anywhere but here

Wino

2011-10-25T21:41:00.001-07:00

So we spent the weekend in Santa Rosa, where we drove basically from one end of wine country to the other, and toured the vampire castle/winery (highly reminiscent of that fantastic and crucial tent pole of popular culture- Kindred: The Embraced, about vampire winemakers in the Napa valley, I highly recommend it, especially if you're a fan of fluffy early 90's hair and absurdism. ANYWAY). And we also went wine tasting, but I've concluded that all reds taste the same to me. Except port. Port is like, fermented maple syrup mixed with Care Bear pee.
We learned many important things on this trip. One: screen doors are often tricky to find in the dark after a wine party.
Two: R2D2 loves to cuddle.
Three: Zim will ruin any group photo, unless you happen to catch him in a rare moment of normalcy.
Four: GI Joe Monopoly is awesome. But I still hate Monopoly.
We managed to avoid hangovers on day 2 and headed for the redwood forest, Bodega Bay, and finished in Petaluma, eating pizza in a former whorehouse. Which I don't have any pictures of, because it's not super exciting without like, Deadwood-type people roaming the halls in period costume.
Oh and five: Antiquing while drunk is terrifying. All of the old stuff takes on a very nightmarish quality.
Oh and six: Do trespass on vineyards. But have Zim with you, so he can charm the security guard. You'll still get kicked out of the vineyard, but you'll get realllly pretty pictures. Of the vineyard. Not of the security guard.
Also, this happened:
Security Guard: You guys like bulls?
Us (trying not to get arrested): Absolutely! Yes! Whatever! (God I hope he's talking about cows)
Security Guard: Okay, follow me!
Us: Okay! (God I hope we don't get chopped up and fed to pigs)
The (as it turns out extremely nice) security guard then had us follow him by car to the farm near the winery, where he introduced us to three very cute, stinky cows. I love California. It's sunny and there are wineries. And bulls.

On a boat!

2011-05-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

Our first trip to Northern CA started with a mini-roadtrip from OAK to Santa Rosa, In-n-Out Burger (milkshakes: gooood. Otherwise a waste for vegetarians), then hiking to Table Rock.

... There was a big rock.

Like a reallly big rock.

I hiked SIX MILES. With relatively minimal whining and (almost) no crying. A lot of cursing.

It was pretty, I guess. If you're into that sort of thing.

I had to spend a lot of time trying to convince Ben and Katie that they are not mountain goats. I failed.

Then. THEN. We spent the night on Katie's dad's sailboat near Oakland. And we took all the standard mediocre tourist pictures except I didn't bring my camera so here are the even more mediocre cameraphone versions.

And then we partied with T-Pain on the boat. And by T-Pain, I mean Luke.

Um, close enough.

We tried to think of what we would name our boats. Luke: Watery Grave. Katie: Tophat Fish (she was very insistent that said boat would have an illustration of a fish wearing a top hat, you know, just in case people didn't get it). Ben: Top Half Fish (my husband, everyone!). Me: Pants-less Disco.

Then we went into the city and pigged out at Baker & Banker. How can you tell if you're in the Bay Area? If their bakeries have Twitter-themed cakes:

And then we walked around and oogled the real estate for awhile:

It was pretty nuts. Even the tiniest details like the doorknobs and outdoor lighting were really ornate.

More wandering:

And we also walked about halfway across the Golden Gate Bridge, which was a bucket-list item for me. I've seen that bridge destroyed by aliens/earthquakes/Jerry Bruckheimer in the movies so many times I just had to see it in person.

This was our house

2011-04-10T21:09:00.001-07:00

Just for a weekend... Sigh...

Geeking out in the Wizarding World

2011-02-13T18:00:00.000-08:00

This is going to be long, sorry...

So my dog's name is Albus, which automatically puts me in the 'too nerdy to function' category of Harry Potter fangirl-dom, but whatever, I'm 30 and no longer care that I may have possibly been a little teary when I walked under this archway for the first time:

Please respect the spell limits. (Too nerdy to function)

So the park far, far exceeded even my wildest expectations, and because it was the day after the superbowl and cloudy and cold, it was empty. Like walk straight on to every ride empty, hang out in the (also empty) pubs and have actual conversations with employees empty. God bless America and their stupid hangover holidays, amirite?!

The Wizarding World is tiny. It's 3 rides and 1 street. It's so small there's only 1 set of restrooms (and Moaning Myrtle lives in them and constantly flushes the toilets). My family are avid theme park tourists and big Disney fans, yet after about an hour we unanimously agreed that despite it's size, the Wizarding World blows Disney completely out of the water.

I have no idea who that guy is.

First off-- the feature ride, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, is amazing. Because to get to the ride, you have to enter here...

... and wind around and inside through Hogwarts, and it looks exactly like the movies and books. This pretty much melted my (already mostly melted) brain, so all of my pictures are dark and wobbly because my hands were shaking.

The walls throughout are covered in paintings, and well over half of the paintings were moving and talking. I expected that they'd just be video screens in frames, which they are, but they've done something subtle with the screens and it's seamless and crazy real. I stood in front of one for awhile and thought it was just a painting, but then the subject blinked and cleared her throat. Most of the paintings have conversations and enter and exit each others' frames.

Okay so this is a really bad picture and I'm about to get crazy nerdy(nerdier), but:

It's Helga Hufflepuff, and she has her cup! In the single rider line you pass the four portraits of the heads of the houses, which are kind of in a corner and hard to see but to me these portraits were a Big Deal (and are probably about to be a big deal in the last movie). They're arguing about something and then lapse into still silence, which is why a lot of people in the line seemed to miss them. Or, I am the only one who cared (do you have second-hand embarrassment for me yet?).

Then you walk through Dumbledore's office which also has the pensieve, walls of glass-front cabinets full of little instruments, and Dumbledore shows up and starts to prepare you for the Forbidden Journey.

At one point you wind up in a classroom so full of stuff to look at that nobody pays attention to Hermione, who shows up with Harry and Ron and tries to explain the ride. I rode the Forbidden Journey four times and I can't tell you what the plot of the ride is. Ron tries to cast a spell and makes it 'snow' (foam) over the people in line.

And then the fat lady's portrait welcomes you to the Gryffindor common room:

And after about half a mile of walking (did I mention at one point there were greenhouses?) we finally end up in the Great Hall (floating candles and all) and are strapped into this bench/open car-thing for the ride. It's a combination flight simulator and tour through the castle-- first Hermione casts a flying spell (green smoke fills your car), then you enter the flight simulator, following Harry and Ron on their brooms zooming around outside Hogwarts, then Hagrid lets a dragon loose and it chases you, then you're pulled out of the flight simulator into the actual castle, where the dragon breathes fire (hot steam) into your car, then spiders spit poison on you and then you're back in the flight simulator playing quidditch and OMG IT'S DRACO! HI DRACO! and then dementors suck your breath and take your picture and project it onto steam or something and the Whomping Willow kicks your ass and you're laughing and screaming and maybe peeing a little and then it's over. About half of us got sick. And then we went again.

And then we had butterbeer in the Hog's Head!

It's basically fancy cream soda with a foamy butterscotch/marshmallow head. Totally addictive; we had 3 that day alone and lamented the lack of butterbeer for the remainder of the non-wizard trip.

The Hog's Head and the Three Broomsticks are sort of inside the same building, but the Three Broomsticks is bigger and serves pub food, and the Hog's Head is gloomier and serves beer including the Hog's Head microbrew (it's okay). Beer is another reason why Harry Potter land is awesome.

The theming throughout the park is crazy consistent, even more so than Disney's Animal Kingdom which up until now was our favorite park theme-wise. There are no external brands or real-world corporate logos anywhere-- no Coke or Pepsi served in the pubs, for instance-- no 'this-ride-is-sponsored-by' nonsense, etc. I bought a scarf and signed my receipt with a feather quill (just feathers glued to a pen, but such a cute touch!). In particular, the shops sell all of the candy and most of the joke and magical merchandise referenced in the books.

Like sneakoscopes and remembralls:

And Honeydukes is wow:

Chocolate Frogs:

Also chocolate wands, chocolate cauldrons, Fizzing Whizzbees (bee-shaped chocolate covered Pop Rocks, I think) and Bertie Bot's Every Flavour Beans.

The street is lined with shops (some real, some fake), the highlights being Ollivander's and Dervish and Banges. Ollivander's is straight-up childhood wish-fulfillment.

They let about 20 people into the shop at a time, and then the shop employee (fully in character as Ollivander) picks a guest out of the audience and reenacts the entire scene from the first movie/book where Harry gets his wand. Of course--of COURSE-- he chooses me, even though I'm standing right next to an 11-year-old in full wizard costume. I begged him to choose a kid instead. He says "Oh, I believe I did." It was hilarious and embarrassing. I had to do a few 'spells' as instructed (causing it to thunder and lightning and ring a bell) and after a few tries I ended up with the right wand, and then a golden spotlight lit me up while a choir sang. About half the audience was filming/taking pictures of the whole thing. Urgh...

Then you can go next door to Dervish and Banges and buy your wand,

and your Monster Book of Monsters,

and the latest issue of the Quibbler (an employee gave me Luna's glasses to wear; they were sparkly).

You can mail letters from the Owl Post stamped with a Hogsmeade address.

The Dragon Challenge is a big double rollercoaster with a Triwizard Tournament theme:

You have a choice between 2 coasters (the Hungarian Horntail or the Chinese Fireball) and each has a slightly different track. This is probably the most intense ride in the entire park (even more so than the Hulk coaster in the superhero section of Universal) so I could only ride it once without horfing.

I like her shirt:

This baby Harry was too quick to photograph properly, but ACK SO CUTE:

I didn't get a picture of the 50-something gentleman wearing a Bellatrix shirt, but trust me, he was there.

The employees of Hogsmeade/Hogwarts are also a huge asset for the park. They are well-cast and clearly still really, really excited about their jobs. Most were making heroic attempts at British accents. It was adorable and fun. Highlights include the cashier in Honeydukes who told me and my fellow Slytherin brother-in-law that "We don't serve your kind in here" (we were wearing scarves), the employees in Ollivander's (many of whom should enter the beard/mustache Olympics), and the Hogwarts' students, who stayed stubbornly in character even when someone didn't get the joke and loudly remarked that the Slytherin kids were rude. Actually, it would be great to be cast as a Slytherin. You could never get in trouble for having a bad day.

A few interesting omissions: there's absolutely no reference to Voldemort or the Death Eaters in the park, short of a Voldemort hand puppet for sale in one of the shops (a hand puppet??). House elves also don't seem to merit a mention (thank God). And if you want to buy any Hufflepuff merchandise (not sure why anyone would, har har) you are out of luck.

And a huge thanks to my awesome husband and in-laws, who put up with me and my unreasonable fan-induced hysteria for the entire day. You guys are the best.

Oh and I have more pictures. Of course I have more pictures. They are here.

Secret Beach lava pools

2011-01-21T13:28:00.000-08:00

So when we were in Kauai in March 2010 for my sister's awesome wedding, our second-best experience of the trip was roaming Secret Beach.

The surf was incredibly high that day, so we weren't able to go in the water. Imagine our surpirse when we visited the beach again in October, and it was fully twice the size from our first visit. The best part: the low surf uncovered miles of lava fields full of perfect, crystal-clear pools for swimming, or in my case, shrieking about fish.

FISHES!

We hiked for about a mile out onto the shelf.

We basically spent the afternoon hanging out here like it was a hotel hot tub. There was also a waterfall falling from the cliffs at our back, because of course there's a perfect waterfall tumbling into the warm crystal waters on the deserted island of my dreams. And then after that we rode our unicorns down the powdery white beach and had afternoon tea with Care Bears, because Kauai is ridiculous and perfect.

Sadly the pictures of the waterfall (and the unicorns) didn't turn out, but here's the beach with the Kilauea lighthouse in the background:

And here's the beach in March. The lava pools are right where the big (20 foot) waves were crashing.

I wanted to get my picture taken in this cave under the red cliffs, but the cave was full of HUGE yellow spiders, so this is me running away from the cave:

Lost in Oahu

2010-11-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

From Oahu

Some pictures from our very short (less than 48 hour) stay in Oahu. This is Hanauma Bay. It's basically perfect. Ben snorkeled, but they made us watch a video about reef preservation prior to entering the beach featuring lots of footage of snarling, satanic Moray eels, so NO THANKS.

Instead, I loafed on the beach with my depressing book about morally compromised milkmaids (Tess of d'Urbervilles yeeeaaahhhh!) and took time-lapse pictures of the increasingly crowded beach:

The view from our hotel room near Waikiki beach at sunrise:

So we only had about 1.5 days in Oahu, and naturally we decided to spend almost an entire day searching for the wreckage of Oceanic 815 because I have a lot of trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality and Ben really really wanted to find it. Supposedly Disney left it somewhere on the island. I used all my (extremely limited) interweb-fu to try and find a definite location, but all we had were some outdated Google satellite photos and obsession to fuel the journey.

Well, obsession and shave ice to fuel the journey:

We ended up walking over 2 miles up the beach where they shot the pilot, which was lovely and almost completely deserted:

But we never found the plane. We even drove up an access road at the Dillingham airfield on a tip from a local, but security fences stopped us before we got very far, and another local said it had been moved and/or sucked through a tear in the space/time continuum.

The second day was spent driving almost completely around the island before we boarded our evening flight to Kauai. We'd planned to see more beaches and a few parks in the interior, but this proved impossible due to Oahu having the worst traffic of anywhere we've been so far in the world. Worse than Bangkok, worse than Tokyo, even worse than L.A., which up until now had held the prize for making us crazy.

But here's a pretty view from the Pali lookout:

And it's hard to complain when the drive looks like this:

Waikiki zombie thanks you for your time:

LIH

2010-10-21T09:58:00.001-07:00

Why are we leaving?!

Kalalau Trail

2010-10-20T22:53:00.001-07:00

Some pictures of our short hike to this beach:

The final count on the board was 85, so we didn't go in the water.

