explore – Royal Origin

Zion | RO Explore

My favorite thing to do is be out in the wilderness where mass murderers and bears can come out to kill you without any way of calling for help because you know in all movies police or any government aid in the wilderness are pretty much useless. But for my wife’s happiness, I risked my safety and we planned a trip out to Zion National Park with Chivas, Shavi, Nimo, Derek, Polly, Angelo and Bonnie. Most of my photos will be covering the second day of the trip, since I wasn’t able to make it to the first day where everyone went off-roading.

429 miles, 6 hours and going 110 MPH thanks to my wife’s driving.

Crazy how they were able to build these roads through the mountains.

We made it to Zion late, but everyone still had a lot of energy to cook dinner.

Here we have Chivas over cooking a marshmallow.

Omelette.

Julia is the crazy hiker, who hears something scary and goes and check its out.

Me and my wife Julia.

Beautiful waterfalls all over the park.

Shavi getting one for the snappy snaps.

Chivas at peace with himself.

Everywhere is a toilet in the wilderness.

Shout out to Julia for carrying the heaviest backpack known to mankind.

Secret photo shoots with Polly.

Taking it all in.

It literally said “Danger Beyond This Point”, but she wanted to go further out for a better picture..

Couple stuff.

Threesome stuff.

Chasing waterfalls.

The people who didn’t bail.

It was suppose to rain all weekend, but lucky for us the rain cleared and the sun came out.

Just beautiful..

Homeless Instagram photos with Nimo.

Homeless Instagram photo with Angelo.

The 4runner did some work yesterday.

How do I even coffee?

Bacon and Eggs burger at MeMe’s Cafe.

Chicken crepe.

BBQ pulled pork and onion rings.

At night, you could really see the stars so clear, so we decided to venture around the park for some star photos.

Ending the night with some smores.

Shavi looking good for a person who slept in the car all night.

Chivas ready for his close up.

Shout out to this crew for cooking, being fun and not bailing. It was a fun time!

Chivas with the photo bomb.

Man this place is beautiful..

Shavi smooth.

Angelo’s face when he sees a nice ass.

Champion.

Nimo all HOODRATstuff out.

Amazing jumping abilities by Nimo and Chivas.

Chivas took us to this mountain where there was a huge crack in it.

RO OFF-ROAD.

We ended this trip on a good note with Baby Stacks!

Definitely one of the most memorable camping trips I’ve been on. Thanks Chivas for planning it and everyone else for the good times. We definitely need to plan the next one soon!

-NGUMINH

July 13, 2016

San Francisco

Hello all Royal Origin readers! My name is James Baxter and I’m happy to be coming aboard as one of Royal Origin’s newest bloggers. I am based out of Southern California and like to shoot portraits, automotive, and cityscapes. While those may be my areas of focus I shoot anything that catches my eye really; never leave your camera behind! I have been shooting for a little over a year now and I love it more and more with each passing day. I can’t wait to bring everyone more content for you all to enjoy! In the mean time, I leave with you this, my first trip of the year, San Francisco!

I told myself at the beginning of the year that I was going to travel more in 2015 and I made sure my first spot was going to be in one of my favorite cities, San Francisco.

I did not get wet taking this photo somehow.

On the first day I got to San Francisco it was raining really hard, so at the first sign of day break I went out and started exploring.

After hanging around the Golden Gate Bridge for a while and the surrounding area I decided to cross the bridge to venture into the woods.

Muir Woods Nation Forest is awesome and I recommend it to anyone who’s going to be in San Francisco.

Its about a two hour long hike if you do the whole trial but its totally worth it.

Muir Woods is just such a pretty peaceful pace, definitely a nice escape from the rush of Los Angeles.

On the way back over the bridge I decided to take some more pictures and wait until sundown.

It was getting really foggy the later it got, and thats actually a Cruise Ship going under the bridge.

San Francisco is an awesome city, unfortunately I went right in the middle of a huge storm and didn’t get to walk around much. That being said I’ll definitely be visiting again very soon. But San Francisco is just one of the many stops I’ll be taking this year and I can’t wait to share it all with you and bring you all more photos.

March 6, 2015

Random Day in LA | Food Adventures

Valentines Day is spent best with significant other or in this case your two single friends who had nothing else to do that day either. In the spur of the moment me and Abbitt decided to go on a trip with Shavi to check out his clinic that he’s opening in down town LA.

Looking for cool lines to take photos of was the objective of the day.

The build out of Shavi’s clinic is looking good. If you guys need some medical cards and need it in LA, this will be the spot to go to. Maybe we’ll sell our merch out of this spot.

The previous tenant had some cool art work on the walls.

Abbitt needs an answer.

After Shavi confirmed everything with his contractor, we were off to do some #ROExplore in LA.

Things change quickly here in LA, seems like they’re always building something.

The Hundreds. Love it.

