This year for Christmas we are heading west to my state California. I have a T-shirt that reads, “I left my heart in California and that couldn’t be more truel. The rest of my family resides in California and they are definitely a part of my heart. Ray and I flew out on the 21st and we’re coming home on the 28th. That’s a full week with my family. I’m so excited!

We’re staying with my older sister and her husband in Walnut Creek, about 20 minutes from San Francisco. I love Walnut Creek. Did a lot of partying there in my younger days and every time I come back it seems like the town just gets better and better. The first night we went out for some Vietnamese and then headed to a dive for for drinks.

Ray and I have this favorite sushi restaurant called Nara. Every time were back in the bay area we always meet up with a bunch of our friends for sushi there. It’s nothing fancy, just really good and affordable. Also, I have fond memories of that place because when Ray and I first started dating we use to go there often. Tonight Lana and Kevin came out with us and the funniest thing happened. Lana was talking to me in Chinese, thinking that no one could understand her but hello, we’re in San Fransisco, where the Chinese dominate.  and Soo Hoo is sitting right across from her who happens to speak fluent Chinese. It was awesome. After sushi we headed to a nearby bar.

Ray and his best friend Chris. I know Ray misses him. Oh, and tonight we got the news that Marci, Chris’s wife is preggo. I couldn’t be more excited and jealous.

These are the guys that Ray use to work with when we lived here. I totally wishes I would have called my friends to come out to play tonight too but I figured there would be plenty of time, us being here a whole week and all, and let Ray have tonight for his buds, but there wasn’t enough time and now I’m regretting it.

One last photo before we say good-bye.

My parents will be in town later tonight so in order to mentally and physically prepare for them we went out and got massages. I already made it tradition to get massages with my parents every time we visit them in Southern California but I think after today I’m going to extend this traditions to all the Chung’s.

After massages we got pedis.

And then we stopped by the building. I wonder how Mel is doing?

We retired back home where we awaited for my parents and Selena’s arrival. Kola can’t wait to see them too.

My mom and her daughters minus my oldest sister Lien, she was in Vegas with her family.

Dinner time.

My dad brought us back these sexy pj’s from China.

My dad literally flew in from China yesterday and the next day they drove up to Walnut Creek to see us. Talk about jet lag. I was so so excited to see him.

This is my mother. My heart misses her everyday.

We definitely drank a lot of wine on this trip.

Well that concludes the first half of our trip. It was an amazing Christmas Eve. Hope you all are having as much fun as I am.

In March of 2006 Ray and I moved to Oakland California from Vacaville. We had only lived in Vacaville for 3 months before we realized the commute was killing us. I would drop him off at work, drive back home and then drive back to the bay area and pick him up, a total of a 4 hour commute, without traffic each day. Anyhow, while looking for a place to live in the bay area we stumbled upon this building. It was an old warehouse that use to be a French Fry Factory. I would of never, ever, ever, even considered living in here, but Ray, well, lets just say he has more vision than I most do. At first I thought it was asinine, I mean have you guys seen the photo above? But I have always been one to just go with the flow, and Ray is what I like to call a hopeless visionary.

But you got to admit, it totally has potential. Even I could admit that. But again, did you see the photo above? It was taken through a hole in the front door. The building was 8000 sq ft. Uh, no that’s not a misprint, there was not an extra 0 put in by accident. Yes, we lived, worked, renovated, bled, sweat, cried and even threw a few parties in an 8000 sq ft building for an entire year. Crazy kids, I’m sure that’s what everyone was thinking.

The pile of trash we had hauled away almost reached the second floor.

It even had two walk in refrigerators, one of which I was planning on turning into my walk in closet.

We flew dad down because there was no way we could of done all this work without him.

We put a lot of work into this building. In the beginning it was scary, but I got over it and soon it was as though the Universe had answered our dreams, but with a little sacrifice and hard work on our part. Ray had always dreamed of renting out a huge warehouse that had a urinal from a rich old man that gave him a super cheap deal and turning it into his modern urban living dream. Yes, our warehouse even had a urinal. And I had always wanted to have my own massage business, with 4 rooms, one for myself and the other 3 I would hire or rent out to other massage therapist. The front of the building on the second floor had 4 rooms. The more we thought about it the more uncanny and perfect it seemed.

