Every Day Is a Miracle

Back to music camp!

2013-05-21T17:31:00.003-07:00

Entrance to beautiful Camp Collins

At the end of April, I returned to Camp Collins with my mom, friend Lois, and Lois' friend Ruth for the Northwest Women's Music Celebration. I believe it was the fifth time I've attended--I went a few times BC (before children) and in 2010 and 2012 (click the link for "10 reasons I love music camp"). As usual, it was a weekend of amazing music, hilarity, excellent eating, and creativity.

As women arrived at camp to check in,
others had an impromptu outdoor jam session

Camp kicks off with a fantastic song circle led by the members of Motherlode, the band who founded and runs the camp. It's the best song circle ever...led by crazily talented musicians and accompanied by other great musicians.

After the song circle, we had a bit of free time so Mom and I explored the camp and walked down to the Sandy River...and wondered how they keep all those kids away from the river during the summertime!

It was the best weather we've ever had for camp!!

It's always fun to hang out with my mom at camp

Sunglasses and hat at the end of April--nice!

After dinner the first night we had a teacher's concert, which is always completely entertaining and side-splitting.

Camp leaders Linda and Ellen, our river rangers

Motherlode, the "dangerous" creatures in the river

On Saturday we have many choices for classes...it's always so hard to choose just one during each session! Right after breakfast we had a fun camp choir, where we sang, among others, "Tony Chestnut," and I decided I needed to teach it to the kindergarteners (which I have done since then).

Motherlode's Kathleen Fallon leading a song

I went to a "repertoire" class led by roots/Americana/folk singer-songwriter Coty Hogue, a really fun "Great Camp Sing-off" class led by the hilarious parody goddesses Linda and Shelly (our team won!), and intermediate mandolin with my mandolin and fiddle idol Crystal Reeves. Not only has Crystal been my inspiration for the mandolin, but she also is a supremely nice person and an excellent teacher.

Linda and Shelly at the Great Camp Sing-off

Crystal and her fiddle

After the classes, you can find women all over camp practicing for the student concert after dinner on Saturday night.

Lois practicing her harmonica (she took beginning harmonica that day)

Outdoor rehearsals everywhere

I usually perform in the concert, but this year I felt like relaxing on Saturday afternoon instead. I get nervous before performing before all those phenomenal musicians, and even though it's truly good for me to perform, and they are an amazingly supportive audience, I decided to purely enjoy the concert this year. The only piece I performed in was a multiple-class rendition of "Jambalaya," with several intermediate classes performing together.

That afternoon I took a nice long shower and poked around the camp store...and we bought a few CDs. I coveted the ukuleles (they seem so fun and easy!), but I can't buy any more instruments until I master the ones I have, right?

The student concert is always inspiring, as women who have just learned an instrument or who are not accustomed to performing get up on stage and sing or play their hearts out...alongside professional or highly experienced musicians. This year was notable because the stage held five or six stand-up basses playing at once! And one person played a keyboard line on an iPad.

It's a very supportive atmosphere overall...each act is met with thundering applause. Sometimes the less experienced or certain the performer, the more applause she gets!

One of the funny concert emcees

Lois performing with the beginning harmonicas

These two young women were camp staff--who performed a gorgeous song, Wanted,
in the concert and later they got a name and a Facebook page!
Check out the video here. They are way better than the original (by Hunter Hayes)!

There I am! (Crystal Reeves is standing at the mike)

Closeup of the mandolin player!

One of the funniest moments was Shelly's debut with the cowbell

And this pirate skit was pretty funny too!

The next day I took a "up-the-neck-chords" guitar class with Linda Waterfall, whose music I've long admired...and I won something in the raffle--this African finger piano!

When I won, Marie Eaton of Motherlode announced my name as "the other Marie"--
I love going places where I'm not the only Marie!

Then it was time for closing circle.

And time to say goodbye!

Camp buddies

Another successful year at music camp. Think I'll practice my mandolin or guitar more in the next year? I learned some great new tricks--don't want to lose them!

Monday Listicles: Kick-butt women on the screen

2013-05-19T22:48:00.000-07:00

This week's Monday Listicles is favorite characters in movies or TV, so I thought I'd travel down memory lane and write about characters I've admired and wanted to emulate throughout the years. So here goes!

1. Laurie Partridge in "The Partridge Family" (Susan Dey)

She sang in a family band, was a brunette like me, and got to sing with David Cassidy (my teen idol)! I also liked her in LA Law later on. Check out this great clip of the battle of the sexes between Keith and Laurie Partridge (embedding disabled). Makes me want to get hold of old Partridge Family episodes--loved that show!

2. Laura Ingalls Wilder in Little House on the Prairie (Melissa Gilbert)

She was adventurous, inquisitive, and so not girly! She was loved by her family and stood up to bullies.

3. Samantha Stephens on "Bewitched"
(Elizabeth Montgomery)

While my sister loved Jeannie in "I Dream of Jeannie," I preferred "Bewitched." I didn't like the way the major could lock Jeannie up in a bottle when he didn't like the way she was acting. Samantha had much more power in her household. The show had lots of eccentric characters, and Samantha was smart, savvy, and magic.

4. Julie McCoy on "Loveboat" (Lauren Tewes)

She got to organize all these fun activities, run the show, and live on a cruise ship! (Which I know is not nearly as glamorous as it sounds!)

4. Claire Huxtable on "The Cosby Show" (Phylicia Rashad)

She was the COOLEST mom...whip-smart, hip and stylish, and wise, and a professional working woman as well! She knew how to keep everyone in the family in line, and do it in the nicest way. Love this clip:

5. Wanda Gershwitz in "A Fish Called Wanda" (Jamie Lee Curtis)

Okay, she was a criminal...but she knew what she wanted! I love this scene of John Cleese speaking in different languages as foreplay: I can relate to her in finding accents sexy! And I love romances between American women and British men, of course. We first saw this movie in Japan, and we were the only ones laughing in the theater!

6. Yentl (written, directed, and acted by Barbra Streisand, based on the story by Isaac Bashevis Singer)

I might be one of the few people who loved this movie, but love it I did! I could relate so well to the character Yentl, who wanted to study yeshiva but couldn't because she was a girl. This is one of my all-time favorite movie scenes:

7. Murphy Brown (Candice Bergen), Julia Sugarbaker in "Designing Women" (Julia Carter), and Dorothy Zbornak in "The Golden Girls" (Bea Arthur)

The 80s and 90s were a heyday for great, strong sitcom roles for women! That's not even mentioning Roseanne. So often in my life, I have wished I had the chutzpah of any of these characters...not afraid to speak their minds and stand up for what is right...and call bullshit on what is wrong!

Here's a classic clip of Murphy--she was a great role model for strong women--incredibly bright, strong-willed, opinionated, and feisty:

8. Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Minerva McGonnagal (Maggie Smith) in the Harry Potter series--love them both. Harry would have been nothing without them. I love Maggie Smith in "Downton Abbey" too. She always has the best lines, in both Harry Potter and Downton Abbey.

9. Sally Field...in anything! From "Gidget" and "The Flying Nun" and "Norma Rae" to her recent role in "Brothers and Sisters," where she played a passionate mother bear, I love everything she's in...and the fact that she spoke out for gay rights to honor her son. Love her.

10. Megan in "Bridesmaids" (portrayed by Melissa McCarthy)

Where to start? She totally ruled that movie, which I loved! She's the best! My favorite scenes were the air marshal ones (and later learned that was her real husband!) and the come-to-Jesus discussion she had with Annie.

So many more I could have included...but this trip down memory lane has made me want to explore some of my old favorite shows. I've never showed my kids "The Cosby Show," for example--time to start!

Check out other favorite screen characters at The Good Life by Stasha.

Food Cart Adventures: Thai Pasta

2013-05-17T23:32:00.004-07:00

I went to Thai Pasta on a rainy spring day...I seem to be on a Thai roll, with several Asian carts grouped together. (The last few food cart adventures have been Phat Kart, Krua Bangkok, and Rice and Noodle.) We love our Asian food in Portland! When I returned to Oregon after three years in Asia, Portland had very few Asian restaurants outside of Chinese...only one Indian, a few Japanese, and a handful of Thai. Now we have a preponderance, and the food carts are no different.

I had the mango red curry with chicken at Thai Pasta, which is one of the longest-standing carts in the pod. (I've always found that to be a strange name--I think of pasta as an Italian thing). I asked for medium spiciness, which was a bit of a risk having never eaten there before. I was happy with my dish, which had nice big chunks of mango in it. I paid a dollar extra for brown rice (I love that I never have to pay extra at Dosirak!). Fortunately, between the spiciness (which made me eat slower) and the size, I had enough left over for the next day...not bad for $8.

I do love Thai food, but I'm ready to change things up! Looks like Indian is next in the pod.

My mango red curry with chicken

My verdict: I will return. After a break from Thai food for awhile! I love it, but am ready for a change.

The Barefoot Movement and Milk Carton Kids

2013-05-16T16:43:00.002-07:00

I'm feeling rather fed up because I wrote a post about our great concert last night, and then it got swallowed up by Blogger. This has happened to me several times before, but I still, clearly, haven't learned my lesson to draft my posts on Notepad and then drop them into Blogger. Silly me.

In spite of this setback, I'm excited to share with you my thoughts about the concert I went to with my 16-year-old son, Chris, last night, after he won tickets on Tixie. My post will be shorter this time around!

Chris has never met a concert he doesn't like. Many of our discussions revolve around his efforts to persuade us to go to concerts or music festivals, with the entire family in tow, even! He is completely besotted with concerts...even if he's never heard the band before. On the other hand, I'm less interested in going to concerts of bands I do not follow--I value my time and money too much!
But free is appealing, and I listened to the groups beforehand and knew I'd like them. Chris, though, deliberately did not listen to the music before the concert. The reason he bid on the tickets on Tixie was that he liked the band name (Milk Carton Kids)!

The Barefoot Movement

This group of young, amazingly talented musicians, the Barefoot Movement, hails from North and South Carolina and Tennessee, where they attended Eastern Tennessee State University, which offers a major in bluegrass, old-time, and country music. Noah Wall sings vocals and plays a kick-ass fiddle (and writes most of the lyrics), Tommy Norris plays a mean mandolin, Quentin Acres sings and plays rhythm guitar, and Hasee Ciaccio plays the upright bass and sings. I think they are the youngest band I've ever seen perform live--so young that Hasee is turning 21 today, and one of them had never traveled east of Memphis. They play old-fashioned bluegrass amped up several notches. I love their sound!

I bought their most recent CD, Figures of the Year, and will do my best to get my hands on their other one too. Here's one of my favorites, "Do What You Please" (this video is from 2011, when they were even YOUNGER!):

I will definitely be following this group and looking for an opportunity to see them again when they return to Portland one day. And they made my teenager appreciate bluegrass--he loved them too!

Here's a quick clip of their recording of the Blind Melon song, "No Rain" (with some interviews):

The Milk Carton Kids

Milk Carton Kids performing an NPR Tiny Desk Concert

Before yesterday I'd never heard of the Milk Carton Kids, a duo from California, but I loved them as well. Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale sing beautiful, smooth two-part harmonies, prompting comparisons to Simon & Garfunkel and the Everly Brothers. How they differ from those two groups is that although many of their songs are sad and soulful, they are HILARIOUS. I think they spent nearly as much time joking and bantering as they did singing! (Well, maybe not...)

With a dry, quick wit, Joey loves to tell stories and tease his bandmate. Kenneth is an amazing guitarist. Before one song, Joey told us how much he'd been practicing his guitar, and how critical it was that we watch HIS hands during the next song. Then they started the next song, and Kenneth was just all over that guitar! Here's an example of Joey's banter, as he's explaining that they put up their first two albums (Prologue and Retrospect) for free on their web site (which I downloaded today!):

Here's a good example of Kenneth's guitar playing (see how you think they compare to Simon & Garfunkel!!):

Here's another song I like...Kenneth wrote it for his hypothetical future daughter, Charlie. I realized when they started describing it that I'd heard it on the radio (either KINK or NPR) just a few days ago:

I didn't buy their most recent album, the Ash & Clay, but I might have to do so. They are extremely generous musicians, not only offering their albums for free on their Web site, but also offering the entire album on youtube. They also still record their albums on vinyl and used these gorgeous, handmade microphones (made in Portland):

If you get a chance to see either of these two great bands, I strongly encourage you to jump at the chance. Such great talent! It's so much fun to discover new bands.

Food Cart Adventures: Krua Bangkok and Rice and Noodle

2013-05-15T18:08:00.002-07:00

Krua Bangkok and Rice and Noodle

I'm behind in my posting and have two food carts to review, both Thai/Asian.

Krua Bangkok

A few weeks ago Mike joined me for lunch and we tried out Krua Bangkok. According to 1859oregonmagazine.com, Krua Bangkok is operated by the Ratanavetin family, originally from Nonthaburi, Thailand. The family aims to "keep all dishes as traditional as possible" and purchases ingredients from local Asian food stores. Krua Bangkok is unique in the pod because it's open until 6:30 p.m. (for dinner!). Mike and I visited Krua Bangkok on a lovely summer day.

A friendly young man took our orders

My food cart date

As you'll see on the orange sign, they had a "fish lover" special that day. But I also saw the "Tuna Aloha" on the menu, and I naturally assumed the dish was made with fresh ahi tuna. Silly me! Mike loves ahi tuna, so I pointed it out to him. Unfortunately, it was made with CANNED tuna! Who stir fries canned tuna? He was more than a little disappointed with his meal.

Mike's tuna thingy

I, however, had the mango chicken special, and it was lovely! It had lots of vegetables and mango--perfect--and just the right amount of kick.

My mango chicken

Eating my food out in the sun at a 70s-era concrete park near my office

My verdict: I'll be back, but I will steer way clear of anything with tuna in it!

