Happy Solstice (冬至快乐) !

What does this mean? We've survived a full season cycle here! This is our 2nd Solstice here! Ah... How time flies!

I'm really happy that the shortest day is finally over! The whole place goes dark at 4pm now. I'm better in adapting now, but still find this abit hard to accept. I guess we all do need plenty of photosynthesis.

This time round, I couldn't get the soy drink with peanuts (花生仁汤) :( So I had to prepare the soup from scratch, which wasn't too difficult, and it taste good.

If you want, the recipe is here. I also added 2 slices of ginger and used palm sugar which is much more flavorful than the normal sugar.

Looking forward to longer days. Yippee!

St Helens (2009-08-29)

St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980 at 8:32am PDT. The huge pressure build-up ripped off the top of St Helens and wiped out forestation in its vicinity.

This was one of our must-see destinations.

CH's colleague - Qing was interested too. Unfortunately the weather for the week had been cloudy and rainy. However The forecast predicted the clouds should clear by afternoon, despite some raindrops in the morning. We were hesitating if we should go for it, and after much discussion, we decided to take the risk. It was 10am when we set off, which was pretty late as the ride takes 3 hours to reach.

We were on the outskirts of St. Helens when we passed by Sediment Retention Dam Viewpoint. We decided to explore that area as well as have our lunch there.

Walking on the dam...

Qing doing a "go stun" (backward) walk

Drainage

Nice flower...


We moved on, and reached a small park (can't remember the name). It looked pretty scenic, we took a walk.

Johnston Ridge Observatory. Notice the surrounding tree stubs that had been blown out by the eruption.

And these too...

Wildlife restoring back to the park


By the time we reached Johnston Ridge Observatory, the clouds were setting in, we couldn't see St. Helens. :( Oh well, at least we made it.

Cheer from Qing

More stubs here...


We watched a movie about how St. Helens erupted, before making our way back.

Stopping at Hoffstadt Creek Bridge

The clouds cleared slightly for us to have this picture.


It was really disappointing not being able to see St. Helens. We'll definitely be back again.

The Burroughs (2009.08.15)

Its another fee-free weekend to the National Parks - the last one in fact. We had been looking forward to visit Mt Rainier in Summer. In June, we explored the southwestern portion of Mt Rainier with my cousin, and there were snow everywhere. This time, we decided to check out the northwest portion of Mt Rainier, and hiked one of the trails there - Mt Burroughs.

Considering the traveling time, we wanted to set off very early - 7am, but got delayed by an hour. I was pretty worried about the parking lot, as it was a pretty popular hike. Surprisingly, the traveling time was lesser than the last, and we reached around 9:30am. We were able to get a parking lot reasonably close to the visitor center. Without much ado, we changed into our boots and set off.

Taking our 1st shot at the visitor center:


Briskly we climbed uphill, and came to a viewpoint. A couple were looking at the far distance using their binoculars, and talking to themselves "Its there, I see it". Curious, I edged slowly towards them, and asked: "Are you looking for marmots?"

I had never seen one, was hoping I could catch a glimpse for this trip.

The woman shook her head, her husband answered me: "There's a bear out there".

We asked to "borrow" his binoculars which was mounted on a tripod stand, and he carefully adjusted it, before letting us gain control of it. It was a very big bear, without this powerful binoculars, it would be impossible to locate it with our SLR lens, let alone our eyes. I asked about the power of the binoculars, which was 15.30.60. Hm, didn't make any sense to us, but I made a mental note.

Bear, bear! Spot the bear!

I really doubt you could see it. Its very far, but believe me, this bear was much bigger than the one we saw at Mt Olympics.

By now, many people had gathered, wondering what we were looking at, and taking turns with his binoculars when they learned of it. I jokingly told CH they should set up a "Bear Sighting Stand" here, and charged for the use of the binoculars.


We moved on, leaving the horde of people there admiring. It was a sunny day, and there were beautiful meadows with blooming flowers everywhere. The climb was enjoyable, scenic, and relaxing.


We arrived at Frozen Lake, a water source for some parts of Washington. There was a fence around it, barring intruders from access. We carefully walked around the fence, observing the interesting ice hanging over the lake.

No tramping! Its our water source! Yes, we drink from this!


Then we moved on, uphills. Reached the first Burroughs.


We decided we'd had our lunch when we reached the second Burroughs. Shortly, we met a couple on the way down. They'd stopped to wait for their son, who was crying. Looked like the poor kid was either tired or hungry to go on anymore. We went past them, then re-traced our steps to the family. CH offered the kid a packet of waffle biscuits we brought along as our snacks. The kid accepted, and immediately stopped crying. Its like magic!

