Now THIS is real winter fun :)

End of December and I'm still waiting to hear from the jobs I applied to at Harborview Medical Center (here in Seattle) and Harrison Medical Center (in Bremerton). Apparently I'm still under consideration for both positions, but it's been that way for over a month. I'm hoping either one will come to a positive decision sometime soon ...

Anyhow, as a break from school and job apps, considering the lack of snow we encountered last week when we tried to go sledding at Mt. Pilchuck, Ian was determined to get some real snow. So, we booked a little Subaru Impreza all wheel drive hatchback with our ZipCar membership, and took to the I-90 eastbound.

Here's a look at how the scenery changed so dramatically in less than an hour east of the city as we headed into the central Cascade Mountains

After crossing over Mercer Island and past Issaquah ... 20 minutes due east of Seattle, snow starting to appear

At 30 minutes

And then 40-50 minutes later, east of Seattle, snow starting to fall pretty heavily on the Snoqualmie Pass section of the I-90, with traction tire advisories and speed limits reduced:

Our first stop? The Summit at Snoqualmie for some high-speed downhill snow tubing!

Plowed snow on the side of the road is taller than the car!

One of the ski slopes at The Summit

After putting on all my warm gear, we headed to the snow tubing area right as they opened this gorgeous morning

Ian getting towed up the snow tube hill by the hooks

Kind of hard to tell from the video, but wow these tubes go FAST down the slopes!

Breathtaking views all around the tubing area

I just sat and watched the snow occasionally tumble down from the treetops ... it was so peaceful

Headed to the ski lodge for lunch - more breathtaking views

Now, around 11AM, we left The Summit to explore some of the small forest roads surrounding the Wenatchee National Forest area

The little Subaru hatchback's all wheel drive got us through all the snow

Driving along these snow covered forest roads, Ian wanted to test out the all wheel drive capability of our ZipCar, so ... donuts in the snow!

These were the kinds of beautiful, serene, winding forest roads we wandered through:

Finally, we arrived at Gold Creek Sno Park and, well, I'll just let the pictures and videos do the talking. Needless to say it was an absolutely AMAZING time with fresh snow that fell just hours before we arrived (but a clear sky while we played), my first time making a snowman, and carving out our own sledding paths in the snowshoe trails:

My first snowman!

Snowman with Ian's hat

The first sled hill we found ...

Walking up the snowshoe trails a bit more, we found a hidden sled path among the trees. I think this was my favorite run. Please ignore my squealing like a little girl! haha:

Maybe we should have re-aligned our newly carved sled hill #3 to avoid the tree ... ouch!

Along the way, as we attempted to carve our own awesome sled hills, we sank waist-deep into the fluffy snow plenty of times!

Also tasted the local snow :-p

Phew! Who would have imagined backcountry sledding was so exhausting! Then again, I guess hiking up the mountain in waist-deep snow wasn't all that easy. Time to head home, westbound, back to the city

I never could have imagined seeing crystal clear scenes like this. Just indescribable. What an incredibly fun way to spend the day ... hopefully many more days like this throughout the winter season!

The fact that the gorgeous mountains with snow blanketing the forest was less than one hour from the city is what really makes Seattle a cool place ... there's the beautiful Puget Sound with the ferry boats darting to and fro among all of the little islands and channels ... the waterfront panorama view of all the city buildings spread out before you from any of the numerous hills here in the city. And then both east and west of the city there's jagged, forested, snow-covered mountaintops. What a sight. Still not used to the short amount of day during the winter, but now that we're past the winter solstice, we're heading towards the incredibly long daylight of summer slowly but surely.

Went out to Jade Garden in the International District for some Chinese food for "Christmas dinner" ... tomorrow, definitely taking it easy.

