A Murrikan Summer: Seattle

After another gorgeous train ride up the coast, I checked into my Seattle Airbnb in the neighborhood of Hillman City, which is quite far south of downtown. My time in Seattle was split into two distinct halves; I would alternate between unknown, local spots in Hillman City and touristy places in the city center. For the first 36 hours, as I was developing photos and working on my Portland blog post, I stayed entirely in the neighborhood, quite content to explore the nearby cafes, ethnic restaurants, and alehouses.

On Thursday night, I met up with Craig and Yoko, a lovely couple I had met in Chiang Mai while we were all volunteering. They happily gave me a car tour of most of the city en route to a great Thai restaurant, where we had a delicious and nostalgic round of khao soi. For dessert, we walked to Hot Cakes, a "molten chocolate cakery" that is so popular that the line extended down the block. Once I realized they had boozy shakes, I couldn't help treating myself to the "Drunken Sailor": ice cream, peanut butter, caramel, and whiskey. (Well, I guess technically it was a "Vegan Drunken Sailor" since I opted for coconut ice cream.) Let me tell you, it was $10 very well spent.

The following morning, in addition to publishing my blog post and knocking out a few other errands, I needed a haircut, so I walked over to the only barbershop close by, which just happened to be a black barbershop. (I guess now's a good time to mention that, according to NPR, Hillman City's zip code is the most diverse in the entire country. White, black, Asian, Indian, Muslim, Italian, African, you name it.) As I got my hair cut, we all watched the latest Ferguson news - the protests had been happening for a few days by this point - and talked about what was happening. I wish I could say it was a barrier-breaking interracial exchange, but in reality it was mostly informative, as some people in the shop didn't know all the details and had to be caught up by everyone else.

With all my work out of the way, a haircut and a shower completed, and a sunny Friday afternoon to look forward to, I made my way downtown. I walked around SoDo, downtown, the waterfront, and anywhere else that was easily reachable on foot. As I walked around the stadiums area - which is very much the lions' den for me since I'm a Niners fan - I noticed that it felt too energetic, active, and populated for a random Friday, until I looked up at the huge banner on the side of the stadium and noticed that the first preseason home game was happening that very evening. I glanced down at myself and realized that, between my clothes and my sunglasses, I was wearing Seahawks colors. I left immediately to avert any awkward (and potentially turbulent) situation involving lingering, unrequited high-fives from Seattle fans.

In direct contrast to the very local experiences of the previous day and a half, Friday afternoon was a lot of very touristy sightseeing, for better or worse. In addition to the stadiums, I wandered through all of downtown, walked through all the floors of the public library, dipped briefly into the chaos that is Pike Place Market, and walked along the waterfront.


In the late afternoon, I met up with a new friend for coffee at the market. She had just moved back to Seattle from Canada and within a couple weeks had already been offered a great job (way to go Jenny!), so to celebrate we went to a local sports bar for beers and food and to watch the game. I was happy to set aside our gridiron differences - she was sporting her Seahawks jersey - in the name of celebrating her recent good news.

That same afternoon, after posting something on Facebook about being in Seattle, I received a message from Aisha, an old SF friend (who now lives in San Antonio), saying that she would be in Seattle for the weekend with her friends. Not five minutes after Jenny went home for the evening, Aisha and her friends showed up and we went barhopping for a few hours, ending up at a Chinese restaurant in the ID (International District) at 2:30 in the morning.

Not surprisingly, Saturday morning was slow and lazy, and it was already early afternoon before I reached the Columbia Center, my first stop of the day. It's a much better lookout and photo-taking spot than the Space Needle; it's 50% taller, half the price, and much less popular with tourists. Plus, how are you supposed to get photos of the iconic Space Needle if you're inside of it? I'm still not sure why every tourist goes there.


Afterwards, since it was gorgeous day, I walked over to Seattle Center, where I ran into Aisha and her friend, an unlikely event considering we had no plans to meet during the day and there are literally millions of people in Seattle. I got the feeling they had just been talking about me because as I walked up and said hi, Aisha turned to me and said: "Oh my god, why are you here? This is creepy."

