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Why I Didn’t Change My Name

July 3, 2010 { Posted in: life, love & relationship | 3 Comments }

I have to admit that sometimes I feel a little guilt trip from my husband for not changing my name after we got married because it feels like I’m the only one who haven’t yet. I know I’m not the only one, I’m just saying it’s a feeling. To be honest I never had the intentions of changing my name nor really thought about it. EVER. I didn’t grow up with the notion that it’s something I’m supposed to do after I get married. It’s not something common to do in my culture. I guess I could change my name, but my question is why? I just don’t feel the need to. It’s not because I’m too lazy to go through the process and hassle (at least I can avoid that hassle) or not committed enough in my marriage to do it. Tell me that and I’ll slap you. All my life I’ve had to deal with having an uncommon name growing up. While many people I know growing up in similar situations adopted new names later on in life for ease of pronunciation or for that feeling of belonging and acceptance into society I still stuck with my given name. I couldn’t get myself to be known by another name. It just didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like ME. It took me about twenty years to finally accept and embrace my name. I love that it’s unique to me and that it’s NOT as common. I’m glad I’m not another Sarah or Maria or Lisa. No offense if you’re a Sarah, Maria or Lisa. Plus, I think it’s cool now that wherever I go there’s a high chance that there’s nobody else in the room with the same name. I look at my first and last names as a whole. Changing my name is like changing a part of me. I’m not saying it will change who I am. Changing your name doesn’t change the person, duh. Now that more of my friends are getting married I noticed almost all of them are super excited about changing their names like it’s some sort of great accomplishment to be achieved. Someone please explain that excitement to me because I’ve never understood that. There are many things you get excited about when getting married, but this wasn’t one of them for me. I have nothing against changing your name after marriage. I just want to know people’s reasons and what it means to them outside of it being a long standing tradition.

I love my name, it’s me and I don’t feel the need to change it to signify a new change or journey in life or to prove my love and commitment to my husband. If he truly loves me he wouldn’t expect me to do it and understands my reason. It’s not the end of the world if I don’t. Not to say I didn’t toy with the idea of hyphenating my last name, but if I went along with it it would sound something like Kung Pao chicken. Okay, I added the chicken part, haha. Now that’s ugly and I would not put myself through that for the sake of following traditions. I don’t mind being called or referred to by my husband’s last name, but legally nothing’s changing. At least for now =)

Holiday in Cambodia

April 8, 2010 { Posted in: life, travel | No Comments }

I’m leaving to Cambodia for two weeks and will be celebrating New Years for the first time in the motherland. Talk about exciting! A trip back to my roots always brings out mixed emotions in me. It’s like a vacation, but not really. It’s more a homage to my family and heritage. It’s time to step out of my bubble and into a different perspective. Holiday in Cambodia, please treat me good. I’ve missed you! Wishing everyone a happy early Khmer New Year! I’ve set up a blog, but I will likely update it when I get back.

Picturesque Maui

March 28, 2010 { Posted in: life, love & relationship, photography, travel | 1 Comment }

While watching the Travel Channel’s “Hawaii’s Top Ten Beaches” yesterday I was inspired to put together a gallery from our trip to Maui last July. I know it’s been long overdue. After looking through the pictures I miss Hawaii so much! We didn’t go for long but we had a great time during our short stay. Let’s see if I can pick some of my fave shots.

We arrived in Maui in the late afternoon and after checking into our hotel we decided to take a drive down the southwest coast. I strategically selected our hotel away from the tourist zones of Lahaina and Kanaapali. We stayed in Kihei to be closer to the nicer and less crowded beaches down south. It’s also where you can find the locals hanging out. We came across this unnamed little beach and soaked in the fact that we were really in Maui. There were only about three other people at this beach at the time. It felt like a backyard beach. Loved it!

Next stop was Big Beach in Makena which was one of my must-go-to destinations. Seriously, we had the beach to ourselves! Then again dusk was approaching and people were heading out. Over the rock wall behind me is Little Beach, a nude beach =). Apparently, it’s illegal to go nude in Hawaii but people do it anyway. We decided to climb over to the other side to check it out. Check out the sunset that is.

Isn’t the sunset beautiful? It was totally worth the awkwardness after this random guy decides to stop in front of us (maybe even on purpose) with nothing on but a half shirt to view the sunset as well. His asset was nothing to be flaunting >.<

A view from Kula Lodge where we stopped for breakfast on our way up to Hakeakala. They say it’s a must-do to go to Hakeakala for the sunsets and sunrises, but I couldn’t get myself to wake up so early and I did not want us to drive back down after dark.

