Goodbye Wallet

No, I didn't lose it. If you know me well you know I don't like letting go of my fave things, no matter how old they are. However, after over 7 years of invaluable service I am replacing my AE wallet. It was a present from Yoony in High School and I'm still having trouble getting rid of it. Even though I have gotten many wallets as gifts and even looked for suitable replacements nothing has ever matched my standards, until now. My new wallet is slightly classier, bought after returning a very pink birthday purse from Coach. I was only slightly teased that it came from the men's section. Only time will tell if it can really replace the old one, it will remain in my back pocket until properly broken in, and my old one will remain close by just in case.

The new and the old

Napa Eat Your Heart Out...

So two week's ago, it was Katie's Spring Break. We hadn't really planned to do anything during the week, but I felt bad making my wife stay at home and do nothing for a whole week. That's boring. So I took Thursday and Friday off work and we went off on our first ever wine tasting tour.

Here's some interesting pieces of Virginia wine knowledge for you:

• Virginia is home to over 150 wineries. Yeah, that's a lot.
  
• The state is split up into 9 wine regions. Within these regions are 6 American Viticultural Areas or AVAs. An American Viticultural Area (AVA) is a designated wine grape-growing region distinguishable by geographic features.
• Virginia's three most popular and acclaimed wine varieties are the Cabernet Franc, Viognier, and the Norton (mmmm... Norton).

It was our first ever official wine tasting and we really didn't know what to expect. Sure we'd seen it on TV and in movies but we had no clue about the actual process. Do you drink all of the wine they pour you? Should you spit it out? How much money does it cost? Can you try all of the wines? All questions I had rattling around in my head on our way down to hit up the Monticello Wine Trail. We were total noobs.

Here are the wineries/vineyards that we visited. By the way, wineries and vineyards are two different things. A winery refers to the actual building where the wine is produced or the business that owns the process. A vineyard is where the grapes are grown. Different, but for the sake of this blog entry I'm gonna use the two terms interchangeably.

1. Prince Michel Vineyard and Winery
   
2. Barboursville Vineyards
   
3. King Family Vineyards
   
4. Blenheim Vineyards
   
5. Jefferson Vineyards
   

Originally I had thought that we were going to be surrounded by wine snobs the whole time talking about "I taste this" and "A hint of that," but it really wasn't like that at all. In fact, I was probably the biggest "snob" at all the wineries we visited... oops. What?! I can't help if God gave me a refined palette. I think Katie was embarrassed, sorry Honey! Most of the people were just like Katie and me, not incredibly versed in the world of wine but curious and on vacation.

Here are some things I learned about the wine tasting experience and the vineyards we visited on our trip:

• First thing I learned, grapes don't grow until later in the year. I was totally envisioning me taking these awesome pictures of grapes and vines and stuff but all I got was bare branches lol. I'm so dumb sometimes.
  
• Most places give you a decent pour for each wine you're tasting. The exception we found was Jefferson, there they had an automatic stopper on each bottle to control the amount that was being poured out, a very small amount at that (not a fan).
• It's ok not to drink all of the wine that they give you. It's also ok to pour/spit it out into the "spit bucket." It kind of feels rude at first but you get used to it. You're not obligated to drink everything; unless you're me of course, in which case "you gotta get your money's worth!"
• Speaking of money, all of the vineyards we visited had a $5 tasting fee. Prince Michel didn't technically have a fee but it did if you wanted to try the specialty wines. So in reality it was no different from the others. For $5 you got to try all of the wines (more than once if you so chose) and you also got to keep the custom glass for each vineyard.
• Oyster crackers are your best friend. Not only do these buggers help cleanse your palette between wines, but they also help put some food in your belly so you don't get hammered [as quickly].

Here are the wineries ranked from our most favorite to least favorite.

