Paris Trip, January 2012

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I usually fly Delta Airlines direct into Amsterdam when I am visiting Europe, this time I had the urge to start my trip off in Paris and end in Paris. I flew Air France direct into Paris early morning and took a taxi to my Hilton hotel near the Arc de Triomphe. My room wasn’t quite ready, so it gave me time to catch up on emails and have a little breakfast in the excutive lounge. After getting settled into my room, a nap was in order; I slept a couple of hours before my co-worker Martyn Crouch met up with me later at the hotel. Martyn took the Eurostar train www.eurostar.com from London to Paris, a little over two hours of stress free train ride. It’s common knowledge that the trains in Europe rock….lots of comfort and speed.

We headed out for dinner, a ten minute taxi ride to the Notre Dame Cathedral neighborhood. We had dinner at Mon Vieil Ami www.mon-vieil-ami.com, a very cozy place. In fact, it was so cozy that we were seated so close to people that we were literally touching elbows. The food and atmosphere more than made up for the tight seating. After dining, we headed for one of the most famous monuments…..the Eiffel Tower. I was surprised that Martyn living in the UK and just a couple of trains away, this was his first time visiting the Eiffel Tower in person. The last time I was here with my wife Linna, we just missed the last elevator ride to the top, but I didn’t miss it this time. This was my first time heading to the top and it was incredible. It was a clear night, but it was extremely cold; France was getting hit with an artic blast coming in from Russia.

Next day was a train ride to Grenoble, France….a city in southeastern France, known as the “Capital of the Alps”. When you are in France, you ride the TGV trains www.tgv-europe.com. French trains maintain the highest average speed, they move up to 322 kph (201 mph). With Paris as its hub, this high-speed French network interconnects throughout Europe making it an attractive alternative to the plane. Due to traffic and a slow taxi driver, we missed our train departure and had to catch the next train. We had a meeting in Grenoble that I had to move out to the afternoon. After our meeting we headed to the Park Hotel www.park-hotel-grenoble.fr, I have been staying here for the past 10 years. This is an older but eloquent hotel and they serve a great breakfast. After checking in, we heading out for dinner. Due to the extreme cold, we didn’t walk to the center city where I love to wine and dine at all the many restaurants and shops. About four blocks away from our hotel we landed at this this pizzeria that was fabulous.

Next day was another TGV train ride to Lille, France. Martyn and I met up with another co-worker at the Lille train station, Sophie Brouillet a French native that has lived in the UK for the past 14 years. I rented a car from Avis at the train station and we headed toward our hotel Au Tonnelier www.autonnelier.com located in Bergues, France…a very northern city. The next day I was in the UK visiting Ipswich and Leicester. I finished my trip off with a train ride back from London to Paris followed by an Air France flight back to Seattle the next day.

Winthrop Ski Trip, January 2012

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Jim Darmiento, Rick Massie, my wife and I planned a trip to Winthrop, Washington for some cross-country skiing. Much of Washington didn’t have the normal snow fall for this time of year and our ski trip wasn’t looking good. This all changed a couple days before our departure from Seattle, we received a major snowstorm that hit the whole state. Luckily Jim drove his F-250 4-wheel drive truck over with 500 pounds of sandbags in back. After two mountain passes and numerous white-outs we made it to our cabin after 4 hours of driving.

Since our cabin was just across the river from Winthrop, we had dinner in the small village our first night at the Old School House Brewery www.oldschoolhousebrewery.com. This place is a local favorite and also attracts all the tourist too. The second night was Chinese hotpot that Linna Wei put together, after our first day of skiing nearly ten miles, spicy hotpot was the answer. Before we went out the second day, Linna and I cooked up some fluffy pancakes and thick bacon. We headed right out after breakfast and skied nine miles. After another great day out in the winter wonderland, Linna and I headed back to the cabin for a nap and other activities. For dinner, we headed back into Wintrop and hit the Old School House Brewery again, this time there were two guys playing music, Tim Snider and Redwood Son www.bit.ly/z2E4TP. I didn’t record this video, but found it on You Tube and it was the night we were there…I remember the lady dancing in front of us.

Sunday, was pack up and head back to Seattle. Since it was still snowing and the passes would be nasty, we decided to drive one pass via Stevens Pass versus Blewett and Snoqualmie. It was slow going over Stevens, but as we descended….snow become rain and then we just had wet roads home. After unpacking and taking a quick shower, Linna and I ended our evening at the Paramount Theater seeing David Garrett www.david-garrett.com.

