Oh, New York!

I hereby declare that my great love affair with New York City will never end. Every time we go back I am all smiles, scheduling meals with old friends, making sure we hit all our old haunts, and reveling in the sights and sounds of the city. What makes visiting NYC so much fun is that everyone wants to see us while we're in town and we spent our whole time hanging out in cool spots and catching up with amazing friends. This was not how regular life necessarily was while we lived there. But it makes moving away a little more bearable. Here's my detailed chronicle of our latest adventure. Be warned- this post is very, very long.

Saturday, May 31


After spending the night at my friend Anna's place (who is now engaged and on youtube!), she and Mitch drop me off at Living Hope for the wedding on Saturday morning. Congrats to Dave and Sheila, a classy couple who threw one heck of a party. We doubted that people would be out on the dance floor at 3pm, but these Harvard kids sure know how to party (the open bar probably didn't hurt). Paul led worship at the wedding, and he was glad to be reunited with his old band. Above are John, John, and Rana causing trouble at our table.



Well, the wedding was such a good party that at 6pm (it was an 11am wedding) the music was still pumping! But we had tickets to the Mets/Dodgers game, so what to do? We piled in John's car and booked it to Shea Stadium...and got there in time to see the Mets beat the Dodgers 3-2. We literally saw one batter go up and the game was over. But hey, parking was free. Should I be rooting for LA now? I'm not sure if I can undo 7 years of brainwashing to love the Mets. But the Dodgers have Brooklyn roots, so I guess we'll consider it.



No visit to Flushing is complete without some tasty Asian food. So we decided to take a break from the sticky, humid day and make a pit stop at You-Chun on Northern Blvd. for some naeng-myun, a Korean cold buckwheat noodle soup in beef broth which is always a perfect treat for a hot summer day. Add some mustard and vinegar to taste and bulgogi on the side, and we were happy as clams. We got dropped off at our temporary home at Paul's sister Suzi's apartment in Brooklyn after a long day and topped our evening off at Stonehome Wine Bar, a neighborhood joint in Fort Greene where Paul and I tasted two flights of wine and indulged in three delicious cheeses and a plate of charcuterie.

Sunday, June 1

We started the morning off at church with our friend Oscar, who attends a new church plant on the Upper West Side called Grace. It was a super cool service, with a straightforward and culturally relevant message, an amazing funk-influenced worship band, and friendly people. They meet in a black box theater on top of a storefront space on 72nd street. After church, we had lunch and then Paul and I headed over to my recording engineer's studio to do a final listen through of my album. And, it's done! I'm very pleased with how everything turned out and walked away with my official master CD. Hopefully in a few weeks it will be duplicated and ready to sell.



We had some time before dinner to enjoy a stroll through Central Park after picking up some goodies from Savoy Bakery on the Upper East Side. They are an amazing Chinese-owned bakery with all the classic Chinese bakery goods- pork buns, egg custards and lots of fluffy cakes along with lots of croissants and a pretty tasty pain au chocolat. Wow.



Dinner couldn't be more enjoyable. Food is an expression of love in both our families, and when we lived in NY we were routinely spoiled by the scrumptious home cooking of Paul's mom, grandma, and aunt. That evening they drove all the way over to Suzi's place from Jersey for a feast of Korean BBQ (his grandmother has some secret recipe for making the kalbi amazingly tender and perfectly sweet) and some other homemade treats. We also celebrated Suzi's birthday a few days early. She's turning 1 in this picture.

Monday, June 2

We spent the night at my mother-in-law's place and had the chance to see one of Paul's aunts in the hospital, where she is being treated for leukemia. It was a somber visit and I don't know if she was fully aware of our presence. While we are not particularly close with her, it was heartbreaking to see her in that condition and to see the pain that her Paul's uncle is going through. It was a very brief visit and after some more time with Paul's mom, we took the bus back into the city.



We visited one of our college hot spots, Taqueria y Fonda, for our favorite thing on their menu- the chicken quesadilla. This is not your average quesadilla. Flavorful grilled chicken is trapped in a handmade flour tortilla and topped with romaine lettuce, freshly made sour cream and quesa fresca. We still haven't found anything quite like it in SD. I often daydream about their tortilla chips- greasy, crispy and always fresh out of the fryer.



Then a stopover at my friend Julie's apt on the UWS to see her and her baby Anna. Anna is now crawling and she is absolutely adorable. Just one look in those big blue-gray eyes and she gives you a huge smile that would undoubtedly melt even the coldest of hearts. I could spend hours oogling over her. I like the way she's eyeing me in the picture above. Seeing Julie as a mommy is pretty amazing. She's my closest friend from Juilliard and we went through school, graduating, getting married all at the same time- except now she's leapfrogged me into another lifestage! Anna has her sweet disposition and is a pretty happy, smiley little girl.



