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Our bank just opened a new location by our house and it is sooo cool! they are now open 7 days a week (which is like everyone else but for some reason sovereign is bringing up the rear on this)

At the drive through they have these little video screens so when you pull up you get to talk to the lady in person instead of screaming into a little speaker thing. Then when it’s done it switches back onto you.

That’s me waiting in my FJ for my loot.

Had paintball practice last night. Forgot how much it stings when you get shot. I need to work on not getting shot so much in the same exact spot. I took 3 balls right in a line on my right arm. It’s so much fun though. The field was set up a little crazy with a few too many bunkers but we managed. Kevin Misko came out to play with one of his D4 team mates which was fun. We talked Ramon into coming even though he was whining about his foot. boo-hoo.

My arm:

I love REM. They came to the Mann Music Center the other night so Chuck and I jumped on the chance to go and see them. The place is great. Most of the stadium is outside. The early evening started off scary with a big rain storm, but then the clouds quickly disappeared and we got and amazingly clear night with an incredible show. They played for an hour and a half and did a 4 song bonus.

Chuck got some great shots and some really good video too. Another Nurse practitioner from the ER was there with her hubby and some of their friends and they just happened to park right next to us. We did a quick tailgating game and then headed in.

I love giraffe’s. This is a little nuts.

Hung out at the shore all day Saturday. We went to Normandy and hung with Jack and Maggie for most of the day. Bird dropped in on a new FIRWIRE surfboard 9′0″. Perfect for summer swell. I am sure it will get tons of use this summer.

Today is my lovely mom’s birthday. she is amazing. I can only hope to be as wonderful as her some day!

So the Phillies stink right now but Chuck’s sister hooked him up with some pretty insane tickets for the other nights Boston game. Just a few rows back from the third base line. They lost. Oh well.

The fish market is awesome. Just soo freakin’ cool. We got up at like 4:15am and headed out for the 5am tuna auction. Numerous people told us not to miss it. I was having trouble understanding why that early in the morning as my head pounded, but when we got there I quickly realized what they were talking about!

The tuna are gigantic and it’s really fun to watch everyone scramble to bid on the ones they want. Cruising through the rest of the market is a real treat. Lots of worming stuff to look at, smells to take in and 3 wheel carts to avoid.

We headed over to have a sushi breakfast at 6am after we were done the auction festivities. BEST sushi of my life..for sure. I can’t imagine ever having anything that tastes better then what we had. No body spoke English in the place we went to, but it didn’t really matter. We just ate whatever they put in front of us (except for the raw shrimp one).

Getting there was fun. The subway is usually a very hectic and crazy place. At 4:30am it is totally empty. It was a treat.

I even asked this guy directions all in Japanese. Go me.

The auction:

The sushi breakfast of all time:

SERIOUSLY>>>> He is the best golfer ever! A little wobbly off the start. I love the suspense of a playoff round tom. I am going to sit in front of the TV and watch all 18 holes!! Can’t wait.

Happy Father’s Day to all my wonderful friends who are dad’s and to my papa-in-law! Hope you had a nice day!

We went to a neighborhood called Harajuku the first morning there. Sunday is the day when all the crazy dressed up, freaky kids hang out by the train station and get people to stare at them. We were no exception and headed over for the quick 5 minute show. Then we cruised up Omotesando Street and did some shopping. All the high end stores are there and so is the Volcom store. The back alleyways behind Omotesando are home to all the boutiques and smaller stores like Supreme, Recon, Babe, and Marimekko. Just up the road is the amazing Prada building right next to the Cartier store (my fav and future home of my future infinity ring). HA. Good stuff!

The train station:

Crazy kids:

Cool architecture and street advertisements.

