The holiday blues are still going strong, memories have been carved into my brain forever and my eyes have been opened up to a whole new place I love.  So much so, I’ve already booked flights to come back for March…this time for 17 days.

2 weeks ago, I came back from my first trip to the states and damn…what a trip it was.  Hand on heart, it was one of the best experiences I have had travelling abroad and I instantly fell for California.  I initially wanted to go on my own, but after some spontaneous decisions, I took my good friend Adam with me.

After all this time, I thought to myself ‘how come its taken me this long to visit the states?’ I guess the combination of having to go back to Hong Kong to visit family, university, career etc, delayed my dream to visit California, but I have finally done it and it was everything and more than I imagined.

I was blessed to be linked with the right people where I met some of the nicest and interesting people I’ve ever met and it was those guys that has helped create the best memories (some not so alcohol related memories) during my stay.

I visited Los Angeles (9 days) and San Francisco (3 days) where my friend Adam and I surprisingly did very little touristy stuff, which was totally fine with me because I wanted to dive head first in with the locals.  One thing that I never expected the most was meeting so many fellow Asians in the states.  Strange as it seems, the asian community in the UK is weaker (especially where I live in a typical British village) and I only have a small handful of asian friends here I see maybe once or twice a month, so it was refreshing to meet new people.

My main link to the circle of people I was with was a guy called Jonathon Wong, whom I met in Hong Kong early this year. Ever since our brief encounter, coupled with a few alcoholic drinks and Fernet’s at a popular drinking district in HK, we kept in contact ever since and with Jon’s guidance over the months, I booked a flight to head out to SoCal, where I would arrive on his birthday…I was sober in LA for less than 4 hours before things got wavey.  From then on…my trip was 90% hangovers.  In between the nights out and recovery, I took photos when I could all on my iPhone.

If you are ever in London and need a chauffeur service, my friend George, owner of chauffeurcentre.com can sort you out.

First time flying in the lightweight composites Boeing Dreamliner, honestly got to say, really impressed with this plane.  Nice and new, lots of leg room and service on the Virgin was great.  Highly recommend this plane if you can get on it with Virgin.

Had to bust out Wolf of Wall Street.

Typical hire of a convertible when in Cali.

Touch down and straight to Honda Ya Izakaya for Jonathon’s birthday.

The first of many…#sake

Send help

Joey (The Chronicles) and Sam Du (Super Street)

I was advised In N Out burger would do wonders for my hangover.  They weren’t wrong.

I of course made a stop to illest LA and met the guys there.  It was great to finally see the store, check out the goods and meet the people behind it.

LA cruisin’ with a friend after dinner before heading to Create.

Could not believe how hot it was at one point.

K Town…I need to go back here more next time.  Soju got the better of us.

Busta Rhymes

Be Street event.  Thank you Art for the recommendation to come check this out.

Vegas will be on the cards in March.

Many of my UK friends raved about IHOP, so I had to check it out for breakfast before the drive to SF.

Pancake goodness.  Better than anything else I’ve had back home.

Adam is an engineer for Rolls Royce, so it was nice to see this next to IHOP where we checked out a few classics.

Highway 1

First stop…Fatlace

It was nice to finally meet Mark.  Strange to think it was Instagram that connected us where I followed fatlace/illest etc for a few years and now today I can blog on it.  We need to bring illest/fatlace to Europe.

Funnily enough, this is the first RWB i’ve ever seen…this place is heavan

Brian’s 6 series was the cleanest one I’ve seen to date.

Goodwood…an event I attend every year.  Lucky to have this event so close to me back in the UK.

My gateway into America?

Back at illest, this time for the Douggas art show.

My last day was spent at The Standard in DTLA for Satin Jackets set.  It was perfect music with the perfect scene to end off on.

Adam and I.  We travelled many miles, had countless laughs.

GTA

Until next time.  I hope to meet even more people on my next visit back in March!