Ed – Page 10 – thosecoolkims

Carrie’s Birthday Fun Day!

Today was Carrie’s actual birthday and we decided to celebrate in numerous and diverse ways. It was truly an action-packed day, starting off in Palm Springs and eventually ending up at Disneyland. All in all, it was a great way to ring another fantastic year in the life of Carrie Kim!

As you know, we stayed overnight at the Viceroy and relished its swankness. Our first stop this morning was the Parker Palm Springs to get the birthday girl (and her husband) all pampered up at the spa and for a crazy good brunch.

The Parker is an incredibly fun-loving homage to early ’70s style, designed by Jonathan Adler. The grounds themselves once belonged to Gene Autry, but after Adler’s revamp, it’s a pleasure palace that will make anyone who experienced the ’70s smile. Anyways, after getting rejuvenated in the spa, we walked over to Norma’s, the Parker’s in-house breakfast/lunch eatery.

As it was my wife’s birthday, I saw fit to wear a shirt showing my birthplace and year of birth!

We started off with these amazing crab cakes – some of the best we’ve ever had.

I had Norma’s Eggs Benedict, which had asparagus and pancakes instead of the usual English muffin. Carrie had Claw’s and Chip’s Gone Fishing, aka fried sea bass and lobster done fish & chips style. Wow.

But a birthday lunch wouldn’t be complete without a cake. So I had them bring out the big guns: Chocolate, Chocolate Ice Cream Cake. But I had no idea it would be THIS big! We barely made a dent in this giant thing! But it was unbelievably delicious.

What next? How about spending the rest of the day at Disneyland? So that we did. Since it was Carrie’s birthday, she got a button announcing the occasion…and since I was celebrating with her, I got one that said “I’m Celebrating!”

Here’s the birthday girl in front of It’s a Small World.

Carrie even got a picture with Mickey and Minnie!

What a fun day it was…I think we’ve decided that from here on out, we should always not work on our birthdays!

Happy Birthday, Carrie!!!

Pics from the whole birthday trip are here:

Palm Springs Weekend 2009

Dinner at Circa 59

So after we got fully settled into the Viceroy, we headed out to dinner at Circa 59, the restaurant in the newly remodeled Riviera. We pulled up to the Riviera, completely unprepared for what we were about to see!

In short, it was visually amazing, if ever so slightly slightly derivative. It’s a little bit Philippe Starck in its grandness and glamour, but no worse for it. It’s very impressive to look at, and very well thought out. It deserves to do well, and we hope it succeeds. Here’s the view as we pulled up:

Here’s me sitting on one of the fancy couches:

And here’s Carrie!

Some neat shots of the interior:

Our meals were OK…Carrie had salmon with a jalapeño pesto sauce, and I had red snapper with Spanish chorizo and shrimp. Both were pretty good, but not enough to knock your socks off.

In all, we’re glad we went as the Riviera re-opened in October and we love checking out the newest stuff, but we’d probably rate the food as a 3 out of 5. Definitely not bad, but lacking the sort of bang and innovation you’d expect from the sheer looks of the surroundings.

Still, we were plenty happy, as you can see here!

See the rest of the pics here.

Palm Springs 2009 – We have arrived!

Carrie and I have a tradition of going to Palm Springs for her birthday. Each year, it gets just a little bit swankier and swankier. Now all these years, we have visited the glamorous Viceroy, whose interior design was done by the fantastic Kelly Wearstler (designer extraordinaire and one of our favorite Top Design judges), for dinner, drinks, and even massages, but we’ve never actually stayed here.

Well this year, we decided to finally make it happen. No matter that we’re currently in the middle of a huge rainstorm; it’s just a reason for more indoor cocktails! ;)

Here’s us walking up to the door…the Viceroy Palm Springs’ signature yellow and black theme is foretold by the big yellow doors!

And the swanky lobby!

Love the yellow chandelier.

They gave us champagne when we checked in, so here’s me happily settling in. :)

Carrie more than dressed for the occasion in her yellow cardigan!

And here’s Carrie reveling in the big comfy bed.

We’ll be updating the blog throughout our stay, and you can find all the photos from our trip here. Much more excitement to come – we’re going to dinner tonight at Circa 59, the restaurant at the newly remodeled Riviera, and we’ll have some good fun at the Parker tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Dad’s 70th Birthday!

January 1 of 2009 not only represented a new year, but also Dad’s 70th birthday! We were able to have many of dad’s closest relatives for a great lunch at Peking Gourmet in Garden Grove.

Danny, Janet, and the boys arrived in style – check out Jeffrey and Luke’s snazzy outfits!

Shannon and Mani arrived the day before from their new home in San Rafael, up in Marin County. We’ll have to visit them soon!

Larry and Mary Anne made it too!

Here is part of me and Carrie’s birthday present, a hardbound book that’s a celebration of his long, illustrious, and still-thriving architectural career (he’s currently working on a project in Mongolia!). We are also developing a website for his business which is the other part of our gift to him.

Larry and Mary Anne’s card compiled all of the significant world events from 1939. History buffs will note that MANY important things happened that year, including the start of World War II, Gone with the Wind and the Wizard of Oz hit the silver screens, and most important of all, Paul Ikpoong Kim was born in Korea.

Here’s Shannon saying a few closing remarks about everything that Dad means to us.

And here’s me, Carrie, and dad!

It was a fun day with too much food. Check this picture out … these are the LEFTOVERS!

Happy Birthday Dad, and here’s to a very fresh and prosperous 2009! Click below to see the whole album.

Dad's 70th Birthday

Walking in LA – for real!

So yesterday, Ed had to take the car in for its service in Fullerton which meant he’d be carless for the day. So what to do? How about something really novel for us Southern Californians – take the train and use our feet! On top of that, Ed would be walking in a place where walking happens so seldomly that there’s even a song about it – that’s right, LA! Downtown LA, to be exact.

Fortunately, the shop was really close to the Fullerton train station.

And here’s Ed’s train!

Being in the train felt like Europe – not just because Ed was in a train in the first place, but also because half of the people Ed saw were Europeans about Ed’s age or younger!

From Union Station, Ed took the Red Line to Pershing Square in downtown. It’s easy to forget that there’s an increasingly expansive subway system in Los Angeles!

Walking around downtown, you quickly realize that it must have been very glitzy and glamorous back in the day. There are so many intricately detailed facades on the buildings and they must have looked very impressive years ago. But today, much of it is run down and decrepit. Several years ago, Downtown LA began a resurgence of sorts, and there are plenty of signs of it throughout downtown – art galleries, hip shops, restaurants, lofts, etc. Still, there’s some ways to go.

The Toy District: full of discount toy sellers, specializing in knockoffs!

This was undoubtedly the strangest and funniest sighting from the day: Obama dog tags! The funniest part is how the banners advertise them (grammatically incorrectly) as if they’re the hottest thing right now – “YES – We make dog tag!” If nothing else, it shows how happy so many different worldwide communities are about Obama coming to power.