Rice and Noodle

Rice and Noodle gets an award for one of the most boring names around...like the "Burgers" cart I refused to try. It's very simple and straightforward. Rice. And Noodles. :)

I had to wait awhile for my order, so I was guessing they were making it from scratch. Who knows? Some carts are incredibly fast, while some others take their time.

Another sunny day in Portland!

I had the cashew chicken, which is one of my favorite standby Asian entrees. This one was packed with zucchini and red pepper (two of my favorite veggies), and also had plenty of cashews. Score!

My verdict: Not the best Asian cart in the pod--and certainly not very focused on branding, but I enjoyed my meal. I might try it again!

10 band names that need an editor

2013-05-12T21:53:00.004-07:00

This week's Monday Listicles is "10 worst band names." I found an awesome "bad band name generator" online, which allows you to create your own bad band names. For example--this is what it did for me:

Nautical But Nasty
Love Me or Heave Me
Despina's Lovely Baubles (I actually like this one!)
The Obscenities of Dr. Scholl
Nuns Are Funny
Renegade Teacosy Collectors (like this one, too!)
1000 Screaming Headmasters
Dalek Humbug Principle
The Nippleclamp Operators (um, yuck!)
Exoteric Bananas

I found some truly awful actual band names (Lake of Anal Mucus, anyone? Or "F-ck Her, or the Terrorists Win"? Ugh!!). On the other hand, many band names people hate I think are kind of creative. So because I'm a writer/editor by day and spend a lot of time correcting other people's spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors, I thought I'd focus on band names that have deliberate typos in them. I'm leaving out Limp Bizkit because so many people list that one...ugh. Here they are (I could list far more!):

Korn, Kreed, Thousand Foot Krutch, and Uncle Kracker (can't stand K perversions of words)
Plain White T's (apostrophe errors are one of my biggest pet peeves!)
Teh Soup Rebellion (what the heck happened with "the"?)
Dear and the Headlights (no dear, it's "Deer in")
You Love Her Coz She's Dead (now that's just sloppy!!)
We Versus the Shark (Us, please...not we)
Teehn Bwitches (who don't know how to spell)
The Monkees and the Byrds (clearly, we had a spelling-challenged zookeeper)
Phish (my 16-year-old and I have different opinions on this band, but one thing we can say for sure..."phish" is not the correct spelling!)
The Beatles (this has become such an accepted name that we've forgotten that it's actually a misspelling. Beetles is spelled with two "e"s, remember?)

Enjoy this listicles of band names? Check out the others at Stasha's blog, The Good Life!

Happy birthday, Shelia!

2013-05-08T23:16:00.000-07:00

Shelia and family, Holden Village (2007)

I first met my friend Shelia when Nicholas was just a baby, when she began coming to our church. We both find it amusing to look back, now, at our first impressions. She thought I was standoffish, and I thought she was overly religious and standoffish too! (I wasn't used to seeing people genuflect at the altar.) It wasn't friendship at first sight! In fact, Mike got to know Shelia before I did...she thought he was much nicer than me! (Which he is...)

Our kids together at Washington Park, 2008

Our friendship really cemented when we went to Holden Village in 2007, and we discovered how much we had in common, especially our shared love of sitting on the porch after the kids had gone to bed, drinking wine and talking. We've spent a lot of time on those porches over the years, and it's one of my favorite memories of Holden Village. I was so sad to learn, soon after we returned from Holden, that Shelia and her family were going to move to Boise, Idaho, just after we'd become friends! So sad. It reminded me of when I was planning to be locker partners with my church friend Debbie in junior high (we had gone to separate grade schools), and she called me up the week before school to announce that she and her family were moving to California! (This left me without a locker partner for junior high, not a great start!)

Visiting Shelia and Ken in Boise, 2009

Over the years, we've maintained our friendship through e-mail, Facebook, phone calls, visits to Holden Village and the beach, girls' night getaways, and trips to Boise and Oregon. Shelia also lived in Japan and traveled a lot when she was younger (she and her husband took their own grand traveling adventure through Asia for their honeymoon.) We share many of the same values and religious and political beliefs, and we both love quotations and inspirations, in addition to shopping for secondhand clothes! We also share the creative gene, although she is WAY better at using hers than I am. She applies her creativity to her job as a kindergarten teacher now!

Holden Village, 2009

She's also a phenomenal cook and a great mom to her son and twin daughters. And our kids get along like a house on fire. I would love to see her at work in her kindergarten class...I have no doubt that she is an exceptional teacher.

Shelia and kids at our house, 2010

Although I miss Shelia in Portland and often hint to her that she should move back, she's happy in Boise so I must resist that temptation. She's coming to Portland more often recently for visits because her dad is sick. I am sad that this is the reason, but glad to have the opportunity to see her more often.

On the porch at Holden, 2011 (Shelia's mom Mary on the far left)

Happy birthday, my Idaho friend--hope you have a fantastic birthday! I appreciate you and love to hang out...thanks for making me laugh!

On the porch again, 2012

April and I saying goodbye to Shelia at Holden, 2012

What I read in April 2013

2013-05-08T13:13:00.004-07:00

Every once in awhile, Blogger completely screws up and I lose everything I write. That happened the first time I wrote this post, so I'm finally trying again.

This is my monthly recap of the books I've read and reviewed on my book blog. For full reviews of these books, click on the title to go to Marie's Book Garden. In April, I read only two books--one I liked, and one I loved. You should also check out "50 reasons to be a bookworm"...not that most of us need any more reasons!

The Little Book, by Selden Edwards

I would give this historical time travel adventure a solid three stars, but I felt bogged down by some of the overambitious plot. Selden Edwards tackles fin de siecle Vienna, the life of Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler, World War II, Mark Twain, and Adolf Hitler...oh, and baseball and rock music and supposedly the beginning of the feminist movement, too.

Too-perfect Wheeler Burden is the protagonist, who goes back to Vienna in the year 1897, where he falls in love with his grandmother and befriends his now-dead father. (Yes, he was in love with his grandmother...is that weird and creepy or what???) I enjoyed the descriptions of Vienna and the formation of Sigmund Freud's ideas and the rise of fascism in Europe...and I find it intriguing to consider: what would I do if I could change the course of the world by pre-empting an evil dictator's rise to power?

But the book also had some serious flaws. Many of the plot elements didn't seem important for the story. And what finally makes my head hurt in this whole time travel adventure is that we never really learn how they are able to time travel. This book was wildly inventive and wacky, and I give kudos to Selden Edwards for dreaming it up. Perhaps if he had worked on the book for fewer years and not tried to make it so full of meticulous research, I would have found it less frustrating.

A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki

A Tale for the Time Being is the first full-price hardcover book I remember purchasing for myself, ever. As I wrote in February, Ozeki has long been one of my favorite authors, and I was thrilled when I read that she had finally published her third novel. She recently became a Zen Buddhist priest and clearly, this informs this novel. I found myself reading this book very slowly--it took me most of April to read, in fact. Ozeki is a poetic, lyrical writer. I am often drawn to her books because they feature Japanese or Japanese-American characters. This was no different.

Teenager Nao is living in Tokyo but spent much of her childhood in Sunnyvale, California. She is mercilessly bullied by her classmates and even her teachers. Her father keeps attempting suicide. The only bright spot in Nao's life is her 104-year-old great-grandmother, who is an anarchist, feminist, novelist Buddhist nun, who she calls Old Jiko. She decides to tell the story of Old Jiko's life in her diary. Ruth, a Japanese-American novelist living on an island in British Columbia, finds Nao's diary washed up on the beach. As Ruth begins reading the book, she becomes captivated by Nao's life and begins to care very deeply about what happens to her.

I loved so many things about this novel. So much of it was deeply sad, but ultimately, the novel had great redemptive power and spiritual meaning. I highly recommend it--A Tale for the Time Being will definitely be at the top of my book list for the year. Read my full review if you want to know more and see Ruth Ozeki's beautiful book trailer, set on the British Columbia island where she lives.

Let's change the position of the apostrophe in Mother's Day!

2013-05-06T18:00:00.001-07:00

Think about doing something different this Mother's Day...

I was gobsmacked to read that Americans are expected to spend $20.7 billion on Mother's Day this year, an average of $168.94 per mom, according to the National Retail Federation. That figure just blows me away! Of course, much of the money will be spent on flowers, jewelry, candy, tacky gifts, and electronics.

Yeah, don't get me this.

However, an online poll conducted by Harris Interactive found that 31 percent of American moms have to pretend to like the Mother's Day gifts they receive from their family. So that means that $6.4 billion of the money being spent will be completely wasted. The Harris Interactive poll also found that 64 percent of moms would prefer to receive a meaningful gift that would help someone else instead of a traditional Mother's Day gift.

So here's how we move that apostrophe...

In 2010, four women were inspired by the wonderful book Half the Sky (Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn), which shone a spotlight on the oppression of women and girls in developing countries. When these women learned that Americans spend $14 billion/year on Mother's Day (notice how that amount has gone up dramatically in three years--now to $20 billion?), they decided that we should rethink our giving priorities for this holiday by starting the Mothers' Day Movement. How can we continue to spend billions of dollars on things we don't need, when mothers all around the world are struggling to feed their families, keep out of prostitution and trafficking, and just plain survive?

Each year, the Mothers' Day Movement focuses their campaign on a different charity whose mission is to improve the lives of women and children. This year they have chosen the Fistula* Foundation, which focuses on reducing maternal mortality during childbirth. Hundreds of thousands of women suffer from fistulas. Most are young women and many live with the condition for up to 25 years. The good news is that it can be surgically repaired for about $450.

I asked my mom and my sister to join me to forgo personal Mother's Day gifts this year and instead make donations in each other's honor to the Fistula Foundation. They agreed to join me!

I've also told Mike that I'd like cards or letters from him and the kids, or homemade gifts, and instead of spending money, he can give a donation to the Fistula Foundation. Mike was very happy to hear of our plan, because he always struggles with what to give me (I'm the gift shopper in our family)!

Won't you join us in moving the apostrophe to help as many mothers as possible on this special day? Just click "Donate Now" on the Mothers' Day Movement web site. Your mom, sister, wife, or other recipient will receive a thank you card from the Fistula Foundation. Please pass this on and share your thoughts!

*Definition from the Fistula Foundation: "A fistula is a hole. An obstetric fistula of the kind that occurs in many developing countries is a hole between a woman's birth passage and one or more of her internal organs. This hole develops over many days of obstructed labor, when the pressure of the baby's head against the mother's pelvis cuts off blood supply to delicate tissues in the region. The dead tissue falls away and the woman is left with a hole between her vagina and her bladder and sometimes between her vagina and rectum. This hole results in permanent incontinence of urine and/or feces. A majority of women who develop fistulas are abandoned by their husbands and ostracized by their communities because of their inability to have children and their foul smell. Traumatic fistula is the result of sexual violence. The injury can occur through rape or women being butchered from the inside with bayonets, wood or even rifles. The aim is to destroy the women and the community within which the sufferer lives. Once committed the survivor, her husband, children, and extended family become traumatized and humiliated. The Panzi Hospital in Congo is a pioneer in treating victims of traumatic fistula."

Ten things I love that cost nothing

2013-05-05T22:51:00.001-07:00

I love the simple Monday Listicle prompt for this week: 10 things I love that cost nothing. After a month of blogging daily and a weekend of being deeply grateful for intimate friendship, I'm taking it easy.

1. Belly laughs
2. A hug or cuddle
3. Music
4. The great outdoors
5. Love
6. True friendship
7. Memories and stories that touch us or make us laugh
8. The deep, profound awareness that we are alive and truly blessed with life, love, and friendship
9. Understanding and compassion
10. Intimacy

There you have it--short but sweet. Read the others at The Good Life.

Z: Oh, the places you'll go!

2013-04-30T10:58:00.001-07:00

Hooray--I'm so glad to have reached the last day of the A to Z Blogging Challenge, in which I'm focusing on overseas destinations I've visited.

Z is for Zen Buddhist Temple on a Mountain, Koya-san, Japan (January 1989)

During our last winter in Japan, we spent a long weekend up on a mountain about two hours from Wakayama at Mt. Koya, or Koya-san. We went with my roommate Jean and another college friend Tami, who had recently arrived in Japan. Both Jean and Tami ended up living in Japan longer than our three years there.

Koya-san

Koya-san, first settled in 819 by the monk Kūkai, is the world headquarters of the Kōyasan Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism. Wikipedia says, "Located in an 800-m high valley amid the eight peaks of the mountain (which was the reason this location was selected, in that the terrain is supposed to resemble a lotus plant), the original monastery has grown into the town of Kōya, featuring a university dedicated to religious studies and 120 temples, many of which offer lodging to pilgrims."

Cable car up to Koya-san (fortunately I'm not afraid of heights--
you can tell how far uphill it is by the shape of the cable car!)

So peaceful!!

We visited Koya-san previously, but my most memorable visit was staying in a Zen Buddhist temple in January 1989, when everything was blanketed in snow. It was so beautiful!!

Our little snow person (is that what that is???)

Lantern carrier

So pretty!

In our yukatas after a Japanese bath

With Jean

Tami at dinner, served to us in our tatami room

Such fun we had!!

I can't believe I'm really done with 26 days of travel posts. Hallelujah!! Tomorrow I'll do a quick wrap-up. Visit here to read all of my A-Z posts.

Food cart adventures: Phat cart

2013-04-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

Last week I went out to the carts to see what was next in the row. I passed by the first two--just wasn't in the mood for either of them, and I also guessed I couldn't get much without white, processed flour (either a flour burrito or a hamburger bun). The "Burgers" cart had too many different types of food for my liking--Mexican food, burgers, and sandwiches. And no real name! Maybe I'll have my 16-year-old son try the pulled pork sandwich there and write a review for me. He's a sucker for pulled pork. Chopollo's actually gets good reviews online, so I might have to go back one of these days. As for "Burgers," I couldn't find anything online! Could they possibly have come up with a more boring name?