The hike out:

The Na'Pali coast:

The beach:

Guava trees were everywhere, to the point where we kept slipping on squashed guavas on the trail.

They smell like pink lemonade.

The beach at the trailhead had every single warning sign we'd seen, all at once. In addition to drowning you, the ocean will also take your wallet and call you bad names.

Dad's Heaven

2010-10-19T08:49:00.001-07:00

Costco in Kauai

Petite Trianon

2010-09-30T21:19:00.000-07:00

So Louis XV decided that a palace and the Grand Trianon weren't big enough to house all of his various mistresses, so he built the Petite Trianon, but then he died, and Marie Antoinette moved in and turned it into EuroDisney, the end.

My history degree was worth EVERY PENNY.

I don't really know what she's guilty of besides being wildly insensitive, so I'm going to say that based on our ramble around the Petite Trianon that she and I would have got along famously and I so, so wish we could have braided each other's powdered wigs while listening to music in her mini-concert hall.

You know, the pavilion next to the faux burned-out church:

The one flanked by likenesses of her highness as a sphinx, shaved-off nose and all:

Maybe the French beheaded her for being tacky.

The grounds were awesomely arranged and full of hidden little fun things-- ponds, streams, bridges, swings, dovecotes, topiary, but left to grow sort of wild and tangly. We were the only people in the gardens all afternoon. Nothing has been changed from when Marie designed it herself as a playground for her children.

The underground grotto (a little bench inside. And spiders.):

And then you come upon the Temple of Love, where Cupid is turning a club-like weapon into his bow, which is a weapon of love, or something. I don't think the metaphor is very well thought-out but hey, it's Rococo:

A view of the Petite Trianon from the temple and a very obliging swan:

Just a quaint little hunting lodge

2010-09-26T20:57:00.000-07:00

So when Louis XIV wanted to get away from it all he would retreat to the Grand Trianon, which is a giant pink marble building originally designed as a hunting lodge. But because the French do it right, this 'hunting lodge' has a ballroom and gardens which (at the time anyway) were changed out and re-landscaped weekly or to match his mistresses outfits or whatever.

Gilded curlicued 'barbed wire' at the gate, very rustic:

Lots of gaming and hunting-themed rooms in the Trianon. It's like the ultimate parents' basement. The gaming hall:

And the billiards room (I actually really, really want this room):

Versailles Interiors

2010-09-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

The Grand Palace at Versailles is basically the biggest physical monument to overcompensation in existence.

Case in point: this is me standing under the largest canvas oil painting in the world in the Grand Ballroom. It's literally hundreds of pieces of canvas pieced together to form the ceiling. The room is bigger than a football field, and I am shorter than the fireplace.

The Queen's bedroom (top picture, overexposed) features pink feathers and peacocks and fringe-y gilded everything. Those are Marie Antoinette's linens of her own design. In her defense, if I had to give birth in front of 30-odd people, I'd want the decor to provide some distraction.

By contrast the King's bedroom, with it's pink and white ostrich feathers and minty green brocade, is demure and understated:

Recently restored ceiling frescoes in the Hall of Mirrors:

Marie's great-great-grandfather-in-law (I think??) Louis XIV had either an excess of self-esteem or a serious lack of it. The entire length of the Hall of Mirrors and the ceilings in almost every room are devoted to his various victories and General Awesomeness. He also liked to have his likeness depicted as various especially powerful Greek gods. That's him in the bas-relief below, trampling his enemies underfoot and once again Being Awesome. It's easy to spot him in paintings and frescoes throughout the palace and Trianons, as he's the only dude with waist-length Weird Al hair.

Versailles - Grand Palace

2010-09-18T18:47:00.000-07:00

Versailles is my favorite place in the world and one of the only non-fictional places I go in my head when I need to escape reality.

Just go. See all the different buildings and gardens, then pick a bedroom and hide and hope nobody finds you and you can live there forever with the headless ghost of Marie Antoinette.

Last time we were in Versailles we only paid for the Grand Palace, and it was the highlight of our entire European backpacking tour. This time we paid to get into the Petite and Grand Trianons, including Marie Antoinette's gardens and fake village, which gets a whole separate post because she built a fake village. It was so worth every penny. We spent over 9 hours in the buildings and gardens and lingered so long in the main palace that they had to shoo us out as the sun was setting. We even considered going back for a second day, just to tour the main gardens again for free.

We got to the palace super early, and skipped all the (already crowded) buildings and went directly to the gardens, which were all misty and completely deserted. By the time we made it back to the Grand Palace at the end of the day, it was also deserted while the gardens were crowded. We were the only people in the Trianons all day. It was fantastic.

The gardens of the main palace are an Alice in Wonderland-esque tangled mess of trees and fountains. Every so often a Greek god looms out of the green.

Over the past 5 years Versailles has been undergoing a massive renovation. They'd already restored the paintings and fixtures in the the Hall of Mirrors (2nd picture) and were working out the gold leaf on the exteriors when we got there (see the roof on the far right of the picture below, to see what it looked like before the gilding):

Obligatory Diana statue

Musée d'Orsay

2010-09-13T19:36:00.000-07:00

The Orsay is an 1890's train station made over into a museum containing late 18th/early 20th century art and every fantasy I've ever had of being a Victorian-era fancy lady. I mean seriously, look at this clock. Just look at it. It's about 3 stories tall. Each of the horizontal struts in this picture is a separate floor of the museum. When the sun shines through the fogged glass you can see figures drifting all ghost-like behind it.

So you can be a Victorian Fancy Lady, or, um, Catwoman:

She was walking around the museum with her equally decked-out leather daddy, like a pair of comic book super-villains on holiday.

Paintings on top of (apparently less important) paintings.

And we went into sugar shock in the pink-frosted cupcake faux-Rococo-fresco'd glitterpony sparklekittens Grand Ballroom:

This was the pinkest room I have ever seen in my life. I thought I'd love it, but the overall effect was kind of disturbing.

The view from the roof:

From Musee d' Orsay

Learning to pronounce 'Tuileries' and 'Orangerie'

2010-09-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

One year ago we were in Paris. So now it's time to quit procrastinating and pair the pictures with words before I forget everything.

The Tuileries are located outside the Louvre and are lovely. One especially awesome feature of the Tuileries is the abundance of heavy green chairs, which unlike in Seattle (where the meth addicts will steal anything metal that isn't bolted down) were unchained and free to drag about the park. People had grouped them around the fountains and in circles for conversation. It was super relaxing in the busiest tourist area of Paris.

O hai Diana.

The hedge maze outside the Louvre.

Note the Eiffel Tower in the background.

The Musée de l'Orangerie is located within the park. It's actually the old storage space for the palace's orange trees and was converted into an art gallery in the 1800s specifically for a series of huge Monet paintings titled Nymphéas. Unlike the Louvre next door, the rooms in the Orangerie were specifically constructed around the paintings according to Monet's direction.

We've been fortunate to see Monets all over the world, from Chicago to Hong Kong, but seeing the paintings as the artist intended was an incredible experience. The Orangerie is tiny-- only two small floors, more like an art gallery with a basement full of Picassos-- but we spent over an hour just in the two large fishbowl-shaped rooms that held the Nymphéas, which are pure white and lit only by gauzy skylights. It's a fairly disorienting experience because the exits are hidden (the one between the two panels in the picture above was an emergency exit only) so the room is full of tourists walking in circles searching for a way out.

And then the basement is full of Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec and pre-Cubist Picassos (below). I actually like these a lot more than the stuff we saw in Chicago, they seem softer and more emotional.

Everyone knows penguins are tools of the Empire

2010-08-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

(Seattle)

At the Mountains of Madness

2010-08-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

(Seattle/R'lyeh)

Bubble-licious

2010-08-16T18:30:00.000-07:00

It was 94 degrees yesterday. We located the Gum Wall by smell.

(Post Alley, Seattle)

Chicago Zombies

2010-06-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

We've probably taken hundreds of pictures of the 'bean' statue at Millennium Park, but I think this is the best one. Or at least the most exciting. The elderly ladies attending the gospel festival at the amphitheater next door did not agree.

However, Chaplin Zombie approves.

Mommy Zombie.

Beware the anklebiters.

Love never dies.

We love Michigan Avenue, but it can be really touristy.

Zombie chasing brain on a stick, bride, groom, and maid-of-honor zombies, nurse zombie, and cheerleader zombie dating hipster zombie.

Following the zombie horde was a small ragtag band of zombie outbreak hunters and survivalists. Sadly, most did not make it through the afternoon without joining the hordes of slavering undead.

Her shirt says 'I play for keeps'. His says 'Come and get me, I taste good'.

Baby-eating zombies, chef zombie, clown zombie.

Starbucks iced tea, to wash down the brains.

Note the banner in the background. The gospel crowd and 3 separate wedding parties seeking to photograph Millennium Park sans bloody horde were not amused.

Lots of military/law enforcement and nurse/doctor/surgeon zombies. Those of us who have seen too many horror movies know these brave souls are the first to go.

Katie and I facing certain death:

And what zombie gathering is complete without Shaun of the Dead and Zombie Ed?

Mahaulepu (Happy Place)

2010-04-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

Mahaulepu is perfect. It's going on my list (along with Versailles) of places I go to in my head when I need to check out of reality for a bit.

We would've hiked this place for days.

Ben contemplates the sea:

Steve contemplates the sea:

Let's Get Lost

2010-04-14T19:26:00.000-07:00

From Waimea and Awa'awa'puhi Hike

Day 1 after my sister's amazing perfect Kauai wedding found us road-tripping in strange new places and getting lost and sunburned in the jungle.

Drove up to Waimea canyon in our teeny rental car, the wretched and angry Nissan Versa.

It was a Sunday, so all the access roads were open and hunters were everywhere. Saw a guy in full fatigues with a compound bow just walking by the side of the road. I was too scared to take pictures.

It took us almost 2 hours just to get to the 'official' canyon view area because our car was so angry, and because we stopped at every single viewpoint.

And I had to hop about in the red dirt and make Ben take pictures of me.

The actual viewpoint is a paved parking lot crawling with noisy families. We are mean old codgers who are easily irritated by children, so we fled without taking any pictures.

The road continued upwards so we followed it, and is became so incredibly full of potholes that we had to drive under 5 mph to avoid wrecking the tires. (This was not the last time we wished we'd rented a Jeep). Then we found this place:

And it also had a sign (no pictures sorry) that said 'dangerous cliff hiking'. Of course we got excited. But I hate hiking (or anything more strenuous than walking the dog). Ben convinced me to walk for 30 minutes, and if we didn't see anything, we'd head back.

Okay, fine.

I'm a city girl, and will always prefer cities over nature any day, but this is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. It even smelled amazing (tuberose or something), and was so quiet that we could hear roosters crowing and goats bleating from across the valleys on either side of the ridge (only in Kauai can you be miles from civilization with a barnyard soundtrack).

I do wish, however, that we'd remembered sunscreen.

... And water.

I blame the guy we ran into just about exactly 30 minutes in, who swore up and down that the end of the trail was just 40 minutes ahead.

2 hours later, we made it:

The scale of this was insane. Note the tiny speck in the photo below. That is a helicopter.

So we get back to the condo and I started Googling our hike, and discovered that we had started at 4500 feet above sea level and hiked down more than 1500 ft to the viewpoint. And then back up. 7 miles total. I am proud of myself, which is sad, because at least half my friends are highly capable fitness-minded people who update their status regularly with insane running-type stuff like 'Just completed 16 miles and I feel great!' and I did not feel great after that hike, I felt stabby.

Stupid birdie stuff

2010-04-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

When I see birds I get like this:

I am totally going to seriously take up birdwatching after I turn 30 and no longer care about what my husband thinks of me. But I can't help it if all the best Kauai pictures have birds in them, so consider this the beginning of a slippery slope that can only end in horror, pain, and a hobby derided only slightly less than stamp collecting.

I'm not even going to name this bird because nobody cares except me and it will preserve my street cred. Anyway, this photo was taken at Mahaulepu Beach, which is one of the most ridiculously beautiful places we've ever seen, but I'm going to show you photos of little gray birds instead.

Same type of bird, different beach. Secret Beach! 20 foot waves on this day.

This is Moku'ae'ae Islet wildlife sanctuary with some Hawaiian geese in the foreground. The little white specks on the islet are albatross. Albatrosses? Albatrossi. Anyway.

Here's one in flight by the Kilauea lighthouse:

I shall love him and squeeze him and name him George.

And the requisite Kauai Rooster Portrait:

The horrors of modern art

2010-02-14T17:51:00.000-08:00

Here's some of the commissioned public art we saw scattered around various Paris sights. Unlike most of the illegal street art which is often gritty, spontaneous and therefore more intriguing, the commissioned stuff we saw was never quite as successful and often intrusive. Like the Giant Foil Heads encircling the prettiest fountain in the Tulieries:

That's the Louvre in the background.

I hope you like your public parks with 20-foot disco balls:

Actually I think every setting could benefit from the addition of a disco ball.

Versailles was both the worst and best place for this phenomenon. A bunch of artists were commissioned to add their own touch to the most opulent palace and grounds in Western Europe, and it was largely hideous. I tried to angle most pictures to exclude the wrinkly orange naked man sculptures, giant purple balls on sticks (hmmm), and mobiles made out of boring stuff like string and sheet metal.

This sculpture however, is freaking genius. It was about the size of a Barbie doll, standing on the top of a pillar elevated so the statue is looking out over the new $5 million gold-plated gates at the exit from Versailles. Romantic, lonely, etc etc.

Most Greek statues look like Michael Cera

2010-02-09T18:01:00.000-08:00

Ben fangirl-ing in front of the Mona Lisa. This was the closest we were able to get.

Upon first glance I thought this was a bust of a cocker spaniel. Sideburn Sensei.

I'm in ur woodz, stealin ur bowz

Cupids are terrifying. That being said, I think this painting is kind of hot.

