rj tours oahu edition ’15

September 20, 2015

I can’t believe our our Hawaii trip was exactly one month ago. EEp! We never get tired of Oahu, and since our best friends were able to join us- this vacation was one for the books.

Aloha! We landed on a Thursday afternoon and were ready to paaaartay.

We stayed at the Marriott in Waikiki and the vouchers they hooked us up with were pretty entertaining. Complimentary mai tais, breakfast buffet, DVD’s, coffee, and a photo session on the beach. Lol we did not take advantage of that last offer.

Our first meal in Hawaii.

This was actually the first time we tried Rainbow Drive Inn and we were not impressed. The chili was good,but I’m not sure why this place is so popular (I would eat Zippy’s over this place any day). Thankfully is was our only soso meal of the trip.

They opened up a spot called Hawaii’s Favorite Kitchens next door where we grabbed shaved ice at Shimazu. Whenever I ask the hubs to take a pic of me so it doesn’t look like he’s on a solo trip, the pics come out blurry :/ SHEESH.

Grabbed an Ono Pop after having shaved ice because it was so freakin hot.

We ate dinner at Goma Tei where they had some pretty decent ramen. The portion of a single serving of char siu amazed us. Each one is the size of a pork chop and the husband ordered an extra serving before we were aware of this. He barely finished one serving so be warned!

Day 2 woke up and went to take advantage of the breakfast buffet.

We were very very pleasantly surprised by the buffet. We went in with low expectations, but once Merry Robin saw the chafing dishes filled with rice and Portuguese sausage it was game over.

The Lu’s arrived around lunchtime and we met up at Helena’s for lunch. This was where RJ Tours was born : l

Loooove love love the ribs here.

It only took RJ Tours 20 minutes to figure out how to get the top down on the rental.

Once the top was down, it was pretty nice cruisin’ around.

Our first stop on the way to North Shore was Giovanni’s.

Hehe. Since we had just eaten, we all just shared a plate.

Though we’ve been to Hawaii before, this was our first time at Waimea falls.

The foliage was nice, but this is a very very leisurely stroll (not a hike at all) on paved cement, and you pay $15 to end up at a waterfall with murky waters. Everyone has to wear life jacket to get in and we did not opt to do so.

We left Waimea Falls and moved over to Waimea Bay to soak in the last few hours of sun and do a little cliff jumping.

Such a beautiful beach.

Before dinner we enjoyed some mai tai’s before heading out.

We enjoyed a delicious meal at Tonkatsu Ginza Bairin. The thick cut fatty katsu was the best (they have so many varieties!) and their curry is on point.

Darts were a big part of this trip. Team Byon always dominated Team Lu. Lol.

Karaoke was also a theme. Joey’s fave.

Saturday we checked out a recommendation from Mrs. Yu and had breakfast at Goofy’s.

The restaurant is super cute, and the food is tasty and clean. I would totally recommend this spot as well.

Before making the drive to Lanikai Beach we stopped by Musubi Cafe Iyasume to grab some snacks for later of course.

Haha I’m such an onigiri fan I can’t help but to get those everytime (esp when I know I’ll just take a bite of the hubby’s musubi).

So let me tell you about our wild kayaking adventure to the Mokulua Islands. We started from Kailua beach (starting from Lanikai Beach is much closer but you have to get there early for parking and we started later in the afternoon). Our weather conditions were windy, choppy, gloomy and honestly a bit scary at first! It was challenging just to get in the kayak, and to be honest I wasn’t sure if we would make it. It’s a little less than 2 miles from Kailua Beach but it took us 1.5 hrs one way and we were just beat. When we were 3/4 of the way there the sun came out and it made our trek totally worth it.

We just lounged for a bit and the trip back took us about 30 minutes (much easier when the waves and wind are on your side!). I would love to do this again the next time we’re here.

We explored the downtown area afterwards and grabbed some eats, smoothies, and shaved ice.

Thank you for the recommendation Mrs. Pak! The garlic chicken from Uahi Grill is a must. We inhaled this bad boy.