Supposedly there's a chance for snow here in the city between now and January 1st, so I'll keep my fingers crossed for an opportunity to sled down steep Denny Way right here in Capitol Hill

Winter wonderland! Mt. Pilchuck

[UPDATE 12-23-10]: I finally figured out how to make the margins of my blog wider so that I can have pictures in 'extra large' size as opposed to just 'large' ... hopefully with my new camera the larger pictures will look nice!

Now that the semester is totally over for both Ian and I, we had the chance to head out on another local adventure with a friend. Despite the initial snow in the city on Nov 20th, ever since just before Thanksgiving day, there hasn't been any more ... just a week of drizzly rain.

Today, however, was totally sunny and clear, so we took a friend's car (and dog Rocky Road) out just east of Everett / Granite Falls to an area of the Cascades mountain range near Mt. Pilchuck and Heather Lake to use our new sleds!


View Larger Map

After heading to the flagship REI store in order to buy a Washington State Forest Pass for $5 (this allows you to park a vehicle on forest lands), we spoke with the on-site forest ranger who told us that the area should be pretty snowy. Thumbs up so far!

We drove in L.'s 4x4 Subaru towards the crystal clear Cascade mountains along the Mountain Loop Highway and finally arrived to see:

Snow!

B., Ian, and I trying to catch up to Rocky Road who was so excited to run around in the snow

Snow was not as heavy as we would have hoped for ... we think it rained the night before and melted a lot of it away. In some places along the Mt. Pilchuck road (which was gated off since last year 66 cars were stuck in the snow up here), however, we were able to find sections that worked for a short run on the sleds!

Ian made a giant snowball :)

Snow melting everywhere in the mountains led to so many beautiful streams

All in all we were a little disappointed at the lack of snow - especially since the forest ranger seemed to also back up online reviews that I read about good snowfall for sledding at this location. I guess Washington's winters really are quite mild (it's mid-December and we were above 2500 feet and still only saw light snow). However, although we went with one intention in mind, it still ended up to be a wonderful trip. The air was so crisp and clean, I got to have a dog (Rocky Road!) to play with for a day, it was nice to get out of the city after being cooped up indoors studying for finals last week, and at the very least I got to take these beautiful pictures! 

In the summer, this area that we went to has an AMAZING lookout which is accessible during the spring/summer/fall when it's not snowing:

http://www.wta.org/site_images/MountPilchuckbyDayHike.jpg

From the lookout on Mount Pilchuck, you can see all of Washington's mountain ranges and peaks, up to Vancouver BC on a clear day, and all of Puget Sound and the Seattle area. Maybe if Bryan visits this summer and wants to hike we'll climb to the lookout. Seems like a less strenuous hike than Lake Blanca, for sure!

As far as sledding goes, maybe in another week or so we'll try out the area around the I-90 pass ...

For now, I'm back home enjoying a cup of "Lao Tai Di Qing Xin old plantation" Taiwanese oolong. Last night Ian and I stayed up until 3AM playing a French card game called "Mille Bournes" which is basically like a roadtrip game played with cards. The goal is to travel 700 (or 1000) miles, depending on the game, but you can give other players obstacles like red lights, flat tires, empty gas tanks, accidents, etc. It's quite fun  and I think another late night round is in order for tonight!

Dear Olympic Mountains ...

You're looking quite fine with the fresh snow on sharp peaks contrasting with your beautiful dark rocky cliffs. I know you're often overlooked in the summer when everything is so sunny, especially when towering snow-capped Mt. Rainier is to your southeast, but I wanted to let you know that I noticed you today in the clear skies after this past week of heavy rain.

I will never tire of this view

Sun has already set @ 4:00pm 

        I came across this song the other day ... it's a bit sad, but sometimes beauty is found in sadness (and no, I'm not being "emo"). Lyrically, I think this song is absolutely stunning ... it's told through relatively few words as a dialogue between a man and women writing to each other in response to a personals ad. The woman is grieving over a loved one but trying to move on, so she responds to the ad. The biggest thing I noticed ... in the beginning the man ends his first verse with an optimistic "Is it you and me?" [referring to a possible future together] but after the events in the middle of the song, at the very end, says "Is it you or me?" [perhaps suggesting that despite everything else lining up well, there was still something that made it not meant to be ... and whose fault was that?] The shift of that one word alone tells the whole story.

