Electric vehicle hype

I’ve been on an electric vehicle kick lately. I’ve never really been a car person. I had my high school 4Runner from age 16 until 23. Then when I moved back to SF from NY, I stayed carless for the first year until my little sister gave me her high school Jetta. I’ve been driving the same car since. It gets decent gas mileage and it’s the perfect beater car for San Francisco.

Lately, I’ve been eyeing a lot of electric vehicles. Teslas have been pretty popular in San Francisco for some time now, but it’s been really cool to see the legacy carmakers actually catch up and start shipping new electric vehicles.

I randomly saw this Tweet from Sam Korus at ARK and I was also surprised to see that there were pretty much no >300 mile range EVs from the time Tesla introduced one in 2015 until 2021. I suppose I had never really thought about it - but looking back, I don’t recall many other electric vehicles besides Teslas until recently.

I’m pretty excited to see what the market looks like for EVs in the next couple of years. As much as I want to pull the trigger on something soon, I also know that the market is catching up to Tesla which is a good thing for consumers. EVs will be better and cheaper in the near future.

Celebrating a good week

I had a great week both personally and at work. There were no major wins, but I just had a solid week. I slept well, woke up at 6:30am every day and was in the office by 8. I was productive the whole week at work and was able to work out 4 days Monday-Thursday. I sit here writing this blog post on Friday afternoon with an empty schedule ready to attack my to-do list.

Unfortunately weeks like this feel more and more rare as I get older. My life personally gets busier by the year. My growing responsibilities at work means I often have to put out unexpected fire drills and change up my schedule.

Weeks like this are rare nowadays and it’s not lost on me. I’m feeling real good going into the weekend and I’m going to enjoy it. In a tough environment, it’s good to celebrate these small wins.

Market Rally

Quite a few people have been excited about the market rally the past week. It’s nice seeing some green to start out the new year.

For myself, I remain cautiously optimistic. Bear market rallies happen often and can shatter some hopes. I am nowhere near ready to declare that we are in for a soft landing this year. Although one can hope.

I haven’t changed my plans when it comes to investing. I’ll continue to buy stocks every month as I always have.

My individual stock picks haven’t changed since a month and half ago. My thesis for these picks remain the same. I may start nibbling a bit more on sizing especially as I’m sitting on a good amount of cash from tax loss harvesting. But overall, I’m staying cautious.

Startup positivity

The last year has undoubtedly been a tough one for startups. And it likely will continue or get worse until it gets better. I’ve always prided myself as someone who is optimistic and always looking at the positives, but this year has taken a bit of a toll on me mentally and my positivity at work has suffered.

I learned pretty early on at my time at Secfi that startup folk would need an overly positive attitude in order to survive. The job is hard and you’re constantly getting sucker punched in the face left and right.

My first few months on the job, we lost a major partner and was unable to continue generating revenue. It was a gut punch and my first immediate thought was that we were fucked. Little did I know that this would be the easiest and smallest of all the crises that we would face in the future.

We ended up taking the opportunity to get things above board and build out the business to scale. We took many months off from generating revenue, and instead focused our attention on improving our product, tightening up from a compliance standpoint, and implementing a lot of process efficiencies.

Something horrible ended up possibly being the best thing for us and put us in the best position to succeed going forward. I’m not sure if we’re in the early stages of this startup crises, the middle, or towards the end, but I need to remind myself that iron sharpens iron in this crazy startup world. Hopefully we’ll be much better coming out of this than we were going in.

Stripe

The tech news of the week has been centered around Stripe. It all begun when they sent out an email saying they were looking to go public or organize liquidity for all in the coming year.

This was of course not news to anyone that follows Stripe closely. It’s been fairly public knowledge that many are coming up on the 10 year expiration of their equity grants and the company would need to take some sort of action. This is not unusual with companies like Airbnb and Palantir notably running into the same thing in the last couple of years.

The bigger news hit last night with Stripe reportedly raising $3B at a much reduced valuation. I haven’t had a chance to do much reading about this, but it’s reportedly to pay the tax bills that they are required to withhold on.

