monterey

its tuesday night, ive got to wake up early tomorrow to go to the barnes and nobles in sherman oaks and im updating my blog. why? mostly because i have pictures to post! yayy  :)
actually, they arent even my pictures. theyre johns and kens ahaha

anyway, spring break started friday morning for ethan, john, ken, isaac and me. we decided to go to monterey because.. yes.
on the road. can you tell the difference between the relationship between isaac and john and the one between isaac and ethan?

we dropped by ethans place in fremont on the way to monterey to pick up his car. we were warmly greeted by his mother who gave us enough asian crackers and drinks to last us for the rest of the semester even though we were only going on a one night trip.

john was harassing ethans poor dog the whole time we were there

just my usual calm, composed, contemplative, not crazy self.

after a couple hours, we arrived at monterey! our first stop — monterey aquarium!!

we saw a bunch of cute cuddly animals along with some not so cuddly looking things..

…but one thing none of were expecting to see was this.. ISAAC!!

now you may be wondering.. how did isaac end up at an exhibit at the monterey aquarium? these next few pictures illustrate isaacs life story up until the moment where he now peacefully resides at the monterey aquarium, where he is being pampered by various bird trainers and janitors.

ahoy maties!

we are gangsta

basically, we started getting really hungry after looking at all those sea creatures, so naturally, our next stop was dinner!

dinner was relatively expensive but it was all worth it. ill post some before/after pics right here:

after dinner was a nice walk along the pier. we were working on our pier relationships.

the only difference between these two pictures is that john and i swapped positions ahaha

normal vs nick: how people take photos at a pier. i dont know what possessed me– actually i do know i was just being myself– but i was inspired from watching band of brothers with the guys while sleeping over at steve suhs place

we got back to our hotel which was about a 5 minute walk from the pier and knocked out for several hours haha. we ended up going out for a stroll along the shore.

closed off the night by making several stops at various supermarkets in order to buy junk food and ordering 3 pizzas at papa johns. oh yeah, this was during the wee hours of the morning.

next day, we had an exciting time kayaking! this is a picture of us chilling on the rocks.

isaacs bears an uncanny resemblance to our governor arnold. particularly around the arms.

just call me ahab — if you wanna see moby dicks dorsal fin, its hanging in my room right next to my baptism picture

ken– a regular at modeling agencies

word on the street is that there is a tribe of 3 beastly warriors who live among the scattered islands of monterey

good thing they heard the gospel message!

this pretty much wrapped up our adventure in monterey, and we took a scenic route home driving along the 17-mile drive and then highway 1. the 1 was super windy and annoying. oh yeah, we ate dinner at nepenthe on the way down, which is a fancy restaurant on a cliff overlooking an amazing view of the oceanside. the only thing we could afford was burgers ahaha.

john the photographer.. we were joking around that he should work for national geographic

monterey was all good!! im thankful for the people in my life who make these kinds of things possible.

random breakfast, knotts, gogi

the random breakfast that i cooked

john won a polar bear stuffed animal playing this game

this was the first ride that john and i went on.. we went on it again with steve suh shortly after. supreme scream is much higher than i remember haha

kristen is so cute  :) she quickly stole johns teddy bear

steve having fun on “dragon swing” with johnny and daniel

suzanne won this game where the employee has to guess ones age within 2 years of their actual age. the lady guessed 34, which was 3 years off of suzannes age. pretty close haha.

snoopy on ice!

steve and suzanne are secretly in charge of a jedi academy. you can see the intensity in their kids eyes.

the various dolls we won at the end of the day

all you can eat for $10? ALL GOOD!!

chilling at boba place

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i guess yesterday and today kinda blurred since i woke up around 3:00am..
cooked myself a very random breakfast– apples, toast, and chocolate chip cookies. it sure hit the spot.
john and i ate at red robins for lunch before heading to knotts. that hit the spot too.