        The alliteration when the man comes in the second time ("phone you first" and "see you soon") is also beautiful .... my English teachers would be so proud I caught that! :-p haha

Then, upon a second listen, I also noticed that the man also modifies his initial personals ad in the end based on the experience... 

I give you, "Personal" by Stars (one of my favorite Montreal bands):

For something more upbeat, my Pandora station played this next song the other night while I was cooking, and I couldn't help but start dancing. Now that the semester is done and it looks like I'm still holding onto a perfect 4.0 GPA all through college, time to just let loose. The "drone" of the singer's voice is actually quite relaxing. Tends to make me think of the central California coast for some reason. I only have one semester left before graduation, but hey, sometimes the idea of saying "screw it all" sounds appealing ... right? Here's "Dropping Out Of School" by Brad Sucks

FRE 412 Final

Had to write a continuation of a story in our french composition textbook for the final .... I think I did a much better job on this than the midterm!

Michael Ohkura

FRE 412 – Devoir Final

Continuation de Le Rendez-vous par Robbe-Grillet

J’étais choqué. Était-ce une erreur? Personne ne m’avait dit que nous allions travailler avec les Américains – en particulier une femme, et surtout une nommé “Djinn” (les Américains ont toujours une façon de déformer les noms français). Je me suis roulé les yeux – sans doute le bureau a oublié de mentionner ces détails. Apparemment, l’agence de renseignement français serait en collaboration avec les Américains une fois de plus. Mais en dépit de mon enthousiasme initial pour l’ampleur de cette affaire, pour sauver les apparences, je faisais semblant d’être moins interessé. “Américaine?”, j’ai dit en moqeuse, “Pourquoi pas vous donner les rênes de cette enquête, ici et maintenant?”

Mon partenaire et moi, nous étions produits du gouvernement français – des agents de renseignement indépendants, embauchés pour exposer rapidement et silencieusement le commerce dangereux des diamants de sang qui avait commencé à se répandre dans le sud de la France. La collaboration avec les Américains allait devenir notre plus grand avantage car ils étaient à la suite de “Emile”, un exportateur sournoise de diamants en Afrique du Sud, pendant quelques années. Ici, à Marseille, le grand port d’entrée pour les marchandises d’Afrique, nous étions à l’attaque – parmi les falaises blancs de calcaire à couper le souffle, les touristes européens le long des plages douces, des marchands arabes de vente toutes les épices imaginables sous le soleil. Il semblait si hors de place d’avoir des rendez-vous clandestines sous le soleil dans un région accueillant et chaleureux – loin du froid et des pluies du Nord où j’ai vécu. Laissant la première rencontre avec “Djinn” ce soir-là, je suis entré dans la nuit – dans une obscurité si épaisse et écrasante qu l’on ne pouvait pas s’empêcher d’être écrasé sous son poids. Comme si vraiment occupé par ce fardeau imaginaire, mon genou s’est effondré et je suis tombé sur la Rue Marie dans le vieux quartier.

J’ai gémi et ouvrit lentement les yeux. Là, la tête sur la route froide et peu attirante, j’ai remarqué une lueur brillante dans le vert inquiétant de l’éclairage public. Un diamant de sang au milieu des rues de Marseille? Impossible. Une enquête a révélé l’objet mystère d’être simplement un petit tesson de verre … mais … il y avait quelque chose d’autre. Sortant mes lunettes de lecture (ah, les plaisirs de la vieillesse!), j’ai étudié la pièce à nouveau. Oui, meme dans le scintillement de l’éclairage public, j’ai lu quelques écrit: 45-038 Quai du Maroc, à minuit. Les quais du Maghreb … ils étaient sur le chemin du retour à mon hôtel. J’ai décidé de marcher sur ce chemin riverain historique, où l’Est a rencontré l’Occident depuis de milliers d’années, par curiosité. Peut-être le morceau de verre que j’ai tenu était une invitation en cristal brisé à une fête glamoureuse pour un entreprise? Ou une soirée du festival du film?