The media has seemed to focus a lot on the downround of the company. My personal take is that this is great leadership by Stripe to just take one on the chin and just keep moving forward. The reality is that no one can control the market and great companies will have to ride the highs and the lows of the market.

Stripe seems to be sticking to a plan and ignoring the market forces involved here. Of course, that does come with backlash as they were likely ready to go public many years ago. Hindsight is 20/20 but a lot of employees would’ve been much wealthier if they had done so.

On the flip side, we don’t know where Stripe will be in the next few years. There’s a good chance that the company will be in a much better position in the long-term because of the route they took. We’ll have to see where this ends up - but I think a lot of other companies need to follow suit sooner or later and come to terms with the new reality of their lower valuations.

The next phase of life

I took Friday off and took off to Palm Springs for a quick golf trip with my close friends. I had initially decided to not go, but changed my mind as I realized that these golf trips will be pretty rare in the near future. It’s a sad realization, but also something I’m glad I’m thinking about today so I can enjoy this stage of my life to the full extent possible.

I turn 33 in a little over a month and for better or worse, I’ve quickly realized that I’m wrapping up one phase of my life and entering into a new one shortly. That was evident on our trip to Palm Springs this past weekend. My friends and I didn’t step foot in a bar and we were in bed by 11 every night.

This is probably the first time we’ve done a guys trip and hadn’t gone out one night. Of course, there’s a lot of positives to this - I felt amazing on Sunday and played some decent golf. It was nice not being hungover on the Sunday after a trip. Whether I like it or not, the transformation has started.

Things will change for a lot of my friends and I soon. Until it all changes officially, I’m going to continue to have fun and enjoy this stage of my life for as long as possible.

Gaming

I saw that Nintendo Switch is releasing an updated version of Goldeneye on the platform soon. It brought me back to my childhood and makes me want to go buy a video game platform. I played a bunch of Goldeneye as a kid. I beat the game and then when friends would come over, we’d battle each other and then yell at each other for cheating by looking at each others’ screens.

One thing I never realized when I was in my heyday of playing video games was just how much I was learning from playing games. There’s of course the hand-eye coordination behind it all. But there’s a whole lot of strategy behind playing video games as well. These strategies can teach you patience, risk-reward, social coordination, leadership, resource allocation…. the list goes on.

My Dad would always yell at me for playing too many video games growing up. I believe that this generation of parents will likely encourage their children to play more video games. And I believe that’s going to be a net positive for our future generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs.

The "slow" growth model

I had a great due diligence call with a company we’re working with yesterday. They are led by a strong and experienced management team who has taken a previous company public. During a period where everyone went to growth at all cost, this management team decided to stick their plan.

The company has been around for over 11 years in a fast growing tech industry. Many of their competitors started later, grew faster and some have even exited before this company. The growth at all cost model had been popularized and rewarded in the previous 5 years. During this period, this company was probably a bit overlooked and even “unsexy” due to their slower growth rate.

Nowadays, they are sitting pretty with consistent growth in a market where many of their competitors are struggling. They have a product in which customers love and they have a low employee churn. They have enough capital for years and can trigger how much cash they want to burn for growth each year.

As I learned more about the company yesterday, I couldn’t help but think that their time is now. They’ve just built a damn solid company where they could control their destiny. Unfortunately not many startups created the last 10 years have that luxury today.

The downsides of startup life

I’ve never been shy to write about the downsides of working at a startup. I’ve been doing it for 4.5 years now and I do believe that the VC backed startup life is way too glorified often.

I started in 2018 when the SoftBank capital as a moat era was ending. I had thought that would be the end of the glitzy startup portrayal in media and social media, but then we went into the post-pandemic world of 2021.

Perhaps now is the time that the glorification of startups will end. This pullback and market situation is brutal enough that it’ll scare away most folks and leave behind the people actually dedicated to building.

Don’t get me wrong - I love working at a startup and it has been one of the most rewarding experiences. But anyone that has been through this before knows how brutal things can be. Someone told me years ago that working at a startup is like getting sucker punched in the face every other day and I can safely say that feels very fitting.