After an overpriced pitcher of sangria with Josh and Miriam at The Yard at the Soho Grand (the very hotel where we spent our wedding night!), we headed over to meet Dan, Naomi, and Maureen for dinner at Aurora, one of my favorite Italian restaurants in the city. They are a Brooklyn joint that now has a Soho location, and it surely did not disappoint. My papardelle with wild boar ragu had me pining for Tuscany and left enough savory goodness in my mouth to last me a few more months in California. For dessert, a panna cotta with roasted blueberries, a chocolate ganache with fior di latte gelato, and a flourless chocolate cake with hazelnut gelato. Ahhhh....



As if this weren't enough activity, we had scheduled after-dinner drinks with Paul's two best buddies from high school, Woojin and Seung-joo at the Brandy Library, which has got to be one of the coolest places in the city. Completely unassuming from the outside, walking in is like a different world- there are bottles of aged cognac, scotch, whiskey, various other spirits on the shelves that are arranged in the fashion of well, a library. The furniture is dark and polished and has the feel of an old Ivy League study room. There was even a live pianist playing Joplin. The bottles seemed to be alphabetized according to some sort of Dewey decimal system for liquor. I'm not huge on the hard stuff, but the boys seemed to have a good time and we all shared a bunch of different tasting flights while catching up and celebrating Woojin's recent engagement. We got home exhausted at about 2am and decided to sleep in the next morning.

Tuesday, June 3



After getting up at 10:30am, there was only one thought on our minds...DIM SUM! We hop on the subway to Chinatown and land at Golden Unicorn, a restaurant where we had spent many a Saturday morning at before. The best thing about getting dim sum on a weekday is that there is nobody there! Wow, what a discovery. We had all the carts to ourselves and I didn't hold back from ordering most of my favorites, which was probably enough for 4 people. Stuffed, we make our way back to Brooklyn and realize that there is only one thing left on the food list that lies unaccomplished. A slice of New York pizza! Pizza being Paul's favorite food, we don't know how we let this one slide. The line at Not Ray's Pizza on Fulton St. was a little on the long side, and by the time we finished a gooey fresh mozzarella slice we're a little behind schedule for our trip to the airport. Uh-oh. Here's where the fun begins.

Well, we managed to find ourselves arriving at the airport for a 3:25pm flight at about 3:01pm. I am panicking all the way. I usually like to get to the airport about 1 hour and 15 minutes before my flight, and we narrowly miss an earlier train to the airport and the Airtrain takes forever as well. Paul is an expert at nearly missing and definitely missing more than a few flights in his time. He has clearly done this before, and as I'm worrying over how in the world we are going to get home and who I have to call to reschedule things, he sweet talks his way to the front of the first class/business class check-in line after the self check-in computer tells us that it is too late to check in for our flight. Somehow he convinces the agent to not only check us in (even though we're in economy), but to call the gate and tell them that we are on our way to what has got to be the furthest gate from that check-in counter in all of JFK. She tells us that we might not make it since the gate is really far, and we start sprinting towards the security line. We squeeze our way to the front, apologizing to everyone and explaining we are "really, really late" while taking out a laptop, toiletries, shoes and throwing everything back in/on, and continue the sprint up and down escalators, running past the moving walkways and large groups of tourists, losing my shoe a few times, all the while with our luggage in tow. I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack by the time we arrive at Gate 41, and an agent is looking around for the two crazy, sweaty people who are making this flight wait for us. I wave frantically at her as about 4 different people move out of the way as if they are going to be run over by a pick-up truck. We somehow stow our huge garment bags on board, and the flight attendants are courteous and helpful as if nothing has happened. Wiping our faces and fanning ourselves, we land exhausted in our seats and burst into uncontrollable laughter. To top it off, Paul drops his cell phone under the seat and we cause another raucous getting two different rows of people to stand up and look for it. What troublemakers we are! I always roll my eyes at the people who get on the plane at the last minute while everyone else is seated. And I couldn't believe that I was now one of them!

The pilot announces that "the weather in America's finest city is a comfortable 65 degrees," and 5 1/2 hours later, we arrive at the San Diego Airport in classic Chun style. Seth and Courtney pick us up and take us for a tasty meal at In n' Out. I woke up this morning very, very sore...from sprinting through JFK like a madwoman.

And all for a slice of pizza.

Spontaneous Travels

Spending a week in France last week was one of the most spontaneous things I've ever done. Four days before, I stepped in for my brother-in-law at the last minute who couldn't make his scheduled trip with my sister due to work. And yes, canceling all of my important work obligations (ha!) was a big sacrifice, but of course, my loyalty as a sister comes first. This trip was really one of a lifetime. We stayed at a 13th century chateau (in the first photo) in the Champagne region about an hour outside of Paris. The French really do have an impeccable eye for the beautiful. My senses were overwhelmed the whole time experiencing Paris and the gorgeous countryside. Oh, to be French. I don't know how they do it. They eat such rich, buttery food and they look so darn good. Now I am back home and dying without my daily dose of chocolate croissants and contemplating a diet. All I can say is thank you, Jack for the gift of spontaneity!