En arrivant sur le quai du Maroc, j’ai entendu des chuchotements. Il n’était pas difficile à distinguer le son distinct de la voix humaine dans le silence de la nuit Marseillaise. Assis sur le mur était un homme d’âge mûr, bien habillé, avec une mallette élégante attaché à son poignet droit. Le clair de lune qui reflète de la mer Méditerranée encore rebondi de son crane chauve dans l’obscurité infinie au-dessus de cette nuit particulière. Du son de son français à l’accent néerlandais, il était d’origine de l’Afrique du Sud – L’Afrique du Sud, Emile. Et assis à côté de lui était un autre homme, caché dans un impermeable noir, les mains dans ses poches, beaucoup plus delicate et fragile en apparence. Regardant fixement vers la mer, il a écouté les propositions de cet homme de l’Afrique du Sud: “D’accord, d’accord … un kilo par carat, et pas un gramme de plus.” J’ai enlevé mon fusil de son étui comme j’ai glissé proche de ce que je savais d’être le commerce des diamants du sang qui se passe devant mes yeux. Prendre le virage, je me suis arrêté brusquement en état de choc. “Djinn?!”, j’ai haleté, “Mais qu’est-ce que tu fais?!”

[Update 12-23-10]: I ended up receiving an A- for this composition and an overall A in the class! Yay

Water narcissus in progress, pakoras, & matcha cookies

It's been a week since I took a knife to the narcissus bulb in an attempt to cultivate it into a curly extravagant form. Well, see for yourself ...

You can easily distinguish which leaves I've cut tiny slivers of (the ones that are curling) and which ones I've left natural ... I guess my controlled leaf damaging is working. I'm aiming for a front that is low and curly with a high, upright background - two different layers. I can also see some flower buds appearing between the leaves. Surprisingly, these are also curling - especially on the bulbs whose "flesh" I've carved away, thus freeing them from pressure.

We have a sled! This cushioned saucer-style sled is now officially in our possession so we're ready for the next round of snow

Tonight I decided to make pakoras for dinner along with curry and rice. I used chickpea flour ("besan") along with some garam masala, turmeric, berbere (I didn't have paprika, so why not add the ethiopian chili powder instead?), and cumin to make the batter. It was really tasty, and we poured curry over the whole thing to serve over rice.

Zucchini spears and cilantro/onion/spinach pakoras

I finally got the "Indian Slow Cooker Cookbook" from the public library and can't wait to try a lot of the recipes out - especially all the dals. Going to make aloo gobi later this week ... maybe also try out some more Goan or south-Indian recipes as well. I swear I could eat Indian food every day - there are so many amazing vegetarian dishes and hundreds of spices.

Also tonight I made some matcha oatmeal cookies!

Matcha batter and old fashioned rolled oats ready to go in

Just 11 minutes in the oven, and voilà ... they taste like green tea ice cream - only, in oatmeal cookie form! Just how I like it ... barely sweet so the green tea shines through. Perfect with tea!

So while I've lived without TV for over a year now and don't miss it at all, I decided to buy some "rabbit ear" antennas for our little LCD screen. Why? Because they were only 10 dollars online, and because I absolutely love the idea of tapping into a free broadcasted signal, just like tuning into radio. After doing some research, I found out that High-Definition programming on the good ol' antennas is actually of higher quality than HD programming through cable or satellite. Why? Because cable and satellite have to compress their HD quality in order to provide the hundreds of channels they send over their limited wavelength. That should be arriving next Wednesday, so we'll have 6-10 channels (perhaps HD) for free! haha. Yay for PBS & NOVA documentaries.