Many people I interview and outsiders have an unrealistic expectation of what it’s like working at a startup. The most common thing I hear from folks is that they want to work on everything rather than focus on one thing. That’s all fun and games until you have the work of 4-5 different people sitting on your plate.

For those that truly love building though, there’s nothing more rewarding than growing a startup. People just need to make sure their expectations are properly set.

Getting into a routine again

Since my wedding a month and a half ago, I’ve been letting myself go and having a bit too much fun. This is probably a bit natural as I tried to get in really good shape going into my wedding. And then afterwards, it was the holidays and I just wanted to relax. That means eating a lot unhealthier, drinking a bit too much, and not working out as often as I usually have.

I’ve started to finally feel the guilt the the few days which is my body telling me that I need to tighten up a bit. I suspect a lot of people are in the same boat after the holidays and the new year.

My trick for getting back into things is just settling back into my routine.

The first thing I’ll do is to set my workout schedule for the week in advance on Sundays. That allows me to know exactly what my schedule looks like for the week and lowers my chances of backing out.

Secondly, I usually set boundaries around when I can go out and have fun. While the holidays and being on vacation gives you the social okay to have a beer whenever, saying yes to drinks every Tuesday is not a habit I want. I’ll usually make a deal with myself that I do not drink on weekdays except when it’s a special work or personal occasion like a birthday.

Lastly, when it comes to food, I also just look to put myself back in some sort of routine as well. My normal course of action is to eat healthy lunches and cook healthier dinners during the weekdays. The deal I make with myself is that I can be a bit more liberal with my food over the weekend.

Setting these “routines” has largely worked for the last few years. It works for me as it’s a healthy balance that I believe is reasonable and sustainable for the long term.

Mental vs physical exhaustion

Early on in my career, I would be able to work 80+ hour weeks at my job. It wasn’t uncommon that every few weeks in a quarter, we’d be so busy that many of us would be in the office 14+ hour days. By the end of that stretch, I would be physically exhausted but after a few good nights of sleep, I’d be back in good position to do it again.

Nowadays, I don’t nearly work that many hours thankfully, but I do feel that I am even more exhausted after a week than I used to be. Part of it could just be age. I was in my early and mid 20s when I was pulling those hours. But perhaps the bigger part of it is that the work I’m doing now is just much more mentally exhausting.

When I was an Associate at my firm, I would just grind out spreadsheet after spreadsheet for 14+ hours a day. It could be mentally stimulating at times, but it was a different part of my brain… I suppose the side that works with numbers and calculations.

Nowadays a lot of what I’m doing requires deep thinking and brainstorming. If it isn’t deep thinking, it’s dealing with people. The work nowadays is just much more mentally taxing than grinding out a spreadsheet for me.

It’s a much different kind of exhaustion from work and simply sleeping it off doesn’t always work. For this reason, I believe weekend time off and vacations are vitally important. I believe the risk of burnout from mental exhaustion is much higher than the risk from physical.. at least for me.

Gambling

I was reading this morning that it may be a matter of time before casinos open up in New York City. The revenue that would come in is just too big to ignore and it seems like New York may be up next to legalize gambling.

It was a bit fitting as I’m in Lake Tahoe for the weekend and we will undoubtedly head to the casino on Friday and Saturday at the stateline. I understand the downsides of gambling, but as a reasonably responsible adult, my friends and I love the casinos.

Gambling led by sports betting has hit the point of no return. Despite gambling still being illegal in San Francisco, you don’t have to go far to find a bookie where you can place sports bets. I know a lot of friends who have accounts in different states as well.

At this point, states need to come to the realization that this is happening and gambling is an opportunity. San Francisco may want to take note of what’s happening. Perhaps legalized gambling may be that jolt to bring energy back to the city.

Tahoe (+1 for SF)

It’s almost everyday that someone is trashing San Francisco on Twitter. For all the problems that San Francisco has, I don’t know too many major metropolitan cities that provides you access to a vacation area like Lake Tahoe.

It’s truly one of my favorite places during all 4 seasons and it’s a blessing that you can get up here from San Francisco in under 4 hours.

I made it up to Tahoe today for the first time this winter. I needed a change of scenery for a couple days of work as I’ve had a tough week and a half.