We were the only people in the Versailles gardens at 8am. Posing contest!

I've really got to work on my contrapasso.

The Abbott Suger would disapprove:

"Hey Suger, I have a confession to make..."

"...I clubbed a baby hydra to death, and I LIKED it!"

Sad Panda.

And then I realized that most Greek statues bear a striking resemblance to Michael Cera.

Paris Street Art

2010-02-03T23:00:00.000-08:00

One thing about Paris that was drastically different from our first visit 9 years ago is the prevalence of street art. Ben's theory is that Parisians are surrounded by and inured to a conventional beauty representative of an aristocracy that no longer exists, and as a result are constantly looking for ways to subvert or reinvent the definition of art. I think he's a beautiful genius, but anyway. Or maybe street art is more noticeable when you're a gawky tourist and the art is attached to or in front of buildings that the average American associates with fairytales, royalty, and other such exotica that we are so deprived of in our condo-blighted Mall of Americaness. ANYWAY. Sorry. Done now. Onward...

So almost every major tourist site we visited had a modern art installation, whether it was authorized or not. The majority is of the crude 1980's tagging variety which Ben hates, but I secretly think it's kind of apocalyptic and awesome when someone scrawls all over pretty white marble. Let's start with the tagging:

Repeat ad infinitum. But look up in the lefthand corner!

It's INVADER!

INVADER is super prolific. We found a lot of his stuff without even trying, and a lot more we couldn't photograph because it was too high up or zooming past as we rode the trains.

Most of his stuff is little tile space invaders, but he also uses bricks, legos, and plastic milk crates.

The lock thingy at the top is part of a large spontaneous installation that runs the length of a beautiful pedestrian-only bridge between the Louvre and Orsay museums.

It's a cheesy but photogenic tourist thing: write or carve the name of yourself and your loved ones on a lock and attach it to the bridge, and you will reunite one day in Paris or some such nonsense. I do hope Jacobo and Susana are still together, because their names are lovely.

Rough translation: Something pushed me to wander the streets

Will there be a tomorrow?

Cathedral-y Goodness

2009-12-16T22:00:00.000-08:00

We were overwhelmed by the crowds at Notre Dame and decided to approach it from sidestreets rather than the super busy (and architeturally less interesting) entrance.

Of course we got lost.

But the cathedral is so much larger than the surrounding buildings that eventually it sort of loomed out of the haze, like a less horrifying (and properly Euclidean) tower of R'lyeh.

We'd been here before, but that was nine years ago, and this time there was a choir practicing inside, which made everything that much more amazing.

And then I had to freak out for awhile at this awesome Romero-esque interpretation of Lazarus:

And outside, a freaking geisha wandering around in full traditional dress.

Japan-happy seriously rules my life, even in the capital of Western civilization. It's a sign.

Parisian Miscellany

2009-11-12T17:16:00.000-08:00

It's been 9 years, and I forgot the scale of things on European monuments. Everything is HUGE. Hong Kong was tall, Tokyo was vast, but in Paris even the doorways dwarf elephants.

Overheard fratty-looking tourists who refused to be photographed in front of the Arc de Triomphe because there were "too many huge naked dude" sculptures attached to it.

Ben was not threatened.

It's really difficult to express what being in Paris is really like. So many travelers pass it over as passe, too expensive, etc... and yeah, it is, but once you're there those things don't matter in the slightest. I felt the same way 9 years ago on our first trip through Europe. It's just far and away the best place we've ever been. We've been to more interesting places (Japan) but Paris has the best of everything: best food, best architecture, best living, best blah blah blah. Just go.

My thesis is supported by this:

Art nouveau drinking fountain.

Dosewallips (where are we again?)

2009-10-26T11:11:00.001-07:00

Olympic National Park (I think)

2009-10-24T17:17:00.001-07:00

Baguettes vs. Deep Fried Chicken Feet

2009-10-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

FOOD PICTURES! FYI Taiwan cuisine is the Eastern squid-enhanced version of British food. Let's begin with a basic breakfast in Paris. I was on my usual fervent search for tea. We ended up at a place called 'Paul':

From Foods of the World

That's crepes with fresh jam, 4-cheese piping hot quiche, 2nd best tea ever, strawberry tart. We found out later that Paul is a chain. A CHAIN. Like Starbucks, but without the hockey puck croissants and burnt coffee and terrible music and Walmart plastic decor. Jealousssss.

Rewind to May. Here is the basic breakfast consumed whilst in Taiwan:

So that is like, a breakfast burrito sorta-thing. Sweaty tortilla wrapping, velveeta, and egg. Note the efficient manner of wrapping the plate in plastic to save on dish soap!

We do a lot of snacking to save on restaurant meals. Here is the basic picnic assembled while in Paris:

That's another quiche and a raspberry tart as well. And the Eiffel Tower was there too, if you're into that sort of thing.

However, this does not compare to the epic snackage achieved in Taiwan. Check the local 7-11:

Almond Fish (from California!)

Thousand-year eggs. These are eggs which are kept packed in straw for so long that the inside turns to jelly. They are then soaked in a bucket of tea and left on the counter of every 7-11 in the country. We could actually locate 7-11s by smell.

Wash that down with some bamboo juice:

And after one of those eggs and the anchovy almonds you'll need a mint to get your sexy back:

Sugar fixing in Paris: gelato sculpted into a rose.

We spent most of our time spending a fortune at Laduree (the pastry shop created by God to end wars):

That's a raspberry some-sort-of-thing with lychees and rose petal cream, washed down with best tea ever.

Or maybe just macarons:

I can't really explain them (don't taste or look anything like the coconut macaroons found in the US) but I'm pretty sure they cure cancer.

One day in Taiwan we awoke and asked our hosts what to do for breakfast. Katie responded "I think we're just going to grab a Baked Sponge."

The packaging was the purest example of truth in advertising. You could certainly Feel the Moistured, and it was in fact of a Shallow Plate Shape With Good Portion.

Why?!

2009-10-04T13:01:00.001-07:00

Found in Heathrow airport. I've probably read this headline aloud 200 times using different inflections and regional accents in a desperate attempt to gain understanding. Are they referring to the country of Jordan? Is there a store selling Jordan Hate-mob trash? What does the buxom lady have to do with it? Why is the lady holding a book? Well, at least she's reading...

Hong Kong Heaven

2009-07-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

Most of our Hong Kong adventures revolved around the same theme: how to see the city from various different angles so as to take pictures of the futuristic awesomeness.

From HK and Taiwan 2009

On the day it finally stopped raining we decided to hike up to the Mid-Levels --everything in HK has a vauguely sci-fi name: the Mid-Levels, Repulse Bay, the New Territories-- and take the sweaty Peak Tram to the top of Victoria Peak and view the city from the highest point on the island.

It was one of the more expensive things we did while in Hong Kong, about $15 USD each to take the tram roundtrip, but well worth it. The tram chugs up the mountain at a sharp angle through the ritzy Mid-Levels, and is just very 19th century and retro-awesome in general (it's been in operation since early colonial times). At the top of the peak there's a mall (of course), numerous restaurants, and awesome views of what (to me anyway) is hands-down the most arrestingly gorgeous city in the world.

So if the Mid-Levels (the skyscrapers directly below the top of the Peak) are where the very rich live, then I'm pretty sure this where comic book supervillans go on vacation. Perfect panoramic views of the city on the right side, and hilly jungle/deserted beaches on the left:

In which we very nearly meet our Maker...

2009-06-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

Okay well not really. But we DID take a gondola up a series of crazy mountains during a thunderstorm!

The only thing we really, really wanted to do in Hong Kong was take this gondola across Lantau island to a mountaintop monastery, which is home to the largest outdoor Buddha statue in the world. The monsoon of the previous 2 days was so intense that they actually shut down the gondola, so this was the first (yet also extremely rainy and windy) day we decided to go for it.

Lantau is a 30 minute, extremely scenic train ride from downtown HK. It looks like Hawaii-- waterfalls, beaches, monkeys*, the usual assorted jungly goodness-- but with supertall apartment buildings and an international airport.

It was raining so hard when we arrived at the station that we had to sprint to the gondola launch, and the station attendant advised us that the gondola may have to shut down again, and we actually debated giving up altogether. I'm so glad we didn't!

Of course, none of our pictures really turned out from the inside of rain-streaked windows, but you get the general idea. The ride itself was about 90 minutes roundtrip, silently gliding hundreds of feet above the aforementioned jungly goodness, occasionally lurching violently as the thunderstorm gained strength. We still wonder what would've happened if they had to stop the gondola-- would we have been left hanging? Rescued by helicopter? Plummet to our deaths? Hmm.

It was raining so hard by the time we got to the summit we couldn't even get the camera out for fear of ruining it, and approaching the Buhdda (still about a 30 min hike away from the station) seemed rather damp and anticlimactic after such a unique experience. That, and the monastery had recently been sterilized by capitalism:

The ride back was hella intense. The gondola was swaying harder than ever, and visibility gradually reduced to this:

... and it went on for so long we got bored and had to amuse ourselves with narcissism:

Ben has perfected his Blue Steel after years of practice, but I've really got to work on my Le Tigre.

*I'm aware that there are no monkeys in Hawaii, but there are monkeys in the Hawaii of my dreams. And unicorns. So shut it.

Blade Runner

2009-06-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong is the 2nd most beautiful city I've seen after Venice. Picture the most futuristic sci-fi Cowboy Bebop megacity rising out of steaming, verdant jungle, and that's pretty much Hong Kong.

From HK and Taiwan 2009

I'd probably rank the most beautiful cities in order from Venice, Hong Kong, Paris, and then miscellaneous European capitals. Osaka's probably ugliest, followed by Bangkok, then Tokyo (Japan is hideous for the most part, but the temples and parks photograph really well).

Hong Kong is most entertaining at night, when all the markets and good restaurants open and the people-watching becomes more diverse. There were so many people out at night, even on weekdays, that we really aren't sure when anybody sleeps. Even the little kids had later bedtimes than us.

First up is the flower market. Can anyone tell me what these are? The blossoms were larger than my head:

Pitcher plants! They eat bugs! Sacred to something or other, because they were everywhere:

There was also a massive pet market, but it was depressing to see animals of all sorts (including little black squirrels, myna birds, monkeys, etc) crammed into mostly tiny, filthy cages looking both mournful and frantic. I get the feeling that this street gets inspected a lot--nobody wanted me taking pictures. The fish guys didn't seem to mind though, and the (live) fish market was amazing. Any possible type of fish/live plants/coral was available here:

I had some Black Florest Cake, Ben had the America Heavy Cheese Cake. The apricot cakes are for birthdays and symbolize longevity, which I only know b/c we always keep a list of perplexing things to Google when we get home:

Monsoon

2009-06-14T13:56:00.000-07:00

We spent the first few days in Hong Kong exploring our neighborhood (Kowloon/Nathan Rd) by scampering from doorway to doorway to avoid the incessant downpour and trying to find indoorsy things to do. Our options were pretty much limited to malls and museums. The malls looked like all other malls the world over with the exception of a couple gems:

And the art museum was laughably awful... I'm sure we saw things of cultural and historical significance, but the layout was uninspired at best and how many faded scrolls can a person really look at before horfing with boredom? I was hella excited about the Takashi Murakami exhibit, but for some reason the curators decided that all of the plastic LV-logo emblazoned displays were so priceless that a peircing alarm would sound anytime someone approached them, so the entire (crowded) room was ringing incessantly the entire time we were in there. I guess in a way that's appropriate for Murakami, since most of his stuff is both gleeful and unsettling. Case in point:
So then we decided to take the Star ferry from our neighborhood (Kowloon) to downtown HK, and fortunately it cleared long enough to get some decent pictures of the waterfront:

From HK and Taiwan 2009

Free of infectious disease since 2009!

2009-06-09T23:50:00.000-07:00

See, I even have a certificate from the Japanese government, acquired during our connection to Hong Kong. I love that we were only in Japan for 2 hours, yet the extreme Japanese-ness of the situation still managed to make this one of the most memorable events of the trip. They basically held us hostage for 40 minutes (Pilot announcement: "Stay seated, and lower your windowshades. No talking and no pictures please while health officials take your temperatures with a thermographic device") while hazmat-suited officials inspected the aircraft. It was so awesomely paranoid and slightly apocalyptic that Ben practically had to physically restrain me from hugging the nearest one as officials pawed through the luggage of the woman sitting across the aisle (she had unfortunately been truthful on her form and stated she was taking medicine for a cough). I so, so desperately wished I knew enough about my (new!) camera to have secretly snapped more pictures (it flashes and makes happy tinkly noises, which prevents me from taking pictures of strangers and posting them on the internet, dang it).

We had business class all the way to HK, and I have never seen planes this empty or airports this... paranoid. The swine flu extravaganza is still in high gear, and it was rare to see anyone (including the flight crews) without masks. Signs everywhere repeatedly assure travellers that 'this bathroom/elevator/turnstile is being disinfected every 30 minutes'. This madness continued in HK, especially in the subways.

This was the first trip that was nearly rained out. Fortunately, this gives me the opportunity to make awesome fashion statements:

And to feast upon Chinese baked goods in our hotel room during mid-afternoon thunderstorms:

Ah, Cream-Filled Collon, how I missed you.

Adventures in Narita, part 2

2009-05-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

From Narita Japan 2008

So Narita had this one super-charming street full of little traditional shops, sushi bars, etc etc, all leading up to one of the nicer temple complexes that we have ever seen. We spent several hours here in the early morning before our flight and maybe saw a quarter of it-- the grounds were vast, with little hiking trails through the forest and ancient cherry trees and little statue-guys. And turtles.

I do love little statue-guys.

And temple-y things.

Please note my culturally significant outfit: capris, leggings UNDER the capris, socks, and Converse. In Japan, multiple layers of leg adornment are de rigeur. (It was also freezing)

Some pictures from the street outside the temple:

Sakura (cherry blossom festival) window displays

This place had barrels full of black writhing live eels

NINJA STORE!

