Weekend on Whidbey

Our weekend on Whidbey Island was awesome – I love that it’s so close to Seattle yet feels like it’s so far away (I’d say the same thing, frankly, about any of the islands up there). We took off Saturday morning, driving up to Mukilteo and catching the ferry to Clinton:

We then drove into Langley and got some lunch at the Village Pizzeria. After lunch, we wandered around the various cute shops, like the Star Store and Chef’s Pantry. In the afternoon, we checked into the Inn at Langley which is situated right on the water, each room’s balcony with a 180-degree view of the water.

The jetted tub

Our balcony

In the evening, we enjoyed the 6-course meal by Matt Costello in the Chef’s Kitchen at the Inn. Literally, the kitchen was right there so we could watch the chef prepare our meal. The meal was delicious!

The next day, after checking out of the hotel, we drove up to Coupeville, which is situated right on Penn Cove so we could enjoy a lunch of Penn Cove Mussels! Pretty lip smacking good….

We continued our drive up and walked around the beach in Deception Pass State Park before heading over to the scary bridge to walk across. The pedestrian part was only 3 feet wide as cars zoomed past us! Nevertheless, the view was breathtaking.

Check out the rest of the photos here...

Labor Day Camping

We had a fabulous Labor Day weekend camping with Matt, Asayo, Yoko and their dog, Luna. We all woke up bright and early Saturday morning and started to 2.5+ hour drive down to the Hood River, OR area to our campsite. The whole Columbia River area is absolutely beautiful. The campground itself was great, only about a year old. It was incredible how clean the bathrooms and showers were! Admittedly, I've never gone camping anywhere that had bathrooms and showers so it was a pleasant surprise to have such amenities!

Here's Matt after we set up our campsite:

After setting up, we went straight into town, got some quick lunch at McDonald's and then over to Wet Planet Whitewater Rafting for an awesome afternoon of rafting the White Salmon River.

All suited up!

The whole trip was amazing as the weather was great, the water super clear and fresh and the rapids exciting. Mid-way through the trip, we had to hike around the river due to a drop that was too dangerous for any of us to go through...and at the end of the hike, we had 2 choices to get back to our rafts: either keep walking around or jump off the cliff into the 45-degree water! It's a bit crazy thinking back--but we all took the jump and it was awesome.

Photo courtesy of Wet Planet

At the very end, we went down Husum Falls, a 10-foot Class III drop which is incredibly exhilirating.

What a thrill! After rafting, we headed back to the campsite and enjoyed a relaxing dinner and smores by the campfire.

The next day, we woke up bright and early to get some windsurfing lessons. Unfortunately, there wasn't much wind so we had to pass some time in town---we got some coffee, walked around, checked out a local swap meet that windsurfers and kitesurfers sold all their equipment.

After 2 hours, we got a call that the wind had picked up and that we could head over to start our lessons! The first hour or so of our lesson consisted of land simulation on a board with wheels at the bottom so that we could get a good sense of the wind and how to move the sail around:

Still practicing our stance--but it kinda looks like tai chi!

We then got suited up and headed over to the "Hook", an area of the Columbia River that's pretty protected with less wind and a good place for beginners to practice. We spent the next couple hours here and it was so much fun!












All the really good windsurfers and kitesurfers out on the Columbia River---they were totally sailing and going really fast:



Another long exhausting day---we got some food in town and headed back to camp again where Matt and I cooked up some grilled corn and skewers for dinner and we again ended the night with smores. The next morning, we packed up camp to start heading back north.

The group of us at the campsite



We decided to swing by Mount St. Helens on the way back up since Asayo, Yoko and Matt S. had never been before. For our first stop, we went to the Ape Caves, a former lava tube and walked around inside for a bit. We then drove over to the Windy Ridge Viewpoint to get the views of the mountain and Spirit Lake.



Still smokin'!


Luna looking out at Spirit Lake

It was incredible to see how so many trees were still totally ruined, like toothpicks that fell over

We played 20 Questions all the way back to Seattle over our walkie talkies between the cars--a bit dorky but it definitely helped pass time! Fun trip, good company. Yay.