On top of all this, I’ll be able to hop on the slopes over the weekend nice and early. When Austin or Miami gets a Lake Tahoe, I’ll start considering moving.

Working from paradise

I spent the morning looking at flights to French Polynesia aka Tahiti. Someone on my Twitter TL had a post saying that it’s cheaper to go to paradise than it is to go to Disneyland and that got my interest.

After coming back from my honeymoon, I’ve definitely have the travel bug a bit and I’ve been doing a bit of dreaming at nights thinking about some of the trips Sophia and I can take this year.

One interesting part about Tahiti is that it’s only a 2 hour time difference from San Francisco. I can theoretically still work on San Francisco time. Of course there’s many other factors to consider… like the fact that you need to actually work rather than just lounge on the beach.

Sophia and I spent some time in 2021 working from New York and Mexico. It was an amazing experience and I’ve had the itch to do it again soon. I’m fortunate to be working at a startup that will allow me to do that, but I do wonder what the impact is on overall productivity.

I feel like I’m disciplined enough to get my work done, but I know not all companies will trust their employees to do the same. It’s a huge employee benefit perk, but I do see how productivity can suffer. I wonder if the remote first companies will allow employees to work from anywhere and if that will continue to become a trend post-pandemic years.

It will be interesting to watch and see how this trend develops.

The misconception with tax strategies

Every week I take a call with a startup employee or founder who is looking for “creative ways to minimize tax”. There are of course, many ways to plan around your taxes and ultimately come out ahead, but these individuals specifically are almost always looking for a silver bullet solution.

In order words, they are looking for a simple win-win solution that will help shield them from taxes. They want to stay in California and not pay California taxes. Or they want to take advantage of the ISO tax benefits without exercising. That unfortunately does not exist. Nearly every legal tax strategy comes with a “but”.

Some simplified examples:

• Eduardo Saverin (one of the Facebook founders) was likely able to avoid paying US taxes on the Facebook IPO. He just had to renounce his US citizenship and no longer can come back to the US.

• You can use various trust structures to avoid gift and estate tax in the future, but each trust has strict requirements such as you gift the shares completely to charity in the future or the shares are permanently in the beneficiary’s name. You may avoid taxes on the transfer of shares in the future, but you’re quite literally giving them away.

• You can take advantage of tax breaks on stock options if you exercise earlier. You may even qualify for QSBS which is the biggest tax break for early stage founders and employees. However, it requires that you buy the shares today and risk that cash if your company does not make it.

Of course, things are a bit more complicated than the above. This was meant to be a simple view to prove my point that there’s no perfect and easy tax strategy. There is a cost to all proactive tax plans… quite often that cost is worth taking.

But for those that are looking for an easy answer to avoid paying taxes as an American citizen, you may need to lower your expectations.

Tough times and tough decisions

I haven’t felt like writing much about work for the last month or so. A large part of that is due to the fact that there’s just not that much great news coming out of tech recently. It’s hard to live this day in and day out. And I didn’t want to add the pessimism by writing about it.

It is the reality of the times right now though. Like many other startups and tech companies, we’ve had to make a lot of tough decisions over the last year.

I’m not sure when things really bottom out. No one really does. But I do know that things are going to be hard this year for all of us in startup land. I took a lot of the last few weeks to get myself and my team mentally prepared for what’s coming.

The good news is that once we get through these times, we’ll be battle hardened and a better company afterwards.

Honeymoon recap part 5: Singapura, Singapura

After 5 nights on an island, Sophia and I were ready to get back to a city. If I’m being honest, I could’ve probably stayed an entire month and been okay with it, but knowing that your vacation has to end at some point, we were glad to get to Singapore and wrap things up.

We decided to end in Singapore so we can meet up with our friend Alyssa who moved there and I always feel like it’s good to end in a city. There’s something really depressing about going straight from the beach/island back to a city. I hadn’t been to Singapore in almost 20 years since I was a kid so it was pretty awesome coming back.

The first thing I noticed when I landed was just how many more skyscrapers there were and how many more are going up right now. The amount of construction was crazy. After the hectic atmosphere of Vietnam and Thailand, it was nice being in a place like Singapore where everything just works quickly and efficiently.

