Greetings from Tallinn, Estonia!
We’re here for two weeks with Owen’s parents and Ivy’s dad and brother. Ivy’s team is running some sessions at a personal growth conference for parents and their kids. She signed up her dad and brother for the conference to expand their horizons and gave some big stage talks on how to raise entrepreneurial kids and prepare kids in the age of AI.
Owen and his family just tagged along to enjoy the Eastern European saunas and 11pm sunsets.
Last newsletter, we covered Owen’s climate explorations during our three months in California. This newsletter will highlight some of the non-climate parts of that time.
Coachella
Since Tomorrowland last year, Ivy’s been itching to go to more music festivals — a wagon she missed in her early 20s. This is why we are returning to SF specifically for Outsidelands in August! Hit us up if you are going. We’re hosting a pre-drink-and-other-stuffs and going all 3 days.
In April, Ivy went to Coachella with her little sister, Jane, and tagged along with a group of Asian Wander Women.
This was a super special first Coachella for her. One of Ivy’s goals is to be there for as many core memories as possible for her younger siblings. Like last year in Brussels when Jane breathed out, “Life is worth living” after seeing the main square. There are only so many more years when we can both rally until 2am then catch a 6am flight.
On the first day, we had to hitch a ride with a bunch of Oakland gangsters in their late 30s or 40s. They asked us who was older. We were both thrilled about this question.
In 2033, Jane better take Ivy to Coachella (or an equivalent hype event of that time) and finance the trip.
Tommy Weekend
During Owen’s bachelor party in April of last year, he and some attendees riffed on what would make sick bachelor parties for their other friends. The unanimous answer for Tommy was a “Crazy Survival Weekend”. Due to the pandemic blipping time away, Tommy got city-hall-married and recently had a baby. A bachelor party for him was no longer in the books… but who said bachelor parties were the only times for elaborate hi-jinks with friends?
One weekend, Jon and Owen planned a fatherhood getaway for Tommy. The plan was to kayak to a secluded beach, then camp overnight. The rest of us had regular camping gear, while Tommy knew / had nothing. At various checkpoints, he was tasked with completing quests to earn supplies, starting with a map and compass to get us to our campsite. To ensure it wasn’t a disaster, we prepared backups of everything for Tommy so that by the end, he’d be regular camping, the survival part only being a shtick.
But fate had other plans. The day before, we found out there were gale winds that weekend. We had to move our kayak reservations up an hour to avoid getting destroyed on the water. That hour caused cascading butterfly effects that resulted in us not having enough tents for everyone, so Tommy had to survive for reals in a shelter he built for himself with some rope and tarp.
Thankfully Tommy has sufficient survival skills and made it through. Overall a memorable weekend with good stories and bonding was had.
Anushah’s Wedding
Life happens so fast!
One of Ivy’s oldest friends and bridesmaids had a spontaneous elopement-turned-small-wedding while we were in SF. We’re grateful to catch these important moments — it make us want to come back more often so that we can be there for friends for their engagements/weddings, the start/end of jobs/relationships, etc. As opposed to just hearing about them later in a monthly or quarterly catchup.
We got lucky with great weather (after a week of prediction of rain) and a last minute booking of Fuchsia Dell (an area of Golden Gate Park we didn’t even know existed). It was such an SF wedding with GG Park reception, a cute dinner in Cole Valley, and then bars after.
Ivy also discovered how awesome Rent the Runway is. It is now the solution to her non-existent wardrobe. Now she can wear a dress only once and not feel guilty about it.
Off The Couch
One of our unexpected top experiences was an escape game called Off the Couch. This was unlike any other we’ve done before.
To start, it wasn’t just a single one, but a series of 12 of them (some are still under construction). Each is a self-contained game, but the storyline builds from the previous ones. Decisions you make in one game impact aspects of the others.
We got through 3 chapters of the game before we left SF. They were each so distinct and creative and just a smidge terrifying. The creator, Nick, has done over 1300 escape games around the world, and you can feel his mastery of the craft poured into the rooms. The downside (or upside!) for our friends is they can’t do the remaining chapters til we get back…
Once Nick finishes constructing these 12 games, his next vision is to build an amusement park. It’d be like a real-life MMORPG where you go on quests, physically moving from one to another. There’d be over a week’s worth of content, and similar to Off the Couch, the decisions you make impact the rest of your time there. We can’t wait til that becomes a reality.