Nothing much to report otherwise - my lack of picture updates has been due to two factors: 1) It's finals week and I've just been knocking the last of the semester out little by little, and 2) My other camera fell into the sink with water, so it was out of commission. I got the newer version of my camera which is a Fujifilm Finepix Z37, so we'll see how future pictures turn out. The pics above were taken with the new camera and the color/focus looks good so I'm satisfied. 

Only a little more to go before the end of the semester. I will be totally done with my last class' final on Monday the 13th (hopefully keeping my streak of all A's through college!) ... looking forward to the break to catch up on a bunch of reading I've been meaning to do (especially all the tea books I've checked out from the library), and to the little trip up to Vancouver we'll be making in early January. 

The start of a new winter tradition? And amazing ex-soviet tea

A couple days ago I had to head down to Uwajimaya, the gigantic Japanese grocery in the International District which has all of the Asian comfort foods I grew up with. I was looking for some more grilled eel to make a nice warm unagi donburi for these cold nights.


While in line, I noticed the lady in front of me with some sort of weird shaped flower bulb in her hand. Of course, I couldn't pass up another gardening opportunity (especially now that my balcony vegetable/herb garden is dying off) and asked her what it was. Turns out she had in her hand a Chinese water lily bulb, called "sui sin fah" in Cantonese (水仙花) which means "water spirit flower". In the West, it is actually a narcissus flower. But what makes this particular narcissus special is the way the Chinese cultivate it - like a floral bonsai of sorts. Naturally, narcissus just grow straight up like this:

http://singaporeplantslover.blogspot.com/

However, through very careful manipulation (i.e. controlled "damaging") of the plant, the grower can cause the plant's leaves and flowers to grow in beautiful curls while others remain in natural form:

http://www.zgsxhw.cn/hua/20070204133635825.jpg

The "curling" is achieved by actually taking a razor and cutting off tiny portions of one side of the leaves. The plant will try to heal itself and will form a small "scar". The side of the leaf that contains the scar will no longer grow, but the other side of the leaf will grow, causing the leaf to twist. The final form of the flower presented should work with each set of bulbs' unique shape and arrangement, since every 3-year-old Chinese narcissus bulb is different.


Like the botanical nerd that I am, I did some brief research on the flower. I was familiar with the Greek myth of narcissus being so in love with himself that he drowned in the lake of his reflection. In the West, then, the flower represents vanity. But in the East, the narcissus is a symbol of good luck. And since it blooms right around the lunar calendar's Chinese New Year, growing this bulb (and hopefully getting it to bloom on the beginning of the new lunar year which is Feb 3rd this year) is supposed to bring prosperity. I just thought it would be a fun artistic experiment.

My bulb originally, before cleaning/cutting. The biggest bulb is the original narcissus bulb. To get them that big with other bulbs attached, the bulb must be grown for three years, so any sui sin fah bulb you can buy is actually at least 3 yrs old.

Part of the "manipulation" of the plant involves cutting away the fleshy "food" stored by the plant in the bulb. If this is neglected, the plant will have too much energy and grow too vigorously, or with many leaves. Here, I have cut open the largest, original bulb and I'm separating the individual new-growth shoots ... just like garlic!

Another part of the process of getting leaves to curl is cutting away the protective sheaths that cover the leaves. The goal is to free the leaves from excess pressure which would naturally cause them to grow straight out of the bulb. Getting rid of the bulb's pressure allows free form growth.

All of the bulb "flesh" and dry roots removed

Soaking in water overnight after cleaning/cutting to wash out the mucilage that would otherwise later oxidize the bulb and turn it brown.

Arranged in a dish to start growing ... I'll be starting the leaf-cutting experimental stage after a bit more leaf growth occurs.