I suppose there’s not a whole lot to see in Singapore. It’s an amazing city to hang out, eat great food, and drink. We did the typical tourist things like have a drink at the top of the Marina Bay Sands and check out the light show. But really we were just there to hang out with Alyssa and eat some amazing food.

We stayed near Chinatown which was perfect as there were some amazing hawker centers within walking distance. As expected, the cocktail bars were absolutely amazing as well. The bar and party scene in Singapore is fantastic. On Friday night, we went out in Hajji Lane which was a cool area that was a bit more rugged but just a great place to start the night drinking outside.

Of course, some of the food highlights were in the hawker centers. We had some amazing chicken rice and char siew at Tiang Baruh hawker center. Having a friend who has lived there for half a year paid off when it came to food. Perhaps one of the best things we ate all trip was the black pepper crab at Long Beach Seafood. On our last night, we went to KEK Seafood for white pepper crab and chili crab. All crabs were absolutely amazing, but I’ll be dreaming about that black pepper crab for awhile.

Our last night was great as we got to hang out with all of Alyssa’s friends for a birthday party. It was hosted a cool bar on the water that overlooks MBS. It was really fun pretending like we were locals. We had a very early flight, so we had to call the night pretty early at 9am.

As always with any good trip, I was definitely a bit sad to leave. Singapore turned out to be the perfect place to end a honeymoon and we had a great time there with old and new friends. We did have one more amazing meal as we went to a sushi bar in the Tokyo airport during our transit.

Perhaps it was fitting that we had some sushi on our way back as we’re planning our next trip to Japan and Korea. Sophia and I agreed that we should start planning that next trip so we have something to look forward to.

This trip was great in many ways for me personally. First I was just feeling really burnt out and needed to recharge my batteries. This trip did that. Secondly, the honeymoon went well and we mixed quite a bit of spending time together with exploring and socializing.

Although my only honeymoon may be over, I know that Sophia and I will have many more “honeymoons” in the future. We’ll continue to travel and explore the world. I don’t think the honeymoon phase will be over for us anytime soon.

Honeymoon recap part 4: finally the White Lotus portion

Sophia and I left Bangkok after 3 nights with mixed feelings. I love Bangkok but admittedly it lost a lot of it’s luster since the last time I visited. Sophia was just overwhelmed with such a crazy and hectic city. We were both really excited to start the cliche beach honeymoon portion of the trip.

Sophia had found Koh Lipe with some searching a few months ago. It was lauded as the Maldives of Thailand and everything I read confirmed that statement. Furthermore, it was a much smaller island that was less developed and the backpackers largely had not shown up yet. And lastly, there were some good dive sites so it seemed like the perfect location for us.

We were late to the game with booking hotels so options were slim unfortunately. Luckily, I had stumbled upon this new resort opening up with 0 reviews and only fake pictures of what the resort would look like. The resort would open December 15th so we would literally be there within 2 weeks of opening. It was a huge gamble, but they offered 50% off so Sophia and I said, fuck it let’s do it.

That ended up being possibly one of the best decisions we’ve made as a couple. After a flight from Bangkok to Hat Yai, then a 2 hour van ride to the pier, and another 1.5 hour boat ride to Koh Lipe, we made it to the island and the resort. I was riding a bit of a high as my Huskies just beat Texas in the Alamo Bowl so not much could ruin my excitement that day.

We got to the resort and Sophia and I both looked at each other and joked that this was giving us some serious White Lotus vibes. The staff had waited for our arrival and then sat us down with some drinks while they checked us in. After an orange juice and some coconut ice cream, we were escorted to our room which opened directly to the beach.

It was absolutely perfect. The resort and rooms looked exactly as the fake photos. We were both a bit surprised to see all this happening… it is Southeast Asia after all. Of course for a 2 week old resort, they still had a lot of things to work out such as the restaurant and the service, but for 50% off, we hit a gold mine.

Our 5 nights on the island was a magical time. We spent a lot of it doing well… not much. The island takes about 20 minutes to walk from the northern tip to the southern tip. And then there’s the western side which you can walk in 30 minutes, but there’s not much there besides some resorts. There was an amazing “walking street” that housed many restaurants and bars.

