I had little time to celebrate my birthday this year over the few days between unpacking swim gear from Kauai and packing snow gear for the Squaw Valley Retina meeting in Tahoe. After 3 nights of sleeping 3 hours each to finish my grant, I caught a ride with my friend Carlos, checked into the Ritz-Carlton, grabbed a burger at Manzanita, then quickly fell into slumber before the conference began that evening. I was too tired afterwards to hunt for dinner, so I opted for overpriced in-room BBQ wings while watching the new Breaking Bad movie in bed. On Friday, I gave my second talk, took the free gondola to Northstar Village for lunch, then joined colleagues for dinner and drinks while waiting for Melody and Westley to arrive. We had another night of BBQ wings, followed by a morning in the village sipping hot chocolate while watching skiers and snowboarders line up for the slopes. After sushi rolls and dan dan noodles from Drunken Monkey, we headed to the Tahoe Donner SnoPlay area for an afternoon of tubing, sledding, snowmen, snow angels, and snowball fights. The fresh mini donuts from a nearby food truck kept our energy up, but a near-loss with our rental car keys in the snow really got our adrenaline going.  Dinner was at Morgan’s Lobster Shack, where the chowder and lobster rolls reminded us of New England. I gave my last talk Sunday morning before meeting Westley at the resort arcade for some Batman pinball, motorcycle racing, and Jurassic shooting action. After checkout, we lunched at Truckee Tavern & Grill and got hot chocolate and truffles from Sweets for more snow action at the Donner Summit Snopark with our new sled from a local Ace Hardware. With Westley’s new love for Korean food videos, we stopped by KP supermarket to stock on jajangmyeon ingredients and other goodies on the way home.

With an early-February deadline for my second R01 submission, it was a race to the finish line as I scrambled to finish a draft of the proposal before our back-to-back trips for the Hawaiian Eye and Squaw Valley Retina meetings. Melody was out of town the week before our trip, which despite childcare assistance from in-laws kept me busy with Westley amidst pulling late nights for grant writing. I was up late packing for our Saturday morning flight when I found out that our connection had been compromised by a flight delay. Luckily, we rescued our trip by driving to SFO and arrived early enough to fill on breakfast tacos before boarding the now direct flight to Lihue. On arrival, we picked up our Ford Fiesta and enjoyed some tasty ahi wraps and karaage steam-bun sandwiches from Kikuchi’s, then drove through the tree tunnel to arrive at the Grand Hyatt for our stellar beach view room. Dinner at the Beach House was overpriced and underwhelming, despite the Pacific sunset. We awoke to French toast and crepes at Living Foods Market before embarking on the Kauai Plantation Railway for crop viewing, chicken chasing, and pig feeding.  After hearty oxtail soup and loco moco from Tip Top, we dipped into Poipu Beach, braving the rocky shallows and a sleeping Hawaiian monk seal, before another sunset dinner at Merriman’s and ice-cream from Lappert’s. On Monday, we munched on malasadas aboard our boat tour to the Fern Grotto as we relaxed to ukulele music and hula dancing along the Wailua River. We ignored the intermittent rain during our plate lunches from Mark’s Place before my ad board, and we met up with the Moshiri’s for dinner at touristy Keoki’s Paradise. On Tuesday, we toured the island’s secluded falls, coasts, and craters by helicopter as Westley entertained us with his ABCs over the intercom before dozing off for the last portion of the flight. Afterwards, we picked up poke and musubis from Ishihara Market en route to Waimea Canyon, where we encountered an unlicensed native Hawaiian story-teller and many chickens. We drove back to snorkel at Salt Pond Beach, share Good Vibes shave ice, and dine at Japanese Grandma’s Cafe to conclude the day. I spent most of Wednesday at the the conference before regrouping with the family for take-out poke and leftover pizza in the hotel room, and Eating House 1849 for dinner. On Thursday, we hiked the Maha’ulepu Heritage Trail to stunning ocean lookouts, then shared chicken n’ waffle and more loco moco at Nom Kauai on the way to Opaekaa Falls. We spent the afternoon lazing around Lydgate Beach Park’s elaborate playground and enclosed lagoon before returning for the hotel luau where Westley refused to join the hula stage performance. I wrapped up my final session Friday with poke and fried chicken from Koloa Fish Market, which we took aboard our flight home. Between the multiple talks, ad boards, and CME events, the Hawaiian Eye conference seemed tailored to commercial vendors and private practioners, but I was glad to bring my family to experience the beautiful Garden Island.