"Don't cry anymore!" I shouted to him. We smiled at his parents, as the family began to move on.

We continued on, overtook a couple who had passed us earlier.

"Now it's your turn to lead," one of them jokingly said. We all laughed.


On our way up, we spotted a marmot, foraging for food.

I was getting impatient and quickened my footsteps. When I reached, CH was far behind me, taking his own time to take pictures and enjoy the scenery. I found a piece of rock, and sat down as I waited for him. There were many people here already, and 2 rangers, talking to some of the hikers.

CH finally reached and we settled on a spot to have our lunch, facing the burroughs as we enjoyed our rewards.


Isn't she beautiful? I wished I lived here!


It was time to go. We took a different route back, joining the Wonderland trail. Glad we did, it was really scenic.

More pictures at flickr.

Rattlesnake Ledge (2009.08.08)

Since coming here, CH's jeans had been giving up on him, starting from a small tear to a significant hole, just below the right bottom. Ok, near the butt. Could you imagine wearing out 2 jeans in a year? I wonder if he's grown more rough-like (like me) or the weather's too dry for clothes...

Anyway, we decided to make a trip to one of the factory outlets to get him new pair of jeans. So we settled on a hike nearby which should be just sufficient to give us half a day's shopping pleasure - Rattlesnake Ledge.

However, there are more people than snakes you'd find. How this mountain earned its name was somehow due to the sound it made similar to this viper. A mountain full of foliage, not difficult to conquer.


Round-trip: 3miles
Elevation Gain: 1,100ft

As you can see, there were INDEED more people (and dogs) up there. We didn't find any snakes.

To shopping time! We finally had a chance to check out Malay Satay Hut at Redmond. If you remember, we had visited this restaurant in Chinatown, but were so disappointed. This Redmond branch is the original, and said to be better. Well, it IS better, BUT the penang char kway teow (fried rice noodles) still wasn't authentic enough. I'm beginning to suspect its due to the quality of the noodles sold here. Anyway, we had a very satisfied meal, with my long craving for chicken rice finally satisfied!


This also marked our 1st year anniversary here in Seattle. Yes, a year had passed. Looking back, we were worried about being able to survive winter, and now we've experienced the 4 seasons, wonderful in their own ways. How time flies!

Mt Olympics National Park (2009.07.26)

After spending a good night at a hostel in Port Angeles, we were up and kicking on Sunday morning as we hurriedly prepared our sandwiches for both breakfast and lunch in the kitchen. The best part of staying in a hostel is getting to meet and talk to various people under the same roof. There were an elderly and young couple from Canada, and a group of backpackers who just hiked from Montana all the way to Washington. They took a whole month to reach here, and will be taking off (by foot!) trekking Mt Olympics from East to West! My full admiration for them! *Applause*

Friendly hostel:

Bidding our kind host farewell, we stopped by Dungeness Spit, which is a long stretch of land off the coast of Port Angeles town. It was pretty early, around 9am. A couple was loading their yacht onto the pickup, several seagulls chirping as they flew and landed. Its all very peaceful and quiet. We could also see Port Angeles town from here.


At 9am, we began making our way to Hoh National Rainforest, which is about 70miles drive. We came across a big cedar tree on the way.

Slightly before noon, we reached Hoh rainforest.



We then proceeded to our last stop of the day - Marymere Falls.



It was time to go home. Traffic was pretty smooth, we reached the ferry terminal at Bainbridge Island around 7:30pm. We patiently waited in our car for the ferry, while other drivers walked around, chit chatted with one another to pass the time.


Came the ferry... arh... home sweet home, at last!

My first ...

Blueberry muffins!

Yum yum, the texture is so soft and fluffy. Its super easy, just mix everything and pour into the muffin pan, or whatever pan you have. The recipe makes 6 medium size muffins.

You can get the recipe here. Just substitute the black sesame with half a cup (120ml) of fillings, in my case I use blueberries.

A Taxi Driver's Blog

There's this guy who's a PhD holder from Stanford University, now a taxi (cab) driver in SG. Do check out his interesting blog as he depicts his daily encounters with passengers from all walks of life.

http://taxidiary.blogspot.com

Mt Olympics National Park (2009.07.25)

To encourage Americans to visit the national treasures, entrance fees to several National Parks are waived for 3 weekends, respectively in June, July and August. We'd planned to visit Mt Olympics National Park during the fee-free weekend, but it coincided with the annual Lavender Festival, and all the accommodations were fully booked. We had no choice but to postpone the dates to the following weekend.