It turned out to be a perfect chance meeting, as her friend Zoe lives in Seattle and drove us around for the rest of the afternoon so we could visit several of the important sights: Gas Works Park, Ballard Locks (and the fish ladder), and Kerry Park at sunset. The locks were easily my favorite as they're a really interesting and impressive feat of engineering. They were also quite busy while we were there, so we watched lots of boats quickly rising up in the locks as they passed from the saltwater of the sound to the freshwater of the lakes. There was even a massive piece of construction (highway or bridge or maybe even both) - conveniently sized to fit precisely in the locks - being pushed through by a tugboat.


That night, Monty Banks, a New Orleans jazz musician/entertainer and, more applicably, a friend of Craig and Yoko, was playing at Vito's, an Italian restaurant and lounge, so I sent out messages to all my Seattle friends in the hopes they would all converge. I arrived early and sat with Craig and Yoko, Monty's mother (who was a delight), and some of their friends, chatting, ordering drinks, and listening to the music. One by one, my friends started showing up as well, and the task of introductions became exponentially more difficult as I tried to connect the dots for everyone. At one point, Craig and Yoko (Chiang Mai volunteers), Aisha (SF) and her friends, Karan (a cousin of a good bay area friend), and Eric (another friend I met in Chiang Mai, albeit for only 20 minutes at a bar) and his girlfriend were at the table together. It was really fun to have so many different people in one place; Monty's music and the ambiance at Vito's combined to make the perfect backdrop too. As we were saying goodbye, Craig reminded me and all others within earshot that I used to pull the same shenanigans in Chiang Mai too. What can I say? I like having fun with all the people.


After a full two days, Sunday was really lazy, consisting mostly of photo editing and trip planning on my laptop, which was more stressful than usual after my third consecutive Airbnb request for Victoria had expired. I grabbed some beers with Jenny in the afternoon sunshine, but other than that, nothing too noteworthy happened beyond sleeping for about twelve hours that night. It was nice to rest up before starting a new city (and country) the next day.

I've been trying to come up with a deep or profound assessment of Seattle, but my thoughts keep coming back to the same place: it's so much like San Francisco! Actually, more accurately, it's just like San Francisco + Oakland. A friend of a friend that I met in Portland, who has spent significant time in the bay area, Seattle, and Portland, warned me that I would find Seattle to be very similar to SF, and he was dead on. Downtown areas with skyscrapers, lots of coffee shops, water on multiple sides, aggressive hills, a touristy seafood-based area on the waterfront, large tech companies outside of the city proper with shuttles and millionaires, a very diverse population and food culture, a section of downtown with lots of vagrants and homeless people, a big Asian neighborhood, proximity to the Pacific Ocean, and even an iconic tall landmark with a pointy top. Sound familiar?

Of course, I realize that if things had been reversed - namely, if I had lived in Seattle before ever visiting San Francisco - I'd think that San Francisco is the Seattle of California, rather than thinking Seattle is the San Francisco of the Pacific Northwest. As they say in Thailand, same-same.

The one difference I noticed is that packs of tourists seemed to be everywhere in downtown Seattle. In SF, if you avoid Union Square and the cable car turnaround, you'll hardly see any tourists downtown. I asked a Seattle friend about this and he confirmed that yes, there are lots of tourists in Seattle and somehow they are present year-round, even during the rainy season. I guess that's one point for the bay area. Another point would be a hell of a lot more Super Bowl trophies and World Series championships. Oooohhh, Seattle sports slam!

All that said, I had a great time in Seattle, especially with all the people I know, and was a bit sad to leave. Monday was a travel day, so I packed my things and went to the waterfront to catch the Clipper, a high-speed ferry that travels between Seattle and Victoria. The ride was smooth and beautiful, unlike the last time I took a high-speed ferry to an island. And on top of that, I got to use my passport again!

Full photo album: Seattle

A Murrikan Summer: Oregon

After saying goodbye to friends in SF and Oakland, I left the bay area by hopping on a late night train to Oregon. Okay, that's a lie, because the train was over four hours late, so it didn't leave until 2:30 in the morning. Truth be told, it wasn't Amtrak's fault; all the trains going through northern California and southern Oregon were delayed because of wildfires. As the train was passing through those areas, we could all see smoke, the smoldering remains of trees, and even a few distant fires.