Gold Creek Snowshoe, January 2012

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Gold Creek
Date: January 15, 2012
Difficulty: 5 out of 10
Distance: 4 miles roundtrip
Elevation Gain: 2,000 feet
Time: 3 to 4 hours
Location: Exit 54, I-90
Users Group: Hikers & Dogs Only
Permits: Snowpark Pass
Trail Conditions: Fresh Snow
Hiking With: Jim Darmiento, Rick Massie & Macho

After a few weeks without any new snow in the mountains, it started to dump fresh snow and continued all day. I just flew back from San Francisco the night before, but….with the new snow, I wanted to finish the weekend off with a trip to the mountains. I met up with Jim Darmiento and Rick Massie at Starbucks in North Bend, Washington. Our plans was to snowshoe Source Lake near Alpental Ski Resort, but….because the new snow, every skier/snowboarder was out and there was no parking to be had at the trailhead. So we headed off to Cold Creek snowpark which was only a couple of more miles down the road.

This snowpark (really just a side road to park) requires a permit that you can buy for $50 for the year or a daily permit at $20. The trail itself is pretty much a service road, but…it’s still has elevation, beauty and it’s very serene. We stopped for lunch and boiled up some water for coffee and pouch Teriyaki Beef & Rice that we all shared. We ended the day at North Bend Bar & Grille for a couple of cold beers and hot food.

San Francisco Trip, January 2012

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Linna and I got lucky this weekend in San Francisco with the weather and had a chance to soak up some sun for a couple of days. This was a short trip down South for a little shopping and of course some wining and dining. We flew late afternoon on Thursday and both of us were upgraded to First Class on Alaska Airlines; no dinner was served, but we did munch down the cheese plate with a couple of glasses of wine. Since we flew into Oakland due to lower cost flights, I booked our hotel in Concord, which was ½ hour East of Oakland. On our way to the hotel, we decided to have dinner at this Italian restaurant that I found on OpenTable during our flight from Seattle using the airline internet GOGO. Ottavio www.ottavio.com, is a local favorite in Walnut Greek and the place is so cozy…the Chef would come out to check on you.

Friday was pretty much a shopping day in San Francisco followed by dinner at a hip Japanese restaurant in Oakland. Ozumo www.ozumo.com is a lively young cool place serving authentic Japanese dishes along with premium sashimi. I would recommend using the valet, parking in the area was a challenge. Saturday was sleep in day followed by a visit to the Golden Gate bridge. Of all the visits to the Bay area, I have never actually walked on the bridge; actually you get more of a sense of the size, age and discoloration of the bridge. We flew out late Saturday afternoon to make it home to see a little snow in Seattle.

Mailbox Peak Hike, January 2012

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Mailbox Peak
Date: January 7, 2012
Difficulty: 9 out of 10
Distance: 5 miles roundtrip
Elevation Gain: 4,000 feet
Time: 4 to 5 hours
Location: Near North Bend, Washington
Users Group: Hikers & Dogs Only
Permits: Discovery Pass (new for this hike)
Trail Conditions: Damp to Packed Snow (only on top)
Hiking With: Rick Massie and my dog Macho

I was due for a brutal hike and Mailbox Peak was the fix. I asked Rick Massie to join me on this steep but short hike. We met up at Starbucks in North Bend, Washington and got started at 10:00 a.m. at the trailhead. There was only 6 cars in the parking lot, which meant there wasn’t a lot of people on the hike today….as it should be! The trail was good up to the opening, where it became packed snow. I was happy to see an inch or two on top of the ice, if not…it would have been difficult. Right before the opening, we put on our gators and mini-spikes. We made good time to the peak where it was cloudy, but no wind. We spent 15 minutes changing out our wet clothes and munching down some food.

The descent was the usual beating of the legs and knees and we both agreed, it’s almost easier to hike up than coming down. Rick Massie had a date later that day, so we had to make the stop at North Bend Bar & Grill short.

Costa Rica Trip, November 2011

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Linna and I decided to spend our Thanksgiving away from the wet skies of Seattle and spend it somewhere warm and sunny. We flew on turkey day to spend four days in beautiful Costa Rica. A good friend of ours, Mike Curry gave us a ride to the airport; surprisingly there were no lines at the airport. From drop off, baggage check in and through security….it was maybe 10 minutes! The flight from Seattle to Atlanta was 4 ½ hours and only 3 ½ hours from Atlanta to San Jose, Costa Rica. Linna found our hotel through Groupon, Asclepios….a wellness and healing retreat www.asclepioscr.com. This place only has 12 rooms, so it’s not your typical large International hotel. Our hotel guide took us to our room, well there was already a guest inside….a huge 4 inch spider on wall overlooking the bed. After contemplating we asked for another room, but it was smaller and on ground level. We put our brave hat on and asked for our original room back, the spider was still hanging on the wall.

