Thanksgiving in the states. Shopping, Dining, Ambulances, home cooked turkeys, friends and WholeFoods. A unique traveling experience that we will laugh about for a long time… highlighted by a genuine NYC Ambulance ride due to some cold weather, a little too much red wine and not enough blood pressure flowing through the body!  Merry Merry!!  Happy Happy!!

See all the photos here.

A week in the Disney-esk island and I was ready to go home. A little stir crazy from all-day meetings… but a very pleasant place.

For new years we headed to Taiwan for a little celebration, rest and family. It was JiYoung’s first time and it’s been over 5 years for me so needless to say we were a little lost – but having fun every second!! There was a lot of walking and in so many ways, the city is the same as it was 10 years ago and it other ways, it’s a city under transformation – and construction. We hit many of the local spots and walked as many alleys as we could find. For the news years holiday itself, we hit the wall and ending up crashing (old couple) but 500,000 of our other friends were there to witness the new year celebration at the world’s tallest building – Taipei 101.  Flickr Set.

The other main reason for our visit was to remember and pay respect to the Chow Family elders. Both my grandmother and grandfather have now passed and rest in the Taipei area. It was the 3rd anniversary for grandmother and my aunts and us gathered for a small family ceremony. For my grandfather, it’s been almost 15 years, so we made the mountain trek on a rainy day to pay our say hello and pay our respects. Both my grandparents were so unique and different from each other but I know they both would have LOVED JiYoung very much. We miss you. We love you.

One big Hawaii trip. Two of the major cities – Maui and Honolulu. Three different hotels. It was a long trip but   we had a blast. I had meetings and meetings at my first Asia Pacific Leadership Summit but no big surprises or anything interesting there. Made some new friends. Caught up with some old ones. We had some great presenters. On the internal road show Charlie the President of Nike and Trevor the VP of Marketing/Brand. Of the non-Nike people, we had Coach Guus Hiddink of Korea and Australia World Cup Fame as well as the former CEO of Starbucks. All very intersting and a good time. But while i was slaving away meeting after meeting, JiYoung was soaking up the sun and enjoying her first trip to Japan. There were island ventures, marathons, shopping and beach going…  Flickr Set!

The World Cup was a blast and though it was a hectic, we did manage to break away to see some of the sights around Berlin. Then after the devasting loss to Switzerland, touring went into full gear with JiYoung and the Summer European vacation. Their was no station wagon or bears in the woods but we had our share of laughs.  Flickr Set.

We did Germany, Prague in the Czech Republic and the mountains of Switzerland. From the slideshow (big load) you’ll see the many interesting sights from old churches and castles to bungee jumping off a 400ft. gondola!! We also saw the most amazing waterfall that was actually INSIDE the mountain.

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Then after Switzerland, we sadly (for some of us :) parted ways. I headed home to get ready for our next asian adventure and JiYoung went on to European Tour Part 2. She did it up right… France and Italy covering a ton of sights, sounds and foods over the two weeks. Could this be the start of some new tradition?  Flickr Set.

From Boston/NYC JiYoung broke from the group and we headed to SF to see my parents and spend some quality time with the family. My parents already love my Yaebo but it was great for my favorite uncle and my lone grandmother to meet and love her too.

In addition, we reached JiYoung’s #3 stop on her Marvin America Tour… the bay area. It was great. All the tourist attractions in the Golden Gate, the sea lions and Lombard. That plus a little shoe shopping and delicious Korean BBQ made it the perfect end to a great trip!!  Flickr Set.

The Stateside Reception. 30 of some of my closest friends made the trek from near and far to meet JiYoung and share in my new life. It was pretty damn cool. The worlds collided for me when peeps from High School, College, Work, New York, Boston and finally Korea all came together… and thank god, it went really well. Everyone gelled, laughed and shared.

Thank you all (especially Bonnie). The venue was Sex and the City-like. The food was superb. The cookies were Lick the Spoon delicious…  Flickr Set.

A monumental moment!! JiYoung and the 4 middle school girls head out together for their first trip to America and to our Stateside Reception in Boston. They had a great time… shopping, hanging out in the park, clubbing and chilling at Quincy Market. It was so great to introduce the wonders and oddities of America to them.

Check out all the photos here. Click for some captions and information.

It was an amazing week with Nike but an even more amazing weekend with JiYoung. In our 3 days we managed to pack in a ton. From people watching in People’s Square to shopping on Nanjing Road, we did the usual Shanghai stuff. Then we took it out of the box with a little traditional Chinese Oper and a trip outside of Shanghai to Zhou-Zhang which is the Venice of China (amazing). We encountered some really nice, smelling, amazing and/or rude people. The highlight included the boutiques and art galleries of ThaiKongLu and the lowlight was the mean taxi driver who took us for a 1.5 hour ride and tried to trick us out of some money. I had to bitch-slap him in chinese and get out!!

Overall it was a blast. And though I’m chinese by birth, I must say that though China will be the business story of our lives, it still has a long way to go in many ways. For me, it’s still so in the early stages of development. On top of that growth is the burden of 1.3 billion people that have to be taken care of. Coming back to Seoul, it really made me realize how evolved it is here from technology, process, sanitation and communication. Nowhere is perfect but we’re all in different places of learning. I have no doubt that china will get there and when it does, it will take the world to a whole new place. I can’t wait!!  Flickr Photo Set!

DAY 8. Our last day in NYC and a great ending to a fabulous vacation. To start off we made sure that we would return home as relaxed as possible and hit the Silk Day Spa (90 minutes facial for her + deep tissue massage for me :). From there we enriched our minds with some culture at the newly unveiled Museum of Modern Art.

/ Rainy Day Lines at MOMA
/ Memories of our third date with a Chegall
/ JiYoung ponders the Stary Night
/ Me and the Hopper
/ Matisse
/ JiYoung Deep in Thought
/ Checking out the new building
/ JiYoung by the window

and then the day got really interesting. What started off as a typical nice dinner at One if by Land, Two if by Sea took a turn…

It started with an after dinner surprise and a question.

Which happily lead to shock and a smile…

…and a memorable moment to share.

Crazy enoguh, a couple celebrating their 35th anniversary took our picture afterwards.

And we capped it off with a ride in the park.

So much going on. So many details to work out. So happy for the future. Keep an eye out for details on the overseas gala coming this fall!