Hail Xenu!

2009-04-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

Guess where we went?

So we spent a couple days visiting a friend in Los Angeles. This friend has an actual grown-up job and has a gorgeous apartment in a building that resembles a 4-star hotel (with a doorman and everything) so of course we spent the majority of the weekend demanding guided tours of the city and making him watch movies about sparkly teenage vampires. It was awesome.
We found all this art within 1 square block near his apartment... plus dozens more that I wasn't able to photograph properly out the car window:

From Los Angeles April 2009

Here's an artist starting on a wall:

The same wall the next day:

We spent the first day at the Brewery, an artist's collective of live/work lofts built in and around an old brick factory. The art for the most part was pretty spectacular, and it was really interesting to see the workshops and living spaces of the artists. Kevin Flint was the favorite artist we met who had not only some of the coolest cyberpunk/sci-fi inspired work but had also modded his entire living space to match his theme, including a gun turret on his balcony, a 'bulletproof' refrigerator, and this watercooler:

Walking into his living space was like entering one of the spaceships from Alien or Firefly. It was truly inspirational to meet someone who has essentially created their own reality around a personal aesthetic.
But meh, enough of the beautiful stuff. We came to LA to see trashiness, and we were not disappointed. Behold the leopard limo:

One of the creepiest things about Hollywood Boulevard is the amount of real estate owned by the Church of Scientology. They had no fewer than 4 huge storefronts and a massive church scattered along the street:

And then you walk by the wax museum and Tom Cruise DESCENDS FROM ABOVE. It's terrifying.

Hail Xenu!

I'm not sure what their criteria is for deciding who gets a star on the walk of fame, but based on what I saw it seems to be pretty weak... Liberace, fine ok, he's awful, but famous... The Village People?! Why?! They had one crappy song! Kermit the Frong?! How exactly does one weigh the achievements of a fictional amphibian against, say, Frank Sinatra?

However, Godzilla totally deserves his star. Leveling Tokyo is ARTISTIC, yo!
And then we went to Venice Beach, which was even trashier, although the beach itself was rather beautiful:

Adventures in Narita

2009-04-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

From Narita Japan 2008

Our flight home was supposed to go from Bangkok via Tokyo to Seattle. We still had a few days of vacation to go and were relishing the satisfaction of both returning home with time to spare and under budget... until we deplaned in Tokyo and were waiting in line to board the flight home. That's when we turned to each other, grinned, and slipped out of the line for our Seattle flight and headed downstairs to customs.

Then we had the following illuminating cultural exchange with the customs agents:

Earnest, businesslike customs lady: How long do you stay in Japan?
Ben (trying his best not to look like a terrorist): I'm not sure really, maybe only a day.
Customs Lady (raised eyebrow): Where are you staying?
Ben: Well, um, we actually aren't sure yet, I guess we need to find a place (nervous chuckle)
Customs Lady (donning rubber gloves): Follow me please sir

Okay, so I made that last part up, but she did make Ben write my name on a piece of paper so she could confirm with the officer who had stamped my passport, and made it very clear in her professional Japanese way that she strongly disapproved of Ben's facial hair. I should add that this wasn't nearly as bad as our experience during our college years, when we tried to clear customs after a month in Europe of not really showering or changing clothes and having dyed my hair purple the night before in a London hotel room... yeah, that was special.

Anyway, so I spend the majority of my time stateside trying to locate acceptable green-tea flavored softserve, and the first thing I did upon clearing customs was to make a beeline for the airport ice cream vendor (of COURSE NRT has a green tea ice cream vendor!). Ben trailed behind me, helplessly explaining that we needed to find a hotel, and transport, and possibly make arrangements for our flight back home the following day... but I couldn't be bothered until I confirmed the existence of softserve.

Then later in Narita, we discovered a Mr. Donut... selling GREEN TEA DONUTS. Heaven! (Okay, so they were kind of gross and weird, but I have consumed so much green-tea flavored junk food by this point that my brain has been rewired).

Anyway, so we didn't have the money for downtown Tokyo (even just taking the train from the airport to downtown costs upwards of $35 roundtrip per person), so we decided to spend the following 28 hours exploring and sleeping in Narita, the area around Tokyo's biggest airport. Basically, our main impression of Narita is that it is the Japanese version of (for you PacNWesterners) Lynnwood, or perhaps Tukwila. It's ugly, and there are dozens and dozens of car dealerships and drainage ditches landscaped to look like 'rivers' and a shopping mall in need of updating. The mall especially creeped us out; it looked almost exactly like any US mall, and with the exception of some signage you could completely forget you were in another country.

A mall billboard advertising Florida grapefruit. Distance from Miami to Narita: 7,438 miles. But hey, once polar bears are but a dim memory and Tokyo is partially submerged in the Pacific at least we can console ourselves with overpriced citrus! (I type this whilst breakfasting on tangerines from Chile.)

One thing that set Narita apart from Lynnwood is that it has a pretty spectacular temple (Naritasan Shinshoji) but since I've spent this entire post being sarcastic I will have to save that for the next installment.

3 more days of sunburn

2009-03-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

From Phuket 2008

So our island and elepant adventures of the previous 5 days made it really, REALLY difficult to leave Phuket. We had only planned for 5 nights on the island, but still had over a week's worth of vacation to spare and more money than expected in our trip savings (if you ever want to feel rich, fly to Thailand and have an ATM print your account balance in the local currency. Cha-CHING!). We'd been semi-lusting over a hotel down the street with fancy Disneyized Thai design and massive breakfast buffet, so on a whim we used our resort's internet connection to book 3 nights at the Woraburi. It was pretty funny to pack up our suitcases only to roll them a block away and check in at another hotel.

The Woraburi was one of the only hotels in our Lonely Planet guidebook to get a 5-star rating, and they weren't kidding-- our ground floor room had a balcony WITH POOL ACCESS! So, so amazing.

The hotel entrance had a bunch of flags displayed, but no US flag, and all the books in the library were in Swedish. Also they played Ludacris and the Cash Money Millionaires on loop in the lobby, which everyone knows is the gold standard for 5 star resorts the world over. It was heavenly.

Self-portrait in a Public Restroom

2009-03-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

I call this one At Least It Wasn't a Squat Toilet:

From Bangkok 2008

See that pile of rags in the sink? Yeah... that's the communal hand-and-bum-drying rag.

Hong Kong Garden

2009-02-28T10:31:00.000-08:00

Just booked a Novotel 4* in Hong Kong for $54/night, normally priced $130. I LOVE MY JOB!

Ele-pants!

2009-02-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

Here's a bunch of pictures of our elephant 'safari' in Phuket last year:

From Elephant ride in Phuket

The elephant sanctuary was about a 30-minute drive inland, and besides about 6 elephants (and a baby!) they also had rescue monkeys, exotic birds, a scary-huge boa constrictor, and the Phuket standard-issue 645,284,32194032409 stray dogs... except these were mostly super-adorable puppies that actually wanted to play with us (as opposed to most of the strays, which completely ignored us even when we had food and only wanted to nap under our beach chairs). I played with the puppies until the tour guide told me they kept the dogs around to feed to the snake (the tour guides did a LOT of pointing and laughing at me specifically during this adventure).

Maybe it's because I kept making crack-eyes at the baby elephant:

Or because I screamed like a freak when our mahout (elephant handler) decided to tell our elephant to climb atop a steep pile of very precarious-looking rocks. This was actually a pretty awesome experience-- we learned that elephants are surprisingly agile (and will do almost anything for sliced mango). Although during this adventure the saddle/bench thingy came way loose. Our mahout tried to tell us (he didn't speak much English and I had the worst time understanding Thai accents on the entire trip) to climb off the seat onto the elephants' head so he could re-adjust the seat.

Mahout: "Please come down here" (points to elephant's head)
Me: "Oh dear God no thank you"
Mahout: "Please Miss, right here"
Me: "No really" (grips extremely wobbly, slippery vinyl bench-thing) "I'm fine! I like it here"
Ben (who knows how to follow instructions): "You are going to fall off and die right now if you don't move"
Me: *whimper*
In the end I was able to move my worthless carcass, but only with a lot of audible fear-squeaking. It should be worth noting that the rest of the mahouts (about six of them) including ours were pointing and laughing uproariously during this fiasco. By the end of the day all of them were saying "Oh my God!" in high-pitched American accents in tribute to my performance (sadly, I am not joking). Fortunately I don't have a lot of dignity (or shame) to begin with.

That's our mahout above reading manga while his coworker chats on his cell. Just a regular day at the office. Our dude was awesome-- he gave me the elephant prodder-thing (bamboo rod with an unsharpened hook attached which also hung conveniently from the elephant's ear-- no WAY was I going to use that thing), hopped off the elephant, and made Ben climb off the bench again onto the elephant's head. He spent the rest of the ride (over an hour) walking casually ahead of us through the jungle, taking pictures with my camera and telling us which commands to give the elephant in Thai. He also pointed out a spider the size of a dinner plate sitting in a web that was taller than a person, (prompting another "Oh my God!"* from me, which was then echoed by every mahout down the line).

*Note to my mother, who hates it when I take the Lord's name in vain: I was not taking it in vain; I was begging God for help

Islomania

2009-02-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

We toured 3 islands this day by speedboat and spent a few hours at each snorkeling and exploring. The first island was Monkey Island, with actual monkeys on the freaking beach. Monkeys! On the beach!

Despite my warnings (Sharks! Eels! Flesh-eating coral!) Ben went snorkeling while I cowered in the boat and took pictures.

The next stop was the inhabited island of Ko Phi Phi Don. This is the only place in the park with hotels, and the only way to the island is via boat or chartered seaplane. We saw little speedboats and even smaller longboats dropping tourists off right on the beach, luggage and all. It was extremely surreal to see piles of suitcases just sitting on the (otherwise deserted) beach, and watching elderly Dutch tourists trying to navigate their wheeled carryons through the mangroves to their hotels. There are no cars, only little dirt paths, and electricity is supplied by generators. I didn't take any pictures here because I spent the whole time in the water getting outrageously sunburned.

Then we drove by dozens of amazing teeny islands like this:

We saw bats by the hundreds nesting in the trees over one of the lagoons (the screeching was deafening).

It was about a 40 minute boat ride from Phuket to the parks, and the waves were so huge our captain/tour guide had to arrange our group in the back of the boat by weight to keep the little speedboat from tipping over. I knew we were in for it when he offered everyone Dramamine to the passengers (fortunately I never ever go anywhere without Dramamine. Ben's nickname for me is 'Pukey' for a reason).

Our group consisted of 4 super jovial elderly Belgians (who spoke only French, spent the entire day telling dirty jokes about each other, and blithely ignored all safety instructions... loved these guys!), an Aussie couple (who were so pretty we named them Boone and Shannon), and assorted Frenchmen/Frenchwomen. I spent the entire boat ride attempting to understand/participate in the rapid French conversations around me, but of course after a year of French classes I only remember the dirty words and the phrase 'Je me brossez le dents' ('I am brushing my teeth').

The last island we visited was Egg Island, so named because (as our guide explained) "it is small, like an egg".
You can walk around the entire island in under 4 minutes. It was perfect.

J'aime Paris

2009-01-31T09:53:00.000-08:00

**Warning: this is a Gloat Post**
So lastminutetravel.com is running this promotion where they are selling all their hotel inventory for $1 a night. The catch is the sale runs for only 15 minutes per day, and they don't advertise when that 15 minute window will be occurring. If you sign-up online they send hints and links to your email, but the hints made about as much sense as the most recent episode of LOST, so Ben and I gave up after minimal effort.

On Monday I logged into the website to cancel the account I'd set up, and the freaking timer was going for the sale, with three minutes left! The timer was even dramatically ticking, like a bomb. So with literally seconds to spare, and even though my hands were shaking with stress, I was able to book a hotel in Paris for 6 nights for $6!! I just have to say that my career path is even further justified, as I attribute my ability to type like the wind to my job training. Being able to navigate the web without using the mouse is helpful too.

So now we are flying for free, staying for free (a call from a lastminutetravel rep confirmed that they wouldn't even be charging the $6, and would pay all taxes and fees) and all we have to worry about is saving enough $$ to afford to stuff ourselves daily with croissants and crepes. We were last in Paris over eight years ago, so even though it's our favorite European city we've been putting off a return trip in favor of exploring other places. But with only 3 minutes to decide, it was definitely the first place that came to mind. This prize almost tops the Osaka $2.50 Hilton. Almost.

I really cannot believe we have been this lucky three times in a row!

ChicagObama

2009-01-19T18:05:00.000-08:00

From Chicago New Year's 2008-2009

New Year's Eve found us in Chicago for the Hum reunion show! For a total of 48 hours we partied, toured the Art Institute, Obama-stalked, and ate deep-dish pizza for every meal (not kidding).

The Hum show (at a fairly small, appropriately Seattle-esque dingy sweatbox of a club) was an awesome beginning to 2009. Ben was hovering somewhere around the ceiling for most of the show. Hum begged off a second encore, complaining that they were too old (and too far past their bedtimes) to be proper rock stars. I walked down the aisle to a Hum song at our wedding, and we actually owned axolotls for a few years, so Hum has always been a part of our love story. This show was really special for us. And then on the train on the way home we had strangers sitting in our laps and offering us booze, so that was, uh, fun too.

Chicago is deep in the throes of a love affair with it's most/only honorable politician. Banners with the Shepard Fairey-designed portrait are hanging from the streetlamps everywhere (a banner was the first thing we saw coming up from the subway into downtown), and then of course there are the ubiquitous souvenirs.

I need that OMG shirt plz kthx.

Our hotel was pretty cheap, across the street from Obama's office (not kidding! we never saw anything exciting though), and spitting distance from the Art Institute and other major Chicago landmarks, so we spent the following day being nerdy tourists. The city is gorgeous but the temperature is not survivable, so our technique consisted of sprinting from doorway to doorway and whining when we had to walk more than a block without earmuffs.