Since these things will bloom in a month or so, obviously I'm a bit too early to get this to bloom right on February 3rd. I'm just enjoying this bulb for now and experimenting ... maybe later this month I'll go grab another bulb for Chinese New Year blooms. Considering the amount of careful effort and manipulation it takes to grow various beautiful forms of this bulb, it's no wonder why in places like Hong Kong the best blooming designs can fetch incredibly high price tags just before Chinese New Year.

Anyhow, today's main adventure was to gather some things for a package for Mom & Dad. I headed down to Pioneer Square in old town Seattle to my favorite coffee shop in the city ... Caffè Umbria:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3048/2630224376_3554abf094.jpg

Their coffee is by far easily the best in the city (cappuccinos are rich and smooth rather than burnt and sour or overly milky), but it's the beautiful red-brick, tree-lined, pedestrian-only, plaza-like Occidental Avenue terrace space that tugs at my heart. When I'm here, I feel like I'm in Europe.

This is why I made the trek out there ... Dad tried their simple Mezzanotte decaf drip and said it was one of the best cups of coffee he's ever tasted. Freshly roasted here in the city, unlike the two-year old stale coffee sitting in bags at grocery stores. The family who owns Caffè Umbria is the Bizzarri family from Perugia, Italy. The roasting operation was passed down from Ornello Bizzarri to his son Umberto, and is currently carried on by Emanuele Bizzari here in Seattle, two generations later.

On the way back to the Pioneer Square underground transit station, I stumbled upon the night market in Occidental Square:

In an effort to revitalize the old-town neighborhood, local craftspeople set up shop in the red-brick paved square

But my most exciting discovery came today from my favorite tea shop in Post Alley where I was headed to get Mom some tea ... Perennial Tea Room:

I had seen on their Facebook page that some "long awaited" tea called Natela's Gold Standard black tea had arrived in the shop. Although I was already planning to buy some Tahitian blend black tea for mom, I knew I had to at least taste this "gold standard" to see what it was all about. As one of only two (that's right, only TWO) shops in the US that have this tea, I was about to try some pretty exclusive stuff!

The tea is from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which is now its own nation state. For those unfamiliar with this small country, it's wedged just north of Turkey and Albania, and south of Russia. According to the Perennial Tea Room's site:

"Natela lives in a small village in the Caucasus Mountains of  the Georgian Republic.  For years she worked for the Soviet tea manufacturing business.  She is currently part of a village cooperative that grows, picks and processes tea by hand. 

She whithers and dries the tea in her home and works it by hand to develop the leaves into the dark, long pieces we sell."

What struck me the most about this tea was what Sue (one of the owners) showed me in the shop ... the incredibly beautiful, dried, huge, whole leaf that you don't see in many teas today

Look at the incredible size of each individual leaf! They're not shredded the slightest bit - even some of the "best" loose leaf teas are still shredded/torn by steel machines during the tea making process. Each leaf is at least an inch long! This is a quality tea, hand made, ... and worth every penny.

If the "golden standard" doesn't refer to the smoothest cup of black tea I've ever tasted, it must refer to the gorgeous golden/amber color of the brew (which is why I'm drinking it out of my fancy schmancy clear, hand-blown Bodum Pavina double-walled glass cup!)

I've regularly seen some high quality Chinese green teas that retain the whole-leaf shape, but never before with a black tea. After brewing, the whole leaves can be appreciated. This is what Natela's hand-rolling creates - something that machines, however modern, can't do.

You always see teas from China (Yunan, Fujian, Pu-Erh, Oolong), Japan (mainly the green/roasted stuff like sencha, matcha, houjicha, mugi-cha) , Taiwan, Sri Lanka (i.e. Ceylon), India (i.e. Darjeeling, Assam), etc ... but tea from the Caucasus Mountains? At least in my experience, never once before.

This may very well be my favorite tea ... at least for now. Sue tells me "just wait until we get our Persian Gold in". I guess we'll have to wait to find out if the Georgian Republic beats Iran in future tastings ...

Enjoy, Mom & Dad - a trek around the world, right in your mug.