Chopollo's cart

The incredibly boring (and incomplete) named Burgers cart

Next in the row was Phat Cart, which I hadn't really paid much attention to before. As I was perusing the menu, I noticed a distinctive Japanese flavor, with bentos, Kewpie mayo (Japanese mayonnaise made of egg yolks instead of whole eggs), dumplings, etc. It looks like the chef might be Japanese or from Hawaii. It's sort of Japanese/Hawaiian/Asian fusion. (The only dessert they offer is Indian fried dough, like a roti.)

Kewpie mayo

Phat cart menus

I like their signage and decor, too!

I decided on the spring special, the oven-roasted chicken bento, which came with sauteed zucchini (one of my favorite veggies), rice, and two chicken gyoza, for $6.50. It's not as great of a deal as my beloved Dosirak, which gives you more food for $7 (enough for two lunches), but a decent-sized lunch irregardless.

The only downside to this cart was that it had quite a line (a good sign, right?), and I had to wait maybe 10 minutes for my food. This is a longer-than-usual wait for a food cart. The server apologized for the wait. I'm not sure what took so long, because I would presume that the chicken was already roasted. But I'm guessing the food was fresher this way, right?

My Phat cart roasted chicken bento

My verdict: Yum! I'll be back.

Y: Oh, the places you'll go!

2013-04-29T12:34:00.002-07:00

This is my contribution to the A to Z Blogging Challenge, in which I'm focusing on overseas destinations I've visited.

Y is for Yogyakarta, Indonesia (August 1989)

Unfortunately, our visit to Yogyakarta (known as a center of classical Javanese fine art and culture, in particular batik, ballet, drama, music, and puppetry) was completely marred by our horrific journey there after our relaxing stay in Pangandaran. And it was all because of the Swiss.

We had to ride sitting on the floor nearly all the way to Yogya because of an intensely rude, hostile group of Swiss tourists, who had bought two tickets apiece and refused to allow us to sit down. Every other seat was empty (and many were filled with luggage while the luggage racks above sat empty). When we asked if we could sit there, they said no (coldly). One double seat was filled with just luggage, and when I asked if we could put it in the rack above, a horrible man said I could put MY bag in the luggage rack but I could not sit there. Not one person would move his or her bags to let us sit down. We couldn't believe it. I was so angry I couldn't hold it in, but I tried. We plopped ourselves on the floor on our bags and prepared to be uncomfortable for the five-hour journey. At that point I still believed that someone would take pity on us and give us one of their precious seats.

The only other foreigners were a Belgian couple and the man could speak German. He started arguing with a couple and insisted they give up their vacant seats. He sat in one and motioned for his girlfriend to sit in the other; however, she was reluctant to join him.

This tour group also had a nasty piece of work for a tour guide, who insisted that they had paid for ALL the seats, and therefore there were no seats for us. It didn't matter that the vacant seats were not being used or that that we were humans and the seat occupants were pieces of luggage.

When the conductor came to collect tickets, the tour guide complained. A ferocious fight soon ensued. The Belgian argued that we too paid for seats, the seats were not being used, why is luggage more important than people, etc., and then muttered something about whose pockets were being lined with money and corruption...and the maggot of a tour guide flew at him. He started ranting on about why had he come to Indonesia if it's corrupt, and that HE was the one who was corrupt, and why doesn't he like Indonesians? (even though he hadn't said that), and shouted at him, "GET OUT, NOW!" I thought there'd be a knock-down-drag-out fight. Not only was I worried for the Belgian guy but also for myself since I was sitting near him on the floor. It was all horrid and frightening. The unkind, unhelpful conductor blamed it on us for not getting seat numbers in Banjar! I wrote in my journal,

"Those Swiss were the most horrible, cruel, heartless, totally uncompassionate snobby pigs I have ever laid eyes on. Not one person gve up their extra seat. We were treated as a side show in a circus--two people even had the gall to take photos of us. Throughout the journey they were constantly stepping over us as if were vermin, alternately staring at us or trying to pretend we didn't exist. Each time the train would stop, all the cameras and videocameras would come out, to capture 'the real Indonesia' on film, the 'charming natives.' It was disgusting."

Halfway to Yogya, all sorts of official men boarded the train, including the police. The tour guide had called the station to say there was trouble on the train. Another heated argument ensued and the Belgian woman and I contributed with angry bits. Mike sat brooding next to me. They told the Belgian that he could sit in third class--they'd found a seat for him--but he asked if they had four seats for all of us, and said he wouldn't move until they found four seats. The policeman made a move to pull him out by force. They went off to sit in third class, where it was oppressively airless and smoky.

I will never forget how those Swiss were so inhumane and heartless. I responded in anger at first, and snapped at a man climbing over me. Then Mike calmed me down by reminding me not to sink to their level. It certainly didn't do any good to be angry at them. Before this experience, I had always wanted to visit Switzerland. I had a poster of Switzerland in my college dorm room. But after this experience, I lost all interest in Switzerland. I found it incredibly depressing that there are human beings on this earth who have absolutely no compassion or human feeling for others at all.

We did have a happy ending though, of sorts. About an hour before we reached Yogya, a young Indonesian man came up to me (by this time my legs and butt were aching and I was exhausted) and told us there were two seats available because two people had gotten off the stop before. It must have been fate, because the two really nice guys were studying Japanese and were soon going to Japan. The seats felt heavenly and were a godsend after 4-1/2 hours on the floor.

When we arrived at Yogya there was a mad dash of blue-shirted porters, madly pushing and shoving to get on the train. They were not about to let us off first. It felt like we were pushing against a human wall to disembark, and I was worried something would get stolen in the crush. The Swiss tourists got off the train in snob style, minus their suitcases. Oh yes, let the peons carry them! We lost track of the Belgian couple, sadly, and I was hoping their luggage didn't get carted off with all the Swiss paraphernalia, and they would have had to fight again to retrieve it!

Finally we got off the train, feeling worse for wear. We decided to splurge on a nice(r) hotel after our trauma, and we rode in a decrepit "taxi" to the Wisma Gaja to check in. We felt exhausted physically and emotionally.

We spent the afternoon recuperating, reading, and swimming in our hotel pool. By the time we went to bed, feeling very tired, I wrote in my journal, "I hope their hotel burns down." (I was spitting mad!!)

Artist at work in Yogyakarta

We had been looking forward to Yogyakarta, being a cultural center, but unfortunately it's also full of touts and supposed "tour guides" who try to lure you to batik galleries. It's one of the most touristed cities in Java, and one feels constantly on guard. We bought some batik paintings at one such touristy batik centers but were much happier when we came across some smaller galleries, where we could actually talk to the artists.

Wayang puppet

Wayang Kulit play

One evening we went to see a Wayang Kulit (shadow puppetry) performance at Hanoman's Forest Restaurant. According to Lonely Planet's web site, this place has since closed because of lack of tourist interest. Another day we visited the amazing Borobudor, about an hour's journey from Yogya.

One of the batiks we bought in Yogya (still not framed!!!)

For the most part, though, we disliked the aggressive touts in Yogya, not to mention the need to bargain to get a decent deal on batiks. For its attraction as a cultural center, it attracts hordes of tourists (like the awful Swiss). On the next leg of our journey (in transit to Bali by bus and train), we had to sit on the floor again for awhile...until the train conductor came through and kicked out some of the people with third-class tickets who had been sitting in second class!

Visit here to read my A-X posts. Tomorrow is the last day of April A to Z! Back to Japan, where the journey all started.

Monday Listicle: 10 acronyms

2013-04-28T21:20:00.002-07:00

This week's Monday Listicle is an easy one for me, because my daily life is all about acronyms and my efforts to make writing more clear to the reader. Here are my pet peeves about acronyms, working in an environmental engineering/consulting firm:

Don't use an acronym unless you have to (if the term is long and you'll be using it again)

Don't use an acronym if you only refer to it just once--just spell it out!

Don't use an acronym to show off! No one is impressed...what's the use unless it makes the reading easier?)

Don't use an acronym if it will make the reading more difficult...

Spell out the acronym when you first use it--don't assume people will know what you are talking about

Just a few of the acronyms I use regularly at work:

EPA: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
EIS (environmental impact statement), EA (environmental assessment), etc.
BG (business group)
BDS (Business Development Services, the group that writes and manages proposals in my company)
SR (Sustainability Report, which is what I've been working on in the past few months)
ESBG (Environmental Services Business Group, which is where much of my work comes from)
PDX (Portland, Oregon--both the airport and the acronym for our Portland office)
HR (Human Resources)
IT (Information Technology)
PTO (the most important acronym in my job--personal time off!!)--even though I feel lucky to get paid for a job I love, what I love most of all is my PTO!!

And extra credit, my favorite acronym outside of work, the most important person in my life, my DH (dear husband), who is a saint! I was gone all weekend at a women's music weekend, the Northwest Women's Music Celebration, and I'll also be gone the next two Friday nights on other various women's getaways. I so greatly appreciate my husband's support for my need for female companionship. I love you, DH!

With my friend Lois and my mom at women's music camp

Join in the Monday listicles fun at The Good Life, sponsored by Stasha!

X: Oh, the places you'll go!

2013-04-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

This is my contribution to the A to Z Blogging Challenge, in which I'm focusing on overseas destinations I've visited.

X is for Oaxaca, Mexico (February 1996)

Right before I got pregnant with Christopher, and soon after I just took on a massive new position at work, with tons more responsibility, we spent a little over a week in Oaxaca, Mexico. It was our first time to Mexico, and as we tend to do, we decided to focus on one area instead of moving around through the country.

I remember our initial discomfort when we arrived, because even though we'd traveled in a number of developing countries, including India, you get out of the habit. It had been six and a half years since our big trip. It took us a bit of getting used to at first.

Oaxaca city

We loved Oaxaca...it was the perfect first trip to Mexico for us. We stayed in a simple Mexican hotel there, Hotel Las Rosas, which was only a block from the zocalo. The zocalo (city's main square) was our favorite place to be--it had fantastic people watching, free musical entertainment, and great restaurants ringed around the square.

Free marimba music one night in the zocalo

We enjoyed going to the markets, both in and outside of the city, and one day we went to see Monte Alban, a great archaeological site. Oaxaca is known as a city of artisans, and it's especially famous for its painted wood sculptures and black pottery.

Art in a shop

Black pottery in the market

As is typical for us, we ran into our friend Judith in Oaxaca! We knew she would be there around the same time, but we hadn't had any luck planning a time to meet. While in a market about 1/2 hour outside of the city, guess who we should run into? Judith was there with her sister, so we hung out with them for the rest of the day and had dinner with them that night.

Chiles in the market

The food in Oaxaca is amazing. We found it interesting that food is served with bread rolls instead of tortillas--not a tortilla to be found, really! Oaxaca does a lot of moles, which we love. And one night Mike sampled another Oaxacan delicacy, deep-fried grasshoppers. Crunchy...tastes like chicken!

Grasshoppers in the market

Zocalo restaurant--lovely!

Panorama of zocalo

We went into Oaxaca's church in the main square, Catedral de Oaxaca, or the Cathedral of Our Lady the Assumption, which offered a fascinating glimpse into the ornate Catholicism of Mexico, full of gaudy statues.

Catedral de Oaxaca

Ornate statue of Mary

Mike in the zocalo

The best thing we got out of Oaxaca, though, was our friendship with a couple from New York City, Jerry and Carolyn. They used to go to Oaxaca for a month every year and knew all the best spots. Jerry came to Mike's aid one day in the hotel lobby when Mike was trying to help an older tourist who thought he was having a heart attack (the guy didn't speak any Spanish). Mike was attempting to get the hotel clerk to call an ambulance, but was struggling with his Spanish. Fortunately Jerry appeared and helped translate more effectively. And with that, our friendship was born!

They took us on an adventure one day, to Zaachila, where they had some great ruins and a wonderful market. Of course, Jerry and Carolyn seemed to know everyone at the market! I took a risk and had fresh pineapple on a stick with chile powder. (I did have fresh fruit in Mexico, and I was okay...but when my sister and her husband went to stay in an all-inclusive resort in Mexico, she ended up getting sick...so you never know!)

Then we went to the most amazing outdoor restaurant, called La Capilla, where we had the best food during our entire trip. The other thing Jerry introduced us to was the drink "michelada," which is like a beer cocktail--made of beer, lime juice, tomato juice, maggi, Worcestershire sauce, and hot sauce. We attempted to make it when we returned to Oregon, but it just didn't taste the same without the warm weather, Mexican vibe, and of course Jerry and Carolyn.

Jerry and Carolyn on the bus

Church ruins

At the ruins

Zaachila market

Mike in Oaxaca

Altar in a restaurant

Drinking micheladas in a little hole-in-the-wall cantina in Oaxaca
(with Jerry's son and daughter-in-law)

Visiting Jerry and Carolyn's apartment in 2007, 11 years after we me them

We have visited Jerry and Carolyn a few times in Manhattan, but we always talked about returning to Oaxaca one day...and we have yet to go back...now 17 years later. I hope we can return one of these days!

Lovely Oaxaca at night

Visit here to read my A-W posts. Monday, back to Indonesia.

W: Oh, the places you'll go!

2013-04-26T08:27:00.001-07:00

This is my contribution to the A to Z Blogging Challenge, in which I'm focusing on overseas destinations I've visited.

W is for Wakayama, Japan (1986-87)

After I graduated from Pacific Lutheran University with a B.A. in English, I didn't really know what I wanted to do...so on a whim I applied to teach in Japan. I knew none of the language and I wasn't convinced it was something I wanted to do, but I told myself I would go if I got the job. I was leaving it up to fate, or God, or the universe. When I got the letter informing me that I had been hired, I knew it was meant to be. In retrospect, I know my life would have turned out completely differently if I hadn't gone to Japan.