The next morning was beautiful, started off with a small breakfast followed by a spa treatment at the hotel. After a relaxing massage, we took a taxi into San Jose for some exploring. Asclepios is a great hotel, it’s the location we had a problem with, it’s outside the city. This hotel had no bar, coffee, meat or Wi-Fi….plus there was nothing around this hotel. It was the reason we took off in the morning and came back late at night. On the other hand, if it wasn’t for the Groupon hotel deal, we would have never consider vacationing in Costa Rica. We hit a local spot in San Jose for lunch and for dinner we walked to Café Mando http://bit.ly/tNdkEG. This is a popular dinner spot with the locals and tourists too. Even though San Jose is the largest city in Costa Rico, there really isn’t much to see compared to other capital cities.

Next day after breakfast we picked up a Hertz rental car; this is the only way to really explore a city or country. It wasn’t your typical American or European rental car, it was a beat up, rough riding Japanese Daihatsu 4 wheel drive with bald tires. We headed off to the Doka Coffee plantation for a full tour, this was very informative and enjoyable; I would definitely recommend a coffee tour in Costa Rica. Our coffee guide stated that 60% of their coffee beans are exported to Starbucks….which I thought was pretty cool. Our next tourist event was the La Paz Waterfall Gardens, at $35 per person it was a spendy tourist attraction. It turned out that Linna and I had a very entertaining time and you could easily spend 4 hours there. For dinner, we found this Tex Mex restaurant Jalapeno’s that was featured in Frommers located in Alajuela, a few miles from our hotel. The owner Norman Flores was cool and friendly, he was born in Columbia and grew up in New York.

We got up early the next day and took off early to see the Volcano Posa. If you don’t get to the top by morning, the afternoon clouds roll in and ruin any chance for a beautiful view. So….we did our job and got up early and made it to the volcano park entrance at 7:30 a.m., but the park doesn’t open up until 8:00 a.m. We had some time to kill and on the way up the windy road I noticed a place to have some breakfast. Turns out this was a very small charming hotel www.poaslodge.com, Posa Restaurant & Lodge ran by two brothers, Mark & Oliver. It was almost like being in a rustic cabin and they served up a lovely breakfast. Now only a few miles away, we headed back up to the entrance gate and it wasn’t looking good, it was damn cloudy. So, it didn’t matter how early we were….the clouds were waiting for us anyway. What’s cool about the entrance at the Volcano Park, if there isn’t a view due to the clouds, the park service people will tell you not to waste your money and not buy an entrance fee.

Now that we wasn’t exploring the crater or volcano, we had time to drive to the coast. This only took 1 ½ hours from the middle of the country to Jaco, a pacific coastal city. After Jaco, we headed to Puerto Quepos to visit the Manuel Antonio National Park, this was all hype and no glory. After the hot, humid coast, we started driving back to our hotel. I wanted to hit some back country roads and drive through some small villages, but….the road I chose ended up to be a non-paved and very potted road. Ended up turning around and going back the way we came. We didn’t know but, everybody is driving back to San Jose on Sunday from the coast, so it added another hour to our drive. I look forward to coming back, but…with so many more countries to visit who knows if I will ever be back.

Georgia Trip, November 2011

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Linna and I flew down to Atlanta to visit AJ Hudgins and Colleen Favinger, old friends of mine that moved to Hartwell, Georgia about six months ago. I use to work with AJ and Colleen back in Cozad, Nebraska at Tenneco Automotive in the eighties. This was only a three day trip, but…the drive from Atlanta to Hartwell was warm with beautiful fall colors.

We arrived Friday afternoon and later had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. After dinner AJ and I stayed up late getting caught up on gossip, life, and work. Linna and I slept in on Saturday and eventually woke up to AJ’s homemade breakfast. For dinner, AJ wanted to check out a new restaurant that was being featured in the “Food & Wine” magazine, “Five and Ten” located in Athens Georgia. Before we headed to Athens, we drove around Hartwell, AJ and Colleen’s new home for many years to come. It’s a quaint little town, but…bigger than Cozad, Nebraska where we all lived for many years. We stopped in at a local art gallery; you never know when you might find a piece of art that you might like. The owner and artist, Diane Geiger moved from Atlanta a few years ago to open her own studio “Hang it up Gallery and Studios”. I bought a small piece from Diane that I knew would be managable to travel back to Seattle with. It’s a small world, Diane’s sister lives in Bellevue, just a few miles from Linna and I.