Ahhh our last day in Hawaii. Took the Lu’s to the breakfast buffet where Grace had a side of tomato soup (aka ketchup). She funny.

Mr. Byon saying one last farewell to his beloved Portugeuse sausages.

Our last meal was at Marukame Udon. The line moves quickly since this is a self-seating kinda joint.

One of these trays is not like the other…Hey this was my first time here and I wanted to try it all before we left. Honestly everything was good and it depends what mood you’re in. The Bukkake is more flavorful than the Kake though, and I was a huge fan of the curry udon. Their onigiris were really good (brought those on the plane ride back home).

It was such a memorable trip with RJ Tours (who I wouldn’t recommend for any of your trips ever FYI). Oahu you’re always so good to us, can’t wait to go back.

how to go geoducking

July 22, 2015

A few weeks ago my good friend Ada asked if we were interested in going geoduck hunting at Lawson’s Landing. To be honest I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into…I mean “clamming” sounded simple enough right? Well, the night before we watched a whole bunch of Youtube videos and kinda freaked ourselves out. LOL. Whatever we put on our big girl panties and woke up at 5am to get down to bidness! Here are some tips on what one should bring when geoducking from this novice geoducker. HA!

A few tips for geoduck hunting:

Check the calendar for their low-tide schedule
Rain boots, windbreaker pants and jacket
Spare change of clothes & shoes
Towel to dry off of when you change your clothes
Garbage bags or some type of plastic to cover your floor of your trunk because it gets muddy!
48″ round point shovel (not the flat edged ones!)
12″-18″ diameter 36″40″ PVC pipe (make one of your own if you can so you don’t buy an overpriced one there! )
large icebox + ice
20-30 gallon large plastic storage tub with lid (the lid will keep the seagulls from snatching your clams bc they will try!)
1-day fishing license per person (register at reserveamerica.com, pay $15, and bring day-of so you can bring up to 10 home)
5-person boat rental is about $140 (we had 9 ppl so made two trips and paid $20 per person)

FYI, I would say 1 shovel and 1 pipe per couple if you’re going to be a participant and not a spectator! Ok here are the pics from this unforgettable day…

Cap’n Dank! He can fly planes, drive boats, what can’t this man do?!?

Our testosterone for the day. I am freakishly strong, but for clamming you really need to bring males to be completely honest (ones with impressive wingspans would be ideal!)

Step 1: Look out for little holes that squirt out water (or step on holes that shoot out water/bubbles)

Step 2: Position your pipe over the hole and slowly wedge it into the sand. You’ll have to dig the sand out from inside and then wedge it in some more. This process will be repeated quite a few times.

You’ll get close and closer…be patient and keep digging.

At one point you’re going to look like this (hence why long arms are helpful!)

These two struck gold with this hole and dug up a total of 4!

Be careful as you dig because you want to keep the shell intact!

P on baby duty. Ada gave birth 1.5 months ago….and had the energy to do this. INSANE.

Dana had no idea what she was getting herself into when I asked her to go clamming. Always down for whatever!

Hehe. Thanks hubby for getting down and dirty for this activity you had zero interest in!

How to prepare this “interesting” looking clam. With a knife, detach it from the shell and submerge in hot water for 10-15 seconds (this is boiling water that I just turned off, you don’t need the water to be boiling).

Strip away the outer skin and, clean off the tips and cut off the dirty parts (I mean this whole thing looks dirty, but you know whaddaya mean)

Cleaned and ready to cook! We invited the Lu’s to come over to basically cook and clean for us. Lu Apron beats Blue Apron hands down!

The hubs was our sashimi chef and he did a great job. You want to cut down the middle, open the geoduck flat, and cut thinly at an angle.

Chef Robin’s work! It was delish.

Clam ceviche

Clam corn chowder w/ grilled Acme bread

Grace’s magnificent shrimp scampi with clams

Joey made some pork & beef meatballs to top it all off. It was a fantastic meal and I couldn’t think of a better way to utilize our heard earned geoducks! I would definitely go again, and looking forward to doing this again next year.

seattle in sf ’15

July 14, 2015

I’m trying to slooooowly get back on the wagon! Ok so if you’ve been following me here, you know that my Seattle fam will either come down to visit us or we visit them about once a year or so. They were down here for about 4 days and I had a blast living what it means to be a teenager again with these sweeties as we laughed and ate our way through SF.