Thank goodness for two things:

I was living with my aunt and uncle in Seattle that summer, and my aunt (a Soviet economics prof at the University of Washington) urged me to get a contract from the company offering me the position. Many times during that first year--as we learned that the company we were working for was unethical and shady--I realized how savvy she was!
I convinced my friend Debbie, my roommate during my junior year at PLU, to go to Japan with me. She was in a gap year before going to physical therapy school, so it fit into her schedule. She even left her boyfriend behind in the U.S., which must have been very hard. As I wrote in my O post, our first few hours in Japan were VERY challenging, so I was incredibly grateful that we were in it together for the whole first year.

Rice fields near our apartment

We arrived in Wakayama, a city about an hour from Osaka by train, on a humid morning in late August. It felt great to be out of the city and in what felt like the "real" Japan. Wakayama had traditional Japanese homes with beautiful blue tiled roofs, and green rice paddies dotting every block. The late summer evenings were full of frog songs from the rice fields. The roads were incredibly narrow--I can't believe that later that year I whizzed around on a motor scooter, at night even.

I was 21 years old and this was my first time, ever, outside of North America. In those first several days and weeks, my system felt in shock...different language, different writing, completely different culture...people drove on the other side of the road...I was on the other side of the world. It took some getting used to all the stares, and having children following us around, also staring. In Wakayama, which people in Osaka call "the country," we were novelties...especially in 1986, before the big English teacher boom of the early 1990s.

Royal Heights, the first place we lived

The first month we lived in Wakayama, we stayed in a three-bedroom apartment, Royal Heights, with four other teachers, including a Japanese/Chinese-American woman from California named Abby. It was crowded to say the least. The bottom floor had a great little bakery with fantastic little pizzas; at that point I avoided the red bean paste buns, but I came to love red bean paste at the end of my three years in Japan. After the first month, three of us moved into a new apartment. The other teachers--Donna Lee, Marianne, and Lee--had been there for awhile already and were settled in. They were also very tight and we often felt excluded from their inner circle...so it was good to have our place.

With neighbor children in Royal Heights

Debbie rocking out to her walkman in the tiny little bedroom we shared that first month
(with no closets or furniture--we lived out of our suitcases!)

Moving into the new place--
we took turns in the nice tatami rooms

Happy to be in our new place!

Seito Joshi Tandai

We taught in a women's junior college called Seito Joshi Tandai, which was part of the larger Kinki University where Mike taught. In Japan, many young women are sent to two-year colleges to make them more marriageable. Sometimes they work as "office ladies" after graduation until they get married, but few go onto a four-year university. So the women we were teaching were not terribly motivated by academics or by learning English. They just wanted to have fun! And most of them, although they'd been studying English for many years, were not very accomplished at English--especially English conversation. That's where we came in.

However, we had absolutely no training in how to teach them, whatsoever. We had to totally wing it! When Mike went to Japan as part of the British English Teachers' program, he and his colleagues actually had training in basic Japanese and how to teach conversational English. That first year, I found myself relying on a lot of role plays and fun games. Eventually, I bought some books to help with my teaching. I felt completely unprepared, and I don't like to feel unprepared.

Our first night in Wakayama we had dinner at a rotating sushi bar (kaiten sushi), which was fun. The longer I was in Japan, the more I became adventurous and selective with sushi! One of my funny memories during that first month was when Abby rode her bike down to the gyoza (dumpling) shop to order some takeout gyoza, and instead of ordering ten gyoza for herself, she ordered ten ORDERS of gyoza. Japanese numbering is complicated, and you use different numbers for different things. She couldn't explain her mistake in Japanese, so she returned home and we all had gyoza that night!

Shopping--on my own!--in downtown Wakayama (first few weeks in Japan)

Wakayama was a great place for my first year in Japan. My favorite memories of Wakayama are (1) all of the new experiences of living in a foreign country--everything was new and exciting that first year, (2) interacting with my students, especially the ones who took learning seriously or who asked me interesting questions about my life and thoughts, and of course, best of all (3) meeting Mike--at our friend Cath's apartment at a Robert Burns night, and again at our apartment a few months later.

Here are a few other photo memories of Wakayama:

Halloween (I was supposed to be Madonna, albeit an overly dressed one!)

Deb was a biology major--so we enjoyed
getting squid in the supermarket and dissecting them!

Having a student over for ice cream in our little kitchen/dining area
(that table was scrounged from the garbage!)

We were glad we had a contract because my aunt encouraged us to put "furnished apartment" into it. Our employers expected us to furnish it ourselves, even though we didn't have any money. Notice the milk crate in the background of this photo--that's where we put our toaster oven (which we bought). I think our company bought futons for us, a refrigerator, and a gas stove--but that was about it! And that was only after we fought them and insisted.

Adorable Wakayama girl
(Debbie took this photo)

Having dinner with Debbie's friend Yoko, who she met through her church

Having more students over--as you'll note, we often sat
around the kotatsu in the winter--it had a heating element underneath,
and you put a blanket under the cover to contain the heat--
I really wanted to bring a kotatsu home with me!
We didn't have central heating in our apartment, so it was critical to stay warm

Origami lessons

Exploring the shore in Wakayama

Wakayama Castle in various seasons

My sister Nadine and her friend visiting from China
(the blonde is the famous Mary Elizabeth, who had a thing for Mike)

Cherry blossom time, with Cath at Wakayama Castle

O-hanami (cherry blossom viewing) crowd at Wakayama Castle

Mike at the fateful party at our flat in April 1987

Summertime! Having drinks at a rooftop garden in early summer 1987

Saying goodbye to some of my students

Fourth of July picnic on the banks of the Kinokawa,
toward the end of my time in Wakayama

Visit here to read my A-V posts. Tomorrow, onto Mexico!

V: Oh, the places you'll go!

2013-04-25T11:42:00.001-07:00

This is my contribution to the A to Z Blogging Challenge, in which I'm focusing on overseas destinations I've visited. Five to go!!

V is for Victoria and Vancouver

Victoria, BC, Canada (June 2005)

The fact that I grew up in Oregon and went to college in the Puget Sound, yet never got to British Columbia until I was 40, seems truly bizarre to me now. For awhile, it seemed that every time we would plan a trip up to BC, something would go wrong. The first time was 1992, and Mike's dad died very suddenly. The second time was 1996, and Christopher was born prematurely at 24 weeks. So it wasn't until 2005, for our 15th wedding anniversary, that we finally made it to Victoria! We returned in 2009, when we spent a week in Sooke, BC, with our kids and my parents, but I'm going to focus on our first trip for this post.

We flew up to Victoria and relied on foot and mass transit to get around. We stayed in a new-at-the-time hotel near the city center, the Marriott Victoria Inner Harbour, with wonderful views. Very romantic!

Mike in front of the famous Empress Hotel, where we didn't have tea, but we did have cocktails in their lovely bar!

The Bengal Bar in the Empress, where we had cocktails

After doing my research, we decided to have tea in a far-flung tea shop, the White Heather Tea Room, run by a Scottish woman...it took a few buses to get there, but it was totally worth the journey!! We had the Big Muckle Giant Tea for Two, which fed us for the whole day. This was all before Mike went gluten free...it would be much harder to have high tea nowadays, unless we could find a gluten-free tea room!

So much fun!

One day we took a bus to the Butchart Gardens--June was a perfect time to visit. We had a lovely day there!

15 years together!

Love delphiniums!

In the Japanese gardens

One night we had tapas in a Spanish restaurant, and on our anniversary itself we dined at the Restaurant Matisse, a wonderful restaurant located in a basement...with brick walls.

After dinner, in the hotel lobby

On one day we spent the whole time at the phenomenal Royal British Columbia Museum, including wandering through the totem poles in Thunderbird Park.

This trip was when we discovered how much we like Murchie's Tea and Munro's Books, conveniently located near each other! We love Victoria!

Vancouver, BC, Canada (Summer 2010)

In August 2010, we went up to Vancouver and stayed for a week in a big house with my sister and her family. We had a great time! This is what we did:

Most of all, our week was all about high-quality cousin time, along with sisters-and-their-husbands time. We had a blast!

Taking bathtub boat to Granville Island

After having lunch at the market on Granville Island

Headed to Granville Island

The dock where we boarded the boat

Cuddling with my sister

Our family at Canada Place

Chinese Garden

Stanley Park

Chinese Garden

Stanley Park

Sister time on Granville Island

Gastown

Canada Place

At Stanley Park

Boys throwing rocks

Stanley Park picnic

Chris hanging out in the house we rented

Eating wonderful Indonesian takeout

Night out with Mike

Visit here to read my A-U posts. Tomorrow, back to Japan for W!

U: Oh, the places you'll go!

2013-04-24T12:38:00.001-07:00

U is for Ubud and Udaipur

This is my contribution to the A to Z Blogging Challenge, in which I'm focusing on overseas destinations I've visited. Five to go!!

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia (August 1989)

Whenever I'm asked that classic question "where in the world would you like to be right now?", I often answer "Ubud, Bali." I'm sure I've glorified it in my imagination from what it was actually like, but it is unforgettable.

Ubud is in the middle of the island of Bali, an artist conclave regarded as Bali's cultural center. Actually a conglomeration of several interconnected villages, Ubud goes back to the eighth century, when a Javanese Hindu priest named Rsi Marhandya came from Java established a shrine there. The name Ubud originated from the ancient Balinese, Ubad, which means medicine.

Monkey Forest Road in 1989

Monkey Forest Road now

Judging from all the photos I see on the Internet, Ubud has been discovered, sadly, over the past 24 years. TripAdvisor has 329 hotels listed, and many of those look to be resort types. Maybe I wouldn't like Ubud as much any more...perhaps I should keep it idealized in my mind!

View from our table at the Lotus Cafe--gorgeous dining!!

We escaped to Ubud after staying in Kuta for 3 days. We were grateful to leave the drunken-soaked beaches, but getting to Ubud took us five different bemos--we were cheap! Most of the budget hotels were on the Monkey Forest Road. We enjoyed eating in Ubud--at places like the Cafe Wayan (still operating), where we had sauteed chicken, a chicken and papaya salad, and brown bread with honey. The Lotus Cafe, which overlooked a beautiful lily pad water garden, inspired us to name our to-be child "Lotus Blossom" until he finally appeared many years later and got a proper name. At the Ibu Rai Restaurant, we dined on grilled sea bass and spaghetti Neapolitan. We had grilled snapper and chicken tikka in the Puri Garden restaurant.

Here's where the idealism comes in: That first evening I felt really ill, convinced it was caused by the smelly mosquito coils we were forced to burn in our room to keep the mosquitos away. We were kept awake by mosquitos buzzing and hovering, flying in through holes in the window screens. Dogs were howling and cocks were crowing...that's what happens when you stay in cheap guesthouses! Ubud is also very remote--when we tried to call Air India, the telephone office told us that they didn't have a Jakarta phone book, and the only way to get hold of the phone number was to call Denpasar, who would then call Jakarata, who would find the number. This would take about 2 hours, if we would "like to wait." We declined and returned the next day.

Beautiful bamboo street decorations in an Ubud village

The breakfasts were wonderful in Ubud as well--more fruit salad with lime and coconut, banana pancakes, omelettes, and coffee. We moved to another room with more secure window screens, but the shower in our new room didn't work.

On one of our long walks

Right before it started pouring!

It rains a lot in Ubud. We spent a lot of time reading, writing, and wandering in art galleries, shops, and the beautiful green landscapes. One afternoon we took a walk into the rice paddies and were soaked by a sudden, violent rain shower. The rice paddies were flooded and sprouts of rice burst through the murky water. Ducks waddled in large groups after the duckherd who carried a pole with a flag attached, looking amazingly like a Japanese tour guide! We passed women bathing in a stream, beckoning us to join them. When we declined, they all roared with laughter. Nearly everyone we encountered was friendly, shouting greetings in Indonesian and English.

Ducks

Ubud musical weather vane--these sounded wonderful!

I loved the culture and sounds in Ubud...from the bamboo wind chimes and singing weather vanes outside of every restaurant and home, to the proliferation of art everywhere, to the wonderful dance performances we saw, one by a village troupe, protesting against nuclear armament.

Heron in Petalu Gunang

One evening we walked to the Petulu Gunang village, past the Future Peace Art Gallery, where we met artist Madi Kertonegoro and we bought one of his books, The Spirit Journey: Stories and Paintings of Bali, with an intro by Alice Walker, who had discovered him in Ubud.

In Petulu Gunang, which was more bustling and busy than the other village we walked through, we saw bare-breasted women walking about and many people bathing or fetching water. Beautiful white herons were flying in to palm trees to roost, because the village is a heron sanctuary.

One man asked if we'd like to take a look at his house--he was a woodcarver and the head of the village, I. Nyoman Kelincet, and also a dancer in the performance that night. (Right there in his studio he danced for us in his sarong! Mike bought a beautiful wood carving of a mother and two children, the one I liked the best. I couldn't help but wonder where it would end up...because with six weeks to go before our separation--him back to England and me to Oregon--we still hadn't discussed our future together.

After we bought the carving, Nyoman invited us for coffee, which we drank while sitting on an open deck amidst squawking chickens, grinning, children, and staring topless grannies. From our seats we could see the herons above in the trees. Nyoman chattered on about how he wanted to go to England to carve.

My favorite photo from Indonesia, which hangs on our living room wall
(These were the children at the dance performance in the village)

That evening we sat on the steps of the temple, wondering if we'd be the only ones in the audience. Soon other people started arriving and some little children next to us (see photo above) were playing a sort of "London Bridge Is Falling Down" in Indonesian. Backed by a Gamelan orchestra, the dancers told a story about Shiva creating the world and all living creatures, which were then persecuted by human beings. The king of the trees and animals (played by our friend Nyoman), now sick with grief, appeals to Shiva for help. I'm not sure how I followed the plot, but I did detail it in my journal somehow!

Monkeys

Women carrying offerings on their heads

On our last full day in Ubud, we went down to the Monkey Forest, where Balinese women in their finery were bringing offerings on their heads. The monkeys were amused by the foreigners giving them attention.

