memoryloot

We made it back to LA last night. It was quick 2 hour flight. I slept most of the way in. We finally made it back to Marie’s place and we did some post-vacation administrative tasks. I still need to go home and wash my clothes and clear out some of the receipts from my trip. Who would’ve thought that vacationing is such hard work. I was exhausted last night and slept in till 11:30 this morning. We finally have pictures all uploaded on to my machine. I’ll have to process them and pick and choose which ones to upload here. Stay tuned for that. I do not want to go back to work. Looking at the messages coming in and out of my BB, it isn’t going to be a fun week.

We’re back at Tammy’s place right now. We decided to grab some dim-sum this morning in Richmond, British Columbia. It’s like a Alhambra or Monterey Park of Canada. The dim-sum experience was pretty different. First of all, there isn’t any carts perusing the aisles of tables. Instead, you order from a sheet of paper similar to a sushi menu. Of course, none of us knew how to read or write Chinese so we had to dictate to the waitress what we wanted. Before we went to British Columbia, I was told by many people that the best dim-sum in world was in BC. It was even better than San Francisco or even Hong Kong. Bold statement until we had ours. It was in fact the best dim-sum ever! The har gow and shui mai was large and plump. Every order was excellent!

Victoria, British Columbia was also a good experience. We rode in and out of Victoria to our ferry on the local bus. We only had 3 hours to walk around town. I know we didn’t see all of Victoria but we had to get going. It was mass chaos getting back on the ferry. At first, they did not allow anyone to board but eventually they sent us all in without even charging us a fare. Apparently there was a security issue so they had to load the last ferry. We were exhausted when we got back to the hotel after a late dinner.

We’ll be going home tomorrow. Before that we’re planning to check out the Chinatown in Seattle since we haven’t been there yet. It was a good vacation and I’ll definitely visit these places again. Next time, on planes instead of our 2,000 mile drive.

I’m onboard a ferry from Vancouver to Victoria. It’s suppose to be an hour and half boat ride. We decided to leave the car here and go on foot and public transportation over at Victoria.

We arrived in British Columbia yesterday. Took the “Big Bus” tour around the city. The city seems more busier than any of the other cities we’ve been. There seems to be more asians up here. From Chinese to Vietnamese. My sister noticed that there were 2 types of people: tourists and the Canadians who hate the tourists. Needless to say, she’s not liking it. Me on the other hand can see myself living here. Of course I don’t have any issues living anywhere. Except places of high humidity and heat. I must digress.

Canadian money is interesting. San still don’t know how to use it. I think I got a good understanding. It’s basically like American money except that dollars are in coin and they have $2 coins are also used.

Alright, were well on our way to Victoria! I’ll write more when the chance presents itself.

We spent the whole day in Seattle, Washington. We began our day walking through Pikes Place Market. This is the famous open market which features the famous “flying fish” stand where they toss and catch fish. We ate at The Fiserman’s Restaurant on the Pier. We visited the first ever Starbucks and proceeded to walk over to take the Duck tour. The tour had taken us through downtown and gave us some historical tid-bids.

Did you know that

1. They used high pressure hoses to flush out Denny Street because it was way too steep.
2. The Space Needle is 605 feet tall and was built for the World Fair.
3. Most of the buildings in Pioneer Square were resconstructed after the big fire of 18??. No one died but about a million rats died.
4. Seattle has the most library card holders in the nation.

We even got to go in Lake Union to see the home where Tom Hank’s character lived in “Sleepless and Seattle”. After the tour, we went across the street to look up at the infamous Space Needle and visited their gift shop.

We’re currently in Federal Way, WA with my grade school friend, Tammy. Our day started with a visit to downtown Portland, OR. We checked out the Pearl District, Chinatown, and various other locations in the city. There were barely any people walking around the streets and construction work was all over the place. The place was filled with homeless folks and crazy people. We saw a guy walk around with 2 green balloons in his pink blouse and singing. As long as you kept to yourself, they didn’t bother you. We then went over to the International Rose Garden in Washington Park. The city of roses did not disappoint when it comes to beautiful varieties of roses. We went back to meet up with Lori at Nike, and she gave us an incredible tour through the Nike campus. It was awesome and everyone learned alot from her. Kinda makes me want to work there. It would definitely be a different type of lifestyle in Beaverton. Something I would need to get used to. Something I’m not ready to do just yet. Nathan joined us for lunch, and we said our good-byes and proceeded to do the tour of Mount Hood.

That was another 1.5 hours to Mt. Hood. We ended up at Timberline Lodge, which is the base of Mt. Hood and took pictures and bought souvenirs. We drove another 1.5 hours out of Mt. Hood to the Gorge. We attempted to reach the dam in Bonneville. Unfortunately, they were closed by the time we got there. We called it a day and proceeded to drive to Tammy’s place afterwards.

I bought myself a nice messenger bag. No it’s not a purse! I’ve always wanted one to carry things. I can test it out tomorrow when we head into Seattle for the entire day.

Here we are at Lori & Nathan’s place in Beaverton, Oregon. Oregon is pretty green as everyone had told us. But there were other things that us native Californians did not know. At least the uniformed (us).

Lori & Nathan told us that there are a lot of weird people in Oregon. They even have a t-shirt and bumper sticker with the phrase, “Keep Oregon Weird”. Supposedly, there are a lot of people who are homeless here. That was why we saw people walking around the freeways. Jobs like the gasoline fuel guy or the guy who counts salmon exist because the government needed to make miscellaneous positions to improve the employment situation of Oregon.

It seems like people still adhere to the Industrial Age where it was expected after graduating from school you work for one company and stay with the same company until retirement. Complete company loyalty.

We decided to split today’s previous plan of driving straight to Beaverton,OR into 2 days. 12 hours was way too long of a drive to enjoy what we see.

We are currently in the coastal city of Eureka, Ca. We just finished our dinner at a local Italian restaurant, Mazzotti’s and the girls are getting ice cream at a local ice cream store. Eureka is cold with an overcast. It’s more humid up here with a strong “sea scent”. It’s 9 right now, but the sky is still illuminated.

We were at the Humboldt State Park earlier and drove on the Avenue of the Giants. This was a road that paralleled the 101 with huge Redwood trees everywhere. Simply beautiful and majestic.

I’m so exhausted! We spent our whole Sunday July 22nd at Laguna Seca. Visited all the manufacturer’s booth, bought some souvenirs, ate, and watched the championship race. Unfortunately Rossi didn’t win but it was awesome being there in person. I’ll be back again for sure. Most likely on bike.

Marie and San got me an official Valentino Rossi / Yamaha hoody for my birthday. Very sweet of them. I’ll try to post some photos of our trip soon.

We just got back in the car from walking down State Street in Santa Barbara, Ca. I picked up a couple of CDs, Smashing Pumpkin’s Greatest Hits, George Michael’s Listen Without Prejudice, and The Smith’s Singles.

Marie’s driving now so I’m just sitting back to write and enjoying the scenary. Our destination right now is to the Apple Farm in San Luis Obispo. We’ll eventually retire our drive today at King City, Ca.

MotoGP Round 11 at Laguna Seca tomorrow!

For my first major trip of the year, we will be going to watch the Moto GP Round 11 race in Laguna Seca this coming Sunday. Rossi for his first win! We will then drive through the Bay Area to finally reach Beaverton, Oregon. After a couple of days, we’ll be going to Seattle, Washington. We will then go to Vancouver, British Columbia and Victoria Island. We’ll then take a one-way flight back at the end of the trip. This will be my first attempt to blog on the road. Stay tuned for updates!