We had decided to graduate our toddler from his old Duplo set to standard Lego bricks, but we did not anticipate that he would become an instant addict. Westley awoke Christmas morning to two Lego classic crates from my parents and another set from Costco. We corrected our mistake of dumping all the different pieces into a single bin, but realized that our boy might be a bit colorblind during the resorting process. We got Westley out of the house with another trip to Stockton to spend Christmas with my in-laws. Melody adopted our niece’s old bike, so we also took a few family bike rides to nearby playgrounds. Otherwise, we spent our evenings warming up to spicy hot pot and binging on Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri’s adventures in Netflix’s adaptation of the Witcher. Despite the tricky names and accented enunciation requiring the subtitles to be kept on, we were enthralled by the time-warped storytelling, colorful monsters, and uncovered bodies. New Year’s was all things Lego including an Ikea run for Lego storage and a Roseville Galleria visit for Lego figures from the Lego store. We also met up with my med school friend Amy and my high school friend Brenda, which also gave Westley a chance to hang out with their kids (and play with more Legos). Luckily, a white cloud dominated my call week, and we were able to start 2020 without much drama. 

Having joined the ARVO meeting program committee, my December has been consumed by abstract reviews which between overbooked clinics, Kaiser referrals, and scribe absences, kept me plenty busy at work. Our department did well enough this year to bring back the holiday party, although the DJ was a fail. We also squeezed into the Glassberg-mobile to attend the Ob-Gyn chair’s gathering for a second year in a row, but ghosted the Kit Lam luncheon when it turned into a potluck. We kept our in-laws busy this month with childcare, and gave us time to try out Shoku Ramen Bar near work, and HK-styled Flame Cafe outside 99 Ranch. Both were solid. We also munched on an Insomnia ice-cream cookie-wich on the way to watching the Rise of Skywalker, which despite providing some fan service, was too sloppy a movie to provide the satisfying conclusion to the Star Wars saga that we had hoped for. Back home, I took advantage of holiday deals and leftover grant money to gather components to build a new PC for my home office. The new rig sports a Ryzen 7 3700x CPU with a Kraken X72 liquid cooler on an ROG Crosshair VIII Hero mobo with G.Skill Ripjaw memory, ROG Strix RTX 2070s graphics, and a 970 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD, all powered by a Focus PX-750 power supply and housed in a sleek, windowed H710 case. With this much horsepower, it’s a shame we don’t have a PC game to enjoy for the holidays. Instead, we fired up the PS4 with our new GOTY edition of Spiderman to get us swinging through the digital Big Apple to prepare for the NYE ball drop.

We spent most of November vegetating at home as we braced the chilly weather and battled a stubborn cold that kept us coughing for weeks. We tried to warm up with new Well Season dim sum and Kotchen DIY hot pot, but was not impressed by either restaurant. We also evaded cooking for my lab holiday party and ordered out from Taqueria Guadelajara. Most of the students were studying for finals and couldn’t stay for our usual board gaming, but we did manage to make it up with another lab outing at the newly-renovated Mikuni the following week. At work, I was busy preparing graduate lectures, manuscript revisions, and a record of 10 upcoming talks in January. This freed me up for Thanksgiving to drive down to Stockton for home-cooked lunch with the in-laws. We returned to Vacaville for Black Friday shopping, where we were exhausted despite scoring just a few coats and sweaters, and filled on lumpia and lechon kawali from Ma Sarap before heading home. Heavy rain kept us indoors for the rest of the weekend, as we successfully revived the wind fish in Link’s Awakening and watched cute baby Yoda get rescued in The Mandalorian on the new Disney+ service. We set up our Christmas tree as in prior years, and also repurposed some old string lights from our previous pergola to decorate the front porch. Hopefully, we’ll recover from our cough soon to enjoy the holidays.

