When I was invited to attend Club Vit’s 20th anniversary meeting in Mykonos this year, we had planned to bring Westley along for his first vacation abroad. But after our exhausting road trip in January, we decided to leave him with my in-laws so that we could enjoy the Greek islands like honeymooners for our own 10th anniversary. We left from San Jose for a cheaper flight, which also gave us a chance to score some Din Tai Fung soup dumplings before taking off. Connecting through Frankfurt and Athens, we made good use of airport lounges before arriving in Santorini. We stayed at the Kapari Natural Resort, named one of National Geographic’s Unique Lodges of the World, which offered a warm welcome, a luxurious cave suite, and dinner at the excellent hotel restaurant with grilled octopus and superb pappardelle. The next morning, we awoke for a 5-hour kayak tour that included the Red, Black, and White Beaches along the southern coast of the island. Melody did not venture far with her snorkel gear, but the aquatic fauna was quite sparse anyway. Afterwards, we enjoyed homemade sandwiches while petting a sea urchin on the beach before losing the kayak race heading back to shore. Dinner at Ouzeri in Fira included delicious aubergine and lobster linguine for two, and ended with a scenic but long stroll back to our hotel in Imerovigli. On Tuesday, we awoke early for our 3-hour hike to Oia, but it was not early enough. With no shade and the sun beating down our backs, we were drenched in sweat by the time we arrived for breakfast. We shopped framed arts and photographed blue domes in the picturesque town, then tolerated overpriced juice and slow lunch service before hopping on a bus back to the hotel. For dinner, we joined friends at Metaxy Mas for delicious Greek fare amidst a scenic backdrop and stray cats. Having completed both upper and lower body workouts from kayaking and hiking, we relaxed on our ferry ride to Mykonos on Wednesday, only to realize when we arrived that our posh hotel was miles away from the main town. After catching up with folks at the welcome dinner buffet, we spent the next few days mostly confined to the hotel with the same routine – conference in the morning, poolside restaurant for lunch, and back to our air-conditioned room for a nap and gaming in the afternoon. The new Zelda: Breath of the Wild is both beautiful and captivating, although it would’ve been even better to dock our Switch and play on the big screen. After sundown, we headed into town each evening to sample local cuisine from a souvlaki stand, a rooftop garden restaurant, and a seaside diner. Although the hotel shuttle service was inconsistent, we still enjoyed our outings along with a round of drinks with new friends the following night. Our last evening gala led us through Little Venice to the Sea Satin, where we dined on giant grilled fish and puffed pastries a la mode. We watched high-kicking Greek dancers as the sunset cast its colors on the island’s famed windmills, then concluded with children of retina specialists breaking plaster plates on the floor without eye protection. We flew to Athens on Sunday after a brief flight delay that landed us at the sun’s peak. With nearly 110-degree weather and the city sanitation workers on strike, we could hardly enjoy our hot lunch at Psaras. We finally made it to the Parthenon, taking frequent breaks between the reflective white marble walls of the Acropolis, then called it quits and returned to our hotel lobby for some ice-cold juice. We recovered after a nap, shopped along Adrianou Street for souvenirs, then went to Michelin-starred Spondi for a forgettable dinner. We returned to our hotel rooftop for a glimpse of the Acropolis and a final kiss shot before our flight home the next morning. We got pork-cheek ramen and listened to Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me from NPR on the drive back from San Jose. With the unrelenting sun and heat, our vacation was not as relaxing as we hoped, but we were glad to be back with Westley again.

Having slept through most of my flight home from Singapore, I was sure that I had overcome the 18-hour jet lag when I returned to work Tuesday morning. But after a week of imaging monkeys at the Primate Center, complex surgeries in the OR, and overbooked clinics on Wednesday and Friday, I was back in a state of exhaustion. On Saturday, I managed to stay awake through all the resident and fellow research presentations, and enjoyed a funny faculty roast at graduation. But after waking up to disappointing chicken rice for breakfast on Father’s day, I crashed on the couch for the rest of the afternoon. This flipped my schedule back to Singapore time, and made for another discombobulating week, with a healthy dose of tryptophan from more chicken rice that sent me to food coma early each night. I was lucid enough to set up new dual 34″ curved ultra-wide monitors, which now allow me to tile 6 windows across the desktop, but little real estate left on my actual desk. By the end of the week, Melody was already packed for our trip to Greece, while my new spinner was still empty. Fortunately, my in laws are arriving early tomorrow to take care of Westley, so I’ll be able to squeeze in some last minute packing.

