Florida

As part of my pre-departure for a year in Korea, I wanted to see my dad in Florida. I don't like to go more than a year and a half without visiting. Plus, it's always nice to have a reason to go somewhere sunny in the winter. I found out the hard way on my first visit here in 2004 that it's not a good idea to come between July and October. It is hurricane season and I showed up just in time for Hurricane Frances, spending a portion of the visit evacuated at my dad's friend's house. From then on I have made winter-only visits.

Over 2 years ago, I met a neighbor of my dad's here at the resort named Charlie. He recently died of prostate cancer and I just want to take a moment to remember him. We met because he offered to give me tennis lessons, and even at 71 years old in the Florida heat was in great shape, probably more fit than I was. He also was a state Backgammon champion and gave me lessons in that as well. I had only played one other time, when I was taught by a couple Austrian boys at a palapa on the beach in Zipolite, Oaxaca coast, Mexico. Charlie’s house was right on the lake and we also went swimming together. He was the ONLY person who swam in the lake, which during the winter months every one else considered too cold. Of course for me, the lake was the best I could hope for in summer in the PNW, and there was no keeping me out. I swam across, my heart pounding all the while, probably more from the thought of sharing the water with gators than from the workout. Anyway, Charlie was a fun, spirited, wryly funny, smart man who I am happy to have met.

A trip to this resort community is always pleasant- seeing my dad, running, learning Petanque, sunbathing, and swimming. But this trip was extra special. We had a small family reunion with my great aunt and uncle, my dad’s two sisters, and some cousin—better called a “union” because we have never all been together to begin with! We all met near Fort Meyer where my aunt and uncle were staying, and sat by the pool, looked at pictures, told stories, walked along the water, and went out for a nice dinner. The highlight was probably my Aunt Natalie, who is a ridiculously good storyteller. She is animated, quick, and her perfectly timed voice inflections leave you on the edge of your seat. I loved hearing stories about the older generations growing up in the Italian neighborhood of Chicago- the mafia ties, the family pride, the hard work, the immigrant experience and learning English.

Another great part about the whole thing was being able to bring my new computer down to my dad. I feel a little like it is my new baby that he helped christen. My old computer was broken and I definitely need one for Korea, so I finally upgraded to a MacBook and I haven’t been able to tear myself away from it ever since. My dad showed me some things, helped me download a couple programs, and in a very sweet dad-esque move, burned me at 430 page PDF on Everything I Need to Know about My Mac. Then on Mondays, there is a guy at the resort who does a free computer class to boot! I learned all about router types and how they affect internet connection speed, as well as keyboard shortcuts. He then sat with me for another hour after the class to walk through the computer. I haven’t felt this technologically savvy since I decided to take every free class offered at the Student Technology Center my last year at Western.

The last thing I want to mention is that I just added another link to my blog reading list, called Orangette. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a food blog by a Seattle resident who also recently just published a food stories/recipe book called A Homemade Life. I started reading it on the plane and accidentally spilled my orange juice on it, which I found to be a strange coincidence, and spilled some on the pants of the man sleeping next to me, which I found to be a relief that he didn’t wake up. Anyway, it’s a sweet compilation of food dishes that relate specifically to people, places, or events, and overall a funny and enjoyable read.

A Valentine Tradition

I started at the flower shop in Bellingham as temporary help for Valentine's Day 2004 and haven't been able to stay away since. I've been there full-time, part-time, and taken chunks of time off, yet going back for VDay has always stayed the same. This year was my 6th holiday o'luv, missing one year in 2005 when I was in Mexico. Whether I'm dating some one or not, my first love affair is with all the women at the shop. Just look at 'em! They are a delightful, hard-working, fun-loving, humorous bunch. And when necessary, we take things very, very seriously.