The Chicago Art Institute is seriously awesome, even more so than previous visits because it is indoors and heated. The Impressionist collection is world-class, but since we saw it on our last visit we skipped that collection in favor of the galleries of American art. The collection has American Gothic as well as that Edward Hopper painting of the diner (forget the title now), but as usual the effect of seeing paintings that have been recycled and parodied into meaninglessness was fairly underwhelming. We spent the day playing the 'if you had a zillion dollars' game, the only rule being that you have to choose just one thing in each room that you would purchase. We take this game pretty seriously and will sit on benches contemplating two different paintings for as long as it takes to make the final decision. And of course anyone who goes to an art museum should always take Ben. I would miss like 90% of the awesome stuff if it weren't for him.

This week on LOST...

2009-01-10T19:30:00.000-08:00

The highlight of our stay in Phuket was the daylong speedboat tour we took of the national parks in the area--parks comprised of dozens of tiny uninhabited islands, the crown jewel of which was Ko Phi Phi Leh, where the (crappy, but pretty) movie The Beach was filmed. This beach is without exaggeration the most beautiful place we have ever been. It's an almost perfectly round bay of huge limestone cliffs looming over a beach with sand white as paper. You can only enter the bay through a narrow entrance between the cliffs:
For the movie The Beach, they just photoshopped an extra cliff into the gap to close the circle and make the beach seem more isolated. I should add that Ko Phi Phi Leh is pronounced "Ko Pee Pee Lee" and this group of islands we saw on the trip are called the "Pee Pee" islands, which of course means that for at least the first hour of the trip we couldn't listen to our tour guide name the islands without giggling like 12-year-olds. Because we are just that stupid.

Ahh, Thailand: where paradise and Engrish collide. This boat is supposed to say James Bond. Everything in the Phuket/Ko Phi Phi area has stuff claiming the Bond name, since apparently one of the books was set here. The problem is the Thai language does not have standardized spelling, so signage in English (or Thai) is never consistently spelled. For instance, Ko Phi Phi Leh could also be spelled Ko Phi Phi Lee or Koh Phi Phi Leeh (makes it really obnoxious to find places using guidebook maps or Google Earth). Spellings we saw for James Bond:
Jame Bon,
Jam Bond,
James Bohnd'(?!).
Also, sandwiches are like the new trendy thing in Thailand, with Subway ripoffs everywhere. Spellings we saw for 'sandwich':
sandwhich,
sendwish,
sandwidge.
Also, be sure to avoid the 'sandwitch' because those are the very worst kinds of witches.

Snow Day (pictures!)

2008-12-21T21:35:00.000-08:00

The hot new trend in Seattle is igloo blogging.

My drive to work..
.

And the drive to my mom's house, exactly 3 weeks after the initial snowfall:

Also, your flight is canceled. Merry Christmas!

Karon Town

2008-12-13T14:50:00.000-08:00

From Phuket 2008

The beach towns in Phuket tend to attract certain types of travellers, and we purposely chose Karon because the guidebook said it was more laid-back than Patong, which is basically a super rowdy bar scene 24-7 (and believe me, if you think you've seen a rowdy bar, well... I don't really want to share our Bangkok barhopping experience, because it was seriously the most icky thing I've ever witnessed). After discovering in Amsterdam that football hooligans are only fun from a safe distance, we decided to chill with the leathery Swedes in Karon. And the leathery French. They keep it chill.

The Gun Bar! Which was across the street from the New Friend Bar, which also had a bunch of lady bartenders that wanted to be, um, your New Friend.

These food vendors had these awesome semi-apocalyptic motorcycle/mini-kitchen things. This food cart smelled like boiled cat pee because they were peddling the ultimate nasty streetmeat of all time: cuttlefish on a stick. If you're ever feeling vengeful, fling dried cuttlefish at your enemies.

Need to gas up your rental scooter? That'll be about $0.90.

It was fun (and kind of weird) to be the only Americans in a really touristy area. Our Thai tour guides, shopkeepers, and concierge always acted surprised when we responded in American-accented English. It takes 3 planes (and a little over 2 days) to get to Phuket from anywhere in North America, but then again it takes nearly that long to get to Phuket from Sweden, so who knows. At one point we were in a street market buying fake Prada for the moms, negotiating the price with the Indian shopkeeper. She easily conversed with us in English, then turned around to the newest group entering her stall, shouted "Hello! Where are you from?... Russia?! DA!!" and launched into a lengthy conversation in perfect, Hindi-accented Russian. Just about every foreigner in the market was in awe of her crazy linguistic skill.

This was the tallest building in Karon and the only one that wasn't designed to blend tastefully into the hillside, so of course Ben and I had to find it. What we thought would be a luxury hotel was actually a condo complex. We snuck into the lobby to read the notice board--- cost to lease a 9th floor corner unit with ocean views? $600/month. Which is yet another reason it took nearly all our willpower to leave Phuket.

A day in the life of two feckless layabouts*

2008-12-07T15:30:00.000-08:00

Breakfast:

From Phuket 2008

After which we somehow manage to haul our sebiferous carcasses to the beach:

It is now officially too hot to move, speak, or eat. The only remedy for such affliction: slutty margaritas.

After which:

Immediately following: a resumption of our toxicomania.

Our last drinks were run-of-the-mill sleazy; these ones were more like drag queens in booze form, hence Ben's trepidation.

Annnd they finally kicked us off the beach. I think I'm STILL sunburned from this day.

From Phuket 2008

*This post courtesy of my affinity for weird old words and The Interwebs

It's pronounced Poo-GET

2008-11-18T18:46:00.000-08:00

From Phuket 2008

Our award for Best Place to Get Really Horribly Sunburned officially goes to Phuket, specifically the town of Karon where we stayed.

We have been to Hawaii, Playa del Carmen, Cancun, and the beaches of the Gulf coast of Florida, and seriously nothing compares to the utter perfection of this place. It's the perfect mix of pretty uncrowded beaches, tangly jungle, low-key Hawaiian-style atmosphere, and glittery Thai culture. Plus I cannot stress enough the joy of being able to afford everything.

And why yes, that is a 3-legged dog in front of the beachside food vendor! You can also see the proprietor calling us in to sample from the (huge) menu. We were never ever hungry in Phuket.

One downside: European grandpas and grandmas. The guidebook warned us repeatedly that southern Thailand has a large Muslim population and a conservative dress code and told us to keep our bathing suits on. The Europeans totally, utterly ignored this and proceeded to frolic naked on the beaches everywhere, which was rather incredible to us-- being raised as puritanical Americans in the Pacific Northwest (where even clothing as revealing as a tank top is extremely rare). I actually had trouble taking a good beach picture that didn't have a nude-or-mostly-nude senior citizen in the frame (note to overweight elderly British gentlemen: it doesn't count as being clothed if your belly flab hides your bananahammock). We actually never saw Thai people in bathing suits--they swim in t-shirts and shorts.

Sparkly!

2008-11-14T09:48:00.000-08:00

So Wat Arun was kinda crazy-gaudy, but the Grand Palace across the river in Bangkok was practically retina-searing. It was so huge (not so much a building but a walled compound with 50-odd sparkly buildings, gold-leaf shtupas, and about 90 bajillion statues) that I couldn't really take a good picture of a single building. It was just too... shiny. So I ended up taking a bunch of pretentious shots of the little details.

For instance, these guys:

From Grand Palace

were part of this 50-foot gold-leaf shtupa that was so shiny it was difficult to look at without sunglasses (really!)

And this tile

Was embedded in this sparkly wall thingy:

Which was in front of this giant mirror-tiled gold building housing a huge Buddha carved out of solid jade perched atop a 20-foot, carefully constructed pile of religious artifacts encrusted with gemstones.

This is the official house of worship for the royal family of Thailand and home of the aforesaid Emerald Buddha (actually jade). On this particular day the temple was crowded with barefoot Western tourists (no shoes allowed) wearing Thai silk skirts rented from vendors outside the palace grounds.

The dress code for holy sites in Thailand is very conservative--no shorts or skirts above the ankle allowed. The policy is strictly enforced in Bangkok, and since nobody in their right mind runs around Bangkok in the 100+ degree weather in long pants, street vendors will rent clothing to tourists and worshippers. The vendors were also renting black clothing that month, as the Queen Mother had recently passed away and was lying in state in another building on the grounds (only native Thai citizens were allowed into the viewing).

Another awesome thing about this day was that we got to see female monks chanting and praying inside the temple of the emerald buddha. They wear white robes and don't shave their heads. While you see saffron-robed male monks of all ages all over Bangkok, women monks are much rarer in Thai society.

And of course, SLIDE SHOW!

OMG

2008-11-04T15:52:00.000-08:00

Viva Mexico

2008-11-02T17:20:00.000-08:00

Oh, dear sweet Gulf of Mexico. I want to be buried under a palapa. Instead of flowers, please leave fruity drinks of remembrance. And trashy beach novels.**

So, we get back from Las Vegas and 3 days later we headed to Playa Del Carmen (near Cancun) with Ben's parents for a week for our birthday/anniversary celebration. September was an awesome month and a reminder to us of the kind of lifestyle we've been aspiring to since we first went to Europe in 2000. If we ever get out of debt (ha!) I intend to only be home long enough to satisfy my employer's minimum requirement of 20 work hours per paycheck.

This was actually our second trip to this area, and our first trip since hurricane Rita visited considerable destruction upon the coastline. Our all-inclusive hotel (The Ocean Coral) was brand new, and more than 70% off since it was the 'off season' (chance of showers and hurricanes--we experienced only perfect 80+ degree weather and partly cloudy evenings). So much construction has taken place that it's kinda sad--the area south of Cancun (from Playa Del Carmen and beyond) has been transformed from swampy uninhabitable mangrove forest into actual theme parks. But it's still paradise, and it's still possible to explore the region on a backpacker budget.

Exploring... meh. We spent almost the entire week migrating from beach to pool. We daytripped to Playa Del Carmen for the first time (skipped it last time in favor of Tulum) and it is indeed a mecca of sunburned Europeans and 2-for-1 margarita specials.

Our resort fronted the 2nd longest coral reef in the world and a World Heritage site, so Ben and the parents went snorkeling amidst an abundance of rare corals, turtles, puffer fish, and sharks. Ben actually said the snorkeling was better on this reef than in Thailand. I didn't go, because moray eels will eat my flesh, or I'll get attacked by a shark, or I'll scrape some coral and it will get under my skin and give me blood poisoning. SO. THERE.

It was also Independence Day while we were there, so our resort was full of families having a 4-day weekend, and there was traditional dancing and (delicious) food, followed by a karaoke show. A lot of the hotel guests were wearing traditional dress for the occasion, and everyone crowded into the lobby at midnight to watch a presidential address from Mexico City broadcast on a huge screen, catcalling and shouting 'Viva Mexico' the entire time. It was rad--and we got to see the sombrero dance!!

MOAR SLIDESHOW:

**Actually, my 'trashy' beach novel was Charlotte Bronte's Villette. I'm going to go right ahead and spoil the ending because it ticked me off. He dies, the end. Anything Bronte-esque really shouldn't be read outside the gloom and doom of Seattle anyway.

Wat Arun Slideshow

2008-10-29T12:09:00.001-07:00

Because slideshows are awesome! The rest of our Wat Arun pictures:

Vegas, baby!

2008-10-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

Alright, so we went to Vegas with the Flugers in September. The guys went for the Warhammer Grand Tournament which yielded nothing much amusing except the mugs in the gift bag, which were emblazoned with tacky images of the 'Sirens' of Treasure Island. The girls flew in a day later and proceeded to drink (sorry mom):

drink more (sorry mom),

and somehow wound up thwarting the velvet rope maze and got into Pure at Caesar's Palace. That was probably the highlight of the trip, as clubs in Seattle are dingy, halfhearted affairs, and typically the only choices are crappy indie rock, or (even crappier) house music. And Pure was fun, and they played Tupac and other such music of our youths, and they kept letting us into (supposed) VIP sections.

Gambling... didn't quite work out for us. Fluger lost about 60 bucks in five minutes of Blackjack, so we spent the rest of the time drinking (sorry mom) and playing the penny slots. We left Vegas almost 7 dollars richer than when we arrived! We also spent the 100-degree days at the pool at the Flamingo (great except they played, like, Enrique Iglesias all the time--very violating) and nights roaming the strip. Here is my extra-fancy slideshow:

Overall it was really fun, but in terms of unreality it was not as awesome as Disney World. Ben summed it up perfectly: "I think Las Vegas wants to be more fun than it actually is." Plus, Disney has pirate rides, and Vegas only has an incredibly embarrassing pirate show. And Shinjuku (Tokyo) has way, way more neon than Vegas, which surprised me. Actually, most of Japan had more neon than the strip. Which only proves my lifelong thesis that everything is more fun in Japan :-)

More Wat Arun

2008-09-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

Tons of pictures and video! Oh joy!
Ben took this one from the top of the temple stairs:

This is just one of the 324,34354364,7598798797 statues we saw that day:
Can you find me?

And this is Ben being hunky with some emperor (or something...):

And finally, some video Ben took from the summit of Wat Arun. I was about halfway down the stairs at this point, wandering around the little red stumpy things (in the one picture) and being asked by tourists in 20 different languages to take their group photos.

OBAMA OM NOM NOM

2008-09-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

Sorsha also lobbies in Washington for the Edible Houseplant Coalition and Cleaner Litter Boxes for America.

G.I. Joe

2008-08-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

We went paintballing!

Next time we fully intend to cosplay and reenact scenes from Transformers. We just need a helicopter, some gasoline, and a total lack of artistic vision.

Wat Arun

2008-08-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

Our first Wat!