Japanese Medicine needs me…or so this sign says so in english. HA

Good first round of tempura

We met up with Dave and Tiff at Gonpachi for dinner one night. Dave works for Adidas Japan and they just recently got married! Yipee. We had an amazing dinner at the restaurant from Kill Bill. Super good food and a great place all around. We’ll be going back there for sure. Hopefully Dave and Tiff will come through Philly sometime so we can return the hospitality…

Ukari’s purse had some sick internal neon lights that lit up when she opened it so she could find stuff in it in the dark. Awesome Japanese technology. Ha

My yummy tofu:

Chuck’s crazy dumplings:

The lovely newlyweds:

TOKYO is the most amazing city. I just couldn’t get enough of it… We would move there in a heart beat. Maybe Dave will need some marketing help for Adidas Japan one day and he’ll hire Chuck!

Here are some random shots from the largest intersection in the world. they say that 2000 people (on average) cross every time the light changes. It’s organized chaos. I love it. LOVE it.

We flew over to Tokyo thanks to Wendy’s mom booking us great tickets. Chuck has status on United so I got to sit in economy plus. But on the way back we both got to fly Business class which was great. If you have done business international you know how nice it is and how you just can’t imagine going back. It’s almost crazy how nice the people are to you and how comfy the seats were. Thanks United for being amazing internationally.

It’s funny how the airlines are totally amazing once you get outside of the US. Crazy how that works. We pounded champaign and even got Wendy and Ramon upgraded to the front row and got them to come up and have champaign with us for a little while. I actually was wishing the flight was a little longer. HA

Wendy’s parents arranged for us to go to a Korean cultural center while Wendy and Ramon got ready for their wedding. It was a blast. Authentic attire was worn by all the people that worked there and the buildings were are replicas of ones found all over Korean from all different time periods.

There were tons of little school kids there on field trips and they all ran up to us to practice their English again. It was so cute. We bought some fun souvenirs and then headed back home for the wedding.

Wendy and Ramon had 3 weddings. The first official one at city hall (that no one really knew about, but I figured out the day after, when Ramon showed up to paintball practice with a shiny ring on his middle finger), the huge blow out party at the downtown club in Philly and the one we went to in Korea.

They were all special, but this Korean one was extra special. Ramon and Wendy didn’t really know what to expect since Wendy’s mom did most of the planning. It was a blast. Totally different from the US. There were about 450 people there. Lots of food, a crazy ceremony and then it was done. the whole thing was in Korean so we got the translation from one of Wendy’s cousin’s and thank god Wendy’s brother Kevin was at our table because he hooked Chuck and I up in the line for food. Thanks Kevin!

We stayed in Seoul for 3 days. We did a lot of shopping/looking/eating and drinking. The food is just so crazy in Korea. Wendy hooked us up with some really cool places to eat.

Wendy’s friends at one of the bars during one of the many nights of drinking. This fruit plate was crazy and it was like 5 bucks.

These are “mud fish”. they were sitting outside a restaurant that only served mud fish. We didn’t stop in and it smelled..well interesting. Kinda like what you would think something called “mud fish” would smell like.

They have the most amazing flower arrangements in Korea. these are all congratulations gifts to stores for grand openings. Just like we send roses to people..this is what they do. Insane!

The architecture was cool and all the neon Korean was always fun to try and figure out.

Starbucks. Ha

The Ritz Carlton Seoul, where we stayed one night.

They have love hotels in Seoul. We stayed in one the first night we were there. Super cheap. Rent by the hourly block. Designed by some crazy cool person. Furnished with insanely cool stuff. This was the fist room we had there before we all moved into smaller separate rooms. That big wooden area in the back is a huge soaking tub with Hinoki wood!

We went to lunch with Wendy’s mom at the best vegetarian restaurant in the world. It was this giagntic buffet filled with nothing but vegetarian food. Yum! this was Chuck’s plate after just round one. We had no idea what anything was (except for the tofu) but it all tasted amazing.

Ramon has been having trouble with his back and stuff so we went to a traditional Korean doctor while we were there. It was pretty cool. Me being in medicine here in the US, to check out something in another country is always great. The guy kicked him in the ass (a lot), punched him really hard in the knee a bunch and made us all lay on small pillows with our arms above our heads to improve our circulation to our organs. It was hilarious. Very cool.

