more vacation updates

it's over. yes, my 2 weeks of freedom are ending. and it's been fabulous. lots of sleep and good eats and productivity. ok, not so much productivity. i've also been fortunate enough to see old stanford buddies this week- without further ado....

mmm.. burgers at the counter... would have been nice if the waitress had stuck around to take pictures of my lovely COMPANY but suffice to say, the burgers were tasty but i didn't drive all the way to palo alto for the food. thanks for a great evening, julie and lily!! ;) ooh and i must mention, the desserts were amazing at la bodeguita del medio- man, i miss the palo alto restaurant scene.

San Francisco Suitemate Reunion... good times ;)

after my first experience with organic sushi @ minako, we closed out our evening at mission beach cafe with honey lavender cheesecake, mitchell's ice cream, and huckleberry pie. man, do i love me my desserts. and my suitemates ;)

we <3 socal (part deux)

alas... discovered a distinct paucity of pictures to document the rest of our socal stay. BUT that is not to say we enjoyed that unimmortalized-by-film time any less than our previous days. with that in mind, let us start with a picture (not even my own- stolen from yelp) of what we had been CRAVING for the past few months...

yes. CHA DOL. ooooh how we missed you. we got our fill of the yummy meat on friday night, with jimmy, susan, diane and ida in attendance. we ate to our heart's content, then stuffed ourselves with yogurt d'italia afterwards. a perfect way to end a lovely OC day~ we'd had brunch in YL, and spent the rest of the day like pampered OC housewife & househubby wandering around south coast plaza.

saturday- church and requisite yogurt-run afterwards. good times to be had at CKSDA. then we headed to k-town to pick up our new ride..... *drum roll*..............ah yes. the new car. all nice and shiny in that glamour shot, no? SO the hubby now has a new commuter car- nothing fancy, just a civic. and no, we could not afford the hybrid- $5000 > base price for our model!!! jeez... tho it definitely hurt my ego as a supposed hybrid-lover/green-advocate to have to forgo the "status symbol" car, our model's mileage and emissions ain't too shabby... and as andy and i tell ourselves, we'll go green when we gots green.

so now that we had a car, we had ourselves a ride back up!! (and a nice southwest credit to boot)
we drove up on sunday morning, but couldn't resist a detour to westwood. why, you ask? well, as yogurt fanatics... we had to try red mango before heading back up. all that fuss about pinkberry biting off red mango, pinkberry NOW being a "real yogurt", etc..etc... we decided to see for ourselves.... which yogurt would reign supreme?

here's andy's answer ------------>

pinkberry foreva!!!

we <3 socal (part une)

ya know, one might think that being on vacation would allow one to post more often... but as soon as i got up here to sac, i'm surprisingly less prone to post. during "business hours" anyways. hehe. i have a ridiculous amount of stuff around the house to do, and it's killin me cuz i think one week is not going to be enough to accomplish anything. BUT i've decided, at the very least, i will cook my man some good dinners (lasagna today, my take on maggiano's "rigatoni b" yesterday, and zuni cafe chicken tomorrow!) and bake a few desserts (blueberry and apple cobbler thus far). cooking always seems to make me feel like i've accomplished something. ;) even if the laundry lies languishing (FOLDED!) in the baskets, the clutter around the house continues to gather dust, the house itself remains undecorated and sterile, my textbooks gleam in their pristine shrinkwrap, my car stays unserviced and suffocated by dust/bug spatter, etc..etc.. you get the picture.

gosh i complain a lot for a gal on vacation. life is still good. i'm just bitter because andy had to go back to work, and i gotta tell ya- i wouldn't make it as a housewife. not just because i have trouble timing the meals because he has somewhat unpredictable hours (my dinners are all about timing), but also because ... i dunno. i feel so alone when i tackle stuff that we'd normally tackle together, e.g. wedding thank you cards (which are COMING! i swear!! please forgive us ^_^)... and, i think i am generally a more productive and (dare i say) happier person with lots of structure in my day- i guess i'm not articulating myself very well. suffice it to say: i suck as a housewife.

now for some pics... more to come!!