it was nice to meet up with people from church at knotts
something i appreciated about knotts berry farm is that its not that big so you dont have to walk a mile to the nearest ride (i.e. disneyland)
most of the college students felt pretty dizzy after riding roller coasters.. a sure sign that were getting old haha

the most memorable rides/events for me:
supreme scream– all i can say is john and i reached a new level in our relationship with steve suh ahaha
perilous plunge– all the gracepointers were on the cart before us, so steve and i were the only ones on our cart. we got soaked.
silver bullet– kevin huang, justin kim,  john kwon, steve suh and i all felt sick after this one. i dont know about andrew chen but i guess hes still a sophomore haha
snoopy on ice– the show itself was ok, but kristen made it 100x’s better when she started singing really loudly to “oh holy night” ahaha
ghost rider– waiting in line talking to suzanne was just as good as the ride. i heard suzanne was screaming quite a bit on this one haha.
ping pong toss– john won a “small” sized polar bear doll but he wanted a “medium” sized one and was sad (they have different texture fur)
guess your age– suzanne won a garfield doll when the person at the booth guessed suzanne was 34. they only get 2 years leeway. at least the guess wasnt 3 years over haha.
water gun race– john, steve and i played a game where you shoot a target with a water pump and the force propels a doll upwards until its hits the top which triggers a bell. that was a confusing description. the winner gets a polar bear doll, and we played twice. only steve was left without a doll ahaha.

knotts was half the fun, all you can eat was the other half.
we went to a place to eat in cerritos called “mr lees gogi’ or something like that.
simon and i ended up joining the sophomore table because the junior/suh table finished eating early haha

we just chilled at the boba house afterwards.
dinner and boba was really really chill. i wish we had more opportunities to just hang out.

marios, hospital, zuma

met with socal homies at marios– peruvian food

chilling at the hospital lounge

my family really likes lighting candles for special occasions.. or any occasion. maybe they want to save electricity haha.

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i dont know what the valley did to my body, but ive been waking up super early since ive returned.
woke up at 7:30am.. what in the world. woke up at 9:00am yesterday.. i guess that not too early haha. never mind.
did DT and spent time reading the bible and shadow of the almighty.
my commitment at the beginning of the year (as in january 2009) was to finish the bible in a year. at the time, i could have read 3 chapters a day and 5 chapters on sunday to finish the bible in a year.
the new pace i need to keep up with to finish the bible is 3 books a day ahahah. at this rate.. its no good.

went to the gym and ran/lifted a little.
i always seem to lose weight when i come back home.
probably a combination of the small portions, healthy cooking, and sporadic visits to the gym.

ken picked out a peruvian restaurant in la to meet at called marios. it was really yummy.
ken, isaac, wynn, steven chua, vincent, hugo, and hugo’s brother spencer were all there.
we only met for a little bit but it was nice to catch up.

funny story is that ken had a doctors appointment at 3:00 and we were still in la at 2:30.
ken rushed to the hospital and started jogging pretty slowly after parking the car.
only steven chua was a good enough friend to follow him. wynn, isaac, and i were too lazy to run after them, so we lost them haha.
we wandered around different buildings until we just decided to sit down at a lobby and read the bible.
ken gives us a call after getting his shot and reunites with us.
shortly after, wynn gets a call from steven chua who says “were in building 6.”
wynn asks, “whos we?” and steven answers “me and ken” ahaha.
we started cracking up because we thought steven was running after some random dude

evening was devoted to family.
we lit candles and just talked for a couple of hours.

got a call from isaac at 12:30am and we decided to go to zuma haha.
picked up ken and head out with a some chairs and a bag of sehoo ggang.
it was really dark.
we saw some legit shooting stars tonight.. except ken who only saw 1/2 of one ahaha

mission training, interhigh, miracle

we were inspired to watch “miracle”

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today was super busy..
we had mission training at the Y starting at 9:30, starting with dt
steve suh talked about the importance of being a body and learning to put all of our hearts into whatever it our god given task is.
dancing to joyland songs was really fun, except i was stuck next to isaac “the vortex” seong.
skit practice with john cai was a lot of fun too.. practicing in the fireside room was reminiscent of new student welcome night haha

soon after training ended all the mentors headed to northloop for interhigh monthly #3.
personally, it was a lot harder to keep my mentees engaged compared to the past couple interhigh monthlys.. i realized that i should be prepared to really perservere.

got back home tired but in a good way.
roommates and i were inspired by the clip of “miracle” we saw and ended up buying and watching the movie.

late night pig out.

work, bible study, ice skating

ice skating in oakland.. all good/no bad

yeabois

tim choi — superhero off to save the world

homies

this picture is so funny

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my boss worked remotely today.. which means i didnt really have to do much work :)
downloaded a gangload of software today. i love free software.

todays bible study was about the 4 kinds of soil
a lot of the points hit home for me.. path, rocky, thorny, good.

post bible study activity was ice skating at oakland.
we havent gone since my freshman year.. it was definitely one of the more fun activities for me

tomorrows gonna be a big day with mission training, interhigh monthly, and possibly ecm.