Hanoi at Night–a video perspective

Here’s a video I took one night walking the streets of Hanoi that gives a sense of the vibrancy and constant activity of the city.

 

Regards, MJ

Japan–skiing

Kirsten recently posted about our visit to Hakuba as part of our Japan trip.  I wanted to share some of the pictures and video from my ski day with Jackson.

He really did incredible.  It was his first day of skiing for goodness sake, and by the end he was literally skiing down the hill.

Check it out in this video…

It was a particularly good parenting day knowing that I could teach my equally bull-headed son to ski .

The day started out as an absolutely glorious day, with a bright blue sky.

As you can tell from the video, it was dumping snow by the end of the day.  It was beautiful light powder.

We had a good midday break where we enjoyed some good pizza in a little snack hut, and a nice view right up the slopes.

Great day on the slopes!

-Mark

Weekend Getaway: Hong Kong (Day 4)

(again, belated post to finish the series on the Hong Kong trip)

For the last day in Hong Kong, we spent our time in the Mid Levels.  We headed off first to the Central-Mid-Levels escalators, the longest escalator system in the world (800 meters long, and ascending 135 meters).

On the way to the escalators on Sunday, we found a pocket of the same “maid’s day off” gathering that we also see in Singapore.  Here you can see an indoor garden, lined on one whole side with domestic helpers who have created their own “private” area using umbrellas.

The escalator system is a series of a bunch of outdoor escalators that are all covered.  Originally conceived as an innovative way to address increasing work-day commute traffic.

The 20 minute commute (actually much faster if you actually walk the escalators, unlike Jackson’s preferred mode in this picture), is a fraction of the time the nearly 55,000 daily users would spend in the car.

Predictably with that kind of foot traffic, the escalator corridor has filled with restaurants and other services.  We caught lunch at this delightful little Mexican place called Taco Loco.  The kids thought Subway would be a much more delightful treat, so they sat on the street and had some sub sandwiches (this picture shot facing out the the doorway of Taco Loco from the parent’s lunch table – you can see the escalators on the right side).

At the top of the escalators, we headed towards the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens, one of the oldest such parks in the world (opened in 1871).  The walk from the escalator to the park reminded us of the amazing integration of green and city in Hong Kong, and the extreme vertical layers of the city.

The zoo is small so you won’t find the big animals (nor will you find the amazing habitats that we had come to take for granted at the Woodland Park Zoo); we saw lots of monkeys, turtles, small cats, birds, and such.

One of the entertaining bits was the ringing song of the Siamangs, as captured in this video.

Here we are taking our last photo with the Choksi family, before they had to head off the the airport.  Great 2nd Trip guys – we’ll travel with you any time!

We had a little time to spare, so we decided to check out Hong Kong Park, where we found a super cool aviary.  This place was a massive area, enclosed by a net, giving the birds a chance to fly around freely.  There is a raised platform walk that goes through the middle of the aviary, providing lots of neat little spots to view the birds feeding and preening and doing what they do.  We didn’t have much time before we needed to head off to the airport, but we felt we could have hung out there for a much longer time.

So here is a recap of our great walking day through the Mid Levels…

And thus ends the recount of the Hong Kong trip from over two months ago (until Kirsten and the kids regale the story of Disneyland).  We had a great time there, and will no doubt return.

-Mark

Weekend Getaway: Hong Kong (Day 3)

(Okay, two months later, on to day three)

The day started out on another bus, this time headed to a Big Buddha on a hill. 

About.com has a Big Buddha page that does a good job of telling about the Buddha, so I’ll use their words, and our pictures

The Big Buddha, or as it’s officially known the Tian Tan Buddha, is a 34ft tall (including base) statue of a seated Buddha that’s part of the Po Lin Monastery complex. Weighing over 250 tons, the statue is the biggest, bronze, seated Buddha in the world and one of the world’s top ten Buddha statues by scale.

From the base of the statue you can climb the 260 steps for a better inspection of the big man.  On the way up you’ll spot a set of six Bodhisattva statues, saints who gave up their palace in heaven to help us mere mortals get a place ourselves… From here you can also enjoy superb views over the lush greenery of Lantau Island, and the shimmering South China Sea…

Also worth visiting is the monastery itself, particularly the fine craftsmanship and ornate decoration of the Great Hall, dating from the 1920’s.

Next door you can refuel at the bare bones, monastery canteen, which whips up some delicious vegetarian fare.

That was definitely one yummy meal.  We got back to the city by using the cable car and train.  The cable car in particular was gorgeous (not to mention those two gorgeous ladies!).

Next we were off to Kowloon, the mainland side of Hong Kong harbor to have dinner.  We spent the time before dinner strolling along the harbor front, gawking at the gorgeous city views.  They also have their version of the Avenue of the Stars – I defy most Westerners to identify who any of the folks are besides Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.

We ended the evening with a nice Chinese dinner, and headed back to the hotel.

-Mark

Gabriola Island

Hey everyone –

We’re recently back from a visit in the US.  We did learn that it is an unachievable task to see everyone on one trip, but we did get to catch up with many of you.

One of the highlights was spending time on Gabriola Island in Canada, where Kirsten’s Mom family lives (much of her extended family is in the area too).  We’ve had some terrific times there over the years and it’s a very special place to us.  As you can see on the map, it’s not far from Seattle.  In fact, we joke around that while you can practically throw a rock there from Seattle, it takes 7 hours to reach (car…border…ferry…car…ferry…car).

Here is a collage of some of the time we got to spend with Nana Jean (pink shirt), Uncle Mike and Cousin Ethan (they are the two in the middle picture if you don’t happen to know them ), and Kirsten’s cousins Darby and Kalina (lower right).

(Shameless plug… this is using a cool product called AutoCollage from Microsoft – you can buy it online for $20 in the Microsoft store.)

You can see some of the great times we had catching up with family, hanging out on the beach, and enjoying absolutely gorgeous weather and sunsets.

Anyhow, we have much more to write from our visit this summer, but it seemed time to drop a quick note here and say hello to everyone.

-Mark