Category: travel

Obligatory Photos of Pike Place Market

I know it’s a tourist trap, but I still have soft spot in my heart for Pike Place Market. When I was in high school we would sometimes take field trips there.

Photographically speaking I had a hard time finding anything unique to say about the market. But it was still fun snapping photos.


I think flowers are basically the only thing that’s worth buying at the market. They’re really inexpensive here.

I had a moment of deja vu standing in front of this fortune-telling machine…but then I realized I was just remembering the scene from Big.

If you walk down the ramp in front of the market and around the corner you will find this: a building covered in wads of used chewing gum!

In other news, I have woodworking class tonight. I missed two classes while I was out of town so I’m anxious to make some good progress tonight.

Oh, the food, the glorious food! (part 1)

N and I like Korean food and usually eat it at least once every couple weeks or so. We would eat it more often but I only know how to make a handful of dishes. But I have ambitions of becoming better at cooking Korean food, especially because most dishes don’t contain things that E is allergic too.

Anyway, any visit to my parents’ house is guaranteed to feature some delicious Korean food since my mom is a great cook and we also usually grab a bite to eat in Koreatown at least once or twice.

(I can’t remember the Korean name): Buckwheat noodles in fish broth topped with egg, sesame spinach, dried seaweed, and kimchi.

Ojinguh: squid served with spicy dipping sauce (not pictured).
This is one of my favorite Korean snacks and has been since I was a kid.
(Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!)

Ddukbokki: spicy pressed rice cakes with fish cakes
And the spread at the Korean BBQ place Honey Pig in Tacoma.
(I really like this place. It’s the only BBQ place I’ve been to that serves you rounds of pickled daikon and chewy wonton wrappers to wrap your meat up in. The crunchy+chewy texture is delicious and addictive–yum!)

*Sigh*…looking at these pictures is really not helping with my Korean-food withdrawal.

We’re Back!

We’re back: a little tired but happy (and behind on laundry). Poor E was so tired that he sacked out shortly after take-off and didn’t wake up until descent.

It was a wonderful trip and now I feel energized, happy to be home, and ready to tackle my goals re: spring cleaning and getting in better shape. And I have lots of pictures and things to write so I’m going back to daily posting.

It’s great to be back!

Well, that wasn’t so bad

Success! E and I arrived safely and in more or less one piece on Monday. I (of course) put off packing until the night before and so I was up until 1:30 am doing laundry and lethargicly shuffling stuff in and out of suitcases. And then I took a shower and lay in bed, wide-eyed and exhausted until I finally dropped off around 2:30. I’m normally pretty mellow but the combination of packing at the last minute with the anxiety I was feeling about travelling alone with E get me worked up. But everything went swimmingly.

E was a trooper on the plane; I didn’t even have to break out his little dvd player until we were over halfway there. The plane was completely full but people seemed to be passing by the seat next to us (not that I blame them) until a mom with a 4-week old (!) plopped herself down. Hypocrite that I am, I had a flash of “Oh great, why do I have to sit next to the crying baby” but then I instantaneously quashed that sentiment and tried to be helpful and nice.

Both the baby and E were great on the plane so there wasn’t really anything to worry about. E loved looking out the window as we took off and giggled like crazy as we went “in the sky.” He was surprisingly easy to entertain. He seemed like such a big kid compared to the newborn on my other side.

And now we are at my parents house out in the middle of the woods. My mom took E with her yesterday to run some errands and so I took a luxiourous 3-hour nap. When I woke up I even had that that heavy-headed feeling you get when you’ve slept too long. Ah, sleep headache–how I’ve missed you, old friend. It’s been too long.

Olympic Game Farm

I realized today that I hadn’t posted any pictures from our trip to the Olympic Game Farm in Sequim, WA yet. It was one of the highlights of our time on the peninsula. Basically, you drive through the farm and throw bread to animals like bears (behind electric fences) and buffalo, zebras, deer, elk, and llamas (not behind fences and free to come up to your car and eat out of your hand).

The guy running the farm the night we were there was super nice. We didn’t know what time it closed and actually arrived 30 minutes too late. But he saw how crestfallen we were and let us in anyway (yay!).

The sun was setting as we drove through and the way the light hit the grass behind this bear was incredible. Everything was glowing.

A lot of the bears are rescued from circuses and some of them appear in movies and tv shows. They’re trained and will sit up and beg for bread. It’s pretty crazy to see such a huge animal sit up on your cue.

There was a herd of white deer there. This fawn was adorable.

The buffalo came right up to the car which was a little intimidating. They licked the windows with their huge tongues. If your window was down too far they would try and stick their heads in the car…

…like this elk.

A peacock was very obliging and showed off for us.

This zebra came up and ate from my hand.

If you’re ever on the Olympic peninsula I would recommend stopping by, especially if you have kids with you. E was actually pretty tired and fell asleep as we drove through but my nephews (ages 9 and 7) loved it. The only thing you’re allowed to feed the animals is bread. You can buy it there or pick up cheap bread at a grocery store and bring your own.