There are 2 ways to get to the park - by ferry/car or car only. We chose the former which will reduce traveling time by half - 3hours. I was pretty excited as this was our first time driving a car into a ferry. How cool is that!

From Seattle, we'll get to Bainbridge Island by ferry, and drive north from there for the rest of the journey. I was thinking the ferry travel time took a little longer than reported, but didn't suspect a thing. Till we alighted from the terminal and were trying to locate the highway did we realized we were on the wrong island - Bremerton. As we pulled over to read the map, a man on the sidewalk saw us, hesitated, then walked towards our car.

"Do you have change for a dollar and fifty cents?" He asked, as we wind down our windows.
Great, we were lost, and someone just asked you for money. How bad could it be?

We looked at each other, sighed, gave in, and CH passed him the change. I took the opportunity to ask him for directions. He looked surprised, then started giving advice. He asked CH to get out of the car, and showed him the way. With that, we made our way back to the road again. Luckily the mistake was minor, we just had to drive more miles to reach, that's all. And we were pretty early - around 9+am.

At 10:30am, we reached the town where we'd spend the night. After checking in at the hostel, we proceeded to get some picnic sandwich to go, and Voila! We're off to our first stop - Hurricane Hill.

Loved the clear blue skies, and alphine views!

Round-trip: 3miles
Elevation gain: 700feet

On our way uphill, a couple of men greeted us, and told us they saw a bear up there. That got us very excited, but we couldn't go any faster on the steep trail, much as we'd wanted to.

Finally we reached, and had our lunch here. We had forgotten about the bear, till a woman hiker asked us if we had seen it.

"Is it still around?" I asked.
"Yap, right there." She confirmed, pointing to our left.
Our eyes followed her direction, and saw a black mass on a heap of snow. Looking through our SLR camera confirmed it was a black bear, lying on the snow, maybe suntanning. We were very amused.

First bear sighting of our lives:


It was really far, a pity our camera couldn't zoom any further.

More views at the top:


Feeling happy and satisfied, we made our way back, and proceeded to hike the next trail - Obstruction Point. The road to this destination was pretty scary. First of all its a sharp turn into a side road that was very hidden. We missed it and had to reverse the car to make the turn. And we got a shock thereafter. The road was completely gravel, unpaved, and narrow. Very very narrow. The edge of the road is a steep drop several miles into the valley below. And then we saw it - a pick-up, coming right towards us, fighting the limited road space with us. I froze, waiting for it to pass. Though I felt I could still move the car a little bit more to the edge, I wasn't willing to take the risk.

The vehicle was too big, it couldn't make it through. The driver stopped at my window.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't move anymore, I am so scared!", I confessed.
"You're doing fine. Just move slightly forward." The driver assured.

I did as told, inch by inch while he moved slowly away from us. And we cleared! Wipe sweat *literally*

Unpaved, narrow, and perilous:


We proceeded with the rest of the journey, cruising at speed slower than 10miles/hr. This went on for 7.8miles. By then the car was very dirty, the rear windscreen and whole body was covered with sand. Time for a car wash, I murmured.

Without further ado, we embarked on our next hike to Obstruction Point. Boy this had got to be the best hike of my life. Really. I enjoyed the entire trail very much - every direction we looked was so spectacular. We were totally immersed in our surroundings, didn't even realize it was 5pm already. We had not reached.


A couple of ladies came by, greeted us, and we asked them how much longer it'd take.
"We came back from the lake, took us about an hour to get here," one of the ladies reckoned, "Its probably gonna take you guys more than that, going uphill".

I asked them the name of the trail, showed them the guide book on the trail we wanted, and was told we might be on the wrong one.
"This is a great trail, and the lake is beautiful", she comforted.
I nodded my head furiously, "I enjoyed every minute here".

We'd have to decide if we wanna go on, or turn back. Much as we wanted to move on, we knew we would not have enough time. Reluctantly we turned back, but not before taking a good long rest to take in the beautiful views to our fill.

On returning to our car, we found a piece of note inserted into the side window:

We were not really sure if someone's playing a joke on us, but I emailed the person anyway, and turned out it wasn't a prank! We got $25 driving credited into our account, for taking the car to such a cool place. Sweet!

Reward of the day:


[To be Continued...]