I'll let the photos speak for themselves...

Wildflower Heaven

Today I'm loving life. For no particular reason. I'm just happy. It's amazing what beauty surrounds me within a five-minute walk of our apartment.

And while I doubt all of them are actually wild, they sure do make me love spring, even though it's been the same weather (sunny and mild) since February.

The Soloist on NPR

I've become somewhat of an NPR junkie. Yesterday on Fresh Air, the most amazing story was featured. I was so touched by it that I sat in my car and listened for half an hour.

It was an interview with an LA Times journalist name Steve Lopez who befriended a street musician in downtown Los Angeles. It turns out that this man, Nathaniel Ayers, was once a student at Juilliard, and battled schizophrenia for a number of years and was homeless, living on Skid Row in downtown LA. Lopez saw his talent when he spotted him playing a two-string violin and decided to see if there was a way he could help the man. After writing a few columns about him in the LA Times, people started hearing about his story and donating instruments for Lopez to give to the man. Through playing music again (violin and cello), Ayers slowly decided to get help and reengage with the world. Lopez helped him in several other ways- finding him an apartment, getting him psychiatric help, and introducing him to musicians from the LA Philharmonic. Ayers is now taking lessons with musicians from the Philharmonic, and has goals to become a music therapist.

I'm not doing the story justice- you've got to listen to it for yourself on the NPR website here. The interview was featuring Lopez's book which came out yesterday entitled The Soloist: A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, and the Power of Music. And, there's a movie in the making- starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx! I don't know how to feel about that- but I like the fact that his story is being told. I know that it's shown me how much I've taken my mental health and musical training for granted.

Ode to the Veggies

It's day 21 of me and Paul's experiment with vegetarianism. It's actually a meat fast, the details of which I won't get into here. But basically, we gave up meat for 40 days and I thought I would evaluate how it's gone.

The first week I was loving it, feeling healthy, in love with the fresh California produce that I rummage through at farmer's markets, thinking this thing will open a whole new repertoire in my cooking that would have easily been neglected had we stuck to our normal diet. We eat quite a bit of meat on a normal basis, I've realized, especially since we got a Costco membership and a grill. Here's a sampling of what we might typically have on a daily basis for dinner.

-Pasta (usually the papardelle from TJ's) with my homemade bolognese sauce (which I would argue is the best in San Diego, a statement that is meant to tell you less about the quality of my cooking than the quality of the Italian food around here)
-Chinese style stir-fry usually at least once a week. Paul's favorite is beef, tofu, and tomato or mabu tofu, usually with bok choy or spinach on the side
-Fish (usually salmon, tilapia, or cod), with a side of garlicy roasted potatoes and mesclun salad mix
-Roasted chicken- I love to stuff it with some gooey truffle cheese and rub olive oil, salt and pepper all over it.
-Pork chop or tenderloin usually in a red-wine reduction, or steak on the grill (I think we usually have one of these every week)

Well, that's a rough sampling. Here's a couple things we've tried instead:

-Pasta (not with the bolognese). I tried my hand at a tomato and pureed chickpea sauce, with some organic arugula from the farmer's market thrown in. Something about that one didn't agree with my tummy.
-Eggplant parmesan. I found a great recipe in my Mario Batali cookbook that didn't require breading and frying the eggplant. It still took about two hours to prepare, but it came out quite tasty in my opinion and I was pretty proud of myself. Little did I know that Paul doesn't even like eggplant. I think it was the first thing I've ever cooked for him that he didn't really eat. And that hurt! Well, I didn't know he only liked it breaded, greasy and on top of pasta. I think eggplant is underrated.
-Sesame noodles. I don't really think these are an authentic Chinese dish. But you can't go wrong with peanut butter, sesame oil, and lots of scallions.
-Kimchee stew. This is the first time I cooked Korean food on my own. Granted, it was missing one of the essential ingredients- spam! I substituted some tofu and enoki mushrooms instead. It was actually pretty tasty.
-Risotto with five kinds of mushrooms (porcini, shitake, crimini, portabello, oyster). I'm a mushroom freak so I LOVED this one, but Paul wasn't that into it.
-Pizza- we usually make it ourselves with the trusty TJ pizza dough and some buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, scallions, and basil

(above: our tasty signature pizza; brussel sprouts sauteed with shallots and olive oil; tofu, asparagus, and red pepper stir-fry; mini-heirloom tomato salad with lentils and avocados in balsamic vinegarette; potato, portabello, and artichoke casserole)

All in all, I think we've been keeping our meals pretty tasty despite the absence of meat. Eating out is a challenge, especially since eating at some of our favorite restaurants presents a serious temptation. Two from this weekend were tough- had to forgo the amazing burgers at the Stone Brewery in Escondido, and our favorite brunch spot, Americana in Del Mar, was a toughie- I love the eggs benedict (with prosciutto.....argh!). God is better than meat. 19 days to go.

