly in love. Maxine and I crossed paths again and again after that. Fast forward to a girls’ get-together dinner in December 2014, I randomly predicted (or ruined the surprise, hoho) that Eric would propose to her the next day (he did, she was surprised). And on December 10, 2015, they were to get married and I was honored to be a part of it. To this day, they are still madly in love with each other and it’s something amazing to witness.