Funny side note: during the long delay, as I sat on the floor of the train station, I was (digitally) flipping through the latest copy of WIRED, which included a short article on the latest technological advances in fighting wildfires. One such technology is a fuchsia-colored chemical flame retardant that is dumped on the fires from planes. The vivid color makes it clearer to firefighters exactly where the chemicals were applied. And sure enough, as the train passed through some very charred areas, large portions of the ground were colored fuchsia.

Crater Lake

Fiery forestry carnage aside, the ride was beautiful, filled with blue skies, mountains, and beautiful green foliage. A bit after noon I arrived in Klamath Falls, a reasonably-sized town that serves as a nice - and relatively cheap - base for exploring Crater Lake. In fact, it was such the cliche of small town America that I had trouble believing it was real. There was a main street, actually named Main Street, that ran through town and supported the vast majority of bars, restaurants, and shops. This is Oregon though, so there was the requisite vegetarian-friendly cafe and Thai restaurant, the town's dinner hotspot. Not surprisingly, the restaurant at the bowling alley - which normally I wouldn't go to but was the only place serving food after 10:00 - had several local microbrews on tap, which made the steady stream of country music slightly more tolerable.

For my one full day in the area, I drove to Crater Lake and spent the day hiking, enjoying the views, taking photos, and going on a ranger-guided tour at sunset. Fun fact from the tour: normally, the park experiences about 25 lightning-induced wildfires per year. Two Wednesdays ago, a thunderstorm rolled through the area and because of the incredibly dry conditions caused by the recent drought, there were 20 lightning-induced wildfires in one night.

I don't want to use such a tired word, but Crater Lake is stunning. The water is just as blue in real life as it is in photos. Even after a full day in the park, I still wasn't tired of gazing out at the tranquil water.

Portland

The next day I took an 8-hour train to Portland, only one hour late this time - a pretty standard Amtrak cushion - since the wildfires were contained at this point. After checking into my fantastic Airbnb in NE, I cleaned myself up and went back downtown to the Pearl for the monthly art walk. On the first Thursday of every month, a lot of the art galleries and shops stay open late and serve drinks. There was a lot of great art on display and one of the galleries was even serving pisco (the featured artist was Peruvian), but the most memorable part of the walk was actually the Upper Playground store. They had the highest quality - in terms of creativity - selection of clothing I think I've ever seen in one place. Don't believe me? Check them out for yourself.

I was tired after a full day on the train - clearly not from all the drinks at the art walk - so I turned in to get an early start the next day. My first activity was some beautiful hiking around Mount Tabor, a park in the eastern part of the city that rests on a dormant volcano and serves as home to several of the city's water reservoirs.


After a tasty lunch at Pok Pok - a very nice Thai restaurant that's become a Portland institution - I ambled down the street to try some kava, a sedating drink from the South Pacific. It's legality differs from country to country, but it's legal in the U.S. for now. Perhaps I have a native tolerance to it, or perhaps I'm a huge alcoholic, because I didn't feel anything after chugging a cup of it (which is how I was advised to drink it). Rather than throwing more money at the "problem", I decided to plow ahead with my day instead.

I continued to wander west along Division St. until I reached the river, at which point I realized I was close to Hair of the Dog, a well-known brewery in town, so I stopped in to cool off and taste all their delicious beers. Rehydrated (dehydrated?) and fueled up, I crossed the river on foot and walked around downtown, which was setting up for the Bite of Oregon festival that was happening that weekend.


While in the area, I stopped by Mills End Park, the smallest park in the world.


After a trip back home to shower, change, and drop off my camera gear, I came back downtown in search of food and ended up grabbing a late dinner at Saithong Thai, one of many Thai restaurants in the area. Armed with a little bit of Thai speaking ability (enough to be polite, really), I started chatting with Saithong herself. When she said "Hello, how are you?" in Thai and I responded appropriately - and evidently fluently - she guffawed (like, actually guffawed) and jokingly yelled "White man can speak Thai!" (in Thai) into the kitchen.

My rudimentary Thai, plus stories from my travels, was enough to convince the staff that I really wanted and could handle their "Thai spicy" level of spiciness. As Saithong and I were chatting, the food came out and I started eating it. I realized two things at that moment: (1) this was spicier than anything I ate in Thailand and (2) this was the spiciest thing I had ever eaten in my entire life. My body's response was to skip the sweating stage and go immediately to the crying stage, a stage I didn't know existed until then.