I was fortunate to be accepted into the Macula Society this year which held its annual meeting in Singapore for its 40th anniversary. Although Melody could not join me, I was excited to experience the city’s unique blend of cultures and cuisines, with many similarities to Hong Kong from British colonial influence. I departed Monday afternoon and slept through 12 of the 15-hour flight from SFO thanks to my recent sleep deprivation. Since my room was not yet ready, I found an ATM and some laksa at a nearby food court for breakfast, then made my way to the Jurong Bird Park. After a morning of avian photography and high-flying bird shows, I checked into the hotel, then lunched at Chatterbox for their famed chicken rice before attending the meeting’s first session. Our lavish welcome dinner took place at the hotel’s Line buffet, which left me uncomfortably stuffed before bedtime. Next day, I felt like a kid in a candy store at Food Republic, but only had room for chicken rice and tea rice. I walked off my lunch with a visit to the Raffles Hotel and Merlion Park, navigating the vast underground malls and sipping milk tea until I reached Chinatown. Here, I checked out the Thian Hock Keng and Buddha Tooth Relic temples, took an audioguide tour at the Chinatown Heritage Center, and shopped for Chinese imports at Yue Hwa. The long day left me less social at the New Member reception, but I redeemed myself at dinner with my mentors by breaking out the Cantonese and ordering a spread of seafood ranging from giant prawns to chili crab. On Friday, I awoke in time to receive my travel grant, then went to sample the world’s cheapest Michelin-starred meal at Liao Fan Hawker Chan. From there, I hopped on the clean, efficient subway to the Gardens by the Bay, where I endured the summer heat to peruse the impressive horticultural display before joining the evening gala in the Flower Dome. My basic science talk was relegated to the last morning of the conference, but I was happy with the positive feedback. With the meeting’s conclusion, we celebrated our fellow’s award over dim sum, then headed to the Singapore Zoo. Despite the intermittent rain, we appreciated the unique fauna like giant fruit bats and pygmy hippos. Having purchased tickets in advance, I stayed to visit the Night Safari also, completing my comprehensive yet exhausting wildlife tour. I spent my last day back in the city to round out my culinary adventures, starting with kaya toast and soft-boiled eggs with milk tea for breakfast in Kampong Glam. From the Sultan Mosque, I made my way to Tai Hwa Pork Noodle for my second Michelin-starred hawker meal. The two-hour wait got me behind schedule, so I skipped my laksa stop for delicious, aromatic bak kut teh. I returned to the hotel to pack my stash of Prima Taste packets from the Mustafa Center, then joined my friend Yvette for a light dinner followed by drinks at Ce La Vi atop the Marina Bay Sands. Our view of the city from above on this last night was breathtaking, and I was left with fond memories of this jewel of a city.

With summer weather approaching and many personnel changes in lab, I decided to host a lab BBQ at my house to let people hang out outside of work. Having learned from hosting a BBQ with the retina folks last year, we didn’t bother with homemade skewers or quiche, sticking instead with burgers, hot dogs, and prepared salads from Costco, along with some curried wings which were a hit. We assigned drinks and desserts to guests, which led to a glut of extra sweets that fortunately the undergrads were more than willing to take home. Sadly, Westley broke out in a heat rash and did not cope well with all the new faces. He managed to warm up a bit when we invited our in-laws afterwards to tackle the leftovers. My call week for the Memorial Day weekend was quite busy, but we did manage to enjoy some dim sum with the fellows, having missed Chinese New Year earlier this year. We also stopped by Planet Granite and Medimer to browse marble remnants, and took advantage of online holiday deals for more compact luggages for work travel. Having pulled several late nights to catch up with clinical duties and manuscript preparation, I ran on little sleep and ended up losing my wallet last week. Between getting my credit cards and wallets replaced, and squeezing in a DMV visit for a new license, I felt ill prepared for this whirlwind weekend of our department’s Napa symposium and the iOCT Summit in Cleveland. After Friday morning clinic, I drove to Napa for some oysters and chowder, only to suffer from food poisoning that kept me from enjoying dinner and left me dehydrated on my red-eye to Cleveland. I arrived at the Cole Eye Institute at the crack of dawn Sunday, and relied on coffee to keep me awake through North Coast Retina in the morning and my talk in the afternoon. With little time to catch up with friends, I flew back to SFO that evening, briefly dining on delicious beer-battered cod with rosemary fries at Bar Symon at CLE. I had trouble keeping my eyes open on the drive back to Napa for my quick overnight Airbnb stay before my Sunday morning talk to the department. Exhausted, I was relieved to return home for lunch with my family and my friend Yao, before having to pack again for a trip to Singapore tomorrow. While it feels nice to be popular at times, I just don’t think I’m cut out for the jetset life.