andy & my dad at the range, as my dad gives the hubby pointers on the "basic" golf swing
my dad after seeing andy hit a few balls: "you really don't play much golf, do you?" ;)
and no, he doesn't. but hopefully, all that will change after intern year.

we visited the loma to the linda last wednesday... met up with joe cha, danny saesim sans elena & boys (very sad to see the man bereft of family- we missed you elena and noah and jacob!!), chihye and alice (andy's sister) for dinner... then hit up this new crepe/pinkberry-wannabe yogurt place.... had a "japanese-style" crispy crepe with nutella and fruit which, given the NUTELLA, is pretty darn impossible to screw up... some lovely vanilla gelato... and sampled the wannabe tart yogurt (joe was not impressed). wii'd it up @ joe's place with some big brain academy action afterwards... SO FUN, so fun... we may not miss LL's smog and congestion, but we sure as heck miss the LL peeps.

can i tell you how much i luuuuuuuuuuv the pic above of my hubby hugging the prehistoric beaver-esque creature?? heh. soo these are pics from our wanderings through LA on what was probably the perfect LA day. beautiful weather, as you can see. we had lunch at one of my fave korean restaurants with excellent naeng-myun and "roast gui" on a ceramic pan which they then use to create the most scrumptious kimchi bokum bap... ended up at LACMA/the brea tar pits for a brief stroll... went to the grove for some shopping and pinkberry and movie action (the bourne ultimatum- man, that was one entertaining film) and even had the odd celebrity sighting (john krasinski from the office- very tall)... THEN, corteo at the inglewood forum (yes, the inglewood of "we be clubbin" fame... at least that is my extent of knowledge about the city), with yet another pseudo-celebrity sighting.. remember bob guiney, former "bachelor"?? he sat in our row, and got singled out by the wandering clowns prior to the show- got a whole carton of popcorn dumped onto his signature curly golden locks. he was a good sport about the whole thing... i wondered if the clowns (who were mostly canadian) even knew who they were messing with...

oh, and how could i forget... our impromptu LA dinner. we were going to eat at craft, tom colicchio's new restaurant, but the call of mickey d's was too strong.

chicken mcnuggets + sweet n' sour sauce = nostalgic ambrosia

more of the greatest hits of socal vacation 9/07 to come!

Montage Corteo

a clown's dream

thanks to the generosity of my cousins Kevin & Brenda, the hubby and i got 50% tickets to see a cirque du soleil show- CORTEO- last night. though, like all cirque shows that i've seen, the premise is a little fuzzy and really just a vague idea from which all sorts of flights of fancy spring, what i got out of it was that it was supposed to be a clown's (Mauro) dream of his own funeral. I included a little montage clip i found on youtube (seeing as one is not allowed to film/take pictures under the big top)........ i highly recommend this, or ANY, cirque show...

the first act was something out of a naughty clown's boudoir fantasy (just a touch risque)- young lissome girls dressed in silk undergarments, twirling, posing, and contorting while hanging from large chandeliers. the acts progressed in rapid succession- acrobats, jugglers, musicians... truly a feast for the senses: the cloying sweet smell of incense, gorgeous sets and costumes, excellent musicianship (including flamenco guitar?!). my favorite things: gymnasts in full skirts of multi-layered tulle, flashing brilliant jewel-toned colors with every flip; a little person- we're talking TINY, about the size of a 3 year old child- with a giant bouquet of balloons strapped to her belt, bounding lightly above the heads of her captive audience, borne aloft by well-timed boosts from friendly palms to her tiny, tiny feet; the final act of what i can only describe as gymnast-mania, the olympics on crack- people leaping from bar to bar in perfect synchronization.