We were up there with the clouds! Do not be fooled by the blue skies. It was extremely code and windy. I hear it even snows up there!

Then back to the beach we go! Big Beach is my favorite beach on the island. It’s the only undeveloped white sand beach in Maui. We took the opportunity to have a little fun with a “swimsuit edition” shoot, hehe

Since we were in Maui we can’t not take the journey down to Hana that I’ve been hearing about. I personally think the scenic drive was overrated. Maui is definitely scenic, but I’m already used to having that around here in the great northwest. I really wanted to hike underneath the bamboo forest though so we didn’t have a choice but to drive to the very end of the journey. I have to warn you that if you get car or motion sickness easily then you probably don’t want to make this trip. It’s brutal!

The town of Hana.

One of the many waterfalls along the way.

One of many roadside banana bread stands. I was bummed we didn’t come across cane juice to fulfill by cravings though.

The amazing banyan tree along the Pipiwai trail.

The famous bamboo forest. It was amazing!!

Below we reached the final destination. This was only half of the waterfall since I couldn’t capture it all in my camera. It was also quite treacherous to get to.

I stayed behind if you couldn’t tell.

Seung likes doing crazy stuff like this.

Be prepared to get rained on in this region of Maui. Mt. Haleakala keeps the south pretty moist and wet all year long.

After our bamboo forest adventure we descended back down to the coast for a beautiful stroll along Maui’s rugged and breathtaking south coast. It was nice to finally escape the mosquito infested forest and enjoy a sandwich with a view.

The Seven Sacred Pools. On a nicer day you can swim in it. On this day there was a flash flood warning due to the sudden downpour of rain.

My favorite stop on our way back. Beautiful coastal scenery, blue ocean, black sand, lava tube, blow hole and sun!

Good times in Maui! You can check out the rest of the pictures here.

Cannon Beach Getaway

January 31, 2010 { Posted in: fun things, life, photography, travel | No Comments }

My Seungshine turned the big 3-0 this month. He wasn’t too thrilled. In fact, he hasn’t been too thrilled about getting older ever since he turned 25. Every year thereafter he made it seem such a depressing thing. I really don’t get people who do that. I on the other hand get excited for what lies ahead. It’s all in the attitude, dude. Anyway, I suggested we do something… get away and relax somewhere. My first suggestion was to go to Forks, WA (hahaha) and the idea got shot down real quick. I had another beautiful place in mind though and that place was Cannon Beach. Whether it was hot, cold, wet, dry, windy, snowy… I knew this place would be relaxing. I needed a getaway too. I had planned the trip for this weekend, but moved it up a weekend earlier at the last minute after I found out that some out of state friends of ours were going to be there too. Seung and I spent the entire weekend in Cannon Beach. There were moments where I contemplated venturing into Portland to do some shopping, but I’m very glad we didn’t. Plus, the beach was beautiful and it was too hard to leave. We had an amazing time strolling the beach, watching the sunset, roasting hot dogs and smores over a bonfire, having ice cream in the winter time, soaking in the tub at the beach side Surfsand Resort and just relaxing overall. I can’t wait to return in the near future and hopefully add sun bathing, burying my toes in the sand, splashing in the ocean and hiking to our activities!

Check out more amazing pictures here.

There’s A Way!

January 16, 2010 { Posted in: life | No Comments }

Last year I developed a motto for myself and it was to “just do it”. Yea okay, I bit it off of Nike, so who cares? There are a lot of things that I want to do, but for one reason or another I end up not doing anything at all. I admit one of the things that stand in my way is fear. Fear of change, fear of failure, fear of the unknown outcome… I realize my biggest regret would be not doing anything at all and at the end of the day that was all up to me. Sometimes you just have to take that leap of faith or you would never know the outcome altogether. That wasn’t okay for me. 2009 was a year of “just do it”. It was a year of self reflection and realizations and just making things happen. I know it sounds a little silly, but sometimes you just have stop thinking about doing something and actually just doing it. In that aspect I felt 2009 was a satisfying year for me. I really want to keep this going through this new year and lately I’ve been feeling like if there’s something I really want to do that I have to make it happen. Things aren’t going to happen on their own. A lot of the times we know what we want to do. The next step is how we’re going to get there. If you want it badly enough there’s a way and that’ll be my motto for 2010… “there’s a way!”