We marked our decade-long marriage together this past Friday with some sparkle. My planning for the occasion began as early as February, when I sought to replace the engagement ring that Melody had lost a few years back. After many covert trips to Roseville and downtown Sacramento to browse diamonds from various vendors – Shane Co., Bianca’s, Santillan, and Sharif’s, I ultimately chose a Blue Nile stone that nearly matched the original diamond’s specs, and worked with their custom department to recreate my design. Having failed to score a French Laundry reservation from our concierge service due to their change to a new ticket system, we instead booked Date Night at 3-Michelin-starred Benu in San Francisco, asking our in-laws to cover baby duty at home. Corey Lee’s Asian-style tasting menu provided a unique take on very familiar flavors as we smiled at each other over Melody’s new ring. We started with delicacies of 1000-year old quail egg, tuna marrow, oyster and pork belly foam, squid on a blood sausage, barbecued abalone with abalone liver, and “shark fin” crab egg custard before finally getting to the bread course featuring the Best Bread Ever. Then the real journey began: foie gras xiao long bao, seasonal caviar and uni, geoduck clam, fried eel with lip-numbing pepper leaf and szechuan peppercorns; a fat juicy barbecued quail with a steamed truffled bao, a lobster-stuffed sea cucumber, and a beef course featuring steak, a galbi-jim-styled riblet, and banchan. We cleared our palates with an omija sorbet before the chocolate acorn dessert and a pricey vintage pu-erh tea. But things weren’t over yet – a final anniversary cake was presented within a music box playing Love Me Tender, which we enjoyed with a sweet rice water drink. After another marble-hunting trek with some Korean food in Rancho Cordova on Saturday, we celebrated Mother’s Day over hot pot and another cheese trip for Melody. Recounting our journey over past 10 years, and with Westley now finally walking, we look forward to many more adventures ahead.

This year’s ARVO meeting took me back to sunny Baltimore. My last visit to the city was 10 years ago when I spent a month at Wilmer for an Ophthalmology rotation that left me with memories of Subway sandwiches, sketchy neighborhoods, and unsatisfying blue crabs. I departed last Friday on a red-eye after dropping Melody off for her 7am flight and blasting through afternoon clinic, leaving me exhausted by the time I arrived. Rather than taking a nap as I should have, I decided to get breakfast with my roommate in nearby Lexington Market for chicken & waffles, which provided a rather authentic Baltimore experience, but was no match for Dame’s. We returned to our hotel for a 6-hour-long Allergan meeting before I took a breather over small plates at Salt Tavern with some Duke friends. I presented my poster on Sunday, but overall felt that the meeting was less satisfying than previous years perhaps due to the meeting location and lower turnout. I also caught up with friends from residency, and ended the evening at Cinghiale for a delicious 4-course prezzo fisso, and nearly 3 hours of waxing philosophical with colleagues over our careers as clinician-scientists. On Monday, I spent the morning interviewing a post-doc candidate, interfacing with industry leadership, and lunching with an old lab mate over harborside crab cakes, then hosted an inaugural networking dinner with sponsorship from Alcon for clinician-scientists in Ophthalmology. Continuing our prior night’s dinner topic, we had 30 participants from different career stages share their advice for succeeding in an academic career combining research with clinical practice. Afterwards, I hung out with some students until the wee hours that night. Despite a late start next morning, I joined the CAOS folks for a crab feast luncheon at Bo Brooks before my flight home. I made use of my Priority Pass again at BWI, and was glad to see my new Sapphire Reserve really starting to pay for itself. With all my upcoming travel, I’m hoping to get more use out of it this summer.

We attended the March for Science to the State Capitol today. This was our first political march, and we did not come prepared with our own witty nerd sign, but did come dressed for the occasion with my Addgene apparel and Melody’s Schroedinger’s cat T-shirt. Westley enjoyed his new stroller and clapped along with the crowds as they cheered, “What do we want? Evidence-based policy!” and “When do we want it? After peer review!” We met some UCD ophtho folks there, and joined them for lunch over hot pastrami and meatball sandwiches at Sampino’s. Back home, we spent our little spare time killing Kett in the new Mass Effect Andromeda. Although generally panned for its character animations, stilted dialogues, and tedious missions, the game brought enough nostalgia and satisfied enough of Melody’s completionist tendencies to keep us engaged while we waited for our left Joy-Con to be repaired. I also tried to revive my old RC car with a new LiPo battery to play with Westley, only to burn out the motor after just 2 runs. Otherwise, we’ve mostly stayed at home to manage the finishing touches to our window repairs, installation of a motorized sunscreen for our family room, and successful sale of our Sundance Spa, which we sent off with a final late-night soak as its last hurrah.