On Practicing...and quitting

I just finished reading Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music by Glenn Kurtz. It's a memoir about a guy who has a dream to become an internationally renowned, world-touring classical guitarist. He goes to the New England Conservatory, graduates, and eventually quits the guitar, crushed that his dream of being at the top doesn't come true. Eventually, he goes on to pursue a Ph.D in literature at Stanford and ends up as a professor teaching lit to art students. And he also comes back to the guitar after 10 years of not playing and finally finds peace with it. Practicing eventually becomes more than a means to an end. It becomes a freeing form of self-expression that he does out of passion for the music itself rather than a pathway to greatness.

I was wary of the book at first- would this book make me want to quit, faced with the reality that there really is not room for another Segovia in 2008? But so much of it resonated with me and made me feel more positive about things. His honesty really struck me, as evidenced in this passage:

"Practicing can be a dream world in which you escape the reality of time. You believe that you have everything to do over again, that you have all the time in the world to achieve perfection. And every day we must practice. There is no other way to improve. Still, practicing, by itself, cheats you of half your life. Even if you are your only audience, music lives fully only in performance. Performance brings all the strands together, for a moment, joining the many conflicting voices with which music speaks- the joy, the frustration and anger, the loneliness, regret, and sudden elation. But unlike practice, every performance has an end. And without an end, music is just a fantasy. Now, returning to music, I hear how these tones equal my experience. Ringing and dying; my dream and its loss- together these define the boundaries of my ability, the high and the low, the edges I will always push against. Together they describe what music is for me, what "music" is, the full measure of my love."

I found this to be so true. The relationship between practicing and performing seems pretty straight-forward. Practicing is a means to an end, the end being the performance. Performance makes everything come out in the music that most of the time is not possible while you're practicing. Often times, an interpretation can spontaneously change in a performance because of the energy of that moment, the communication with the audience, and the intensity of the focus required to be fully involved in that piece of music. It can become more profound, beautiful, and revealing than you ever thought possible. Or, it can go completely awry and a memory slip can come up on something that you've played and known for years simply because you let self-doubt and fear control your playing for that moment. I've had both happen to me and I know that performing is not at all possible without many, many hours spent practicing. But is there a way to practice that conjures the essence of performing, so that half of my life is not spent preparing for something that ends right after the concert's over?

My personal struggle with practicing is about making something that I love into a form of work. Since music always came so naturally to me, I used to be able to fool my teachers into thinking I'd worked hard all week when really I practiced the day before my lesson and half an hour before my lesson. When I got to college, this was no longer possible and I knew that there came a point in my life where I had to start to work. Like, really work. I'm not a lazy person, really. I worked very hard at the things that I thought I was supposed to work hard at, like school. I was a great student in school. But I still find that I am a very bad music student. And now that I am a teacher too, I can see right through the ones who do as I used to do and practice right before their lesson day. And now that I am now my own teacher, there is no one to keep me accountable to what I do each day except for myself, which is a very difficult thing sometimes.

This is something that I have thought about for years and years, and there came a moment in a Juilliard practice room when I was so fed up with fingering and re-fingering a Bach suite that I cried tears of frustration over how futile, pointless, and irrelevant to the outside world this "work" seemed to be. After college, while my friends were working on Wall Street and getting jobs in the real world making money and moving money, I was stuck in this music bubble trying to figure out how guitar was relevant to everything else. Luckily, I had good friends at school who encouraged me and taught me that all of this "work", however tedious it could be at times, was delightful in the eyes of the Lord if my heart treated it as a form of worship. To know that God delights in my struggle to hone and cultivate this gift He's given me is what has made all the difference for me.

At times, I still desperately want a cubicle job where my expectations are clearly outlined and my deadlines are made for me. People always think I'm crazy for saying that. When I'm close to the edge (and this happened once last week) I start combing the job listings and wondering what else I could do with my life. It's mostly a pride issue, and I know that in the end it's also to prove to myself that I'm capable of other things, too. But as I've thought about it this week and as I gave a little "performance" to Paul while he was eating dinner last night, I feel more and more confirmed in my heart that I could never, ever quit. I will always play the guitar, always struggle with it, always teach it, and always love it just as I did when I was five years old. Maybe I'll never be Segovia, but I am going to take every opportunity that God gives me by storm as long as He gives me strength to.