Incidentally, this year I was dating some one, and he came over from Orcas to spend the holiday with me. Alex and I stayed with friends Katie and Alan again, our gracious hosts from Thanksgiving. It ended up being a Vday double date, with Alex and Alan making a beautiful dinner for Katie and I. Alan even stood up after dinner and barred our view of the sink, absolutely forbidding any one else from doing any cleanup. What a guy! Alex and I tried to see a show at the Bellingham Circus Guild, but alas, it was sold out by the time we got there. I was bummed, but drinking winter beer at Boundary Bay was a very consoling alternative. Our coupleyness reached new heights the next day when we borrowed a tandem bike from my friend (thanks Victor!) and pedaled around town. I lived in Bellingham for about 6 years, but being on a tandem made me feel gleefully like a tourist. Later when Alex was at yoga I returned the bike by myself. Few things must look as sad as one person alone on a bike made for two, but I was brimming with too much love to let it bother me.

Reading, Writing, and Robots

I'm attempting to learn some Korean before I leave. Since the writing system is based on phonetic letters rather than characters or iconographs, it is reasonable to be able to recognize letters and even read relatively quickly. There are more letters if you count diphthongs, iotized vowels, and double consonants, but here is the basic run-down.


I started studying it and then I came across this roadsign. Instead of interpretting it as a junction in the road, my first thought was, "A Korean letter!"


In other news, a friend recently sent me a link to this article in the Korean Times. It's about how robots will be introduced in English classes in Korea as teaching assistants, and eventually be full-on teachers. It will apparently be more cost-effective to just have robots teach English. I thought it was a joke at first, but it seems pretty serious. Good thing I'm going to Korea sooner than later before my job is rendered completely obselete and replaced by a machine.

Portland At Long Last

I crossed the bridge over the Columbia River, grinning at the Welcome to Portland sign, though it was so foggy I couldn't even see the river below me. I had found a Latino radio station and was listening to Tejano music, conjuring images of warmer climates in my head, incongruous with the cold mist all around me. With extremely limited visibility, it was not the easiest day to make the drive to Portland, but the trip was long overdue, and I didn't want to wait any more. Also, with just 5 weekends until leaving for Korea, many mini-trips are becoming imperative to go now or wait at least a year.

I wanted to see my old friend from college, Adam, who has lived there for over 4 years. Yes, I'm been meaning to visit him that whole time. We went for a walk around his neighborhood in Northeast, getting almost completely drenched in the rain. Then he took me to one of his favorite restaurants for dinner, called Biwa which does Korean-influenced Japanese food. It was almost Asian tapas style, with casual small plates from yakitori (grilled skewered meats) to fried kimchi to seaweed wraps to seafood pancakes to pickled sampler plates. It was really really good and took me until the next day to recover from the pork belly yakitori.

Then I visited another friend, Dan, who I met on Orcas two summers ago when we were both newbies on the island. Amazingly, the sun came out and we walked around the city, went thrift store shopping, hopped happy hours, ate great food, and finished the day with a drink at the Portland City Grill for a view from the 30th story.

Hiking Mt. Si

Another good winter hike from Seattle is Mt. Si, which at 3,900 feet towers over the towns of Snoqualmie and North Bend. It's 4 miles to the top and fairly steep, gaining over 3,100 feet of elevation. I went with some girlfriends on Monday, an exceptionally warm day for January. It was sunny, mild, and clear. The view from the top is pretty sweet- Mt. Rainier, the Cascades, and back over to Seattle, Bellevue, and Puget Sound.

Moving to South Korea

I just signed a contract and it's official: I'm moving to South Korea to teach English for a year. What kind of crazy person decides to move to a country without knowing anything about it?! Okay, I am raising my hand sheepishly. I have been so focused on Latin America the last few years for studying, living, and traveling that I have just never learned much about east Asia.