We spent a lot of the mornings sleeping in and enjoying our beachfront villa. At some point, we would take the 10 minute “stroll” into town to get massages and/or grab lunch. In the early evening, Sophia and I would start our nights at the local watering hole for a few cocktails, then grab dinner and more drinks. Rinse and repeat.

Notably on the food front, we had some amazing Thai style hot pot at Huamai Somtum along with some fire Esan style dishes. We found a favorite seafood joint at Ranee Thai which was a local spot next to the only “club” on the island. I also forced Sophia to come with me to find this lady named Mali who would go pick up some local fresh fish and serve it up sashimi style.

Mali was hilarious and it was a bit of a unique and rugged experience. Sophia dubbed it her first “Bourdain situation”. We sat in Mali’s “barber and beer” shop while Mali prepared some local fish sashimi style and fried one of the fishes. She sat with us for about 45 minutes entertaining us and cracking jokes. The food was amazing, especially the raw fish. It felt like this could be served a Michelin starred omakase restaurant. It was truly and experience I’ll never forget and I can’t wait to come back and find Mali again.

Our other notable activity was diving on the 2nd. Of course we had chosen to go diving on a very windy and choppy day. Sophia got seasick and I got close to joining her in throwing up off the side of the boat. It was less than ideal, but we got to dive and had a good time overall. We also got to partake in an engagement ceremony underwater. This Dutch couple in our group got engaged and it was a cool experience being able to watch it happen live. I had my GoPro and was able to play videographer for them.

We ended up becoming friends with Sebastian and Caroline and spent that night grabbing drinks with them. And then hung out with them again on our last night on the island. On our last night, we also met a Finnish couple at dinner who also joined us for drinks. It was an amazing way to cap off the island portion of our trip.

I was a bit sad to leave but after 5.5 full days on the beach, both Sophia and I were ready to get off the island. Overall, Koh Lipe was probably the best part of the entire honeymoon. We had a lot of alone time, but mixed it in with some good hangouts with others on the island as well. Sophia and I will always view Koh Lipe as a special place and we can’t wait to go back.

Tomorrow, I’ll write about the last leg of our trip in Singapore.

Honeymoon recap part 3: Bangkok dangerous

After my solo weekend in Hanoi, Sophia finally made it to Vietnam and my vacation high was in full swing. Obviously I was happy to see her and officially begin the honeymoon, but I was officially in vacation mode. I had no desire to check emails or do much work. I just wanted to explore with Sophia and focus on spending time together. It was a great feeling.

We landed in Bangkok on Tuesday afternoon and the lady at the hotel upgraded our rooms for us. Sophia and I decided to kickoff our time in Bangkok at a cocktail bar called Above Eleven. The bar was a multi-storied gorgeous rooftop and after Vietnam, we were ready for some decent cocktails.

After getting a bit loose at Above Eleven, we took a tuk-tuk to Khao Sanh Road. I hadn’t been to Khao Sanh since 2016 and was surprised to see how much it had changed. It seemed like the entire area got a facelift during the pandemic and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing as it lost it’s flavor as a backpackers’ paradise.

Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m 32 and past my backpacking phase, but we ended up going for a quick walk through and deciding to get out quickly. We ended up going to Yaowarat Road in Chinatown for some delicious street food and Sophia fell asleep on the tuk-tuk back home so we knew it was time to get out of there.

We spent basically the rest of our time in Bangkok doing typical tourist sites and eating. The next day, we hilarious got caught up in one of the tourist site “scams” where some locals try to trick you to go to another temple where a man conveniently is located to tell you about this amazing sale. I realized what was happening midway and stopped things before they sent us to the store. We weren’t happy, but it became a good joke for us the rest of the trip, so no harm no foul.

On our last day in Bangkok, we ended up visiting and exploring Talat Noi which was an awesome area that I had no previously been. It was rugged and meant to be a good area to visit to see what Bangkok was like before the skyscrapers.