My handsome boyfriend in Ubud

In spite of my Bali belly and the rain, I have fond memories of our week in Ubud. It had a wonderful, laid-back, artistic vibe. I hadn't even remembered the rain...must be because I'm an Oregonian!

Udaipur, India (September 1989)

We arrived in Udaipur after an overnight train from Jaipur. We took a rickshaw and then a boat to the Lake Palace Hotel, where we didn't have reservations but thank goodness, they had a room available.

Lake Palace Hotel

The Lake Palace Hotel is one of India's finest historic jewels. This is what the hotel website says about its history:

"Glowing moonlight. Gentle lakeside breezes. A whole entourage (of) courtesans. What young prince could resist? Certainly not Maharana Jagat Singh II. Legend has it that the young prince indulged in moonlight picnics with the ladies of the Zenana on the lake island palace of Jag Mandir. A pleasurable pastime - until his father found out. With that option closed to him, there was only one solution. He built his own pleasure palace on a different island in Lake Pichola. Begun in 1743 and inaugurated in 1746, the new palace was named Jag Niwas after his highness Maharana Jagat Singh II, 62nd successor to the royal dynasty of Mewar.

Jag Niwas, now Taj Lake Palace, is one of four lovely islands in Lake Pichola. And each island has a story to tell. Mohan Mandir is the place from where the king would watch the annual Gangaur festival celebration. Arsivilas used to be an ammunition depot and later was used as a helipad by the royal family. And of course, Jag Mandir is the location for the original pleasure palace of Maharana Jagat Singh I.

The Royal Dynasty of Mewar had palaces to spare. In addition to Taj Lake Place there was the City Palace, which used to be the official residential palace during winters, the hill top Monsoon Palace also known as Sajjan Garh, and the aforementioned Jag Mandir.

What may have begun as a prince’s rebellious gesture was turned into one of the most romantic hotels in the world by Maharana Bhagwat Singhji in 1963. Then in 1971, with its legacy of hospitality, Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces was the perfect choice to carry on the royal tradition of the luxurious Lake Palace, Udaipur. The palace’s decadent reputation was cemented when the James Bond film 'Octopussy' was filmed on the premises. Taj Lake Palace was the secluded lair of the film’s eponymous Bond girl."

What better place for a proposal? We had planned to stay in the Lake Palace for two nights, but Mike surprised me by adding on a third night. While we waited for our room to be ready, two women in extravagant saris put fresh flower leis over our heads. Our room was not huge but had a beautiful view of the lake and the city palace on the shore.

Library

View from our room

We spent our days in Udaipur soaking up the beauty of the lake, swimming in the pool, sitting by the lily ponds in courtyard, and reading and writing in the sumptous library. One evening we took a sunset cruise on the lake, past the city palace and houses and temples built right on the water. People were bathing or swimming in the lake, some trying to swim out to our boat. The lake is so exotic--on one shore is the huge city palace complex, next to hills of white-washed houses and temples, making the city look Mediterranean. We stopped at Jag Mandir, on a nearby island, with its wonderful elephant guards. Our guide told us that Shah Jahan hid there and got his inspiration for the Taj Mahal. That night Indian dancers in saris performed in front of the lily ponds.

Jag Mandir

From the Jag Mandir

City Palace (from boat tour)

View from top of Jag Mandir

Mike on top of Jag Mandir

Jag Mandir

Lake Palace at sunset

The next day we took a boat into the city. The only bad thing that happened in Udaipur was that Mike had money stolen...we were in a tailor shop and Mike accidentally left his money belt in the dressing room. When he realized what he had done, he went back to find a young clerk rifling through his money belt...and his money was gone. We had just been to the bank, so we knew that 800 rupee were missing (about $15, now). The clerk swore on God, his mother, and his father that he hadn't taken anything, but it was clear. The shop owner was adamant that nothing had been taken, that nothing like that could happen in his shop. Well, another clerk discovered the money...in the owner's bag! (Probably the clerk figured that would be the one place no one would look!) It was very upsetting, because then the owner proceeded to slap the clerk around. We were relieved when the money was found so we wouldn't have to go to the police...and we ended up buying a kurta for Mike and a skirt for me, because Mike didn't want to leave behind any bad feelings! I'm sure we paid way too much for them, too! It shows what suckers we were that after that happened, the guy who had taken us to the tailor shop lured us into his art shop...we were in shock so we went and wasted an hour listening to another long sales pitch. I guess we should feel lucky that this was the only actual theft we experienced in India (not counting the constant feeling of being cheated out of our money, or rickshaw drivers or hotel owners inflating charges).

On our final full day in Udaipur, we booked our seats to Jodhpur and stopped by to tour the city palace (after getting cheated by a rickshaw driver), with its gorgeous views of the water and collection of paintings, some very gory.

City palace

Inside the City Palace

City Palace

That evening we went up on the roof for sunset. Now the hotel has a rooftop restaurant, but back in 1989, there was nothing on the roof. Our romantic scene kept getting interrupted by other people who had also discovered our rooftop haven. One Australian woman even interrupted our snogging to ask where the swimming pool was! We stayed up there until the sun went down, clinging to each other with the realization that we had less than two weeks left together. Every time I thought about that I had to hold back the tears. This is what I wrote in my journal:

"Then, Mike asked me to marry him! I was very surprised and couldn't quite believe it (I still can't!) and of course I said yes. I've known for awhile now that Mike is the only man I ever want to share my life with. We were both feeling a bit spacey with elation and kissed and clung until we went downstairs--me still in a state of happy disbelief. Not that it was totally unexpected, but it just makes me so happy that it seems like a dream."

View from the roof

We ordered rum punches from room service to celebrate, toasted to the future, and kissed some more. Then we went to the hotel restaurant for a nice, romantic dinner. Instead of purchasing engagement rings, instead we went into the hotel art shop to buy a beautiful silk painting of an Indian wedding procession. I had it framed on our first anniversary, and ever since then it has hung on our living room wall.

Indian painting hung in our newlywed apartment, around 1990-91
(with my sister and her now-husband)

Happy and engaged to be married! (on the dock of the hotel)

After reading back over my journal yesterday, last night I watched my now-50-year-old husband do our six-year-old's bidding. Nicholas was Indiana Jones, and Mike was "Mutt." He's such an amazing husband and dad, able to connect on such a pure level with children. He does this way better than I do. I'm the cuddly mom, the one who has heart-to-heart conversations with the kids, and Mike is the fun parent...the one who acts in their plays (while I watch) and makes silly jokes. And he's still a romantic at heart! Our relationship has matured since 1989, like a fine wine. I knew then I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, and now I'm only more certain. I can't imagine my life without him. I'm so lucky!

Mike in his kurta (City Palace in the background)

Thank you for popping the question in Udaipur, my sexy kurta boy!

Visit here to read my A-T posts. Tomorrow, back to Canada for V!

T: Oh, the places you'll go!

2013-04-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

This is my contribution to the A to Z Blogging Challenge, in which I'm focusing on overseas destinations I've visited. Can't believe I have only seven A to Z posts to go...yippee!!

T is for Tokyo, Takarazuka, Torquay, and Toronto

Tokyo, Japan (1988-89)

Mike's friends Kazue and Katsuya, who he'd met at Oxford, lived in Tokyo, and we visited them a few times.

Tokyo nightlife

Most of my favorite places in Japanese cities are temples or shrines, and this one was my favorite in Tokyo, Asakusa Shrine. I'll take that over all the trendy types in Harajuku, shopping on the Ginza, or touristy Tokyo Tower!

Asakusa Shrine--beautiful!

Mike actually climbed Mt. Fuji the summer after we met,
when he was traveling around Japan on his own

My favorite spot in or near Tokyo is actually 31 miles outside of the city--Kamakura, which has this enormous Buddha statue and beautiful grounds and gardens.

Amida Buddha

With Mike, visiting Kamakura

Takarazuka, Japan (1989)

Now this is a fascinating place...Takarazuka is a suburb of Osaka, and in 1913, the president of Hankyu Railways wanted to lure more people to the terminus of the Hankyu line from Osaka. He founded the Takarazuka Revue, which would offer Western song and dance productions and be an alternative to old Kabuki theater. In contrast to Kabuki, in Takarazuka, all the roles would be played by women...and to this day, they still are.

Older Takarazuka photos

The Takarazuka Revue has grown tremendously from 1914...now it performs for 2.5 million people each year in both Takarazuka and Tokyo, and its audiences consist mostly of women. I view it as similar to romance novels in the west...Japanese women are attracted to this idealized version of a male-female romance--with a perfect male, who treats them with respect and admiration and woos them--and elaborate costumes and set design and melodramatic plots and music.

The females playing males seem more androgynous than male...
and maybe that is appealing to women too.
It's hard being a woman in Japan.

Takarazuka is highly competitive...only 40 to 50 women are accepted each year and trained for two years in the highly strict music school, where they must also do all their own cleaning each morning. Traditionally, the girls must be virgins and display the strictest of decorum. The revue now has five main companies.

They always have large production numbers

We went to see a Takarazuka show not long before we left Japan, and I thought it was fascinating! I had wished I'd seen one earlier, because I would have loved to have gone again. In a culture that is so male dominated, the idea that women have full rein of this theater is ground breaking and empowering. This theater is the only place in Japan where women can achieve the highest position possible.

Before living in Japan (and even much of the time while I lived there), I'd never heard of the Takarazuka revue. Have you?

I encourage you to learn more about Takarazuka here and take a look at this brief video to get a feel for it--more can be found on youtube (see if you notice what big word they have projected large on the background, which has taken on a life of its own in English beyond the theater meaning):

Torquay, England (November 1997)

If you know my love story with Mike, you'll know that we had a Japanese omiai (matchmaker) of our own--our mutual friend Cath, who is from Glasgow, Scotland. We don't get to see Cath very often, sadly, but one of our favorite memories is visiting her in beautiful Torquay, where she lived with her husband Rob until recently. Torquay is a seaside town in Devon, not too far from where Mike went to college in Exeter. I didn't realize until just now that Torquay was the home of Agatha Christie!

Cath with little Christopher

Christopher took to Cath immediately!

Posing in front of the water

Loading up the little guy

On our walk

Mike with Cath in the harbor

Toronto-Hamilton, Canada (2009)

We visited Toronto in 2009 primarily to visit Mike's Aunty Anne and Uncle Arthur, who lived in Hamilton. After we'd been married for 19 years by that time, I'd never met Uncle Arthur. He didn't like to travel much (although Aunty Anne and her son David and family came all the way out to Oregon for our wedding in 1990). I'm so glad we paid a visit because he died just a few years after that. He was hilarious.

We loved Toronto--in fact, our whole family loves Canada. Our adventures consisted of:

Dinner with Mike's Aunty Anne, Uncle Arthur, and cousin David

Back at their house

At Casa Loma--listening to the audio tour

3-year-old Nick singing the telephone (Harvey Johnson) song from "Bye Bye Birdie"

Casa Loma

Outside of Casa Loma

With my coworker Dave and his kids

Riding the ferry to Centerville Island

Nick in seventh heaven, on an antique fire engine!
Click on the link above to watch the video.
He went on this ride probably 10 times!

When we are really glad we can trust our kids...
there was no safety bar on this ride, and it was probably 100 feet off the ground!
Mike, Nicholas, and I were in the lift behind them.
If it had been the U.S., there would have been a safety bar, I'm sure.

Amazing sunset views of C:N tower and the skyline, headed back over to Toronto--gorgeous!

A black squirrel in a park near Cabbagetown--I'd never seen one before!

Loved Toronto's recycling/garbage bins!

Cabbagetown house

Necropolis--I love old cemeteries!

At Riverdale Park

The view from our hotel's rooftop deck!

Chris and Kieran on the roof

Visit here to read my A-S posts. Tomorrow's back to Indonesia and India, where we got engaged.

S: Oh, the places you'll go!

2013-04-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

This is my contribution to the A to Z Blogging Challenge, in which I'm focusing on overseas destinations I've visited.

S is for Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore, Stonor, Stratford-upon-Avon, Stonehenge, Saffron Walden, and Sooke

Shanghai, China (December-January 1986-87)
As I mentioned in my C and K posts, I took a ferry from Kobe to Shanghai to spend Christmas with my sister, who was living in Chengdu. In my first day in China, I witnessed a truck carrying pig carcasses right through town, a father gently guiding his son's penis to pee in a garbage can in the middle of a silk export store, and more people staring at me than ever had in Japan.

First impressions of Shanghai

These are other highlights of my three nights in Shanghai (two nights on the way to Chengdu, and one night en route back to Japan):

Traveling in Asia, sometimes you have to just trust...A Chinese woman named Zhou from Fudan University, sister university of the Chengdu University of Science and Technology (where my sister was studying), met me at the dock and asked for my passport and money. She took me to the university where I would be staying. My room was pricey and had cockroaches, but beyond that it was fine.
China in 1986 was very different than it is now. The first day I ventured downtown to walk through the city and visit the Friendship Store, which caters to foreigners, and I ran into several foreigners from the ship. At the time, Chinese were not allowed into the Friendship Stores, which seemed so unfair to me. I found Chinese department stores to be virtually deserted of merchandise, but full of people. I'm sure it's vastly different now!