TPUMPS first stop! They said they’ve been dreaming about boba since last summer because apparently Seattle just don’t do boba right. I was seriously entertained by how happy $3 drink made them. Kids these days

It’s been awhile since I’ve been back to Plow and I wanted to take the girls on a real brunch date. The spotted Weylie who they follow on IG/Youtube and were so starstruck. It was super cute they couldn’t stop gushing about the picture they took with her. This took the pressure off making their visit memorable…WHEW!

Oh mah gah. Seriously Plow potatoes are still life changing. I tried their biscuit with honey butter and that brought me to a real happy place too.

Not too far was Mr. & Mrs. Miscellaneous so we did a quick ice cream stop. The Pink Squirrel was my fave!

I asked my cool hip brother who JUST finally started following me on SnapChat (because he’s too cool for his own family) what we should do and Billy Goat Hill was his recommendation.

Having lived in SF for over 20 years, but never venturing to this spot I was excited to see what was up.

The swing is no longer there, but the view is amazing. We were so fortunate to visit on a day without a single cloud in the sky or fog to block our view.

Stopped by Dolores Park for some people watching and playgrounding. I love this pic of my family!

Shopping of course was key and we went to Santana Row for what was their Urban Outfitters dream come true.

I didn’t even take pictures of everything so there’s a few hundred pics of cupcakes, pizza, and boba that did not get captured. LOL.

Ended their last day at Tout Sweet Patisserie on the 3rd floor of the Macy’s building in Union Square. It has a great view and they loved their desserts.

Thanks Merry Robin for being one of the girls! Best hubby ever.

We had a few feasts for family meals and this was one right before they had to board their flight.

I love these munchkins so hard, and I can’t believe our little Kylie is going to be a freshman at UC Irvine next year! Another reason for me to keep my visits to LA consistent so I can do some light stalking. Heh heh.

blk in korea ’15

July 10, 2015

She’s alive! I know I’ve been playing some major hooky with y’all and I didn’t mean to play with your emotions but work got even crazier (did not think that was possible!). Working 8 hours in the office and then another 3-4 hrs at home each night did not make me want to look at my computer screen longer than I had to. Yea yea yea Irene, whatever just update about Korea!

Ok, so the part 2 that is nearly 3 months late. Mah bad. I ‘m scratching my head and trying to remember everywhere we went and everythang we ate as best as possible…here we go!

So our less than 2 hour flight from Taipei to Seoul was the first time I ever flew business class! What a waste though because I was too full from my last meal in Taiwan to enjoy both their airport lounge which was stacked with goodies and their in-flight meal (though the hubs had no problem chowing down and thoroughly enjoyed his ice cream).

We stayed with my good friend Jenny while in the motherland and she was definitely the hostess with the mostess.

We were greeted with pillow chocolates, breakfast each morning, and even freshly squeezed green juice in the mornings.

The Lu Clan arrived shortly after us and Jenny took us to our first meal in the motherland.

Our first feast was in Gangnam at 강강술래 (Gang Gang Sool Leh). I wish I could just link you to an easy Korean Yelp page, but they really don’t have a good platform like that over there! We wanted our friends to experience a nicer traditional Korean meal that wasn’t too stuffy, and this place was just that.

I’m always a sucker for 육회 (steak tartare bi bim bap) and we ordered the short ribs, cold noodles, and bulgogi to name a few.

After lunch we wandered around Gangnam just for a little bit since the Lu’s had to go to their cousin’s wedding. The hubs stopped by a street vendor for some kimbap and ddukboki.

When we parted ways with the Lu’s, Jenny thought it would be interesting to take us to a cat cafe. No offense to all you cat lovers out there, but I was so grossed out. Of course I’m always down for a new experience, but I didn’t want any of those felines to touch me. That is my super fake smile in the photo.