We had planned a trip to Oahu to unwind and enjoy some family time, so we kept our agenda light with minimal activities planned. With much to wrap up at work, we didn’t finish packing until late and overslept our alarm. Fortunately, we managed to beat rush hour traffic to board our 7 AM flight at SFO, where we entertained Westley with TV shows, Nintendo, and WikkiStix. Picking up our car seat-equipped rental and checking in to the marina-view AirBnb were a cinch, leaving us time to enjoy Marukame Udon and SomiSomi taiyaki while exploring the Ala Moana Center and Shirokiya Japan Village Walk. Due to the jet-lag, we awoke super-early next morning for Leonard’s malasadas on the way to Hanauma Bay. Westley did not have the courage to snorkel with us, so he mostly worked on sand castles while we took turns swimming with the fishes. We were so post-prandial from Fatboy’s loco moco and BBQ lunch plate that we napped in the parking lot at Sea Life Park before heading in to feed their sea turtles and parakeets. That evening, there was hardly a line for the crispy tonkatsu at Tamafuji, which gave us time to nab an epic matcha warabi mochi parfait at Nana’s Green Tea and a Quiksilver rash guard before calling it a night. On Saturday, we marched through the Hilton property to embark on the Atlantis submarine ride for a deep-sea view of fish and corals amidst sunken boats and planes, followed by refreshing cold soba and uni/ikuro bowls at I-naba. We hung out with my friend Jeff’s family at Izakaya Gazen afterwards, then at their house until well past bedtime. Sunday brunch at Koko Head Cafe included amazing cornflake french toast and “koko moco,” which kept us nourished for our visit with the African wild dogs and giant koi at the Honolulu Zoo. We returned to Waikiki Yokocho for Bario Ramen and Nana’s hoji soft-serve, followed by lychee sorbet from Henry’s Place and supersized udon bowls from TsuroTonTan. Our busy Monday began at dawn as we braved cold rain to inspect sea anemones in the shallows of Duke Kahanamoku Lagoon. We warmed up with homemade chow fun and congee at Lam’s Kitchen, grabbed road snacks at Musubi Cafe Iyasume, then drove to the Dole Plantation to enjoy a Dole Whip while waiting in line for the Pineapple Express train ride. Our afternoon at the Polynesian Cultural Center included a musical canoe show, a revisit to our favorite Samoan performer, poi balls and games, rhythmic bamboo sticks, and pole fishing. We returned for a late dinner afterwards at Sushi Izakaya Gaku with uni shooters, chazuke, and a massive yellowtail collar which shifted the bulge from our wallets to our bellies. The next day, we split some Liliha coco and choco puffs on the way to the tiny Waikiki Aquarium, ate unimpressive Palace Saimin, then revisited the lagoon for water gun fights. For dinner, we compared tonkatsu at Bairin with Jeff’s family, then shared coconut, pineapple, and watermelon sorbets for palate cleansing. An earlier morning visit to Haunama Bay on Friday scored us free snorkeling, this time as a whole family, which made us plenty hungry for tako and ahi poke and malasadas a la mode. Westley slept through lunch at Helena’s Hawaiian Food, where the pipikaula short ribs and butterfish collars overshadowed the kalua pig, tripe stew, and chicken long rice. Unfortunately, he awoke too late for aqua-bike rentals, but we did enjoy more lagoon time prior to Wagaya ramen and corn tempura. After packing the next morning, we returned to the Ala Moana food court for Jollibee ChickenJoy, MyungRang Korean hot dogs, and shaved ice before heading to the airport. In honor of the holiday, Westley flew home as Spiderman to the delight of the crew. We spent the last days off recovering from jet lag by adventuring through Koholint Island in Link’s Awakening, as we reminisced about our trip to the Japanese food haven of Honolulu.

With AAO taking place in SF this year, we decided to make it a short weekend road trip as a rehearsal for our Hawaii vacation next week. We headed out Saturday morning, stopping by McDonald’s for breakfast before meeting with my friend Jeff and his two daughters at the SF Zoo. Neither the rhino, anteater, or penguin flock seemed to excite Westley as much as the train ride, although he did get a kick out of making selfie videos at the playground. We lunched on yummy beef noodles, tofu salad, and lamb dumplings at the Old Mandarin Islamic before settling into our 2-bedroom Airbnb for nap time. After teaching my course, we met up at the Harvard reception where we dined on the roof garden patio while watching cable cars on the street. Westley’s first night sleeping alone on an adult bed turned adventurous, however, when he awoke at 3am crying for us having inadvertently locked himself inside. We couldn’t reach our hosts by phone and had just rung their doorbell upstairs when he finally managed to let himself out. I spent Sunday morning at the conference while Melody took him to the Farmer’s Market and Koret Playground. Afterwards, I returned to the apartment to share a Pineapple King bun and Yummy Dumplings for lunch, then headed to the Embarcadero in time to see the Blue Angels perform for Fleet Week on the way to the Exploratorium. Here, we opted for physics over biology exhibits for age-appropriateness, then reinforced electromagnetism with bullet-train sushi from Hikari Sushi in Japantown. On Monday, Melody took him on a trolley ride to the Aquarium at the Bay before we met with my residency friends for dim sum at Yank Sing, egg tarts from Golden Gate Bakery, and cream puffs from Beard Papa. Westley napped well on our drive home, but we still felt exhausted after our action-packed weekend. With Melody away for a conference the following weekend, we returned to SF with Westley and my parents for a free visit to Exploratorium thanks to Community Day. Having arrived early, we got a Cowgirl Creamery breakfast sandwich and Dandelion hot chocolate from the Ferry Building to wait in line. After the visit, we waited out the line at Marufuku with some Daiso shopping, rounding out our back-to-back weekend trips to City by the Bay.