Japanese temples (the only other kind of Eastern temple we've yet seen) feature clean lines and sparse decor, and the exact opposite is true of Thai temples. Basically, Wat Arun looks like this from the river:

And then you get closer and realize that every single inch of it is covered in broken bits of pottery embedded in cement and interspersed with little statues and murals. It reminded me a lot of the tile work at St. Mark's in Venice. It really reflects the general Thai aesthetic we saw everywhere, which seems to be; "Does it glitter? No? OK, well, glue something sparkly to it, and maybe some gold leaf? Also, I think we've got some leftover Chinese ballast, why don't you slap some of that on there... hmmm... still needs something.... I know, add at least several hundred statues. The fancy ones. There you go!"

As a person who was actually chastised for her excessive use of glitter in high school art classes, I wholeheartedly appreciate this worldview.

The stairs going up are incredibly steep, you basically have to pull yourself up by your arms. Like the pyramid in the Yucatan, I completely crapped out about halfway up and clung desperately to the railing with a group of hyperventilating Korean teenagers while I waited for Ben to come back down.

Sci-Fi Bangkok

2008-07-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

The top floor of MBK has a movie theater, bowling alley, arcade, and every fast-food restaurant known to man. But the best part is that it has a sci-fi theme, so everything is called SF Bowling, SF Arcade, etc. And phosporescent alien cocoons are suspended from the ceiling. And here we have the SF Karaoke space pods.
Best Engrish Christian Bookstore poster EVAR.
Two of the greatest acheivements of Western civilization: McDonald's and Step Up 2: The Streets. Truly the pinnacle of American cinema. Fo' reals.

Banglamphu

2008-07-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

So this is Khao San Road in the heart of the sort of backpacker district of Thailand. This is the place that the guidebook said we'd spend the majority of our time, but since we'd chosen a hotel in Chinatown (rather than a $15/night 'bungalow' room, my only issue with this is the communal toilets) where shopping was much more colorful, we only came to Khao San to eat. And eat and eat and EAT. Ye gods, the wealth of fantastic vegetarian food! Khao San is otherwise a rather cartoony human zoo (more hippies than Amsterdam, if that's possible, and way way WAY too much reggae) and it's more expensive to shop here than Chinatown or MBK. But the FOOD...We felt like we'd died and gone to Vegetarian Heaven--the entire freaking neighborhood caters almost exclusively to veggies and vegans! Our favorite place was May Kaidee's, where it was actually sort of diffcult to spend more than USD $10 per meal. On one occasion we had spring rolls (everything, including the wrappers, was made from scratch right in front of us), 2 phad thais, 2 curries, and soup for $6. We spent one evening just lazing around on the floor cushions, ordering dish after dish and watching Thai soap operas on the television with the owner's kids.
We had mango smoothies here by the river. We keep unintentionally visiting canal cities (before this, Amsterdam and Venice)--we had no idea that Bangkok is considered a canal city, with water taxis and buses and everything just like Venice.

More scenes in and around Banglamphu:

The walls in the mall are totally totally tall

2008-06-20T20:20:00.000-07:00

Oh Bangkok and your nonexistent copyright laws, how I love you so. Behold: faux ipods of all generations, nestled amidst Buddha and his swag.MBK is my favorite mall of life. Everything is counterfeit, everything is cheap, and even the food court was a ridiculously delicious translation of home. After days of sweltering through temples and markets and choking on smog, it was a reprieve of sorts. An 8-story haven of Japanese-style hysterical capitalism. I think it's a pretty new building; the spirit houses were fancy teak to match the upscale atmosphere.
And the King glows ethereally down upon the entire scene.

I became an absolute raving label whore in this mall. And I hate labels. Well, I hate label anything except TokiDoki LeSportSac. My utter fascination with this handbag line is truly sick, and it's so outrageously overpriced in the States that I only bought one piece once (a bag for $150) and have felt guilty about it ever since.

MBK is set up like an outdoor market; lots of little stalls, only inside and air-conditioned and surrounded by glorious Asian interpretations of Western food courts (green tea Dairy Queen Blizzards with pistachios OMG) and these stalls have FAKE Tokidoki. Fakes that look REAL.

I spent 6 hours in this mall buying every single piece of faux Tokidoki I could find for the girls back home and more than a few things for myself. Embrace the riches of the East!

That's 7 purses, 13 little bags and wallets, and a giant Tokidoki duffel to get it all home. Total? $50 USD.

I won't even get into the damage I did in the makeup shops (conclusion: counterfeit MAC is only slightly inferior to actual MAC) and the clothing stalls (you can't try anything on, but everything is sized for shorties like me anyway, so it worked out). We saw lots of tourists who had purchased massive rolling suitcases and were filling them as they shopped.

Then of course there is the 7th floor of MBK, which has a science fiction theme (!!), but that gets a whole special post because... it has a science fiction theme. So. Awesome.

Last of Chinatown

2008-06-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

I love goooooldI'm pretty sure these were once ducks. The inside of this butcher's shop would make a great set for the next Hostel movie.The guidebook listed something about a funeral home existing on this street. We paced up and down it several times before we gave up, but this was the only shuttered storefront... and 'solid clinic' almost makes sense...Baby clothes!!
And fried bananas (yummmm)I think this captures the crazy market setting of Chinatown as we experienced it. I'm actually holding my camera over my head to get a clear shot and holding still was impossible against the tidal wave of human traffic.
A lot of people are wearing green in this video because it was Wednesday. It's a Thai/Hindu tradition to assign a color to each day of the week, and we really noticed it, especially on Monday (yellow) which is the day of the week that the King was born.

Transport

2008-06-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

So in Japan, the taxis are spotless and embellished with doilies, and it is not uncommon to narrowly escape death whilst riding in one. And in Europe, everyone drives little golf-cart sized vehicles at 100+ mph on the autobahn. And then of course my entire family is from Chicago, where everyone is drunk and crazy and armed with American-made tanks (i.e. Chevy Suburbans).

None of these drivers, not even the Japanese taxicabs, come even remotely close to approaching the casual lunacy of Thai motorists. Everyone appears to have an incredibly intuitive grasp of physics and tend to hurtle around at shocking speeds, apparently without incident. Sort of. We saw a really awful double-decker bus crash on the freeway near the airport, and Ben nearly met his death at the hands of a girl on a pink Hello Kitty Vespa. (We were previously unaware that Hello Kitty Vespas were capable of going 70mph.)

Everywhere we went we saw motorcycles willfully ignoring all traffic laws including red lights, crosswalks, and pedestrian-only markets. It's not uncommon to be wandering the markets and gradually end up in an indoor mall, and at one point we were fully indoors (like, through a door and everything) browsing pirated DVDs and a teeny motorcycle zipped by, missing me by inches. IN THE MALL.

I tried my best to capture the madness on film from the inside of a taxicab and failed. The guidebook mentioned that a large number of Thai motorists (especially the motorbike and bus drivers) abuse amphetamines, but really what we observed was that they are incredibly skilled at not dying/killing others.One thing that was suprising was how shiny all the cars were, even the taxicabs. It was rare to see a car more than 5 or 6 years old, and makeshift car washes were everywhere, especially under freeway overpasses.

Also a LOT of cars and motorcycles had these (kinda pervy) stickers on them, and it's still driving me nuts as to why. This is going to be forever a mystery...

Air Asia and nerdy miscellany

2008-06-02T22:08:00.000-07:00

Lost completely blows my nerdy mind. That's a fairly obvious statement, but it just DOES. I'm pretty obsessed. It's inspiring, and of course provides endless fodder for snark, like how now Ben and I can't get on a plane without immediately seeking out the character archetypes and then discussing the crash in detail (makes the seat partners awesomely nervous). We did this the most on the flight from Bangkok to Phuket on Air Asia, because I was convinced that we were going to be either stranded or dead before we reached our destination.

My reasoning behind this bleak conclusion was that our tickets for the 1.5 hour flight were about 977.00 baht. This is about $30 USD. This is for an actual revenue ticket, not the hyperdiscounted space-available employee rates we usually get. So I was pretty nervous, seeing as I couldn't figure out how they afford maintenance or fuel or seat belts or fricken PILOTS. But I had to do it because the Air Asia website is so awesomely tacky. I think the aim is to distract from the possible fiery death with cute flight attendants in sassy hats.

We also paid extra for preboarding. It was $2 USD per person to get shuttled in a private van to the plane with the 5 other preboarders, two of which were awesomely British (and drunk) and in full Python mode. This is where Ben and I should have realized the magnitude of our mistake of vacationing in a tropical area with a very sizable population of Europeans:

Britisher #1: "So I bought these things called 'board shorts' for this trip."
Britisher #2: "Oi? Wot is that then?"
B1: "They're sort of like short trousers that you wear in the water"
B2 (incredulous): "Short trousers? For the water?"
B1 (apologetically): "The surfers wear them"
B2 (still unable to grasp the concept): "So is it like a Speedo then?"

We never did see Britisher #1 or his (slightly less worldly) companion again, nor did we ever once see board shorts on anyone, as the Euros have an excessive fondness for the bananahammock. Clearly Britisher #1 caved under the peer pressure and stuck to his favorite Speedo, which (and I can't stress this enough) was the WRONG CHOICE.

Stinky

2008-05-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

The air in Bangkok actually smells bad. You can feel it on your skin and in your hair. It's obviously bad around the fish markets, worse around the roasted chestnut vendors*, but it wasn't until we stepped off the plane in Seattle that we realized that we could actually breathe deeply without wincing.

Here's some sooty statues at Wat Arun. Another vile odor I experienced like never before was dried cuttlefish. Ohmigod. Then of course there's the run-of-the-mill diesel pollution from the tuktuks. Basically the air quality was so bad even native Thai people covered their faces while riding on motorbikes/tuktuks.

At one point we were walking down a main thoroughfare (hilarious because it was 90+ degrees out, and the taxis and tuktuks kept slowing down to catcall us for walking in the heat) and, out of nowhere, both of us doubled up coughing for like 15 minutes, like we'd been hit with pepper spray. Weirdly enough, we couldn't smell anything specific, but we had to buy water and rinse our eyes and mouths out to stop the reaction. (Also, cold green tea in a juice box?! Tastes like dandelions doused in weed killer, but it does the job well enough.)

Here's a banyan tree growing around an apartment building.

We saw people riding in the khlong (canal) water taxis covering their faces and arms with newspaper - if you get splashed, you break out from the chemical potpourri. The guidebook cautioned against riding in the water taxis, but we took a larger bus-boat with no unpleasant side-effects. Yet. I'm still hoping I sprout tentacles.

*Seriously, what the hell?! Roasted chestnuts smell like burnt tires doused in vinegar. It's so weird, because they look good, but even the vendors held newspapers over their faces and placed their chairs upwind.

Next stop: Taiwan

2008-05-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

Sometime this year expect pictures of brawling parliament reps and Ben consuming snake's blood. Going to visit friends who will be teaching English in the country, may include side trips to Hong Kong or Thailand depending on where the planes go... that's right, I am super smug, because my job ROCKS.

Confidence Man

2008-05-19T09:40:00.000-07:00

This is a tuktuk - essentially a 3-wheeled motorbike with a longer bench on the back. The tuktuk drivers are like, crazy hustlers, and should be avoided at all times as they are notorious for overcharging (for instance, a metered taxi across town rarely cost us more than USD $3 - a tuktuk driver would charge nearly $12) and will often insist on 'detours' to scammy gem shops where they receive a commission. Tuktuks are ubiquitous, stinky, and really loud - the smell and noise of them reminded me of this ancient behemoth lawnmower my parents used have, and I'm almost positive the tuktuks probably do in fact use lawnmower engines. Still, they're cute and colorful and awesome in an obnoxious way.I'm a huge guidebook nerd (I'm getting a guidebook for Las Vegas. It's a sickness) and every guidebook, especially for the more touristy places like Italy, has a little cautionary section that details the types of scams a traveler may come across while in the country. The section on scams in Lonely Planet Thailand is super long, and this was the first time we witnessed all of them. It was pretty nuts. Especially around places like the Imperial Palace and Wat Arun, we quickly learned not to believe a word of what was said to us. Fortunately, a polite 'no thank you' usually worked wonders.

Speaking of noisy 3-wheeled motorbikes, we finally sold the Probe!It takes deceptively good pictures. One would never guess the backseat is full of wet dog hair or that it is essentially a leaky, fungus-breeding deathtrap. For some reason, a mechanic bought it from us despite our warnings about spores fornicating in the trunk. I'm convinced that Probey will outlive us all.

Bangok: Wat Mangkon Kamalawat

2008-05-04T14:47:00.001-07:00

This was a smallish, ancient temple crammed between residential buildings down an alleyway in Chinatown. We never would have found it without the guidebook - to get to it you have to navigate a large, tunnel-like fish market, and eventually the maze pops you out into a narrow alleyway (which inexplicably contained a parking lot, although I couldn't discover how the cars actually got into the lot - it was completely hemmed in by apartment buildings and the alleyway entrance was too small...?) and at the end of the alleyway is the little curlicued entrance to the temple. It was swarming with people of all ages, nearly all of whom were clutching huge fistfuls of incense while the monks chanted. Gorgeous and trippy.
Here is the monk dormitory. All Thai men are expected to become a monk at some point in their lives, some for as little as 1 week. These monks were much younger than we were used to seeing (around 13-14) and were giggling and poking each other during prayers. It's like the spiritual boy scouts for some people, I guess ;)

Sleeping in Thailand for $10 a night

2008-04-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

So, story of how we decided on Thailand:

In October '07, Orbitz had a coupon: $200 off any international hotel stay of 5 nights or more. I hunted around until I found a cheap 3-star hotel in Bangkok for abut $40/night. All we paid was tax-- $60 for 5 nights! There was no limit to how many times you could use the coupon so we booked another 5 nights in Phuket. This one was more -- about $90/night, but we still basically recieved 2 nights free. Huge breakfast buffets were included in the price for both hotels. So this is the second time we've come close to sleeping for almost free.

Of course, I booked this before I knew anything at all about Thailand - I just wanted a decent beach and at least one megacity, and this was the only country that came to mind as having both. We have since discovered that Thailand is ridiculously cheap, and as long as you don't have lavish Westernized standards you could easily stay in hotels and guesthouses for much less. For nicer hotels though, we did get a steal.