Crowded Shanghai street

Witness to blatant media brainwashing: The next day I bravely walked onto the main thoroughfare near the university and boarded a bus amidst hordes of openly staring people. I couldn't believe what chaos the buses were, with so many people on the bus that the doors barely shut. I thought the Japanese were pushy, but nothing like the Chinese. Finally the crowd thinned out a bit and a Chinese guy offered me a seat next to him. A student, he spoke English well. He expressed his opinion that in Japan, women are lower than men, but "in the new China men and women are equal." I felt like I was being fed a political slogan. But then we talked about Japan, China, the U.S., and world peace and friendship. He told me that to get to school from his hometown he had to ride on a train for 10 hours standing up, holding his luggage, and that the train was so crowded he could barely move. When I expressed my surprise, he said "we Chinese have been through many hardships." We rode, slowly, through HUGE traffic jams in the city. This is what he explained to me about the traffic, according to my journal:

"There's a huge student demonstration. Apparently the reason is because there was an American dance group here in Shanghai that was performing and asked some of the Chinese in the audience to dance along with them. On the next dance, the Chinese interpreter didn't say anything, so one of the Chinese continued to dance with the group when he wasn't supposed to. Then after the performance was over, the American dancers were angry, so they beat up the Chinese man. No penalty was placed on the dance troupe, so students here are restless and demand retribution. So this is the third day of rallies against the Americans. Now of course I don't know if all this is true."

Well, as we learned not too much later, this was the one of the first student pro-democracy demonstrations that occurred in China...so I was right to be skeptical! This young student had been brainwashed by Chinese media. He took me all the way to the Friendship Store and then I took a photo of him and his friend. It restored my faith in the Chinese people. He seemed very sorry to see me go!

My student friend (in blue) and his friend, in front of the Friendship Store

A new friendship and a crazy taxi driver: I met a Japanese woman named Hiroko in the JinJiang Hotel cafe and we became instant friends. She was 24 and spoke fair English...enough with my limited Japanese to communicate. No Chinese were admitted to the JinJiang Hotel at that time, which was sad. After some effort, I hailed a taxi to take me back to Fudan University. After saying sayonara to Hiroko, I trusted my life to a maniac driver in a little Honda. He was CRAZY! He didn't speak English except for "Okay? Okay?" He kept swerving, almost hitting people on bikes or walking and saying "Bang! Bang!" Then he said "America!" and started whistling "Yankee Doodle Dandy!"

Me and my Japanese friend, Hiroko

It's not easy to travel in China solo--at least not in 1986: I had missed the boat back to Japan because all the flights from Chengdu had been cancelled, so I had to find a flight home. By January I was ready to leave China--finding it frustrating and expensive to travel there compared to the highly efficient Japan--and spent a final night in Shanghai. Flying in China, at the time at least, was pure chaos. No one remained in their seats when the plane started taxiing, and at the airport it was a madhouse--everyone was shoving and climbing over each other to get to their luggage. Everything seemed chaotic and disorganized, and when I arrived at the airport I found no one waiting for me, although someone from Fudan was supposed to come. So I hopped into a taxi and went to the airline (CAAC), where I was told that a ticket back to Osaka would be way more than I expected. I had to get a cash advance on my Visa card to pay for it. I went to the ship company to inquire about my cancelled boat ticket, and I was told to come back the next day. When I did, they wouldn't refund my boat ticket--they claimed they had never received the request and they knew nothing about it. I was never sure who made the mistake...but I lost $136 and the whole trip cost me one month of pay.
When travel woes get you down, sometimes a splurge is worth it. I decided to splurge and pay an exorbitant fee for a nice(r) hotel, the Shanghai Mansions (which at the time was "nice" for China, but nothing like Japan). My room had a beautiful view of the river and the Bund.

Shanghai Mansions in 1985

Shanghai Mansions in 2013

View from Shanghai Mansions

Another view

Morning on the Bund

Misty morning over Shanghai

That same view now!

My spurned Latin lover: While visiting the Friendship Store, I met a Peruvian sailor, Antonio, who invited me out for a drink. We sat in a bar for 1-1/2 to 2 hours, chatting. He was a merchant marine who was docked in Shanghai for a couple of weeks. It was fun, but he was sexist as Latin men are prone to be. He couldn't believe it when I said I didn't want to marry for 5 to 10 years more. (Actually, it turned out to be 3 years!) He told me he smoked Marlboro because they were "men's cigarettes." He admired my courage for traveling alone in China, and told me I was beautiful (in Spanish and English) many times. He asked for my addresses in Japan and the U.S., and he kept offering me things to drink and eat, which I declined. Antonio tried to call a taxi, to no avail (usual in China), and I had to disengage myself from him because he was acting completely helpless about getting back to his hotel, and I wanted to finish my shopping before I left Shanghai. Finally he gave up after much pleading. He held out his hand, and I shook it, and then he kissed me on the cheek. I'm sure he wanted me to go back to his room with him at the Peace Hotel. He kept saying, "It's early! It's early!" My one opportunity for a Latin lover, I suppose!
When it rains, it pours!: My flight out of China was really late (a five-hour delay), but I met a nice Japanese tour guide in the Shanghai airport, Masa, who was my source of information (everything was in Chinese). Masa wanted to see me and write to me in Japan. He kept saying "I wish I had more time to talk to you." When I told him i wanted to go to Europe, he said, "Come with me as my guest!" Two men flattering me in two days! Unprecedented!

Seoul, Korea (March 1989)

Debbie and I spent one night in Seoul on our way to Thailand. Highlights from our one-night stay:

Met a gorgeous Australian smuggler in the airport. He traveled to Seoul to smuggle in cameras, watches, and walkmans. I was taken with his accent. (Yes, weakness for accents!)
Stayed in the Inn Daewon in a dark, narrow alley. Our room was a closet with little wooden doors and could be padlocked shut. Debbie, at 5'10", had to duck to enter the room. It was maybe seven by nine feet, which two thin quilts on the floor, thin walls with peeling wallpaer, a crooked ceiling, and heated flooring. Creepy! But a very nice manager lived there. The room cost us only $3 a person. (You get what you pay for!)
Wandered around the city and spent 1/2 hour trying to flag down a taxi, before finally grabbing one. Seoul seemed halfway between Japan and China...and like all of Asia, beautiful old pieces of architecture were interspersed with new, tall high-rise buildings.

Went to Itaewon and were blown away. The streets were full of merchants marketing their wares, and shop after shop sold all kinds of bargain merchandise--much of it cheap copies, including pirated cassette and videotapes. It was all new and exciting, and we were amazed by the scene. Salespeople kept hawking at us, trying to get us into their stores (seeing the sucker naive foreigners, I'm sure!). Once we went into a store, they would push things onto us. Then when we would try to bargain, they'd act like we were getting a really good deal if they took it. Itaewon was like nothing we'd ever seen before.

Itaewon, now (I don't seem to have many photos of Seoul)

Went into the King Club, where we asked some guys if there was a cover charge, and they said, "Heck no!" The waitress thought we were all together so she got us a table for five. I sat next to a guy named Bru, short for Brumaker, from Michigan. Debbie and I were the only American civilians in that very crowded bar. I got an education that night. Bru told me that all the Korean women in the bar were hookers. Bru was nice but not my type. He was into fishing and hunting. He'd only been in Korea for four or five days and hated it. They kept buying us beer and wouldn't let us pay or leave. Bru said, "Don't you know it's impolite to leave without finishing your beer?" Yet he kept filling it up so I couldn't finish it. We danced with the guys a bit--me with the 6'2" Bru to a slow dance--interesting! That evening was a good lesson for me that the military has some nice guys. I couldn't imagine myself in that way of life....it seemed like a real meatmarket in that bar. But Bru, in spite of his shortcomings (being sexist among others) was a gentleman. He didn't try anything at all beyond putting his arm around me. When we finally decided to go back, he walked us out to the taxi (after all the other guys kissed our hands) and told the taxi driver that if he didn't get us to our hotel safely, he'd have to answer to him. What a macho stud. Funny memory!!

Itaewon nightlife, now

Back in our little inn, we were afraid to go to sleep. We got hot because of the heated floor, and the quilts--the only padding we had--were really thin. The next morning we brushed our teeth with water from a water barrel and spit it down the drain in the cement floor...very primitive. The woman who ran the inn walked us to the airport bus, though; she was very nice. And onto Thailand, which felt like true luxury after our one night in Seoul!

Singapore (December 1988, August 1989)

We visited Singapore twice in the late '80s: once on our Christmas holidays, before going to Malaysia, and second as the third leg on our great Asia adventure. Here are some thoughts about Singapore:

Airports and taxis are incredibly efficient, especially compared to other parts of Asia!
Luxury is in the eye of the beholder. I will never forget walking into our room at the Royal Holiday Inn, which was nicer than I had ever stayed in. I was oohing and aahing, which Mike thought was very amusing. (The hotel is much fancier now than it was back then.) I grew up camping, and he grew up in the diplomatic service...we came from different worlds! The hotel was not that fancy to his eyes, but to me it was a luxury! Mike thought it was hilarious, of course, that I was so excited!
Christmas in Singapore was weird. Orchard Road (Singapore's main shopping and tourist street) was ornately, over-the-top decorated for Christmas. Every hotel had special dinners or dances for Christmas. It took away the quiet peacefulness of Christmas, not to mention the meaning. Christmas is different in Asia than in the west...it's like one big party where you spend lots of money to go out, drink, and eat. We went to Christmas Eve service in the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd...a huge, gold-painted structure that was already packed with people of all nationalities. It was incredibly hot and humid and even though fans were directed at the congregation, there wasn't enough air to keep us cool. The service was conservative, solemn, and staid, and I wrote in my journal about my issues with the Catholic church. It didn't feel much like a Christmas service! No candles, no Christmas story...but the tears did flow during "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World," because I missed my family. I did find the homily, delivered by the Chinese archbishop, to be touching as it talked about the crazy overcommercialization of Christmas. When we arrived back at our hotel at 2:00 a.m., the streets were still full of people!

It's fun to meet up with friends and family in other places. Jean--my PLU friend who moved to Japan my second year there--was also in Singapore, a brief stop before she headed for Bali, and we met her for breakfast on Christmas Eve morning. We met our friends Jo and Yoichi, with their daughter Meg, on the second trip there, and I also met Mike's sister Kath there for the first time--after we'd dated seriously for 2-1/2 years. My first impression was that she was very shy! (Now I know that's not true...but she was a young teen at the time.)

With Kath and her friends in Singapore

In the 1980s, Singapore was a perfect juxtaposition of old and new. On Christmas day we took a walking tour of Chinatown, where it was extremely quiet. We went to the Thian Hock Heng temple and Singapore's oldest Hindu temple (Sri Mariamman Temple). We also had Singapore Slings in the garden of the famous colonial Raffles Hotel, which was nice but overrated...and full of Australians. By that time I'd been to a number of hotels where Noel Coward had stayed (the Peace Hotel in Shanghai, the Oriental in Bangkok, and now the Raffles).

Mike writing postcards at the Raffles Hotel

Chinatown

Walking through Singapore's older streets

Beautiful gate of Hindu temple

One of my favorite Singapore photos!

Singaporean food can be amazing--Chinese, Malay, Indonesian, Indian--reflecting the melting pot that is Singapore. But be careful when you order satay. Our trusty Lonely Planet warned us to say how many satay you wanted, but somehow we ended up with 40! We managed to eat them all because they were small, fortunately, with nasi goreng--spicy Indonesian fried rice.

Satay and nasi goreng (with fried egg on top)

Singapore is manufacturing itself. Take for example the Merlion, which is Singapore's "mascot," developed by the tourist board. It's a mythical creature with the head of a lion and a body of a fish. It represents Singapore's origin as a fishing village and Singapore's original name, "lion city." Or the annual National Day celebrations, which are filled with multiple national songs and patriotism. We spent one day in Sentosa, Singapore's latest project at that time. They billed it as a place "to discover a world all your own." It was nice, but a bit too touristy. After watching a show at the Musical Fountains, with the national anthem playing in the background, I wrote "This country is trying so hard to be the perfect country!"

Kath and Mike in front of the Merlion

Crazy laws! Most people have heard of the strange laws in Singapore, such as littering with, selling, or manufacturing gum; running around naked in your own home; failing to flush a public toilet; driving into Malaysia with less than a 3/4-full tank of gas; entering Singapore with cigarettes or smoking in any public place; and peeing in an elevator. These all incur stiff fines. Further, homosexuality is outlawed and oral sex is only allowed if used as a form of foreplay (unless you are married or a lesbian).

At the Chinese temple

Stonor, England (1991)

Stonor is one of England's oldest manor houses, owned by the same family for 850 years. It is about 4 miles from Henley and not too far from Reading. It's called Stonor because it was built on the site of a prehistoric stone circle.

We visited Stonor back in 1991, when we were in England for Christmas the year before Mike's dad died. I suspect that one of the reasons his father loved Stonor so much was that it has a chapel, which has always been Catholic (unusual in England).

One of my favorite photos of Mike's dad, Hugh

Stonehenge, England (1997)

We visited the amazing Stonehenge, one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world, with our little guy in November 1997. Apparently Stonehenge is looking for a general manager to liase with Druids, in case you are seeking employment! It pays well, too--$99K/year!

Stratford-upon-Avon and Stow-on-the-Wold, England (1990s-early 2000s)

Similar to Bs, England has many S cities...for example, Stow-on-the-Wold, a village in the Cotswolds. We love to visit Shakespeare's home, Stratford, which is also in the Cotswolds.

First time in Stratford, in the 1990s

We returned in the early 2000s with our budding thespian

(Mike and Chris pretending to be actors in front of the Royal Shakespeare Company)

Me with Chris in the gardens

Mike and Chris in front of Anne Hathaway's cottage

Someday I would love to take a barge trip down the Avon!

Saffron Walden, England (2007)

One of Mike's friends from Oxford, Vicky, settled near Saffron Walden, a village fairly close to Cambridge, in an old farmhouse. We spent a fun evening catching up with them in 2007. Vicky and Nigel have three children: Jacob, Joshua, and Isobel. Jacob loves the United States and was asking all sorts of detailed questions about speed limits on American freeways, etc. He's planning to visit us this summer. Isobel, who has Down's Syndrome, is a sweet soul who loved her toys, books, and dress-up clothes. Chris hit it off with the boys immediately and they all played the X-Box together. It was wonderful to spend time with another warm, relaxed family.

Crappy photos because my camera had broken--

these were taken with my video camera!

Chris took this photo...