We are great in Bangkok although Thai food isn’t Sophia’s favorite kind of cuisine. We ate some huge crabs at Ministry of Crab, went to a tasting menu at Samrub Thai, and slurped down 50 year old beef broth at a hole in the wall spot. Although the night market culture may be dying a bit, we had some awesome food at Jodd Fairs on our last night as well.

Overall, I would say that Bangkok was much less exciting for me the 3rd time around than it was the first and second. I suppose this makes sense, but I also believe it’s because I regularly eat a lot of amazing Thai dishes in San Francisco and New York already. It wasn’t like the first time I’ve eaten a spicy papaya salad before like 10 years prior.

Also, Sophia had a bit of a hard time in Bangkok. It was her first time in a major Asian city and I think the craziness was a lot to handle. It’s unlike New York where we lived where it’s largely a grid. Everything in Bangkok is 20-40 minutes away despite being seemingly close on a map and well there is a lot of unique things in Bangkok that was funny in your 20s, but just a bit sad now. I can see why she didn’t enjoy Bangkok as much.

I will say Bangkok probably is my 2nd favorite food city in the world right now behind New York. There’s such a variety of unique cuisines at all different kinds of price levels. For that reason alone, I’ll likely make a stop to Bangkok every time I’m in the area.

After 3 nights and 2.5 days exploring in Bangkok, we got up at 4am to start our journey to Koh Lipe which is a small island in the south of Thailand. More on that tomorrow.

Honeymoon recap part 2: 36 hours in Hanoi

After a day in a half in Hanoi, I had started to feel settled in. I had a good night hanging out with some folks I met at a bar, and my mind was shifted to vacation mode. I woke up on Christmas Day well rested after going to bed early. I took the morning to pack up and upgrade hotels.

Once again, I got Vietnam’d as the first hotel I booked ended up pulling a bait and switch and putting me in a sister hotel. The hotel wasn’t awful by any means, but it wasn’t what we paid for and it left a sour taste in my mouth. I ended up switching to the Oriental Suites where I was taken care of by Mike and Bella. This was probably the 6th hotel I’ve stayed at in Hanoi and was by far the best, especially considering the price. I was stoked.

Mike ended up booking me a private car to Ninh Binh and also recommended me an awesome Bun Ca joint while I waited. Sophia and I had originally booked two nights in Ninh Binh, but I canceled as her trip would be delayed. I ended up spending my Christmas Day riding around Ninh Binh on a motorbike and exploring the area. It was amazing day all around - I hiked up to the top of the famous “cave” and had some amazing sights over the mountains and valleys.

I got back to Hanoi in the evening and met up with Timmy for some drinks. I felt bad as he was waiting for me at our local pub for a couple hours as my driver fought through Christmas Day traffic everywhere in Hanoi. Later that night, Sophia finally arrived in Hanoi and my guy Mike at the Oriental Suites set-up a corny but sweet flower bed in the room for her arrival. Both Sophia and I were relieved that she had finally made it - after almost about 30 hours of traveling.

On our only full day in Hanoi together, we ended up exploring all the sights that Hanoi had to offer and ate everything along the way. The highlight of the afternoon may have been our meal at the Bun Cha restaurant that Obama and Bourdan ate at. I had gone the last time I was in Hanoi and it was just as good.

We had a great night on the rooftop bar for cocktails and got a bowl of Bun Bo Hue for dinner. After a couple drinks on beer street, Sophia’s jet lagged caught up and we called it an early night.

The next morning we got perhaps one of the highlight meals of the trip in a bowl of Pho Bo in the Old Quarter. It was my first time there and Sophia had found the spot on Tik-tok. I’ve always maintained that the Pho in San Francisco is as good or better than the pho in Vietnam unfortunately, but this bowl of Pho was amazing and made me rethink my statement.

After getting some Banh Mi’s for the road, we wrapped up our 36 hours together in Hanoi and headed for Bangkok for the 2nd leg of our trip. It was a short, but good time together. Overall, I love Vietnam and I enjoyed my 2nd time in Hanoi. I may not be too enthusiastic to make a 3rd trip anytime soon as there’s other parts of the country I have yet to explore such as Hoi An and Hue.

Perhaps next time around, we’ll start in the south and make our way north.