Between all the day drinking and the nuclear war that was just set off in my mouth, the next 5-10 minutes are something of a blur, but I recall desperately trying to keep my shit together while casually making conversation with Saithong and her bartender, acting like it was totally normal for my eyes to be as watery as Niagara Falls. Luckily they had to step into the kitchen for a few moments, which gave me an opportunity to wipe the tears away before they started streaming down my face.

As I finished my meal, I very candidly told Saithong that I was crying from how spicy the food was, and she laughed and told me that they get their chilis from Mexico, which could possibly explain why they were more black in color. (I still think this is cheating, so now I don't feel so bad for struggling with the heat.) As a reward/antidote, she treated me to a shot of Hennessy and we had a cheers and some more nice conversation with her staff before it was time for me to head out.

My destination that evening was Lola's Room, a bar/club/venue in the Crystal Ballroom that has an "80s Video Dance Attack" party every Friday. While I enjoyed the big screens showing 80s music videos and the springy floor that bounced when everyone was dancing on it, the most interesting part of the evening was the crazy age range of the party-goers. I'm pretty sure I saw every age between 20 and 60 and everyone was very much enjoying themselves. After a little while there, I realized there was no "scenery" - an unfortunate common theme for me in Portland - so I bounced and caught one of the last trains home, quite content with how the day had panned out.

The big Saturday activity was a brewery-hopping bike tour with Pedal Bike Tours, an outfit that operates in both Portland and Hawaii. It served as a general tour of downtown Portland as well, with the occasional stop to tour a brewery or have some flights of delicious local beers. We also stopped by the Crystal Ballroom and Lola's Room - about twelve hours after I was there for the 80s dance party - to take a tour and hear some really interesting Portland history involving prohibitionists, boat parties, fires, hippies, and bans on dancing (where's Kevin Bacon when you need him?). After the tour was over and we went back to the bike shop, we had some more beer tastings; some of the beer was on tap at the shop and some of it was homebrewed by our tour guide. As we were drinking and chatting, our tour guide also offered up a restaurant recommendation based on how good their pickling was. No, really, I can't make this up. The whole afternoon was more Portlandia than Portlandia.

Very late in the afternoon, I hopped on a bus across the city to track down Red & Black Cafe, a restaurant that evidently serves up a mean vegan Reuben. Unfortunately, when I finally found the place, I also found that they were permanently closed because they couldn't afford to pay their rent. Disappointed, I took to Yelp to find an alternative, walked to a bar down the street called Hungry Tiger, looked over their menu, and saw... a vegan Reuben. It was delightful. Spiced tempeh instead of pastrami, really good rye/pumpernickel swirl bread, a mountain of homemade fries, and, of course, a pickle.

Fueled by beer and an excellent meal, I walked about an hour to get home, where I promptly PTFO'd. What was initially going to be a half-hour power nap turned into a 12-hour golden slumber. I felt a little silly for missing out on Saturday night in the city, but felt pretty damn good Sunday morning and decided to make the most of it.

I got up early and took the train out to Washington Park, one of the larger parks in the city. There are lots of trails winding through the park, an arboretum, a zoo, Japanese gardens, and the International Rose Test Garden, one of the world's largest rose gardens. For about five hours, minus an hour for brunch at a nice spot just outside the park, I hiked around the arboretum and gardens on a beautiful day.


About mid-afternoon, I caught a train back towards downtown to make a Portland Underground tour I had booked. I had about half an hour of free time, so I stopped in to Ground Kontrol, a classic arcade and bar, because alcohol always makes everything better and video games are no exception to that. This was a good chance to dispose of the gross, soggy singles in my wallet and I entertained myself for a little while with $4 worth of pinball, NFL Blitz, and some really old Mario.

The Portland Underground tour was pretty fascinating, both because of the historical content and the paranormal stories. The tour goes beneath a few of the buildings downtown and covers the history of Shanghaiing and white slavery in Portland. Most of the stories are too depressing or grisly to repeat here, so let's just say that it wasn't a pleasant experience for anyone involved. Because so many people died in the underground, there are many ghost stories told by those that conduct the tours and those that work in the buildings above. Unfortunately, nothing paranormal happened on our tour, but our guide had many stories of strange things happening to tour guests over the years, like being pushed or pulled, hearing whistling, seeing shadows or trails of nonexistent people, and smelling cigar smoke or a very specific scent of perfume.