i am not a surgeon

this past month, as i mentioned in the last blog entry (which, btw, i wasn't even able to upload until NOW.. sadness), i've been answering my pages thus: "Hi, this is Dr. Park, GENERAL SURGERY, I was paged?!" i can't tell you how happy i am that i will never again answer my pages as a surgeon. i really thought about going into surgery, pretty seriously during my 3rd year of med school... i set up my 4th year thinking that i was going to go for ENT/Otolaryngology, and debated the merits of general surgery vs. family medicine in terms of practicality for mission work. and though i found my perfect career match in family/psychiatry, i've always had a little bit of doubt- did i make the right choice?? i do love the OR- it must be the control/neat freak in me. in any case, all of those doubts have been totally quelched now that i've done a month of general surgery. first of all, though ENT would be awesome, i'd still have to survive a year of general surgery internship. and though i think i would survive, i'd be a very different person. namely, half-dead and depressed as hell. i just don't know how they do it- i realized that no amount of work, no matter how interesting it is, can justify the sleep deprivation and human-contact-deprivation that occurs. second of all, i really don't like anatomy. yes it's cool, but i just don't have the mind for it. i should have realized this when all the tendons/nerves/vessels looked the same to me in first year anatomy class- but it took this month's pimping sessions to make me realize that i'd never have the desire or drive to pore over a Netter's book again. i mean, i do need a basic knowledge obviously to be a family doc, but i truly don't need to know the blood supply to the colon to know that someone's got ischemic colitis. and third- birds of a feather DO flock together. general surgeons, as an unfairly stereotyped whole, are not the kind of folk i'd like befriend. i had some GREAT attendings, a wonderful co-intern, and a mixed bag of senior residents this past month... yes, some of them were very cool... but something about the stress/intensity of SURGERY makes them less sensitive to patient needs, less patient in general with each other, and overall.... not chill. and more importantly, not like me.


but enough about my life for the past month.... over the past few days, it has gotten dramatically and exponentially better because... I'M ON VACATION YAAAAAAAY!!! andy and i touched down in socal this past monday morning, and are currently enjoying the wondrous home cooking of my mommy. we saw my grandma and cousins on monday, had dinner with dean&angie&evan yesterday night, and are planning on making an inland trek to LOMA LINDA today (woohoo!). life is so good right now. i'm happy to be *home*.

weary drudgery

i have this rare morning of freedom because i am ditching some morning didactics for surgery, my current rotation... one of the benefits of rotating through so many departments (they don't keep track of your whereabouts!)...

life is so different now than it was a year ago. my idea of a good evening is to curl up on the couch with the hubby to enjoy a tivo'd tv show or movie. i go to bed as early as possible- usually 9:30pm. i've now gotten used to answering pages thus- "this is dr. park, [insert service of the month here], i was paged?" i haven't had dduk bo ssam in well over 5 months.... 3 months and counting for pinkberry. ;) oh how quickly one's lifestyle/life can change.

for me, the changes occur every month as i go from one rotation to the next. i went from 2 psych months to 2 family medicine months- currently on general surgery. i had two months of free weekends, and now i still have every other weekend off-- but it's a total of 4 free days for the month. as opposed to 8. makes a big difference, especially when i'm running around like a headless chicken doing floorwork for 13+ hours every day. i'm realizing that i'll be really happy NOT to be an intern.

it's not all drudgery though- got a chance to go to the CALIFORNIA STATE FAIR this past weekend, with the other Park family up here in Sacramento- David, Tayler, A x 3

mmm... artery-clogging fair food...

the other park family - tayler, about to chow down on some dippin dots; dave with ava in dave's lap; andrew and allison, enjoying a spectacle of young dance students doing some hiphop routine (and wondering when they'd get to go home)

twas a lovely day. saw real live cows, ate enough fried food to last a lifetime, wandered through all of the exhibits, and called it a day when my tired deconditioned bones decided i'd had enough of the scorching sun. good times in sacto.

culinary delights in the bay area

there is nothing better than a good meal shared with good friends. fortunately, the hubby and i have been able to enjoy quite a few delicious meals with excellent company over the past few weekends. it's definitely good to be in norcal again...

my college roommate jenny and her husband condy have just settled into an adorable home in the east bay... we were treated to a lunch of uber-gourmet pizza from zachary's and the cheese board. we also got to see molly and ian before their big move out to NYC~ twas so good to see my dwahmates again!!!

tasty treats at foreign cinema, uber-trendy brunch spot in the city (SF of course)... and of course it was Richie who made the reservations, hipster foodie that he is. ;) though i was a bit intimidated by the cooler-than-thou crowd, being the old stodgy married lady that i am now, i thoroughly enjoyed the brunch. the restaurant is in a converted old theater, with drive-in speakers at every table~ can't wait to revisit the spot some evening for dinner & a movie ;)

this past weekend, diane came for a pre-PUC campmeeting visit, so i had to take her to a proper SF institution. decided to try zuni cafe, and managed to liberate tayler from her husband&kids as well for a lovely evening in the city.