I quickly realized that I better start doing some research. I'll be in the city of Gunsan, also spelled Kunsan, and here's what I've learned so far:

* It's on the coast! West coast too, so I'll get sunsets over the water. There is major fishing in the Yellow Sea and subsequently a lot of seafood in the diet and markets.
* Population is about half a million- large enough that there are things happening, but not so large as to be a crazy concrete jungle
* Lots of urban trails for running and cycling
* The city is supposedly fairly industrial, and a U.S. air force base is located on the outskirts.
* Korea is 70% mountainous and 30% arable land. Kunsan is in the main farming region

About Korea in general:
* One of the few countries that has been one nation with one language since its earliest history
* Korean is in the Ural-Altaic language family and very different from Chinese and Japanese. They originally had no written form of the language, and attempted to use Chinese characters to write Korean, which was extremely difficult and not very functional. Finally in 1446 the king's scholars INVENTED the Korean alphabet, and the shapes of the letters are based on the shape the mouth/tongue makes when forming that particular sound. How cool is that??!
* One of the highest literacy rates in the world
* They are 50% non-religious, 26% Christian, 23% Buddhist, 1% Confucian
* One of the most homogeneous ethnic populations in the world- 99.9% Korean

Well, it's not much, but I guess I will have a year to learn a lot more. I would also like to study Korean and be able to do some basic reading, writing, and speaking. And what better way to get acquainted with a new culture than to eat some of the food? There are quite a few Korean restaurants in Seattle, and my mom and I just checked out one here in the north end called Hosoonyi. We drove past it at first because the sign was in Korean. They have really good soondubu, which is a soft tofu soup that can be made with beef, pork, mushrooms, or seafood. We also tried Mae-Un-Dak, chicken barbeque, and Job-Chae, a veggie and beef dish with potatoe noodles. Apparently a signature part of Korean food is Banchan, which are the many little side dishes that accompany a base meal of rice and soup. Kimchee is the indispensable Banchan, usually fermented or pickled spicy napa cabbage, but can refer to other fermented/pickled veggies as well. Other Banchan may include seasoned bean sprouts, fish cakes, seaweed, marinated vegetables, kelp, dried fish, sweet potato, fried tofu, etc. I did not take this picture, but here is an example of Banchan at a meal.

Wallace Falls

The rainy, grey weather is no reason to stay inside... it is just more reason to find good winter hikes! From Seattle you pretty much have to head down I-90 or Highway 2, and if you are willing to do a little driving, there are some great spots this time of year. Recently I've been going to Wallace Falls near Goldbar. It's before the road starts climbing towards Steven's Pass, and the low elevation means minimal snow for the most part.


It's a cool trail because there are 4 different views of the falls, so you can choose how long to make your hike while getting a view along the way. To the highest lookout point is 2.7 miles, but even past that are several lakes if you wanted to do a longer hike or overnight backpack.

Ringing in 2010

Happy New Year y'all! 2009 held some growth and good times for me, but all in all I'm pretty stoked that it's over. I kicked off the new year's eve festivities at my mom's house with dinner of spare ribs and family game time. I tried to meet a friend on Capitol Hill for a drink, but there was NO parking. So I headed to a house party in the central district, where the fine folks were holding a "hall of shame". People brought remnants of their adolescent expression, such as essays, journal entries, songs, poems, or photos from awkward teenage years to read aloud. It was HILARIOUS. As midnight approached they projected the ball dropping in Times Square... from 1989. I rang in an old new year with a little champagne, but more excitement for getting a solid night's sleep.

Waking up fairly early, I was ready to take the year by the horns. I met Tegan at Greenlake and we ran around it together, then did our own polar bear plunge by jumping off a dock. Here we are afterward, cold but invigorated.

After that my friend Heidi was hosting a brunch, so I went and feasted. With Heidi in a rooster-print apron, she was an amazing hostess serving up waffles, blueberry or chocolate chip pancakes, bacon, eggs, veggie sausage, carrot muffins, homemade biscotti, fruit, coffee, and mimosas. Thanks Heidi! Another friend brought a little figure of a man made out of newspaper to do a Colombian tradition of "el año viejo" or "the old year". This is where you write any old issues, events, patterns, etc. from the previous year on the man, before symbolically burning him. We didn't actually write on it, but the little man got passed around the gathering so people could put any old energy from 2009 that they wanted to discard. Then into the blazing fireplace he went.