That evening, I met up with my aunt and uncle (and their dogs), who live across the river in Vancouver, WA. We had a delicious Sunday BBQ dinner in the backyard at sunset and caught up over beers and port, though it hadn't been that long since I saw them last (Tampa in May).

My last two days in the city were a bit more mellow - I had to catch up on some laptop work and do laundry - but still very Portlandish. I had met another solo traveler at the underground tour, so she and I visited a couple museums in the afternoons and also went to one of the many food cart clusters in the city. I was all set on Vietnamese when I had made it about 95% of the way around the circle of carts, until I saw the Georgian food cart at the end of the line. Since it was the only cuisine there I hadn't tried before, I went for their veggie sampler plate. I'd say it was a cross between Mediterranean and Eastern European and quite decent.

On Monday night, I met up with my very good bay area friend Mo (who was in town for a couple days for work) and his two coworkers for some Thai food, beers, and American Ninja Warrior. The next day I finally made it to one of the many independent theaters in town that serve food and beer (a.k.a. "brew-and-views") and saw Edge of Tomorrow, the recent Tom Cruise sci-fi flick. I always like his sci-fi movies so, not surprisingly, I liked this one, especially since it was only $4 for the ticket and I could order pizza slices and many delicious IPAs during the movie.

It was during these two days that Robin Williams passed and many people wrote tributes to him, so I feel like he deserves a mention here since he was in my thoughts a lot. My Facebook post sums up my feelings pretty well, so I'll just copy and paste it here.

I've been busy lately with traveling and trip planning to really meditate on the passing of Robin Williams, but when I do get a chance, my thoughts always come back to Hook, which I watched an ungodly number of times as a child and teenager. Even then, I was struck by how deep it went, especially for a "kids' movie". Or maybe it was just my interpretation. The themes of the inevitability of death, staying young at heart, and making the most of your time have always come through stronger in that movie than any other I've seen. And the quiet sadness that seemed to surround him (both in and out of character) seems so much louder in retrospect. Bangarang in peace Robin.

With that, my time in Portland came to a close and I hopped on a train for a ride to Seattle, where I'm currently writing this post under the dullness of a grey, gloomy sky. Portland is just as green (in both senses of the word), recycling-friendly, vegetarian-friendly, tattooed, hippie, and hipster as I thought it would be. Weird? Maybe, but I lived in San Francisco for five years, so it's all relative. What I do know is that I had an awesome time exploring the city and met a lot of incredibly friendly and open people. One thing that has stuck with me is the fact that Portland is probably the friendliest and most community-oriented big city I've ever been in, which is quite the feat. If the city has to be weird to accomplish that, then I'll be the first to say:


Full photo albums: Crater Lake, Portland, International Rose Test Garden

A Murrikan Summer: Bay Area

Knowing that I wanted to be in the bay area for about a month, I had hunted for a sublet on Craigslist before leaving my brother's place in Delaware. Among my findings were a studio flat in Normandy Village, a small part of Berkeley that was built in the 1920s and intentionally designed to look like a rural French town. No, I'm not making this up. Though I'd much rather live in something more modern, I thought it would be interesting to try something quirky and quasi-vintage, especially since it would be for only a month. I contacted the landlord and secured the flat for July, which was a huge weight off my shoulders since no one else on Craigslist was emailing me back.

The village was as rural European in person as it looked in the photos: rounded doorways, heavy wooden doors, curved staircases, lots of brick, uneven side streets, and the like. In fact, on my last day there, I was walking back to my flat with arms full of laundry when I saw a fully grown deer walking on the other sidewalk in the opposite direction. He stayed only on the sidewalk too, as if a deer out for a casual morning stroll is completely normal. We both stopped, looked at each other, exchanged "Good day sir!" looks, and then continued on our ways. I found out later that the deer and his family live in the village. I guess the American Dream of a white picket fence and two-and-a-half kids is not just for humans anymore.