Sooke, British Columbia , Canada (2009)

We spent an amazing week in Sooke, not too far from Victoria, in spring break 2009. My parents joined us and we had a wonderful week staying in the secluded Kingfisher Manor. Highlights included:

On the ferry

Kingfisher Manor deck

Whiffen Spit

Totem pole in the museum

French Beach

Sooke Harbour House

So amazing!

In front of the castle

Tea at Murchie's

In one of our fave book shops, Victoria

On the water, Victoria

Making s'mores on our last night

Enjoying the hot tub

Headed back home on the ferry

Such a fun time on Vancouver Island. I would love to go back!!

Visit here to read my A-R posts. Tomorrow's back to Japan, England, and Canada.

Monday Listicles: Top ten ways to spend 30 minutes

2013-04-21T17:31:00.003-07:00

I'm going to make this blog post short, after all the epic posts I've been writing about my travel adventures. March/April has been a crazy two months, between my hubby's 50th birthday, Blogging A to Z, my mother-in-law visiting and all sorts of family occasions, and additional crazyness at work...so I'm resolving to rededicate my time in May...to doing things that are good for my soul!

Top ten things I need to dedicate 30 minutes to:

1. Exercising!
2. Tracking what I'm eating...and cooking healthy meals and snacks
3. Reading, playing games, and hanging out (unstructured time) with my immediate AND extended family
4. Taking walks and bike rides with my family--summer's coming!
5. Purging possessions and organizing my house
6. Painting--so many of our walls need coats of paint!!
7. Weeding and planting some veggies
8. Spending more alone time with Mike
9. Spending more time with my friends
10. Being artistic and making music

There you have it. The shortest blog post all month.

Join the listicles lineup or read others at Stasha's The Good Life.

Food cart adventures: Portland Soup Company

2013-04-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

Portland Soup Company--the prettiest cart in the pod!

Portland Soup Company has long been one of my favorite carts but I've never properly reviewed it. It was founded in 2009 by Jeremy Davidson, who is the son of some friends of ours from church. Clearly, Jeremy knows about a lot more than cooking...he also knows branding. This is a really classy cart/trailer, complete with glass-paned windows...and until the City of Portland insisted that Jeremy tear it down, it even had its own deck!

This is what it used to look like!

I was looking forward to revisiting Portland Soup Company, so I headed down there on a gray April day. I'm a sucker for tomato soup, and I like it in its winter or summer fashion at this food cart. Jeremy's gazpacho is the best I've ever tasted--served with corn and tortilla strips. This time I had a cup of roasted tomato reggano and a half sandwich ($7)--roasted turkey breast with brie, apple, baby arugula, and hazelnut basil aioli. Seriously...at a food cart! Both the soup and sandwich were completely amazing, as always.

I've never had anything at this cart that I didn't like. I must admit that I tend to veer toward anything tomato based. I ran into an old friend at the cart--Dianne, who used to go to my church when we were growing up and who used to babysit me, in fact! She had ordered the black bean and white cheddar soup. I've never tried the mac and cheese or the pork butt, but I hear they too are excellent. I think next time I need to try the handmade mozzarella, which apparently Jeremy makes from scratch every morning.

Jeremy was in the cart today, so I asked him to pose for a photo. He obliged!

Jeremy Davidson, founder and proprietor of the amazing Portland Soup Company

This food is really way too good to be served at a food cart. The other thing that I love about this company is their branding--take a look at his website and photos of the cart--do you notice how they match and are all elegantly designed? You can tell that he is a true artist.

My delicious sandwich--arugula, brie, turkey, and sliced apples

This tomato reggiano soup doesn't look anywhere near as excellent as it tastes--
those are toasted pieces of bread in the soup, a delicious touch!

The amazing ginger-molasses cookie, which I had to try again

Jeremy gets uniformly excellent reviews from every reviewer, including the Oregonian, with good reason. Try it!!

My verdict: Yes, will DEFINITELY be back! Love this place.

R: Oh, the places you'll go!

2013-04-20T12:53:00.001-07:00

This is my contribution to the A to Z Blogging Challenge, in which I'm focusing on overseas destinations I've visited.

R is for Riding on a Camel and Reading

Riding on a camel in Jaisalmer, India (September 1989)
If you've been following along, you'll remember that I didn't write about our camel safari in Jaisalmer. We've finally arrived!

Our camels--the grumpy and the placid

I'm so glad I kept a journal during our travels, because the primary memory I have of our camel safari was the pain and soreness!! I will never get on a camel again. It turns out that much of the time on camel safaris is actually spent off the camel, and I had completely forgotten this.

We were the only travelers on our camel safari--just us and four Indian men. Two of the men rode behind us on the camels (driving) and two of them rode on the camel cart, which contained our provisions. I'm convinced that the guides were out to get me, for we had two camels--one a really tall, extremely ornery male, and the other a placid female. I was hoping for the smaller female, but they had me climb on the male instead. What a fuss that camel made, every time he had to sit down for me to get on or get off or do anything he didn't want to do. When the camel stood up, I felt very far from the ground, and when he started trotting, I thought I would fall off because I was bouncing so much. By the time we made our first stop I wasn't sure how I would survive the day galloping across the Thar Desert.

Bada Bagh

We stopped at the lovely Bada Bagh, royal cenotaphs made of yellow sandstone (in the 16th century) and overlooking a lush green reservoir, which looked very out of place in the desert. Our next stop was a village with a large, dirty lake and some old Jain temples. By this time I was very tired. We wandered around for a bit and bought an expensive water in a shop, where we met a woman who was on the second day of her safari and looking very tired! Our guide came to fetch us and show us the "swimming pool," a water tank that he claimed was 200 feet deep, but I was doubtful. Many Indian men were diving and swimming in it, and they urged Mike to join them. (Women don't swim.) He declined, although later in the day he regretted that decision! We got back on the camels, mine grumbling of course.

Mike, who was enjoying Camel Safari Day 1 much more than me!

Phew! A break off that camel!! Do I have to get back on??

After riding for another 2 hours or so, during which time my driver decided to show off by making the camel gallop every time he thought it was getting lazy. It was horrible...I felt like I was going to fall off and my bum was very sore. For lunch we finally stopped at a school for lunch, which didn't look much like a school--a group of children was sitting on a porch, each with a slate and chalk. We went into an empty classroom and were given our lunch sacks, with cheese sandwiches, eggs, and fruit; however, the bananas had smashed and banana goo covered everything. It wasn't very appetizing! After eating our lunch, we were told that we'd be staying there until 4:00, for three hours. We were not unhappy about that! It appeared that our guides liked to rest. They brought us a cot to stretch out on, and we read and rested until 3:30, at which time the camelman appeared to be in a hurry to get on our way. The children were amazingly quiet--studying the whole time we were there. It was the quietest school I'd ever been to, out in the middle of the Jaisalmer desert!

We limped back onto our camels and galloped for another 45 minutes to a clearing, where the camel cart and crew were waiting for us. Of course, my driver felt the need to make a grand entrance, so he made the camel gallop especially fast for the last few meters into camp. I felt limp with exhaustion as we plopped down onto a blanket for tea, french fries, and vegetable pakoras...and extremely grateful that we were stopping for the night! Every part of me ached, but especially my bum. We were given a towel and told we could go to wash in the muddy water. I waded in to wash my feet but they felt dirtier afterward by the time I walked back to my shoes. At the water we ran into some foreigners on another safari--one a grumpy woman we had seen in a Jaisalmer restaurant a few days before--and their grumbling about a lack of water made me think they were not enjoying their safari much either.

Our guides

We walked over to a ruined village at sunset and wandered through the rubble. As we were sitting on the steps of an old temple, three Israeli guys (who we'd seen in Jodhpur--that's what happens when you travel in developing countries, you often run into the same people!) stopped by and chatted with us. They'd been out for three days, also had a water problem, and said that two days on safari would have been quite enough time!

Back at camp the guides were busy preparing our dinner. They lit torches and set up our little tent. We treated ourselves to a cold beer, which turned out to be a bit disappointing--Indian beer wasn't that great back in 1989--maybe it's better now! We sat and chatted as the stars lit up the clear night sky. We talked about our future (by this time we were engaged--that story will be told in "U"), and Mike said that he wanted to have three kids at the most. (Funny, that!) I remember the evening in the desert to be really peaceful, and it was wonderful to know he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me!

Our dinner was served in darkness--chicken soup, rice, curry, creamed veggies, and chapati, with a sweet Indian dessert, followed by tea. Then "the flute man," who lived nearby, came to play for us during dinner. He played two flutes at once, one holding out a single note while the other played the melody. It was amazing--and he never seemed to take a breath!

We went to bed around 9:30, but the tent was stiflingly hot, with no air coming through at all. Our beds were made up with sheets and pillows, and there was even toilet paper in the tent! (Thank God we sprang for the "royal" safari.) We tried to sleep but it was stuffy and our muscles were sore. (Now that I think back on the camel safari, I wonder where I went to the loo, especially with all of these men about! I have no recollection of that detail.)

The next day we woke from a restless, stuffy night feeling sore and exhausted, and not looking forward to another day on a camel. That day, however, I insisted on the female! She was so much calmer and not so tall, and she had a much more comfortable saddle. When Mike got on the grumpy male, the camel started to stand up before the driver got on and made a huge fuss!

So happy to be getting on the nicer camel!!
(I wore that scarf around my head to protect my head from the sun,
and I often covered my mouth because of all of the dust!

The entire second day was taken at a much slower pace. Behind us, I heard the male camel stamping his feet, followed by Mike saying "give me some warning!" and to me, "You're right, sweets, he is a crazy driver!", which the driver thought was hilarious. I shouted back, "Crazy camel; crazy driver!", which the camelman kept repeating the rest of the day!

Mike, who was blissfully ignorant about how grumpy his camel would be!

We rode up into and over the hills on narrow, rocky paths. It was beautiful to see the desert valley below and billowy white desert grass waving in the wind. We saw huge clumps of spring cactus and large bushes of waxy, purple flowers. Mike's driver got off to walk, which was a relief because then we slowed down.

We stopped at a deserted town called Mool Sagar for lunch and collapsed under a tree (Mool Sagar has since been developed into a luxury spot!). Then we read for a few hours as the guides ate and chatted, smoked, and slept. We stayed at the lunch spot for four hours and were finally on our way around 3:00, after they found the camels, which had wandered off somewhere.

The last leg was only an hour and a half, although we went a bit faster. As we went over another ridge, we could see Jaisalmer looming in the distance...I remember distinctly how glad I was to see that beautiful walled city!! I couldn't wait for ice cold water and to lie down on a bed!

The beautiful vision of Jaisalmer--so, so happy to see it!!

I felt so relieved when we finally got back to the hotel, where we bought a really expensive bottle of water and took a refreshing mandi (bath consisting of pouring cold water over yourself). When the lights went out again, we left the hotel to buy cheaper water in town...and then drank two cold bottles in a row...we were so parched! The evening was spent getting attacked by bugs (a large cricket flew down my shirt and then a forbidding-looking beetle flew at the back of my head and bounced on the table!) in the restaurant, before returning to our room to apply tiger balm on our muscles and collapse.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend a camel safari to anyone (I'm glad I can say "been there, done that!"), but some people have much better experiences. I'm sure if I had not been on such a grumpy camel and had been tortured by the show-off driver on the first day, I would have had a better experience. This is an excellent travelogue, with beautiful photos, of a great camel safari a man took, probably more recently. Or this is another good one, from 2010, by a young man who went solo on a safari with one Indian guide. Nowadays, safaris seem better organized (you can book them on the Internet), and some provide extra transport by jeep so you can get farther out into the desert. Back in 1989, it was much more difficult to comparison shop!

I had forgotten about this until rereading my journal, but the hotel (with the very annoying, nosy hotel manager who kept trying to sell us stuff, including fancy dinners and guided tours) charged us an arm and a leg for various little things...including a half-day extra's room, transportation (they had said would be free), a hefty amount for laundry, way-too-expensive mineral waters, etc., not even including the camel safari! Our bill seemed bigger than our bill from the fancy Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur! When we turned down his pleas to have a grand buffet before leaving on the train that night, he said "But it's your last night!" (and a last chance for him to get more money out of us!). I couldn't get away from this guy, who had realized that Mike was the softy between us and mostly tried to convince him of all the things we needed to do. I called him MLF for "Mike's Little Friend"!

We spent our last day in Jaisalmer wandering around, returning to the fort, shopping, reading, and catching up in our journals. We had a very nice meal in town--with dum aloo kashmiri (a potato dish), chicken kofta, vegetable and cheese naan, and apple pie. The restaurant was full of strange, noisy foreigners from Britain and Canada...and the lights went out again. After we waited and they didn't come back on, we went out into the dark streets. We returned to the hotel to retrieve our bags, and a concert was progress...and guess who were the musicians? Our little friends from the hillside, decked out in kurtas and turbans!

That evening we shared a train compartment with an extremely grumpy couple who didn't speak to each other all night long--except for the woman to snap at her husband about the fans not being on. The next day we arrived in Jodhpur, where sadly we were cheated at another accommodation.

Reading, England (1990-2002?)

Reading town hall and St. Laurence's church

Although Mike grew up all over the world, his "hometown" for most of his childhood was Reading, a city in Berkshire located about 45 minutes by train from London. After his dad retired from diplomatic service, he and my mother-in-law lived in their Reading house. After Hugh died, my mother-in-law, Olga, moved from Reading to Cambridge several years ago to be closer to her daughter Kath and her children.

The Thames from Caversham Bridge in Reading

Reading is most famous around the world for (1) Oscar Wilde, who wrote a poem about when he was imprisoned for sodomy in Reading Gaol, and (2) the big Reading rock festival. First evidence of Reading dates back to the eighth century, but now it's mostly a commercial center.

The Abbey Gateway in Reading,
apparently where Jane Austen went to school! (I had no idea...)

