I realized I never posted any photos from the Seattle leg of our West coast trip. I’m short on time, so here are photos! No text, too lazy.
Category: Travel
A few weeks ago, it was B’s birthday, so we rented a car and went to the Cheltenham Badlands. I’d never heard of the area before and it sounded like something fun to do (was it just me who hadn’t heard of it before?).
The area came up in because I had mentioned how, having recently travelled to Seattle and Portland, Ontario was a bit “boring” compared to either of North America’s coastlines. It’s just sorta flat. But it was cool climbing up and down the red sandy dirt. It just seemed so out of place, those bumpy dunes. The area itself is pretty small, so we explored a bit, took some photos, walked around another park that claimed to have a “waterfall” for a bit, and headed off to dinner.
But what I realized after that mini-adventure was that it would be pretty neat to scour Ontario for out-of-the-ordinary / “undiscovered” places. The intern at work mentioned I should check out a place called Ball’s Falls 🙂
While we were on our trip to Seattle, Dave and some of my design friends drove to Portland for a day of fun. I’m not sure what I was expecting (maybe a sketch out of Portlandia?), but it exceeded all expectations. Food was great (Blue Star donuts—best donut I’ve ever had!, Nong’s Khao Man Gai, Pok Pok, Sen Yai, Salt & Straw, Stumptown coffee), public transit cheap ($1?!), attractions fun (Powell’s books, … okay, we didn’t really do much shopping). We did make a few stops at parks, including the top of Mount Tabor, Joseph Woodhill Park, and Ecola State Park. It was so beautiful at Ecola park, I wanted to pause everything.
Two weeks ago, my friend Edrea and her high school sweetheart Simon tied the knot. We were among a group of design friends who travelled to Seattle to watch them get married. The ceremony was held in Kubota Gardens, a beautiful Japanese garden, and their reception was by the ocean, at sunset. It was so perfect and romantic. Congratulations, Simon and Edrea!
Chicago food photo highlights: Fat Rice for brunch (noodles for brunch! And Macau style egg tarts!), eating at Longman & Eagle three nights in a row, Pilsen for insane amounts of Mexican food at Nuevo Leon, Bang Bang pie (strawberry short stack and key lime), Leghorn Chicken (pickle brined fried chicken!), Hot Doug’s (foie gras hot dog!!!) and these weird but delicious quail egg with coconut and condensed milk shooters that taste like key lime pie from Slurping Turtle by Takashi Yagihashi (from Top Chef).
One of the first days we also had donut showdown: we bought a bunch of donuts from Donut Vault, Glazed and Infused, and Firecakes and did a blind taste test to see which made the best old fashioned sour cream glazed. Donut Vault was the winner. We had these amazing lemon poppy seed donuts that day. So good. I would go back to Chicago for Donut Vault donuts alone.
Because Dave and I are such patriotic Canadians, we went and spent the Canada Day long weekend in Chicago (I accidentally wore my red and white on June 30th, thinking it was July 1st). Also we love seeing Janice via road-trip as much as we can every summer. Here are some snaps from the trip!
Since we’d done some of the more touristy stuff last year (though we had to see the bean again, despite the heat), we had a lot more time to explore the suburbs like Andersonville, Pilsen and Logan Square (which was where our Airbnb host was located). We also had a lot more time to eat. So there will be a follow-up food post to come.
Some photos from our road trip last weekend!
Dave and I peaced outta work at midday, drove the five hours to Pittsburg, and had a fun weekend visiting PA. We stayed at an Airbnb in the neighbourhood of East Liberty and walked to the downtown area for the Jays games, so we got to see a fair bit of the city (for such a short stay). I really liked the working-class feel of the ‘Burgh. The locals were generally very friendly, even though we were repping blue instead of black and gold (we did get chirped a few times though).
I particularly liked Saturday morning, where we got coffee at Cafe Voluto, walked down Penn Ave, through Allegheny Cemetery, then made our way to The Strip (where we had brunch* at Bar Marco and donuts at Peace Love and Little Donuts), and visited the Andy Warhol Museum (more on that later), and finally to PNC Park.
We saw Jays lose the first night and win the next. It was a great weekend, just like old times when Dave and I used to take road trips all the time.
* I hate brunch but Bar Marco was good
While we were on vacation over the Christmas holidays last year, Dave and I decided to explore the less touristy / expected parts of Hong Kong. We went on a few “hikes” (in quotes because they weren’t very strenuous). One of these hikes was on our penultimate day of the trip, to Dragon’s Back in Shek O. Named ‘Best Urban Hiking Trail in Asia’ by Time Asia, Dragon’s Back is part of the 50 km Hong Kong Trail that connects five country parks.
The weather was gorgeous that day, and the path is pretty popular. There were lots of folks walking the paths with us. Dave and I had hiking boots on, which came in handy as some of the paths were surprisingly steep and rugged, considering there were children and old Chinese grannies hiking along with us. At the first peak we snapped a whole bunch of photos, because the weather was nice and the view was even better. We made our way to Shek O Peak and then back down to the bus route (less scenic than the way up) because we’d only left for the hike late in the day and the sun was starting to set. We didn’t make it all the way to Tai Long Wan (Big Wave Bay) so maybe the next time we’re back in Hong Kong we’ll get to explore more.
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