With a comfortable base of operations that was close to BART, I spent a lot of time (more than I care to admit) dealing with my storage unit full of "stuff". My most pressing task was to move everything to a storage unit in Oakland. The storage facility I used in San Francisco was well run and very convenient with respect to my old SF apartment, but was way too expensive. I found a similar unit at a similar facility in Oakland for half the cost and wasted no time in hiring movers to relocate everything across the bay. The cost of the movers will be recouped in less than three months, so I'm very happy with the move. The new facility is only a block from BART, so it's been very convenient for me to visit, which I do periodically.

I took this opportunity to audit some of my possessions and decided to sell or donate a number of things, even though I had already gone through a period of selling and donating before I left for Asia. Traveling for such a long time had resulted in some interesting revelations.

For instance, I wasted no time in unloading all of my DVDs and records and most of my books. With respect to DVDs and books, I've found that I no longer have much of a desire to re-experience them; I'd much rather spend that time watching or reading something new. (Or better yet, getting out of the house and actually doing something.) Reference books are something of an exception, but the topics relating to my profession (namely, programming languages) are well documented on the Internet. In fact, with the speed at which technology changes, software reference books can sometimes be obsolete relatively quickly, so online documentation becomes a requirement rather than just a convenience. And speaking of obsolescence, DVDs are steadily being replaced by Blu-ray, so it makes sense to me to sell them now while they're still worth something.

Another contributing factor to this purge is the fact that music, movies, and books are all available digitally, usually on-demand via Internet streaming (or torrenting). With a laptop or tablet, I can have easy access to any media. This dovetails quite nicely with my increasing sense of minimalism; rather than keeping a large library of physical media, I need only a small computing device and a pair of earbuds. It's not quite the 100 Thing Challenge, but I've enjoyed reducing my footprint to something I can easily wrap my head around.

When I wasn't dealing with my personal inventory, I spent the month trying to get a lot of quality time with friends. I had some very fun nights at a few old haunts and a few new spots in the east bay, a happy hour reunion with some old Riverbed friends, and even an outing to AsiaSF, which had been on many friends' bucket lists for some time now.


I finally had time to spend a day wandering through the entirety of Golden Gate Park, the last item on my San Francisco bucket list. I spent most of the day in the western half of the park, an area of the city I never really saw when I lived here. There were many pleasant discoveries and photo opportunities, including two windmills, an anglers' lodge, men playing with remote-controlled sailboats, a big cross on a hill, and two waterfalls. Who knew?


I took advantage of my time back in the bay to also work through a photographic to-do list that has lingered for a while. Based on my photo archives, I've been trying to photograph Pier 7 in San Francisco for six years. The first photo below was taken with a point-and-shoot on my 2008 trip to the city, the second was taken with my first real camera in 2012, and the third was taken about a week ago with my new camera. It's a very satisfying feeling to see tangible improvements in my photography.


As I do every once in a while on my blog, I'll make a brief mention of my current reading. I had started A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius while flying to Florida and finally had time this past month to finish it. Once again, I found parts of my current reading mirroring my own life, as the memoir takes place in Berkeley and San Francisco. The book certainly has its moments but is a little slow and long-winded in parts; nevertheless, it's a worthwhile read.

As is probably evident from everything mentioned above, this past month was quite productive for me in a variety of ways. One of the biggest surprises was how much I enjoyed exploring Berkeley and Oakland, either by myself or with friends. San Francisco is and will always be the king of the mountain in the bay area, but it was eye-opening to discover other places, something I was admittedly not good at doing while I lived here.

It's been really cathartic to work through all of my SF to-do lists since I didn't have enough time to do so before I left for Asia. One of the main reasons for this is that my priorities and outlook have changed since traveling and I no longer imagine myself settling back down in the bay area. The novelty has worn off, it's way too expensive, and it's clear that it's time to move on to something new. San Francisco has been very good to me and was unquestionably the right place for me during that period of my life, but that chapter has been written and now it's time for the next one. That said, a piece of me will always be here. It really is true that you leave your heart in San Francisco.

While I've very much enjoyed cooling my heels the last couple of months in Delaware and Berkeley, I can feel myself getting a little too comfortable and certainly too complacent. The next bit of traveling will probably be a small shock to the system, but a shock that's necessary. Tonight, I'm kicking off my Pacific Northwest rail adventure by taking an overnight train to Oregon. For the next week I'll be enjoying Crater Lake, Portland, and very healthy amounts of street food and microbrews.

Full photo albums: Normandy Village, Golden Gate Park