A Vegas Detour
Near the end of our time in California, we took a week-long trip to Las Vegas.
The first two days were to attend Uplifted, the Asian Hustle Network conference. Ivy came in to recruit hardcore women for Asian Wander Women.
Owen’s goal was unclear. We’d booked the tickets many months ago, and at that time, Owen wasn’t sure where he’d get to in his entrepreneurship journey, or whether he’d need networking. Unlike Califlorence, his main point of connection with people ended up being, “Hey you’re Asian! I’m also Asian!”
We did run into two friends (Asian Male Non-Nomad Founders) as a pleasant surprise!
After Uplifted, we drove into the desert to Havasupai.
We had acquired 20 permits for a hike to Havasu Falls in the Grand Canyon 3 years prior. But, our reservation kept getting pushed back because of the pandemic. Since then, friends have had other plans (e.g. babies) and the Indian Reservation claimed it overbooked and pushed half our group another year again. We ended up with 12 completely different friends for the trip.
We started the first day at 6am and got into camp around 1pm in the heat. After all the delays and changes, we weren’t sure anymore if the trip would be worth all the hassle. But when we got to camp and saw the first waterfall, all doubts were erased. We’ve never seen such pristine waterfalls surrounded by canyon walls, a very unique sight.
Our friends took amazing photos, particularly Wes, who trekked down with a DSLR!
Over the 4 days and 3 nights, we spent the days doing shorter hikes to beautiful waterfalls in the canyon and evenings sharing life stories. Some required climbing janky ladders and rusty chains. It was just the right level of sketch to be fun.
Because the hike in was so slow, hot, and miserable by the end - we set out on the last day at 3am, waking up at 2:30am. Despite the grumps from being up so early, it was worth it to get out by 10am before the heat set in. The stars were beautiful too! The two most experienced hikers in our group, Andrew and Elaine, set out 3 hours later at 5:30am and caught up to the tail end of our group. Beasts.
Once we got to Vegas, we gorged ourselves at a buffet. This is when we realized that we became exactly like our parents, sprinting straight to get pounds of the crab legs. Except Owen who preferred a common man’s fried chicken.
On our final day in Vegas, after many rave reviews from friends, we checked out Meow Wolf. It exceeded all expectations. We’ve never been to anything else like it. Without giving too much away, you gotta pay the $3 extra for the boop card.
Other Fun
As we write this, we see this newsletter’s getting quite long. These three months were so jam packed! We’ll try to cram as much as we can into one last section.
Ivy and Emily launched an Asian Wander Women Podcast to talk about quitting jobs, starting remote businesses, working as expats, and exploring 50+ cities as digital nomads.
Check it out here: Youtube, Spotify, AppleLaunching the podcast involved a photoshoot with Ivy’s personal photographer of many big life occasions (like our engagement party and Chinese wedding ceremony): Jaril <3
We enjoyed the Deep Sea exhibit in Monterey. Owen got hyped about it after watching a video about the challenges of bringing life from the ocean floor to sea level, and how this is the only place that’s done it. The most eye-catching exhibit was these giant roly polies that look 100x bigger than the ones on land.
Owen went on stage at a magic show (highly recommend, even better than the ones we saw in Vegas!). He was voluntold when the magician saw him trying to avoid eye contact when he asked for audience participation.
We played a fun Squid Game themed AR game at Stonestown Galleria with friends.
On our first visit to the mall, we were wowed by all the great food options there. As we rode an escalator down from the food court, Ivy exclaimed “my dream is to own a place near here”. An elderly man in front of us looked back with a mix of amusement and judgment, like this is what you aspire to? He commented “you can do it if you work hard!”
Phew, that’s it for now. There were so many other wonderful moments with friends these months that we couldn’t fit it all — birthdays, reunions, dinners, karaokes, and more. It’s part of what we love so much about SF and why we never end up having time to write our newsletter when we’re there.
We will be back in SF in less than a month (can you believe it?!) and then again for a month in October. It’s as if we live there again…
Onwards,
Ivy & Owen