You know your wife really loves you when she shows up to your work with a new video game console that most people could barely get their hands on. Despite being weeks after its debut, the new Nintendo Switch remained sold out at most stores after many positive reviews for its innovative design. Once we knew a new shipment had arrived at Best Buy, Melody showed up after work that day and scored the last one of the batch. The handsome gadget sat pretty on my desk, but could do very little since the system did not come with a game. So we spent our long weekend mostly taking it easy. Since Westley’s daycare did not have Cesar Chavez Day off, we took the opportunity to lunch out at Station 16 in midtown followed by macarons from Ginger Elizabeth. On Saturday, we stayed at home while painters came to put the finishing touches on our windows, followed by a visit to Ikea to let Westley bounce on various Swedish furnishings. We ended our long weekend with a short field trip to Lake Berryessa, where the heavy rains this winter have allowed the water level to rise above the poorly-named “Glory Hole” spillway, creating a mesmerizing vortex that became the feature of a recent NY Times article. It was not as dramatic by the time we got there, but Westley seemed to enjoy the outing as we stopped for lunch at a local RV resort diner. For Melody’s birthday, I left work early to check out the Davis Co-op to feed her cheese addiction, then grabbed a bite at Tasty Kitchen before picking up the baby. We also ordered our copy of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, so we’ll be putting our Switch to good use after all!

This month has not been kind to our wallets. State Farm’s adjuster had just concluded that most of the water damage to our window areas were not covered by our home insurance, when the contractors discovered dry rot along the entire South-facing elevation, with soaked insulation and drywall mold requiring even more work than our initial $6k estimate. Melody’s car was also in the shop having gotten rear-ended in a Roseville parking lot, when my car was struck by some debris on I-80 on the way to work. By the time I got home, the 8″ crack had extended across the windshield, requiring a second auto claim this month. Add on top of that a $3k bat exclusion project and a $20k tax bill this year, we felt like we were bleeding money. Even with my parents in town to help out with the baby, we were keen to stay indoors as we fought off cold symptoms and the bad karma. Interestingly, the last time I used this blog title was exactly 10 years ago around our wedding. We did manage to squeeze in dinner dates at Boiling Ave and Grange to use our OpenTable GC, and also take my folks out to new restaurants we discovered for dim sum, Cantonese food, Taiwanese hot pot, and XLB. Last week, I attended my first NIH study section in Bethesda. The 20-30 hours I spent on grant review beforehand was barely worth the $200 honorarium, but I was excited to see the review process first-hand. I even got to dine with a collaborator the night before, and chat with one of the scientific officers who generously gave me a ride to IAD early enough to enjoy a Priority Pass lounge before my flight home. With Melody at another conference, Westley mysteriously breaking out in hives again last week (no need for Epi-pen, fortunately), and my parents leaving this evening, I will have to pay extra attention on daddy duty to fend off evil spirits until mom returns.

We went to Berkeley on Presidents’ Day weekend to meet up with my college friend for lunch. Her daughter is just a few weeks younger than Westley, so we got to share our experiences as new parents. We also returned to CB2 to buy the Sidera chair that we’ve been eyeing, and more of the Marta glasses that I’ve become obsessed with. Back home, it’s been off-season for our usual TV shows, so we’ve started looking for new things to watch. Thanks to Netflix’s “Suggested for You,” we’ve kept ourselves entertained with stand-up specials from comedians like Ali Wong, Aziz Ansari, Anjelah Johnson, Dana Carvey, Iliza Shlesinger, John Mulaney, Russell Peters, and Trevor Noah. Last weekend, we also binge-watched the critically-acclaimed first season of Stranger Things. With a minimal budget and a nearly-unknown cast, the supernatural tale set in a small town in the 80’s paid homage to a slew of horror and sci-fi flicks from that period like E.T.. In fact, we had to solve our own mystery this weekend with the appearance of animal droppings beside our house and a strange squeak from our kitchen hood vent. A call to a bird specialist led to the discovery of a new bat infestation in our attic, and an intense bat-catching operation from the vent this afternoon. Faced with the need to get rid of the bats, a massive tax bill, and water damage repairs that insurance refuses to pay for, we’ll need to keep our wallets zipped up tightly for now. Fortunately, I’ll be drowned in NIH grant reviews for study section next week, and I’ve got my parents back in town to help out with the baby.