This lady just went ahead and picked one up *barf* We found out shortly after that this was an illegal move though. You must leave the cats alone unless they come to you. That is proper Cat Cafe Etiquette. DUH.

The next day we headed out early to meet up with our old high school friend Chris (HARUT!) who was took us around to some touristy spots.

Subway ridin’ with the besties.

I didn’t know Korea could be hipster, but apparently that is a movement that knows no bounds.

Coffee is dang expensive in Korea! As you know I’m not a huge coffee lover, so here I am just enjoying my monstrous melon drink.

Our next stop was breakfast to fuel for the day at 토속촌 where they specialize in chicken ginseng soup (sorry bestie is this isn’t the most flattering photo, it was the only one I had!)

Their menu is super simple and limited to Korean pancake and both regular and black chicken ginseng soup. The only side dish is kimchi which they serve both cabbage and radish versions of.

First tourist spot on the agenda was Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Grace is only smiling because she’s standing next to her real bestie. I never get smiles that genuine.

Chris then took us to a neighborhood called 촌한옥마을 (Bukchon Hanok Village) where you can see hanok houses which are basically traditional style Korean homes.

Seriously though it was all about that wifi. Heh Heh.

Walked through Insa Dong for fun and grabbed a few snacks. At least these pair of besties did.

One of my favorite meals in Korea was actually at a restaurant called 흥부골 in Sinsangdong. It reminded me just how good Korean pork belly BBQ is in Korea. It’s just different!

Merry Robin in his element. He certainly loves to grill and Korean food is his jam.

This trip though I badly wanted to go to the raw crab place in Sinsa again, no one else was into it so I just enjoyed my raw crab as a side dish here. Waaah!

Glorious! Just glooooorious!

Ordered the marinated pork belly too, but the non-marinated one was my fave.

Goodness we were constantly stuffed constantly in Korea, but when Jenny ordered this fried chicken to be delivered to her place…I mean I just had to. You can seriously have anything and everything delivered to your door in Korea. This chicken was soooo good. Gawd, I love me some fried chik’n.

We got to hangout with family too and this BBQ spot was at 마포집 도곡동점 near Gangnam.

I was pretty excited by their spicy pig skin that we grilled to a crisp. Their pork belly bbq was delicious too, and I would highly recommend this place.

I love this photo of my family. Some of them were meeting Robin for the first time and this picture was taken at the fried chicken spot next door to where we just had KBBQ. They wanted some 치맥 (chimek) fried chicken and beer after our dinner and how could we refuse them. I couldn’t even look at food at this point but it was all about the company.

One of the last meals I had with my cousins was at this restaurant that served what looked like Korean style shabu shabu. I’ve actually never had anything like this ever, so it was interesting to experience. Unfortunately have no idea what the name was or where the heck we even were because they drove us.

The meat was thicker (more like shoulder meat?) surrounded by perilla leaves and other green veggies.

The restaurant also served Northern Korean style naeng myun, and though interesting I wasn’t a big fan. It’s more watery in flavor and the broth seasoning is just light overall.

I was a fan however of the Northern Korean style bibim naeng myun. The sauce isn’t as dense and was lighter but still flavorful. MmMmm….

Ok now back to our last night in Korea. We tore it up Gangnam Style. Not cheesy at all!

Stop #1 we drank some someks! (soju + beer)

Stop #2 just pancakin’ and kept the someks a comin!

This is me in my happy place. I’m holding a plate of 순대 (blood sausage), and I’m extra pleased because they made this for me fresh. Like I had to wait 5 minutes for them to stuff the sausage fresh. Definitely a first and a dream come true.

Not so secret looooooovers.

Ok our last meal before heading to the airport was this AYCE buffet in Jenny’s building. I was skeptical at first since I was only picturing bad experiences of AYCE Korean buffets back in the states, but I was completely mistaken.