First stop, we went to go eat at Wurstkuche where they have a variety of exotic sausages.

Vegetarian smoked apple sage, lamb and many different flavors of sausages.

The restaurant had a nice place to eat with a bar.

A DJ set up at the entrance and a private dining area that you can reserve for a big party.

The order number looked like awards to us. Shavi happily accepting his award for 3rd place hair style in the building.

Abbitt checking out the anodize work on the awards.

I got the lamb with Mediterranean spices with caramelized onions.

Shavi got the rattlesnake and rabbit with jalapenos and Belgian fries.

Abbitt got the bratwurst.

Sausage party.

These fries with chipotle aioli and bleu cheese walnut and bacon sauce was so good. Overall, the food was good and the place had a very chill ambiance to eat at and you can get wasted while waiting for your sausages.

We stumbled upon an ice cream truck on the way back to our car and decided to try it.

This ice cream truck ended up being amazing. The ice cream truck was Van Leeuwen and they make excellent mint chocolate chip and earl grey tea ice cream.

Abbitt mesmerized by his ice cream.

We did a little stroll around the neighborhood and spotted this coffee shop.

We got to this street where we shot Neel’s LS400 last year and they developed the place super quick. The area was unrecognizable at first.

While driving around LA, we looked up the top ten free things to do in LA and Vista Hermosa park was one of the spots to check out. On the way there we went through Little Tokyo and spotted a friend.

Karl was going to Jason Mark to pick up his shoes and had time to kick it with us before his Valentine’s date.

It was my first time seeing Karl’s Porsche on his new set of Work Meisters and damn did it look fresh.

Too bad the lighting was bad at the park and I didn’t bring a tripod to light paint properly.

Karl decided to join us to check out Vista Hermosa park.

We were asked by a couple to help them set up their camera settings for the perfect photo. They ended up asking us if we could help take a photo of their friend because he was going to propose to his girlfriend. Congrats to the lovely couple in this photo!

After the park, we saw this cool arcade down the street in Echo Park. It actually ended up being a parlor with old school pin ball machines. Pretty neat.

Our last visit would be to Barrio Fiesta where Jerald works. He let us check out his RC350 while he was cooking and damn this car is nice.

Red leather for RC350s with the F Sport package.

Touch pad mouse for navigation.

The instrument panel is what I love the most about the newer Lexuses.

Jerald took me out for a cruise to TPumps a new boba shop that originated from San Francisco.

Jerald’s been through a lot last year, glad he’s putting himself back together.

This was a lot better than I expected. All their milk teas was lactose free, so I can fully enjoy them without running to the restroom afterwards.

New boy band, we named ourselves the THREE PUMPS.

Today was a good day.

February 19, 2015

Food Truck Meets | Food Adventures

On today’s food adventures, we took out your woman crush Wednesdays, Sara and Hayle to eat some delicious wieners.

The ladies getting mesmerized by the wieners.

First time Sara wasn’t ready for a photo and Vinh was.

Hayle also always alert for a photo op.

Dogzilla one of my favorite food trucks of all time. I’ve been eating here since 2010 when they would be stationed in front of Sam Ash on Beach blvd. Crazy how fast time passes, but their food is still amazing.

Sara telling us about her patients who get worms in their vagina’s right before our food came out.

I got the spicy dogzilla combo with an egg on top.

How it looks with no egg.

I hope when you google image search Sara Choi this photo pops up.

Some more shots of the deliciousness.

It’s a wiener party.

The next stop would be Porko Rico BBQ. Get it? Puerto Rico – Porko Rico.

When bae is about to buy you food.

I got the pillager pulled pork. The center was flavorful, but the bun was over bearing and dry. It made it hard to consume after a while and I just ended up eating the center only.

Vinh got the captain porko fries which was the better option among our two orders. They really mastered slow smoked pork here at Porko Rico BBQ.

Last on the list was Meow Meow Cafe, we’ve been here a couple times in the past and it was amazing, but I heard from Alyssa who lives down the street that this place changed ownership and is not as great anymore. Well, she was right…

Anyways, it was cool to put our phones down and just update each other on our lives.

Hayle trying to live in the moment.

Hayle missing bae.

Back on their phones..

Then Shavi arrived and everyone won the lotto. Yay!

February 11, 2015

Free Museum Day | RO Explore

If you’re building a car or saving up for that next louboutin heels, you have to figure out some easy ways to save up money. One of my ways is to go out with a girl only once a year and that one time is on National Museum Day, where museums are free all over the United States. This year I thought the more the merrier so, I took out three guys that I really like and then these two girls just kinda tagged along.

Hayle ready for some cool photos today.

Introducing Becky Hoang, who I went to high school with and will be our creative director, make up artist, hula hooper and etc…

Beautiful AW films/AW Stickers/AWDEM.

Hayle said it was going to be cool to see the 405 from a birds eye view. #notimpressed.