I like traditions like this because it's useful to have a physical act to help us let go of things. While I am grateful for every year of my life, there are definitely things from 2009 I want to let go of. I am reminded of Anicha, the impermanent, changing nature of all things. I never wrote about on this blog, but in November I did a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat. It was a hard and amazing experience that I would highly recommend to anyone. The basis of the meditation is Anicha, the awareness that everything that arises shall also pass away. Whether good things we want to grip tighter, or bad things we want to fling away, those circumstances will ultimately change. So I'm just going to believe the New Year is like an informal, nationally-recognized, raucous meditation on change.

Feliz Navidad

It was indeed a Merry Christmas this year thoroughly surrounded by family. The song "Tradition!" from Fiddler on the Roof pops in my head whenever some one asks me what I'm doing for Christmas because, well, it's been the same my whole life. And I like it that way. It's funny... I've been in foreign countries for 4 out of my last 8 birthdays, but I'm reluctant to leave during the holidays.

Christmas Eve we always go to a great aunt's house for a Norwegian-influenced party. There is a delicious food spread with some traditional Norwegian dishes such as lefse, krumkake and rullepolse. Then we sing carols around the Christmas tree while holding hands in two circles. Every year I vow to review song lyrics so that we can sing intelligibly on more than just the choruses, but I suppose part of the charm of our family choral endeavor is its slightly haphazard quality. Just when our throats are getting hoarse, Santa comes! He brings all the kids one gift, which is sort of the gateway for every one else to exchange presents.

Christmas morning is at my mom's with the immediate family, the highlight being of course the little kids, my one-year-old niece and eight-year-old niece. Later we head to another aunt's house for brunch, always waffles, strawberries, whipped cream, bacon, frittata, coffee, and mimosas. There is a freshness and serenity at my aunt's that I can't quite describe, and I like the mellowness of getting together early in the day instead of for dinner. Apart from the waffles, activities are always a little different- maybe a jenga tournament, a basketball game, watching old home-videos, or playing in the snow. This year we drew each other's names from a bowl and took turns saying one nice thing about that person. It was really sweet and brought more intention to the gathering. We head home in the afternoon to finish the mellow day, such a welcome change from the frenetic pace that usually leads up to the holiday.

Eastside Roadtrip- Cold weather! Babies!

Last weekend I caught a ride with my mom, Larry, and bro Joe over to Spokane to visit some family. My brother Isaac lives there but just joined the Marines and is in boot camp, so we stayed with his wife and two kids. The little ones are two and five years old and super sweet. We had fun playing dolls, building lego towers, baking cupcakes, and watching movies. We even braved the 20 degree air and went on a carousel ride.



I also finally had the chance to visit my cousin Ally who just had a baby! She and her husband Chris live in Idaho, just outside Coeur D'Alene. Baby Beckett is already 3 months old, and I'm so happy I got to meet the little guy before he got any bigger. Their family seems to be doing great- Ally is as beautiful and well-adjusted as ever, Beckett is smiley and adorable, and Chris is stoked to be a hands-on dad and still whip up an amazing dinner- chicken breast baked in goat cheese with a basil-balsamic reduction. While the new parents put baby to bed, I enjoyed the lack of such responsibility by soaking in their hot tub, sipping wine as snow was falling around me. There was already a dusted layer on the ground, their first snow of the year.

In the morning I awoke to fresh coffee and pumpkin pancakes. Then Ally and Chris gave me a tour of Coeur D'Alene, including the beautiful but cold view of the lake from the boardwalk, and more coffee at a bustling coffee shop. I had to try the "bowl of soul", a mocha made with Mexican chocolate, copious amounts of cinnamon, and homemade whipped cream, making a convert of even this strict americano drinker.