Most of my photos of Reading feature events with family and friends, being entertained in Mike's family home. These are not necessarily in order!

Christmas 1991, with Mike's difficult and staunchly Catholic Aunty Betty,
who didn't like the American-feminist-Lutheran woman
her nephew married until I produced a male heir! You can tell by my look that I tried very hard...

Celebrating Mike's dad's birthday in TGIF in Reading, with his parents and Aunty Betty

Our friends from Japan, Cath and Dan, at a lunch party in Reading

Mike's mum with a young Christopher and her dear friend Margot

Kath dancing with her dad (who died suddenly in 1992)

Aunty Gena dancing in the back garden with the kiddies

Mike's aunts and cousins' children at Kath's wedding in Reading

Mike's parents, sister, and Aunty Betty wearing jodhpurs from India

Kath holding a young Chris in Olga's back garden (1999)

Chris with his cousin Mark in Reading

Visit here to read my A-Q posts. Tomorrow's my day off, and Monday, it's all over the world again.

Q: Oh, the places you'll go!

2013-04-19T02:00:00.000-07:00

This is my contribution to the A to Z Blogging Challenge, in which I'm focusing on overseas destinations I've visited.

Q is for Queen's and King's Houses (Hampton Court, Windsor, and Buckingham Palace)

Today's post is going to be short--it took me forever to think of what I would do for Q, and I don't have many photos...plus I've been working long hours and I'm tired. I give you Queen's and King's houses!

Hampton Court Palace, England (1990)

On my first trip to visit Mike's family in England, we had to go to a funeral...the elderly woman whom Mike had befriended in college had died. He's still in touch with all of her daughters--he's so sweet! On our way home from the funeral, we stopped at Hampton Court Palace, home of King Henry VIII. Apparently Hampton Court appeared in the recent HBO miniseries "John Adams."

It was much gloomier on the November day we visited!

Mike getting lost in the maze?

By the River Thames

I wouldn't want to run into a ghost myself, but I'm slightly intrigued by them. Hampton Court Palace is supposedly haunted--no surprise after the way Henry VIII treated his poor wives! According to Wikipedia, "The ghost of Catherine Howard is said to haunt The Haunted Gallery. Staff have reported hearing screaming and crying and even thumping on the chapel doors, visitors have also claimed to have had unpleasant encounters. Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife and mother of Edward VI has also been seen silently walking towards her son's room. Other ghosts include Henry VIII himself and a woman named Dame Sybil Penn, Edward VI's nurse. She died of smallpox in 1562 and her grave was damaged by a storm in the early 19th century. Staff have repeatedly complained of hearing the sounds of an old woman muttering and the sound of a spinning wheel. Workman were eventually called in to investigate and discovered a concealed room containing an old spinning wheel, well worn with constant use."

We didn't go inside but just wandered around the grounds.
Windsor, England (early 1990s)

I've been to Windsor Castle a few times--it wasn't too far from Reading, where Mike's parents used to live. Of all the royal residences I've visited, I think it's my favorite.

I loved the gardens and secret places like this one (this photo hangs in our living room):

One of the towers

Buckingham Palace, England (various times)

We've been to Buckingham Palace a few times, too--can't remember how many times. The Queen hasn't invited me to tea yet!

I could look at these horse guards all day--they are fascinating!
Looking forward to the day when there will be more women!

Wouldn't you love to walk up that staircase?

You probably didn't believe me when I said my post would be short today! When I commented on Facebook how I was looking forward to this month being over, a friend said "P is for pooped!"

Visit here to read my A-P posts. Tomorrow, it's back to India and England.

P: Oh, the places you'll go!

2013-04-18T07:36:00.000-07:00

This is my contribution to the A to Z Blogging Challenge, in which I'm focusing on overseas destinations I've visited.

P: Port Dickson, Penang, Pangandaran, Paris, Preston

Port Dickson, Malaysia (December 1988)

We arrived in Port Dickson by bus from Melaka, and we walked 15 minutes in the hot sun to a low-budget hotel. The room had an attached bath, but with only cold water. Best of all were the steps leading down to the beach below. We found that anything we ordered in the hotel restaurant took up to an hour to arrive, but we were in no hurry...and it was worth the wait. One evening we had a fantastic dinner of chicken curry and steamed groupa, and another night we had sweet & sour fish, prawns and onions, and chicken with cashews and chilis. We swam next door at a beach club owned by the same people who owned the hotel, but one day Mike spied a peeping tom peeking through the fence at me swimming in the pool. Being a Muslim country, I suppose the Malaysians were not accustomed to seeing women in swimsuits. That creeped me out!

Most of our few days in Port Dickson, we spent being lazy. The only other unfortunate incident was that my swimsuit, which had been drying on the porch, was pulled away and mauled by dogs! Very upsetting. I can't remember if I ended up finding a replacement suit elsewhere in Malaysia.

Penang Beach, Malaysia (January 1988)

The beach in Penang is actually called Batu Ferringhi, but I forgot to include it in my Bs. When we first arrived in Batu Ferringhi, we stayed at a fancier hotel, because the place where we wanted to stay was booked. It was much more upscale than we were used to. The beach itself was packed with people, most of them probably rich. Lots of people were parasailing, wind surfing, and water skiing. We found the end of the beach to be more secluded with nicer water. The one highly unpleasant thing that happened there was as we were walking down the beach, we saw a middle-aged Malaysian man sitting with his legs wide open, totally nude, with a huge hard-on...probably getting excited by all the women in bikinis and a few topless sunbathers (lots of Europeans frequented Penang).

Mike in the hotel pool

We had dinner out one night, and as we were walking back to the hotel, we heard Japanese being spoken. Mike got so excited listening to the Japanese that he stepped in a big pile of cow shit, which was really mushy after a recent rain. Of course he was wearing flip-flops at the time! So he had to walk into the fancyish hotel wearing only one flip-flop and carrying the other. Made me laugh so hard!

A few days later we checked into the Lone Pine hotel, a few stars down but also half the price. The Lone Pine has since been remodeled, and now it's REALLY nice! This is what it used to look like:

We found that the sea was not that nice in Penang--there was a little tributary that ran into the sea, presumably from the town. It smelled foul and was not very clear--probably raw sewage! In general, we found Penang to be too touristy for our tastes.

Beach from Lone Pine Hotel

On the beach

Sitting on the veranda relaxing--I'm wearing my hand-painted Malaysia shirt,
which I actually still have!

On our last night in Batu Ferringhi, we treated ourselves and went out for a nice meal at a restaurant called the Ferringhi Village. It, too, must have changed its name over the years.

Exploring the town

Nice dinner our last night in Penang

Pangandaran, Indonesia (August 1989)

View from our bungalow

Pangandaran was one of my favorite off-the-beaten-tourist-track places we visited. (Judging from the Internet, it's definitely been "discovered"!!) It's a little fishing village on the south coast of Java, Indonesia. We arrived there after an unpleasant, smoky third-class train ride from Bandung. Nearly everyone was smoking, and few windows were open for air. It was nearly unbearable! The train also had a constant barrage of sellers and beggars, including a few guys singing, playing the guitar, and asking for money of course. We were exhausted as soon as we arrived in Banjar, where we were pounced on by minibus touts, two of whom nearly kidnapped Mike until I rescued him! As I wrote in my journal, "I think it overwhelms him so he just lets them lead him!" Reminds me of how our kids do the same thing nowadays!!

When we arrived in Pangandaran after a very crowded local bemo ride, we were assaulted by another horde of becak (cycle rickshaw) drivers, who charged us way more than the going rate. We must have looked like complete and total suckers! We stayed at a place called the Panorama Hotel, which was right on the beach and extremely laid back. It was the cheapest place we had stayed up to that point, I think around US$3.50/day, and it included a delicious breakfast! We had a nice little porch with a perfect view of the beach, only steps away.

Our bungalow kind of looked like this...

View from the beach

Pangandaran was much more of a fishing village than a beach resort at the time...the sand on the beach was very black and not that clean and littered with garbage from the fishing boats. The food in Pangandaran was incredible--local, fresh fish every night, gado gado (Indonesian salad), nasi goreng (Indonesian fried rice)...and every morning we woke up to the waves crashing against the shore, instead of the obnoxious, loud call to prayer that we heard everywhere else in Java. Although one morning we were woken up at 4:00 a.m. by loud fishermen setting their boats out into the sea!

Fishing boats everywhere

Each morning we'd find breakfast left on our front doorstep--either a wonderful tropical fruit salad sprinkled with lime juice and coconut, or banana pancakes topped with chocolate sauce and peanuts. Best breakfast ever! We enjoyed Pangandaran's lazy, laid-back attitude so much that we decided to stay another night. During our last night in the town, we went to a local seafood restaurant where we chose a fish to have the chef cook in butter sauce--it was amazing! We made friends with two local boys who were trying to sell Jakarta newspapers. It was so sorry to leave Pangandaran...especially because the following day was our worst during our travels in Indonesia...

Our friends the paperboys

With Mike

Paris, France (August 2011)

We visited Paris right before 9/11...we took the chunnel from England to Paris, which was exciting. I had booked a one-bedroom apartment in Montmartre, so we took Mike's mum along with us. We had a wonderful week walking all over Paris and taking the Metro the rest of the time. We walked poor Olga off her feet, I do believe! What we were not aware of is that while many Parisians leave the city in August, the rest of Europe descends. (Smart Parisians...)

We bought crepes in the supermarket and warmed them up in our (tiny) kitchen, and Mike would often get up early to go off to buy fresh croissants for breakfast.

Buying cheese in Montmartre

Montmartre

Having lunch in a little cafe on our walking tour

Chris takes the camera...

Windmill in Montmartre

My favorite thing about Paris was the gorgeous bridges across the River Seine, especially the elaborate Pont Alexandre II, which is gilded in gold:

View of the Seine and the Eiffel Tower

In preparation for our trip to Paris, I had read Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety, a historical novel about the French revolution. I often read books about places we travel to--helps me understand the spirit better. In Paris this was particularly helpful, as it made the history come alive for me!

Cleopatra's Needle and the Place de la Concorde,
at which 1,119 people were beheaded,
including Marie Antoinette, King Richard XVI,
and Robespierre among others

You may be shocked, but we didn't actually go into the Louvre--Paris was very crowded at the time, and we figured that with a five-year-old, we wouldn't have much time to enjoy it!
Time to return!

Mike with his mum and Chris in front of the Louvre

On the Champs-Elysees, in front of the Arc de Triomphe, commissioned by Napoleon

We went to an extremely crowded and famous market on our way to the Eiffel Tower, and because of the massively long lines, we decided to walk up into the tower instead of waiting for the elevator.

View from below

View from above

Mike and Chris on top

Another view

Me and Chris

Amazingly, right in front of the Eiffel Tower we met a friend and his wife and son! As I mentioned writing about Delhi, we have a knack for running into people we know when we travel. Dan had taught with Mike at Kinki University the first two years, and he lived one floor above Mike in Fuse. We hadn't seen him for years, as he had been living in various places since leaving Japan. His son, Finn, was close in age to Chris...so we all rode the carousel in front of the Eiffel Tower. Somehow I failed to get photos of them!

Mike on the carousel

Carousel in front of Sacre Coeur

Paris had lovely antique carousels, and that was most definitely Chris' favorite thing about Paris!

On a night-time boat trip down the Seine, in front of the tower

Our flat in Montmartre was just downhill from Sacre Coeur, a beautiful Catholic church that overlooks the city.

In front of the Sacre Coeur

Street entertainment

More street entertainment

Although we shied away from most Paris museums (figuring we could return when Chris was older), we did spend a day at the Rodin Museum, much of which was outdoors.

Front of museum

In the back gardens

The Thinker

In front of the Calais Burgers

Gates of Hell

One of my coworkers suggested that we seek out the church of St. Chappelle, which has stunning stained-glass windows, and we were not disappointed.

Most beautiful church I've ever visited!

And then of course we had to visit Notre Dame, which was crazy crowded because of some feast day...but stunning anyway!

Somehow we happened upon a moving memorial to the 200,000 Jews deported from Paris during the Holocaust. It was hidden away behind Notre Dame.

Underground memorial

One of our last days in Paris, we surprised Chris by taking him off to Paris Disney for the day. As far as Disney parks go, this was my least favorite...mostly because of the rude continental European tourists (ran into those at the Eiffel Tower too) who did not stand in queues and pushed ahead to get to the front. That does not make for a pleasant theme park experience! Also, I found the park to be extremely dirty at the end of the day, unlike American Disney parks. But Chris, of course, loved it...even the musical shows, which were mostly in French. I did enjoy the backwards Indiana Jones ride (which in 2004 was set into forward motion again), but it made Mike sick!

At Paris Disney

Most of the time we ate cafe food, but we convinced Olga to watch Chris one evening so we could have one adult evening out. We had an amazing high-quality French meal in Le Restaurant, which was walking distance from the flat. We had a lovely week in Paris with our little preschooler Christopher!

In front of my favorite bridge!

Preston, England (August 2004)

In addition to visiting Mike's Aunty Gena in Liverpool, we also visited her up north in Preston for her Jubilee celebration (50 years of being a nun). Mike's brother Ed and his family also came from Australia for the occasion. It was a very fun time spent with family, and it turned out to be the last time we got to see Mike's Aunty Gena, Aunty Helen, cousin's daughter Jenna (who died tragically a few years ago) or Aunty Kath (she is still alive but doesn't go out in public any more). Those nuns and friends know how to party!

Mike's brother Ed with me and little Kieran in the background

With Aunty Gena, a very blonde Kieran, and my sister-in-law Shemara

Mike twirling our nephew Mark around outside the convent

And Chris this time

Love this photo! They truly loved to laugh!
L to R: My mother-in-law Olga, Aunty Helen, Aunty Gena, Aunty Kath, and a friend

Cousins' daughters--Emily, Jenna, and Briony

Next morning before we left Preston

Visit here to read my A-O posts. Tomorrow, it's back to England.