Our Bangkok hotel was the Bangkok Centre Hotel, which was in Chinatown and catered almost exclusively to large Chinese and Japanese tour groups. It's pretty dingy but the breakfast was varied and decent (exception: sugar in the milk UGH. and no BBC or CNN during the Ohio/Texas primaries). I wouldn't stay there again simply because it's so easy to get a cheap room in Bangkok that you really don't need to book in advance, and it's usually tricky for us to book in advance with the flight benefits.
While the hotel in Phuket (The Karon Princess, on the right) was more expensive, it was right on the beach, the room was massive, the staff was insanely helpful, and it was a 3-star hotel sandwiched between two 5-star hotels which meant we got to eat 5-star meals almost the whole time we were there (for some reason the food, while more expensive than at a non 5-star restaurant, was still really super cheap, probably because the guests at the 5-stars were already paying out the nose for their private pools and butler service).

Bangkok: Chinatown

2008-03-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

So my new Bangkok-inspired phobia is: trying to squeeze my way down a crowded market street only to trip/be pushed into a vat of boiling vendor oil.

It would be a tasty death.

Chinatown looks and feels much older than most parts of Bangkok. It's certainly more chaotic and sees the least tourist traffic of anywhere else we went on our entire trip. It's also incredibly overwhelming (Bangkok, specifically Chinatown, makes Tokyo look provincial) and I don't recommend it as the first neighborhood to visit after a 24-hour airport-and-coach-class extravaganza. That being said-- after a few days of the regular tourist trail, Chinatown was the most fun. The vendors were less pushy and friendlier (I admit in this I would be biased as a Chinatown vendor, after selling me 3 purses and giving me a free one, told me I was 'cute') and the market stalls were much, much more interesting (translation: tentacles! And lots of them!).

Chinatown is difficult to get in and out of (no subway or Skytrain) and the taxi drivers almost always heaved a huge sigh when we told them we were staying in the heart of the neighborhood. Still, a taxi from Chinatown to the Imperial Palace across town was about 46 Baht, or US $1.50.

Dreamy USA

2008-03-16T20:09:00.000-07:00

So it took us 22 hours to get to Bangkok and two full days of sleeping in the BKK Novotel before we even felt coherant enough to leave the room, which was fine, because we were able to get an amazing employee discount and the Novotel was a really, really nice 4*. Here is the view of the garden from our window:The hotel was cheap, room service was (fairly) cheap, and the massive American/Japanese/Chinese/Thai buffet breakfast (as in, they literally had a full buffet for each type of cuisine in this huge, shiny vaulted restaurant/atrium thingy that looked as though it had been designed and built by Cylons) was $12.

The Novotel also had the world's most awesome travel book in the rooms. It had a whole grammatically flexible chapter on Seattle, and was clearly authored by someone who has never been to Seattle and never plans to visit.

This same book also hysterically claims that one can "Finds famous figures and scriptwriters" at the Alibi Room. I can promise that the only thing foreign visitors will 'finds' at the Alibi Room will be wealthy hipsters and mediocre performance art.

Christmas card photo '08

2008-03-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

This is my absolute favorite picture of all time:
More later!

Tokyo Engrish

2008-01-30T20:04:00.000-08:00

I was looking through photos from the '06 Japan trip and I can't believe I forgot the Engrish!! It's like the entire reason we went to Japan in the first place, and I'm only halfway kidding.

The following were discovered in Harajuku/Omotesando:

Store My Ducks

This one needs a bit of explanation: we saw a lot of girls with short skirts, then they'd have a layer of opaque tights or leggings, then at least 1 set of legwarmers over the leggings, then maybe another layer of short socks, then they'd top it off with either staggeringly high heels/platforms or tall gothy boots. In June. We saw sock stores everywhere, but this was the best one: Mighty Soxer: With Beautiful Smiling Face!

I think this one might be a poem:

Feel so good music

The place is his reserved seat

He generally passes daytime there

(Why yes, that is a kitten listening to an ipod! Thank you so much for asking.)

I wanna start in this again Timing? Now or never
Another poem:

AMOUROUS

Repair one's makeup

He ploughs in sand and

Beauty is a joy for ever

This is the Love Me Tender rockabilly boutique. It had a bucking bronco statue over the sign, and a huge bronze statue of Elvis out front: Welcome! Elvis Presley Rockabilly Fans!!

Sophisticated colors make you feel aesthetics

If you take care of

your personality well

you will appear beautiful

Show off.

stay beautiful

More stores: SexPot Revenge (this store was amazing. I could have spent our entire trip budget in here and been set for life) Sexy Dynamite (the store itself was Sexy Dynamite, but just about every store catering to the fashion punks would add 'London' or 'Punk' to it's advertising. We saw more Union Jack accessories in Japan than we did in the most touristy parts of London)

Venice shop windows

2008-01-23T14:52:00.000-08:00

Venice has been practically firebombed by tourism, but in between the Louis Vuitton obnoxiousness and tacky paintings some of the shop window displays were pretty fantastic. Almost all of these were taken in the area by our hostel, near the church of Maria Formosa (sort of behind and to the west of St. Marks). (Click on any pic to view larger)
This one was taken in St. Marks square (ground zero for overpriced luxury goods you can find in any airport duty free store). Nearly all the stores selling blown glass had a huge window display featuring these crazy birthday-cake chandeliers. This one was priced about 2k... three years ago! More blown glass...
And Carnival!

Venice 2005

2008-01-03T22:22:00.001-08:00

A boat delivering groceries in Venice. This was early, like 6 am. I think we were more jet-lagged in Venice than anywhere else we've been.

The nerd test

2007-12-16T21:01:00.000-08:00

Before you get all excited, I only scored higher than expected in the science/math category because I still have the periodic table memorized. The fact that I am oddly proud of this can be directly attributed to my nerdiness.

Central Florida road trip

2007-11-23T15:26:00.000-08:00

So back in May, we went to Disney World. Grandma & Pa live about 3 hours south in this little coastal town that is gorgeous, so we decided to road trip.

I guess PT Cruisers are the new ghetto in the rental car industry, and we were rewarded with a horrifying lumpy banana-yellow thing. It was still like 100% nicer than our pathetic angry little Ford. I think I bonded with the PT Cruiser. Really. I grew to love it.

It's hard not to love something this aggressively tacky. I didn't realize just HOW tacky it was until the parking lot at Disney, when a little boy walked by and said "Look Dad, it's a Mickey Mouse car!"

The whole 'avoid freeways' selection on the Google trip planner is 10 different kinds of rad. It fully sent us into Alligator Alley/Deliverance/Apocalypse Now territory. We could've stuck to the nice safe freeways along the coastline, through all the gigantic, hideous, largely empty concrete developments, but then we would've missed seeing all the hurricane damage (although these hurricanes couldn't have been recent, as trees were fully growing up out of the wreckage).And we would've missed the junkyards full of burned-out cars. Also I never get to see cows.Grandma, being the responsible and loving matriarch that she is, warned us about driving on backroads, as most of these towns are considered high-crime areas. But Grandma has never seen our neighborhood. Also if anyone had wanted to carjack the PT Cruiser, we would have gladly let them.

This blog brought to you by the U.S. Postal Service

2007-10-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

So in July I flew to Chicago with my mom for a weekend of capitalist hijinks (shopping) with my aunt. During the trip I was given a stuffed cow (like a toy, not like an actual bovine. And don't ask how) to give to Hannah. It was too big to fit in my suitcase after my weekend so I asked my aunt to ship it along with the pictures of our trip. Apparently Clifton, IL is still in the throes of the Bronze Age and she does not yet have a computer (She does however have kickass taste in books and films), so she went to the local post office to mail the package. Again, this was in July.

I recieved the package this week. That's three months. Clearly it had been shipped over the Rockies via Pony Express. And maybe the pony that so bravely carried this package was attacked by a mountain lion somewhere along the way, as the box was dented and had the tape ripped off the side.

But the pony's ordeal was not in vain, as the pictures included in the package were almost exclusively of my mom posing with tacky statuary!

Amsterdam 3

2007-09-22T12:15:00.001-07:00

In Amsterdam we decided to stay in the Amstel Botel, which is an old renovated ferry (I think?) and sits in a canal right next to the train station. Initially we were kind of freaked out because nothing in Amsterdam is affordable except the hostels, and we usually reserve hostels for a last resort as they can vary widely in quality (from nice private rooms with little cots to filthy barracks full of smelly drug addicts). Plus the guidebooks (even Lonely Planet) caution against hostels in Amsterdam (due to the presence of lots of smelly drug addicts).

So the Amstel Botel was clean and smallish and the worst thing about it was that is smelled like pot and had port-a-potty bathrooms (i.e. the popular budget hotel version of a bathroom--a metal-walled cabinet in a corner, usually by the door, with a vaguely functioning teenyeeny shower, it's like this in Japan as well, except in that case it's a 3-star). But we had a fantastic view of the waterfront and most amusingly the hotel was entirely full of insanely loud British folks on holiday. And the Brits know how to party, so much so that we saw at least 5 or 6 of them getting ejected from the breakfast buffet every morning for causing a scene. It was a riot.

More of the waterfront:

I can has date?

2007-09-20T14:50:00.001-07:00

Amsterdam 2

2007-08-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

More stuff from Amsterdam:
I have an intense compulsion when it comes to teeny Euro cars. In all our travels, this is the smallest yet, barely even golf-cart size(parked on the sidewalk in a busy part of Amsterdam. Like in the middle of the sidewalk. Nobody else seemed to notice or care, including the cops nearby.)
And this is the famous flower market, which in hindsight makes me kind of depressed, as we have since learned that the majority of the flowers are flown in from hothouses in Africa, where they don't have the same kinds of laws as in Europe/USA, so nearly every flower sold is completely doused with DDT and all kinds of other banned pesticides. Essentially the flower industry is nearly as environmentally diabolical as silver mining. At least it's...pretty?
Most coffee shops sell pot and orange juice and...not coffee. This one had a huge open window on the other side with a bunch of football hooligans lolling around on cushions smoking a hookah. This entire street was lined with coffee shops all blaring reggae at the same time...ugh. It's like a college town, but with worse music and better food.
And massive bike garages. Everyone rides bikes--we noticed way more bikes than cars in the downtown area.

Amsterdam part Un

2007-08-20T20:07:00.001-07:00

I have all these old pictures from Amsterdam so time to blog it before I forget everything.

This is the best part about Holland, period. Say hello to Stroopwaffles:

They taste nothing like waffles (or stroop?) but they have caramel. And they are always stale. You know how some things just taste better stale, like air-popped popcorn? This is one of those precious, precious things. I couldn't find a picture of the authentic ones, hence the English on the package.

Amsterdam is the oddest place--it's a beautiful, elegant canal city full of conservative-looking architexture and Protestant churches, but it attracts the European equivalent of Vegas-trashy tourists. Loud, obnoxious British bachelorette parties and high-school football hooligans. Most of the city feels clean and safe, and the hedonism is oddly Disney-esque and cliched enough to be really amusing. Like the fact that every hotel room, no matter how many times we switched, smelled like pot, and every room had a little no-smoking sign with a marajuana leaf on it instead of a cigarette. Very cute.

Happy World Land

2007-08-05T10:44:00.001-07:00

(Trying to get the sword out of the stone)Disney World in late April just rocks. We only waited in line for the newest rides (Expedition Everest and the Monster's Inc. ride in the Magic Kingdom) and we only used Fastpass for the roller coasters and Winnie the Pooh (which is freakishly popular).

At MGM studios outside Star Tours, which was the greatest nerd experience we'd had in a while. No line, so we rode it 3 times and then tried on every costume in the gift shop.

Merlin and Sorsha video

2007-08-01T22:12:00.001-07:00

Merlin the ferret and Sorsha playing. They are usually much feistier than this, but of course whenever I get the camera out they get lazy.

Pet pictures

2007-08-01T21:55:00.001-07:00

I love this picture. The two goofiest pets in the world, playing it cool.
This one always looks like this.

More stuff from Manzanita

2007-06-09T14:29:00.001-07:00

Here's some more pictures from our girly weekend in Manzanita, OR:

Treehugging (again)

2007-05-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

SO back in January I detailed our attempts to cut back on the amount of electricity and water that we use. Our electricity bill is now consistently $15-20 less a month. Which is crazy because I feel that we did very little and it didn't impact our regular lifestyle at all.

meh, enough of that. Here is a picture of Darth Vader as the Statue of Liberty!:

Cuddly Corporate Heaven

2007-05-08T18:48:00.000-07:00

We went to Disney World!
Animal Kingdom is rad. It's like the best zoo in the world, with tons of money, and roller coasters.
This is Expedition Everest. It had just opened and broke twice the day we were there. It's backwards and in the dark and, because it's Disney, features a cuddly Yeti that tries to eat you.

I think Animal Kingdom may even rival the Magic Kingdom for magical/cuddly/corporate experiences. It's gorgeous everywhere you walk and each animal area has a theme. To view the tigers, you enter a lifesize ruined Indian palace.

Animal Kingdom contains Dinoland, and probably the most awesome ride to ever exist on the planet in terms of sheer deception. The ride (Dinosaur) is supposed to be based on the cuddly Disney movie of the same name, in which extremely nonthreatening dinosaurs and lemurs frolic about and learn about family, or some such. Nonthreatening dino sculptures are all around the entrance to the ride (sponsered by McDonalds), and the ride is prefaced by a video (sponsered by McDonalds) featuring the very nonthreatening mom from the Cosby Show who reminds you to wear your seatbelt and be good and oh by the way, this adorable nonthreatening ride is sponsered by McDonalds. I should add that just about everyone in the line was very young children, generally the ones too short to go on the big rides, and their parents.

Essentially, the ride is terrifying. You lurch around in the dark, while flashes go off in your face and extremely threatening dinosaurs lunge out at you from the shadows really close to the riders. And the whole time the 'scientist' hosting your ride is screaming that you're going to either be eaten or perish in a meteor shower that is going to END ALL LIFE.