omg. one of the best roast chickens ever. very pricey but comforting solid mediterranean dishes. lovely intimate dining atmosphere with little pockets of tables tucked away in a suprisingly large space. i think i've found another favorite!!



for quite some time now, diane has been hell-bent on visiting ghirardelli square. i feared, actually, that the anticipation may have created some unreasonable expectations... the square itself is mostly under construction, with the main attraction being the ghirardelli chocolate shop, and the trademark neon signs that tourists (see right) looove to use as backdrops. nonetheless, we headed over for some chocolatey desserts, and were not disappointed. and i think that diane left feeling fulfilled - though it's hard to say what i can use to lure her back to norcal now :)

the post to end all posts!!!!

yup, it's time. here it is... a pictorial smorgasbord of the aforementioned crazy schedule that preceded the insanity that is residency..... i hope you enjoy...

5.20.07
the wedding day
(Courtesy of Joe Latter)

5.21.07

We had this lovely surprise waiting for us in the honeymoon suite...

5.22-24.07
...and the honeymoon continued, in lovely Santa Barbara...

I know, totally touristy, but we had to do the bed&breakfast and the two-seater bike :)

5.24.07
dinner at providence, another pseudo-honeymoon splurge at one of the restaurants I've been dying to try in LA... mmmmm this grainy cell phone picture obviously does not do the food nor the restaurant justice. but twas truly a great foodie experience.

5.26.07
first sabbath after the wedding

so it's traditional to wear the traditional han-boks to church the first sabbath after you get married, if for no better reason than to announce your new matrimonial status with bright eye-popping colors and to embarass the heck out of the couple. andy was a good sport, as you can see, and allowed my mom, aunt and me to choose a very pretty floral matching set. ah yes... that's why i married him ;)

later that evening... we had a 1st bday celebration for !!!

cupcakes, goldfish, and 10 billion courses of chinese food were enjoyed by all...

the lovely mommy and guest of honor, who looks pretty happy there ;)

5.27.07
graduation

5.29.07 - 6.3.07
FINALLY... the REAL HONEYMOON
four seasons resort, lana'i at manele bay

we rented a jeep, explored almost every square inch of the island, kayaked, ate GREAT, great, food... the lodge at koele, which was the sister resort to our beach-front resort, was where bill gates got married- as pictured on 3rd row, left.
we could understand why.

here we are at a literally deserted beach. it's called polihua beach, and only accessible if you're willing to brave about 30 minutes of bumpy, rocky, unpaved terrain.
we were soooo happy when we got there (as you can see).

it was totally worth the drive.

6.3.07 - 6.5.07
the honeymoon continues...
Honolulu, Oahu

good times @ the Polynesian Cultural Center

Remembering Pearl Harbor

oh my.
this is just one of the *ahem* many desserts we enjoyed, but in particular this culinary and artistic masterpiece was from the pineapple room, alan wong's enclave at the ala moana shopping center- it's literally on the 3rd floor of macy's. but we went there, out of all the other places to eat lunch in honolulu, because of a superlative dinner at alan wong's restaurant.

this was one of our entrees- ginger crusted onaga (Long-Tail Red Snapper with Miso Sesame Vinaigrette, Organically Grown Hamakua Mushroom and Corn). excellent fish, cooked perfectly, and reminiscent of the best chinese steamed fish you've ever had.. but BETTER. we also enjoyed the ridiculously tender "kalbi-style" short rib. it's like the best galbijjim you've ever had... but BETTER.


and for dessert, a little something they call "the coconut"

we now have a new favorite restaurant of all time. too bad it's an ocean away :(

6.10.07
another weekend, another state
this weekend: Jason & Sharon's wedding in Orlando, FLORIDA!!!

(this picture totally does not do the bride justice... she was gorgeous. jason looked ok too. hehe)
lovely ladies

lovely cake

lovely (??!) afterparty

(sooooo happy for our friends, and sooo happy that our wedding planning days are OVER!)