1. Barboursville- I thought that it was going to be tough for Barboursville to meet the high expectations. They are definitely the most renowned winery in Virginia. Their flagship wine is the Octagon. This was my favorite wine that I tasted during our trip and one of the best wines I have ever had, ever. Out of all the vineyards, Barboursville truly showed both the depth and breadth of Virginia wine-making with the best tasting wine and the greatest selection of wines. This is a must on everyone's VA wine tour.
2. Prince Michel- The thing that shined here was the service. It was stellar. Each of the servers were very knowledgeable about the wines and they were all super friendly and attentive. The wine was very consistent across the board with a pretty impressive collection but not as big as Barboursville's. They also offered a little self-guided tour about wine making - nothing special, but it was informative and a nice bonus. Katie's favorite here was the American Port Dessert Wine - very sweet.
   
3. King Family- The people here were also very friendly and engaging. The wine in my opinion was not super memorable. Their Meritage is the one that won the 2010 Governor's Cup but I wasn't that big of a fan. But it was actually another one of their wines that stood out in my mind, the Crose. Very unique, tasting of grapefruit and berries, I think it is an ideal wine to enjoy outdoors on a warm sunny day.
   
4. Blenheim- This place is owned by Dave Matthews, cool. In my opinion, the wine is still young and lacking character. The winemaker position recently changed hands so this might be the reason. But it was cool for us to be able to try wines that were made by the previous winemaker, Peter Matthews, and wines created by the new winemaker, Kirsty Harmon. One thing that stood out about Blenheim was view and the beautiful two-level winery building with spacious and open second-story tasting room with glass floors that allowed you to see into the wine production facility below. Another nice thing is if you bring your wine glasses back, you get a free tasting.
   
5. Jefferson- I know what you might be thinking. How can I rank anything Jefferson-related last? I have to admit, I had high hopes for this place. I felt obligated to like the wine here. But it just wasn't meant to be. First off, you know this service I've been talking about? Well it was in short supply here. It was "This is the it tastes like ," and that was it. Sure it was busy, but that was no excuse. There was one woman manning the tasting counter at Barboursville and she was fantastic. There had to be at least 3 wine servers at Jefferson with approximately the same number, if not more, visitors. Simply no excuse. The wines were mediocre at best. The only one worth mentioning is the Meritage and I won't be recommending that anytime soon (maybe I just dislike all Meritages...). The experience was memorable but for all the wrong reasons, and now I just want to forget. I wanted to like it I really did. Sorry TJ.
   

Overall, both Katie and I had an amazing time. The whole experience was very educational, relaxing, and entertaining. It was a perfect way to spend the beautiful pre-Easter spring weather in Charlottesville. WAHOOWAH!

Check out some of our pics below, Yoony out.

Definitely one of the more clean and fancy looking wineries we visited, it's right off of US-29.

Look at all those delicious casks of wine...

The famous Barboursville Vineyards.

Not quite finished yet I suppose but I like where they're going with the columns.

Free polo match on Sundays but the field was all dirt, don't they play on grass?

Don't have to tell me twice.

The sweet tasting room at Blenheim, check out the glass floors.

I thought that the labels looked cool?

I'm still angry at you!

I'm assuming that these were once used for wine.

Stayed here. It was really nice. Highly recommended.

"Nothing like a little whiskey in the morning..."

The Leaky Oven

After a long day of work, Yoony and I came home to a very horrible smell in our condo. We immediately ran to the stove/oven to make sure we didn't somehow leave it on, and much to our relief it was off. Thinking that the smell was coming from a neighbor, we opened our windows to air the place out and went on a short walk. When we got back the smell was still there. We saw our neighbor outside who said she smelled gas as well. In fact she had already called the fire department earlier in the day and supposedly they didn't detect anything. Needless to say, we decided to call them again. 5 emergency vehicles and 4 hours later it was determined that our oven was the culprit. They disconnected it from the gas line and it now sits, inoperable, in the middle of the kitchen. We'll have to wait a week for the service man to come fix it, hello microwaveable meals!

We're just glad it didn't turn out like this...

