TBA
TONS of stuff
The return trip to Ramen Yamadaya's Westwood location was not planned. However, the morning's plan to go to dim sum went awry, and the backup plan ended up being ramen with Dan and Jen.
The kakuni pork belly was a bit overly... seasoned? No, more like overcooked. Fell apart at a touch, but didn't quite fall all the way apart when cut with chopsticks or a spoon, and the taste wasn't interesting enough to merit serious nom-worthy-ness.
Rest of the ramen was still good, though. And the tonkotsu shoyu ramen here is quite good, better than the regular tonkotsu. (although not as good as the Torrance location, even though they claim they go to the Torrance location every morning to get their broth!) This may merit further study in a few weeks, although in the meantime I may have to cut back as I think I've overdosed on ramen...
Leif and Eun-young's moving-away party was next. They're moving to Korea! Leif finished his post-doc at Stanford and accepted a tenure-track job at Ewha University in Seoul, while Eun-young accepted a promotion if she moved back to headquarters (from Torrance, California to Seoul)-- great jumps for both of them! While we didn't see all of the UCLA RSS crew, we caught up with enough of them, and wow, the house they've been renting in Palos Verdes has an amazing view.
Must mean it'll be time to visit Korea again next year!
Finished things off with Julie's birthday in K-town (as well as her friend Eric's). Karaoke at Orchid Lounge with her friends and her fellow paralegal program students (including Eric) took a while to get started, but once things got moving, it was a lot of fun as usual. Sadly Pearl and Simon had to leave before karaoke got started, but lots of other people to sing with made up for it!