Maybe a little now.

House ceiling goals.

Backyard goals. It sucks that they were renovating the garden and we weren’t allowed to be in the garden.

“What chu talking about, Willis?”

The infamous meme!! Sad how bad my culture is when I recognize a piece of art from a internet meme.

Shmurda dance.

Victory Cup.

Welcome to my crib, MTV Cribs.

Finding lines and such.

I want to feel this free and let it all hang out.

Ryo! I missed him a lot and this was our first day of hanging since he came back from Tokyo Auto Salon.

Abbitt looking to make some profile photos for people.

There’s a Harry Potter reference in this chimney and Derek was looking for it.

Lines baby.

Another boy band cover with Hayle in the middle.

“Look at all these fucks I give”

Becky happened to recognize this building and said she never got to visit this museum before. Lucky for her she was with me and I love being able to experience the first of something with someone.

It was a Bullwinke Show art exhibition!

Lots of very cool drawings of some of the characters in the show.

Live in the moment Becky.

We’re not really friends if I haven’t taken you to a good ice cream spot to eat for the first time.

Blue velvet ice cream.

The tag a longs or if Hayle would say it the “tagalogs”.

People who wear glasses stick together, they know each other feels..

Describing to each other their flavors.

“Damn this spoon taste good”

Whoa, a decent photo of Ms. Glaiza.

It’s like one saw something coming and the other one got hit by it.

Vogue Hayle.

What a beautiful day to go skipping in the grass on Rodeo.

This family took notice of Hayle’s professional Instagram skills and wanted her to take their family photo.

The group got split up after this, some went straight to Flask Mob and the rest went to LACMA.

Becky and I were the lucky ones that got to go to LACMA.

A ton of cool stuff in the contemporary art building. I want to use all of them as a piece in my house.

A giant ass elevator.

It would suck if they all got stuck in this elevator with a guy who is lactose intolerant and just ate ice cream half an hour ago.

I miss the American flag television installation they had here last year.

Richard Serra’s Band. I only know of this sculpture because I took an art class for fun in the summer and he was one of the guys I hard to research about.

The classic “why the fuck are you taking a photo of me?” look.

She got use to me though.

Seriously, hanging around me you get some good Facebook profile photos that you can use on Tindr and maybe it will get you laid or a free meal. Thank me later.

Shout out to Shavi, Derek, Glaiza, Becky, Abbitt and Ryo for making this day so fun. We need to have more adventures like these.

February 4, 2015

Flask Mob LA | January

You can come up with some cool shit with just a tripod and some long exposures.The latest trend on Instagram right now is the late night city photography with a sick emo caption which has always been my favorite thing to shoot. I live in the suburbs where there are no city lights to take photos of and when there are lights at nights it’s usually because of traffic. Luckily for me Flask Mob has monthly meets where they show you around the city and make it so cool shit happens for photo opportunities. I saw last month’s photos and made it a priority for me to go to the next meet up.

There was already a large crowd of people when we got there. Amazing to see so many photographers and people who love to capture cool shit come together.

People already started staging out some cool shots.

Flask Mob was like Halloween all over again, but a lot more acceptable to take photos of people.

There was also this dude who was a professional fire breather. First time seeing something like this and it had me in shock and awe.

I wish I had a better angle for a cool shot.

He was like a Charmander all night.

Holy crap.

He who dances with fire.

This guy is epic.

Next to him was a dude that spun burnt wool and it makes this cool effect.

Right when all the cool shit was about to happen, the fun police came and through the down the biggest “TFTI” on us and proceeded to kick us out.

Good thing no one invited them because they would’ve known we were just going to move anyways.

Straight thug.

This guy is a bad ass. Right when he got on the bridge he gunned it and got chased after the police.

Hayle really confused on where we’re going.

It got a little rowdy.

Look at all of these people!

Some low lows. Check out that rim tuck.

Fire wool spinning on the bridge.

These ladies lit some sparklers to guide us.

I think I want to pick up this hobby.

This is so down.

We were slapping these new HOODRATstuff stickers wherever we went.

The guide.

The DJ.

It was a fucking party.

Not amused.

Smoke bombs is another thing on my list to buy.

Our friends eventually caught up to us.

But them being here won’t stop this party.

Even Van Styles was present.

LAPD eventually blocked us in and didn’t let anyone pass.

It still didn’t stop the FLASK MOB.

Wildest rager ever.

Seriously, no rules at this party. It was like we were at a photography competition where everyone was fighting to get a good photo.

She would win.

Insert poetic caption or alternative rock song.

Be the light at the end of a tunnel.

Eventually LAPD let us out four people at a time. This shit took fucking forever.

We thought this was David Vu’s old car.

LA is a crazy place. It was a fun experience thank you Flask Mob for the good times. I know how tough it is to throw events, so I hope you guys keep at it!

February 3, 2015