Hong Kong

Our 2 week trip to Hong Kong was really awesome. It can be summarized with: lots of food, tons of shopping, seeing relatives and visiting tourist sites. This was Matt's first time ever to Hong Kong---Asia even---so we knew we wanted to squeeze in some touristy visits in addition to showing him all the food and shopping that there is. Here are some of the highlights from the trip:

Food
We had a lot of food--mostly Chinese with the exception of 2 Japanese dinners and a random Italian lunch. Matt was exposed to eating things he'd never eaten---and, as he would say now "if you're ever thinking twice about becoming a vegetarian, come to Hong Kong and it'll almost make you be one!". Some samples of things we ate: pig lung, beef tongue, duck feet, chicken feet, congee every morning with chinese doughnuts, suckling pig (i love the skin), steamed fish, fresh shrimp, dim sum, shark's fin, turtle soup (tho' Matt refused to eat the actual turtle), pigeon...

One of the more memorable dinners in terms of a great view was when Matt and I ate at the Peak at a Japanese restaurant called Kyo Hachi. Not only was the food great but we had one of the best views in the city---here's a picture where the restaurant is reflected in the glass with the vista we had while dining:

Shopping
Hong Kong is a shopper's paradise, whether you want some Chanel or a $10 knockoff Manchester United soccer jersey. We went there with 2 suitcases that were each only barely packed. We came back with 4 suitcases fully packed full of knockoff shoes (i.e. Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton) and sample clothing (i.e. Burberry). We also got Matt's wedding tux, a suit and two cheongsams for me to wear for the wedding. Knockoff DVDs were everywhere and we snatched up titles like Babel, Pursuit of Happyness, Blood Diamond, Good Shepherd and Curse of the Golden Flower. We visited practically every street market: Ladies Market, Temple Street Market and Bowring St. Market which stay open til 11pm or midnight. There, we bargained for cheap clothing and tchotskys. Some of the knockoffs there were obvious (i.e. Matt got some Calvin Klein knockoff boxers that said "GK - Galvin Kravinthy").

Touristy sites

Although I go back every two years, I still enjoy going to a lot of the touristy sites because of how beautiful it is. Of course, no trip to Hong Kong should be without visiting the harbor:

And the views from the Peak are breathtaking:

We also took a visit to see the Big Buddha (official name: Tian Tan Buddha), which I personally hadn't seen in many years. The last time I went, the only way to get there was via a torturous ferry ride so I was pleased to see that we could hop onto the subway and then take the newly opened Ngong Ping cable cars over the mountains to get there:

The area around the Big Buddha has been really built up to cater to tourists. It used to be that the only food you could eat was the vegetarian meal provided at the Po Lin Monastery---now there's a Starbucks, ice cream store and a bunch of restaurants.

After we ate our vegetarian meal at the Monastery, we saw an interesting ceremony being performed by all the monks.

Macau
Since Matt is part Portuguese, we had to visit Macau, a former Portuguese colony. It's a really interesting mix of Portuguese and Chinese culture---you can see reflections of Portugal in the religion (huge population of Catholics), the architecture, the food and the street signs (which are all in Portuguese, Chinese and English). We took a day trip there via ferry and toured the small island in 4 hours (it's small enough to really get around and see everything that amount of time).

A lot of the Vegas casinos are starting to move in and change the overall casino landscape there---when my family last visited, the main casino was the Casino Lisboa, which is this smokey, tiny, sketchy casino full of prostitutes and smells of the Triad (and it's still like this today). Now, the Wynn just opened (and looks like a miniature version of the Vegas one with all the same restaurants and clubs) with MGM Grand and the Venetian coming soon. Casino Lisboa is in fact building a new location to compete with all the new ones coming into town.

 

New Year's
Lastly, for New Year's, Matt and I went out and decided to check out the infamous Lan Kwai Fong. We'd already been there for a drink the week before but I heard it was a crazy scene on New Year's. Indeed, there were just thousands and thousands of people out on the street. A total mob scene. There was even directed traffic to get into Lan Kwai Fong for crowd control purposes (which is good since this area was made famous in 1993 when 21 people died from the rush of huge crowds celebrating New Years). All in all, very fun New Year's.