Last week, I noticed a dear friend linked here and realized how much time elapsed and how I should do something about that. I decided to save my next post for the one-year mark.

One year ago today, I was deep in preparation for a potential move to London. We were waiting on visas and approvals and getting lives in order to step away from Seattle for 6 months. I feared all that work would be for naught and braced myself for disappointment, but I shouldn’t have. Everything panned out as hoped.

Actually, better than hoped — I fell completely head over heels in love with London. Before we left, I thought it would be just another big city and I’d get my fill, have an adventure, and we’d be done with it. I intended to cover it online, but early on, realized I wanted to devote less time to sitting behind a screen and more time taking advantage of the good luck to be there. I saw it as the Study Abroad experience I pined for as a young adult, but never got to have in college. I set out to make myself an expert and explore everything. My strategy worked out. I’ve never been as content with where I was living and what I was doing on a daily basis. With just C & I in our tiny yet mind-boggingly expensive flat, I felt at home. I never took for granted that my local bus took me past Whitehall, Westminster, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, straight to Trafalgar Square. I remember walking the 3 blocks home from Pimlico station one blustery London January day, fighting the wind but realizing how alive my mind finally felt and how happy I was, just existing. In a January, in London! There was no S.A.D. this Winter. It was a charmed time and I’m grateful I was able to be appreciative while the getting was good.

In Camden Locks Market. It made me want to drop my bags and clap. I should’ve bought this, as I never saw it again.

With our visas finished and work projects handled, we returned to Seattle on Easter Sunday. I’m totally upfront about this: I fretted & braced myself to come down from that high. Resettlement went easier than I expected thanks to good friends. Mother Nature seriously cooperated with Seattle this year, making up for all those prior cold & lame Summers. Well done, PacNW. You’re alright.

Sometimes, an image will float by and I feel like I miss England like someone cut a piece out of my heart. But if I learned nothing else there, it’s that there will always be London. And like life in general, there will probably never be enough time there for me. So, I’m just getting on with it.

This August finds me in another stage of preparation — we are expecting a baby girl in early December. Just like last year, I’m full of lists and plans and looking around at how I can take advantage of remaining free time and how I can prepare for change. This hasn’t been without a few speed bumps. (The day after a hospital visit, I took the fortune picture just above this paragraph. I was not sure what to make of it.) But we can talk about that later.

I miss writing online, outside of social media. While I suspect the ship has sailed for blogging styles of the past, at least, the parts I’ve loved in the past — I haven’t closed the book completely yet. In the last 18 months, I’ve experienced so many adventures. I have had a ball. I flip through photos on my hard drive, tracking down tips to pass along to friends traveling to places I’ve been, and I get excited all over again. I still can’t believe I’ve been able to see so much. I still want to share it somewhere, where I’m not limited to 140 characters or sketchy FB user agreements. I hope to pull it off somehow. I hope some friends will stick around while I muddle through the creative process.

In the meantime, I hope you’ve been well.

Hey y’all!

How ya goin? (That’s a little Aussie for you.)

As you can see, my posting here lapsed as I was trying to figure out what to do in the wake of returning from an epic journey. I’m still not 100% sure how I’m going to relay the adventure, but I decided to move forward with the original spirit of this site and post a highlight a day. You should see posts appearing below this one, as I catch up. I’ll start with Australia and China…

Wish me luck as I sort the year-so-far out.

Today really taught me how great Sydney-siders have it. Mr. T & I couldn’t think of another international city with such close proximity to sparkling beaches and pleasant weather. We were thrilled with all this sunshine!

Bondi Beach Street Art

Walking past Gordon’s Bay

Tamarama Beach

We refueled midway at The Bogey Hole Cafe (mostly unmemorable). Except, I did find the Door to Narnia nearby:

We followed our morning of walking with a visit to yesterday’s find in Chinatown’s Eating World: Gumshara Ramen. This was the thickest, fattiest broth I’ve ever come across, but that ramen sure was memorably delicious. The chef onsite offered to thin it down to our preferences. While I’m not scared of fat like I was way back in my teen years, I did need to go back once to him to balance the broth. Then, it was perfect.

More to come for March 14th: Sydney Harbour Bridge walk.

Today, we rode the entire main route with a few detours. This ride itself took hours longer than they advertise, but as suggested, it gave us the overview we needed to approach the rest of our week-and-a-half in and around Sydney. It was much easier to sort out public transport after today.