In case you hadn't heard...

We had snow, a TON of snow. Enough snow for Arlington to wave the white flag and shut down school in anticipation of the storm. It all started about noon on Friday and lasted until 7 or so Saturday. Being snowed in gave us a great opportunity to meet all of our neighbors in our building on Friday. Our new friends upstairs invited everyone over for happy hour, so we met everyone and socialized late into the night. When we woke up Saturday we could barely see out of our windows and the snow showed no signs of letting up. Which also gave us time to completely clean the condo. After the snow finally stopped we decided to relieve our cabin fever by cleaning the 22+ inches of snow off of our car. When we started the snow beside the car was at least knee deep on each side and we could barely see any of the actual car. Here are a few pictures of the parking lot and the car.

A few other brave souls decided to clear their cars too. Luckily the condo association pays for sidewalks to be cleared.


The snow pile cleared from the sidewalks/cars is taller than I am. Note the advanced snow clearing device, a plastic trash can.

After about an hour of clearing the car and beside it (with trashcans). The car beside us is a Prius with so much snow its as tall as the 4runner.

Decorating

I remember when I was in college and at the townhouse always thinking it would be so great when I finally had my own place and I could decorate/paint any way I wanted. But who knew decorating a home could be so challenging! We've owned the condo for about 6 months now and we have come a long way, but I still feel like we have so much to do.

We are very fortunate to have gotten some big things as gifts (sofa/guest bed) and found great deals on our bed, rug and table. But now we're at the point where we need to make our place look like its not still for sale! We're trying to find all the small things like paintings, pictures and accent furniture. I realize that its not going to happen overnight, and its always subject to change, but it'd be nice to have things up on the walls to really make it more homey.

We're slowly adding shelves, pictures, and paintings but its really hard to find things that we really like and will let us afford to eat something more than ramen. Who knew a nice framed picture could cost so much! We finally picked out a few things to put up on the walls, but its not just picking things out, its figuring out exactly where to put them! We want the walls to be full, but not overcrowded. We have all this space but its hard to tell what exactly could fit in each spot. Does anyone have the talent of interior decorating that wants to help us!?

We're also trying to find more seating options, so we can have more than 5 people over and they can all sit down! A few weeks ago, we found a nice accent chair at Target for 50% off and decided it was perfect. Things were great, until we tried to buy it. They were completely out of stock at every Target in our area. So we called all of the Targets remotely close by and only one store had the chair, or at least that's what they told us. When we got there we found out they only had the display model, which they supposedly don't sell for liability reasons. However, after some persuasive negotiating, we not only landed the chair but we got another 20% off for our troubles and it's now sitting in our living room.

The chair that took us 3 hours to buy

We really have come a long way since the day I moved in, for the few of you that remember visiting when all we had was a futon, air mattress, and a 13in TV! Hopefully soon we'll have the place together enough to have many of you over, all at the same time!

New Years in Naw'lins

One of the many perks for being married, well at least for me, is that I can finally go on trips together with my wife. As many of you may know, I love to travel. Well, I also love my wife and finally having the ability to join those two things together is amazing.

Our first trip as a married couple, or second I guess if you count the honeymoon as the first, was to the wonderful city of New Orleans, LA for New Years. The original plan for the trip was to visit the city and also see my brother-in-law, Geoff, who is in the Coast Guard down there – you know kill two birds with one stone type deal. But unfortunately for us, duty called and Geoff had to sail away into the ocean blue for the week we were going to be there for. Alas, Katie and I still thought that the trip was worthwhile and decided to go even though Geoff wouldn’t be around.

Here are some of the fun things that we were able to see/do during our trip to Naw’lins (that's how they say it down south):

How else to start off a New Orleans vacation than with some beignets from Cafe Du Monde? Kinda looks like the Himalayas or something.

Knocking back hurricanes at the Piano Bar in Pat O'Briens. Be warned, these things are so strong!