Letter: Month Twenty-One

Dear E,

If you’re actually reading through these in order you’ve probably noticed that the twenty month letter is missing. I tried to find time to sit down and write it but July was a crazy month for us this year and it slipped by before I knew what was going on. I’m going to try my best not to let it happen again but we’ll just have to see. In other words, no promises!

Enjoying a ferry ride.

Before I started this letter I was rereading was I wrote for month nineteen and I am amazed at how much you’ve grown in just two months. You outgrew the clingy, whiny phase you were going through back then. You’re much more self-assured now. I think it comes from being more confident that you can communicate your needs to us now. Whereas before it was “no, no, no!” all the time you will now emphatically exclaim “yeah!” when we ask you if want something and you do.

Watching a deer at Hurricane Ridge

You love to talk. A lot of the time you keep up a steady stream of chatter but most of it is pretty unintelligible. Whenever your dad or I leave the room you’re in you quizzically call out “Mama?” or “Daddy?” but when we tell you that we’re coming right back you relax, assured.

Playing at a lake

In July we went on a trip to visit family and I was a little worried about how you would do. But you were a champ and rolled with the punches and had a lot of fun running around with your cousins. You went to all sorts of places: the zoo, the beach, several parks, a raspberry farm, a wild game farm, a ferry, several Korean restaurants, etc… and you handled it well. And except for when you came down with a cold, you slept well the entire time. It made the trip a lot easier on your parents than it could have been.

Feeding the chickens with Grandma

One of the things that stands out about the last few months is that you’ve become pretty decent company. If you’re well-rested and fed you’re a lot of fun to be around. You like to crack jokes and make us laugh. You’re so eager to smile and enjoy yourself that you inevitably bring smiles to everyone around you.

Love,

Mama

Mystery Solved!

So earlier this week I was really sad because I thought I had busted my Holga. I assumed something was wrong with the shutter was because half of the pictures I shot in WA came out blurred and washed out. (Before I posted them here I upped the contrast on the shots below in Photoshop to help them out a bit.)

A nephew at the beach.


Ghost deer!


And ghost buffalo.

But then I googled “Holga shutter problem” and found a discussion board where someone was posting about the same issue. And someone asked the guy if he had accidentally switched the camera from “normal” to “bulb” mode (where the shutter stays open as long as you hold down the button). As soon as I read that I ran upstairs and looked at my camera and sure enough the switch on the bottom was set on bulb. Sigh.

I had some mixed feelings: I was really happy my camera wasn’t broken but pretty regretful that so many of my pictures were affected by my oversight. Ah well. Part of the charm of the Holga is that you never know what you’re going to get and I like the way that the above photos turned out. I think they look kind of mysterious and old-timey. I might even set the camera on bulb to get this effect on purpose in the future.

But either way you can bet your pants that I’m going to double-check that switch from now on.

Seattle Holga Photos

Here are some of the photos I took with my Holga when we were in Seattle.

Nephew D at the beach.

Sister-in-law Mindy with solemn niece C.

The skyline as seen from the dock at Ivar’s Salmon House.
Eating there and feeding the ducks french fries is a family tradition. (N and I had our wedding luncheon there.)

I’m pretty sad about my Holga. I think it might have gotten banged up during the trip because for half of the rolls I shot the shutter seems to have stayed open longer than it should have and they’re kind of washed out and blurry. Some of the shots still turned out pretty cool, though. I’ll post some of them later.

Best…soul food…EVER!

Bleh…I came down with a nasty cold on Friday afternoon and consequently spent all my free time this weekend slurping chicken noodle soup, downing diet Sprite and cold medicine, and napping. But instead of boring you with the details of my convalescence (I know, too late!) I wanted to share some photos from another restaurant we went to on our trip to Seattle.

While we were in town Ken and Mindy took us to another one of there favorite restaurants, The Kingfish Cafe. It’s known for having the best soul food in Seattle and is a local favorite. Pre-recession, people were known to queue up outside before they even opened up. Mindy said that they once saw a fistfight break out in line over someone cutting!

We started out with some fried green tomatoes and hush puppies.

N ordered the gumbo. He thought it had an excellent blend of flavors.

Ken and Mindy couldn’t praise the yam fries and collard greens enough so I ordered a steak which conveniently came with both. The steak was decent but they were right about the fries and greens: both were AMAZING. The fries were crispy and cinnamony and the greens weren’t bitter at all, only bright and tender. I’ve had collard greens a few times before, but this was the first time that I’ve really enjoyed them on their own. They were SO good. Between them and the fries, the steak was almost an afterthought for me.

…and then the four of us shared this giant strawberry shortcake!

It’s hard to see the scale of it from this picture, but it was actually the size of an adult’s head. It was delicious: creamy and sweet and caramelly (besides the caramel sauce the whipped cream was also caramel-flavored). And all those rich notes were perfectly balanced by the tartness of the berries. Even though we were already stuffed with our entrees the entire shortcake was successfully polished off.