We took our first detour at Woolloomooloo for Harry’s Cafe de Wheels for Aussie Pies (pictured above). We ordered Harry’s Tiger: the house special with beef pie served with mushy peas, mash & gravy. Great lunch! And they had their food truck-style dining going long before American hipsters did.

Later, we took another detour at Chinatown for laksa at Eating World’s food court’s Singapore Shiok. Mr. T seriously loved his laksa and asked if we could just eat this from here on out. The portions were so large, we only needed to share one bowl. It was a delicious, cheap meal — so budget-friendly yet satisfying for poor Americans suffering from sad exchange rates.

(I emphasize this rate situation a lot, but after expecting the Euro or the ruble to make me feel poorest, it was a shock to discover the most disadvantageous rates would be in Australia! You get what you pay for though, and the place is so lovely while being functional and overwhelmingly friendly that it’s worth every penny. Aussies give US Southerners a run for their hospitality trophies.)

After a disco nap, we ventured out to Pocket Bar and Shady Pines Saloon. These two bars are within a short walk from each other in Darlinghurst.

At Pocket, as basil was in season, it needed to show up in my glass. On par with the best cocktail spots in the US.

At Shady Pines Saloon, we were greeted by steers. This place is an amazing slice of Texas situated in central-ish Sydney. We ordered a House Special, before we wrapped up our night:

More photos from Sydney: here.

We also found his favorite dish–laksa–at Malay-Chinese Takeaway. It’s an excellent yet delicious choice for Americans suffering from a poor exchange rate.

We settled our evening at Stitch. Try the Little Miss Sunshine, if you can, at Stitch. Right up my alley with ginger, chili, rum, lime, and vanilla sugar.

More photos from Sydney: here.

More photos from Sydney: here.

Things that are grueling: 3 flights in a row to Australia, with two hours separating each leg. Grueling is worthwhile for a select few journeys, and today was one of those.

I started my trek on Alaska Airlines before dawn and switched over to Korean Air in SFO. Did you know that in the domestic terminals at SFO, there are no screens indicating where you should go if you next leg is international? I was not expecting to be disoriented so soon, before I’d ever left the country. I was saving these feelings for Beijing.

In much the same way I approach my life, I just kept moving and asking questions of anyone who held a vague sense of authority or intelligence despite also knowing the answer may never come.

Lucky for me, I found a suitable answer to “Where do I go now?”, one I could live with to get me on my way today. It did involve checking in all over again despite having done so in SEA. (Turns out Alaska is small potatoes and their standard boarding passes are not approved in SFO’s international terminal. This was additional salt in the wound from the night before where AK wouldn’t let me check in, in advance. Hrmph.) Well, whatever, I didn’t complain since I had my eye on a prize on the other side of the TSA: the Air France lounge. I barely had enough time to read the charming coverage of rural Louisiana in the AF mag (EN FRANÇAIS), before heading off to pre-boarding.

As they closed the doors at SFO, I heard the flight attendant tell another traveler that it would be 12 hours to Seoul. WAIT, WHAT? STOP THIS TRAIN I HAVE TO GET OFF.

SFO-Seoul flight time was a detail I hadn’t cared to pay attention to before that moment. This is hilarious when you consider that I’d previewed the layout of my cabin on Google image search and watched videos of the sleeper-chair I’d have and I knew a week ahead what I’d be ordering from the in-flight menu. Bibimbap for lunch, Beef Galbi-Jim for dinner. I guess the flight time never mattered in the overall scheme of things. Then or now, really, cause it was just going to be awhile.

I’m lucky enough to be flying in front cabins for the vast majority of this grand adventure, but the constant movement took its toll nonetheless. As I slogged across Incheon’s airport, I marvelled at how sloppy & underdressed I felt for such a fancy mall.

Korea’s invested quite a bit in this airport — there was a classical singer performing with an audience in one section, and I spied several Korea Traditional Cultural Experience Centers (Naomi had told me about these!). They’ve mostly upstaged Singapore, if you ask me. And if you overlook the archaic security checkpoints where they went so far as to pull batteries out of my camera for closer inspection. Singapore’s too efficient for that nonsense.

Had I not been so exhausted and in need of recharging at the Korean lounge (can you hear the tiny violin?), I would have stopped in the Center pictured above for a little traditional Korean craft time. Crafting! Can you think of anything more soothing before a flight that doesn’t involve a prescription? Next time, Incheon.

Wish me luck!