But soon, life just took a toll. Ray detested work and the more he saw his boss the more he loathed him. I was getting burnt out on massage. What once was filled with passion and energy fizzled and soon I felt like a well paid slave. Ray and I decided to call it quits and tackle yet another dream of mine, to live in Hawaii. Somehow, this dream seemed so much less painful and stressful. We had a 3 year lease so we took on the role as property managers and sublet the building for the remainder 2 years of our lease and for over twice what we paid, split the rent with Mel, the nice old man Ray dreamt to life, every month and started a new chapter of our lives in Oahu Hawaii.

Hawaii was a totally awesome experience. Every month we used the money we made from the building to pay off the debt we put into it. I’d like to say it was easy but it wasn’t. I can say it was a huge learning experience. This last trip to California was to find a way to come to an agreement with Kevin, the man we rented the building out to. He ended up subletting the building to Raphael, a total pathetic douche bag that couldn’t pay rent on time to save his life and couldn’t move out when asked to leave. But our main concern for coming out to Cali was to make sure we uphold our contract with Mel and leave on good terms with him. When we got to the building it was in shambles. All the hard work, blood, sweat, tears, and money we put into it seemed wasted. Did I mentioned that Raphael had secretly turned the building into an illegal club/bar he called the Radiance Factory. Just a word of advice for Raphael, it’s not smart to advertise an illegal club. Fucking retard.

Here’s a before us and after us photo.

And after then after we did more work and started to settled in. In the very back behind the glass windows is where where the 4 massage rooms laid.

From the opposite direction. Ray loved his pool table.

A closer look further back. To the left was our bed room, middle was Ray’s desk and to the far right was our closet.

A better view of our closet. I had a lot more shoes back then.

Our living room in it’s earlier stage.

The kitchen area and dining area. Ray and I built that wobbly table one night when we had nothing better to do. He swears one day he’ll redeem himself.

Here’s what the building looked like on our last visit.

Looks like they built a kitchen room.

We turned this room into my workout/yoga room.

This is what it looks like by the time we were done with it.

And this is how it looks now.

This was suppose to eventually be a massage room #4, but in the mean time we just made it a guest room and it was also Chris Miller’s room when he stayed with us.

And this is how it looks now.

A before and after of Massage Room #3.

Same room, present day.

Before and after of Massage Room #2.

Massage Room #2 today.

My Massage Room before.

My beautiful massage room after. I actually worked countless hours in this room. It was the perfect massage room.

And this is how it looks like now.

A few before and afters of the lobby we fixed up. We were planning on getting more furniture to fill it up but I think we did a pretty spectacular job.

And here it is today. Animals.

We took back our blinds.

A before and after of the mens restroom. Behind the wall next to the sink was where the men’s urinal was. I forgot to take an aftermath photo but it’s probably for the best because it was bad.

They badly built what looks like lounge rooms downstairs. But the whole are downstairs area was pretty muck a junk yard.

Oh, our mistletoe was still hanging up. I bet it launched a lot of kisses.

I’ll never forget the day we lifted the super industrial air condition unit up on the rooftop. It was insanely crazy and scary. We had to set it on top of a shit ton of pallets in order for Ray and his dad to reach it. Ray had originally wanted to tie the heavy unit to a rope and pull it up. That made no fucking sense to me so I walked over to the Chinese produce factory and asked if they would help us out with their fork lift. It took some per swaying but my charm won in the end.

There were more pallets than what you see here. Trust me, people came out of their buildings to watch. It was totally wobbly and insanely scary.

Oh course it wasn’t only us that sweat for this building,

we put our loved ones to work too.

Kola did a lot of supervising.

Of course it wasn’t all hard work. I miss our parties

Drinking wine on the rooftop.

Having friends over to play pool. Hell, I miss having friends.

I even miss the skaters.

It was definitely an experience. But I gotta tell ya, I’m so glad it’s over.

The End.