So basically all the kids around us were screaming their heads off, crying, and begging their parents to make it stop. At the end (when the Tyrannosaur jumps out) Disney takes a picture. Our car's picture was: a mom holding her screaming, tearstained 6-year-old, the mom behind HER trying to prevent her (also screaming) child from jumping out of the car, the two kids behind her screaming, crying, and possibly peeing, and me and Ben laughing. (ps--I stole the dinosaur ride images from Disney)

I am still here

2007-04-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

Sort of.

There will be more later, with pictures. Really! Check back in May.

For a diversion, here is my favorite website: www.woostercollective.com

Also, Vonnegut died?! Galapagos has always been one of my favorite books. So it goes.

Drunken beaches

2007-03-18T15:16:00.000-07:00

(5th Hill girl's reunion: Jillian, Andi, Anna, and Anna-Kate)

One of the best things about living in the Pacific NW is the scenery. This is most evident along the coasts of Washington/Oregon, which sort of look like the prettiest parts of Ireland or England, but with more trees. The downside being that most of the year these beaches are absolutely freezing cold, windy, and covered in slimy kelp. So naturally myself and 8 of my college roommates/fellow crazies decided to go the Oregon coast (Manzanita) for a reunion during the freezingest month of the year (well, January would have been worse) to play in the rain on the beach. Kelp, as it turns out, makes for excellent jump ropes. (Running around in the rain at midnight. Oddly enough, Andi didn't drop her camera into the ocean until 2 days later, when she was actually sober.)

The fog made the weather worthwhile. Pretty pictures! Manzanita is like, one street. It's seriously a tiny town. This is the entire town, seen from the beach. And this is my favorite gull.

No, he doesn't smell

2007-03-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

Well, not any worse than the dog.
This is Merlin the ferret. Yes, he gets along with the cats and dog.Well, he chews on them until they run away.Doesn't he look like an otter? Or a little bear cub? AUGH SO CUTE! I don't know why anyone wouldn't want one. It's like owning your own magcial Disney forest critter. I keep expecting him to burst into song.

Art Institute of Chicago

2007-02-25T12:26:00.000-08:00

Here's some of our favorites (that I could find pictures of anyway) from the Art Institute of Chicago when we visted last summer:

Paris Street; Rainy Day, Gustave Caillebotte. So this was my first Impressionist painting, it's gorgeous, words can't describe, blah blah blah. I especially love how perfectly rainy it is, and how the street glows.

At the Moulin Rouge, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The movie Moulin Rouge was inspired by Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings (a character in the movie was very loosely based on him). My first impression is that his stuff is ugly, distorted, and dark, but Toulouse-Lautrec is such a character that it makes me love the paintings more. He was crippled at birth and a heavy drinker/absinthe addict, and spent all his time in Montparnasse painting dancers. His stuff looks like album covers to me, and he uses lots of greens, and all his dancers are redheads, so of course I have to love it. All of his paintings are almost... hideous, but I mean that in the best possible way.

Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare, Claude Monet. I just like this because it's so blue, and the movement of the smoke and the trains is a nice effect. Close up, it looks like a finger painting, and the further back you get from it the more it comes together.

That was all I could find good pictures of. It's surprisingly hard to find images of fine art online, probably because the plebes aren't allowed to photograph them. You would think that museums would have at least a complete listing of their collections on the web, but I've yet to find a website that holds a complete catalog. Weird.

The Bean

2007-02-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

Here is Jon, Hannah, and Ben in Millenium Park in Chicago (click to view larger).

On this Chicago trip we attempted to take Hannah the Super Bubbly and Overexcited 2-Year Old to the Art Institute of Chicago and Milennium Park with the fam. Hannah, despite living near Seattle with her parents, has never been to a big city, and was super overstimulated by it. As a result, she was galloping through the museum shrieking happily at top volume “AIRPLANE AIRPLANE!” for no discernable reason. Here's me in front of the “bean” statue at Milennium park, which was also another reason for Hannah to shriek.

The Farm (again)

2007-01-06T18:20:00.000-08:00

A break from the Japan trip (again) for a short trip to the farm in Illnois and a Chicago day, where we finally (finally!) got to go the Art Institute of Chicago.

I’m in this whole ‘elegant decay’ phase with the picture taking, so forgive the incredibly redundant photos of the rotting barn and corn crib.

Pretty much all of the buildings are falling apart except the house, and because my family never ever ever (ever, like since 1900) throws anything away, they are all full of incredible stuff. Among the finds we had this time: a completely rusted tractor from 1940 that STILL RUNS (below), newspapers from WWII, harnesses and bridles, and an oxen yoke. The bridles and yoke were hanging from the ceiling and had bird’s nests in them.

The bridles and yoke are crazy finds for several reasons. For starters, it hasn’t been a working farm (meaning they haven’t had animals) since the 70s. Secondly, when they did have animals, they were only cows and pigs. That means that the bridles and yoke were for working animals that pulled the plows and carts, etc. So the bridles and yoke are almost 100 years old, since we got the first motorized farm equipment in the 20s. As a history nerd, I was totally excited. Plus, this would be an excellent setting for a zombie movie.

And here is the rock sign-thingy that makes it all important and stuff:

And this is Ben in the corn, because Ben is awesome.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-10T17:55:00.000-08:00

Merry belated Christmas everyone!

I apologize in advance for not sending out letters and being a little late. I have a good excuse! First of all, we had a (now practically legendary) power outage. The whole city of Seattle lost power for almost a week due to a bad windstorm. Ben and I live far enough out that we didn't lose power, but the airport DID, so the last few weeks have been beyond insane at work. I was also interviewing for a training position at my work, so I wanted to wait to know that I got it for sure before I sent out letters. So now I am a trainer for Horizon (training the new hires how on policy and how to use the computer program) and I am very excited about it. It also includes some travel, so I will be going to the rural airports in Idaho, California and Montana to train the ticket counter agents as well.

So this year was crazy, beginning in May when we went to Florida to visit Grandma Norma and Grandpa Jerry, and then took a mini road trip from Fort Meyers to Disney World, which was awesome.

June was our awesome, insane, amazing trip to Japan. Japan far exceeded our expectations in every way, in fact it impressed us in many ways more than Europe. I think it's our favorite place that we've been so far. The things we liked most about Japan were the people and culture. However, as vegetarians, we nearly starved to death in Japan. They put meat (or something freaky, like giant crab claws) in everything. If you want to read the story about how we were able to go to Japan, and more pictures, etc, go here.

In July we went to Black Butte, Oregon with Ben's family and Dad, Jodi, and Hannah (who is 2 and ridiculous. 2 year olds are seriously ridiculous. They're like puppies who have been given sugar and too many toys. It's unreal.) We stayed in a big cabin in the woods. It's a beautiful area, like Colorado but with more trees. (stepmom Jodi took this picture of the mountains when her and Dad took a hike up Black Butte)

August was our trip to Illinois to visit Grandma Beverly and Grandpa George, and we had brief visits with Aunts Paulette and Christine as well (and it was really nice to see all of you!). This was Ben's first real visit to the city of Chicago (the first time we went was in December 05, and there was a giant snowstorm so we didn't get out much) and we went to the Art Institute, which was amazing. Our trip to the museum was cut short by Hannah the Ridiculous Squealy Juggernaut, because as it turns out that the curators get a little nervous when 2-year-olds launch themselves directly at Monet's Waterlilies. Oops.

So that was our last trip for 2006. All in all, we had over 5 weeks off between May and October. It was an amazing year. If you'd like to see some of the trips we took in 2005 (like Venice and Amsterdam!), some pictures are in the archives here, but I'm not completely done posting all of those yet, so more to come.

Also in August my best friend Olivia married one of Ben's close friends (Nathan), and Ben and I were in the wedding. You can see more pictures of the festivities here. I've been friends with Olivia since we were 8 and first introduced her to Nathan four years ago, so this was a great day.

So as you can probably guess, we are never ever quitting our jobs. Throwing baggage and dealing with the sometimes crazy weather is absolutely justified when we can fly to Tokyo in first class. Although...now we are grounded for the whole of 2007, as our New Year's resolution is to pay off some debt. We can still make domestic trips to see the family, but our international trips are on hold while we do actual grownup stuff like fixing the car, going to the dentist, buying food, etc. Bleh.

Oh, and because Jon will never tell you---go here to listen to his latest band! He does vocals on the 2nd song, and plays all the instruments (except harmonica, which is played by stepdad Steve) on everything else.

Also...we moved into a bigger apartment, so the animals are very happy (still have dog Murphy, cats Sorsha and Holden and baby ferret Merlin). Children and a house are not in the game plan, as we still mostly behave like petulant teenagers and are spending the majority our free time trying to decipher the babbling of Hannah the Squiggly Cannonball.

And...we have been married for four years!

Merry Christmas everyone, please don't hesitate to write and bug us to come see you!

More Deer!

2006-08-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

OK, so I'm a little deer-centric. I can't help it! They're so cute! Almost the whole city of Nara agrees with me, so whatevs. Above is the tag off a little Hello Kitty cell-phone keychain I bought.

These are the signs posted around the temple grounds. I can't read Japanese, but I think this one is saying to keep the rugrats from petting the baby deer, because it makes momma deer sad, or something.

And this one says that...the deer hate you?

And this one says that while the deer may hate you, they do love the handicapped.

MORE DEER! (I swear I will get to the cultural stuff at some point. Eventually. Did I mention that the deer are teeny?!)

Four Years

2006-08-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

(picture taken by Steve)

A break from the trip reports today, because it's our anniversary! Four years! And we still like each other!

If someone had told me in high school that I would someday be married to a tall, dark, handsome guy who would travel the world with me, I would have laughed in their face. And then probably gotten depressed. Anyway...

Our first date was to the Woodland Park Zoo, but it actually wasn't a date because I had a momentary commitment freak-out and told him I wasn't ready to date, but I would go with him to the zoo because it sounded like fun. I even tried the whole 'let's be good friends' thing (never buy this excuse guys, we never mean it), but luckily he didn't buy it. I have no idea what was wrong with me. Fortunately I recovered and wound up kissing him in a fake concrete cave in the zoo's playground. He won me over that day. I was coming out of the restroom and he had climbed a tree (like, a really tall tree) in front of the restroom and started hooting at me like a monkey. He was so shy up to that point, and the gesture was so weird, that it was a revelatory moment for me. I knew a guy this odd couldn't be conventional.

Then about two weeks later I decided that I was bored with school (this was freshman year. I have a short attention span) and wanted to go to Europe. I proposed this to Ben, mostly kidding. He agreed, so we spent our savings on plane tickets and Eurail passes and we really did go in 2000. So this was the whole turning point of our relationship.

We both come from conservative Christian families, and both families completely lost it over the Europe trip thing. Our parents first met each other when they ganged up on us to try to convince us not to go. My grandma told me in no uncertain terms that she knew we were going to Europe to fornicate, do drugs, and possibly have a late-term abortion. I am irrationally proud of this phase of our relationship because it's the only time we really ever rebelled, and the reaction from the parents was pretty amusing. Bear in mind, we had only been dating for about a month when we decided to do the trip, and the trip was 6 months after that. We never talked about the future; we both knew it was set.

We fell in love in Europe, most specifically Paris (of course). It was near the end of the 4 weeks when we looked at each other and realized with total amazement that we weren't sick of each other, that we had a couple little fights (most often about my tendancy to run headlong into Parisian traffic without checking for oncoming cars) but nothing that soured the trip in any way. I remember walking around the palace in Versailles and thinking that I would never be this free again, and walking down the banks of the Seine at midnight under the Eiffel Tower and knowing absolutely that I would marry this man.

He gave me a book of poetry he had written for me, and the last poem was his proposal. We couldn't wait until after college so we got married August 23, 2002, in the most thrown-together ceremony ever. It was in this huge, completely ugly superchurch, and the groomsmen wore Converse and I made fairy wings for the flower girls. The best part was right after the ceremony, when they let us have a private moment in the dressing room, and we just hugged each other and cried. Everyone who was at our wedding had the same reaction; that they had never been to a ceremony that was so sincere.

That spontaneity that characterized the first 6 months of our relationship has never really died down. Our jobs give us the ability to travel whenever we feel like it, and even our pets (all found and adopted on a whim) are a testimony to the fun we've had just being together.

And now it's four years later, and I know how everyone says that your feelings change, that infatuation mellows into stable companionship, that you settle down. But I still think about him all the time when I'm not with him, about how lucky I am, and I still want to spend every waking moment with him. We had separate hobbies and interests when we met, but now we adopt each other's interests, we've each become the other's muse. We had a revelatory moment in Europe back in 2001, that we weren't sick of each other after 4 weeks of being with no one but each other. 4 years later, it's the same thing.

Deery Lou

2006-08-19T12:50:00.000-07:00

Nara city is about an hour from Osaka by train. It has the world's largest wooden temple, which was built to hold the largest Buddha in Japan, blah blah blah. But the important part is that the place is crawling with teeny deer! Deer! That are teeny! And they eat from your hand and let you pet them!

The Sika deer are sacred to Shinto, so the monks let them run wild. They're all over the city and in the parks but most of them live near the shrines and graveyards around the big temple of Todai-ji (more pics of the temples later). They're aggressively friendly but suprisingly gentle, although they would kind of overwhelm the little kids who were trying to feed them crackers.

Nara sort of summed up everything that Ben and I love about Japan. The people in the shops were so, so friendly, the schoolkids on field trips all wanted to speak English with us and take photos, and everyone was eating ice cream and chatting and laughing, but none of it felt fake. It was laid-back even though it was in the middle of the city. Plus, what other country on earth has a citywide petting zoo?

Another thing: we kept hearing all these horror stories before we left for Japan about people getting attacked by the deer, kids getting gored by antlers, etc. We saw absolutely no evidence of this, and clearly our fellow tourists are weenies.