Then it was off to Seoul. Such a cool hip city. Lots of young people everywhere and tons of bars and good restaurants. You get to cook all your food there which is such a huge change from the US. Lots of alcohol was consumed.

Cable TV news guy that we befriended at one bar. He had great English and we got him really drunk..

Crazy dude that rolled into the bar at like 3am. WTF?

This is the North Face store in Seoul. Big gorilla climbing the building with a backpack. Clever.

This was a super high end mall in Seoul that the entire side of it was a light show.

Sick smart car:

We stayed at the Ritz Carlton one night and this was the hilly neighborhood right near it. It is a party area for sure! The Ritz was just as fancy as the US except the food and drinks were crazy spendy!

The restaurants all have fish tanks out front with all the yummy stuff you can eat there swimming in them. It was crab season while we were there. Nice!

Chuck bought some sick Adidas originals with bright pink outsoles and laces. Nice. Evert will approve although he may be mad we bought them

We got up to an insane breakfast made by Wendy’s mom.

This is Wendy’s parents apartment building. Very typical for Korea. Really nice inside!

Then we headed out to the Emperor’s summer home to check out some of the cultural stuff.

There were guys all dressed up in traditional clothing that performed a show involving all the old weapons from the past.

Lots of school field trips going on at the center. All the kids liked to try out their English on us. It was so funny!

The sites in Suwon:

Chuck and Ramon went way to hard at the rehearsal dinner…I know what happened to Chuck because I helped clean up the aftermath but Wendy shot this great one of Ramon.

So we left Philly way before sunrise and made it to DC just in time to watch the sun come up over all the planes.

We got off the smallest plane and went straight to the massage place to loosen up for our 12 hour flight to Beijing. Had one last good ol’ American breakfast and got ready to go.

If you have never been to Dulles then you wouldn’t know about the cool land rovers. They have these cool people movers. Like something out of Star Wars. Fun

INSIDE:

OUTSIDE:

When we landed in Beijing it was unreal how much pollution was in the air. it was like a blanket of smog until we actually hit the ground. Then you couldn’t see very far away at all. These give you a little idea of the mess they are dealing with. The airport is so big it’s really overwhelming.

The airport was like 100 degrees..inside! yikes. Our first little bit of shock to the system. We stripped down a hoodie layer and then cruised around the gigantic airport. I bought an Olympic pin which was cool. I can’t imagine how the athletes are going to perform in this soup.

The we got on our Asiana airlines flight to Seoul. Best airline. Super good service and food. We flew into Korea just as the sun was setting the day after we left home. Crazy!

Ramon and Wendy had just flown in from San Fran and were waiting for us in the airport. No worries with bags or customs at all.

We grabbed some bus tickets and headed to Wendy’s home town of Suwon to check into Wendy’s mom and dad’s apartment. It took about an hour or so to get there. There wasn’t much to see in the dark but tons of neon crosses and crazy Korean neon signs in the distance. The bus was super plush. Almost nicer then the plane!

I still haven’t even begun to organize pictures like Chuck has. he is running circles around me right now. Maybe this week will afford me some free time. Until then he has put some good posts from our trip up:

URNXT

We went with the lovely card family down to Logan Circle yesterday to catch the Triple crown of cycling. it was stupid hot so we only stayed until the end of the women’s race and then we went home to catch the end of the men’s on TV. I don’t know how they rode 156 miles in that weather but they kept it exciting all the way until the end. The men had a pack sprint to the line which is always exciting! the women also had a good finish for 2nd place with another pack sprint and a very hard crash for a few of the riders. Sucks to go that far and then crash 100 yards from the line and get a DNF. ugh.

We made it home last night or early this morning. I am tired. ugh.

10 hours flight from Seoul, South Korea to Vancouver, Canada. 5 hours to DC and 20 minutes to Philly.

Everything went super smooth and we made all our insane connections with a few small sprints with some of them. The trip was beyond amazing. We can’t wait to go back!

I’ll have some work to do with photos this weekend after I figure out what day it is and what time zone my body is on.

Here are a few to get you going…