With my folks back in town to help with childcare, we explored more of Sac’s foodie scene at Chef’s Counter at Origami. Tucked inside a fast-casual Asian restaurant, the 6-seat reservation-only 13-course tasting menu serves as a creative outlet for Paragary group alumni Scott Ostrander and Paul diPierro, and provided us a unique and personal dining experience complete with mozzarella balloons and torched figs. We followed next morning with a day trip to San Jose to watch airplanes take off near the Heritage Rose Garden, share soup dumplings with my aunt, and play at the Rotary PlayGarden. We also brought Westley back to the annual Sacramento Reptile Show, where he demonstrated less angst handling the little critters and was rewarded with Chocolates for Breakfast. After returning home, I worked on fixing our hot water dispenser and laundry room light fixture while taking cover from a brief but exciting hail storm that triggered our first ever tornado warning. At work, the looming prospect of having my lab relocated cast a shadow over our department’s block party luau to celebrate our 50th anniversary and new eye center groundbreaking. I also struggled to deal with the politics of journal submissions, all while scrambling to submit a BrightFocus grant and my first R01. By last week, things finally began to return to normal with fellowship interviews, grandpa’s barn, and Paul Hom. We took a breather over yuppy fried chicken from Bawk! and izakaya fare at Yakitori Yuchan as we began to prepare for our upcoming family travel.

Last week, I attended Retina Society’s annual meeting in London as a new member. It’s been 12 years since I last visited the city with my wife and covered nearly every tourist attraction to maximize the value of our London Pass, so I had minimal expectations for this visit. I left Tuesday morning for my connection in Chicago, where the scheduled 5-hour layover turned to 9 hours due to equipment-related delays. My belated arrival almost made me miss my first talk, if not for an Uber ride and quick change of clothes in the hotel bathroom. After the first session, I settled into my studio apartment, but soon realized that I had forgotten my UK power adapter. As a result, I was tethered to the compatible power strips at the conference room for the rest of the meeting. On Thursday, we dined at iconic Guildhall, where the long tables reminded us of Hogwarts. The lengthy speeches and underwhelming meal of duck, quail, and guinea fowl, prompted us to leave early for drinks at a local pub near Sherlock Holmes’ home. Friday was a half-day, which gave me a chance to savor crispy fried haddock and chips at the Golden Hind, followed by a visit to the Postal Museum, complete with a subterranean tour of London’s Mail Rail. My cousin Paula managed to score bar seats for two at Yottan Ottolenghi’s ROVI for dinner, which included a mind-blowing grilled halibut for two with roti and curry sauce incorporating Middle-eastern flavors into a sort of fish tacos. On Saturday, I skipped out early to visit the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit at the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace. The fine chalk and metalpoint sketches provided a glimpse into the genius’ mind, and compelled me to purchase a souvenir book of his drawings. Lunch at Michelin-starred Trishna was highlighted by their wild boar biryani, which I had to walk off on the way to Anya Hindmarch’s Post Box Maze installation as part of London Fashion Week. I accepted my new member certificate at the dinner gala in the hotel ballroom on Saturday, after which I joined my colleagues to dance the night away. I decided to skip the conference on my last day in favor of breakfast at the Wolseley, where I enjoyed scrumptious eggs benedict, kedgeree, and a hot chocolate gourmand of epic richness amidst grand art deco glamour. My return flight and ORD connection were uneventful, and I was able to dine with Melody before returning home. Despite the specter of Brexit and minimal planning for my London trip, I nevertheless savored some memorable moments and enjoyed my time abroad before returning to grant-writing mode.

My cousin Huong from Germany brought his family and marzipan to visit us on Labor Day weekend, so we took the opportunity to show off our son and our house. Westley did not seem to mind the four languages (English, Chinese, German, Vietnamese) exchanged at lunch, but he was less interactive with the other older kids at my research chair’s potluck the next day. We skipped naptime on Monday for a full day of outlet shopping in Vacaville, filling on diner food at Mel’s for lunch. Westley was more preoccupied with his yellow cardboard convertible than the grilled cheese inside it. Afterwards, we watched Ellie finish her tennis lesson before joining our in-laws to test out their new grill. Last week, we took advantage of childcare coverage to try out Gen Korean BBQ. The poor ventilation and uncomfortable fullness left me exhausted, and we recovered with a stroll through the mall to 85C Bakery for some goodies to bring home. My parents arrived this weekend just in time before my trip to London. We revisited the Farmer’s Market, 99 Ranch, and Asian Pearl to get them back up to speed as they prepare to help care for Westley for the next few weeks.