Motherland, it was good to be back after a 3 years! Thank you for making my trip to Asia with my besties such a memorable one.

blk in taiwan ’15

May 21, 2015

So right after the Stickel wedding, the hubs and I hopped on a plane to join our friends in part 1 of 2 of the BLK Asia Trip! The bestie and I have been talking about going to Asia together for the past decade or so and the fact that this trip actually happened was a dream come true. We arrived Sunday night and went straight to our first meal which was a spicy hot pot dinner.

Oooh ahhh. Too many delicious things happening here.

Went strong for our first night in Taiwan at Party World.

I was amazed at how delicious the food was at karaoke! Beef noodle soup, dumplings…even though I was stuffed I ate it all of course.

Oh oops. Was that me?

Of course after our 2nd meal at karaoke we headed to 7-Eleven for some more snacks for the 3am Warriors game!

I was reeeeeally realllly excited that the onigiris in Taiwan were just like Japan! (The ones in Korea are just not the same!)

We were so ambitious in thinking we could make it through the whole game. So hard when you’ve been eating and drinking to your hearts delight all night. #thestruggleisreal

Monday morning the bestie woke me up so we could get a proper breakfast. The day was already off to a good start because the bestie NEVER wakes me up (she is never up before me!). This place was like a well-oiled machine and I was mesmerized watching the employees do their thang.

I couldn’t tell you the names of anything in this picture (or 90%) of the things we ate in Taiwan OR the restaurants we went to. I don’t read Chinese!! Heh heh. Anyway, just humor me as I make up names like savory soy milk heaven soup and breakfast rice pork burrito

TOC in TPE. Wuut wuuuuuut!

Mama Lu took us to a fancy shmancy restaurant in the tallest building in Taiwan, Taipei 101.

So many courses. So many delicious dishes.

Took a ton of coffee breaks whenever we could.

Ice Monstaaa! So this dessert is super light. It’s super finely shaved flavored ice cream that is more sorbet style, not heavy. My favorite parts were the pudding at the bottom.

DUN DUN DUN. Din Tai Fung! This was the SOHO location.

I was super skeptical about how different this could be from the LA locations, but I was a believer after my first soup dumpling. It was so explosive in flavor and the flavors were just…different! It must be all the crack they are feeding their pigs…taste explosions!

I’ve never seen dumplings like this! I love me my crispy textures…this is geniiiuuuus.

Tuesday breakfast!

One of the hubby’s favorite meals in Taiwan, pork chop over rice. He is a simple meat and potatoes kind of man while I like thousand year old eggs over chicken feet over grilled large intestines. Whaaaaaat?

Our last dinner for our last night in Taiwan (oh we ate plenty before our flight the next day!). We tagged along with the Lu’s to a seafood restaurant in their hood.

It was a classy joint, so I was shocked (not judging!) to see a girl puking herself at the table next to us. Her friends made her a bed out of chairs that she kept falling off of and the restaurant let her stay! Taiwan you are way way cool. She was DIRTY turnt and super entertaining to say the least. Anyway onto the photos!

Hello my pretty!

This was the biggest bowl of soup I’ve never seen.

Post dinner we continued the fun since HELLO it was our last night in TPE!

Ok, but with the all the food explosions I took a much needed nap at the bar. Taiwan you da best! Thank you for not kicking me out!

So obviously the night market was on our itinerary, but since we were stuffed our entire trip and never felt hunger we did not make it..*GASP.

However, we DID stop by this area with some food vendors open late night which made me feel a little better.

Delicious cheap eats. Why are they so yummy and fun to eat??

On our last day we headed over to the Times Square of Taiwan for breakfast.

Sticky rice and daikon + fish cake were breakfast 1.5

While heading back to Mama Lu’s place, we wandered through an outdoor market that made me wish I had 10 stomachs.

I ordered some chitterling soup to go. Mmmm one of my faves!

This was really our last last meal in Taiwan. Making our own pancake burritos. YUM.

Thoroughly enjoyed Taiwan and it was so nice not to have to plan anything for once. Since I’m usually the stressed out crazed keeper of the itinerary, it was nice to be able to kick back and just relax and eat. TPE you have my heart! Stay tuned for part 2 as we head to the motherland!

merryrobin

a collection of things that tickle my fancy