After exploring Hartwell, we took the back highways to Athens. As we were getting close to our destination, we noticed it was college game day for the Georgia Bulldogs; our restaurant “five and ten” was walking distance from the stadium. After locating the restuarant, we decided to cruise the campus area which happened to be an eye opener. I haven’t been to a campus before that allowed open containers on campus, not only on campus…but walking on the street, sidewalks and all over. The campus reminded me of the movie “Animal House” with all the empty containers all over. After the campus fun, we headed to our dinner spot www.fiveandten.com, it was definitely a five star dinner. We got stuck in the football traffic after dinner, which was a total drag. Sunday was another sleep in, but eventually got on the road back to Atlanta after lunch; we wanted to stop at the Aquarium, but our departure was to close. It was a great to see AJ and Colleen again.

China Trip, October 2011

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I had a direct flight to Beijing from Seattle which landed around 10:00 p.m. I have been staying at the Beijing Hilton Capital near the airport for the past few trips, so…..since the hotel is near by, I was checked in by 10:30 p.m. The next day I was off to Shanghai to meet up with a few friends.

A few of us went to Xitang, one of many watertowns near Shanghai; this was about 1 ½ hour drive from Shanghai. I am told that Xitang has less tourist people than other watertowns, if that is the case….I wouldn’t want to visit the other watertowns. Of course, I was visiting on a Saturday and I highly recommend visiting any watertown or tourist attraction in China during the midweek. The waterways were actually very cool, but….once the sun set it was even better. The waterways were lined with lighted red lanterns, it made for beautiful photos.

The next day, a co-worker (Rick Massie) of mine and a few other friends rented some bikes during the afternoon, I wasn’t for sure how I was going to handle the traffic, but….we actually had a blast peddling along in traffic. Rick and I both agreed that a couple of lightweight road bikes would be entertaining cruising through traffic. I flew back to Beijing and stayed at the Hilton Capital again, about a ½ mile from terminal three. This Hilton is the newest of Beijing Hilton’s and it’s wonderful, I highly recommend this place. It has a 25 meter pool and it was always empty when I was there. I had a couple of issues coming back in a taxi at night, the taxi driver will take you to the terminal instead of the hotel. Since the hotel is new, when you hand-over your hilton like business card with the address, they assume the airport.

Linna and I like to hit around the shuttlecock in the backyard during the summer and I have been wanting new rackets and shuttlecocks for sometime now. So, I did a little shopping and purchased two new bad-ass badminton rackets (Weierfu) at the North Star shopping center. When it comes to shuttlecocks, there are so many varieties to chose from. I myself love speed, so I purchased the “fastest” variety I could find; Aerosensa 40 made by Yonex.

After shopping, Rick Massie (he was also in Beijing with me) and I checked out the Birdsnest and Cube. I have visited this place maybe 5 times now, but…I have to admit, it was disappointing this time due to the heavy smog. Beijing is well known for its smog, but todays index was hitting the highest level according to the US Embassy’s website; ranging from 320 to 350. It was hazardous, which is not a good thing. It was supposed to be a full sunny day, but due to the smog, the sun was barely visible; it gave you a weird feeling.

Denmark Trip, September 2011

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Linna and I wanted to visit a new country in Europe and we chose the Denmark area. We flew into Amsterdam and started our adventure in our rental car. We actually had no set plans on where we were going or where we were staying, in fact…we booked our first night hotel after we landed. Even though I didn’t sleep at all on the flight, I decided to drive to Bremen, Germany for our first day and night stay. By the time we checked in and showered up, it was dinner around 9:30 p.m. Our hotel was located in a very cool area near the river, the buildings and churches were glowing with the flood lights on them.