Fried Oysters at Dick & Jenny's Restaurant, a fine piece of New Orleans cuisine. I'm salivating as I type this.

The jazz show at Preservation Hall was awesome. Rustic, intimate, old school... perfect. Well worth the two hours we had to wait in line to get in.

Mother's? Nope. Johnny Po-Boys. I think we ate here on three separate occasions. Delicious!

Poor Bearcats. They were so full of life before the 51-24 Sugar Bowl romping...

Pralines at Southern Candymakers. I had never had these before but they were friggin' good!

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Supposedly they filmed a scene from Double Jeopardy here.

Muffaletta at Central grocery. Really good, but I'm more of a Po-Boy man myself. Check out the Tabasco Zapp's!

Riding the famous St. Charles Streetcar. It rained one day and this was a great way to see the city.

A crazy street performer jumping over nine people in Jackson Square. Yes, nine. Crazy!

Some may recognize this as none other than the house of Benjamin Button. He wasn't home.


Acme Oyster House. Supposedly Felix's across the street is just as good but the line was exponentially longer here, probably thanks to "Man vs. Food." The charbroiled oysters were fantastic.

Police towers on Bourbon Street. These are used to spy on all the sketchy people on Bourbon St. If they catch you doing something illegal, they shine the spotlight on you then come and arrest you.


Eating a late-night burger at Yo Mama's. Real conversation that happened between me at a bouncer on Bourbon St. Me: Hey do you know where I can get something good to eat this late? Bouncer: Yeah, yo mama's. Me: Excuse me? Did you just say "Yo Mama's"?! (angrily) Bouncer: Yeah, Yo-Mama's Bar & Grill around the corner. Me: Ohhhhh. Thanks Man!

Katie and I had a ton of fun during our visit. However, the reality that most tourists might not realize is that apart from the lively, care-free atmosphere of Bourbon Street New Orleans is still very much damaged from Hurricane Katrina. Our tour guide put it well, “New Orleans is a city of contradictions.” While the tourists start to flock back to the city, there are still tons of New Orleans’ residents who haven’t yet been able to go back to their homes, or even worse, no longer have a home to go back to. Even our tour guide, a long- time resident, had just moved back into his house within the last year. Hurricane Katrina happened in 2005.

It’s pretty sobering when you start to understand just how much the area was affected by the hurricane. But amidst all of the contradictions there’s also an overwhelming unified spirit of hope and optimism. It’s something that Katie and I felt throughout our entire visit. The “Who Dat Nation” is very much alive and kicking. We will definitely be visiting again soon. Go Saints!

Yoony out.

O Christmas Tree!

I can't believe that Christmas is next week! I mean, I really cannot believe it. Can somebody please tell me how the heck it's mid-December already?! OK, breathe. Things to do before Christmas:

1) Cheer up. I'm not depressed or anything, don't worry. I just feel like the season really snuck up on me this year. I'm not quite in the Christmas spirit yet. Maybe contributing to the reason why I'm not feeling it is the fact that nothing in our new place screams "Merry Christmas!" Well, today we got a little help in that department. My 장인 어른 (pronouced "jaang-een uh-run") and 장 모님 (pronounced "jaang-mo neem"), father and mother-in-law in Korean, came up to visit and brought us a miniature Christmas tree. It's beautiful.

2) Finish buying presents. This year, we're doing a hybrid half online, half in-store strategy. We'll see how that goes. Oh and we're also trying to stick to a budget. Can't speak for Katie, but I tried to last year and wasn't very successful. Let's hope we do better as a team.

3) Stay focused at work and get all my stuff done so that I can take off earlier. Could potentially be a rough week in terms of hours, but would totally be worth it if it means that I don't need to go in the following week.

4) Last but not least, prepare my heart to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas. Yes, giving/getting presents, drinking eggnog, and getting together with family is all way awesome. Let's just make sure we don't forget what we're really celebrating is Jesus' birth. Can I get an AMEN!?!?

Yoony out.