Next day we were headed to Esbjerg to see the “Man Meets the Sea” and then wanted to drive Northeast to end up at Aarhus for the night. About 1/2 hour out of Bremen, we got stuck in heavy traffic and delayed our schedule quite a bit, so we just headed to Aarhus for the night. I rented a Opel Sigma , not a bad car, but it takes awhile to get up to left lane cruising speed; I eventually got the Opel up to 145 mph. I got passed by a 7 Series BMW today in a no speed limit zone, but….I eventually passed him later in a restricted speed zone; he was abiding the law and I wasn’t. With a population of more than 300,000, Aarhus is Denmark’s second largest city and was founded by the Vikings in the 8th century. We took off walking after breakfast and headed for “Old City”, but…..along the way we noticed a cool circular walkway on top of a building. So we headed over and found out it was the ARoS Museum. The “Your Rainbow Panorama” was just added this year which was super entertaining. After a three hours of enjoyment, we headed to the “Old City”….this was actually pretty cool to see.

Now on our third day, we headed toward Copenhagen, it was actually our main destination for this trip. It was a three hour drive over from Aarhus and a $65 bridge toll! One thing we found out about Denmark….it’s damn expensive and it could be one of the most expensive cities in the world. We arrived to our hotel “First” and got checked in around 6:30 p.m., the plan was to take a nap and get up around 9:00 p.m. and head out for dinner….well, we slept through and woke up at 3:00 a.m. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I got up and worked on my emails and my blog until our 6:30 a.m. breakfast time. After breakfast was tourist activities, shopping on the famous Stroget street, we checked out Castle and the Winding Tower. The next day we checked out Carlsberg Beer and the Church of our Saviour, the famous corkscrew spiral staircase that ends at the very top. This church was completed in 1695 and is known for its baroque architecture.

After our three days in Copenhagen, we took off after breakfast back to Germany. To shorten our route, we decided to take a 45 minute ferry ride ($104) from Rodbyhavn into Germany and then we drove into Bremen (again) for the night. Bremen was only a resting stop for the night, after breakfast we headed toward Amsterdam for our last night.

We took country roads to Amsterdam, which is my favorite way of driving anywhere in the world; you gain a sense of the local culture and you get a quite peaceful ride with beautiful scenery. We got to our hotel room around 7:00 p.m. and we decided to take a nap before we headed to the Red Light district downtown Amsterdam. By the time we got up and got going into the sin city it was 11:30 p.m. Parking is always tough, it took me a good 15 minutes to find parking…we ended up walking 10 minutes into the heart of the Red Light District. On the way in, we walked by so many “coffee shops”, the sweet marijuana smell was permeating the night air. This was Linna’s first time seeing “woman for sale” standing in the windows and all the live sex shows in the area; we did some window shopping and had a few drinks. We got home about 3:30 a.m., the same day as Linna’s flight back to Seattle.

Linna headed back to Seattle and I flew later to East Midlands, United Kingdom for some work in the UK, France and Belgium with my co-worker Greg Tebb. He lives in Lincoln, UK….a very quaint city, it’s dates back to the 1700’s. I stayed at the Washington Borough Hall http://www.washingboroughhall.com a 300 year old mansion Bed & Breakfast in Lincoln, it was probably the best B&B I have ever stayed in.

Seattle, Live Painting, August 2011

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My wife Linna and I had the distinct pleasure of hosting a live painting in our back garden area by artist Sayoko Hirano from Kyoto, Japan. She was visiting Seattle and New York with other artists, Bosshiko, Gan-Ghan and Chiaki. I met Sayoko through an Japanese Art Auction on Facebook.

My friend Allan Leal was posting the artist website on his Facebook page and I thought it was the least I could do was to purchase a piece of art; all the donations were for the Japanese disaster relief campaign that generated from the tsunami devastation. The piece of art I bought “lovers” is placed above our Buddha in the landing with a beautiful frame around it. I befriended Sayoko on Facebook and found out that she was going to be in Seattle for a few days before she went on to New York for her own art exhibit. So I asked if her group would be up for a barbeque and fire-pit party at my house, her reply was “yes, could we do live a painting?”, and of course I am like “oh hell yes!”

Linna and I invited twenty-five guests over to enjoy the festivities in our backyard garden, we had it catered by Duos Catering www.duoscatering.com, which I highly recommend. Even though we started the fun around 6:00 p.m., the live art didn’t happen until 9:00 p.m. which actually gave the event more drama with the spot light on the live 30 minute drawing.

After the drawing, Gan-Ghan provided a story telling event with prizes; he spoke in Japanese…but with his facial and body expressions you could still follow the story. Chiaki performed a 5 minute dance that incorporated hip-hop and martial arts. This was a perfect evening and to top it off, Sayoko Hirano gave me her live painting!